Birthplace

by K. S. Villoso

  I remember my grandmother saying once that if you see an aswang, you don’t blink. I don’t, on retrospect, remember why, exactly. I think it had something to do with holding it with your stare, or that if you blink you give it power over you and you’ll get attacked. Well, I stared at Enrique and kept blinking, so I didn’t catch everything. It wasn’t like in the movies where the whole thing was stretched out with ethereal music in the background. I blinked and suddenly he had hair all over his arms. I blinked again and his nose was longer. Blinked and his ears were pointy. Blinked and he had jaws.

  And then he was standing there on all four feet, that same dog I saw outside Ciskong’s hut back in Sakul, except he seemed bigger, somehow. He must’ve noticed that too, because he smiled—a wolfish grin that showed all his teeth on one side. “It was an illusion,” he said. “Where else do you think all our strength comes from?” His voice had turned into this rumbly echo.

  “Yeah, because clearly everything else is logical,” I said.

  He crouched lower, his ears flopping back. I could see him breathing underneath all that black, shiny fur. “Come on,” he said.

  “What?”

  “You can’t change on purpose yet, so I have to carry you there.”

  “Oh.” I looked at him. “I thought we were going to take a jeepney, or something.”

  “Stop delaying. Every minute Rachel Ann stays there is a minute too long. She’s too attractive.”

  “Yeah,” I sighed.

  “I mean like a cheeseburger is attractive! Let’s go!” He whipped his tail back and forth.

  I sighed again and scrabbled over his thick shoulders. He gave an experimental step, and I adjusted my seat so that I had my arms completely wrapped around his enormous neck. He uttered a quick bark and galloped into the night.

  The journey seemed like a blur, although mainly that was because it was dark and the speed we were going made me shut my eyes to protect them. And then we stopped, and I felt Enrique nudge my leg. I clambered down and saw that we were at the road below Sakul, right where I’d gotten Rachel Ann lost.

  It seemed like such a long time ago. I tried to remember what I could have been thinking that day, but I couldn’t—it’s like that guy was a stranger, and I was watching him thinking what the hell, buddy? Why the fuck are you making her so miserable? I wanted to take a piece of lumber and beat the lights out of him. If he had actually gone and taken her home that day, we wouldn’t be in this mess. I wouldn’t know anything about myself, and I’d probably lose her without knowing why, but she’d be safe and sound.

  Enrique started talking, and I had to turn away to listen to him. “There’s a store down there,” he was saying. “Bit of a large family. They have a little girl, maybe three or four years old.”

  I stared at him. “What are you planning?”

  He sniffed the air. “You’re good at acting, right?”

  “Depends.” I crossed my arms.

  “You don’t have to lie. A lot. Otherwise, just tell it like it is.” He suddenly seemed smarter than I thought he was. “Lolo Ciskong isn’t going to like this.”

  I laughed. “Good!”

  “No. I mean...” He paused, and I registered a note of hesitation, like someone who’d just been given a knife and was asked to kill a puppy. Then he shook his head. “I guess I have no choice. They decided this.”

  I thought he was being dramatic. I had no idea some trenches need to be dug so deeply you might as well have made yourself a grave.

  The next couple of hours played out like a movie. If I didn’t have such vivid memories of standing out in that drizzle covered in rain and my own sweat, I would’ve thought it all a dream.

  Enrique started out by jumping on top of the roof, startling the guy inside. He rushed out, leaving the little girl by the window. Enrique tore through the wire mesh, grabbed her, and disappeared off into the blackness, leaving her scream hanging in the air.

  I ran towards the store yelling, incoherent and frightened out of my wits. The guy met me and saw the damage, and managed to make out some sense from my garbled mesh. His sister. An enormous dog, six feet tall at least. He grabbed a stingray whip from the wall and rushed towards their home.

  He had his entire family gathered in the space of an hour. I hung back in the corner, repeating my story every time someone so much as looked at me. They inspected the torn window, nodding and shaking their heads. The women started crying, and one came up to shake one of the men and tell him she knew, she’d always known how strange those people there up in the hills were. Wasn’t she the one who told them all about that other girl who disappeared some six, seven years ago? She was last seen going up that back road with a guy from Itumayam. Of course they could never prove it, but...

  I came out and voiced my opinion, keeping my head low and my eyes shielded while I spoke. I told them I was just some guy from Manila, visiting my relatives, but it seemed to me that they might be able to save her if they found her. That it made no sense to leave this until days later, when they—whoever they were—might have had the chance to clean up their act. They might claim more victims that way. The noisy woman, looking at me, vehemently agreed.

  Another hour and they were marching up the road, towards that crest that I just learned then was the straight way up to that village. There were about thirty or so—too many people kept disappearing and popping up for me to keep a proper count. They were a big family, like Enrique had said, and they had even more friends. I didn’t think I’d ever seen such a large number of bolos in my life.

  Somewhere along the upward trail, I sneaked into the woods and disappeared. I think if I try and close my eyes right now, I can still see that line of torches in the dark and hear the sound of so many feet stomping the wet ground. You see, I just wanted to save my best friend. I wasn’t thinking that far ahead. How was I supposed to know the carnage, the bloodshed, and all the deaths that would come from such a simple and noble act?

  Chapter Eighteen

  * * *

  * * *

  Enrique met me close to the clearing with the abandoned huts. He was panting and wet. “I’ve dropped her off,” he said.

  “Safe?” I asked.

  He gave me a look. “Of course. She’s with a nice old woman who’ll feed her and probably won’t call the town watch until daylight. How was your end?”

  “Better than I expected. They’ll be there soon.”

  He grunted. “We have to hurry, then. They’ll catch wind of them kilometres away. We need to get her out while they’re still confused.”

  “Just like my mother always said—there’s nothing more powerful than an angry mob.”

  “There isn’t?”

  I flicked his nose with my fingers. “What makes you so sure he’s keeping her in the mansion, anyway? Couldn’t they be in Sakul, or—” I sniffed. She wasn’t in the huts, of course. Enrique said they had kept us there only for the ritual and the feast, which had called for everyone from the village and required a wide open space. I had turned for an audience. I wondered what it was like for him, who turned in a closet, frightened and alone.

  “The old woman is dead. The mansion is his, now.” He glanced at me. “Yours, actually, but you see what I mean. Why live in a farm when you can be king of your own castle?”

  “But if she’s not there,” I said, “we’d have wasted our time. And maybe our only chance to get her out alive.”

  He came up and nudged my elbow. “You’re shaking.”

  I hadn’t noticed that. I glanced at my bare hands, which had grown so pale I couldn’t even recognize them as mine. “Guess I’m just tired,” I said. “We should hurry up.”

  We crossed the road again. Enrique’s intention was to get us to cut through Sakul and that very route we so painstakingly walked through a few nights ago, so that Ciskong would be too distracted to see us coming. I recognized the farms, even Ciskong’s quiet little hut. I felt a little nostalgic.

  “Hey,” I said, maybe a minute after.
“Can we stop?”

  “Why?”

  I glanced up at the sky. “Just stop,” I said. “Over there.”

  He saw where I was pointing. “I don’t think that’s wise,” he said.

  I jumped off his back. “I don’t care. I need to do this. I’ll call you if I need you.”

  He frowned—if you could call it that—and a few steps in I saw that he decided to follow me after all. We tore the door down and entered the Prageda hut as quickly as we could.

  Maybe I was too lucky. I had expected a fight, after all. Instead there was just those three lower halves of their bodies, all standing there in their living room like stumps at a seamstress’s shop. Enrique looked at me and I smiled. I pulled out a plastic bag I had hidden in my pockets. The smell of garlic and salt and chilli peppers filled the room.

  “Where...” he started.

  “That store,” I said. “They were going out to kill aswangs tonight, Riko. I had to pick some sort of weapon. I didn’t think you’d appreciate the crucifix.”

  He closed his mouth and turned his head. I took that to mean he wasn’t going to stop me and started to liberally apply the paste on top of each body. It was disgusting, but I didn’t stop smiling the whole time. My only regret was that I wouldn’t be there in the morning to see the looks on their faces when they died.

  The mansion was half-lit when we arrived. Out in the distance, we could see the torch-lights and hear what sounded like the beginnings of an argument. Enrique looked out wistfully for a moment, but he didn’t say what was on his mind. He took me up the balcony and nudged me towards the nearest window.

  He didn’t have to do it, of course. I could smell her from where I was, and for some reason the scent was so ripe I could barely contain myself. I told myself I was just excited to see her, to know she was alive, even as my gut churned and insisted I was just kidding myself. I tugged at the shutters, pulling the window open.

  “Who’s there?”

  It felt like I hadn’t heard her voice in ages. I jumped into the room as lightly as I could. It was dark, but I could see her clearly. She was in bed, the sheets wrapped around her loosely. Her face was gaunter than the night before.

  “Pablo,” she gasped. She said my name like she never expected to see me again. I opened my mouth and she was up and had her arms wrapped around me, and while I breathed in her scent and struggled against this overwhelming desire to throw her to the ground and rip her throat out my heart felt like it was full to bursting. All this confusion made me just stand there, limp as a banana peel.

  “I didn’t think you’d come back,” she said, pulling her head back briefly to look into my eyes. “Ciskong was going on and on about all this bullshit and I was starting to think it would be so much better for you to just stay away.”

  “Yet you’re happy to see me,” I struggled to say. I touched her arm. “Don’t you trust me?”

  She laughed. I don’t think I ever fully understood, until that moment, how much I’d actually hurt her. Not just over this incident, but all our time together. All the things I told her—the way I would pretend not to care. Well, how was I supposed to tell her now that it all had been just an act? That I had been afraid to accept that you could love someone so very much, even when you’re so young you could still wet your pants and have someone think it’s cute?

  I said, “Enrique’s waiting outside,” and then it happened.

  Actually, many things happened, but I’ll start with what was right in front of me.

  I turned.

  It was different this time. Just as painful, but faster. My nails turned to claws and my nose... I could see my nose... and my whole body felt like I’d just dived straight into a heap of hay. “It’s okay!” I barked out, unsure if she could hear me or even understand me. “I’m—it’s not...”

  And then I doubled back and started retching out all the meat and water from the whole day through, all the bloody contents of my belly. Suddenly the hunger became impossible to ignore. It was fire in my throat and down my insides. I looked at her, and I wanted her. No one else, I thought, should have her. Not her family, not Mark, not that stupid little parasite with its frantically beating heart inside of her... nobody!

  I lunged. I was so confident of my strength, so sure I could end this very, very quickly, that I didn’t notice the chair that smashed against my brow. So, I thought. She wants this rough, huh? That’s okay. I licked my lips, running my tongue over my teeth, and sank low, aiming for her leg.

  A dresser crashed towards me and I had to turn, almost in mid-air, to avoid it. Damn bitch! I roared and leaped and she was on the other side of the bed and she had got a sheet wrapped around me but my mouth was on her shoulder and all I had to do was bite down hard, which was difficult because I felt like laughing at how easily she ran out of things to throw at me...

  Someone shrieked out in the night. I turned my head and she knocked me out cold.

  I had this dream—thought, really, of Becca looking sadly at me, while in the background Enrique was saying, “We can’t help who we are. We can’t.” I heard Ciskong laughing, but when I tried to get a good look at him all I could see was my dad.

  I opened my eyes and realized I hadn’t been out that long. I was still on the ground, by the bed, and Rachel Ann was peering through the window. I got up and heard a heavy body thumping up on the roof. “Riko?” I called out.

  Ciskong’s hideous face popped through the window. Rachel Ann screamed and fell backwards. He pushed his claws against the window corners, trying to squeeze himself through. He still had a very boar-like face, but the rest of his body was shaped like a monkey with bat wings. He saw me and grinned.

  “It’s so very hard to fight, isn’t it, Pablo?” His smile was reaching all the way up to his ears. “If you eat her, your pain will end. Trust me.”

  “No!” I barked, even as my nose started honing back in on her scent.

  “You’re holding yourself back. Don’t be like Riko. Do you know all the things you could be, if you just give in to this? Look at me. It doesn’t end here. You could be—”

  He kept talking, about changes and shapeshifting and how I alone, with my special stone, could do so much more than others. I couldn’t really pick his words apart, though. Rachel Ann’s presence overlapped everything coming from his mouth and I was aware of the heat rising from her body, of the way her blood was rushing into every vein, just waiting to drip into my painfully parched throat. My eyesight started to darken.

  We can’t help who we are. We can’t.

  Maybe he was right. I started thinking, well, if I really loved her, wouldn’t I be sparing her from a life of difficulties and shame, if I killed her now? After all, the way she was now, there was no way her family could ever possibly forgive her...

  I didn’t get very far with that thought. Ciskong suddenly cried out, and then something started dragging him from the window. I jumped after him and saw Enrique had his jaws firmly clamped around Ciskong’s hindquarter.

  Ciskong twisted himself and sank his teeth into Enrique’s throat. “Run, Pablo!” Enrique gasped, the blood bubbling in his mouth. “You can run faster than he can!”

  “You shut up!” Ciskong hissed.

  “Take her and run!”

  I glanced at Rachel Ann. My senses compelled me to listen to Enrique and get close to her. But I didn’t trust my senses right now. I turned and leaped out of the window. Enrique screamed at me. I clamped onto Ciskong’s shoulder, biting down as hard as I could. There was no way in hell I was going to leave my brother to fight him alone.

  He dropped Enrique, who slid limply to the side. “You’re just as stubborn as he is, aren’t you?” he spat, and he swatted me to the side. “But what can I expect from Julio’s sons? You’re both nothing to me. Enrique is weak from his dead-eating and you’re not even fully awake yet. What do I have to do to get you to obey?” He glanced at the balcony. “Perhaps I’ll get started on her. Maybe that will awaken your appetite.”

&n
bsp; “No,” I said. “No!” I charged him again. He met me, laughing.

  And then he had Enrique at his haunches again, snapping with his own blood dripping over his lower jaw. Ciskong turned towards him and I took the chance to strike at his bare throat. He sank his claws into me, but the pain wasn’t enough to get me to let go. I had decided nothing was going to make me let go. I shut my eyes, willing every single nerve inside my body to die.

  I don’t know what really happened next. I felt like my ribs and most of my neck were on fire, but then Ciskong started to relax. Blood flooded my mouth. I still wasn’t thinking at this point, so I started to lap it up, and before I realized what I was doing I was tearing him open from the neck down and breaking into his bones and swallowing his flesh.

  “What are you doing?” Enrique hissed.

  I snarled at him. He backed away, but didn’t leave me alone. “This isn’t—he’s still our lolo!”

  Tasty, tasty Lolo. I swallowed and slurped and swallowed, and I glanced at him and mumbled, “You’re welcome to join me.”

  He looked terrified. But I heard a stomach rumble that wasn’t my own, and I learned the truth, then—about not being able to help it, because he was suddenly beside me and was tearing into the still-beating flesh like there was no tomorrow.

  We ate most of him, although we left the tail and the head alone. I saw Rachel Ann standing nearby. I looked at her and thought about how I really shouldn’t have looked like this in front of her, and then suddenly she was stepping towards me and I realized I was human again.

  Naked, of course, and covered in blood, but perfectly human.

  “Did you just... you controlled that, didn’t you?” Enrique gasped.

  I didn’t know. I ignored him. She placed her hands over my cheeks and drew my face close to hers. “I’m sorry,” I mumbled.