The Thirteenth Day (Part 1 of 2)

Pandemic's Creepers (Part 1 #5 of 5)
by Pandemic

In sixty years of living, Mang Andres can say it has been a very good, simple, and happy life. That was his view of his life before the darkest midnight of his life occured.

Mang Andres lives in a small, agricultural village in one province. He’s a farmer. And he never stepped a foot in any other places since his birth except only the village, the farm, and the nearest town. He was brought by parents who are farmers, grew up as a farmer, and now still a farmer, just quite more progressed than before.

Mang Andres lives just a few meters away from his farm with his wife, Leticia and daughter Agatha. He grew up in the same house; it’s just that the house is now quite more developed. He grew up poor. After his parents died, he stopped studying and started farming. And because of his undying determination and dedication to his work, as he aged, he was able to expand the farm continuously. Even when he can afford to go back to studying, he never did. He was happy and contented as a farmer. He met Leticia when he was twenty four, married her when he was twenty six. But they had their only daughter after many years of being married. He and Leticia were already sixty years old, but their daughter is just 18.

“A happy life.” He muttered to himself. He used to live with his wife and daughter. Take note of the word ‘used’. Now he’s alone 3AM in the morning, sitting on the bench just outside the house he continued to develop for Leticia and Agatha for thirty four years. Well, he would have continued living with them and for them if he hadn’t killed them.

Yes, he killed them..for a reason.

“The life that I’ve been struggling to make better for a long time is now all fucked up. It’s fucked up. The people that made me live are now dead. How do I start, where?” He says as his feet involuntarily twitched. He hadn’t eaten for the past 24 hours. He just sat there at the bench thinking of what he has done and what he has discovered before doing the gruesome crime.

The events had turned so fast. Three days before, his daughter Agatha came home from Manila with her mother telling stories about what they did there. Mang Andres, although not interested in the city, still listened to her eighteen year-old daughter’s stories enthusiastically. He always funds her daughter’s expenses during vacations when she wants to go the city, but he never went with them. He wants to stay in the place where he grew up and grew old.

And the early morning after that day, he killed her and his wife. Oh, he loved her very much, but he has to kill her.

“People will go judging me, will go telling me I’m nuts, I’m crazy, I’m high on drugs. But I’m not. And I won’t dare tell them what I’ve found out either.”

It was 11:40PM, the lit-digital clock showed, a couple of days earlier. Mang Andres awoke; sweat ran down all over his body. It was an odd, unexpected change of the temperature. Everything seemed hot. The room was dark, no trace of lights at all, except from the darkish blue glow of the sky just outside the window. He tapped the side of his bed, where his wife Leticia is supposed to be. But all he touched was the cold, messy bed cover.

“Leticia, are you there somewhere?” he called. No one responded. Then he lit an electrical lamp just from the side of his bed and wore his glasses as thick as the bottom of a glass used for drinking liquor. He went out of their bedroom and went around the small, cozy house to search for his wife. He went to the dining room, kitchen, comfort room..still no trace of his wife, neither his daughter. It wasn’t December, or the season when people go to church so early. And hello, it’s only 11PM, nor did he see his wife ever go to the church.

You may think that Mang Andres is a TOM or techie old man, but he isn’t. The simplicity of his life lessened when technology arose and reached even their small little village. He thought he should call his wife through his cellphone to ask where she is or if she’s with Agatha. But then he remembered he left his phone in the tool house near his farm.

“Oh great. Just when I needed that Goddamn thing, it’s the time when it’s not around.”

He wore a sweater then went out of the house still bringing the electrical lamp. He’s going to the tool house to get his phone.

As he walks, cold wind blew and it chilled him up inside his heart. He felt that something is eerie around the place, that something dark is about to be unveiled. True indeed, he accidentally stepped on a bull’s shit, and it was a dark one, black shit. But it’s not yet that something dark that’s about to be unveiled. Something darker, irregular, something that you won’t see on a regular day basis.

He walked a few meters before he reached the tool house. There he found his 3210 phone lying in a table beside the tractor. He left it there earlier when he was still fixing the tractor.

He was about to go home when he heard chanting from somewhere.

And to him it seemed that it’s coming from the middle of the grown crops of corn. He listened more carefully, in the hope that it was just inside his head. But it wasn’t, the chanting continued. He went out of the tool house and looked around.

And in the middle of the corn crops, he saw a weak light.

Peculiar, he thought. He pocketed his phone, and with the electrical lamp at his side, he journeyed to the middle of his corn plantation. As he walks, his heart beat faster. He’s scared to find something terrible happening in there.

In the middle of the crops, there was a circular vacant space. He left that space, so that when he wants to, he can look in the whole corn plantation from the middle view.

He hid behind the crops; he already saw what was happening in there. At least 12 hooded figures are encircling a bonfire; all of them have their faces hid. Mang Andres assumed that the one holding an old, withered brown book was the leader. They were chanting words that were not understandable, but it was Latin, Mang Andres assumed. His insides turn as he saw a triangular eye printed in front of the book. Because he knows that it has something to do with a satanic religion. Indeed, it was a satanic mass, he found out soon.

The leader of the small group took off its hood, and guess who it was? It was Leticia, Mang Andres’ wife. She smiled wildly at the small crowd at put aside the book which she were reading a few minutes earlier.

“Tonight, we’ve had another special gathering,” then she smiled widely again. “Or is it morning already? Never mind. It doesn’t matter. We’ve finished just another mass full of praise for our deity.”

“A Satan’s mass, dear God. Oh, God, Leticia, why.” Mang Andres whispered to himself, he was utterly shocked, for a moment he became lame, he almost fell to the land because his knees really weakened, as if to break down.

The other people took their hoods off too. All of them were middle aged women whom Mang Andres never seen before, except for one, there was Agatha.

The view of her teenaged daughter, being in a satanic mass, almost made Mang Andres go madly crazy and kill all the people in that God forsaken blasphemous mass, but he was able to control himself.

He was breathing heavily, but he knows that breathing quite heavier would reveal his presence to the people in the unholy mass.

“But wait, there’s more. I have a very pleasant news for all of you.” Leticia said, the people around her looked at her enthusiastically and with exceptional excitements on their faces. “My daughter, come here, Agatha, is pregnant with a demon’s son!”

For a moment, the whole world stopped revolving. It was what Mang Andres felt after hearing what his wife had said. Is it just him, or Leticia really said the word? Is this just a dream?

Mang Andres never see this night full of darkness coming. Watching from behind a corn crop, and hearing that his daughter is pregnant with a demon’s son. What the hell is happening?

Mang Andres tried his best to stop himself from attacking. His fists were clamped tightly, as if to punch anyone that he’ll see. He was utterly shocked, things that have something to do with his are his weakest links. He’s most vulnerable with family-related things.

Perhaps, Agatha doesn’t really have anything to do with this demonic cult, that she was just forced and influenced by Leticia, Mang Andres thought hopefully.

But a few seconds later, Agatha started speaking with a wide smile on her face. “I really feel honored to carry his son. It’s not everyday and it’s not everyone who gets the chance to have the demon’s son in her womb. I feel very honored and I’m very happy.” She said, the middle aged women around her applauded.

“I can’t take this anymore.” Mang Andres muttered weakly, and then he turned his back to the occultists and went back home, tears flow down his cheeks. He can’t believe what he had just seen and heard that the thought of killing himself landed in his head.

“So, the only woman that I’ve ever loved is a priestess of a satanic organization? Perhaps, a witch? How on earth did I fail to know that for 34 frigging years?” he said as he weeps in their dining table, his face resting on his palms. His wife and daughter hadn’t gone home yet.

“My daughter..what the hell..she carries a demon! Father, my God, why did you let this happen?” he continued. “What should I do now? Should I just kill myself?” then he continued to sobbed, still can’t believe what the hell just happened.

A few minutes later, he was calmer. And he already know the thing, the only thing that he must do. He must kill his daughter and wife. “This thing is crazy, but they are crazy too. I have to kill them, especially my daughter. She carries a demon, and that demon is something that should be killed while it is not yet born.”

“God, my father, forgive me. I’m only doing this for the greater good. I have to kill the demon.”

His beautiful and simple life is no longer beautiful and simple. It is now all ruined and wrecked.

Two minutes later, he heard footfalls nearby. That’s when he went to bed and pretended to be asleep. Then not long after, Leticia went inside the room too and lied in the bed, as if she never left.

Mang Andres opened his eyes. He thought that it would not be long till Leticia finds out that he knows her secret already. He’s so angry with her that he does not feel any love or longing for her anymore. All he feels is hatred and anger, for Leticia brought Agatha to this goddamn satanic group.

So slowly, Mang Andres stood up his bed and went to the back of their house slowly. In the back of their house, there are chopped woods. He picked a long, fat one. Then he sharpened it until the chopped wood became very pointed, perfect for stabbing a witch, he thought.

Then slowly, he went to her daughter’s room. “Why, no, I have to do this. I must kill, oh God, help me please. I must kill my daughter first. Because if there will be any intervention, at least the son of the demon is already dead. Please forgive me, Agatha.” He said as he began to cry again.

Controlling himself, he walked back slowly to the house, and slowly approached the room of her daughter.

He reached the door, and he looked slowly at his sleeping daughter. She was such a sweetheart, if Leticia weren’t just her mother, everything would have been alright for her and their family.

Then, bringing the pointed piece of wood, he walked slowly to her daughter’s bed. He kneeled and cried silently. Raising the pointed wood with both of his hands, he whispered “I’m sorry, Agatha, I have to do this.”

Then he stabbed her daughter straight to her chest. Agatha was awakened, tear-stricken and shocked. She looked dramatically at her father, and her father looked at her too. Both of them have tearful eyes. “I’m sorry, I have to kill you. The demon in your womb has to die before it comes out. Sorry, my daughter, sorry, my precious one.”

Instead of saying bad words or looking angrily at her father or trying to hit back, Agatha smiled weakly at Mang Andres and more tears flow down her cheeks.

“Don’t be sorry, dad.” Agatha said very weakly as she is already breathing the last breaths of her life. “I didn’t want this. Mother has been always persistent about me…” she coughed blood “Mother has always been persistent about me joining her in supporting the devil. I always said I don’t want to, but she threatens me that she will kill you, and I don’t want that to happen. So don’t say sorry, dad, you’re saving me…” she coughed more blood, “thank you.”

Then she closed her eyes. She’s dead.

Mang Andres wept harder than he ever did in his life. He’s very angry with Leticia. She ruined his life, it’s time that he kill her too. But before going to his wife, he cried beside his daughter and kept saying “I’m sorry, Agatha, I’m very sorry.”

Then he stood up, went out of the room, and approached his and Leticia’s room.

It wasn’t what he expected, Leticia isn’t sleeping anymore. She was standing, looking out in the window to the darkness outside.

“You killed her.” She said softly, as if she sensed that he’ll arrive. “You killed Agatha, my daughter.”

“It’s not me who killed her, it’s you. It has always been you!” Mang Andres said, his voice are full of anger and hatred.

“You killed the demon’s son as well. How could you. You’ll pay for this.” Leticia said, still her voice calm and soft.

“You ruined my and Agatha’s life. It’s time that you die too.” Mang Andres said.

But in a split second, Leticia turned and ran to him with a big, silver knife in her hand. It was an inch or so away from Mang Andres when he blocked his wife’s hand and got the pointed wood straight to Leticia’s chest. Blood flow down to Leticia’s mouth, Mang Andres still held her hand with a knife and the wood was still in her chest. He said “It’s done now, Leticia. Your witchcraft is no more, just a witch’s crap.” He said boldly.

“No, I’m not a normal human…. I’m a witch.” She said weakly, more blood ran down her mouth. “..when you kill one, she’ll leave you a curse…I’ll..be..back..Andres..mark my words..in the thirteenth day…I’ll get you..and we’ll lie on the same...” and before falling dead, she said “…grave.”

Mang Andres wasn’t threatened at all. “See you then, you bitch.

P.S: I forgot if I proof read this one or not. So forgive me for some minor grammatical or typographical error. Thanks. -Pandemic