Chapter 5. Mbah Jambrong's Pact
The burning sensation in Karto's neck spread wildly, as though the bruised ligature had transformed into a row of fiery fibers scorching through his flesh. On the wooden shelf, the black cloth pouch trembled faintly. The rasp of dull burial cloth against the weathered planks rang sharply through the room, deadened to the sunlight outside.
Karto wiped away his tears of fear with his filthy palm. His thoughts turned to the figure who had dragged him into this hell: Mbah Jambrong. The shaman at the edge of Penjalin Forest had not merely given him a talisman—he had trapped him in a deadly supernatural bond. Marni's restless spirit whispering in the hut that morning had not been an empty threat; the shaman had deliberately hidden a connection between the girl's death and this vile ritual.
“Mbah Jambrong... you used me,” Karto whispered, his voice hoarse and trembling with anger mingled with despair.
Summoning what little courage remained to him through sheer desperation, Karto got to his feet. He leaped over a pool of foul-smelling red water creeping in from the kitchen, felt for the front door, and slipped out of his house. The midday air in Sukamerta stung his skin with an unfamiliar heat, but the darkness inside his chest could no longer be warmed by sunlight.
He wasted no time. Karto ran along the rice-field embankment, avoiding the suspicious looks of villagers who had begun whispering along the roadside. His footsteps tore through gaps in the undergrowth until he set foot once more at the border of Penjalin Forest.
The ancient forest welcomed him with an even darker atmosphere. The morning fog had never truly lifted; it had condensed into a layer of cold vapor hanging thickly between the bamboo trees and enormous coils of rattan. The incense scent that usually rose from the shaman's hut was now mixed with a sharp, fishy odor—the exact same smell as the wet blood from the jar in Karto's house.
Karto broke through a line of tall grass and reached the yard of Mbah Jambrong's hut. But the sight before him brought him to an abrupt halt.
The hut's plank door had been torn from its hinges and lay shattered on the wet ground, as though struck by tremendous physical force. Thick black smoke billowed from gaps in the thatched roof, carrying the smell of soot and burning flesh.
“Mbah Jambrong!” Karto shouted, slipping into the hut's dim interior with a sickle gripped in his hand.
The inside of the hut was in complete disarray. The clay bowls where the shaman burned offerings had been smashed to pieces. Red candles had melted into slick puddles across the floor, and the incense brazier had toppled over, scattering embers that slowly died beneath a wash of cloudy liquid.
Amid the destruction, Mbah Jambrong sat cross-legged. But his position was strange. The shaman's head drooped dramatically backward, wrenching his neck into an unnatural angle, as though an invisible hand were forcing his head up to stare at the hut's ceiling.
Karto stepped closer, his chest pounding violently. “Mbah...?”
Mbah Jambrong did not move, but his cloudy eyes, bulging wide, suddenly flicked sharply toward Karto. Thick, blackish-red fluid oozed from between his darkened lips and crawled down his chin.
“You... came back, Karto...” The shaman's voice no longer boomed with its usual resonance. It sounded fractured, like the breath of a severe asthma sufferer on the brink of death.
“What happened here, Mbah?!” Karto knelt a meter from where the shaman sat. “My house... the water in the kitchen turned to blood! And Mbah... you lied about Marni! Who was Marni really?! Why did her spirit call this a sin of yours?!”
Mbah Jambrong gave a short laugh. It ended in a violent cough that sprayed spots of thick blood across his sarong.
“You... don't understand anything, Karto,” Mbah Jambrong whispered, his eyes trembling as he endured unbearable pain. “Marni... didn't die of an ordinary fever. She... was a vessel. A vessel I made to contain my black magic...”
Karto's blood suddenly seemed to freeze. “A vessel?”
“This red magic... needs a container,” the shaman continued through a rasping throat. “Three days ago... when she was dying... I sealed her soul by wrapping a red burial-shroud tie around her neck before they covered her with earth. That red cord wasn't an ordinary wealth talisman... it was the binding of her sin and her magic! I needed someone foolish and greedy like you... to cut the bond from her body...”
“So...” Karto's eyes widened as he realized the horrifying truth behind the trap. “You deliberately told me to dig up her grave... so her magic could escape?!”
“So her magic... could move...” Mbah Jambrong smiled hideously, exposing his bloody gums. “That red cord now belongs to you, Karto. Every time that Red Pocong comes to strangle you... it isn't trying to kill you... it's planting its curse and magic inside your body! You are Marni's new vessel for vengeance!”
“You bastard!” Karto screamed, thrusting his sickle toward the shaman's neck. “Take this magic out of me, Mbah! Do it now or I'll cut your throat!”
Mbah Jambrong showed not the slightest fear as the sickle's blade pressed against his wrinkled skin. Instead, he closed his eyes and let blood continue to flow from his nose and ears.
“It's... too late...” Mbah Jambrong whispered. “Your blood merged with the cord's fibers when you cut it in the grave. Marni's spirit won't stop... until your neck snaps and the red cord is tying her shroud again beneath the earth.”
Suddenly, a fierce wind tore through the shattered walls of the hut. The sound of wet cloth dragging could be heard again outside in the yard.
Scrrrt... scrrrt... scrrrt...
A suffocating chill rushed inside, snuffing out the last embers in the brazier. Mbah Jambrong suddenly began convulsing violently. Both hands clutched his own chest as though his heart were being forcibly ripped out from within.
“She... has come to collect the first payment...” Mbah Jambrong shrieked, his eyes bulging outward.
Karto stepped back in terror when he saw Mbah Jambrong's old body rise several inches above the mat where he sat, pulled by an unseen supernatural force. From between the hut's wooden wall slats, strands of blood-red fibers crawled inside like wild worms, winding tightly around the old shaman's wrists, legs, and neck.
“Mbah!” Karto cried.
Mbah Jambrong had no time to make another sound. The red fibers yanked his body brutally backward until it slammed into the hut's main support post. Crack! The sound of his neck bones breaking rang out through the forest's silence. The shaman's body went limp, his cloudy white eyes still staring at Karto with the last frozen remnants of terror.
Through the smoke billowing across the hut's yard, a pocong wrapped in a dirt-stained, shabby burial shroud stood rigidly. Its face concealed beneath dull burial cloth slowly lifted, staring straight at Karto, who stood frozen inside the hut.
The bruised ligature around Karto's neck suddenly throbbed violently, spreading excruciating pain that forced him to his knees as he fought back a scream.
Karto knew the shaman he had sought for help had been killed by his own curse. Now there was no barrier or incantation standing between him and the Red Pocong demanding repayment. With the last of his strength, Karto let go of his sickle, turned, and ran as fast as he could, leaving Penjalin Forest as the darkness of night began to close in.
Karto's feet pounded uncontrollably against the forest's wet soil. Thorny rattan branches clawed at his arms and body, tearing his worn striped lurik shirt, but the pain of those scratches was nothing compared to the burning ache in his neck. The image of Mbah Jambrong's broken neck and bulging eyes continued to haunt his vision, eroding the last scraps of sanity he possessed.
By the time he reached the forest's edge, night had completely enveloped Sukamerta Village. There was no wind, no chirping crickets; the silence settling over the night was not natural silence, but the kind deliberately created to clear a path for supernatural things.
Karto ran through the darkness of the village lane toward his house. His frantic thoughts urged him to take the black cloth pouch containing the red cord and throw it as far away as possible—to the river, into a ravine, or into a fire until it became ash. But when he shoved open his rickety front door, he discovered that the curse was not as simple as throwing away a piece of cloth.
His front door flew open without needing to be pushed hard. Inside, the atmosphere felt even denser. The fishy smell of blood that had previously settled in the kitchen now spread throughout the entire room, overpowering the smell of wet earth.
Karto groped his way toward the wooden table in the middle of the room, where he had left a matchbox. His fingers trembled so violently they nearly crushed the little wooden box, but he managed to light a match. The flame slowly came alive, casting a flickering yellow glow.
Karto's eyes widened.
On the wooden table before him lay the black cloth pouch tied with seven-colored thread—the same pouch Mbah Jambrong had originally placed on the high shelf. It was now lying directly in front of him. The pouch was neatly tied, as though a hand had just set it there again after Karto fled the forest.
“No... no...” Karto whispered hysterically. “I didn't touch you... I didn't bring you here!”
He held the match to the edge of the black pouch. Karto intended to burn it right there. The flame caught the black cloth, producing tiny red sparks. But instead of burning to ash, the pouch released thick smoke that smelled of charred flesh and absorbed the flame until it went out instantly. The cloth remained intact, without even a scorch mark.
A soft, cold laugh echoed through the bamboo walls of his house. A woman's laugh. Marni's voice.
Karto... you've already signed it...
The voice crawled directly into his mind, cutting away the distance between his ears and his brain.
You wanted money... you wanted dignity... and Mbah Jambrong gave it to you by sacrificing me... Now you own his magic... you own his sin...
“I didn't know!” Karto shouted toward the darkness in the corner of the room, tears running down his dirty cheeks. “Mbah Jambrong told me to do it! I only wanted to escape poverty! I didn't know you were killed for this magic!”
Ignorance is no excuse for stealing the cord that binds my soul... the voice whispered again, closer now, as though its owner were standing directly behind Karto, pressing her damp burial shroud against his neck. Cut your own throat... and return the red cord to my grave... or I will cut it for you...
A piercing chill seized Karto's throat again. This time, he could see with his own eyes as strands of red thread emerged from behind the black cloth pouch on the table. They moved on their own like thirsty plant roots, crawling up along the table leg, climbing Karto's clothes, and winding tightly around his wrist.
The grip of the red fibers felt like barbed wire pulled taut. The skin on Karto's wrist peeled away, spraying fresh blood that the red fibers immediately absorbed. The fibers, once a deep red, now seemed to glow brightly, as though Karto's blood were providing fresh nourishment to the curse trapped inside them.
Karto screamed in pain. He tried to pull his hand away, but the red fibers dragged him forcibly toward the black pouch.
At the same moment, the front door of his house was struck from outside.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
“Karto! Open the door, Karto!” a sharp voice shouted from outside. It was Pak RT's voice, accompanied by the cries of several villagers carrying torches.
“We know you're in there!” another villager shouted. “The village hunting dogs found a trail of blood from Marni's grave to your house! Open the door or we'll break it down!”
Karto was thrown into a panic. Trapped between the supernatural terror of the Red Pocong and the threat of the villagers' furious demands for justice, his chest felt ready to explode. If the villagers broke down the door and saw the red fibers wrapped around his hand and the blood scattered everywhere, they would beat him to death on the spot.
“Karto!” The pounding on the door grew more brutal, and the bamboo door planks began to crack.
With the last of his strength and pain burning through his entire arm, Karto grabbed the black cloth pouch with his free left hand. The moment his fingers closed around it, the red fibers around his wrist suddenly loosened and shrank back into the black cloth, as though responding to the touch of their new owner.
Karto shoved the black pouch deep into his pants, then leaped toward the back window, which faced a small river and a dark banana grove.
The villagers broke down the front door just as Karto threw himself out the window.
“There he is! Karto! He ran out back!” the villagers shouted in the middle of Sukamerta's night. Torchlight flared, casting shadows that chased Karto as he staggered through the darkness.
Karto ran without direction along the wet riverbank, panting heavily, blood pouring from the wounds on his hand and neck. Inside his pants pocket, the Pocong Cord felt warmer and heavier, pulsing in time with his panicked heartbeat.
Mbah Jambrong's pact had claimed the shaman's life, but for Karto, the red cord's snare had now locked his fate tight—a never-ending flight from the pursuing villagers and the threat of death at the hands of the Red Pocong's restless spirit, which would never stop demanding his body.