ORIGIN: JAPAN
INTRODUCTION BEFORE THE MAIN STORY
This urban legend tells the story of the vengeful spirit of a young woman who suffered a gruesome death.
According to the legend, the young school girl wanted to elope with her boyfriend teacher and he agreed, but when the got to the train station, he pushed her off the train so he'd still be with his wife.
Falling onto a railway line, she couldn't get up fast enough and so was cut in half by an oncoming train.
Her upper body was severed from her lower half, mutilated and ripped of every ounce of life in her but her spirit refused to rest, neither did it agree to move on to the next world.
She was angry at what had been done to her.
The next day, the male teacher was found dead on a subway, his body sliced in half.
However even with his death, her vengeful soul refused to calm down.
Now, she roams the streets at night, dragging her torso along the ground with her now evolved claw-like hands, making a sound that seems to say "teke-teke" as she moves.
She is known to chase down her victims with incredible speed even despite having no lower half.
All those who are unfortunate enough to see Teke Teke often meet a brutal death.
Some versions of the legend say that simply hearing the sound of her approaching seals your fate forever; there is no escape.
Because that sound means she's crawling toward you.
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I never believed in Japanese ghost stories although I was born in Sapporo, and raised on horror films and urban legends.
Kuchisake-onna, Hanako-san, the Slit-Mouthed Woman made sense to me, but Teke Teke was always the one that made me laugh.
A vengeful woman cut in half by a train and crawling on her elbows to drag others to the same fate?
Really now, who made such a stupid legend?
It sounded too absurd to be real.
That is until that night...
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It was February, and that meant Winter season; Winter in Hokkaido meant the streets were always quiet and covered in snow.
My friends, Kaito, Rina, and I had stayed late after cram school, then rushed to the train station but we missed the last one.
... And all trains stopped running at midnight
"Nice going, genius," Rina groaned, rubbing her gloved hands together.
"Now we have to walk."
"It's only two kilometers," I said, blowing out a cloud of white breath from my cold lips.
"We'll cut across the old rail bridge. It's faster from there."
Kaito frowned, "The abandoned line? You mean the one people say is cursed?"
"Urban legends," I pointed out with a dull look on my face and a sigh.
"Don't tell me you believe that crap."
He didn't answer, but Rina shot me a glare. "You always mock this stuff. One day, it'll bite you."
I rolled my eyes at that.
We reached the bridge just after midnight, but on seeing how the metal rails stretched into darkness with snowdrifts and several leafless trees on earth sides of it, Rina hesitated.
"Let's just take the road-------"
"Oh, come on," I interrupted, moving forward and stepping onto the tracks.
"It's not like the ghost of a woman is gonna-----"
CLANG.
We all froze.
Then the sound came again; it sounded like metal was hitting against metal.
Clang… clang…
It was faint but we could hear it still.
"It's probably wind," I muttered to reassure my friends, but even as I said it, the hairs on my neck stood up at their ends.
Kaito shone his phone flashlight toward the far end of the bridge, allowing the beam to cut through the mist, searching for the source of the sound.
Then the light rays from the flashlight landed on something, or rather a figure.
All of us squinted and stretched out necks, leaning forward a bit to get a better view of the figure.
Even with the light rays, we couldn't see too well due to the mist in the air.
But soon the mist began to clear, and as it did we realised that the figure was a woman.
She was crouched on the tracks with her long black hair hanging down her face like a curtain, and she was wearing a dark school uniform.
Her arms were bent awkwardly at the elbows, and her hands were rested on the frozen metal of the railway tracks.
"What the hell…" Rina whispered.
"Hey!" I called out.
"Are you okay?"
She didn't reply, but as soon as I said that, she started to move forward still crouching, and I began hearing a strange sound;
teke… teke… teke…
Slow at first, and I wondered were the sound was coming from.
Then sound became quicker and louder, as the woman began crawling towards us faster than before.
TEKE TEKE TEKE TEKE!
It was then that I saw the source of the sound; it was her elbows scraping against steel.
We stared at her with a puzzled look on our face, all of us probably wondering the same thing.
Why was she crawling?
The rusted rail metal could hurt her, and she'll get tetanus.
She raced toward us, dragging her upper body towards us with so much speed that her hair was now flying about her face in a scattered motion.
But just as she reached close to us, I noticed that below her waist there was nothing.
There were no legs, only bloodied intestines dragging behind her, and leaving a red smear across the snow- covered track.
"What the fuck!" Kaito shouted.
"Run!" Rina screamed.
Turning around, we bolted, hearing the sound of her... chasing us.
TEKE TEKE TEKE TEKE TEKE TEKE TEKE TEKE TEKE!
She seemed to have increased her speed when she realised that we were running away.
And that knowing that made me double my pace.
Kaito stumbled then, dropping his phone in the process and bent to pick it up.
However I grabbed his sleeve, yanking him up with me.
"Leave the phone!"
TEKE TEKE TEKE TEKE TEKE TEKE TEKE TEKE TEKE TEKE TEKE
It just sounded louder and louder by the second, so I turned, wanting to know just how close she was to catching us.
She was pounding and clawing at the rails with much force while she moved, and the way she moved was... unhinged and abnormal.
She wasn't human.
Then she locked her gaze on mine, causing me to get a glimpse of her eyes, looking pitch black and unmoving, not even blinking for a second.
I jerked, now it was my turn to stumble, falling with her quickly closing in.