''Old woman in the Hospital''

This is a true story from my mother's life.

***

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, when my mother was pregnant with my older brother, she was diagnosed as having a difficult childbirth and had to be admitted to the district hospital for close monitoring by doctors. At that time, my father was away on business, and my grandmother was left alone in the hospital with no one to take care of her. This was partly because my father had no family nearby, and partly because both sides of the family were far away from the district hospital. Moreover, the economy was still difficult at that time, so families with children had to work hard on farms day and night, leaving no time to take care of expectant mothers. Therefore, my mother was in labor all alone in the hospital without any relatives by her side.

The delivery room of the district hospital at that time was a mud-brick house with bamboo walls and a tiled roof. This type of house was very popular at the time and was considered a luxurious house that few households in the district could afford. Most people could only build simple bamboo houses with thatched roofs, which could not keep out the rain and wind, especially in cold winter nights when people would huddle together and complain about the cold. In the delivery room where my mother stayed, there were four other expectant mothers waiting for diagnosis and care from the doctors. My mother lay in a bed in the corner, while across from her bed, right outside the door, was another expectant mother from the Thai ethnic group. The woman was petite with fair skin and was also diagnosed as having a difficult childbirth and requiring a C-section. She was about four years younger than my mother and was the only one in the delivery room with someone to take care of her, her mother-in-law.

This story would have been nothing special if it were not for the fact that my mother had a slight conflict with the Thai woman's mother-in-law. The woman had fair skin, slightly dark circles under her eyes, and when she looked straight into her eyes, my mother could see a frightening red color. This was not a red color due to illness or anything else, but rather a hallucination. Sometimes her eyes looked perfectly normal, but other times they turned a spooky red color. All patients in the delivery room noticed this strangeness. Therefore, many people chose to avoid her, and it was best not to encounter her at all. Her presence always created a scary atmosphere in the delivery room, like a ghost hiding somewhere, ready to appear unexpectedly.

My mother accidentally spilled hot water on an old lady while making milk, causing her to get angry and transform into a terrifying creature with white hair and red eyes. The incident left my mother feeling uneasy, especially since she suspected that the woman was a vampire.

Despite my father's dismissal of such superstitions, there are deep-rooted beliefs in our community about the existence of these blood-sucking creatures. Legend has it that vampires blend in with humans during the day but reveal their true form at night, with pale skin, a large red nose, and sharp fangs for sucking blood and eating corpses.

People claim to have seen these creatures lurking around during funerals, waiting for the corpse to be buried so they can dig it up and feast on its flesh. While my father may not believe in vampires, the legend continues to live on in our community.

Title: The Legend of Thai Vampires

According to my mother's story, there was a Thai couple deeply in love. Every night, they would meet in a secluded place to talk. The man was captivated by the girl's beauty which only increased as the night grew darker.

Eventually, they got married but faced many mysterious deaths. Some suspected the wife was a vampire who sucked human blood and reported it to the husband. However, he did not believe until their two children died, and he saw his wife with long fangs and a demon-like face sucking blood from a victim.

Since then, the Thai people have had a tradition that if you encounter an exceptionally beautiful person at night, you must be careful as they may be a vampire. If you feel someone following you, it could also be a vampire. To avoid being followed, put garlic in your pocket and run into the nearest house. To test if your lover is a vampire, go to a deserted place, cook a frog, and put it in your pants pocket. Vampires cannot resist the smell of cooked frogs and will reveal themselves. If you suspect someone is a vampire, cut their tail or leave the area.

In my mother's story, after visiting her one night, my father immediately went to catch a pig in the village to make ends meet because our family was poor. He had to work extra hard besides his district job, such as slaughtering pigs and trading rice in the village.

That night, my mother had an uneasy feeling and suspected that something bad was going to happen. She felt like she was being watched and that someone had been following her since my father left. The story about vampires clinging onto the living always haunted her and made her cautious.

She quickly cooked dinner, ate, locked the door and went to bed early. The night sky quickly descended with the sound of crickets and the sweltering heat made it difficult for her to sleep. She sensed that something bad would happen. She vividly remembered the malicious red eyes of the old woman in the hospital, glaring at her without blinking.

Suddenly, my mother heard a loud crashing noise coming from the kitchen. Her heart raced faster and she felt scared. She remembered locking the kitchen door and securely latching it from the outside. If it wasn't a thief, there was nothing else in the kitchen except for dishes and cutlery. Maybe my father had returned from the village, hungry and looking for food. Thinking so, she shouted, "Is that you?"

Her voice echoed outside, but there was no response. My mother broke into a cold sweat and remembered what my grandmother had told her about putting a pot of water or a burden rack in front of the house to ward off evil spirits. Ghosts were afraid of one of those things, and if she was lucky, she could survive until morning.

My mother found a burden rack and placed it in front of the door. Just when she'd set it up, she saw a pair of blood-red eyes peeking through the crack, staring into the house. She screamed and fell to the ground, crying. When she regained her composure and looked through the crack again, there was nothing there. She quickly replaced the latch on the door with the burden rack. As soon as she did, the door suddenly slammed heavily against it, making a loud noise. The wooden table was trying to break through the gap in the door and hit the rack hard. My mother screamed even louder, and my younger brother, who was still a child, cried along with her after hearing the loud noise. The whole space was filled with an invisible terror. The wall trembled and bits of dirt and sand fell from it. With such a strong impact, my mother didn't know if it could hold up. Despite her fear, my mother followed my grandmother's advice and prepared a pot of water to place in front of the house. But there was no water in the pot, only a bucket of urine left by my brother. My mother panicked and remembered that ghosts were afraid of human urine. So she poured the remaining water into the pot and placed it in front of the house.

After doing all this, everything suddenly went quiet. My mother breathed a sigh of relief, thinking that everything was over. She wanted to go to bed and wait for morning to come. She tried not to look at the crack in the door because she was afraid of seeing those malicious eyes again and fainting. But as soon as she lay down, the sound of knocking on the door started again. Frightened and angry, she screamed:

The mother was frightened when she saw a pair of blood-red eyes staring at her through the window. She told her husband but he didn't believe her. The next night, the mother heard strange noises again and knew she was being visited by a malevolent spirit. She stayed up all night, ready to defend herself and her children. The father eventually believed her and went out to investigate. When he returned home, he scolded her for making things up, but they both knew the truth.

As the door gave way, my mother was confronted by a creature covered in fur and leaves, with long fangs and reddish eyes. Despite its animalistic appearance, my mother recognized the creature's elderly female posture. The creature hesitated outside the door, intimidated by the basin of water and the pole in my mother's hand.

My mother fainted from fear, but then my father arrived and scared off the creature with his knife. They later discovered that the creature had severed the foot of an old lady, who my mother coincidentally met at the market. My father learned to always have someone watch over the house when traveling to avoid such incidents.

Later, someone reported that the old lady had left for another place. As my brother and I grew up, our father stopped going to remote areas as much, so my mother became less afraid, and such strange stories only happened occasionally. But they happened in other families, not ours. People also suspected that the old lady was the evil spirit haunting them, but with no evidence, they left it alone. It wasn't until she disappeared that these strange occurrences truly came to a close.

I'm telling this story not to be frivolous or make things up. The story I'm recounting is just a childhood tale my mother told me, even though it may be good or bad, I want to retell it in my own voice. And if my writing style isn't great and the story isn't captivating, please forgive me. If readers find any confusion in the story, please give me some feedback. If it's successful, I would like to share more childhood stories I've heard later on, so everyone can learn about them.