Prologue

She is walking. Three steps outside her bedroom door. She paused. She heard someone think. It was Aripiprazole, his name that day.

Shadows of walls fall upon the corridors of the great house she inherited from her dead grandmother. Sometimes she could still hear her through those walls. She runs.

She runs to the wide azotea where silent chairs behave themselves in manner she has ordered them to be. She told them one day, “Keep quiet, and keep your feet on the floor. No jumping!” Now that she thinks about it, she must’ve been too uptight. Even the stairs seemed to shiver as she pass. She stopped. She was at the foot of the wide staircase. The door in front of her just as wide as the stairs. How wide could everything be? Yet be narrowed by sunset?

The shadows of the sinking sun marring her small ashen face. She was young, she always thought.

“She said you were supposed to cook tsokolate for dinner,” she said.

“Yes, I will,” said he in short reply. A same ashen face, young too and handsome. His thin lips smiles at the little girl standing in front of him. He loosened his black tie and took off his black coat. His pants were also black, and his shoes, even his eyes and his well kept hair. How could anyone be so ashen in all those darkness?

“You didn’t turn on the lights,” he said as he stepped forward to kiss her on the forehead.

“She wants to see how long shadows can be,” she said kissing him on the cheeks. He stepped up the stairs, she following behind.

“And how long did they become?” he asked, his voice so deep the wood all over the house drowns in it.

“She thinks they were as long as Aripiprazole’s legs,” she answered.

He stopped to ask.

“A new friend?” he looked worried.

“No, silly” she answered.

“Is it a new animal you found on the net?” he was puzzled, of course.

“Your name,” she explained. “Your name she found today, you said you lost it the other day?”

He smiled. Yes he did. And so he was Aripiprazole, like a name of a new animal. He continued to go up the wide staircase, she followed still.

He walked like silence, she thinks. A tall, black death she imagines him to be. To lay him down a black casket. His long legs on the silken white pillows, his breath exhausted.

“Why don’t you wait for me in the kitchen, I’ll be cooking shortly,” he said as he walks through the dark corridors and into the the door at the end. She followed him but when he closed the door she stayed behind.

It is not good for a little girl to come inside a boy’s room, she thinks. But she could peek once in a while, when he lets the door open on weekends.

And she is such an obedient girl. She goes to the kitchen without opening the light. Her large black eyes wide open in the growing darkness. She imagines how her pupils have dilated in the dark. They could explode, she thinks, if she continues in all the blackness.

The cupboard are in their place. The table was laden with a basket of plastic fruits. It was a square table in the  middle of the room. She sits properly, like a lady, she always remind herself. And she suddenly wondered how odd it was, Aripiprazole’s clothes were as well presses as they were when he goes out of the house. Even the black and white tiles on this old house looks as if they were just pasted today. She would ask him when he goes out of his room.

She heard someone walking. He turned on the switch that was by the kitchen wall. Beside the refrigerator. The light came screaming.

“Did you stay here all day?” Aripiprazole asked. He still had the same clothes on, without the coat and the tie. His black leather shoes are without wrinkles.

“Yes, she did,” she said.

“And what does little girls do when they are left alone in the house?” he continued while he opens the cupboard. The couldron, the pots, the skillet, are all arranged according to color and sizes inside. He takes the tall stainless kettle.

“She reads your books and writes in her journal,” she said. She remembers always to hide her journal under her pillow as if pillows are safe enough as bulletproof safe boxes.

He didn’t say anything, just pouring water on the kettle. Measuring delicately the water in his mind, maybe estimating how much tabliya he would put.

The night filled outside the house. Crickets saved the house from silence. They don’t often speak when they eat. They, not the crickets. After Aripiprazole had microwaved the roasted chicken he bought from work, the rice in the rice cooker had been cooked, they both ate dinner together.

He eats slowly. He must be tired from work, she thinks. He always cooks dinner. Adobo or menudo, or some other specialty he was taught.

After eating, she would go straight to her room to read her emails. Her room was just beside Aripiprazole’s room. It was once the master bedroom in the house. The bed, a wide canopy bed. The walls were repainted in auburn. The wind blows the white curtains from her capiz window. Pitch black outside, the only light in the room is the glare of her laptop’s LCD screen.

A dog barked. Must be Aripiprazole feeding the wretched animal in its cage. She kept telling him to just give the dog away or sack it and take it someplace it could never go back. But he wouldn’t. He couldn’t understand how it feels like to be left in the house with a barking dog. But then again, she thinks, she doesn’t understand either.

She jumped out of bed and opened her closet. She let her hands feel the fabrics. Then she pulled out this one dress she really wanted to wear in her sleep. A deep red gown with laces and ruffles for sleeves. The dress fits her up to her knees.

Knocks from the door. Three times.

“Close the windows and turn off the lights when you sleep,” reminded he.

And so she did. Closing the wide capiz windows, yes, and turning off the lights? Oh they were turned off, she said to herself while stripping down and putting on the red laced dress.

In front of the mirror, she could see herself, wrapped in that red dress, behind her is her room, silent and cold in the dark. But she likes it that way. She dreams beautiful dreams there, like chasing arms or legs on beautiful sunny days where their garden seldom sports blooming gumamelas. And always, in those dreams she is alone with her journal. Writing her experiences in those dream of ever changing landscapes. She likes to tell herself, that one day, she will find that journal, maybe under her pillow, read it beside the window while waiting for the sun to set, again and again.

CHAPTER 1: The Not-so-Perennial Dog: Bantay

He came home that Friday night. The night had long closed its veil. His black coat in his arms, and his black pants as if they were freshly pressed. His shoes on the other hand has some splatter of mud on it for it was raining the whole day.

He stoop down to wipe the mud on his shoes. Red is already standing in front of him. Waiting for almost five minutes before he finished with his shoe.

“I am Red, it is so nice to meet you,” said she when he finally stood up. She always keeps her hands behind her.

He noticed muddy slippers on the shoe rack beside the door.

“Did you go out of the house?” asked he.

“No, but she dreamt she did,” said she. “Oh so far she ran,” she continued while he kisses her on the forehead and she on his cheeks.

“Many things happened today,” said he as he walked. “Why don’t we talk about it at dinner,” he held up the large black plastic bag he was holding. Anyone could have guessed what it contained but Red told herself it didn’t matter.

She was told to change clothes before coming to the table. He would cook that night, he told her and it would be a feast.

So she went to her bedroom and rummaged her closet. Some books are stuck in her clothes, her Franz Kafkas. And she stopped, what was it that she forgot?

After putting on her red laced dress she went straight to the kitchen. She could smell different recipes from the azotea and wondered how many was on the menu that Friday night. She wore read doll shoes. Her feet felt light as if they were being glided by some strange feeling of excitement.

The light around the house was bright and warm. Chandeliers in the kitchen just above the kitchen table. And the rain had finally settled, dissolving into crickets warbling.

She found him in the middle of taking out a large piece of roasted ham from the oven. She could see a big bowl of mechado. There were also adobo. Dinuguan too.

“I can prepare the table,” she grinned. And he nodded.

She carefully put the table mats over the table. The one at the kabisera, the one beside it. Soon the table was laden with many of that night’s feast.

“What happened today, Zodiac?” asked she.

He was about to swallow a spoonful. His face bewildered. He still could not get used to her calling him many names.

She was always excited to see his calm white face change expression. His black eyes would brighten up. And he would then smile sweetly at her. Always sweetly, for he thinks of her as his precious little doll. Fragile. With pinkish blush on the cheeks, long black hair, and wide glass eyes.

“I had a very nice day,” said he at last. “I finished my project on time and the clients seemed satisfied.” his lips spoke beautifully, she thought. She is tempted to ask more.

“She doesn’t know what it is that you do,” she said.

“Oh you’ll be bored when you do,” he answered.

“Well then, Mr. Zodiac, try her,” said she in reply.

He was shaken. Why is she asking this now? He told himself. He feels embarrassed. He doesn’t like anyone taking interest in his job. Isn’t it why he kept giving that dog leftovers? Taking care of the poor animal? Now, how does that happen?

“A curious job it is,” he said finally, as he tries to take control of his thought going wild. He’s not a big fan of his instinct not certainly of little girls.

The menudo was brilliant it sent blood to his cheeks and to hers as well. Exquisite meat, she thought. Empty chairs, they make her smile, empty ghosts who could never taste their feast.

“Can I go to your work sometime? The dog kept barking all day,” she said.

“Oh, but then I will be too busy to look after you,” he said.

She was offended. She certainly is cute but she doesn’t need anyone to keep an eye on her. She could bet she knows a lot more about mormons than he does.

“She could bet she knows more about mormons than you do,” she said, snubbishly.

“Yes, I know,” said he, now giving himself a serving of adobo. And he smiles. Silly, he thought. He wouldn’t even dare taking her to the office, not with all her satins and laces.

“She will take Bantay with her,” she still insists.

He wants to faint, he felt. He looked sad when he wants to faint. She was exhilarated to see how the blood rush in his cheeks and how quickly it disappeared.

He stood up, suddenly. He looked exhausted. O, mean little her.
He gathered his plates and his kubyertos without saying anything. Then he put them on the sink.

“I will think about it,” he said, cold voice, as cold as a slab of meat.

And she is left on the table, fiddling the food.

She couldn’t understand men. They thought the world revolves around their jobs. She stood up, went to her room and searched the net about what men hates to discuss before the table 101.

She was in the middle of reading her emails when she heard the dog bark weird. As if it was being pulled apart.

Terrible, its cries, if they had neighbors, they would think it exploded!

She went out of the room and went at their silong where the animal was caged. It was dark, bamboo walls, split in places. The cold light of the crescent moon shone.

She was surprised to see what she saw. His sleeves rolled up, his white polo spoiled with what looked like dried blood in that shady moonlit night. His face when she saw him was white, the contours of his nose, lips, chin were pronounced by that increasing moon. She felt excited to see him.

“The dog, exploded,” he said.

Her eyes tried to see what would look like a dog that exploded. The dog’s head, she couldn’t see. But the dog’s hind legs, held in both arms by Zodiac. He let go of it. The dog, exploded, he thinks.

He walked away. Blood all over his clothes. She followed behind without looking back. The darkness, she thought, her pupils might explode too.

chapter 1, page 2: the dearly departed

(chapter 1, page 2)

Zodiac is washing the dishes of that night’s feast. He was all over the kitchen sink.

“How did the dog explode?” asked Red, who was sitting by the kitchen table.

Zodiac then, turned off the water from the faucet, it was still dripping, but that was fine to him for now. If he had not let that dog explode he would have turned off the water faucet tightly. It wasn’t the time for that.

“I was supposed to wash the dishes right here when I remembered our dog had not yet eaten dinner,” he was exhausted to speak that long. He was trembling. “So I took that bowl of afritada that we didn’t eat, you remember?” he continued. “I took it downstairs, and when our dog saw me…” he paused.

Red thinks he shouldn’t say “our dog” when she doesn’t feel any acquaintance with it.

“When our dog saw me, it suddenly acted weird. Jumping up and down the cage, barking at me, pushing its head through the narrow rails of its cage. It pushed its head through it and it couldn’t get its head out…oh how it suffered,” he said. And he thought, yes that might be the reason why he pulled its hind legs.

“We should bury it somewhere,” she said finally.

“What?” he panicked. He had not buried anything in his life, not  even a sprout during home economics class, he always pretended allergic of soil. Well, he really thought he was back then.

“We can’t let that dead dog over there,” she said.

Dead. The word made him remember terrible things.

“I can’t, I can’t touch it anymore,” he said.
Red was starting to get really impatient with his undecidedness.

“I love that dog,” he said. He sat down the table, with his hands still soapy.

“There’s no helping it,” said she. “We’ll call the undertaker first thing tomorrow.” Somehow, she was disappointed. She could imagine him and her, walking up the dark woods of their backyard, threading on mud, a shovel, a black bag with a dismembered dog inside and some plastic flowers maybe, from the flower vase at the azotea. When she asked why they don’t put on fresh flowers, all Zodiac could say was that they were “noisy”.

That night, Zodiac couldn’t sleep. It was way past his bedtime. Usually, he’s already dreaming of chasing arms and legs at 11pm but its already 1 in the morning and he hadn’t had a wink. Perhaps a dead dog under the house disturbed his well planned nights. It was messy, he kept whispering to himself. It wasn’t supposed to be there. The idea of an undertaker coming to his house bugs him most. Why does Red have to say that? She could have said she knows mormons more than he does and then tell him to just let the dead dog rot there. Undertaker inside his house, for all he knows they even pick dead people’s boogers.

chapter 1, page 3: the undertakers

(chapte 1, page 3)

Just as Red thought, Zodiac didn’t sleep at all. It shows in his eyes. Droopy. His hair, he used to pull it back with pomada. But that morning, tangles escapes his once meticulously labored combed hair.

“I called the undertaker,” he said. “He’ll be here any minute.” Sometimes, he thinks he does things he doesn’t like. Aren’t we all like that?

He looks at his watch. The head of some dog cartoon character. 3 minutes. He’ll be late in three minutes, the undertaker not him, he clears. He hasn’t been late in his life.

“I haven’t been late in my life,” said he.

“Yes, that would be terrible,” she replied.

They were standing by the foot of the staircase for almost 5 minutes now. Both of them waiting. They don’t like being late, really.

Three minutes have passed. The dog was rotting by the minute, she thought.

“Did you really call them?” asked Red, still wearing that red laced dress, holding a large black leather bound notebook in her right hand and her HB pencil on the right.

“They could be lost,” he said.

Red nodded. Yes, that could be it. And she regretted having doubted him. But she could’ve insisted that they bury the dog themselves but she didn’t. It would be a romance, she thought, just the two of them. Doing things together. But sometimes, she too thinks she does things she doesn’t like.

He on the other hand, was trembling inside himself. He imagine himself shaking hands with the undertaker or smelling formaldehyde on his collars or see him on mask and gloves holding scalpel on both hands. Why would he hold a scalpel, silly him. Before he could’ve ran back to his room they both heard car engine whirring. He opened the old wooden bolted door. It squeaked.

Funeraria Maria, black L300 with muddy tires. He doesn’t like mud. He could just say they got the wrong address. Red promised herself to sleep this one out if it proves to be boring.

And then, a full grown woman. With disheveled long red hair tied high at the back went out of the driver’s seat. With embarrassingly large chest and wide hips, the woman had fair skin, her face beautiful if not for her heavy set make up, red lipped voluptuos woman in tight white slacks and red suit, high heeled shoe too.  Another followed her, what looked like a handyman in handy clothes.

“Good morning,” said the woman enthusiastically. It suddenly felt like noon to Red. She was screamingly loud to look at.

The woman came to the door offering her hand to him. He cleared his throat reluctant to give his hand.

“Sheila Maria, the funeral director for Funeraria Maria,” she introduced herself her hand still expecting his.

He seemed to have forgotten his name.

“Tortov,” exclaimed Red.

And he remembered his name for that day.

“Tortov,” said he, and he smiled. Her hand turned cold.

“Well then Mr. Tortov,” she said, her hand tired, “We shouldn’t keep the anticipating dead waiting,” then firing her fingers like guns at them. Her nails are of nightmarish violet.

Her handyman looked like a butcher. Eyes, like it could slice bodies and his belly looked like it could digest even the fiercest cannibals in just minutes. Tortov couldn’t let these people come inside. He must regain control over the situation.

Tortov, with a new white sleeved polo and black slacks and his working black unwrinkled formal shoes on was ready to talk business.

“I would prefer it if you could work on it right away,” he said, meaning he wants them out of his property as soon as possible.

“Of course Mr. Tortov, or else you should’ve called god blessed detritivores instead of us,” she said, then shooting a single hand gun at him.

Red smiled.

“Detritivores.” she repeated. Then she opened her journal and started writing on it.

“Those are worms, beautiful creatures my dear, just like you, but often misunderstood, write that down,” said she while putting her hand over Red’s head. It wasn’t actually a question.

She doesn’t like being touched. She wonders if Tortov would want to be touched by this woman too.

“Would you mind having some coffee first?” asked Red.

Tortov glared at her. That would mean an hour of stepping inside the house with a dozen of those small talks about those god blessed detritivores and describing them as the heroes of the information age.

The woman looked delighted. Looking at him now, she looks like she’s measuring how long a coffin she would lay him down that night.

“If you insist,” said the woman.

“How about the detritivores?” he asked.

“Oh yes of course, sorry hon,” the woman said to Red.

Tortov then led them to the backyard where the bamboo fenced silong was. Red decided she’d prepare coffee for them and went her way to the kitchen.

She likes pouring coffee to coffee cups. She likes little coffee cups. Tortov would buy exquisite chinas just for her and just recently he purchased a set of polka dotted tea cups and saucers with little colorful ants printed on it. She liked how the ants seemed to climb up the rim and then dive into the coffee as if drowning helplessly. Anyway, they were cute. She held her breathe as she poured coffee. She doesn’t like to spill it. The coffee breath escaped and the smell filled the kitchen until she realized she was not supposed to drink coffee. Tortov warned her of little girls drinking coffee. Tsokolate or milk, he would strongly suggest. She immediately stopped herself from pouring coffee to the last coffee cup.

Coffee, it filled her lungs then her mind. She could sip a little and no one will know, she thought. She thought about it. Oh how she thought about it. But in the end she didn’t do it, because she knows the tragedy that befalls those who do not observe warnings. But now that she thinks about it, isn’t it also tragic that the inevitable does not happen?

She took the tabliya jar from atop the cupboard using the improvised bookshelf ladder that Tortov had provided for her when one time she used his books to climb up the cupboard one sunny Sunday afternoon. Or was it a Saturday?

Meanwhile Tortov, the woman and the butcher who came with her was standing in front of the dead dog.

“It must’ve been loved,” asked she. How she knew it, no one knows.

Oh yes, yes, it was, it was, until it died! Tortov shouted in his heart.

“Though we expected something more human than this,” she said. “It would cost you to reconnect that lovely head to its body, but don’t expect us to make it look as if it was sleeping.”

“Can you do that? For the poor animal’s sake?” Tortov, teary eyed.

“We need to know your expectations, and then we will present to you what we could do about those expectations, that’s how we work,” said she. Tortov was particularly enchanted at the professionalism that the woman was exhibiting at that moment. He absolutely forgot all about her lascivious advances.

“So let’s discuss business Mr. Tortov. We deal with death seriously as you can see,” said she.

“Oh yes, of course, its in your copy,” he said, he smiled but his eyes glint with silent sadness. He used to love that dog and now its dead. It was in those moments that it finally seemed to reach his heart or so he thought. He was crying inside himself yet he couldn’t understand why he couldn’t really cry. His damn tear glands, he blamed. He really wanted to cry out loud and he was thinking how to be hysterical. Maybe trying to make his lips tremble or brushing his eyes until it bleeds out would do the trick. And the woman, she sees how he tried so hard. And images of erotically charged fantasies of coffins and wobbling mechanical angel head flooded her mind until Roger, the butcher, finally said something inaudible.

“I’m sorry?” asked Tortov.

“I said do you have a workshop?” Roger, the butcher, seemed annoyed at his boss’ thoughts, she was awfully loud, really. Tortov was confused.

“He needs it to make some preliminary preparation Mr. Tortov,” the woman said.

“Yes, of course,” Tortov said after some moments of hesitation. He certainly had a workshop in the house. At the backyard in the midst of large balete trees that haunts him even in midday.

He hasn’t been there since the old lady died, sometimes he still hears her out there, but since she doesn’t make a mess of the yard he didn’t mind. Its just that he hasn’t been there for a long time. A mound of earth it must’ve turned with years of neglect.

“Things not like us,” said the woman, her red mouth shaping the words so he could hear her in her whispered flirtation.

Tortov trembled hearing those words. Things not like us…the fact that he couldn’t tag a person’s face on those words makes him shiver. But he couldn’t let this dirty butcher come inside their house.

Red came with a tray of coffee and some pandesal.

“Nothing’s in there,” Red said. “Except for some school armchairs.”

“Well, then we must see for ourselves,” said Tortov. He was getting impatient. Soil, too much soil in the backyard, he thinks. Next year maybe he’ll cut these trees and make the ground concrete. But then he couldn’t really do that actually, things not like us, he reminded himself.

The four of them proceeded to the thick of the balete trees as if entering some magical forest. Red was a little hesitant to follow for she had to leave her favorite tea cups behind. “They might break,” said Tortov.

One thing that Tortov hates about balete trees are its unkept appearance. Its roots everywhere, its vines unlike other vinery plants do not crawl up to the sun, just falling, down the earth, it depresses him. He had read this book where a tree was supposed to bleed and cry in agony every time one breaks its branches and the only kind of tree that he attaches to that imagination was these balete trees in their backyard.

In the middle of the the thick “forest” of Balete trees in their backyard is this shaded little house with little windows. And beside it is a mountain of armchairs piled up from each other. They were wet from yesterday’s rain.
She was an elementary school principal, Tortov suddenly remembered. She has the habit of taking school properties at home. She also had the habit of taking little dirty school children to have her white hair picked inside the house. She was fired from work because of that. Because of taking school properties, not the latter.

The little house was made into a bodega when Red’s grandmother died. And it was not opened since then.

“I’ll just go get the keys,” said Tortov and he walked away.

“Do you play here a lot?” the woman asked Red.

“Yes, once in a while she plays here,” answered Red.

“And what do you play?” she stooped down and took her hands to her.

“Hide and seek,” she was getting uncomfortable with the woman touching her. What should she do, she thinks.

“Oh really, who do you play with?” this little girl is all dolled up, she thought.

Red was surprised. Do you need anyone else to play hide and seek with?

“No,” she answered taking her hands from the woman’s grips.

“Only you and your brother lives here?” asked the woman. She has the habit of pouting her lips whenever she feels like it.

“She doesn’t have a brother,” Red answered. She doesn’t like her asking too many questions as if she likes to know more about her.

“Oh, then, Mr. Tortov…” the woman on the other hand was perplexed. She was of the impression that they were siblings. I mean they look the same with those clothes, she thought. She was about to ask another question when Tortov came, rushing, keys on his hand. He had never ran that fast in his life. He doesn’t like walking either. But that’s not an excuse to run, right? So, why did he run?

“I thought some kind of illegal animal would come out of there,” Tortov said, panting. One could see his breath coming out from his lungs. It was quite careless for him to breathe that way, thought Red. Anyone could really see his life out there in the open, continued Red’s thought.

Tortov, with heavy steps came at the locked door. Debris of fallen wood, grass, soiled elementary uniforms, bits and pieces of books and test papers. The keys in his hand turning colder. Three, four keys, one must fit inside the lock. One should, one must, it should, Tortov repeated the mantra in his mind.

First key, it came right through the keyhole but it won’t turn, the next one too, until the third, it clicked. Clicking, clicking, he kind of liked the sound so he turned it another time without actually turning the knob. But he was also scared…of spiderwebs, and spiders, of dust and soil, and of rotting.

Roger was becoming impatient.

“Are you going to open it or what?” asked the impatient one.

Tortov has never been talked to like that in his life. Accomplished is what he wants to call himself. But that doesn’t matter now, his dog is dead, dead, dead. He opened the crumbling door. Creaking, creaking, creaking. His mind was also creaking. After he had opened it little Red came rushing under his wings and went inside. Oh, inside rushed the little girl in red dress.

Splash! Water under her feet. Water, from last night’s rain. Nothing was there but last night’s rain. No monster, nothing. Just water. Tortov was a little disappointed, so is Red. It was their first attempt to the unknown, they braved it, a monster was supposed to get out because they are afraid. Then what were they scared of in the first place?

“Well, were good!” burst the woman among them. “Let’s pick up this dog in pieces!”

“No, I don’t think I can work here,” said Roger.

“If its the water, its just 2 inches deep,” said Red.

“You don’t need to be so glum,” said the woman, pouting her lips again.

“Will the moist affect your method?” asked Tortov, rather concerned. He needs to make sure that this guy stay here, far enough from his house.

“No its the smell,” said Roger, his face looked scared instead of disgusted.

“What smell? The old wet wood or the stagnating water?” asked Tortov. He’s particular with smell, really, loves the smell of detergents, but what smell is this Roger talking about? Maybe it was something under his nose.

Robert stopped talking. He looked up at Tortov.

“Things not like us…” Roger said with his stone face that looks like it wants to crack up from too much pounding.

The woman manager, who wanted to salvage her collapsing business scenario that day from one bewildered customer because of his eccentric employee finally butted in.

“O come on Roger, when did you believe in those things? I was just goofing around,” said the woman, pouting.

“I did not believe my grandfather until I came up here!” said the embalmer, Roger. “I thought it weird, a dog slaughtered, and then that smell, it was here, it is here!” with that much emotion, Roger gave himself out, before he could finnish his last sentence he was out of breath.

“Things not like us…slaughter,” repeated Red in her journal. She thinks the word slaughter was nice to hear.

“Mr. Tortov, I think Roger here is just hungry,” said the woman, her patience going to its limit.

Tortov was not the least bit amused. He doesn’t like this absurdity. The way his life had been dragged out from its predictability to this comedy.

“I just hope that despite what he is saying he will do his job,” said he trying to be calm, talking to the woman.

“Yes of course Mr. Tortov, I apologize for his sudden outburst, this is the first time he acted this way,” said the woman.

Roger, felt weak and went silent. Everyone was satisfied that way.

“Well Mr. Tortov, let’s discuss our arrangement for the funeral,” said the woman.
Tortov, Red and the woman then went on their way leaving the resentful Roger behind the prison of Balete trees.

Who can wonder what tragedy he was thinking.

chapter 1, page 4: and then, there was none

(chapter 1,  page 4)
There they sat in the azotea, the coffee that Red had prepared a while ago had become cold. Cold coffee makes her sad.

The woman, she calls herself Sheila, was sitting in the azotea’s coffee table. She felt out of place. The chairs looks like it has not been moved for years. The floor was so shiny it sparkles and the wooden walls, seems like it had lived there for centuries. Everything seems to know where they are supposed to be, a command, rules this house follows. And she was starting to feel really cold despite the heavy sunlight that escapes the half open capiz windows. Maybe, its also because she could hear whispers. Something tells her, she’s not supposed to be there.

She’s quieter inside a house, thought Red as she looks at the woman that now so solemnly sits. Shadows that fall on her then loud face makes her look sombre, her eyes carved in darkness, and her head lined with gloom.

Meanwhile, Tortov was in the kitchen brewing new coffee. And Red, she was sipping hot tsokolate in front of the woman whose eyes now fixed on the door across the room.

“It’s an empty room, but she don’t believe that, Tortov just say that because he doesn’t want her to go inside,” said Red.

“And you didn’t look, even just a peek on made up holes?”

She didn’t answer right away. It was an absurd question, she thinks. Why would she want to look inside when she’s told not to.
These people, she thinks, they are full of trivialities.

She stood up from the chair she was sitting. Her black doll shoes as shiny as the floor. Then she rushed to the kitchen door and peeked at Tortov. He was taking too long, Red thinks.

But when she looked, Tortov was not there. And she was gripped with an incomprehensible excitement, like something is happening, the ultimate mystery, and she doesn’t know what it is…and she is about to.

They heard screams from amidst the rustling of balete leaves.

Sheila, stood in fear. She knows well that voice. She had heard it before. Red ran out the house, she has fast little leaps. Sheila followed her. The screams continued.

When they reached the little house, the scream stopped. The door to the old little house was closed. This is the monster that should have come out when Tortov opened it, little Red knew well. And Sheila looks like she lost her sense to speak, even to gasp for air.

Red pushed the door, and it creaked, like a prelude to some terrifying film noir scene.

Sheila collapsed to the ground. She wanted to scream and run but couldn’t, no, not with what she saw.

“Tortov, what happened?” asked Red, really concerned.

Roger’s body was lying on the ground. His face twisted in terror, grotesque. With hollow stomach, pieces of flesh and his breakfast scattered on the ground. But the flesh was still pounding, as if it still has life.  And poor Tortov, was crying blood, his face looks like he hadn’t slept a century. Pulsing veins in his face, he was still holding what looks like Roger’s small intestines. Blood all over him.

“I, I just delivered him coffee, and he snapped at me, he was going to kill me!” said Tortov, trying to convince his lovely doll with blood tears.

“She understands,” said Red, and she tried to embrace him, the poor thing.

“I should’ve listened to you when you told me to get rid of that beloved dog, and now…now…its posses me like some mad dog,” Tortov sobbed.

“It wasn’t your fault,” said Red.

“Yes it is,” said Tortov, trying to be calm. Of course it is, he thought. Everything was his fault. His responsibility. And now, he has to clean up all this mess. He stood up. He could smell blood and flesh in his breath. It wasn’t that bad, he realized. Just a little pinch of rust taste in his mouth. He went out of the house.

Red followed.

Sheila was running. She was running for the car. But Tortov followed him, he didn’t become fast, he just became reckless. Sheila couldn’t look behind. She could hear loud hissing. She ran as fast as she could, until her lungs would seem to explode. Until she was caught by her red dyed hair.

And everything became just blood and flesh, like melting into a hot pot of boiling dinuguan! He couldn’t remember his name, nor will he ever could. The only lingering thing in him is the warmth of flesh and blood that now seems to flood his every waking pulsing imagination.

Killer Soap Opera: Part 4, Aswang

She was always happy, he remembered. He would always remember her laughing. Beautiful like laughing flowers in a sunny afternoon. She beamed with life.

He on the other hand was not always so sullen. He smiles a lot back then. He enjoys videoke before, or parties, has lots of friends, people call him even after work just to invite him for a little drink. But ever since her wife told him that they were pregnant, he started to feel afraid.

He started dreaming, every night. Dreams of an old woman with long white hair, cursing at him. He could feel her hatred. At night, he feels as if being crushed by a huge rock in his chest. Or sometimes he could hear noises like someone is gnashing teeth in his ears. Wringing noise that seemed to unsettle his already desperate spirit.

One night, he forced himself to confess.

“We can’t have the baby,” he said. “I have a bad feeling.”

His wife who has always suspected him odd those past few days was expecting this night.

She became angry. Her eyes burned with rage at her husband who was sitting at the edge of the bed. She didn’t say anything, as if she’s saving up her anger.

He became more afraid. The following days and nights was like sleeping with a tiger. Her wife would not talk to him anymore, except for unnatural glares. He saw not his wife anymore. It was like she was possessed. She was always rubbing her womb or when he comes into the room, she would cover her belly deliberately with both her arms as if hiding it from him.

“We should have you checked, and the baby too,” said he at last one night in dinner.

Her wife looked at him with wide red eyes as if she wants to eat him for dinner instead.

“You want to kill us!” her wife suddenly jumped up the table and was hissing in fits.

She was holding the kitchen knife now and was waving it at him who has dropped down from where he was sitting. He didn’t know how serious the condition of her wife was until now. Her once lovely wife is now…bathing in oily sweats and drooling all over the table, making disturbing noises–growling like a wild dog!

He was too shocked to even scream.

“Susmaryosep,” he gasped as he stared at his wife, his once beautiful wife.

“You’re going to kill us!” she screamed, saliva on her mouth. He could smell the stench coming from her body.

He started praying. First, the “Aba Ginoong Maria” then “Ama Namin” but nothing seemed to work. You could imagine how long he’d been dodging his wife’s attacks. He wasn’t even aware that he’d been sliced twice in the back, his flesh weakening him as he crawled on the floor. But her wife was determined to kill if only she was not dragging her body around and if only she doesn’t have that baby inside her womb.

Meanwhile, as if too tired to even be afraid, the faithful and good husband threw all his strength to stop the clear and bright blade of the knife his wife was holding. His senses quickened. Maybe it was the full moon shedding the shadows in his soul. He outpowered his wife, grabbed the knife and threw it on the window of their kitchen. (Unfortunately for someone passing by the window, he died with his head split in two.)

Her wife suddenly bled. She was giving birth, and he was even more terrified. Everything became like haze that night for him, like he was enveloped in smoke. His wife and child both died that night and yet he couldn’t bring himself to tell it to the family…why she died. He doesn’t know either. But he knows there is malice, there is evil and it followed him, even beyond the grave.