In a small village outside Banyuwangi, a man named Darto worked as a night watchman at the old sugar mill. Every year, the villagers held a ritual, sesajen malam merah. Where offerings were left near the forest to keep the spirits of the mill workers appeased. Darto never believed in such things.
One night, during his shift, he found the offering bowl tipped over. Flowers scattered, and blood-stained rice soaked into the earth. He muttered,
“Superstitions,”
And kicked the bowl aside. Not long after, the lights in the mill flickered. The air grew thick with the smell of iron. From the shadows between the old machinery, he heard wet footsteps.
Darto swung his flashlight toward the sound. For a moment, he saw nothing until something dripped onto his arm. Warm. Sticky. Blood. He looked up.
A man or what used to be one. Hung from the ceiling by his jaw, skin peeled back, eyes wide open and weeping black liquid. The body twitched and then fell, landing with a dull, wet crack.
Darto stumbled backward, but more figures crawled out from under the machines pale, eyeless, their mouths still chewing. They were the old workers, the ones who died when the mill boiler exploded decades ago. They surrounded him, whispering,
“You broke the offering.”
The last thing Darto saw was his own hand being pulled into one of their mouths, bitten clean through, before the lights went out completely.
The next morning, the villagers found only blood trails leading from the mill to the edge of the forest. The offering bowl had been replaced and this time, filled to the brim with human teeth.
