Ever since she had arrived with her father in Antipolo several years earlier, Ro sa had always been

shy and retiring. Pleasant and respectful, certainly, but nev er outward-going or even overly communicative. Her father blamed himself, as fat hers always do, believing that because her mother had died giving birth to her, he as a man had been unable to endow her with those innately-feminine social ski lls that other young women here seemed to possess in such abundance. Still, as she had now reached the age when certain other aspects of her personal ity and appearance had begun to attract the attention of the local youths, soon she may no longer be her father s responsibility anyway. Also, as she was training to be a midwife, it would not be long before she would be self-sufficient finan cially too. How time had flown, he mused it seemed only yesterday that she had s till been just a girl, tightly holding his hand when they had disembarked from t he train that had taken them far from their previous home in a small rural villa ge where nothing much ever happened to the ceaseless bustle and clamour of the b ig city - Antipolo. Yet even here, shadows of the past, and ancient irrational fears, still linger. Tonight, Rosa would be going to the home of Maria, a friend, and staying with he r overnight until her brother arrived there from overseas, where he would remain until Maria, now seven months pregnant, gave birth to her child. Prior to then, Maria had been living with her sister, but she had moved out that morning to li ve thereafter in a different area of the city in order to be nearer her new job, which left Maria alone in the house that they had been sharing. But what was so problematic about Maria living alone in their house now? She was a healthy, per fectly capable woman, and it was only for one night after all. The explanation w as a single word and the word was manananggal . Even in the 21st Century, the age of ultra-technology and medical advances beyon d the wildest dreams of all previous generations, and even in as modern a city a s Antipolo, the age-old terror of night demons, and manananggals in particular, still surfaced at certain times, especially at wakes and during the nine months of pregnancy. So much so, in fact, that families did everything possible to ensu re that pregnant women were never left alone at night, not even for a single eve ning, until the baby had been born. And even afterwards, right up until the baby had become a teenager, its parents would always be watchful, and never more so if they happened to live on the city s outskirts, as Maria did, where the jungles and unploughed meadowlands threatened ever to encroach upon the swathe of civili sation that had been savagely carved out of their wild, verdant territory by hum ankind. And so, before evening had chance to fall, Rosa was setting off on foot, walking swiftly through a series of fields that offered the speediest pathway to her fr iend s house, and thus avoiding the hideously congested thoroughfares whose traffi c belched smoke and noise unceasingly. In contrast, only a single car drove past as she walked along this lonely rural route. However, every step that she took was being matched by someone or, rather, somet hing far less welcome, and infinitely more terrifying. True, it looked like a yo ung woman right now, but not for much longer would it do so. The manananggal for that is indeed what it was - came to a large group of tall trees whose shadows amalgamated and coalesced like a wide black pool, hidden completely from view. S tepping into this pool of shadows, the manananggal took off its human clothes an d hid them in some bushes. Then an incredible transformation took place. Its human face s complexion blanched to a ghostly pallor, a pair of long sharp fan gs grew downwards until they protruded from its half-closed mouth, which lengthe ned until it resembled the jaws of some malign reptile, and emerging from their tip, flickering evilly, was a slender red fork-tipped tongue, closely resembling that of some vile serpent. But most terrible of all were its eyes. Gone were it

s round blue human irises, and in their stead was a pair of vertical golden slit s, each one containing an even thinner black slit. But if, somehow, anyone had been watching all of this, not even that latter dram atic change of form would have prepared them for the horrifying climax to this u nholy metamorphosis. Without any prior warning, a dark horizontal ring spontaneo usly encircled the creature s still-human waist. Then, a mere instant later, incre dibly, the top half of the manananggal s body - everything from its waist upwards - abruptly separated from its lower half. And as it did so, a pair of splits app eared in the skin concealing its shoulder blades, and out of these splits unfurl ed a pair of very large, dark, bat-like wings, whose flapping leathery pinions c arried it aloft into the air, leaving behind the creature s lower body half and le gs, standing there as lifeless as the bottom portion of a tailor s dummy in a shop window, but completely hidden from sight amid the shadows of the trees. It is always imperative for a manananggal to locate a secure hiding place for it s lower half, because if anyone finds it while the manananggal is away, they can kill this vampire merely by sprinkling salt or smearing sand, garlic, or ash up on the lower half s open edge, or by burning it entirely. For when the manananggal returns, if it cannot rejoin its two halves to become whole again it dies. By now, the sky was growing dark, and the grotesque half-manananggal flew swiftl y on to the home of Maria. But would it find her still alone had it arrived in t ime? It soon had its answer in the form of a series of strange cries, sounding j ust like tik-tik , which were being given voice to by a small owl-like bird sitting on the roof. At a casual glance, it could have been mistaken for a real owl, bu t a closer look would have revealed that its fine feathers were actually hairs, not plumes, and its eyes glowed an infernal red. This was the manananggal s hellis h familiar or lookout, the tiktik, named after its cries - which confirmed to th e manananggal that the house s occupant was still alone. The manananggal s tongue thrashed like a veritable serpent, and two golden drops o f venom drooled from its jaws. Now, just one more transformation was needed. Its human half-body became amorphous as it hovered just outside the house, remouldi ng itself into a new form, one that included a fairly long, repulsively-wrinkled body, and two slender hind legs with three toes on each foot, together with the large wings that remained unchanged from its previous incarnation. Its elongate head possessed a pair of huge glowing ovoid eyes, a red slit-like mouth, and, m ost bizarre of all, an extremely lengthy, slender proboscis that emerged from it s large black nose, and undulated sinuously in front of its malevolent face. As expected, the doors and windows were all tightly closed, and a roaring fire i n the hearth prevented any possibility of entering down the chimney. But like al l vampires, the manananggal was not bereft of ways in which to enter a seemingly impenetrable, unbreachable building. The roof was thatched, and it did not take the manananggal long to burrow through a weak patch of thatching until it had f orced its way into the top storey of the house. Silently it flitted downstairs, its acute sense of smell confirming that Maria was there, and not in any of the bedrooms as it had initially anticipated. Sure enough, there she was, sitting in a large chair close to the fire, where, no doubt lulled by its comforting warmt h, she had fallen asleep and so had never seen that the bottle of special protec tive plant oil standing on a shelf close by was bubbling and frothing, warning o f the manananggal s presence. The manananggal was now on the floor, and was stealthily walking towards her on its two legs, its large wings folded up and held over its back. Its serpentine p roboscis flickered and twitched incessantly. Already it could smell and even tas te in the air the scent of its prey Maria s unborn baby! After just a few moments, the manananggal was squatting directly in front of Mar

ia, on the floor at her feet. On account of her size and the very advanced stage of her pregnancy, Maria was wearing only a large maternity dress with no uncomf ortable underwear to grip tightly. Slowly, the manananggal s long proboscis rose u pwards, cautiously, ensuring that it did not wake Maria as it gradually moved up between her calves and thighs, steadily approaching her vagina, which would in turn lead directly to her baby inside her womb. And once the proboscis reached t he baby, it would apply its suckered tip to the helpless foetus and drain it not only of blood but also of its very life force until it died, murdered within it s own mother s body by a foul creature of nightmare. Had the foetus been smaller, just a few weeks old, the manananggal would have sucked it out entirely and cons umed it. Just a few more centimetres and its proboscis would be there, and then... But be fore it could even contemplate that, the still of the night was abruptly broken by a series of very loud tik-tik cries directly overhead. It was the manananggal s f amiliar something was wrong, somebody must be approaching the house! The mananan ggal s proboscis retracted instantly, but at the same moment Maria awoke, the tikt ik s cries having shaken her out of her deep warmth-induced slumber. Her eyes open ed, and the first thing that she saw was a hideous rat-like horror on the ground at her feet. But even as she stared at it, it began to shuffle off on its two l egs and a large pair of bat-like wings opened up above its back. Involuntarily, Maria snapped open her mouth and screamed at the top of her voice , over and over again, shrieking and howling with uncontrollable hysterical terr or and horror at what she had seen - what she knew to be a manananggal! Then she saw the table nearby, and the large box on it, which had been left there by her sister that very morning. They had both joked about it at the time, especially about some of its bizarre contents, never believing that these would ever be nee ded but they were sorely needed now. For what the box contained was a wide selec tion of items guaranteed, at least according to traditional Filipino lore, to di spel manananggals. But surely this was all just superstition wasn t it? Yet the ma nananggal was only too real, so perhaps these assorted objects power would be too . Quickly, Maria opened the box and tipped its contents out on the table. They wer e certainly an extraordinarily diverse, eclectic assemblage. A red pouch full of ginger and coins. The dried penis of a horse. A faded photograph of her grandmo ther. A bag of salt. A whip fabricated from the somewhat desiccated tail of a st ingray. A long silver dagger. Scrabbling among them, she grabbed the bag of salt and hurled its contents over the retreating manananggal, which let forth an ear -splitting screech as its skin began to burn and sizzle where the salt had lande d upon it. Raising its head, its eyes glowing in fury, the manananggal turned around, and t hen stepped forward towards her, its red mouth open wide in hissing rage. Swiftl y, Maria snatched up the horse penis in one hand and her grandmother s photo in th e other, and brandished them towards the approaching vampire. Instantly, it stop ped in its tracks, its golden eyes now flashing in panic, because phallic object s and images of elderly women are items that, for reasons long since lost in the mists of bygone ages, induce outright terror in the minds of all manananggals. It opened its wings fully, in an attempt to fly up and away from the frightening objects, but as it did so, Maria began thrashing at it with the stingray-tail w hip, hoping that its sharp barbs would pierce the manananggal s skin - already bli stered and raw from the effects of the salt. Just as she did so, however, a loud beating was heard upon the main door. Rosa! She d arrived at last! Why had it taken her so long? Maria shouted out, just to ma ke sure that it was indeed Rosa but it wasn t. It was her brother, Juan! Maria rac ed to the door, unbolted it, hauled it open, and dragged a startled Juan inside. Without saying a word, she pointed at the manananggal, flapping overhead, and h

anded him the silver dagger, because if he could stab this loathsome entity with a weapon fashioned from silver, it would die. But even as Juan grasped the dagg er, the manananggal had spotted an escape route. In the rush to get Juan inside, Maria hadn t closed the door! In the space of a second, the manananggal had flown through the still-ajar door and out onwards and away into the night sky, accompanied by the tiktik, and free to attempt further attacks elsewhere. But at least the nightmare for Maria and her unborn child was over (although her brother swiftly placed a circle of prote ctive coins from the red pouch on the floor all around her as she sat back on th e chair, just in case). Juan had managed to catch an earlier train, which was wh y he was here tonight, and not the following morning as expected - but as Rosa h ad never appeared, that was just as well. The manananggal flew back to the group of trees where it had concealed its lower half. When it reached them, it transformed back into its human upper half, whic h then settled upon its lower, and united with it at once, becoming a whole woma n again. Afterwards, it swiftly dressed itself in the human clothes that it had originally been wearing but which it had concealed with its lower half earlier t hat evening. Then back towards the city walked Rosa for the manananggal and Rosa were, of course, one and the same entity. But they hadn t always been. When the original Rosa, the real daughter of her fath er, was four years old, one hot febrile night a manananggal had surreptitiously found its way into her bedroom while she was asleep, and had silently drained he r of her life force until she was dead. Then, once again without making even the faintest of sounds, it had stripped Rosa s clothes from her small cold body, whic h it had then devoured entirely, before shape-shifting itself into an exact like ness of her when alive, then dressing itself in her clothes. And no-one, not eve n Rosa s own father, had ever suspected that anything was amiss. Or at least, not until, down through the years, an inordinate number of pregnant women in their v illage and others nearby had suffered miscarriages, given birth to stillborn bab ies, and in some cases had even experienced what had appeared to be an unexplain ed total reabsorbing of the foetus while still only a few weeks old. Eventually, suspicious fingers had begun to point towards the withdrawn, uncommu nicative, secretive Rosa. And even though her father had angrily denounced all s uch accusations, pointing out that they had lived together ever since Rosa s birth it was not as if Rosa had been adopted by him and was therefore of unknown orig in, or had even been separated from him for any length of time finally he had de cided that they should move far away, which is what had brought them to Antipolo . But once again, miscarriages and stillborn babies had lately been occurring with increasing frequency in areas of the city close to theirs, and sometimes near t o their own home. However, the city was far bigger than their village, and Rosa knew that the number of cases overall was too small to attract unwelcome attenti on. So she would be safe, and would remain undetected here for a long time, assu aging her bloodlust without fear of discovery. Back home, Rosa sat in her room, getting ready for dinner with her father downst airs. Her father she smiled as those words entered her mind. Even at the heights of her bloodlusts, her father was the one human figure that had always remained inviolate, never at risk of being attacked by her, because as a child and even as a teenager she had depended entirely upon him to protect her physically from those who had grown suspicious, and also to dispel rumours that might otherwise have led to formal investigations. Of course, now that she was no longer a teena ger, now that she was a grown woman soon to qualify as a midwife and trembling w ith something akin to erotic ecstasy at the thought of the unchallenged access t hat this job would give her to pregnant women! from now on she would be able to

stand up for herself. Her father would no longer be invaluable, or even valuable . On the contrary, he was now entirely disposable. And as she reflected upon this, her face glimmered with a pale, unearthly glow, as for just the briefest of instants her eyes became golden vertical slits, and a pair of long venom-dripping fangs momentarily materialised. Then, the voice of her father called up to her, to tell her that dinner was now ready. Instantaneo usly, her face became that of his obedient daughter Rosa again, except for the f aintest of smiles that lingered as she stood up. After all, she speculated, toni ght would be as good a time as any to bring this charade to an end, and the deat h of her father would appear to anyone examining his body to have been caused by nothing more dramatic than a massive heart attack. The shock of her father s sudd en, unexpected demise would even very conveniently explain why she hadn t gone to Maria s house that evening as promised. She walked out of her bedroom, closed the door, and walked along the landing towards the stairs. Yes, it was time... Downstairs, her father stood motionless, willing his mind and his heart to accep t what must be done. A few minutes earlier, he had received a phone-call from a near-hysterical Maria, who, with her brother Juan s help, had somehow managed to c onvey what had happened with the manananggal, and that they fervently hoped all was well with Rosa, as she had never arrived at Maria s house. When he put the pho ne down, Rosa s father was ashen and shaking. He knew very well that Rosa had set out, because a friend driving by in his car had happened to see her walking thro ugh the fields not far from Maria s house. Yet when Rosa had unexpectedly arrived back home only a few hours later, she had gone straight to her room without even speaking, let alone explaining why she hadn t stayed at Maria s. He had naturally a ssumed that she would explain everything at dinner, but the horrific news from M aria had driven all other thoughts from his mind all other thoughts but one, tha t is. So, it had indeed begun again, and closer to home in every sense this time than ever before. After all, Maria was a good friend. How could it be? It cannot be, surely and yet, it must be. No longer was there any other explanation. No longer could there be any further attempt to brush aside such events as mere coinciden ces. He glanced at an open drawer in his writing desk, then looked down at his hand, at what he had taken out of that drawer and was now holding, which gleamed brigh tly even in the evening s subdued light. It was a long slender dagger, with a razo r-sharp blade. A silver dagger. He stood in the shadows at the foot of the stairs, and waited. Yes, it was time. ..