The Fiends of Yogyakarta (Revised and Reedited 7-2008)


City of Yogyakarta, 1999, 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 nearby.


I, Dennis have very little hope that you will understand, still less, hope you will or can believe my incredible journey, the expedition I went on, and the trial and tabulations, I went through some five-years ago, or is it now six (how time does fly, writing this account down, which is in the year of 2004 now). Time soars between living the experience, then writing and rewriting, and somewhere in-between— recounting, as I am about to do in my journal notes, and its aging face—and revising it, in the process this story can become a tinge baffling (today being 31 July, 2008).
These words, this story, what happened during those days—much was written down in my hotel room, bringing home the notes thereafter, never much leaving my side since I was the only one with the inner facts to this case. Although I have an understanding—as unusual as it is, or was, it does still enlighten people that read it, because those who know, at least in Java by oral tradition, are more convincing a picture; where those who are not from Java, have a more confused tongue, in trying to convey they believe in this account, or happening. Very few suitable comments did I receive from outside visitors of Java.
It might be wise to read this account, and reread it, at your leisure, then investigated if you wish to see if it is as far fetched as you once thought it to be, one thinks best when they check out all corners of the revelation, or background. My name is Dennis, and if you check into this strange happening, you will discover with similar details, this very thing happened in the 1840s and 1880s, within the madness of Java’s jungles, and be it witchcraft, or demons playing, will be your sinister bones working out, if indeed you find out, drop me a line.

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. The events to follow being, may be considered centuries old, in that the old dark brooding foes, live in the wilds of the crumbling jungle area I was in, with its whisper-haunted shadows, which brought upon me and my friend their own ancestry and background evil deeds, from evil spirits. I often thought, being licensed in abnormal psychology, and having a large amount of information on occultism, this case should have been an open and shut case, until I lived through it. But it all happened quite suddenly, with hours of chaotic disturbance. I am getting too far into the story and leaving out the plot. But just thinking about writing the rest of this story out, my head starts aching, the same head someone was trying to bash in not so long ago.


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 ride 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, and perhaps the most sane: although, having MS, a disease of the nerves, my spine collapsed a few times in Japan, and I needed to seek out some physical therapy, a massage and some acupuncture, the acupuncture made it worse, and I collapsed again right on the tram. It was so bad, I slumped down, almost unconscious, until I found a chair across from me, where a young woman arose and gave it up.
From there I went to the island of Guam, stayed two days and one full night there, and getting a little more medical attention, in the form of a massage, which circulates my blood, and exercises my muscles automatically, where I do less of he work, and get all of the benefits.
At 3 p.m. the next day, I flew to Bali, my eyes wide open, my body rested, and my vision clear, for those with Multiple Sclerosis, vision can be a changing thing, my advise to those folks is keep moving, and find the sun; in any case, where I stayed another three nights, and then on to Central Java, to the city of Yogyakarta. In most place I travel, I conceal this medical issue, it seems to dominate the people around me if I do, though once removed, life goes on normal, and my eyes gazed upon this busy city with a bustling market place; everything really quite unfamiliar.

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 come into place for the reader—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, in my hotel, 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 at the time, 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 while 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.
Even his speech, in the form of his awkward words, in his note, which was clumsily written in pencil, but it, had a curiously stilted quality to it, an expression (archaism) wholly unfathomable, but a seed planted with the request. Of the latter, is what motivated me though?

On the back of the note, 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 an eldritch and macabre title to—soon. In my head as we traveled through the wild jungle, much complexity and indisputable newness was reproduced in every word Frank did not say, he was too quiet.
As we rode into the tropical forest deeper, harsh it was, like a picture of a lost world: then Frank, he babbled on about something: ghosts, fiends—devils, the macabre world, and the eldritch shadows, I dare say, what was on his mind, mystifying words for a strange abbreviation of something petrifiedly recalled. Then within forty-five minutes we were at a strange looking structure, he called, ‘The Hotel,’ a new phrase would soon begin; 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.
Just his presence here, seemed to pull eat his physical strength, he was not by far as young as I, perhaps 60-years old, myself being 42 at the time. His hands, legs, bodily equipment in common seemed to become stiffer, alert.

(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 patient with me as I unfold the following!)

“You noticed it yet?”
Frank said a few minutes into our walk to the an imposing edifice, more on the order of structure that might have once been a motel or club house in the jungle: parking the jeep somewhat in the woods, not sure why; then he took me around to the back of this edifice, this one story building and into each room (apartment-section that is, so it looked).
I must admit, now at least openly, I became eager for information of all sorts into this mystery, I lost interest in my personal likening for the archeological sites I had seen the post few days, as I found this case of tremendously abstruse to my mind, almost childishly, but very oddly he did not explain much, was actually somewhat casual, not specific of events to come.

I had noticed gravesites in the back of the building, some of them, they looked fresh, others had dates on them going back as far as 1840, and others marked 1880, two historical events evidently, along with a most recent one, this brought some kind of actual fright to my bones. This uncanny cemetery, in back of this stone structure, had some kind of link to their vanishment I thought, and Frank, with me along side of him walked cautiously, by the stones.
After the tour around the building and its surrounding area, 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, and I wanted to be permitted to know the whole story of why I was here; I really did not suffer from a lack of curiosity that was for sure.
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, the structure itself could have been older than Frank, and rebuilt a few times, from the way it looked. And there were holes in the roof, as if an earthquake had taken place; and of course, I knew better.
“You will soon be able to take home with you information for your colleagues, the psychologists, of your time, and gain a little mild celebrity among them, and even puzzle them with your bizarre symptoms. (What Lee didn’t know, and what Frank was talking about was of course real aversions to soon take place.)
“What in god’s name happened here,” I began.
“No,” he replied, adding, “it has nothing to do with god my friend,” he said with a cool friendliness, however, I encountered some tone in his speech, that was vague with fears unresolved since we had entered this area, where resided some kind of black, hidden horror, all connected with an incalculable oddity I yet to experience.

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 he could tell in my voice, no exception, these feelings shared by Frank himself, and if it was terror and repulsion on the menu, evidently he, Frank wanted to conquer it, so it appeared. I indeed at that time felt that he was a stranger to me, for I had known him for eight years, but did not know this side of him maybe his proper self would return, but for the moment, it was glancing over this and that, in the so called ‘hotel.’
“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 edifice, into a 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. I watched Frank, and wondered over the horror on his face, what was in his mind, voice, and his expressions.

(I will not attempt to tell much of what took place this day, and the readers may glean all the outward essentials, check out the scientific journals, and you will find me not so ridiculous.)

He, Frank jumped up—it caught me off guard and shook me up a bit.
“Come on Lee, it’s starting,” he grabbed my right arm and somewhat pulled me over to the door, then opened it slightly—just enough to look out—it was as if his secondary personality was alerted—and then had me look out, standing 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 a row: small, big, medium size boulders, 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.
My sojourn was disrupted, what kind of human action was taking place, my body became abnormally rapid, said to Frank:
“What kind of trick is this?”
“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, for I had never read any solitary study on such a phenomenal.
“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,” said Frank, now with his tangible proof—in the form of magical rocks being tossed onto a doubtless, but stimulated me.
I shook my head, but they were coming from the sky nonetheless, what could I say, seeing is believing, and I did not want to get hit by one of those boulders to minimize my disbelief, I did believe in this ugly occurrence--period.
“I, I insulted them, I did,” he repeated; “Oh yes, I was mighty good at that too.” Said Frank, with an ongoing world-weariness and unabating interest,
Then all of a sudden a huge boulder came through the roof, it must had been two-hundred pounds, then half the roof caved in, I began to display signs of anxiety, and Frank saw this.
“We got to get out of here,” I told Frank.
“What!” he questioned me, “out of here, why—we can learn from this happening, reopen the devils door, they must be huge beings to toss two hundred pound rocks through the air at such speeds, analyze it Lee, what kind of human action could this be, none, none at all, anyone with any intelligence can see the fiends are giants borne out of such makers as the fallen angelic beings of the time before the Great Flood, or perhaps those who built Solomon’s temple, or perhaps, those giants on those islands in the Mediterranean, such as on Malta, or Crete.”
Next, he started to cuss 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 cussing and that would puzzle the fiends: consequently, allowing me time to get to the jeep, so I ran like the dickens out into the bombarding environment to the Jeep, thinking as I was running, how right he was, this was not related to humans at all, hitherto mask like faces , shadows, giant shadows began the show sings of expression, in the foliage, in the deep, overhead, nothing completely visible, and I vigorously jumped into my jeep, muttered a few words as I started it up, and went like hell. In the meanwhile, I heard the rocks and boulders pounding on the building structure behind me.

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, nothing but his shoes, which he was wearing on that day. 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.
I do know one thing for certain; there is a grave stone behind that Hotel, among other grave stones with his name on it that says “Buried here are the Shoes of Frank Gunderson, died 1999, the only thing found of him.”


Written in July, 2004 (The Author visited this location during the summer of 1999) Revised and reedited 7-2008