The sound coming from...

* photo borrowed from www.horrorthemovie.com, thanks!

... above!

You see my habitat is something many people would call:
1] my dad: "Pigeon hole!"
2] my 1st bro and sis-in-law (owners): "Well maintained, conveniently located."
3] my sis: "Kadang-kadang macam asrama ITM pulak."
4] me: "My lovely hole."

OK - tis actually a condo unit, located somewhere in the the earlier batus of Cheras. There's four of us renting there, and we are on Level 16.

The story I'm about to tell you came to exist simply because Level 16 is not the highest floor of the tower we live in. There is a... gasp! cheng, cheng, cheng... eeeiiikkk...! Level 17.

So we have neighbours above us. No big deal, right? Probably a couple, probably not married, probably night-birds - still, no big deal right?

The thing is... (all mysteries have things in it. Tis the things that make a mystery a mystery. If you already knew what the thing is all about then it would not be a mystery, right?)

OK, the thing is, we've been hearing weird noises, coming from right above.

Hey, what do you mean, "no big deal?!" Of course it is a big deal if you live in a it-all-boils-down-to-flats house and hears weird noises from above!

And here's the thing: The thing is, the noise starts only when it's after 11PM... and it gets worst when it is after 1AM...

What kind of noises, you asked?

Well, do you know how it sounds if you hear a big-ass, filled-to-bursting-point luggage fell off a bed on to the floor? Yep, that kind of thud!, that's what I'm talking about.

Sometimes the thud! gets louder, as if the luggage bag had multiplied three times larger and the bed had risen several feet higher. Yep, and these low, baritone thud!s happen at around 3AM, or 4AM...

All of us - on one night or another - had jumped off our bed, out of our deep, REM, beauty sleep, thanks to these big thud!s. Even I did, once - and be in the know that I do tidur mati OK. And Jenny B's attributing the latest zit outbreaks to these noises which had yanked her out of sleepdome these past few nights.

If you think the thud!s and the louder thud!s were bad, get this - sometimes they "move furniture" during the wee hours too, and you'll get to hear the teeth-gritting dragging of something heavy, something kinda wood-ish and big-ish, across the marble floor. And I cringe just imagining what state their marble floor would look like by now.

It's like every night they've dropped an RM50 note behind the dressing table, and they have to move the table to get it, and then move the table back to its place.

Or maybe it wasn't an RM50 note that slid to the back of the dressing table.

Maybe it was a little plastic tub of Bobbi Brown lipstick and the Maybelline mascara. Maybe it was the tiny Red Earth lip gloss and a blob of SaSa glittering eye-shadow.

Cause we also get to hear a noise that sounds like a couple of dice being thrown onto the floor. Or maybe the couple was playing that kampung game of bottlecaps.

But the sound we hate most was the hammering sound! That off-key tuk, tuk, tuk, tuk! - a couple of seconds of silence - then tuk, tuk, tuk, tuk! rythm was driving all four of us crazy!

It was everytime when the tuk, tuk, tuk, tuk! sound came that Nad said if it persists, she's going to go up and tell the couple off. She was going to tell them to be quiet, and stop all kinds of carpentry work after 7PM.

Of course, everytime Nad said that, the hammering (as if the people above could hear us) ceased...

But here's the other thing. Last night, the hammering, after the routine threat was issued, did not cease! So Nad was already on her feet, persuading Jenny B to come with her, ready to give the neighbour a piece of her mind.

I was about to let her go, musing about going as well, when I suddenly thought of asking, "Yo Nad, you sure you wanna do it?"

And she retorted, (not quickly enough, though - interrupted by a series of tuk, tuk, tuk, tuk!) "Hell, yeah!"

Suddenly the worst went through my mind (Hehehe Ariel, I gotta credit you for these frightening thoughts - remember you told me about that film, Saw? Ah, what would I do without your inspiration input kekekeekeh!).

And out of the vision that flashed through my brain, I said in frantic:

"What if our neighbour turned out to be a psycho? And the thud! was them putting a body onto a table. And the louder thud! was them on nights they have someone obese?

"And the dragging sound was them pushing the table, with the body on top, to go under the bigger-watt light?

"And the dice-throwing sound came out when they've chopped off the body's fingers, and the one that makes the loudest dice-throwing sound was the melantun-lantun fingers with rings and bling-blings attached?

"And the hammering was them placing the chopped body parts into a coffin?"

"Imagine them going like this... (And I did a quick charade routine: an axe on my hand, my face expressionless, and I go swing-haiyak, swing-haiyak, swing-haiyak, chopping an imaginary object placed on an imaginary table)..."

"And then you show up in front of their door!" And I shivered - exaggerated a bit for emphasis on the thrill factor of the outlook presented.

"ARGH!!! Ei! melampau betul imaginasi kau nih!" Nad and Jenny B cursed, appreciating my bloody fiction.

Then my sister said, "No, remember Poltergist? Yeah, the latest one, where they show how it all started?" she asked enthusiastically.

And just as enthusiastically Nad nodded. Encouraged by Nad's respond, my sister calmly pointed to the window nearest to us, and calmly continued:

"Well imagine how bout as we're talking like this, our neighbour above do a poltergistic swing down and ask, "WHAT WAS THAT?"... "

"WARGH!!!"

And the hammering sound from above stopped...