Demonic Thief (魔贼)

So far the ghost talks are about spirits appear for a short while and vanish, or perhaps they would throw a stone or make a noise. But can spirits steal solid objects such as books? I have about three stories to share about spirit thieves, and the below is one of them:

I am not sure if there is a prime evil, but I believe that evil spirits do exist and my friend whom runs a bookshop selling gospel books and publications told me his very own experience.

Johnson is a follower of gospel church and he owned a bookshop in Petaling Jaya a few years ago. During that time, his gospel bookshop was on the top floor of a three-story shop house. The second floor being the space rented by gospel church as sermon hall; while the ground floor served as the shared storeroom of the bookshop and the church. Naturally, with such an awkward location for a bookshop; most of Johnson’s customers were mostly church members. Occasionally some strangers would drop by to look at the books since the shop house where the bookshop was located opposite a private college, a restaurant and some companies.

Normally Johnson would carry out stock count himself almost every two weeks. However, after he discovered some of his books lost inexplicably; Johnson decided to make the stock count every week. According to Johnson, at first he found that he has lost all other book titles except the bible which were left intact. But on further inspections, someone had scribbled on some pages with unintelligible scribbles. This has made the printed bibles to be unsalable too.

One day, a good church member came to Johnson and told Johnson that he found some new gospel books presumably from Johnson’s shop in the nearest trash dump. The books were still new with plastic wrapping and price tag. It was from the price tag that the person pinpointed the books must be Johnson’s.

While Johnson was angry about the culprit, at the same time; he was curious as to who would make such a sabotage on those good books. Originally, Johnson was to install a CCTV to record down all those who enter and exit his shop. But good old Johnson thought he would give the benefit of the doubt for those book loving brothers and sisters. Having said so, he did ask his assistants to keep a vigilant eye on those who visited the bookshop.

Slowly, Johnson noticed that his books would disappear or being scribbled following the visits of a stranger who always wears a black cowboy hat and a black overcoat. This is rare under tropical climate so such character is definitely unmistakable. This stranger would normally come to the bookshop half an hour before the shop closes.

So, this time Johnson was prepared to apprehend this strange character by following him to his hideout and caught him red handed. Now that this black hat guy came again and left as usual, Johnson quietly followed behind until they came to the common trash dump. Under the street lighting, the stranger dislodged some books from his coat and threw them into the rubbish dump. After that he took off his hat and coat showing a pair of horns similar to those of the antelope’s; and this guy was standing on hind legs similar that of a wild boar!

Perhaps I should say that this guy, or ‘thing’ fits into the description of a ‘devil’. Johnson panicked and shouted at the ‘thing’. It turned his head and gave Johnson a sinister smile as if indicating ‘I shall return…”

The panicked stricken Johnson immediately ran to the pastor for help and a prayer session was held in the sermon hall on the second floor the next day to exorcise the evil doer. However, when Johnson returned to his bookshop the next afternoon; he discovered that all of his books had fallen from the book shelves as if there were hit by an earthquake. Another exorcism ceremony was held and same thing repeated.

I was told that the exorcism ceremonies and disturbances continued for almost one month before no more books disappeared or fallen onto the floor. Maybe the devil has finally defeated or it simply bored with his little games; we can only guess…