1 01 - In the Beginning
So, in this age of information, any tom, dick and harry have a mobile phone, camera, and social media accounts, it gets hard to keep things under wraps. My job is to keep the unsuspecting public, meaning you from ever finding out about things in the dark that go boo!
This is my story, my diary, my legacy. If the government ever finds this, I probably get locked up somewhere, with the keys lost. I don't mind if they exile me to an island, like Sentosa, for that place is quite luxurious.
Now, the country I was born and raised in, turns out to be so much more than what I thought it to be. With overpriced properties and the most expensive cars ever in the whole world, the beautiful garden city, Singapore shows to the world as one of the top city states ever. But beneath the exterior, darkness lurks.
It all began in the late 1840s, when a British Surveyor, John Thomson blew the Dragon's Teeth Gate found near the present day site of Labrador Park, into pieces while trying to widen the new harbor's entrance.
Oh boy, widen it did, a freaking Hellgate opened and all hell broke loose. It took the British hundreds of East India Company sepoys lives before they push back the monsters back into the gate. Almost an army of native bomohs was needed to seal and close the gate. Imagine using muskets and bayonets against monsters!
The news you see these days, at least half of it is fake news. the 2002 - 2003 SARS outbreak in worldwide? Fake, those are zombies. Yup, kid you not. Fucking zombies. How do I know this? Of course, I know, since I was the one who put a bullet through the head of the infected in Singapore. With a silencer of course. Can't have you know what's happening. Why can't we tell the world and disclose the truth out to the public?
Simple. Fear and belief in the supernatural will only increase the powers of the old ones giving them more hold over our world. Now, we can't have that! So just let the sleeping dogs lay eh?
How did I become a monster hunter, you ask? Well, it's by chance and luck. Now I am part of the ISD, Internal Security Divison of Singapore while before that I was just a normal person like everyone else, working a nine to six job every day.
It happened not long after I got called up for enlistment to National Service. After passing out from basic military training in Tekong island, I was posted to an Air force unit, Field Defense Squadron at Paya Lebar Airbase, where my duties mostly involve the security of the airbase.
Now, most of the top brass knows about supernatural forces in the world, which also, of course, includes the Base commander. But some airbase technicians obviously did not know that. So they accidentally damaged some religious idol that is used to keep some bad things away.
And guess what? That fateful night or morning, since it was around 2 am, I was stationed at a corner of the runway, alone. I should have known something was wrong when the dogs in the K-9 unit started howling one after another, but I was too engrossed playing my Game Boy Advance while the portable radio was playing some non-stop hits.
So, there was this shouting going on, where I came out of the guard post to investigate. I saw in the distance, the dog handler patrolling with his K9 partner near the runway lights, seeming shouting at something. He released his dog only to have his dog cower in fear, but he raised up his weapon.
I heard the shot, echoing down the runway. What the fuck? My brain instantly woke up, I grabbed my walkie-talkie and almost instantly, it blares to life, the sergeant on the other line questioning what is going on.
I remembered yelling something like shots fired into it before seeing a shadow leaped onto the guard and both of them falling down in a heap, the guard dog stayed nearby barking and whimpering at the same time.
That's when I saw a pair of red glowing eyes staring at me from the tangled bodies on the floor. Instantly a chill went down my spine, and I backed off into the guard booth while shouting for reinforcements into the walkie-talkie.
The shadowy figure detached itself from the fallen guard and came into the glare of the spotlights, it looked like someone or something crouching very low on all fours, and it suddenly started crawling towards me rapidly like a giant deformed spider, with its head tilted at an unnatural angle.
I think I screamed like a little girl and slammed the door shut in its face. Well, the wooden door just proved useless, as it smashed its way through, part of its body halfway into the door, its two arms trying to their best to claw at me.
Of course, the first time anyone meets a ghoul is its smell, that thick vomit inducing scent, like the king of all bad breaths hitting at you, I think it has a passive plus 10 aura of smelliness.
Well, I squeezed as back as I could against the wall, the booth is pretty tiny by the way and smash my size 9 combat boots into its face. Luckily it got stuck in the middle of the broken door. I gave it a few more kicks for good measure than I remembered I have a fucking rifle.
I popped the empty mag out from my AR-15, as we are not allowed to load live rounds at any time, dug out my 5 rounds magazine, slammed it in and pulled the charging handle. Muzzle up at the center of mass and I squeezed the trigger.
*Click*
What the fuck! I cursed out loud. I turn, tilt checks my ejection port and saw a round jammed halfway in the feed. Apparently, in my haste and panic, I did not pull the charging handle all the way back before releasing, costing a half feeding of the cartridge, jamming it.
That creature kept flailing around and started tearing gouges into my combat boots and the surrounding walls and floor. It shrieked and blasted me with another wave of ultimate bad breathiness. I popped the mag out and pulled the charging handle several times in quick succession, finally rewarded with the jammed cartridge spinning out of the port, before I slam the mag back in and properly pulling and releasing the handle.
The gunshot in the small enclosed guard booth nearly blew out my eardrums and causing my ears to ring wildly but I did not care, pumping all four shots into the creature, watching its face deformed as a 5.56 mm bullet drilled through its nose and out of its head.
I stood there panting, looking at my shredded pants and boots. I attempted to open the door to get out but with the body blocking the way, I gave up and crawled through the window instead.
I sat there with my hands shaking while waiting for reinforcements to arrive, only to realize that my walkie-talkie was inside the booth and the bloody radio was playing Celine Dion's My Heart Will Go On.
I stood up shakily, to go grab the walkie-talkie, only to see that stuck creature in the door twitching and trying to crawl its way out. I cursed again, and pulls out my last mag, with 25 rounds, taped tightly with plastic and rolls of sticky tape, with government seals for good measure. Apparently, the government doesn't trust kids with guns, thinking about it now, yeah I don't trust kids with guns and live ammunition either!
As I struggled to rip the plastic off the magazine, that thing managed to extract an arm out and was trying to back out of the door. I remembered I have a bayonet and pulled it out. I tried to cut the plastic, with its superbly blunt edge and tip, blame the armorers for not sharpening it. Gave up and instead rammed it down with all my might into the back of the struggling creature.
It shrieks in pain and wriggled like some worm, squirting black blood from the wound, and I felt weirdly satisfied, went back to tearing the plastic with my teeth, finally freeing the plastic from the magazine. The bloody sticky tape glued itself like some lovestruck bitch on my fingers which I just rubbed it off onto my SBO.
In goes the new magazine and I slapped the bolt catch, with the rifle butt tucked snuggly against my shoulder, I riddled the twitching body with all 25 rounds of 5.56 mm in point blank range.
They found me later sitting on the side of the guard booth with spent cartridges littered all over the floor and a dead ghoul, singing and humming along to Celine Dion.
