Amok: An Anthology of Asia-Pacific Speculative Fiction

by Dominica Malcolm

  “Young lady—”

  “Give that back!”

  Yi Ling screamed. She lashed out at the examiner, snatching the paper again.

  Suddenly, there was an intense agony; Yi Ling screamed, and stared at her arm in shock. The sudden movement had caused her arm to literally catch fire.

  Students started screaming.

  Yi Ling screamed in agony as she beat her arms against her table, the wall, the window, hoping to extinguish the flames. This movement, however, only seemed to make things worse; the fire was spreading to her entire body. The heat was excruciating; so hot, it almost seemed cold. Her clothes were slowly consumed by the enveloping heat, and her skin blackened as if it were being roasted.

  As agonising as the pain was, however, she saw something that really filled her heart with anguish.

  A spark had spread to her exam papers, which were now ablaze.

  “My papers!” she screamed. “Not my fucking papers!”

  Around her, students were panicking. Many of them were running in terror, although one or two of them produced camera phones to record the incident. A loud fire alarm blared.

  “Where is the bloody fire extinguisher?” the grumpy invigilator screamed.

  Just then, he gave a strangled cry. He nearly wet himself as he saw the burning girl walk up to him. The smell of burnt flesh was overwhelming. There was barely any skin left on her, her face was a bloody mess of bone and tissue, and her hair was gone.

  She shouldn’t still be alive! And yet, she moved towards him.

  There were a bunch of charred papers in her hands.

  “I’m done, sir,” Yi Ling said. “I hope I pass.”

  The flames had lessened. There was little pain; most of her nerves had already been burnt away.

  Yi Ling pressed the papers into his trembling hands, and collapsed. Her body was almost completely blackened bone.

  The invigilator screamed. His knees wobbling, he staggered to his feet and fled the hall.

  His shadow was long and crooked against the walls.

  * * *

  Language Translation

  char kuay teow - a popular local rice noodle dish

  kena rasuk - Malay for ‘gotten possessed’

  * * *

  About Terence Toh

  Terence Toh writes newspaper and magazine articles by day, and fiction by night. He is a merry wanderer of the night, constantly searching the world for fulfilment, inspiration and affordable plates of pasta. His short plays have been performed at the Short and Sweet Theatre and Musical festivals in Kuala Lumpur and Penang. Most recently, his short stories have been featured in the KL Noir White anthology published by Fixi Novo, and read on BFM Radio.

  No Name Islands

  Kawika Guillermo

  ~ Indonesia ~

  The cargo ship in the bay was covered in such a heavy grey rain that it appeared like a whale, hovering still and alone, barely visible except in the occasional flash of lightening.

  My sister Putri and I stood on the docks, waiting. We were used to the rain, having worked for over two years on that unnamed island, one of many privately owned islands in the Casr archipelago of northern Indonesia, a free economic zone where companies constructed biome plumes that produced weather catered to certain crops or animals. On the island of rain, the clouds unleashed a perpetual torrent of rainfall that grew enhanced stalks of rice like monsters swelling in pride. For two agonising years Putri and I worked on those rice terraces, high above the plains, high enough to see the smoke plumes linking to the sky like chains.

  The man from the cruise ship arrived. Rain puttered on his wide yellow hood. “The captain will let you on,” he said. “You can cook, right?”

  I nodded.

  The man looked to Putri. Her dark hair covered her eyes from beneath a transparent umbrella. “And her. Your friend. She can wash dishes?”

  “She’s my sister,” I said.

  “Really?” The man turned toward Putri, and then back to me, and my much lighter complexion. We had already given him nearly all of our two-year savings, so I saw no harm in placing some extra rupiah in his pocket.

  He shrugged. “Whatever you say, chef.”

  §

  On the ship Putri and I shared a cabin with a large window to the ocean. The janitors and deckhands stared at us, marking their suspicions with turned eyebrows. It was obvious by our skin and hair that we were not really brother and sister, though she called me Ar-ta, “brother” in her native tongue. Thankfully, our lives were hidden behind the iron walls that separated the kitchen staff from the rest of the ship.

  The cruise ship turned out to be the best gig Putri and I had since our expulsion from the island Aoro, Putri’s native homeland. Like all the islands of the Casr archipelago, Aoro was set to be terraformed for a new crop, but first had to be scorched with clouds that rained fire to clear it of unwanted ecology. I was not supposed to be on the island. I was a light-skinned tourist with a penchant for traveling to unknown places, claiming land with every camera flash.

  Aoro Journal Entry:

  Day 1

  Success! I’m off the map! Lovely island by the way, pristine and untouched. To think I’ll be one of the last people ever to see Aoro in its primitive state.

  Day 2

  Hiked the red mountain today. Beautiful, but all the while heard loudspeakers warning “TERRAFORMING IN THREE DAYS. EVACUATE NOW.”

  Day 3

  Some native people still on the island. Do they not understand the loudspeakers?

  Day 4

  One day left and there are A LOT of natives still here. They refuse to leave their homes. Will the company still go through with it?

  Day 5

  I left Day five blank. How do you describe when a strange man begs you to take his sister, and then disappears into the jungle? What do you think when you find yourself standing in line for the last boat off the island, holding the hand of a thirteen year old girl in a long yellow dress, whose name you do not even know?

  §

  After my shift in the kitchen I joined Putri on the upper deck of the cargo ship and felt the cool, dry air of a nearby desert island where biome plumes created a cloudless dry sky, perfect for growing enhanced tomatoes and cucumbers.

  “I’ve never breathed air so thin,” Putri said. “Like I’m not breathing at all. Makes me wanna spit.”

  “It’s just like in Vel City,” I responded. “Where I was born.”

  “If they ever let foreigners in Vel City, maybe I’ll see it one day.” She let spit bubble from her lips before spewing it into the ocean. “You know, the managers here won’t buy our story much longer, Ar-ta.”

  “There are other islands,” I said. “Other jobs.”

  “What if we got married?” She wiped her mouth. “I’m old enough now.” She tilted her head slightly, her dark brown eyes slightly dilated from the night’s darkness. “I keep thinking. What if that’s why my brother—my real brother—asked you to save me? For my people, who once worshipped the red mountain, lineage is all that matters. Pass on the seed, and we will never die.” She spat again, perhaps in disgust. “Why else would he give me away to a young, male foreigner?”

  For the first time I felt something pent up inside me as I observed her lithe figure in the darkness. Part of me, it seemed, had always, and would always, dream of her, with all the love I couldn’t hold.

  §

  The next morning, grey clouds crawled towards the window of our cabin. I woke with Putri in my arms, still nude, to the bright white pallor of an island covered entirely in snow and ice. A great glacier was at its centre, and its shores were frozen over. Ice extended far into the horizon. A line of workers dressed in heavy coats unloaded metal that would be used to process canned fish.

  “Ar-ta! Ar-ta!” Putri screeched, her face locked in a scream that would not come out. I saw what she saw. The jagged rock encased in ice that was once a waterfall. The plain of clean snow that was once a forest. The glacier that was once
a red coloured mountain.

  On the bed, Putri stood up, legs splayed, nude. She opened the window, letting that rush of freezing dry air envelope her naked body, shiver her skin, toss her hair wide.

  “Come get it!” she screamed, throwing her fists like a boxer. “Come try me! I will never, ever die! I will never die! I will never die!”

  * * *

  About Kawika Guillermo

  Kawika is a gender-confused lover, a gasoline-and-fire mixture of Irish, Chinese and Filipino, and a heathen with just enough faith to keep writing fiction. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in JMWW, Smokelong Quarterly, Annalemma, and The Monarch Review. He spends his days endlessly revising his novel in Nanjing, China, where he also teaches multicultural literature and edits for decomP. Visit his website at http://kawikaguillermo.com and follow him on twitter @kawikaguillermo.

  The Dead of the Night

  Barry Rosenberg

  ~ Australia ~

  An excited Peter drove at the speed limit from Gympie back to Nambour. The Council had asked Paranormal Inc to investigate a property. One sniff and Peter suspected vampires. He could hardly wait to tell Simone. They hadn’t done battle with vampires for ages.

  As he arrived home, thick clouds began to mass in the blue sky. He parked and hurried into the house. Simone, dark skin aglow, greeted Peter with a kiss.

  “How’d it go?” she asked.

  “Excellent.” Peter opened his laptop. “Listen to this. Dimitri Romanesceau arrived in Gympie about eighteen-seventy for the gold rush. The other miners avoided him, accusing him of doing black magic. But guess what?”

  “He found gold.”

  “He found gold.” Peter tapped the laptop. “After scraping around for a few years, he found a seam.”

  “And became rich and happy ever after?”

  “Not exactly.” Peter had an angular jaw and sharp cheekbones. A tall stringy man of twenty-eight, he had a friendly face. It could harden and acquire sharp edges but that was a face rarely seen. When on a story, though, he was like a dog with a bone. “He had a cave-in. Apparently, that happened a lot to miners who weren’t liked.”

  “Ones who found gold?”

  “Yes. Anyway, two days after he was pronounced dead…”

  “Did they find his body?” Simone asked.

  “No. And they made sure no one dug him out. Whatever air he had down there, it wouldn’t have lasted more’n an hour or so. Conveniently, the miners had a strike, or something.” Peter shrugged. “No normal person would’ve survived two days.”

  “But?” Simone’s eyes gleamed. She liked a good story. She loved a scary one.

  “Two days later and there was a hole in the cave-in. A hole dug from the inside.”

  “Oh!” Simone shivered. “And the miners?”

  “Two were there overnight. Supposedly to keep guard. They were found dead in the morning. Dead and bled.”

  “A vampire?” Simone’s eyes gleamed with a touch of cold silver. “And? Anything else?”

  “Dimitri had a property south of the mine. He’d built a ramshackle house on it. The miners say he dug himself a grave and lived in that. They didn’t see him again and no more miners died.”

  “But?” Simone knew when there was more to tell.

  “The occasional bushie disappeared. So did quite a few cats and dogs. After that, it went quiet. Well, the gold petered out and there were fewer vagrants. It was reckoned that he lived on raw roos and other wildlife.”

  Simone rested her elbows on the table. “This Dimitri sounds too cheap for a vampire, a half-bite, perhaps. Still, that’s over a hundred years ago. What about now?”

  “Well, the Council now own the property but no one will live there. There are bad smells and scary sounds. The rumour is that the vampire is still around.”

  “Really?” Simone went to the window. The Queensland sky was dark and ready to unleash dark torrents of tropical rain. “Still alive? But that now suggests a fully-fledged vampire.” She turned around. “This is beginning to sound really strange.”

  Peter’s angular face lit with a crooked smile. “It’s said that he travelled through Java and dabbled in black magic. Their rituals also involved the use of blood.”

  “Really?” Simone repeated. “And so the Council wants us to deal with their problem?”

  “That’s our job.”

  “Vampires are tricky.” Simone studied the threatening sky. “So, when do we start?”

  “Not today.” Peter referred to his laptop. “I said we’d start tomorrow.”

  Simone, nodding, glanced around their living room. They had an odd collection of objects. Shining skulls rested on desks, silver daggers hung on the walls, and books of magic filled the bookshelves. These objects, however, were not just for decoration. These were their working tools.

  “Uh-huh.” Simone headed for the bookcase. “I’d better work on my pronunciation for spells against vampires.”

  “Pronunciation is certainly important,” Peter said. “That’s why my parents shortened our name.” He made a face. “Mind you, you think they would have done better than choosing Pan.”

  “Peter Pan.” Simone shrugged her slim shoulders. “They weren’t to know—a different culture and all that.”

  That afternoon, they decided to go to the beach. When Peter backed out of the driveway, though, he had an odd illusion. The walls of the garage shimmered and, instead, he saw a rundown shack. With a shiver, he shook his head. But though the image faded, a sense of disquiet remained. It was, he knew, a premonition. The house in Gympie was going to be a problem.

  Pulling away from the kerb, they were soon on the road from Alexandra Headland to Mooloolaba Beach. Simone, catching glimpses of the sea, began to click her fingers. But her left eye silvered, causing her to stop humming and to concentrate instead on the view. What should have been bright sun and sand was hidden by a smoky veil.

  It’s the house in Gympie, she thought. It won’t be like anything we’ve seen before.

  At Mooloolaba, they stopped for coffee. Across the road, the ocean was blue and clear. Yet Simone still had the impression of smoke and haze.

  “So,” She put down her cup, “tell me more about Gympie.”

  This, she knew, must be the correct question for the sense of smoke immediately increased and she could feel her left eye change again. Peter also noticed the silvery glint and his scalp tingled. For Simone, trouble was a girl’s best friend.

  “Here are the old Gympie mines.” Peter pointed to a map on his laptop. “On a couple of acres to the south is Dimitri’s old shack. It’s been bought and sold a few times but no one will stay. They simply pass it on at the best price. The Council wants us to deal with it.”

  Simone shivered as icy smoke ran along her spine. “It’s full moon tomorrow and so the effect is probably at its strongest then.”

  “That’s what the real estate agent said.”

  Simone switched from the map to a Word document. “Built by Dimitri Romanesceau. Romanesceau… Romanesceau…” she murmured. “Obviously from Romania.”

  “From Transylvania itself, home of Count Drac.”

  “Oh!” Simone’s left eye flashed silver. “So we’re back to vampires again.”

  §

  On the following day, with a packed 4WD, they left at three for Gympie. In only fifty minutes, they were just south of the small town. Turning onto a minor road, they entered an outer suburb of rundown properties. The houses, made of timber, were set among dry grasses and tall gum trees. A few cows gathered around a trough on one property. At a second, a lone horse pressed against a fence. At a third, chickens pecked on the hard-packed earth. They didn’t see any people. The farms didn’t pay and their owners had to go to the seaside resorts to find work.

  Further on, the scrub became taller and wilder. The road turned into a dirt track and the high wheels of the 4WD were needed for passing over rocky outgrowths. Where the track ended, they stopped at a weathered wooden gate that hung at an angle
from rusted hinges. Though it was just mid-afternoon, shadows and smoke hid the clouds and the sky.

  “This is it.” Peter drew on thick gloves and took hold of the gate. As he scraped it across the gravel, spiders and beetles ran from the rotting wood. “We’d better watch out for snakes.” He’d no sooner spoken than a dark shape, as long as Peter was tall, slithered into the grass. He watched it, ready to run but it quickly disappeared.