Alone, a bully may be mean but he could be avoided and through sheer loneliness and peer disapproval, he would have to moderate his behaviours in order to survive. Unfortunately the members of the Gang came from the same class and had each other for company so they remained bullies. That did not imply that they had the same character traits. Far from it. The fat bully was a lot of hot air but left to himself, capable of little action. The skinny one was cold and selfish while the older chap was the meanest of them all.

Life had always been unkind from the older chap’s point of view and he was determined to return it in kind. He played pranks on class monitors and prefects, stole from the stall keepers and strutted around, bullying others, exulting in his approximation of authority. School was sometimes suffocating, but it was also an escape from the tyranny of the home. So most of the time he was glad to come out early, meet his Gang and hang around waiting for school to start.

But the evening was more lonely. His fat friend’s aunt took him home in a sleek black Honda. He could never understand why his friend condescended to such a routine. In his eyes his friend had subjected himself to a relationship of dependency, had traded his freedom for comfort and had been short- changed in the process.

It had been quite some time since he punched that skinny four-eyed jerk into the canal. The thought of how he executed the punch filled him with satisfaction. Neat. Professional. Mohammed Ali could not have done better; he thought and smiled a little as he trudged down the road.

School had just ended and he was heading for the bus-stop at the main road. Just then he caught sight of another of those boys in white shorts. Perhaps he could sneak up on the boy. Too late, the boy had seen him. The jerk! Sticking his tongue out and giving him the dirty sign. In front of his school mates too. This could not be tolerated. His reputation and authority were at stake. The boy must be punished.

He stepped off the road towards the boy who was leaning against the school fence and saw the boy jump to his feet. Everyone was watching. Suddenly the boy turned and fled along the fence. The bully threw himself into the pursuit, running and splashing through a pool of muddy water. He would make mince meat out of him. They tore through the undergrowth, ducking now and then to avoid the drooping branches. He would outrun the boy. After all he was bigger, tougher and had more stamina. Oh no, the bully flinched inwardly. The little idiot was heading straight for the Haunted House. Didn’t he realise that it was already dusk? Was he unaware of the night creatures that lived in the Haunted House? He was panting now, his mind no longer bent on catching the boy. Instead his pace slowed at the sight of the pre-war dilapidated bungalow bathed in the soft grey shadows as he contemplated the gory end that might befall the boy. Or himself.

His momentum carried him into a brisk walk as he gulped for air and approached the Haunted House with trepidation. The boy stood beside the porch and the thought that he might witness the death throes of that moron also excited him. He halted at the wooden stumps of the gates and the boy turned to stick out his middle finger at him again. The rotten idiot, he thought, quickly weighing his options, and decided to go for it: pounce on the boy and drag the moron back to the rubber trees for further punishment. He still hesitated.

“You chicken? Cluck! Cluck! Cluck! Cluck!” the boy yelled, backing right underneath the porch. “Chicken, co-co-co-keh!” the boy squealed with delight. He could not stand it much longer. Nobody called him ‘chicken’. Nobody!

He dashed forward and the boy scuttled into the Haunted House screaming as he went, “Chicken! Chicken! Chicken!”

He hesitated at the sight of the rotten planks, broken cupboards and chairs strewn all over the room with an old altar nestling in the corner. He could hear the boy still yelling “Chicken! Chicken! Chicken!” up the staircase, so he hopped forward and with a crash! the old altar fell flat, its earthen pot smashed against the floor. A flood of fear swept over him. He had upset the Gods! A sound behind him. He swung around and saw the wooden doors slamming shut. His heart missed a beat and he rushed for the door, but it would not budge. He searched frantically for the door knob but there was none. He turned round again, his eyes darting to and fro. Then he heard the sound and the hair on his arms and neck stood on ends as shivers ran up and down his spine. It began as a low hum rising slowly in intensity and pitch until it sounded like the wind, but the sound did not come from outside. The sound was inside, yet muffled and hollow as if it came from somewhere deep... inside the house! It was a sigh, no it was a howl. It sounded like a screech, a moan; it laughed; it whined...

A flash of light and a boy's scream came from somewhere upstairs. It had found the boy, he thought, looking around desperately at the boarded up windows. He clawed wildly, but the boards would not come off. Shit! He had to get out, he thought. Upstairs, the windows might be less secure. There was a lull and he waited. Perhaps it had gone away. It might have moved on. He had to get out quickly.

Gingerly, he picked his way to the stairwell and crept up the staircase one step at a time. Silence. Everything was silent. He reached the second landing and found himself in a short corridor with three doorways upstairs. The one to the right should lead to the balcony above the front porch; the other two doorways were on his left and nearer to him. Thud! The sound came from below. What was that? He glanced nervously behind from one doorway to another, expecting to see some hideous apparition any moment. Where was that stupid boy? Was the boy still alive? Or had the boy changed into one of the un-deads? A torrent of questions swept through his mind. The howls and moans started again and he was sure there was a legion of evil spirits floating around him.

Oh God! No no, It had found him, he thought, filled with a new terror as he recoiled at the dense greyish white smoke coiling up the staircase like some sinister hand, groping, reaching for him. He was trapped! His hands groped for the nearest doorway. God help me, he prayed, vowing to turn over a new leaf, pleading for heavenly mercy on one hand and bargaining with the devil on the other. Anything, anything at all so long as he could be safe from It. His lips were trembling. He had to get away from that misty thing. Oh God – the window, let the window be opened. He crept into the room and backed towards the window, hardly daring to take his eyes off the doorway. He could see wisps of that misty ethereal apparition stealing from the staircase onto the landing.

Suddenly the room was bathed in a glow of light, accompanied by a scratching sound behind him. The window. He spun round in terror and screamed. Rooted to the floor, with clenched jaws and knotted hands, he screamed. The window was boarded up in a cross and leering at him above the cross was the face of a devil, its hair in wild tangles, eyes protruding, lips stretched in a fiendish grin and its teeth... its teeth half rotting, half dripping in blood. Its face was pressed against the cracked window pane, nose, cheeks and lips flattened hideously in a most nauseating manner. Run, idiot run. The mean bully, the admired trickster, the confident leader of the Gang cried out in terror. He stepped backwards, away from the devilish face at the window, tripped, stumbled and fled out of the room, kicking at the mist, flailing his arms at the imagined spirits.

Without thinking, without looking, he crashed and rolled over various obstacles towards the front of the house while the misty apparitions seemed to cling to his body, accompanied by the howling and moaning that echoed round and round in his ears. Outside. The balcony. The railings. He climbed over the rusty railings, hanged his legs over the edge of the balcony for a moment... and then jumped. He hit the lalang with a thud! Pain shot through his legs to his hip bones. Without paying any heed to the pain, he crashed through the bushes and fled towards the field, towards his school, towards...safety.

                                          *      *      *      *      *
 

“Hey Soon,” Lam whispered as loudly as he dared, “Come out. He's gone now.”

Soon crept out from behind an old cupboard gripping an iron rod that he was holding for his own protection. He saw Lam standing outside the window of the second room, grinning crazily in the swinging light, his make-shift mask flapped over his shoulder. Lam gave him the thumbs up sign. There was a giggle and Mun's head appeared at the window, his torchlight sweeping the room. Soon, carefully threaded his way down the staircase, as the air was still smoky.

“You there Cheng?” Soon called out, feeling his way as he descended one step at a time, fanning the smoke from his eyes.

“Yeah coming down now,” came the reply. The door downstairs was open and the smoke was diffusing through it. A light burst directly into his eyes and his arms jerked up instinctively to shield himself.

“This way,” Cheng's voice came from the light source, quivering with mischief.

“Cut that out will you!” The light swept away to rest upon a "smoke bomb" -- not the smoke grenade that Cheng's older brother in National Service boasted about, but the children's vairety sold with fire crackers and sizzling sparklers.

The house reverberated with a moan that grew into a hollow grating guffaw.

“Mok still at the pipes,” Cheng observed, remembering that the sound was always loudest at the bathroom and kitchen.

“He's enjoying himself alright,” Soon agreed, “Come on, let's find the others.”

The rest of them were gathered around Lam giggling together. The eerie silence of the Haunted House could not entirely extinguish their jubilance. They went prancing over the Bridge, retracing their steps along the footpath while they traded versions of the terror they had created. As the Haunted House dropped out of sight the group became rowdier, laughing heartily and thumbing each other's back. They passed the place where Cheng had fallen into the canal without noticing. Revenge was so sweet.

“He really shit in his pants.”

“He was begging for his life.”

“No, he was crawling.”

“Should have seen his face.”

“Honest, he was crying, I swear!”

“Chicken, cluck! Cluck! Cluck! Cluck!” The last comment came from Soon taking pride in his four hundred metre run, his fear of being caught already forgotten by then. The whole group went clucking towards the Sweet Shop. They sprawled all over the pavement clucking away, holding their stomachs, tears of laughter in their eyes.

“Ooh, that was great.”

“Yeah, real great,” each of them agreed.

Eventually, Mok suggested that they should adjourn to the roadside stall to eat but Lam preferred the hawker centre a little further away. The others just wanted some place to sit where they could cool off with cold drinks.

“It's too far,” Mok complained, “I'm hungry- the stall is nearer.”

Lam rolled over to Mok, grabbed his collar and peered into his round eyes: “We're going to the hawker centre.”

Soon might have been the idea man. But Lam decided. Once the idea gelled it was Lam who blazed the trail, led the Group to inspect the Haunted House, distributed the tasks, coordinated their rehearsals and picked the date for the action. Mok was in no doubt who made the decisions. So they went to the hawker centre.

Similarly Cheng was the one who figured out how to clamp the doors shut quickly at the Haunted House. And Cheng's idea of the "smoke bomb" was absolutely neat! A class one act indeed. Thus did the Group congratulate each other as they kept recounting their clash of the Titans in class, the tuckshop and even the bus-stop. The Haunted House episode was a shared experience that kept them together for a time.

But eventually, as the months passed, the Gang slipped further and further from their minds.

n