(Changi Chalet is another well known haunted place in
Singapore.) Three of my girlfriends and I booked into a chalet in
Changi - this was many years ago and those chalets, the old
bungalow types, are not there anymore - and that was when we had
the fright of our lives. We aren't superstitious people and since
that incident we have tried to explain away what happened, but that
night you couldn't blame four teenage girls for being scared to be
alone in a chalet in lonely Changi with hardly anyone else
around.
I remember that we asked the keeper if the place was haunted,
because it looked so creepy from the outside. He never made any
reply, making it all the more creepier. It made us a bit more sorry
that we hadn't invited any boys along to stay with us - this was
supposed to be a sort of pajama party. Anyway, we managed to settle
in after a while - no barbecue, we had decided that by consensus,
and we were starting to get chatty and beginning to make some noise
when one of the girls said she heard the front doorbell ring.
From where we were in the living room we could see the porch
outside. There was no one there so we thought she must have been
mistaken. She too said, yes, we were right, she must have imagined
it. We were chatting away again, chewing the cud, rather loudly I
might add, when she said, "There it goes again." This time we were
all quiet and looking hard at the porch from where we were. There
certainly was no one there. We could see the porch clearly Mom
where we were. If there were anybody out there ringing the
doorbell, we should have been able to see the person for sure. So
what could she have heard? Then all of us heard it. Loud and clear.
It was the doorbell. One of the girls screamed but we quickly
hushed her. Then we heard it again, and again and again, each time
getting louder and more insistent as if someone was angry and
demanding to be let in.
We didn't know what to do. Everybody froze. All our eyes were fixed
on the empty porch where the buzzer was. After a little more of the
insistent ringing, the bell stopped. Then we heard it. The back
door was creaking open. All of us screamed and ran out through the
front door. We didn't stop running until we reached the next
chalet. We banged on the door, thumping away without caring about
anybody, afraid like hell. The man who opened the door was in his
pajamas and he looked a bit nervous. All of us pushed past him and
stumbled into the living room. There were four other men there, all
of them also like the one who had opened the door. They were seated
around the table and they clearly had been gambling. "Uncle,
uncle," we cried, explaining what had happened and begging to be
allowed to stay in this chalet with them for the night. They looked
at each other as if they thought we were mad, but finally one of
them said, okay, we could stay.
I can tell you, that night we hardly got any sleep. When one of the
girls wanted to go to the loo, she forced me to go along and stand
guard outside. From where I was, I could hear her singing Amazing
Grace to give herself courage while doing her business.