There were about thirty to forty people at Tamara’s Class of ’98 reunion party that night. Everyone from Class ’98 was there, including the teachers. Although the hall of Tamara, the little Miss Richie Rich of Class ’98, was big, people still had to stand very close to one another and shout to make themselves heard. If it weren’t for the large buffet table (which was taking up most of the space) and the loud Bon Jovi music, the atmosphere wouldn’t be so appalling. Many were grinning, showing capped white teeth. Most of them had a cigarette in the left hand and a drink or a plate of food in the right, and there were quite a number of children running around the place, probably belonging to a few of the married ex-students of Class ’98. It was a wonder those kids did not crash into one another or any of the adults or causing the spilling of drinks and flying of shrimp cocktails.
Suzie moved away from her crowd. She wasn’t much of a chatty person anyway. She headed for the small bar in the far corner, and when she got there, she sat down on a bar-stool and faced the hall. She ordered a Martini and watched the ex-students—her ex-classmates—of Class ’98, chitchatting away without noticing her at all while taking food from part-time waiters and waitresses from some of the most high-classed catering companies money can buy, waiting on them hand and foot just to earn a couple of bucks to pay for their tuition fees. Typical for the richest girl of Class ’98 to be hiring help for everything she did.
It’s not surprising that no one noticed her. Suzie could be considered the Ghost of Class ’98—she was tiny and timid, with long hair down to her waist. She was very fair, almost going pale, and the only thing that ever gave her face any colour was the pink blusher she wiped across her cheek. She was dressed in black, like Morticia in the Addams family, and she looked like her too, minus the make-up, that is. People barely acknowledged her unless she at least whispers a little, then they’ll raise their eyebrows and say, “Where did she come from?”
“Well, well, well, if it ain’t our old friend Suzie the Ghost! Got room for us?”
Suzie looked up and saw Tamara with a number of other girls. The Barbie Girls, they were known to everyone in Class ‘98. She nodded and they all sat beside her. Tamara put her arm over Suzie’s shoulder.
“Having a great time? You should be glad I remembered and invited you. It’s been a while since I’ve seen you.”
“Thank you, Tam,” Suzie replied timidly. Oh, how she envied Tamara and the other girls. They’re all robust and lively, full of colour (not to mention Tamara being rich). How she wished she could be like them, that is if she weren’t so busy trying to avoid them and their possible ragging.
“If you are trying to dress up like Morticia, Suzie, you should’ve decorated your face like her as well,” Janet, one of the girls, remarked as she tossed her red hair and laughed. “You look like Morticia who just had a nasty cold!”
Sorry I tried, Suzie thought acidly, fighting the urge to splash her glass of Martini on her foundation-covered face.
“Hush, Janet, that’s not nice!” Another girl, Diana defended her. She’s very sweet, this Diana, despite the fact that she was one of the Barbie Girls herself. “Don’t mind her, Suzie. You look great.”
“Thanks,” Suzie replied. She hated make-up. Really, she did. It was an effort for her just to put a few lousy dabs of blusher.
“Is that all you can say, Suzie?” Tamara tried to make the conversation friendlier and clapped her back. “Dang, you haven’t changed since we last saw you—or even remembered you. How are you doing these few years? Doing college? University? Married?”
“No. I work in a nursery,” Suzie lowered her head, the cold glass of Martini numbing her fingers.
“Oh, babysitting children, eh? I bet it’s tiring, having to run around meeting all those little brats’ whim and fancy.”
“It was OK.”
“That’s a sweet job, Suzie. Gives you preparations before-hand when you heve kids of your own someday,” Diana complimented.
“Yeah,” Janet snorted, “if she ever gets married!”
“Janet, don’t!” Diana frowned at her.
“Hey, it’s a fact. She’s been in high school for years and no guys had ever set eyes on her. I wouldn’t be caught dead a spinster if I were her!” Janet’s a very outspoken girl. She couldn’t control her own mouth, let alone others.
Tamara could see that Suzie was in the verge of breaking down, so she quickly changed the subject, “So, Suzie. I heard that you’re on your own now. That is so cool. I mean, so much freedom, having everything to yourself, no worries at all. Where do you live?”
“An apartment at Loanes Street,” Suzie cheered up a little. She sometimes wished Janet would just shut up.
“Loanes Street?! Isn’t that apartment supposed to be haunted?!” Janet was at it again. “You gotta be crazy to go on living there!”
“That’s just rumours, Janet,” Tamara groaned in exasperation. “What’s really like up there, Suzie? Still rearing fishies as pets?”
Suzie almost dropped her Martini. ‘Fish’ was the lat thing she ever wanted to hear. Janet smirked when she noticed her going pale.
“See? See how jumpy Suzie is? I told you that place is haunted, especially the drain!”
“And what do you know about the Loanes Apartment, huh?” Diana challenged. She bet Janet was just all talk, but Janet proved her wrong.
“Oh, I know dozens about the apartment, I do! Particularly the drain. The drain is the spookiest of all the hauntings in the apartment. Some people say they can hear a woman screaming for help with her husband swearing in the background, some say they can see a dangling corpse hanging from a fan or something and some say they could see and hear ghosts roaming around the corridors and moaning in front of their faces, but none is compared to the drain. No, none can be compared!”
“Is that true, Suzie?” Diana asked Suzie. Suzie remained silent.
“Oh Christ, Janet! Stop the dilly-dallying and tell us about the drain, if you’re not trying to be hogwash!” Tamara barked at her outspoken friend impatiently.
“I’m not trying to be hogwash! It’s true! My brother-in-law, before he married my sister, used to live there and he had a score to tell!”
“Well, what is it?” One of the girls in the group asked, humouring Janet.
“He said that the drain in the apartment is haunted. Every night, and I mean every night, at exactly 8 o’clock, you can hear loud splashes in the drain, like a fish doing jumps over the water or something, and the splashes are very loud. Almost abnormal. And it goes on and on throughout the night. Sometimes you can still hear those splashes at the most eerie hours, but it always start at 8 o’clock at night, no matter what.
“Then came a night when he couldn’t stand it anymore. My brother-in-law, together with his roommate, went down to investigate. They went near the drain that was making all the loud splashes and guess what? The sound of the splashes was there, but there’s no water in the drain! I tell you, the drain was as dry as the desert! Sure, there should be a little water enough to wet the whole darn drain but he swore there was no water at that side of the drain! Yet the sound of splashes was so loud, and it came from there!
“Of course, my brother-in-law refused to believe it at first. He thought they were echoes from another side of the drain. So he turned around to check out the other side. Suddenly he heard a gurgling noise, like someone was drowning, and when he turned around, he saw his roommate lying on the solid ground, dead and as pale as a ghost. Forensics have checked out his roommate’s body and reported, reluctantly, that the cause of death was drowning. Drowning! Could you imagine? It was an uproar, I tell you. After that incident, with involvement from the police and all, a massive group of house-moving occurred. A lot of residents decided there and then that they’re moving. I’m sure that happened when you’re still living there, right, Suzie?”
Suzie nodded. She swallowed her Martini all in one go, which was something she had never done before.
“See? I told you it was true! I’m no hogwash!” Janet exclaimed triumphantly. She even ordered a Bloody Mary to congratulate herself with.
“Then why didn’t you move? Why didn’t you leave that place?” Diana asked, concerned.
“Because it’s my fault,” Suzie replied after a very long silence.
“Excuse me?” Tamara raised an eyebrow.
“I caused the haunting.”
Janet almost choked in her Bloody Mary. All the girls looked at her as if she had just made a bizarre announcement about the end of the world. Suzie ignored them. She ordered another Martini and sipped it.
“What do you mean you caused the haunting?” Tamara asked Suzie, trying to check if she had lost a few marbles.
“Like I said, I made the haunting happened. If it weren’t for me, this wouldn’t have happened.”
“What? What did you do?” Diana asked. She was getting worried. She had never heard Suzie spoke more than a sentence before. Janet thought she was getting drunk with all the Martini she’s been drinking.
“You mean you rigged those splashing sounds and scared my brother-in-law’s roommate to death?”
“No. It’s not that.” It was surprising that Suzie didn’t jump up at that remark.
“Then what happened?” Tamara was getting impatient.
“You know I have a letch for fish. I adore fish. If possible, I would love to collect every species there is in the whole world and keep them in exotic tanks and just sit there and watch them swim around.”
“Then that’s not a problem.”
“That’s a very big problem,” Suzie said, anxious. “I haven’t got the money and none of my fish I’ve kept survive more than a month.”
“Good Lord!” Diana exclaimed, cupping her mouth.
“I had 4 beautiful goldfish once, and each of them died, one per day. The last goldfish survived for 2 more days before dying abruptly.”
“That’s terrible,” Tamara said.
“Bummer!” Janet remarked.
“A month later, I received 2 carps from my friend, a male and a female. No sooner I got those carps than later that evening, the male died.”
“Bullshit! That can’t be true! You’re pulling our legs!” Janet snorted. Her eyes were glazed by the drink, but her mouth was as outspoken as ever.
“No. it’s true. It died right at that evening. I didn’t want to see the female suffer the same fate, so I brought the bucket down to the drain and poured her and the dead male down. I know the drain might lead somewhere down to a sewer or something, where she might survive just for a while. I just poured and left with looking, so I didn’t know whether she made it or not,” Suzie took a long pull of her Martini after she finished her story.
“Good heavens! Suzie, how could you?” Diana was almost in tears. She’s a sweet girl, and any cruelty would drive her into a bucketful of tears.
“Looks like the drain has told you whether she made it or not,” Janet grinned and ordered a vodka next.
“I had no choice,” Suzie said quietly.
“You know what I think? I think that fish is trying to draw your attention. She wants to lure you so that she can kill you, just like she did to the roommate.”
Suzie kept silent. She finished her Martini and grabbed her coat. She made up an excuse, thanked Tamara for the lovely party and left. The girls just sat there and watched her leave, completely dumbstruck.
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SPLISH! SPLOSH! SPLASH!
The splashes have been going on for hours now. Suzie glanced at her clock. 2 a.m. Suzie drew her blanket nearer to her chin. The splashes were threatening her—demanding her, to be exact—to go down and check it out. It was calling her, wanting her to go down to meet the doom that she deserved. Suzie had brought herself to get used to the splashing, but after the story Janet told the other girls, she was getting goosebumps all over again.
Suddenly she heard a series of tiny jingles. Suzie opened her tightly shut eyes and saw a crystal bell hanging from a silver string on her window sill. It was jingling and swaying, as if the wind was blowing at it from inside the room. It was pointing towards the direction of the drain, jingling ever so softly, like melodic church psalms.
Suzie knew that in a way, she had killed the female carp and she deserved to be punished for that. She knew that the dead fish was seeking revenge upon her. She was scared. Throughout those nights, although she told herself to get used to it, deep down inside her, she was scared stiff. Now, after listening to those jingling of the crystal bell, she knew she couldn’t hide anymore. She knew that this day would come. She knew she was going to die in the fins of a very vengeful fish sooner or later.
Most of all, she was somehow ready to face it.
She removed the bell from the sill and let it guide her. The bell continued jingling and pointing to the front, guiding her way. Surprisingly, Suzie wasn’t scared or shocked by this mysterious bell. She wasn’t the least bit curious about the way the bell acted. She just accepted whatever was happening to her now and let the bell lead the way.
Soon, Suzie found herself standing in front of the famous haunted drain.
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