So picture this.
You’re walking home from your daily routine when you hear a peculiar sound in the not-so-far-off
distance.
You turn around and frantically observe all your surroundings, ensuring that there is
nothing there.
Not a single person.
You are all alone.
Yet somehow, as you continue to walk, you know you are being followed.
As the presence draws closer, you start to panic.
The sound has gotten louder now.
Anyway you slice it, you might say that this episode’s feature is a “cut” above the
rest.
Greetings everyone.
My name is Blue, and welcome to The Grim Gallery.
The story, Click Clack, is the Westernized version of the legend which details events
about a sinister spirit rumored to have been sighted near the train stations of Japan.
Named for the faint sound it makes while stalking its victims, Teke Teke is a Japanese urban
legend about a ghostly creature with half a body, that stalks those unfortunate enough
to come in contact with it.
Before fleeing victims are able to react in time, the Teke Teke closes in on them with
a giant scythe and slices them in half.
But for what reason?
Why to make her victims feel her pain, of course.
So just who exactly is Teke Teke?
According to the legend, in the years after World War 2, an office worker in Muroran,
Hokkaidō was assaulted and raped by American military personnel.
That night, she leaped off a bridge onto the railroad tracks and was hit by an oncoming
train.
The impact was so forceful that her body was torn in half at the waist.
The severe cold of the Hokkaidō night caused her blood vessels to contract and prevented
her from bleeding out quickly.
Instead, she squirmed and wriggled about for help for several minutes.
She crawled all the way to a train station and was seen by an attendant.
Instead of trying to help her, the station attendant just covered her with a plastic
tarp.
She died a slow, agonizing death.
According to legend, three days after hearing this story, you will see the ghost of a woman
with no lower half.
The ghost is that of the woman hit by the train.
The ghost will try to catch you, and escape is impossible even in a car; the ghost can
crawl at speeds of up to 150 km per hour.
Some say that the ghost is searching for her legs, which were lost when she was cut in
half.
Others say that she is angry at humanity for not helping her when she was dying, and that
she is simply out to slaughter as many people as she can.
When she catches you, she will tear you in half and steal the lower half of your body.
Shortly after hearing the legend, she will ask you a riddle, either in a dream, or in
a mysterious phone call.
The only way to escape death is to answer her questions exactly the right way.
She will ask you: “Do you need your legs?”
You must reply: “I need them right now.”
Then, she will ask you: “Who told you my story?”
You must reply: “Kashima Reiko.
Ka as in mask (仮面), shi as in death (死), ma as in demon (魔), rei as in ghost (霊),
and ko as in accident (事故).”
If you answer her riddles without mistake, she may just let you live.
In another version of the story, the entity known as Teke Teke was in life, a Japanese
school girl who was bullied and victimized at school.
One day at the train station after school, her friends thought it would be a fun idea
to put a cicada- a bug which frequents Japan in the summertime, on her shoulder.
It’s just a prank bro, would not be able to take back what followed.
The girl was so frightened when she saw it that she fell off of the platform and onto
the tracks just as the Shinkansen, Japan’s fastest train, was passing by.
Her body was split in two and she died shortly thereafter.
Stories have circulated the world wide web regarding the sightings of her ghost, who
has been reported to haunt the train stations of Japan, she is known to otherwise kill people
with her scythe using the humanly impossible and harsh speed of the shinkansen that killed
her.
Similar to the legend of the ‘Slit Mouth Woman’, the legend of Teke Teke follows
the trope of a dead girl or woman who takes revenge on any victim she encounters by doing
the same thing to them that was done to her prior to death.
But is this legend possible?
It should be valid to note that there do exist rare cases of people who are living without
legs or a lower body and with medical help, they are able to survive and live fairly typical
lives.
Perhaps Teke Teke is simply the result of an individual with half a body just trying
to have fun.
A person out there who revels in scaring people in the later hours of the evening when they
are alone.
Sure it sounds ridiculous.
But think about it.
We only rule this possibility out as unlikely at first, because we assume that anyone suffering
with a physical disability can’t possibly have cruel agendas.
But as we know, looks can be deceiving.
Or maybe it is a malevolent spirit.
Anyway when looking at the physics of things, the average speed of Japan’s bullet train
is 320 km/h or 200 mph, however test runs have reached up to speeds of 603 km/h or 375
mph.
This means that for the Teke Teke to slice its victims in half at bullet train speed,
it would have to be moving at a speed far beyond the physical limits of the human body.
Seeing as we are able to gain swing momentum through our muscles that can reach top speeds
of 40 mph, and Teke Teke only has half a body, it would have to be the case that whatever
Teke Teke is, is not human.
What about Kashima Reiko?
The story of Kashima likely originated in Hokkaido, the northernmost and second largest
island of Japan, due to the real life Meishin Expressway being located there.
There also exists a real place called Kashima City, which is also the site of the Kashima
Shrine, one of the oldest Shinto shrines in Japan which is considered the birthplace of
many influential styles of Japanese swordsmanship.
The kusarigama is a traditional Japanese weapon that consists of a scythe or sickle attached
to a chain.
Though it’s very possible that we might be seeing a simple coincidence in names here,
this possible connection is still valid to note.
Another valid point of interest is that there are multiple version of this legend.
In one, the ghost is that of a male postal worker who died in great pain after being
shot in both arms and legs during the war by an American soldier.
In another the ghost is that of a woman who threw herself in front of a train after she
was raped during the chaos after the war.
Other variations present Kashima as a woman covered in keloid scars, a girl whose left
leg was blown off in an air raid, and so on.
In some versions, there are charms or actions that can be performed that can save you from
death, while in others you are doomed once you’ve been targeted.
The variations to the story seem to be endless, as with most urban legends and because of
this, it is difficult to pinpoint the exact validity of these accounts.
However there does seem to be a heavy influence by war and the stories that would be passed
along during those times.
The legend also says that when you hear this story, you will see Teke Teke after a month
nearby a train station or railroad.
Taken from my own personal account, at the time of this episode of the Grim Gallery being
uploaded, I have been aware of the legend for about 3 months now.
I recently took a trip to Singapore where I had many visits to the country’s Mass
Rapid Transit system or MRT, a very convenient and connected network of overhead trains.
I did not see the Teke Teke or anything even close to its description during any of the
times I had taken the MRT.
And I would say that it’s probably for the better.
This could mean one of two things, either the legend only applies to trains stations
in Japan and she’s waiting for me there, or the more likely possibility- the legend
isn’t real.
But what do you think?
Could Teke Teke be out there, or is it simply the product of decades-worth of storytelling
and closely related accounts of paranoia and fear late in the night?
One thing is certain, we ought to be careful near railway stations.
Whether you choose to believe or not is entirely up to you, however the world is a dark and
mysterious place and there is evermore an infinite plethora of the world for us to explore.
Remember: though we may fear the unknown, we live everyday to learn and understand these
fears, and through this, we may hopefully gain a better insight into ourselves.
Thanks for watching
and goodnight.