Content warnings

Death. Death of an infant. Violence. Food.

Chee usually spends his days driving aged-care seniors around Darwin, but tonight, he isn’t driving for the living. He grabs the keys to the twenty-four-seater and calls out, “I’ll bring dinner home,” before shutting the front door on his teenage son yelling at some game. Chee knows he’s already been forgotten—if he was remembered at all.

He mounts the steps of Old Lorry, the sun cutting through the windows of the bus, spotlighting dust motes down its aisle. He trails a finger along the leather seats where foam leak like old wounds, reminding Chee that tonight’s clients aren’t for him to fix. It’s yuu lan festival, when the gates of Hell open, releasing gwei into the human world, hungry for all they’ve lost. The best he can do is take them to a feast—unsatiated gwei are troublesome.

Old Lorry coughs on startup, not unlike Chee’s scarred lungs every morning. “Hai la, hai la.” He pats the dashboard. In this, he understands his bus more than his son’s grumbles when forced out of bed at midday. When Chee was fifteen, he was up before dawn, running deliveries to fishmongers so Mah could send his siblings to school. He sighs; he’d moved from Malaysia to get a better life for his son, yet the boy doesn’t care for what he cannot remember, and complains instead of Chee’s nagging.

The aircon struggles, Chee’s collar dampens. He reaches a parkland where a goldfield once pockmarked the grounds. The loamy scent of earth fills the bus as he crosses a stream, the tranquillity belying the blood that once soaked this soil and coloured the waters.

Chee thinks of Bah, married at the age of Chee’s son now. He’d heard the man crossed oceans to find his fortune in the goldrush. Mah said money had been sent home for months, but then, it’d stopped. Six months later, a letter brought news of an accident in the diggings. His body was sent to a port six days walk from town, but by the time Mah finished raising five children, years had passed. The port was gone—and so was he.

Men wearing loose samfu and conical straw hats appear from the stream, their amicable chatter a stark contrast to their slashed heads and broken limbs. It’s how Chee knew the first time that they weren’t human. Their history was on an information board beside the stream. Like Bah, they’d travelled for better fortune. Their different ways and strange speech had created mistrust, eventuating into a deadly attack when they found gold in abandoned diggings.

Chee watches the grey faces climb into Old Lorry and wonders if any of them is Bah. He peers closely at one, a few years older than his son, but the man doesn’t look at him. Chee hopes that elsewhere, other people are taking care of their ghosts instead of leaving them hungry and forgotten. Everyone deserves to be remembered by someone.

The engine growls, fumes fill the cabin, Chee coughs. His hand comes away from his mouth flecked red. His son berates him to buy a cleaner bus, but the gweilo have some saying about money on trees. If only his jade plants would grow notes.

Back in the suburbs, Old Lorry squeezes down a rear lane between old houses. A toddler waves a joss stick delighting in the smoky trail he makes. His cheeks are too pink to be a client for the bus. It’s the baby beside him that alarms Chee—reddish hair atop an ashen face, mouth widening like a snake’s jaw as if to wrap its once-cupid lips around the toddler’s foot. Chee slams on the brakes. This baby could hurt a life with that touch.

He hurries off the bus, grabbing a shiny pinwheel from the neighbour’s fence. “Guo lei, guo lei,” he calls waving to the baby gwei. The toddler reaches out and Chee shakes his head. “Give that joss stick back to your Mah. It’s for the ancestors; not a toy.” Denied the spinning trinket, the child pouts and runs inside. Chee blows the pinwheel for the baby. Its shiny arms whirl and the baby follows it onto the bus. At the foot of the front seat, Chee wedges the pinwheel into an air vent. The baby watches transfixed, all hunger for the toddler’s life-force forgotten.

Chee tuts at parents who leave their children playing with joss sticks on yuu lan. The toddler could’ve fallen incurably sick. Chee’s grateful he learned the old ways and kept his son healthy, although he wishes his son would stop treating him like an ignorant villager.

Wheezing coughs burst out. Spluttering uncontrollably, Chee fights to breathe. When he was a kid and the old country was still called Malaya, Mah sent him to rescue discarded cigarettes on footpaths and ashtrays so she could scrape the remaining tobacco and roll new ones. They were resold to gweilos in their nice hats and waistcoats, or Malay in their shiny baju, keeping his family fed. Chee knows it’s his karma; his scarred lungs bear the price of stealing cigarettes so he could pretend to look rich, like those who bought them. The fancy doctors say he’s on a time limit but can’t say when. He shrugs—there’s no point blaming survival. He only hopes that when his time comes, circumstances won’t leave him like those on this bus.

Old Lorry groans as if struggling with a burden. Chee sees more passengers through his rearview mirror: a man with tire marks across his waxen face; another with a mangled arm as if shredded in machinery; others drift like fog. Some gwei prefer to ghost onboard. Perhaps knowing that someone remembers them is enough.

He turns into a new estate where an overgrown pond once sat. There’s usually a woman here, hair dripping around a pallid face, nightgown clinging wetly to her body, mud sullying her ankles. Tonight, all he finds is smooth asphalt and white townhouses. Chee completes a third pass of the road and worries that her hunger this year is higher. He turns Old Lorry back into the city, towards the house of an old man who’d once lived by the pond. Chee has never liked the bearish man, constantly complaining about his mail-ordered first wife who cared more for the loss of their stillborn than for him. He would proclaim loudly of sending her back to her parents, but there’s violence in his demeanour. Chee suspects the man deserves any trouble a hungry ghost might bring.

Dusk has settled and streetlights cast their glow as Chee cruises. He doubts death has been fair to this woman with an unkind life, but like Old Lorry’s torn seats, the wound is done. It’s not for him to interfere; karma will balance the scales in the end.

He calls out the window: his bus is here and she’s not forgotten. His voice travels, asking for her forgiveness on how she was harmed, but to not hurt the living and accept another offering instead—

A ghostly nightgown floats from house to house, peering through the windows. Anxiety tightens Chee’s chest. He swallows a cough and urges Old Lorry on. Gwei don’t always focus on the right people. It’s why yuu lan festivals are all about distracting the dead with something else to satiate their hunger. The apparition stops at a window. Chee wonders if she’s got the right person. He stops the bus and calls again.

She whips around. A clump of hair is missing as if torn out by the handful. Tears pour down her bloated face, her mouth an anguished maw, her hunger visible in eyes that dart wildly at the bus, then back to the window.

She starts through the glass and Chee leaps out of Old Lorry. “Don’t! There are better things to have in your heart than bitterness.”

She drifts out and focuses on him, wildness fading from her eyes. Her maw resets to a mouth and longing settles over her features. She hurries over, arms outstretched.

Chee backs up fearfully. He doesn’t want another human hassled, but he doesn’t want a ghostly bride dragging him through the gates of hell either. He flees into Old Lorry but she’s faster, closing in for an embrace. His scarred lungs squeeze and he prays he doesn’t blackout as he ducks under her ashen arms, stumbling up the walkway towards the baby. He snatches the pinwheel and waves it. The baby whimpers. Her attention shifts and she softens, arms dropping by her side. He returns the pinwheel but the child is stretching chubby arms to the woman. Chee presses against the wall, holding his breath against the odour of mud and rot as she stretches down to stroke the baby’s fine reddish hair.

Relieved, Chee returns to his seat. He coaxes Old Lorry onwards, the indigo sky deepening into twilight. They pass the occasional house with shoes scattered beside the doormat and red paper-lanterns on their porch—signs of others like him, with small altars and food offerings laid out. There aren’t many. Maybe it’s why Old Lorry is groaning with the weight.

They turn onto gravel, rolling to a stop outside temple gates. Old Lorry sighs in relief, its doors creaking open. The passengers chatter excitedly, their volume rising to a fish market in full swing as the city’s ghosts stream out. Last is the pond woman holding a gurgling baby. She eyes Chee for a heartbeat before entering the gates to a feast-laden table. Joss sticks burn at either end, incense to calm the hungry ghosts.

Chee walks through his bus, a habit of checking for rubbish at the end of each run. He chants for his passengers to find forgiveness—holding onto their tragedies isn’t worth this cycle. He fits the abandoned pinwheel onto his aircon grill; it spins earnestly as Old Lorry turns homewards.

Back home, Chee hurries out of the garage, takeaway meals in hand. He calls his son through the front door in a voice that brooks no argument. The boy should be studying instead of playing computer games and talking to ‘friends’ in his ear. How can his son care for people he’s never met? But as Chee unpacks fried-rice, roast duck, barbecue pork, and veggies onto the altar table, it comes to mind he’s doing this for a Bah he doesn’t remember, and teaching his son to care for grandparents he’s never met.

The boy arrives, dragging his feet. Chee keeps his silence―the boy’s brought out candy and a bowl of oranges to add to the table. Chee lights the joss sticks and hands his son a set. Together, they bow, inviting ancestors to the meal. Bah’s spirit may not find his way home, but this way, he’s remembered. As Chee fits the joss sticks into the holder, his son grabs a handful of candy. Chee’s about to reprimand him when a coughing fit hits.

“Dad? Are you okay?”

The boy’s worry is drowned by Chee’s effort to breathe. He concentrates, pulling in the night air to soothe his aching lungs and flagging body—

—then catches the scent of mud and rot. Dread floods him like ice-water freezing his heart. A reddish-haired baby gwei crawls towards his son, maw opened wide. Beside him, whirring paper sends a ghostly breeze across Chee’s neck. He turns slowly, heart pounding—the pond woman holds the spinning pinwheel and watches him through her missing hair. Chee kicks himself at this careless mistake; he should’ve burnt the toy so the smoke could take it into the baby’s realm. Instead, they’d followed it here.

The woman beckons. “Come. We can be a family. I’ll look after you and the baby.”

Chee shakes his head, pushing his son back from both gwei. “It’s not my time yet.”

“Dad? Who are you talking to?” His son moves with him, but his eyes search the area.

“I’m ready.” The woman follows. “I’ve been waiting a long time for a family. You always remember to care for us.” She assesses his son. “He can come. I’ll look after him too.”

Chee throws his arm out, protecting his son. “Leave him alone. I’m sorry for what you’ve lost, but he’s all I have.”

She lunges, grabbing Chee’s forearm. In all his years of driving, he’s never been touched by a gwei before. Her grip is fierce and frigid, and when he tries to pull away, her hold is like a vice. Cold travels up his arm into his lungs. He splutters for breath. Eyes droop and legs sag. He just needs a rest—

Candy hits the floor. Strong arms catch him, their warmth countering the chill within as he’s lowered to the ground. Beside his ear, his son panics. “Dad! Your arm! Please, whoever’s there, leave my dad alone. Come eat instead.”

Chee lifts a heavy eyelid. His forearm is draining of colour.

His son continues, words rushing fearfully. “We have rice and duck, pork and veggies, fruits and sweets too. You’re welcome to eat it all but please, don’t hurt my Bah.” Chee absorbs his son’s warm embrace.

The pond woman sighs and releases Chee. His arm flops to his belly. Disappointment flashes momentarily, then it’s gone. She scoops the baby and browses the offerings at the altar. “Roast duck! You’ll like this,” she coos. The baby gurgles. “That’s right, we’re a beautiful family.”

The pair fade from sight.

“Dad,” his son starts, rubbing colour back into Chee’s skin. “Are they still here?” he whispers.

Chee stares at where the gwei had been, and shakes his head.

“That wasn’t yeye and mama was it?”

The intonation is off but he’s proud his son hadn’t reverted to English. “Not your grandparents, but it’s yuu lan. There are other lost souls.”

His son frowns. “And you can see them. They’re real?”

Chee can’t explain it. He’d taken Old Lorry for a drive several yuu lan’s ago, and had been thinking of Bah when the ghostly miners had appeared.

He reassures the boy. “You did the right thing, inviting them to a meal.” Collecting the pinwheel, Chee burns it, asking the smoke to take it across to the baby.

His son places the candy back on the altar. Pressing palms together, he bows in deep respect. Chee’s aching chest soothes at the sight.

His son turns back to the house. At the door, he awkwardly asks, “Want to play GTA? It’s a car game.”

Chee looks up, surprised he isn’t already forgotten. “I know how to drive.”

His son grins and holds the door wide. “But you’ve never driven like this before. I’ll show you.”

Chee ducks his head to hide his blurring sight as they enter the house. His scarred lungs are now also cold, but there’s still time. Maybe someday soon, he can teach his son to drive Old Lorry.

Author’s note

The Hungry Ghost festival is celebrated in many countries with Chinese cultural influences. Some believe the gates open for the month. A bus picking up ghosts is purely fictional; however, food offerings aren’t. I’d recommend not taking food from altars… in case a ghost follows you home 😱

Emmi Khor

Emmi (she/her) writes from the land downunder where bunyips are rumored to reside. She’s more likely to be found peeking from under her shell embellishing events with a pen rather than fighting monsters with pointy sticks—unless the choice is between monsters and taxes.

This story was first published in The West Australian Newspaper online (for subscribers only) on November 2024.