It was a dark and windy night. The coconut trees swayed with every gust of the amihan and their leaves murmured in the howling wind. Moises looked out the window of his hut into the darkness. In between puffs of his cigarette, he pondered on the words said to him earlier by the strange man on the cart… “Humanda ka. Gaganti kami.”
Who were they? he asked himself. It was the first time that he saw them but strangely enough, Moises felt as if they knew him. He turned around and saw his wife sleeping soundly on the banig. The flame in the old gasera flickered and cast eerie shadows in the walls of the hut. Moises finished his cigarette and flicked the butt outside making a glowing arch as it landed. After putting the gasera at a small altar in the corner of the hut, Moises crawled up to his wife and lay beside her.
From beyond the fields, just after the clearing, two pairs of eyes were watching….waiting….
Moises could not sleep a wink. His thoughts were of the words Lolo Oming said when he told him about the strange people he met earlier that day. “They are creatures of the night,” Lolo Oming explained. “They are like us by day, but when dusk sets in, their hunger for human flesh consumes them. Especially fetuses, they can smell them from far away. My tatay said that an unborn baby exudes the aroma of pinipig, that’s why they take a liking for them.”
“Aswangs are a cursed race. And such curse is passed on from one generation to the next. When an aswang is dying, it looks for someone (usually a member of the family) to pass on its power. Usually it’s the first born who is chosen. The dying aswang, before breathing his last, will cough out a black chick from its mouth. It will then enter the recipient’s through the mouth and settle in his stomach. That creature is the cause of the aswang’s hunger for human flesh.”
“The only way to kill an aswang, just like anything, is to mortally wound them. They are also known to be shape shifters, taking the shape of animals, usually a dog or pig, so be wary of these animals, especially at night.” Lolo Oming cautioned Moises.
“Here, take this with you.” added Lolo Oming as he handed Moises a bag of salt and a buntot pagi whip. “The salt burns like acid on their skin on contact, and the whip inflicts a nasty wound on them that takes a fortnight to heal. Keep them and use them when the time comes. They’ll be back.”
Moises sat up and lit another cigarette. He noticed that the surroundings were quiet, too quiet that it was deafening. The cicadas stopped chirping, even the leaves on the trees were dead still. From a distance, Moises heard a faint sound of flapping wings, and then a long bone-chilling howl.
God help us. whispered Moises as he reached for his bolo under his pillow. The flapping sounds drew nearer and nearer, and then……CRASH!
The hut’s window blew wide open and on its sill, a dark, bat-like creature loomed before him. It big red eyes stared at him as the creature opened its mouth revealing sharp fangs that glistened in the gasera’s light. The creature nimbly jumped to the bamboo floor and inched towards Moises and his wife. The noise roused the latter from her sleep, and upon seeing the creature, she screamed almost hysterically. Moises wasted no moment and hurled a handful of salt to the aswang. The aswang wailed in pain and held its leathery hands on its face. Moises stood up and unleashed his fury on the distracted creature. The blows from his bolo rained on the aswang one after the other. The aswang flailed its wings, but the cramped space in the kubo prevented him from escaping, like a fly inside a bottle.
Unrelentingly, Moises slashed and stabbed the creature one after the other. He could smell its sickening stench as blood spurted out of its wounds. Just then when he was about to inflict the fatal blow on the down beaten aswang, he heard his wife shout, “Moises!”
He turned around and what he saw nearly made him drop his bolo. It was another aswang! His wife was trapped in a corner with the aswang about to lunge at her. Moises lashed out a primal scream and thrust himself onto the creature. The two grappled with each other in the dark as the wife huddled in the corner trying to look on. Moises could smell the awful breath of the creature as its grotesque face was inches from his own. Its sharp fangs wet with saliva and snake-like tongue slithering from its awful mouth. From what seem like an eternity, the man and creature fought. Strong the creature was and it threw Moises on his back, quickly overpowering him.
It was now on top of him, the aswang. Like a lion that was able to pin down his prey, the aswang looked down on Moises, as if relishing the oncoming kill. The aswang hissed, and in a deep guttural voice it said, “Ang asawa at anak mo ang susunod.” He glanced at hapless wife and prayed for deliverance. With the last ounce of his strength, Moises bridged his back that threw the aswang out of balance. Scrambling towards the gasera, he then picked it up and cast it against the aswang. The impact caused the gasera to break and its fire spread out the aswang’s body instantaneously. Disoriented and in great pain, the aswang stumbled about in flames. As the hut was only made of nipa and bamboo, it caught fire and soon it was burning inside.
Moises carried his frightened wife outside the hut. From his vantage point he could still see the aswang struggling in the flames. In a matter of minutes, the hut fell down in a burning heap. Moises and his wife stood by, watching, until it was reduced to ashes.
From the east, the sun was starting to rise. It was daybreak.
