Chapter 1. Selasa Kliwon Night
Sukamerta Village never truly slept in peace. On ordinary nights, the village air was wrapped only in a thin mist and a soothing silence. But when the Javanese calendar turned and settled on Selasa Kliwon night, the village atmosphere grew heavy, as though the air itself had been filled with heaps of invisible anxiety. The drizzle that had fallen since afternoon showed no sign of letting up. It was not a downpour, but a fine, soundless rain—the kind that did not wash the dust away, but instead bound the smell of wet earth and the smell of decay into one dense scent.
Inside a bamboo-walled house on the outskirts of the village, Karto sat on the edge of a rotting wooden daybed. The light from the kerosene lamp on the table swayed gently, throwing the shadow of Karto's thin body across the woven-bamboo wall. His rough, dirt-stained hands, darkened by grime, encircled a tin cup filled with cold black coffee. A thin layer of oil floated on the coffee's surface, reflecting the dim flame of kerosene.
Karto stared straight ahead, toward the darkness slipping through the gaps in the bamboo walls. He was not yet thirty-five, but the lines on his forehead were already as deep as a dry ditch in the dry season. His eyes were sunken, surrounded by bruised black circles from the long nights he had endured without sleep. Poverty had not merely gnawed at his body; it had chewed away every last trace of his fear and his dignity as a human being.
In this village, Karto was the definition of failure. The narrow field he had inherited from his parents had long since been seized because of debts that had multiplied beyond control. Work processing coconut husk fiber or daily hoe labor had never been enough to buy even low-quality rice. For years, he had watched the people around him look at him with a mixture of pity and contempt. Even the stray dogs in the village streets seemed to know not to approach him, because there were no scraps to hope for from the pocket of his torn trousers.
“How long, Karto?” he whispered to himself. His voice was hoarse, his throat feeling as though it had been coated with sandpaper.
He clutched his chest. Beneath his faded striped lurik shirt, his heart pounded hard. This was the night he had been waiting for—or, more precisely, the night he had both feared and hoped for during the past week. The hunger gnawing at his stomach was not as sharp as his hunger for dignity and money. When a man had nothing left to wager, his life and soul became the cheapest commodities he had remaining.
Karto rose from the wooden daybed. His joints creaked softly. He stepped toward the corner of the room, where an old hoe leaned against a pile of firewood. The hoe's wooden handle had grown smooth from his sweaty hands touching it so often. Beside the hoe lay a gleaming sickle he had sharpened that afternoon, along with a small piece of slightly faded white mori cloth.
He ran a finger along the hoe's blade. The metal was cold. It was the same cold as the soil of the grave he would soon have to dig up.
The footpath toward the far end of Penjalin Forest felt longer than usual. The drizzle still faithfully soaked Karto's head, making his clinging hair stick to his forehead. His cheap rubber shoes slipped several times on the slick mud. On both sides of the path, bamboo trees knocked against one another in the night wind, creating a sharp scraping sound like the shriek of a woman trying to endure pain. Chirp-chirp-chirp... the night crickets called back and forth, but the sound felt strange, as if they were warning anyone daring to cross into that territory.
Penjalin Forest was a place Sukamerta's residents avoided even in broad daylight. Old rattan vines coiled around the great trees like giant snakes frozen in place. But what made the forest terrifying was not merely its dense vegetation, but its sole inhabitant, who lived in the heart of the forest: Mbah Jambrong.
No one knew for certain how old Mbah Jambrong was. Some said he had been there since the era of Dutch colonial rule; others whispered that he was a man who had refused to die in order to preserve his black magic. The villagers only went to him when they had truly reached the end of their rope—when vengeance had devoured their common sense, or when poverty had burned away their faith.
Karto quickened his pace when he saw a reddish-yellow glow behind the lush trees. The light came from a thatch-roofed hut standing at an angle, as if the slightest gust of wind might knock it down. The sharp smell of burning incense mixed with the pungent smell of serimpi oil struck Karto's nose before he even reached the yard.
Without needing to knock, the hut's plank door opened by itself with a long, painful creak.
“Come in, Karto...” a deep voice called from within the darkness of the hut. It did not sound as if it came from an ordinary human throat, but rather like two thick stones being slowly rubbed together.
Karto stepped over the threshold. The room inside the hut was dim, illuminated only by a post from which various red candles dripped wax that had hardened like dried blood. In the middle of the room sat an old man dressed entirely in loose black clothing. His long white hair was matted and hung over part of his face, which was covered in deep wrinkles. His eyes were cloudy white, faded by cataracts, yet Karto felt that their gaze could pierce his chest and see all his fear and greed.
Mbah Jambrong held no prayer beads or any other religious implements. In front of him sat a brass bowl filled with thick black liquid and several sprigs of jasmine flowers that had wilted and begun to rot.
“You came on the right night, just as we discussed a few days ago,” Mbah Jambrong said without taking his eyes from the bowl. “Selasa Kliwon night. The night when the boundary between the cold earth and the hot world grows dangerously thin.”
Karto swallowed. His throat felt stiff. “Mbah... I... I don't have any choice left. My debt to the village chief has piled up. They're going to seize my house next week. I'm ready to do anything.”
Mbah Jambrong chuckled softly. The laughter sounded like a long, dry cough. “There is always a choice, Karto. But you chose the shortest path. And the shortest path always passes through a graveyard.”
The old man leaned forward. A faint foul odor—like meat beginning to rot beneath the blazing sun—rose from Mbah Jambrong's clothes. Karto struggled not to turn his face away or cover his nose.
“Listen to me carefully, Karto,” Mbah Jambrong said, his voice lowering into an exceptionally sharp whisper. “The wealth you seek cannot be summoned with cheap incense or rooster's blood. The underworld demands a portion from those who have just been put into the ground.”
“What... what do I have to do, Mbah?” Karto asked in a trembling voice.
“This morning, a young woman died at the western cemetery.” Mbah Jambrong raised one finger with a long black nail. “She died unnaturally. She carried unfinished vengeance into death. The people there hurried to prepare her, washed her in haste, and will bury her before sunset.”
Mbah Jambrong reached for a small wooden container beside him and placed it between them. Inside was a reddish-black powder that gave off an intensely sweet scent that nevertheless made Karto nauseous.
“Dig up her grave tonight,” Mbah Jambrong ordered. “Open her burial shroud. You don't need to take her jewelry—if she has any. You don't need to take the entire shroud. All you need is the cord binding it.”
“The... Pocong Cord?” Karto's brow broke out in a cold sweat.
“Not just any Pocong Cord.” Mbah Jambrong fixed his gaze on Karto's eyes. The cloudy pupils suddenly glinted strangely. “When you open her grave, pay attention to the color of the bindings on her body. If her burial shroud is tied with a blood-red Pocong Cord, that one is yours. The cord was doused in a virgin's blood before she was buried. That red cord holds extraordinary magical power. Cut it with your sickle, take it, and keep it. If anything happens, bring it here.”
Karto fell silent. He wanted to ask about the strange red color of the Pocong Cord, but his tongue felt numb. Digging up a grave was a vile act, but taking the Pocong Cord from a corpse was grave desecration that dragged a human being beyond the boundaries of humanity.
“Will... will the corpse not bother me, Mbah?” Karto finally dared to ask.
Mbah Jambrong smiled broadly, revealing his toothless black gums. “She'll be angry. Of course she'll be angry. But as long as you hold the cord and bring it to me before the first rooster crows, you'll be safe. That red cord will become your wealth talisman. Money will come looking for your house like flies swarming a carcass.”
Mbah Jambrong gripped Karto's wrist. The old fingers' grasp was tremendously strong, like iron pincers. “But remember one thing, Karto. That red cord is not merely a talisman. It is a bond. The moment you cut it from that corpse, you bind yourself to her. Never take that cord out of your wallet or pocket, no matter what you hear, no matter what you see. It must always be with you.”
Karto nodded slowly. His fear was gradually being defeated by visions of the bills he would possess, visions of no longer being looked down on by the villagers, visions of a comfortable life without debt collectors chasing him.
“Go,” Mbah Jambrong said, dismissing him as he released his grip. “The night is growing darker. The western cemetery is waiting for your hoe.”
Sukamerta Village's western public cemetery lay on the slope of a small hill, far from the residents' homes. Old Kamboja trees grew randomly among rows of earthen mounds, their white flowers falling and rotting on the wild grass. The drizzle had now stopped, replaced by damp, penetrating cold that reached all the way to the marrow of his bones.
Karto crept between moss-covered stone headstones. The moonlight of Selasa Kliwon night was completely blocked by thick black clouds, leaving the surroundings dimly lit only by the small flashlight Karto had tied to his chest. The smell of rotting Kamboja flowers mixed with the smell of wet earth and stung his nose.
Every step Karto took put his ears on alert. A branch snapping beneath his foot sounded like a gunshot in the suffocating silence.
After circling several yards into the newer section of the cemetery, Karto found his target. A mound of soil that was still wet and oily, scattered with jasmine blossoms that had not yet fully wilted. Two unpainted wooden grave markers had been hastily driven into the ground at the head and foot.
Karto knelt beside the mound. The flashlight on his chest cast a dim yellow glow over the freshly packed red earth. Karto's chest rose and fell rapidly. The hand gripping the hoe's handle trembled violently.
“Forgive me... forgive me...” he whispered to the cold earth beneath him. But even in his own ears, the apology sounded hollow and false. Greed had taken control of his body.
Chunk.
Karto drove the hoe's blade into the wet soil. The sound of metal striking loose earth rang out sharply in the middle of the night. He began to dig.
At first, Karto's movements were awkward and hesitant. But as the excavated soil piled up beside the hole, his movements grew faster and more brutal. Cold sweat streamed from his temples, mixing with the rainwater still clinging to his face. The muscles in his arms tightened. Every time his hoe scooped into the earth, a faint foul odor began rising from the depths.
One meter... one and a half meters...
Karto's hoe suddenly struck something soft yet solid. Thump.
Karto froze. He lowered the hoe and jumped down into the narrow grave. The foul odor was no longer faint. It engulfed him like a wave of heat that wrecked the nerves in his nose—the smell of a corpse just beginning to rot, mixed with the scent of chemicals and stale blood.
Using both hands directly, Karto scraped away the remaining soil covering the top of the body. His hands touched rough, wet cloth. Mori cloth.
Karto's heart shuddered violently. He aimed his flashlight downward.
The burial shroud had been stained with blood, black earth, and cloudy fluid seeping from the body inside. Karto held his breath, fighting the intense nausea churning his stomach. His trembling fingers began clearing away the soil covering the corpse's head and neck.
When the last layer of earth was removed, Karto's eyes widened.
In the dim beam of the flashlight, the burial shroud wrapped around the corpse's neck looked different. Its binding was not white mori cloth like those on ordinary graves. It was a length of thick blood-red cloth rope. Its color burned so vividly that it looked as if the cord had just been soaked in a vessel of fresh blood.
“Mbah Jambrong was right, but how did he know this would happen...” Karto muttered, his voice nearly drained of strength.
Karto extended his dirt-stained hand. When his fingers were only a few inches from the red cord, an extreme chill suddenly blew through the grave. The cold came so abruptly that Karto's breath fogged in the air. The flashlight on his chest suddenly flickered weakly.
Hhhffff... hhhffff...
The sound of incredibly heavy, wet breathing came from right beside Karto's right ear. It felt so close, as if someone were standing directly over his shoulder, breathing down his neck.
Karto froze instantly. His body went rigid as a statue. He did not dare turn around. His eyes remained fixed on the red cord in front of his face.
Thud!
The earth around the grave seemed to tremble faintly. From inside the neatly wrapped burial shroud came the sound of bones grinding, breaking, or shifting unnaturally. Karto watched with his own eyes as the shroud over the corpse's chest slowly rose and fell—as if someone were drawing a long breath after being submerged for a long time.
“Oh, Lord...” Karto screamed inside his head, though no words could escape his mouth.
An overwhelming terror spread from his feet to his head, but his hunger for wealth kept him from climbing out of the grave. Karto reached into his trousers with his left hand and pulled out the small sickle he had prepared.
With a swift, desperate movement, Karto slipped the sharp tip of the sickle beneath the red Pocong Cord wrapped tightly around the corpse's neck.
Slice!
The red cord snapped with a single pull.
At that very instant, a shrill, voiceless scream—a wave of air pressure so violent it seemed to rupture Karto's eardrums—erupted. The stench suddenly became ten times more concentrated, like the smell of burning carrion. Thick black fluid sprayed from the gap where the shroud's neck binding had opened, spattering Karto's sleeve.
Karto snatched up the piece of red Pocong Cord, shoved it hurriedly into his shirt pocket, and scrambled out of the grave like a madman.
He no longer cared about the hoe left in the hole. He no longer cared about the open grave gaping like the mouth of a hungry monster. Karto ran through the darkness, leaping over headstones and crashing through bushes and the branches of Kamboja trees that clawed at his face and hands.
Behind him, deep inside the open grave he had abandoned, came the sound of something heavy striking the ground.
Thump... thump... thump...
The sound of stiff footsteps or leaps moving in the direction of his flight from far behind.
Karto reached his house gasping for breath, his chest feeling ready to explode. He slammed the front door of his bamboo-walled house and locked it from the inside with a thick wooden bar. His body slid down onto the packed-earth floor, leaning against the door as it trembled beneath the pressure of the night wind.
The kerosene lamp on the table was still burning faintly, casting a dim glow across the room. Karto reached into his shirt pocket with violently trembling hands. He pulled out the piece of red Pocong Cord.
The cord felt strangely warm in his grip. Not cold like wet cloth pulled from the earth, but warm like the body temperature of someone with a raging fever. The cord was slick with an unfamiliar fluid and smelled intensely fishy, yet its red color seemed to emit an unnatural gleam in the darkness.
“I did it... I did it...” Karto murmured. He smiled.
He hurried to the old wooden wardrobe in the corner of his room. Karto placed the red cord inside an old tin box, wrapped it tightly, then hid it beneath the lowest pile of clothes. After that, he washed the dirt from his face and hands with water from the earthenware jar, trying to wipe the remnants of that vile night from his skin.
When he lay down on the wooden daybed and extinguished the kerosene lamp, the night felt utterly silent. So silent that Karto could hear his own heartbeat, still pounding like a war drum.
He closed his eyes and prayed for morning to arrive soon, bringing the wealth Mbah Jambrong had promised.
But darkness never came alone for those who had stolen from the dead.
Around three in the morning, the temperature inside Karto's room suddenly plummeted. The thin blanket wrapped around his body could not withstand the cold that pierced all the way to his bones. Karto awoke from his light sleep.
He found that he could not move a single muscle in his body.
Karto was experiencing sleep paralysis.
Karto tried to scream, but his tongue felt numb and stiff, stuck against the roof of his mouth. His eyes were the only part of his body that could still move. Terrified, he swept his gaze around the pitch-black room.
In the corner of the room, near the wardrobe where he had hidden the red cord, the darkness gathered into something denser. A thin black shadow began to solidify.
From the darkness in the corner emerged a figure wrapped in shabby mori cloth, soaked in blood, filthy, and torn in several places. The mori cloth was covered in wet earth that still dripped onto the floor.
The figure did not stand upright like a human being. Its body was crooked and rigid, bound from head to toe. Its face was completely covered by the cloth wrapped around its head, but at its neck—where the red cord should have been—the cloth gaped wide, revealing decaying bluish skin marked by deep black ligature wounds.
And from behind the dark cloth covering its face, two points of glowing red light stared straight at Karto.
Hhhffff... hhhffff...
The same heavy, wet, foul-smelling breath from the grave now filled the cramped room. The smell of dead flesh seared Karto's nose and brought tears to his eyes.
The pocong floated slowly toward the daybed where Karto lay rigid. There were no footsteps, only the sound of wet cloth dragging across the packed-earth floor. Srrtt... srrtt... srrtt...
The pocong stopped right beside Karto. The rigid figure bent toward Karto's face. Its filthy, cold burial shroud brushed Karto's cheek. Karto could feel the dampness of grave soil clinging to his skin.
Black fluid trickled from the figure's gaping, rotting neck and dripped directly onto Karto's chest. Each drop felt as though it were burning through his skin like molten lead.
“My... cord...” A voice echoed directly inside Karto's head. It was not a human whisper, but the sound of thousands of maggots crawling over dry earth—mournful, vengeful, and torturous.
“Give... me... my... cord...”
The pocong bent lower. From the gap in its torn neck binding emerged strands of red fibers that crawled like living worms. The red fibers crept up Karto's neck and coiled tightly around his throat.
Karto felt his airway become completely blocked. His eyes bulged nearly out of their sockets. His chest heaved wildly in search of air, but all that entered was the dense stench of death. His lungs felt as though they were burning. He could feel the red fibers tightening their noose more and more, as if they wanted to sever the blood vessels in his neck from within.
The pain was completely real. This was not merely a nightmare. It was physical terror slowly killing him.
In the final moments before his consciousness vanished from lack of oxygen, a rooster crowed outside the house—a neighbor's rooster greeting dawn as it began to rise on the eastern horizon.
Cock-a-doodle-doo!
Suddenly, the red fibers constricting Karto's neck released. The tall, broad figure wrapped in a tattered burial shroud vanished from his sight in an instant, leaving behind a foul odor that slowly faded, replaced by the scent of morning dew.
Karto jerked awake. He sat up on the wooden daybed, gulping in as much air as he could while coughing violently. His hands immediately flew to his own neck.
There, on his pale skin drenched in cold sweat, was a clear dark-red bruise in the perfect pattern of a rope binding circling his neck.
Karto trembled violently. He looked toward the wooden wardrobe in the corner of the room. Its door now stood slightly open, and on the packed-earth floor before it were tracks of grave soil, still wet and fresh.
The morning sun began to slip through the gaps in the bamboo walls, but Karto knew the darkness in his life had only just begun. The red cord was now in his possession, but its true owner had come to claim it back—with Karto's life as payment.