TWO
It's early in the year. I'm in the living room, watching the news. The newswoman looks up from her papers and throws me a serious look. She says, “...A hundred kids have vanished over the course of a year. Police are doing all that they can.”
My mum hears this and says from the kitchen, “Bad things happen to bad kids that don't listen.” Then she says, “The aswang got them. She's probably eating them now, licking the meat off their bones with her cat-like tongue.”
On the news now are the families. Kids missing. Parents cry, and I feel bad for them. Kids...they're just kids. Jesus H. Christ, why the kids? I hope they catch the kidnapper – catch him or her or both and tie their legs to horses and slap those horses on the ass so they'd run off and split these kidnappers right down the middle.
My mum hears the news blasting from the TV and says more awful things about those missing kids. I am disgusted. Somewhere down there (somewhere deep, deep down) I really do like her. I am in like with my mum. Not love, but like...and wasn't that good enough?
“There's meat in my mouth,” the girl said, “and it's not mine.” I was blind again, feeling the walls with my hands. This girl...she begged me to help pick the stuff out from between her teeth. I half heard this. The other part of me was still very much trying to understand what in the Sam Hell was going on in my life. Other kids my age were in school, but ME...? I thought back to the time I first heard of the missing kids (I guess these were the ones), how I thought bad things about my own damn mother, how I made fun of her ways. I shook my head. She was right. This whole time, she was right about everything....
I walked about the room, my feet slipping and sliding on liquid.
The girl sighed.
“We're all gonna die down here.”
I stuck my arms out and searched for her.
“I have to get out of here!”
The girl...it sounded like she was eating. Her lips smacked.
“There's no way out. Correction. There IS a way out, but it's no use. Many have tried; many have died. Ha!”
I was trapped in the dark with a crazy person. Yes, better to keep the light off. I turned around – Forget her, she's lost – and made my way toward what I hoped was the door.
“And what is this way out you're talking about?”
“Why, it's right above that pot. I'm sure you saw it.”
“You want me to climb up the chiminey?”
“I think you mean chimney.” She sucked on something. “And I don't want you to do that. I want you to stay here with me. Keep me company.”
My fingers touched something that felt like a nose. I squealed and threw it over my head. The girl in the dark said “Thanks” and then I heard a wet sound, something like teeth sinking into taffy.
I had to keep her talking. The silence between us scared me. My ESP told me that this person just might run up and do something weird. I asked of her age. “15,” she said. I said that I was the same age. She asked what schools I went to, and I asked the same, and it went on like this for quite some time. The idea was, as long as I could hear her I'd know that she was far, far back in the room.
I'm not a great conversationalist, so the questions came slow. To make it easier (and to keep her rambling) I asked her life story, and she gave it.
Her name was Volgerton Lami'ann State. It was Spanish. Her friends called her Vol, and she encouraged me to do the same. I agreed that I would to keep her happy. My foot kicked something heavy and wet. The whole front of my shoe went into the thing. It was cold. I kicked it aside and explored on, also encouraging this Vol to proceed with her life story. My plan was working. I was getting less afraid. Vol said she was thinking, then went on with it....
She was raised in Hawaii Kai where all the rich people lived. It seemed to me that the more money you had, the farther away you wanna be from us normal folk...from all the noise. I have to hand it to rich people. They can buy all the peace and quiet they want. I envy that.
Vol hated it there in Hawaii Kai, said it was too dry...too dead. So one day she gets the balls to ride her bike down a few new roads. She wanted to get away from home for a few minutes to find a little excitement. Problem was, minutes turned into hours. Poor Vol was lost. The next couple hours were fuzzy, but she remembers being snatched up and flying through the night, still holding onto her bike. The aswang hit some turbulence. Vol let go, and the bike fell on a Mercedes, setting loose the car horn.
The aswang landed on a roof of some rich 3-story house and told Vol to keep her mouth shut while she got a little snack. Vol stared at the monster's torso. No legs, remember? The thing just crawled around the roof with its elbows up, sniffing the roof, nose going up and down. Then the aswang stuck its tongue through a crack. It looked like a red straw. After minutes of slurping, the aswang's belly got real big and fat-like. She looked pregnant. A woman down in the house screamed. Terrible screams, Vol said – they were full-on murder-screams. The aswang seemed to panic and started to crawl around, thinking, thinking.
“Time to go!” it said, and scooped Vol up. They struggled.
The woman downstairs, now fetus-less, shrieked at someone to call the police. Vol yelled back:
“Help, lady! I'm here! On the roof!”
The aswang said something nasty in Filipino, and they were off again in the chilled air.
Next memory, she's in this room of meat, bones, junk. She calls the old woman “The aswang”, and I feel a shiver run up my legs each time I hear it. I say nothing; she talks some more. Vol tried to fight off the witch, was even able to hit her upside the head with a sock full of pennies she collected from off the ground. She lost – was no match for Granny's supernatural muscle – and was sent to stay in the meat room until...well...who knows?
After much searching, and much tossing of strange, soft, clay-like items over my head, I felt...a doorknob.
Huzzah!
My hands slid all over it. Water, I just kept thinking. Only water. Only water.
I gave it one last tug and fell back onto that sick floor. I realized then that the smell wasn't bothering me – that aroma of rotted meat. I was getting used to this...and that disgusted me. For a second I felt like a monster. If I ended up craving flesh, that was it. Only suicide would save my demonic soul.
I wiped the mud off the keyhole and took a peek. I saw a candle on the other side. The whole underground place was built by no craft master. It was weak. Time was eating the place out, rotting it out.
I gripped the doorknob, putting my foot up against the wall, pulling and pulling, muscles flexing, teeth grinding. It creaked. I let go and took a deep breath. I was too weak. If ONLY I were bigger, stronger. If only, if only.... Don't cry, don't cry. Think, just think. I looked to the back of the room.
“Hey...Vol?”
The girl grunted, mouth full.
“Yeah?”
“I could use some help.”
“Kinda busy here.”
“I just need you to help me open this door.”
“Is that what you're doing? I thought you were pushing out shit.”
“I can get us out of here. We have to work together.”
Vol laughed.
“Such a hero. Stupid girl, you really do wanna die.” More sucking sounds...a swallow...then, “She'll be on us like white on rice, you dig?”
I shrugged.
“Fine. Stay here in the dark. I'm at least gonna try.”
There was a pause.
What was happening?
What was Vol doing?
She brushed up against my arm.
“I'm holding the doorknob, so don't freak out,” she said. “Now what, Einstein?”
“I prefer Bohr, but anyway....” We both had our hands on the knob – mine over hers. I tried not to smell Vol. She reminded me of the first (and last) time I baked chicken. Long story short, our cats got a whiff and puked so much milk. Mum was not amused when she got home.
Vol had one of those whistling noses.
“I hope
this works,” she said.
I tried to find my footing in all that crap on the ground. “Once we open this door, we hightail through the place and jump out that window I saw.”
“No good,” Vol said.
“What?”
“You didn't see behind the curtain. The thing's boarded up. Try and jump through that and you'll crack your neck something awful.”
“Well, what the hell then?”
Vol sighed. “We fly straight up 'dem stairs and jump up that chimney.”
“I ain't climbing up some stank-ass chimney. Kid-grime is all over the inside of that thing.”
On the other side, a door opened...feet walked down broken stairs. I panicked.
“Shit! She's coming back.”
Vol was calm.
“Shh,” she said. “I have a brilliant idea.”
Before I could say anything, the door opened, and Granny stuck her big head into the room.
“You gals ready to eat more stuff? I made balut.”
Vol screamed out, “Hit her!” and I did. Punched my thumbs right into her skull until her eyes were pushed back into her brain. Vol kicked her in the baby-maker. We ran out into the candlelight. Vol, a dark-skinned Filipino girl painted in blood from baseball cap to tennis shoes, grabbed my hand and yanked me toward the stairs. She was short but so much stronger.
“Let's go!” she said. “Hurry UP!”
There was a hole at the top of the stairs, into the trailer home. I could already smell that Filipino snake-oil.
Granny grabbed my foot.
“Kids! Kids!” she was saying. “I will eat you out!”
Vol starts kicking her in the face. Granny takes HER foot and pulls real good. They both go tumbling down the stairs, rolling smack into a wall. I ran up the stairs. Vol screamed. Granny had her mitts all over Vol, pinning her against the wall, strangling her. Vol stared at me, trying to gurgle out words. Granny put her mouth on Vol's face. Her mouth unhinged like she was a shark and covered half of Vol's head. The witch was eager. She sounded like a hyena. Vol looked perplexed.
I climbed through the hole. I had to find a weapon – anything sharp – and get back down there.
The trailer was full of kids. They were hiding (or more like living) under tables, in the closet, on the floor, some were even under the carpet. They were all fatter. They all had this strange look in their eyes, like they just gave up all hope. They ran from me like I was the damn monster.
No time for this crap.
Vol was screaming down those stairs. I ran to the table and looked for a knife.
Nothing.
Not even a fork.
Where did she hide the utensils?
“Knife!” I said to a kid that was sleeping on the couch. “Knifffffe!?”
The little princess woke up from her slumber, turned to gaze up at me, then went back to sleep.
I looked around.
That chair! I could use throw it in the aswang's face! No, wait – even better. That plate! I can shatter it and dig her guts out! Yes! Brilliant! I'll just take that plate, and...
Vol screaming again sent my body running for the chimney. I wasn't thinking any more. My body took full control over reason.
BRAIN: Coward! You're just going to let her die?!
BODY: I have to get out of here!
BRAIN: Stop right now! Turn around and help her!
I squeezed my body into the chimney and inched my way up. It smelt like SPAM. I saw sunlight above me. It empowered me. I climbed faster. Confident. This was it. The homestretch.
“BLAHHHHHHHH!” screeched a voice. It was like an old gate.
I looked down.
Granny was staring up at me. She looked scared. I forced my limbs to work through the burning in my muscles. Granny tried to get in there and make her way up, but she was to thick. I climbed out of the chimney with my eyes closed. The sunlight hit my eyes like lasers. After a bit of rubbing, I could see again.
I was in the middle of a forest. Mountains were in the distance. I could hear Granny opening those locks. I grabbed the cable wire and scaled the home like those police guys on TV. The thing snapped in two, and I hit the ground like a stuck pig, complete with squealing. I was excited. Ignore the pain. I got up and forgot the sting in my shoulder and vamoosed the heck out of there. The front door opened.
“Hero!” the witch yelled. “Come back! Please?!”
I ran faster.
Granny cried out in pain, and then I heard another voice.
“Keep running!”
It was Vol.
I caught a glimpse of Granny on the grass, moving around in pain with her hand on her back.
“My back!” she complained. “My back! You little stink! My baaaack!”
Vol was looking at me and pointing into the woods, jabbing her finger into the woods. Run, run, run! I did. The second time I looked behind me, Vol was on Granny's back, covering her eyes as Granny spun around and around, reaching behind her, trying to swat Vol off. I ran some more and then looked behind me again. Granny was on top of Vol, had Vol pinned to the ground, her mouth on Vol's neck, sucking on her, blood shooting out like red strings. The witch picked up Vol's body and ran back into the house. The door slammed shut.
I made my way through those woods with that horrific image of Granny taking a big bite out of Vol's neck replaying in my mind. Vol was dead. Could I have saved her?
Should I go back and this time really be a hero?
I tripped and rolled down a hill.