by Pandemic
It has been two days since the gruesome murder of his wife and daughter. There was Mang Andres, still sitting on a bench just outside their house, or now, his house. Only his.
He hadn’t eaten yet, and he doesn’t want to. He continued recalling the darkest event of his life.
After killing both Leticia and Agatha for what he calls ‘the greater good’, he went down to the living room, sat and wept there for a few minutes. And noticing that the sun is about to go up already, he brought Agatha’s and Leticia’s bodies near the banana trees a hundred meters way from their house. There, he was sure no one’s going to see him. He dug a very deep hole that he never imagined he’ll ever do in his sixty years living. Tears still flowing from his eyes, he dropped Leticia’s body. He’s still very angry with her. But with Agatha’s body, he went down the hole and put her daughter’s body with full care and grace. He even put roses in his daughter’s hand. He climbs back and started burying his wife and daughter’s body.
“I’ll be back, Andres, mark my words. In the thirteenth day, I’ll get you and we’ll lie on the same grave.” He recalled his wife’s last words as he looks at his dead wife’s body. There’s still an anger etched on Leticia’s face even when she’s dead.
He went back to the house, took all the bed sheets, foam, pillows and other things that were splattered with blood. He burned them. Then he cleaned the house.
The morning after, he started skipping food already. He didn’t want to eat. It was as if his whole world was whacked in not more than a day. Everything is gone, nothing’s left. He thinks that he’s now a living dead.
Back to the present time, Mang Andres is looking deeply into nowhere while still sitting on the bench outside his house. His feet are still twitching involuntarily, so as his arms. He’s shaking, not in the coldness of the place, but by the horror after killing the only people he’s got.
He heard footfalls.. He was instantly aware of everything, like he was awakened by something. And the footfalls didn’t come from somewhere out of the house, but inside.
He went inside the house. The whole house is dark. After killing Leticia and Agatha, he preferred living in the dark. Lights are no use anymore; his life went the darkest two days ago.
He looked around. Somehow, his eyes are used to darkness already. He saw no one. And then there were the footfalls again. This time it’s coming from the second floor, he was sure about it. So he went upstairs, thinking it was a burglar or an intruder. When he reached the 2nd floor landing, he heard the footfalls again. This time, it was in his room, the room that he formerly shared with Leticia. Still, he didn’t turn on the lights. He walked carefully, picking up a flower vase in case of a fight.
He reached the room. The door is open. He walked inside, sneaked, but again, he saw no one. He was perplexed: Where did the footfalls come from then? And who made those footsteps?
He looked at the window for any sign of any forced entry or emergency exit. He found nothing different, except for something terrifying. When the curtain lifted because of the wind, Mang Andres thought he saw his wife Leticia floating outside, with an intense anger and ferociousness in her red eyes, looking straight into his eyes. Her face muddy, as if she came back from the grave, her skin pale and gray.
When the curtain went down, Mang Andres ran to the window, raised the curtain, but saw Leticia there no more.
Even though he was scared, he needs to know if what he saw is true or just a part of his paranoia. He felt sudden terror rose inside his body.
“I’ll be back, Andres, mark my words. In the thirteenth day, I’ll get you and we’ll lie on the same grave.”
Leticia’s last words were replayed in his head again. What if Leticia meant her words? What if she really left a curse on him upon her death? What if.. Everything is uncertain, Mang Andres thought. Leticia might be true to her words, or she just wants to scare him.
He shrugged. He won’t care until the thirteenth day..if Leticia really left a curse on him. He’ll just ready himself for anything.
Days have past. He has never been this lame and lazy in his life. He doesn’t go out to check his crops anymore, or visit neighbors to chat or socialize. People nearby started wondering, a few of them even dropped by his house to ask him what was wrong. He just says that Leticia and Agatha left him without a note. Everything is explained: Why he doesn’t go out anymore or where his wife and daughter are. And after the footfalls he heard a few days earlier, nothing odder happened. However, the first week came.
Mang Andres heard no more footfalls..but worse, the room that he once shared with a witch is shook every midnight. Like there was an angry force that is doing those. And it’s not only the shaking that Mang Andres worries about.
When the first week came, he was in his bed, trying his best to sleep. The images and scenes of her daughter’s death is replaying on his mind, and he wants to think about it no more. That’s when the table beside the bed floated to the air. He was flabbergasted, he sat up, his eyes widening.
Then the lamp that stands in the table flew too, so as the flower vase, the bible, his cellphone. Then the bed itself shook, like there was some gigantic creature under and is shaking it. The television set in the room floated, the DVD player, the book shelf.. everything inside the room is floating.
With an overwhelming terror that he’s feeling, he felt that he’s head might explode. Then accidentally, his eyes lingered on the window, the curtains opened again perhaps because of the wind. And there is Leticia again, floating outside, looking straight into his eyes with an unimaginable anger and ferociousness in it. But there’s more: Her eyes aren’t looking normal; it changed its color to all white and has an odd glow that seems to poke Mang Andres’s whole body with a very pointed needle until he was scared like a cat. Leticia’s body is still covered with mud, grayer than ever..and has worms all over her body!
Mang Andres is bewildered and utterly terrified. He got off his bed and went running. After that midnight, he never set afoot to his bedroom no more. Neither did he go to his daughter’s room. He started sleeping in the living room. He’s really scared, and now he’s feeling threatened. Seven days had past already, only six days to go before the thirteenth day. What if..
In the next days when he started sleeping in the living room, he can still hear the shaking of different things in his room. Looks like the witch has left a jinx or a hex or a curse in it, in the place where she was killed. Well, if that’s the case, it’s much better than Leticia really meaning her last words “I’ll be back, Andres, mark my words. In the thirteenth day, I’ll get you and we’ll lie on the same grave” to Mang Andres.
And at some point in time, Mang Andres’s world-breaking depression after him killing Agatha is replaced by an utter terror that seems to made him half-crazy.
In the tenth day, midnight, he was sleeping at the sofa in the living room. He heard something, the sound of a fridge being opened without care and being closed with a very strong thump.”Is she hungry?” he thought, but he’s not trying to be funny. Nor will that thought become funny when you read the next words.
He sat up and looked around. Infinite terror touched his heart, his eyes widened again, his heart beat like a drum, his knees shook: Leticia is there, floating again with her white-glowing eyes and rotting muddy body. But it’s not it yet. The thumping that sounded like the fridge’s door is not really the fridge’s door.
Leticia is floating, and in front of her is a black coffin resting on midair. The door of the coffin opened by itself with intense force, and then closed again with a strong thump. Mang Andres got Leticia’s message: She’s welcoming him to her death. The opening and the closing of the floating coffin continued, Mang Andres just sat in the sofa, can’t move or run or do anything.
For a moment, Mang Andres looked at her, wide-eyed, he can’t explain what he’s seeing or what he will do.. he was frozen in terror, his knees completely weakened, his body paralyzed.
Then he closed his eyes and prayed for a minute that seemed like forever. He opened his eyes again. Leticia and the black coffin aren’t there anymore, thank God.
He covered his whole body with his blanket and slept muttering different prayers, thinking that this will keep Leticia away and keep himself safe.
The next days didn’t go well either. He stayed inside the house, all windows are locked and are covered with thick curtains, doors carefully locked, every entrance blocked.
He just stayed inside the house in then next days, praying and praying and praying. Everyday, everything is getting more terrifying.
In the eleventh day, he was taking a bath after at least three days. When he turned to look at the mirror near the sink, there’s no Leticia there, this is no common horror story or movie, but when he turned around, she was there, her face at least five inches away from him, she was grinning like a crazy psycho at him. She never looked worse than ever. A worm is walking out her rotten nose. He ran outside the bathroom and began praying again.
The thought of just running away occurred to him. But somehow, he realized that Leticia will follow him anywhere. And he didn’t know where to go either. He never left the place where he grew up. He’s a noob in traveling. And he has to face the consequences of killing a witch, the demon’s son, and his daughter.
And the twelfth day didn’t go better either. He just slept in the sofa all covered with blanket. Because everything in the house floated madly in the air. Mang Andres awoke 4AM of the thirteenth day, he saw everything in the house broken. The night before, he heard everything dropped from the air madly. But he dare not look at it because Leticia might be there with him again.
Then he remembered it was the thirteenth day already. He tried to build up courage in his head, but he just can’t.
“I’ll be back, Andres, mark my words. In the thirteenth day, I’ll get you and we’ll lie on the same grave.”
Her words will always be in his head written in bold letters, even, if possible, after the thirteenth day. Then a few seconds later, he started hearing footsteps. It was coming from the back of the house, the direction where he buried Leticia and Agatha.
This time, the footsteps seemed solid, real, and earthly. Nothing mysterious. But it still scared the hell out of Mang Andres. No one lives from the direction where the footsteps are coming from. And he thinks that it was coming from Leticia. She’s back from the grave.
He went to the kitchen, he opened the window carefully and looked from the back of the house if Leticia is really there, walking like a human being.
She was there indeed, walking like a living person. A devilish smile etched on her rotting face. Her eyes are back to normal, and her facial expression tells Mang Andres that she’s back to welcome him to the world of the dead.
“Mind giving me some coffee?” he heard her saying. “Never mind, I won’t enjoy it in hell either. Come, go with me.”
-----
The next days have come. The neighbors of Mang Andres wondered where his family is, or where he is. They wondered why his house is carefully locked. They didn’t even see the lights being turned on during nights. And when someone knocks on the door to visit him or his family, no one would answer.
Days after days and weeks after weeks have past.
The small village was shocked by the next turn of events. 13 months after, the bodies of Leticia and Agatha were found near the banana trees.
But that’s not it yet. In the middle of the bones of Agatha and Leticia, there is Mang Andres. Leticia’s arms seem to hold Mang Andres’s left hand. On Mang Andres’s right, Agatha lie peacefully, the roses are still in her hands.
It has been thirteen months, so the bodies were just identified after being autopsied and DNA tested by the authority. The cause of deaths of Agatha and Leticia are discovered, but they find nothing wrong about Mang Andres’s body. Everyone assumed that Mang Andres killed his daughter and wife and bury himself with them. But how on earth will he be able to bury Agatha and Leticia with him on the hole too?
It’s a mystery.
Walang komento:
Mag-post ng isang Komento