Four years ago, my church organised a trip to Genting Highlands. At that point of time, i wasn’t interested in going, as I am, basically, not a religious person, and I did not want to be bored by a series of prayers or preaches made by the pastor. However, as my parents have already paid for my share, I therefore had no choice but to agree. My only consolation was that a group of my church friends and my brother, suffering from the same plight as me, were also going.

I assumed that we would be staying at one of the finer hotels in Genting but that however, was not to be the case. Our place of accommodation turned out to be at some kind of private apartments. I can’t remember the name of the apartments, but I remember that these apartments are grouped in a cluster and each block is identified with an alphabetical letter. The exterior of the apartments looked rather presentable, however once you stepped into the interior, you will discover the entire corridor filled with all kinds of insects and mind you, these insects are not of the ordinary kind. Some of them were enormous, triple the size of their original state! The staircase landing was even worse, with the entire floor completely covered with insects!

Luckily, the interior of the apartment wasn’t too bad. Though a tad shabby, only the occasional insect could be found. However, the apartment had this eerie feel that i just couldn’t put my finger on. My family and I shared this apartment with my pastor and his wife, and it wasn’t a problem as there were three bedrooms, with two single sized beds in two rooms and the master bedroom was offered to them. My brother and I, shared a room.

On my first day there, we had a series of programmes lined up for the adults and the kids and being teenagers, my friends and me do not belong to either of the groups. Thus, we had to make a choice between the two groups. We chose the kid’s category, popular choice, could sneak off anytime we wish to, and I remembered sneaking off with my good friend L, back to my apartment for a rest. L decided to take a bath, and I took an afternoon nap. I jumped into my bed, and at that point of time, what I didn’t realise then, was that in the morning, after checking in, I had already slept in my bed. Yet now, my bed was made.

The rest of the days passed by uneventfully, until the third day, which happened to be the last day of the retreat. My friends, my brother, and I, decided to gather together at L’s apartment. We basically just sat around in a circle and chatted. Pretty soon, we started telling ghost stories. As the momentum of the stories build on, we started getting spooked. But it was quite all right, until we noticed Jason staring intently at a stool. We interrupted him and he told us that he noticed the chair moving. In response, all six of us screamed and fled from the room.

We relocated to another bedroom. All seven cowards huddled on a bed. No one dared to step out of the room. After quite some time, one of my friends simply had to go relieve himself. He pleaded for someone to accompany him, everyone refused. In the end, he had no choice but to go alone. Less than five minutes later, he came dashing back. Apparently, while relieving himself, he saw an apparition of a woman slowly appearing before him. By then, he had already finished his business and dashed out into the safety of our room. We were all so terrified that no one was brave enough to make the trip back to his or her own apartment.

Nothing else happened, until in the morning, L’s father, the equivalent of a ghost, rung up, to check on his daughters. L’s mother said that she would be coming over soon, to help them pack up. On hearing this, all the ‘extras’ bolted back to their apartment as quick as lightning.

Upon returning to my room, once again i realised that the beds were made, when I knew for a fact that I had made a mess of my bed, the night before. My brother was the first to point this out. Obviously by now, I had already assumed that housekeep was damn bloody efficient. Pretty soon, the retreat came to an end, we left and arrived home safe and sound. However, the story doesn’t end here.

I related the experience to my mum, she listened for a while then told me this: On the first night, the pastor’s wife was woken up by a noise of someone knocking on the door and calling out, ‘mummy, mummy…’ She then assumed that the voice belonged either to me or my brother looking for my mother, dismissed it, and went back to sleep. The next day, she related this incident to my mother and asked her what the commotion was about, my mother replied that none of us looked for her at all the night before (I can confirm this). Not only did the pastor’s wife had such an experience, but apparently some of the other church members putting up in the other block had also had some spooky encounters. Some of them would wake up in the middle of the night to the chatter of voices, and there was one who even spotted a small human figure running across the room. Someone claimed that this small figure and the chatter of voices belonged to the ‘little people.’ I have never heard of the ‘little people’ before but I assume that this term ‘little people’ actually refers to leprechuans.

After my mother finished her story, someone (either my brother or me) asked her, who always arranged the bed for us? Her reply stunned us both. She claimed to have never arranged the bed for us at all. And apparently, there was also no housekeeping services offered.