Fearful Peep

My pregnant wife and I rented a small house in the slum areas of Mandaluyong City. The house had two rooms. One was elevated over the other. If you enter the house, you will observe a limited living area which was also our bedroom. It can only accommodate four people. On the right side, from the door, was a four-step staircase up to the elevated room. On the left side were the utensils’ case, dishwashing area, and an intolerant comfort room. The living area was also our kitchen, aside from being a bedroom.

The wall that surrounded the house had two distinct materials put up in separation. The owner built the lower part of the walls from block cement, while the upper part comprised what seems to be a-not-durable plywood. The elevated room’s walls were made loosely from fixed old plywood. It had one open window. This room was my mother-in-law’s and my wife’s sister’s bedroom. I thought either the owner or the previous tenants had probably constructed or repaired the walls with scarce materials because the wooden materials were nailed an inch apart from each other. If somebody climbs up the wall and peeps through the vacant space aside from the plywood, he could visibly see what’s inside, except if it is night and the lights are off.

The rusty and holed ceiling stretched from the living room to the elevated room and the neighbor’s roof. When a heavy downpour drenches the earth, drops of water would flow to the living area, thus before it would happen, we geared up, as if we’re in a battle, basins, and pails to protect the place from soaking. Tiny holes in the ceilings are innate attributes of many houses in slums. Fortunately, the season was not rainy.

My wife and I anxiously expected, because it was the doctor’s assumption, our daughter to come out into the world two days before that bizarre night occurred. However, before that night, we had experienced a distinct feeling of distress. Many times we had been hearing a scraping noise above the roof. But, we had just ignored it thinking that it was just a wandering cat.

The day came and went. At midnight, there was a bang over the roof that awakened us, followed by the baby’s kicking inside my wife’s womb.

“What’s that, Doy? Please check the roof outside. It could not be a cat,” she said with a fright.

I went outside. I walked away from the house to check something over the roof. I saw nothing but the glittering stars in the vast sky. But in the meantime, a nocturnal flying creature, perhaps a bat, caught my sight. It flew from our neighbor’s roof and gradually banished as it went farther.

It amazed me why such a loud noise had caught no one’s attention other than me, my wife, and our unborn baby. That noise did not awaken even my in-laws, who were sleeping in the elevated room. I headed back to the house and told my wife that it was just a car’s exterior wheel put by our neighbor, Toto, to support the roof against any weather. That was to lessen my wife’s fright.

I could not sleep that night. I pondered on how the bang occurred without a trace of evidence. I had seen nothing on the roof that could be a viable reason for that bang. Did my auditory just erroneously sense it? But my wife also heard it.

I was drowsing past one in the morning when the audible, scratchy sound grabbed my attention again. It came from behind the wooden wall. Since the light was off, I struggled to inspect it wide-eyed. I could feel something was there and someone was watching us. As the scratching grew louder, my blood circulated irregularly. Then I felt a creeping feeling at my back so that I shuddered. Despite the cold air engulfing us, I still perspired. I throbbed as if I’m going to suffocate. Then, the disturbing sound ceased for a while. But after a few moments, another sudden bang blasted the roof. It awakened us once more.

“Doy, what was that? I’m so afraid, Doy. There is a blackbird with red eyes over the mosquito net. It’s pecking at my womb,” my wife said fearfully.

My throbbing increased. To hide my consternation, I compelled myself to go outside the mosquito net. Tremblingly, I stood up and switched on the lights. I gazed into the wooden wall. I saw nothing. I glanced at my wife and she was frightened. I walked toward the wall and I peeped outside through the hole. I was looking at something when my wife complained that she felt cramps in her womb. I immediately woke my mother-in-law up, and we took my wife to the hospital.

My wife had given birth. It was successful.

A week after our daughter’s birth, my wife asked me about what I saw when I peeped outside before she felt the cramps. I told her I saw our neighbor Toto piling the car’s exterior wheel outside. But actually, I saw one of the most dreadful things I never wanted to see. I saw a top-less person. He jumped from the roof to the ground. His long hair swept over his head like copper wire threads. Though I only perceived him partly because of the dimness of the streetlights, I still noticed his bulging red eyes with hairy eyebrows linked in the central forehead. He moved savagely, like a ravenous lion looking for its prey.

Every time I remember it, I feel the creep and I shudder again.