Chapter 4: We have a visitor!

The night was pitch dark. The shadows of distant trees create moving figures on my window pane. Some “Thing” was up on the roof. It was slowly crawling from the far end of our staff house roof going to the other end – the same area where my room was. Folklore of real? Okay. It could have been a cat. Yes, but a cat that weighed at least a hundred pounds. I didn’t know. I was caught between the exact sciences I have been brought up and educated with and was now faced with the mystery of the creature that was only defined to me by stories in the past. Was this it? Was this the “Aswang” that haunted people at night wanting to feed on children? If it didn’t find a child to feed on, would it resort to other creatures? Will it choose me instead? Those were my thoughts as i continue to here this heavy thing crawl on our aluminum roof.

I did not know what to do. I am glued to the corner of my room hoping that my back was protected by the walls of make-shift fort. I didn’t know what to think. I was faced with something I did not know how to react to. What if it showed up in my window pane looking at me - salivating on every opportunity to reach me. What will I say? Will I shout at it hoping my volume will scare it away? Will I start reciting “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want…” as the actor David Soul did in the vampire movie “Salem’s Lot”. All these thoughts came out in that few seconds I had as the cranking roof sounds were getting more audible. Nearer to me by every crank I hear. The dogs continued to howl lengthly. They actually sounded like wolves that night. In no exaggeration, I never heard such long howls in my entire life. I have never heard dogs paused for a second to breathe only to continue howling on that being above me.

Suddenly, a blue light popped out. Huh! Lina’s room was lighted. It obviously came from the light of her cellular phone. She was awake! I was not alone! Lina’s room was underneath the area where that thing landed. Should I call out for Lina? Should I call out for Pepito? But that would alarm whatever that crawling thing was above all of us. If my call was heard by it, will it decide to desperately move in and use all of its muscles to get one of us and start chewing? I really didn’t know. If it was a robber, I would have known what to do. But this thing is different. If seemed supernatural.

Lina’s cellular phone light was my saving grace. It kept me on guard seeing the roof above me. It was the longest night of mine in Calatrava. I used my back-pack and bags to guard the bamboo partitions in front of me thinking it may insert it’s long tongue from underneath! For the first time in my life, I hoped that one small crucifix Lyn bought from “Quiapo” standing beside my widow would be my last resort. My only resort. It was the only thing I knew and believed would have saved me. I waited and waited and waited for its next move. The next thing I knew, I woke up and it was 6:00am. It was a sunny Friday morning. Yes, I was still alive. Yes, my entire body was still intact.

(End of Chapter 4)