The burning sensation in Karto’s neck spread more violently, as though the bruised ligature had transformed into rows of fiery fibers scorching through his flesh. On the wooden shelf, the black cloth pouch trembled faintly. The rasp of dull shroud cloth against the weathered boards rang sharply through the room, deadened to the sunlight outside.
Karto wiped away his tears of fear with his filthy palm. His thoughts turned to the man who had dragged him into this hell: Mbah Jambrong. The shaman at the edge of Penjalin Forest had not merely given him a talisman—he had trapped him in a deadly supernatural bond. The whispering of Marni’s restless spirit in the hut that morning had been more than a threat; the shaman had deliberately hidden a red thread connecting the girl’s death to this vile ritual.
“Mbah Jambrong... you used me,” Karto whispered, his voice hoarse and trembling with anger tangled up in despair.
Summoning the last of his courage from the desperation closing in around him, Karto rose to his feet. He leaped over the pool of foul-smelling red water creeping from the kitchen, felt for the front door, and slipped out of his house. The midday air in Sukamerta seared his skin with an unfamiliar heat, but for Karto, the darkness inside his chest could no longer be warmed by sunlight.
He did not waste any time. Karto ran along the rice-field embankment, avoiding the suspicious looks of villagers who had begun whispering at the roadside. His footsteps cut through gaps in the underbrush until he reached the boundary of Penjalin Forest once more.
The ancient forest welcomed him with an increasingly sinister atmosphere. The morning mist had never truly lifted; it had condensed into a layer of cold vapor hanging thickly between the bamboo trees and enormous rattan vines. The scent of incense that usually rose from the shaman’s hut now mingled with a sharp, fishy odor—the exact same smell as the fresh blood in the jar at Karto’s house.
Karto pushed through the tall grass until he reached the yard of Mbah Jambrong’s hut. But the sight before him brought him to an abrupt halt.
The hut’s plank door had been torn from its hinges and lay shattered across the wet ground, as though struck by some tremendous physical force. Thick black smoke billowed from the gaps in the thatched roof, carrying the smell of soot and charred flesh.
“Mbah Jambrong!” Karto shouted as he slipped into the hut’s gloom, a sickle gripped in his hand.
The inside of the hut was a complete wreck. The clay bowls where the shaman burned offerings had been smashed to pieces. Red candles had melted into slick pools across the floor, while the incense brazier had toppled over, scattering embers that slowly died beneath a wash of cloudy liquid.
In the middle of the destruction, Mbah Jambrong sat cross-legged. But something was wrong with his position. The shaman’s head lolled drastically backward, wrenching his neck into an unnatural angle, as though an invisible hand were forcing him to tilt his head up and stare at the hut’s ceiling.
Karto stepped closer, his chest pounding violently. “Mbah...?”
Mbah Jambrong did not move, but his cloudy, wide-open eyes suddenly darted toward Karto. From between his blackened lips, a thick, dark-red fluid trickled down to his chin.
“You... came back, Karto...” The shaman’s voice no longer boomed as thickly as usual. It sounded cracked, like the gasping breath of a severe asthma sufferer on the brink of death.
“What happened here, Mbah?!” Karto knelt a yard away from where the shaman sat. “My house... the water in the kitchen turned to blood! And Mbah... you lied about Marni! Who was Marni really?! Why did her spirit call this your sin?!”
Mbah Jambrong gave a short laugh. It ended in a violent cough that sprayed flecks of thick blood across his sarong.
“You... don’t understand anything, Karto,” Mbah Jambrong whispered, his eyes trembling as he fought unbearable pain. “Marni... didn’t die from an ordinary fever. She... was a vessel. A vessel I created to contain my black magic...”
Karto’s blood suddenly felt frozen. “A vessel?”
“This red magic... needs a container,” the shaman continued, his throat rasping. “Three days ago... when she was dying... I sealed her soul by wrapping a red burial-shroud cord around her neck before the earth was poured over her. That red cord wasn’t an ordinary wealth talisman... it was the binding of her sin and her magic! I needed someone as stupid and greedy as you... to cut the bond away from her body...”
“So...” Karto’s eyes widened as he realized the horrifying truth behind the trap. “You deliberately told me to dig up her grave... so her magic could be released?!”
“So her magic... could move...” Mbah Jambrong smiled horribly, revealing his bloody gums. “That red cord belongs to you now, Karto. Every time that Red Pocong comes to strangle you... it isn’t trying to kill you... it’s planting its curse and its magic inside your body! You’re the new vessel for Marni’s vengeance!”
“You bastard!” Karto screamed, raising his sickle to the shaman’s neck. “Take this magic out of me, Mbah! Do it now or I’ll cut your throat!”
Mbah Jambrong showed not the slightest fear as the sickle’s blade pressed against his wrinkled skin. Instead, he closed his eyes and let the blood continue flowing from his nose and ears.
“It’s... too late...” Mbah Jambrong whispered. “Your blood merged with the cord’s fibers when you cut it in the grave. Marni’s spirit won’t stop... until your neck snaps and that red cord is tying her shroud again beneath the earth.”
Suddenly, a fierce wind burst through the shattered walls of the hut. The sound of wet cloth dragging came from outside the hut’s yard once again.
Srrtt... srrtt... srrtt...
A suffocating chill swept inside, snuffing out the last embers in the brazier. Mbah Jambrong suddenly convulsed violently. Both hands clutched his chest as though his heart were being forcibly ripped out from within.
“She’s... come to collect the first payment...” Mbah Jambrong shrieked, his eyes bulging from their sockets.
Karto staggered backward in terror when he saw the old shaman’s body rise several inches above the mat where he sat, pulled upward by an invisible supernatural force. Through the gaps in the hut’s wooden walls, strands of blood-red thread crawled inside like wild worms, wrapping tightly around the old shaman’s wrists, legs, and neck.
“Mbah!” Karto shouted.
Mbah Jambrong had no time to make another sound. The red fibers yanked his body brutally backward until he slammed into the hut’s main post. Crack! The snap of his neck breaking rang through the forest’s silence. The shaman’s body went limp, his cloudy white eyes still fixed on Karto with the last remnants of frozen terror.
Beyond the smoke billowing through the hut’s yard, a pocong wrapped in a ragged burial shroud stained with wet earth stood rigidly. Its face hidden beneath the dull shroud slowly lifted, staring directly at Karto, who stood rooted inside the hut.
The bruised ligature around Karto’s neck suddenly throbbed violently, spreading unbearable pain that forced him to his knees as he fought back a scream.
Karto knew the shaman he had sought for help had been killed by his own curse. Now there was no barrier or spell standing between him and the Red Pocong demanding revenge. With the last of his strength, Karto dropped his sickle, turned, and ran as fast as he could from Penjalin Forest, which was beginning to sink beneath the darkness of night.
Karto’s feet pounded uncontrollably against the forest’s wet earth. Thorny rattan branches clawed at his arms and body, tearing his already worn striped lurik shirt, but the pain of those scratches was nothing compared to the burning throb in his neck. The image of Mbah Jambrong’s broken neck and bulging eyes kept appearing before him, eroding the last fragments of sanity he possessed.
By the time he reached the forest’s edge, night had completely embraced Sukamerta Village. There was no wind, no chirping of crickets; the silence settling over the night was not natural silence, but something deliberately created to clear a path for supernatural things.
Karto ran through the darkness of the village lane toward his house. His frantic mind urged him to take the black cloth pouch containing the red cord and throw it as far away as possible—to the river, into a ravine, or into a fire until it turned to ash. But when he shoved open his rickety front door, he discovered that the curse was not as simple as throwing away a piece of cloth.
His front door flew open without needing to be pushed hard. Inside, the atmosphere felt even denser. The fishy smell of blood that had previously settled in the kitchen now spread through every corner of the room, overpowering the smell of wet earth.
Karto groped his way toward the wooden table in the center of the room, where he had left a matchbox. His fingers trembled so violently that they nearly crushed the little wooden stick, but he managed to light a match. The flame slowly caught, casting a wavering yellow glow.
Karto’s eyes widened.
On the wooden table before him lay the black cloth pouch tied with seven-colored thread—the same pouch Mbah Jambrong had placed on the high shelf. It was now lying directly in front of him. The pouch was tied neatly, as though some hand had just put it back there after Karto fled the forest.
“No... no...” Karto whispered hysterically. “I didn’t touch you... I didn’t bring you here!”
He held the match to the edge of the black cloth pouch. Karto intended to burn it right there. Flames leaped across the black fabric, sending off tiny red sparks. But instead of burning to ash, the pouch released thick smoke that smelled of charred flesh and swallowed the flames until they went out instantly. The cloth remained intact, without even a scorch mark.
A soft, cold laugh echoed through the bamboo walls of his house. A woman’s laughter. Marni’s voice.
Karto... you signed it...
The voice crept directly into his mind, slicing away the distance between his ears and his brain.
You wanted money... you wanted dignity... and Mbah Jambrong gave it to you by sacrificing me... Now you own her magic... you own her sin...
“I didn’t know!” Karto screamed toward the darkness in the corner of the room, tears running down his filthy cheeks. “Mbah Jambrong told me to do it! I only wanted to escape poverty! I didn’t know you were killed for this magic!”
Ignorance is no excuse for stealing the cord that binds my soul... the voice whispered again, closer now, as though its owner were standing directly behind Karto, pressing her damp burial shroud against his neck. Cut your own throat... and return the red cord to my grave... or I’ll cut it for you...
The piercing chill seized Karto’s throat again. This time, he could see with his own eyes as red threads emerged from behind the black cloth pouch on the table. The fibers moved by themselves like thirsty plant roots, creeping up the table leg, climbing Karto’s clothes, and winding tightly around his wrist.
The red fibers’ grip felt like barbed wire pulled taut. The skin on Karto’s wrist peeled away, spraying fresh blood that the red fibers immediately absorbed. The fibers, once a deep red, now seemed to glow brightly, as though Karto’s blood were giving new nourishment to the curse trapped inside them.
Karto screamed in pain. He tried to pull his hand away, but the red fibers forcibly dragged him closer to the black pouch.
At the same time, the front door of his house was struck from outside.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
“Karto! Open the door, Karto!” a loud voice shouted from outside. It was the neighborhood chief, accompanied by several villagers carrying torches.
“We know you’re in there!” another villager shouted. “The villagers’ hunting dogs found a trail of blood from Marni’s grave to your house! Open the door or we’ll break it down!”
Karto panicked wildly. Trapped between the Red Pocong’s supernatural terror and the fury of villagers demanding justice, his chest felt ready to explode. If the villagers broke down the door and saw the red fibers wrapped around his hand and the blood scattered everywhere, they would beat him to death on the spot.
“Karto!” The pounding on the door grew more brutal, and the bamboo boards began to crack.
With the last of his strength and the pain burning through his entire arm, Karto reached for the black cloth pouch with his free left hand. The moment his fingers closed around it, the red fibers wrapped around his wrist suddenly loosened and shrank back into the black cloth as though responding to the touch of their new owner.
Karto reached into his pants, shoved the black pouch deep inside, then leaped toward the back window, which opened directly onto a small river and a dark banana grove.
The villagers broke through his front door just as Karto threw himself out the window.
“That’s Karto! He ran out back!” the villagers shouted, their cries breaking across Sukamerta’s night. Torchlight flared, casting chasing shadows after Karto as he staggered through the darkness.
Karto ran without direction along the wet riverbank, gasping for breath, blood streaming from the wounds on his hand and neck. Inside his pants pocket, the red Pocong Cord felt increasingly warm and heavy, pulsing in time with his frantic heartbeat.
Mbah Jambrong’s pact had claimed the shaman’s life, but for Karto, the red cord’s snare had now locked his fate tight—a never-ending flight from the pursuing villagers and the threat of death from Marni’s restless spirit, which would never stop demanding his body.