Disclaimer: In Real Life is a platform for everyday people to share their experiences and voices. All articles are personal stories and do not necessarily echo In Real Life’s sentiments.
Malaysia is a vast and beautiful country and all of us have at one point or another made a cross-country road trip alone, with friends, or with family as a child.
However, many Malaysians have encountered some strange but frightening happenings. Here are a few stories from Malaysians who’ve seen or experienced something on a road trip, during the dark hours and dead of night:
1. Chinese folklore demanded we stop
My mother used to be a mid-level manager in the family construction materials supply company, and when I was a teenager, some nights I would accompany her when they were making the rounds at the construction sites to check on progress.
These trips could take hours and a lot of times went into the middle of nowhere, because that’s either where the raw materials were or because that’s where the construction site was.
I had accompanied my mother out to one such remote site in the afternoon to drop off materials and get a progress update. It was late in the evening, and I was driving us home when a chill suddenly swept over me.
I pulled over immediately and killed the lights. My mother asked me what was wrong and I told her completely seriously, “I am seeing double roads.”
According to Chinese folklore, when you start seeing doubles of the road there is only one explanation: there is a malicious spirit trying to trick you into a fatal accident.
My mother was well versed in these things and didn’t argue, simply nodding while we waited, in silence for the spirit to give up or get bored enough and go away.
We were sitting there in silence for about 10 or 15 minutes when we heard something outside, a panting sound. Then a dog came out of nowhere and started circling our truck. It was growling and snapping at something that we couldn’t see.
Then suddenly, there was a yelp of pain and harsh crack. The dog goes flying through the air as if something had kicked it as hard as possible. The dog tumbled through the air and landed with a bone-crunching crack. It rose to its feet, whined, and limped as fast as it could away from us.
After that, even after my double vision stopped, we didn’t move. By unspoken agreement, we would wait for the sunrise.
Since that experience, my mother schedules her visits for the morning so she’ll be on the way home long before dark.
2. It might have been a nightmare if I wasn’t fully awake
This happened when I finished my studies in Singapore and decided to take an overnight bus from Singapore home. The bus would finish the trip in 1Utama which was pretty close to my family home in TTDI.
We left Singapore just before midnight, and I’d planned to sleep on the bus but I guess I was too excited. It would have been my first-time home in almost four years! I was reading something because I couldn’t sleep and I was the only one awake on the bus of 40 – 50 people.
We were moving pretty fast and suddenly, there was this long 18-wheel lorry on one side of us and it started to get closer and closer to the bus. I swear that we were overtaking it but the lorry kept inching closer and closer.
It was a long vehicle, and as it inched closer, I could somehow make out more and more detail about it, until I could see the rusty edges and deep scratches that decorated both of the cargo containers on its back.
When we overtook it, I swear that the side mirror of the truck scraped against the window glass, cutting a long furrow in the glass with a sound like nails on a chalkboard.
I gasped loud enough to wake the passenger next to me, as I jerked away from the window. I apologize to my neighbor who grumbled something and went back to sleep. When I turned back to the window, the entire lorry was gone, and there was no scratch on the window!
I looked out the back window but there was no other vehicle on the road. I don’t know what I saw but I decided, after arriving safely in 1Utama, that next time I have to travel to or from Singapore, I’ll take a flight instead of a bus.
One near-fatal haunted accident is enough for me!
3. We saw a man who likes his meat rarer than blue
My family used to make a trip back to Kuala Kangsar to see my grandparents every Hari Raya. This was in the late 1980s, long before the PLUS highway was a thing, so it was all curving winding backroads.
We were making good time, and it was after dinner because we’d always stop to eat in Slim River at this mamak that made nasi lemak the whole family loved. Normally, we’d bungkus a few packets for my grandfather too.
We were driving when suddenly, my father slammed on the breaks. There was a man drenched in blood and he was cutting up a cow, right there, in the middle of the road with a small bloody handsaw, and blocking the entire road!
The man had been wearing dark clothes so we didn’t see him until my father had almost hit him.
This man stared at the car for a few seconds before turning back to what he was doing. I had seen him in the headlights and the man’s mouth was covered in blood.
My father cracked the car window open an inch to ask the man to move, but my mother was just screaming at my father, “Go! Go! Just GO!”
The man was standing, full in the headlights, and had in his other hand, what I can only think to be a chunk of the cow… that he was eating like an apple.
My father floored the accelerator and we missed this guy by less than a meter! After that, we always left in the early morning to make the annual journey, instead of leaving in the afternoon!
On those mysterious winding roads…
There’s no telling what is really out there on the long winding back roads of Malaysia today. Here’s hoping you don’t encounter anything that takes an interest in you as a victim or a meal…
For more stories like this, read: 3 Real-Life Malaysian Horror Encounters During Halloween”and 5 Malaysians Tell Us About Their Spooky Paranormal Encounters.
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