Aswang

The eight-year old boy was oblivious of the time, and continued playing jolens at the empty lot behind the school. The rest of his playmates have left in a hurry.

As if they knew the trouble that comes with the dwindling light of dusk.

The boy kept playing, unmindful of the darkness -- and where he was.

Until he felt his tummy aching. Only then that he got up and walked home.

He was already burning with fever when he entered their house. His parents gave him lugaw, biogesic, and sent him to bed.

He woke up screaming in the middle of the night, and his vomit shot across the room. Every little movement felt as if red-hot knives were being twisted in his insides.

Three days went by, and the doctors of Capiz Emmanuel Hospital in Roxas City came up with blank -- the boy is slowly slipping away, and they have no idea why.

The boy's family decided to take him home. As they carried him inside the house, two elderly ladies were already waiting by his bed.

The ueahab (wailing) sisters, they are called. They are the town's traditional healers.

They rolled a fresh egg on the boy's body, and broke it on a plate.

Dark-red blood oozed out from two holes in the yolk.

The sisters placed violet-colored herbs on burning charcoal, and rubbed the warm leaves on the boy's body. They then squeezed the leaves on the egg.

The dark sap swirled for a moment on the slimy egg white, and settled into a puddle that took the form a dog's head -- long snout with fangs, pointy ears, and long neck.

Aswang, one of the elderly sisters whispered as the other burned more leaves. The word aswang began going around the rest of the household and the curious neighbors who were waiting for news just outside the house.

The sisters were moving much faster now. Another squeeze with the herbs, and the puddle took on another shape -- a tree.

They made the boy sit in the middle of a banig (woven mat), and thoroughly covered his body with the herb's sap.

Barks of wood started appearing on the boy's skin, breaking out like huge pimples. It came out of the boy's scalp, eyebrows, chest, back, arms, and legs. When the barks stopped falling off, the boy's father gathered more than two handfuls.

"Igto imaw gin-angkit sa may mangga sa likod it eskwelahan" (He was at the mango tree behind the school when he got bitten), the sisters concluded. "Gin-buoe ro daywa nana nga gusok!" (His two ribs were taken!)

The boy was laid on his bed, and as the sisters rub their hands with a foul-smelling oil, they requested the father to hold the boy's feet down. "I-uli namon ro guinbu-oe kana. Medyo masakit ra." (We're going to get back what was taken from him. This will be painful.")

And the wailing began -- guttural and escalating -- drowning the boy's screams as the sisters systematically probed his back and abdomen with their bony fingers.

The boy passed out.

***

I woke up the next day feeling sore, but the fever and stabbing pain were gone.

This happened 28 years ago. As a Tagalog-speaking kid who knew so little of the dangers that lurk in the darkness in my hometown in Aklan, I was indeed an easy target.

I remember the dog -- which I paid little attention to back then. It was much later when I realized that that particular dog had a rather unusual shape.

Its hind legs were much longer.

Happy halloween.