Chang Whisper

1. Auflage 2021
ISBN: 978-1-9162771-7-5
Verlag: Honford Star
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, 296 Seiten

Victims all describe hearing a voice before they die gruesomely. Sometimes it's singing an old Taiwanese song, sometimes it's in Japanese, and sometimes it's an anguished call for help from a loved one. Can Wu Shih-Sheng, a degenerate taxi driver in Taipei, hunt down the source of the voice that killed his wife before he becomes the next victim? Whisper is a plot-driven, Taiwanese horror story. As well as being a chilling read, Chang Yu-Ko cleverly combines Taiwanese folklore, the Japanese occupation of Taiwan, and the long-term mistreatment of the country's aboriginal people into a story of how the past can still kill.

Chang Yu-Ko was a clinical physician before winning multiple prestigious awards for his television scripts in his mid-twenties. He later turned his hand to fiction and is now regarded as a rising star in Taiwanese literature. Whisper was originally published in Chinese in 2018 and is his English language debut.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Chang, Yu-Ko

Weitere Mitwirkende

Flagg, Roddy

Leseproben

Voice

Is something chewing on my toes?

Must be a cockroach.

Despite such thoughts, Wu Shih-sheng’s mind was numbed by alcohol and the sensation seemed very far away. So he lay there on the cold cement floor, whimpering incoherently and recalling his busybody neighbor knocking on the door a few days back to complain about him dumping rubbish in the street. Shih-sheng had slammed the door shut without responding, unwilling even to waste his time cursing. After all, it wasn’t just his fault, he’d decided. The whole street was a breeding ground for cockroaches. Climb into the open drain running down the middle of the street and have a look if you dare. Cockroach rush hour down there.

Not that you could really call it a street, strictly speaking. There was a sign—STREET 140—but really it was a mere huddle of corrugated iron shacks at the bottom of a hill, with a few excavators and trucks parked nearby. Not that he knew what they were excavating. Perhaps one day soon his shack would be designated an illegal structure and those excavators would come knock it down. They could clean out the cockroach nests at the same time.

Shih-sheng found himself cheered by this train of thought. The very idea of it happening seemed to make life so much easier. Then his left ear picked up a sudden sound of thumping through the cement it was pressed up against.

Ha, they’re coming now. Going to clear the whole shit heap away …

He realized his error when the banging stopped and a gentle breeze blew past the other ear. It’d be that old bitch wife of his.

I know you’re there! What of it?

I see, you can spend all day clearing up their dishes, but you can’t pick up these cans? Fuck …

The floor was littered with the beer cans he’d drained dry the previous evening. He wasn’t an easy drunk; sometimes he’d drink through all his spare cash and still be sober. But he’d had a good day in the cab yesterday and even managed to resist the urge to see if he could do better again with a little wager. Fortunately, his craving for drink won out over his gambling addiction, and he managed to get quite drunk and pass out before having to look at his wife’s wrinkled and sallow face.

A massive clang threatened to burst his eardrums. In a flash of anger, Shih-sheng sat up and forced open his eyes so he could glare at the rusty metal door and hurl abuse through it. He made sure to keep going until his lungs were all cursed out. The more people that hear the better.

Back on the floor, he looked upwards through the cracked plastic paneling and flaking bars of the window. The sun was already high and, despite the gloom inside, he felt better for seeing it. Then, as if recalling some pressing task, he sat up, his left hand landing in a sticky pool of spilt beer, his eyes fixed on some far-off point, and his right hand reaching backwards and pulling a pack of Longlife Yellows from a withering potted plant. He transferred a cigarette directly to his mouth, returned the pack to the pot, and pulled out his lighter.

Shih-sheng watched the tip of the cigarette glow red. A wisp of smoke curled upwards, and he sent another mouthful of smoke up into it. He enjoyed doing that while having a cigarette. He knew that as the smoke reached his lungs, and from there his bloodstream, his body would come back to life, the pains in his neck and back would disappear for a while, and feeling would return to his fingers.

Shih-sheng opened the metal door and a cool mountain breeze blew in, carrying the odor of burning plastic with it. He took a few deep drags on the cigarette and stepped outside, raising a hand to rub his eyes against the sudden sting of the sun. Yet the pain only worsened. He held his hand up for examination—alongside the sticky beer residue, he’d picked up smears of some black greasy substance somewhere. He ran up to his cab and used the remaining water from his yellowing plastic bottle to rinse his eyes.

The Toyota, an Altis Z, was his sole treasured possession. This was his comrade-in-arms; his tobacco, beer, and money were the spoils of their war. To ensure customers wouldn’t decline a ride, he forced himself to clean it every day—the outside, at least—to maintain its gleaming yellow. He also kept a change of clothes in it, so if he didn’t fancy returning home, he could always get a shower and a night’s sleep at the Jianguo Hotel. Hence the travel pillow and light comforter.

Once the pain in his eyes receded, he sat down on the slope at the shack door, lit a second cigarette off the end of the first, and continued to puff smoke back and forth, lost in thought as he squinted up at clear blue skies.

*

Kuo Hsiang-ying pedaled southward along the concrete path underneath the metro line. It was an undeniably beautiful day, utterly ruined by the foul mood that piece of shit had put her in.

The department store opened at eleven, but clocking in for a seven o’clock morning shift meant she had to be out of the house by half past six. After clocking in, she had to collect her cleaning gear and clean the entire seventh and eighth floors, including toilets and the eight flights of escalators between the sixth and eighth floors, as well as empty and sort the waste from a total of sixteen bins before the store opened for business. The staff offices and toilets, never seen by customers, were also her responsibility. So if she weren’t quick about it, she wouldn’t finish in time, and that meant she would be late getting to her lunchtime tasks, when customers would flock to the food court on the eighth floor. If tables weren’t cleared quickly and carefully enough, it’d be a glance at her name tag and a complaint to customer services. That meant more than a fine—the agency might even fire her.

If she wasn’t doing overtime, Hsiang-ying would finish at four and pedal over to a restaurant near the Veterans Hospital, where she would help restock the buffet before finally going home at nine. But she was on a late shift at the department store later today so had enjoyed a rare lie-in and wouldn’t be going to the restaurant. A whole day in the luxurious surroundings of the department store and its air-conditioning.

Hsiang-ying took the staff lift and reported to the seventh floor, where she took her uniform out of a department store plastic bag and changed. At this point, the cleaning supervisor, Mr. Kuo, emerged from his office and scowled at the sight of her unbrushed hair. She didn’t know anything about him beyond that they shared a surname and didn’t dare nor care to ask more. But could it be that those with similar ills can sense each other— she had a vague feeling this was a man who fought frequently with his wife. By the looks of it, he’d fought with her earlier this morning and was soon to take this out on Hsiang-ying.

“What is going on with your clothes? What’s that yellow stuff?” he asked. Mr. Kuo indicated a yellow mark on the collar of her blouse. She looked down and saw a rusty mark left by the clothes hanger.

“Sorry, I’ll wash it out immediately.”

Hsiang-ying hung her head and looked at her supervisor’s shoes, continuing to apologize as she felt his eyes on her.

“If the customers saw you like that, they’d lose their appetites. Pay a bit more attention to your cleanliness!”

“Sorry, it won’t happen again!”

He grunted in acknowledgement.

Perhaps feeling he had been a little too harsh, Mr. Kuo said no more and continued on to the bathroom. Hsiang-ying sighed in relief and picked up a cloth from her cleaning cart, dabbed it with a little alcohol and scrubbed at the spot. Mr. Kuo soon emerged from the toilet and spoke to her again.

“Mei’s asked for the day off tomorrow. You’ll be able to cover for her?” Mei was the temp who covered Hsiang-ying’s three days off a month. If she wasn’t in tomorrow that meant Hsiangying herself would be working for fifteen straight hours, from seven in the morning to ten in the evening. But she’d told the restaurant she would help out tomorrow evening, so she asked timidly:

“Mei’s off again?”

Mr. Kuo’s impatience was clear. “Can you cover or not? I’ll find someone else if not. …"

“I’ve already arranged to be at the restaurant, so—”

“A restaurant? I didn’t know you were sneaking around moonlighting! You’re meant to be full-time here. They pay you over nineteen thousand Taiwanese dollars a month, don’t they? And there’s bonuses. Isn’t that enough?”

Hsiang-ying made, with basic and bonuses, twenty-one thousand a month. There was labor insurance, welfare contributions, national health insurance all to deduct, and then there were fines for customer complaints. Only then was she left with her actual income.

“It’s … please don’t say anything?”

Mr. Kuo snorted and leaned over her, hands on his hips.

“I wouldn’t have guessed it … The things women will do for a bit of spending money. …"

Leaving the words hanging, he turned and went into his office.

An angry heat burned in her, much like last week’s bladder infection, as Hsiang-ying watched him go. Her ears started to ring, a long and loud wail which travelled from left to right before … bang … a shattering crash.

She pushed her cart through the swing doors and...