from him.
That was a close call, so we decided to go over to Haru’s house.
‘Martin, we could have slept here last night. Why didn’t we?’ asked Roger.
‘I know, but the problem with that is, no one would have looked after the tent, in case of stong
winds. We would have needed it anyway to shelter from the sunlight.’
Later we came to a conclusion that the ghost was not man-eating, as legend says. When we
got to the house, I thought I felt a cold draft on my neck. I would have just dismissed it as the
powerful ceiling fans, but I also felt a hand touch my shoulder.
‘Do you know what happened about an hour ago?’ I asked
‘Yes,’ replied Haru.
‘I witnessed the whole thing from the balcony upstairs. The grey man was beside Roger, and
he was scared to death, right?’
‘That’s exactly what happened,’ sighed Roger, holding in his fear as he knew now that we
weren’t seeing things.
‘Haru saw it too, and she didn’t hear what we were saying.’
‘It’s been messing with me a lot.’ Haru continued. ‘I’m probably the one that it likes the most.
The switches are it’s main toys, but sometimes, things go missing. Once, all the open doors
slammed shut all at once. I also remember smelling eerie scents and hearing banging, tapping and
sometimes moaning noises. The fridge has pencilled graffiti and dishes are mysteriously chipped.
Sometimes it has the appearance of a ghostly figure, and sometimes I can just feel it here next to
me. Then there were the incidents with the fans and the heaters I immediately knew that the ghost
was playing with me when I went home to a luxurious sauna.’
Our time with Haru came to an end and we headed back home. I decided to submit the picture
with captions to a local newspaper. Weeks later, I saw a story, saying ‘Ordinary Men Save Region
From Fear’, but this wasn’t the case. We were no heroes and the Gobi monster was not man-eating,
I guess we were just a small part of this mysterious ghost story. Haru finally moved away from
the house to busy Shenzen, where we also live, but she brought with her souveniers of her past
life – her ceiling fans, her chipped dishes and her fridge.
