Pontianak In School (East area)

  I have heard plenty of stories but this one which I decided to share here actually happened to an ex-colleague let's just call her Mdm A for privacy reasons. I won't go into many details but I think some might still recognise parts of the story. 

  I used to work as a contract teacher in a school quite a number of years back. Mdm A worked as a staff in the general office and she was this warm, down to earth woman old enough to be my mum. Not someone I viewed at the time to be superstitious and that makes the story scarier to me.

  The school building we worked at was considered pretty old, 31 years this year, in a country quick to renovate and demolish and make everything modern. The original part of the building was a square shaped building with a courtyard at the centre and there used to be two grand old trees before I joined the school. According to Mdm A and several others, the trees cast deep perpetual shadows on the first, second and third floor classrooms. This made the school a hotbed for ghost stories and rumours, especially among the Malays - I think. It's only later I learnt from my Malay colleagues that some do believe strongly in spirits and the spirit world, things that others would brush off for a more rational explanation.

  Anyways, according to the Malay staff and students there were pontianak residing in the trees. Someone told me Mdm A had a run-in with the pontianak so i asked her about it. She reluctantly shared with me the entire tale. As a staff, she and some other staff will do admin work and odd jobs around the school, with one being opening the school, the metal shutters that enclosed each stairwell, the classroom doors, etc. So it's quite a bit of work and she starts at 5am or thereabouts - because well there's always gonna be that one jackass who comes in to school far too early. 

  Anyways one day, when Mdm A and one other lady went to the classrooms area to open the stairs, they saw shadows flying about as they walked the corridors. As they walked they heard the loud sound of a duck quacking and Mdm A caught sight of a pontianak flying past her. After she saw the spirit, they both came down with a mysterious high fever that night. For 3 days doctors couldn't figure out what caused it. I asked if it was coincidence AND she gave a firm no because when someone recite Quranic verses for them, their fever subsided immediately. - Fever is apparently a sign of the evil spirit or possession.

  I tried to find logical explanations, even asked her if it was our native white-breasted sea eagle flying overhead. The eagle sounds similar to a duck and i played a video on YouTube for her but she was adamant it was not.

  For those who are not familiar, in our local folklore, pontianak is the ghost of a woman who died during childbirth and sucks blood like a vampire. Pontianak can fly and usually appears as a woman in white with long black hair and its presence is accompanied by the pungent aroma of frangipani. It favours residing in trees, particularly rubber and banana trees. Pontianak is also the most prominent hantu in Singapore, Malaysia and I think Indonesia and is highly feared. One lesser known fact is that the cry of a pontianak sounds like a duck quacking.

  Anyways, the stories of pontianak got out of hand so eventually the new principal that came later cut down the trees not only to bring light but to stop the rumours. As he said if there's rumour, you go to the source of the rumour and cut it off at the roots, quite literally in this case. After that, it was said that the sightings of pontianak lessened. Most staff don't discuss it anymore but it's well acknowledged that mysterious happenings did occur now and then in the school. 

  Another thing is that the classrooms are still pretty dim and when it's around 4pm it feels pretty creepy sometimes when I pass the area - 4pm or thereabouts is said by Muslim people to be the time the sun starts setting and hantu come out.

  I for one am a Christian and I used to nit believe in ghosts but when i pass the area it feels unsettling, an unease at the edges of consciousness pricking at you. I don't know how to explain it better, like a prickling of nerves at the neck and throat and unease prickling along the skin of the back

  If this reads like fiction, it's because I spent an unholy number of hours trying to edit my thoughts from a long rambling mess into something coherent that flows logically and coherently.