About halfway down the hill, one of the old women starts hollering and bitching, screaming about how we are all going to die. She laughed the whole time. She's saying this all in Filipino. Mum translated for everyone.
“Yes, yes, be warned, fools...” Mum said, not caring, picking her nails. “Powerful evil. BIG evil here. You all will die.
You all will see our true power. Big, FAT evil. So strong. Hahahaha.”
Everyone laughed and turned around, continuing their journey. The old woman went nuts and tried to eat her way through the rope like a rat. People were startled by all the ruckas and stopped to get their footing. Some people slid down some, holding onto branches and whatnot, hyperventilating and thanking Jesus.
The beefy man marched up to her and commanded her to stop her bellyaching, because she was giving him a headache. He pulled on the hag's yellow hair as he told her what he wanted, and the old crone jumped up and bit into his nose, pulling it off with a POP! He slapped his hands over his holes to stop the gushing blood. All the aswangs made excited sounds and had their mouths wide open, tongues all wiggling, all trying to drink his mess. They jumped up and down with their sagging breasts dancing about to-and-fro. I was disgusted. Beefy-man wobbled away like a drunkard and squatted behind a bush, balling his eyes and nostrils out. Mum walked up to the aswang and made to blow the hag's brains out with her pirate gun.
The girl with the shades hit the gun up. It fired off, the BOOM echoing over the mountains. A bird above us squawked dead, falling out from a tree and landing right into the last aswang's mouth – who just swallows it whole in a satisfying gulp.
I expected her to give me a thumbs up. The nose-biting witch stood there shocked, eyes wide, waiting and sorry. She messed up. Now what?
Mum turned to the girl with the shades, sticking her pirate gun under her chin.
“You dare!?”
The girl held her hands up in surrender.
“Look, man...each aswang you kill costs us $100,000,” she said. “And you've already killed five.” She gulped and said, with respect, “...Boss.”
Mum thinks, nods, then goes, “Hmm, right, right, silly me.” But she sounds a tad unsure.
Mum put her gun away and turned right-quick around, slapping that nose-eating aswang straight across the face. Everyone winces. The witch fell back, and all the other witches she was tied to went down like dominoes. The last aswang hit the ground hard and puked up her half-digested meal. The bird, all steaming and featherless, tried to crawl for freedom, but it ended up just sitting there after awhile, just sitting there on its butt like a human would, too dead to do anything...just gave up hope. It sighed, and the sight of that bird was a hurtful thing for me.
I wanted to pick it up and nurture it – keep it away from these loons. But I was pushed onward. We were off again, and I walked with my brain pointed in the opposite direction.