The Fiends of Yogyakarta

Bustling at the Market

This story takes place in Central Java [1999]; the city of Yogyakarta, while visiting the archeological sites [old ruins] of Borobudur and Pramanan.

I, Dennis have very little hope that you will understand, still less, believe my incredible journey, the expedition I went through some five-years ago, or is it now six, perhaps it is, time soars between writing and rewriting, and somewhere in-between—in between, when you look at your journal, and its aging face—it’s a ting baffling. In any account, I wrote it all down on paper for I knew my memory would haunt me and I’d distort it later, had I not. For it did fade somewhat from my jittered nerves—shortly after the story took place. Some say I’m quite eccentric with this story, to the point of fleeing reality, and replacing it with too much subjectivity; and when it did happen, and it did happen: I thought such myself; it was madness, for it is hard to believe this true and frightful story from any corner of the world. In any case, to those none believers who confronted me shortly after these events, namely the media, ugliness is not imprisoned, it is free like us to roam wherever it please, and it did this one day, this day I’m about to share with you.

For the sake of the story I will use my middle name, Lee: somehow it seems less out of character that way. I had gone to visit a friend in Japan, in the summer of 1999; I had met her in Istanbul, Turkey in l996. I stayed there—in Japan—for about a week, seeing most of the sites, such as a tourist would do: going to the top of the Tokyo Tower, and taking a train to Kyoto where nearby there was an international sumo wrestling tournament going on, to which I attended and met some of the world famous wrestlers. And of course, going to the top of Mount Fuji thereafter; all in all it was a most wondrous trip, to say the least.

From there I went to the island of Guam, stayed a day and night there, and flew to Bali, where I stayed another three nights, and then on to Central Java, to the city of Yogyakarta. There I visited two sites, Borobudur, which is the largest Buddhist Shrine in the world (so I was told) made of somewhere around three million dark volcanic black bricks, over a natural mound. It is a marvel of ingenuity, for the world at large. And then I visited the temples at Pramanan, another breathtaking site. After two days of visiting these sites, I had three more days left. And this is where doubtful-reality may be replaced; but the story cannot be changed, nonetheless; no not one iota, not to appease the media, or another’s speculative witty and aphoristic scientific mind; really is what I will produce, not science, and be it a mystery of mysteries or not, so it shall be—even if it leads away from the practical world to the unbelievable.

Thus, it was on the second free day in Yogyakarta I received a letter down in the lobby, at the main desk, it read:

“For god’s sake, come out to this peculiar and beastly, haunting hotel [more like a motel]. Another night like this, in this wilderness, will make me snarl, if not go nutty.”

Frank Gunderson

That was enough for me. I was known to be a traveler of mysteries, or one looking for them, or so my reputation had preceded me often times. And Frank Gunderson also from the Midwest, was a writer like David Childress, whom I talked to once over the phone concerning some books and my house in Lima, which I was considering selling—and was considering going to Easter Island with his team, but could not, I had to wait because of business, but went the following month with just my wife, and there met the renowned Archeologist, Charlie Love, whom sat with my wife and I at a cozy outdoor café, and had a drink with discussing the moving of the huge statues on the island. Well, Frank was like Charlie in the sense he was always looking for the unusual, and often times found it. To be honest, I didn’t even know Frank was in country until I got the letter. On the back of it was where I was to go, and so I grabbed my small suitcase, some shaving gear, and took a train about one hundred miles south, there at the station was Frank with a jeep, waiting, and no sooner had I disembarked the train we were both off to this hotel, a hotel I’d bestow a macabre title to—soon.

As we rode into the tropical forest, harsh it was, like a picture of a lost world: Frank, he babbled on about something: ghosts, fiends—devils, the macabre world, I dare say. Then within forty-five minutes we were at a strange looking structure, he called, ‘The Hotel,’ it looked more like a black volcanic brick low-built house, with four main rooms to it. The roof was that of wooden beams supporting some kind of jungle shrubbery and bamboo shoots covering the whole top. The stones to the building were that of the stones used at Borobudur I noticed.

I can’t describe this story as I’d like, the horror of it is somewhat placed deep in my mind, and not as vivid as I’d like it to be. But I will write calmly, but try to believe me!

“You noticed it yet?” Frank said a few minutes into our walk to the motel, parking the jeep somewhat in the woods, not sure why; then he took me around to the back of the building and into each room (apartment-section that is). I had noticed two gravesites in the back of the building, but I didn’t inquire about them yet, not yet anyways, they looked fresh. After the tour around the building we went back to the back of the building again. I kind of laughed with some embarrassment and mumbled something like, ‘What kind of a rat trap did you bring me to?’ I mean he said it was a motel of sorts.

Frank then pointed towards the window panes, two of them on the right side of the building. They were smashed, destroyed as if something had hit them, broke them into pieces: matter of fact, it had just dawned on me, that none of the windows had glass in them, not one single one. And there were holes in the roof, as if an earthquake had taken place; and of course, I knew better.

“What in god’s name happened here,” I began.

“No,” he replied, adding, “it has nothing to do with god my friend.” He would not tell me completely what took place as to not spoil his pleasure, and mystery I do believe. I was dumbfounded, and curious, as you could tell in my voice.

“You don’t know, you just won’t understand, you got to stay until it happens again,” he told me—repeatedly. I didn’t see in the least what he meant, and followed him dumbly into his motel room. There we sat for three hours in the mucky heat, just sat and waited for whatever was supposed to happen, not a word said. Sat in the hole in the wall, sort of room: dirt on the floor, walls discolored with mud and blood and all kinds of debris; glass all over the place, and the roof—if you could call it that, and what was left of it—had the sun shining through it in several locations.

Then he jumped up—it caught me off guard and shook me up a bit. “Come on Lee, it’s starting,” he grabbed my arm and somewhat pulled me over to the door, then opened it slightly—just enough to look out, and then had me look out alongside of him, but I didn’t see anything, and I was getting this endless irritation coupled with suspicion, that I wasn’t going to. And out of the sky, just like that, suddenly came a rock, then several followed right in the row: small, big, medium size, all bombarding the building, one after the other. Then they came faster and faster, more and more, larger and larger. I had to duck, as he shut the door, and bolted it. I gasped.

“What kind of trick is this,” I asked Frank.

“No tricks,” he said, adding, “The fiends [devils], the fiends, they are throwing them from out of the sky.”

“What!” I replied, feeling this was a bunch of malarkey.

“The Ghoul’s are mad at me, the devils themselves, I’ve made fun of them, to get them to show their faces and this is what they do.” I shook my head, but they were coming from the sky nonetheless, what could I say [?]

“I, I insulted them did you,” he repeated; “Oh yes, I was mighty good at that too.”

Then all of a sudden a huge bolder came through the roof, it must had been two-hundred pounds, then half the roof caved in.

“We got to get out of here,” I told Frank.

“What!” he questioned me, “out of here, why?” then he cursed them loudly, calling them every name under the sun, and shaking his defiant fists at them from out of the window. He then threw his keys to the jeep at me, and told me to run for it, and he’d stop for a minute his cursing and that would puzzle the fiends: thus, and I ran like the dickens out into the bombarding environment to the Jeep.

I had made it back to the train station and eventually back to the city. Alas! Frank never wrote me again, I never heard of him or seen him from that day on. No one ever heard of him again to be exact. Pityingly the folks went out looking for him for a number of days, but could find no trace of him. And the building was almost totally demolished; the whole structure looked like they were bombarded by heavy artillery. The inhabitants of that area say it took two weeks clearing up everything.