“Are you sure this is the right house?” Dust filled the air as we looked around the house. My sister, Esther, let out a long sigh.
“Sure is,” she answered.
I disdainfully shook my head, and we both entered the building. To my surprise, this was decent for an accommodation in a busy city like Hanoi. The one thing that stood out to us was this eerie feeling about this house. It was explainable because it had been abandoned for years, or at least felt like it. Esther put her bags down and contemplated while her eyes darted around the vicinity.
“Do you want to make a bet?” Her eyes fixated on me.
“On?” I raised a brow.
“Haunted or not,” she giggled.
“15 bucks, not haunted,” I said, taking out my wallet and giving it to her.
“Mine’s 30,” she said, taking the money and putting it inside the wallet.
“You sure have been watching a lot of scary movies.”
“Yeah, right, says the one who is about to lose 15 dollars.”
“Oh, about money, remind me to go to the bank tomorrow? We have to change our cash into Vietnam dong.”
My name is Rachel, and Esther is my sister. We are a pair of twins that just graduated from college, and until we decide whether to pursue a master’s degree or not, we are taking a gap year in the beautiful land of Vietnam—Our homeland. I’m going to intern in a local hospital where my uncle is a chief, and Esther has gotten herself a temporary contract at a nearby elementary school as an English teacher. Coincidentally enough, our mom’s friend, Mrs. Huyền had an unused house in the city we’re moving into, and she is letting us rent it for a very negotiable price. Of course, we took it. Our grandmother’s house is in a suburban area, and we will not waste that much money on an apartment.
The house was… okay. It’s a bit rundown and dust has wrapped everything in its veil of time. A very rotten smell lingered through the area. It was obvious that the place had been abandoned for years.
“This is going to be a long day,” Esther said, stretching her back before setting her eyes again on me, and we exchanged a glance.
To talk about this house, it had this vintage vibe compared to modern standards. A vintage vibe set its eyes on almost everything (besides the dust). Everything was old-fashioned, too old-fashioned not to be noticed. It had three floors. The first floor contained a decent kitchen, a vast living room, and a storage room. Next to the kitchen is a staircase to the second floor. Three rooms roamed on this floor, and since we decided to sleep together in one room, both of us will have an office for ourselves. And finally, the third floor. Vietnamese have a rich culture of worshipping ancestors, it is common to have an altar room inside your house. It also included a balcony with drying racks and a washing machine. A lock isolated the room from everything else. We had no interest in that room, and it would be very weird to snitch around someone’s religious place, so we’d only use the balcony for our laundry.
The cleaning took almost half of our day. We didn’t have that many belongings, most of our pieces of stuff were clothes, books, and a bunch of files specified in our fields. The house already had all of the furniture. I heard from my mom that before Mrs. Huyền bought this place, it belonged to a doctor since the old days, and she stayed there for a while before moving out a few years ago, so the interior decorations are in very good shape. But there was something I didn’t understand. We cleaned the house thoroughly, but that rancid smell still lingered very faintly from somewhere else.
Esther assured me that this house had been isolated for a few years and it would take a few more days for the smell to dissipate. But my instinct told me the smell came from a different place. I threw it in the back of my head. Maybe she’s right, I’m just worrying too much.
The cleaning ended after I changed the drape of the bed. The house was brand new now and we could finally move in. We took a clean bath, changed into normal clothes and went out to eat. On the way home, Esther kept ranting about how that bowl of Phở was overpriced and that we should have gone to another store, but I was too tired to say anything. We got back home and went straight to bed.
And then the dream happened.
I stood outside the house. The exact house we had just moved into, but something was off. It was brand new like it had just been built recently, rather than having that vintage vibe it had before. I could not move but could only stand there, and at the corner of my eye, I spotted something—someone. A cranky old lady slowly crept towards me, a leaf hat covered her face and that same smell—that odd scent from the house—was lingering around her. I could not move. I could not even do anything but stand still like a statue while that woman was still marching towards me. Then she looked up.
Her skin was riddled with wrinkles, freckles, and odd spots, black and white. Like her skin was peeling off. And god, the smell. That horrible, rancid smell continued to linger around my nose and then the witch started smiling. A smile that went from ear to ear.
“You’re staying at my house,” she laughed. “Foolish bitch.”
My mouth was sealed shut.
“If my girls were still alive, maybe they’d look like you.”
I continued looking down at that dame, trembling while frantically moving my eyes.
“Just give me your body…” She raised her bony finger towards me.
And then Esther woke me up.
Sweat covered my body, and I breathed heavily, almost hyperventilating. But then I looked at Esther, she was also frightened.
“W-What’s wrong, Esty?” I asked. “Did you also have a-”
“Shhh!” She put a finger over her lips. “Do you hear it?”
“Hear… what?”
“That,” she said, pointing at the door.
Then I heard a knock, accompanied by children’s laughter. Another knock was heard, and then an eerie, high-pitched voice spoke from the other side of the door.
“Sao hai cô không nấu cơm cho chúng con?” (Why didn’t you cook for us?)
Esther and I exchanged a nervous glance.
“Chúng con đói lắm cô ơi, lạnh lắm cô ơi.” (We’re so, so hungry and cold.)
I felt Esther’s hand gripping mine as she started breathing heavily while clenching the sheets. Something is out there. Something that is not human, something that is going to kill us if we don’t do anything. That wooden door cannot shield us from whatever is out there.
“Vì là hai cô không nấu cơm cho chúng con…” (Since you didn’t cook for us…)
We’re dead.
We’re fucking dead.
“Nên là… chúng con ăn HAI CÔ được không ạ?” (Can we eat YOU TWO instead?)
All we could hear was laughter and the door knob slowly turned.
Our new house has rules to survive—We did not know that they existed.