L

em>Like the humans they scare, ghosts — or more accurately, ghost stories — evolve. Some last for centuries and others keep changing as generations go by. However, every once in a while, when the clouds shroud the moon and the air is heavy, new fiends pop up ... right behind you.

Below are a few contemporary ghosts that have popped up in the capital and spooked residents.

The veiled visitor

In the early 1990s, Jakartans whispered stories of a wandering shrouded ghost (pocong) who would bring death to those it encountered. The shrouded ghost of a young girl, the story went, was a victim of her father’s dabbling in black magic.

Her father was a thief who used a cloak made from stolen corpses’ shrouds. The cloak was said to give him invisibility.

One day, the girl mistook the cloth and wore it as veil, turning her into a shrouded ghost. She then wandered the streets knocking on doors seeking help from people to take the veil off her.

Alas, those who opened the door never survived the encounter — an eternal condemnation for the girl. A ghost that leaves no witness behind; it was a perfect spook tactic.

The icky bloodsucker

A haunting personal-hygiene campaign arose around the turn of the century when Jakartan girls were told to properly dispose of their used sanitary pads unless they wanted a visit from a blood-sucking ghost.

Girls failing to make a proper disposal would be tracked down by the ghost through their thoughtlessly discarded blood. The vampire would come in the dead of the night to suck them dry.

“It’s part ghost story and part ‘gross’ story,” said Dian Lubis, 27, reminiscing on the urban legend.

The squashed ghoul

There was actually a time when Jakartan teenagers would take a deep breath and brace themselves for a trip to, you wouldn’t have guessed it, the mall. It was not the mall itself that spooked them (although it wouldn’t hurt if it did); they were afraid of the haunted elevators.

They believed that a certain Mister Gepeng haunted elevators after being crushed to death in one. With courage shrinking at the thought of the bloodied flattened ghost, teenagers in the mid 1990s preferred to take the escalators, or even more exhaustingly, the stairs.

Gepeng is Indonesian for flat, the origin of the honorific title of ‘Mister’, however, was never clear.

“I remember we were so afraid that we didn’t even dare go to the malls’ rest rooms alone,” Rita Nirmala, 29, recounting the period. “We were scared in brightly lit, noisy, air-conditioned buildings. Those were the days,” she said.

The corpse-washing crone

Late last year, Jakartans took to the Internet to share their fear of Nenek Gayung (Granny Ladle). Nenek Gayung was reported to roam the city, often in broad daylight, carrying a ladle and mat, wearing an all-black traditional outfit.

Those who were attracted to the sight of the elderly woman and unwisely chose to greet her by asking “Where are you going Grandma?” would be sorry.

Nenek Gayung, in a shrill cold voice, would answer “to give you a bath,” in reference to the Islamic ritual of bathing a corpse before burial. Staying true to her words, anyone asking the question would get the answer and die the next day.

Nenek Gayung ultimately received celebrity status after being featured in an eponymous horror movie in April, in which however she wore white.

The half-naked half-man

It takes an extraordinary type of poltergeist to create a city-wide panic. Jakarta witnessed this in the mid 2000s when a creature believed to be half-man, half-beast and wearing green underpants stalked residential areas, attacking people and raping women.

Kolor Ijo (Green underpants), who most imagined was wearing boxer shorts rather than briefs (because of course Indonesian men never wear briefs), led to neighborhoods setting up special patrol teams and residents placing talismans to ward him off.

Television crews and tabloid newshounds, naturally, joined the hunt. The city police later intervened and arrested a man who admitted he was part of gang of burglars who wore green underwear during their crimes. Police confiscated a pair of his blue-green boxer shorts.

Others, however, did not believe it was the end of the story. — JP