"LAYOG"

It happened years ago, yet my recollections are vivid, and the circumstances surrounding it are still very fresh in my mind, for I have never experienced that kind of thing before, and I do not want that harrowing experience to happen again to me, ever.

As you can see, I come from a remote town in the southern part of Luzon in the Philippines, where belief in the supernatural is still a way of life.

So, it will come as no surprise when you hear stories about creatures of the dark: ghosts, dwarfs, “layog“, “kapre“, “tikbalang“, “manananggal“, etc. in daily conversations of the townspeople, although nobody in our town, at least to my knowledge, has claimed to have seen one or have been a victim of one.

Having lived half of my life in the capital city of Manila, I brushed off these beliefs as nothing but some sort of tall tales and folklore created by people with wild imaginations and nothing else.

It has no place in the 21st century, I said to myself until I went back to my hometown for a much needed vacation in the summer of ‘89.

I have a childhood friend whose family has been the victim of vicious rumors and is known all over the town that all of its members are “layog."

“Layog,” in our folklore, are creatures that are cursed to live and look like ordinary people by day, but transform into creatures that can fly and prey on people, especially the pregnant and terminally-ill for their blood and innards by night.

The said rumor all started when the grandmother of my high school friend, who was said to be the matriarch of the dark creature, died, and it was said that she passed on the curse of the layogs to my friend’s mother.

For years, this family was the subject of wild stories about the supernatural by people who had nothing else to do but engage in gossips almost every day.

Of course, I didn’t believe the rumors, but I should have known better, having spent many days and nights in that household during my high school days, noticing nothing unusual except for the fact that this family was not very fond of meat. In fact, they preferred to have fish for viand most of the time, at least during the times I was there.

One fateful hot, dry summer night, the shining moon full and silver, I was on my way to a card game of “pusoy”, a form of poker in the neighborhood. When I passed by the old bridge spanning the lazy creek to the next barrio, I saw Tia Landa, the mother of my best friend, sitting there alone and looking at the full moon.

I approached her and asked her where my friend was. Instead of answering my query, she turned around and just looked at me in the eye and said nothing. She looked at the moon and then looked at me again, and then without saying a word she continued to gaze at the full moon, oblivious of my presence. Her eyes were transfixed on the silver full moon above.

Although I was taken aback by her unusual behavior, which was a far cry from her usual accommodating self during my visits to her house, I passed it off without much ado, rationalizing that maybe she is just tired from a day’s work, or contemplating on something important and just doesn’t want to be disturbed.

So I went on my way and ventured into the neighborhood, where I played some poker games with my friends up until 1 o’clock in the morning, when we decided to call it quits.

My friends and I went out of the local gambling household and headed for home.

As we traversed the narrow path leading to the old bridge, we heard an eerie sound coming from the sky. It was the unfamiliar sound of a bird harping, ”Weeek! Weeek!” followed by the sounds of large wings flapping above our heads!

Our gaze instinctively looked skyward, coming from the direction of the unusual sound and saw a very dark creature that looked like a very big black bird, as it made its descent, gliding toward the three of us.

"Layog!" I shouted at the top of my lungs as we all ducked for cover and fell to the ground, while our eyes darted out, warily searching and scanning for the dark creature in the dark night sky.

From the lights of the lone streetlight, we were able to see the familiar silhouette as it glided and hovered over the lines of coconut trees on the other side of the dusty road. It stayed there for a second or two and disappeared as fast as we had seen her.

After what it seems like an eternity, with our backs lying on the ground, we heard a very loud thud coming from the direction of Tia Landa's house, the sound of which we likened to the impact of a bunch of coconuts falling to the ground.

The feeling of fear and horror slowly crept into our being while we looked into each other‘s eyes in sheer terror, when it dawned on us what we just witnessed. But we were able to gather ourselves and went on an impromptu Layog-alert watch that night, armed with only fist-sized stones that we managed to collect from the river.

Armed with the stones, we deemed it safer to stick together and decided to spend the night away at the bridge, exchanging colorful stories that made us laugh, although we were still wary of the real or imagined threats above our heads. Our heightened state of vigilance stayed on for the rest of the night, and we were only able to relax when we finally saw the first rays of the sun coming from the east. We all then went home as if nothing happened.

It took months before we finally broke our silence about the incident and freely talked about it. But we also learned that some people in the barrio were awake and aware of the said incident but were just too afraid to venture outside of their houses during that unholy hour.

After that, we all decided to forget about it and continued our nightly poker games, but only not during a full moon.

#0901301