The clattering sounds I thought were coming from the arboreal animals were actually coming from the unexplainable.
I was 10 when the howling of the dogs, the random scratching, and the heavy footsteps on our roof kept me wide awake, scared, and terrified on casual evenings of my childhood years when we moved to our new house way back in 2013. I thought that these uncanny sounds were phantasms, but the frequent awakening in the middle of the night was a certainty that it wasn’t a figment of imagination.
Our house was built near a river stream where nearby farms throw their agricultural wastes. The house wasn’t fully furnished when we moved in. The windows were made up of bamboo slats. We were also surrounded by big trees, some of which were mango and narra that made the nights a bit darker, cooler, and creepy.
At night, the sounds of cicadas and the gentle blow of the wind were the only things audible aside from the sound our TV made. Our neighbors were meters away and it would be impossible to just walk or call them instantly when inconveniences happen. Though there were street lights, they weren’t enough to reveal the horrors hiding behind the darkness of the night.
It was one summer night in June when it all started. It was around 1:30 a.m. and I was staring blankly at our ceiling fan watching it revolve while pondering about an episode of “Spooky Nights.” I was in my own room when suddenly I heard a loud clatter I assumed emerged from the roof of a pig pen located behind our house.
It sounded like a large solid thing was thrown or dropped coming from an elevated area. The deafening silence inside our house made the sound louder. I was extremely startled and I decided to lie down between my parents, catching my breath and my heart pulsing through my ear. I tried to calm myself when suddenly my mom left the bed to go to the bathroom. Before going back to bed, she asked me why I decided to move into their room and I replied that there were loud sounds that wouldn’t make me sleep. My mom said that she couldn’t hear anything, oblivious to what my auditory senses perceived.
A few minutes later, the loud noise was followed by another bang! It didn’t stop and became a consecutive and louder noise as if someone was hammering a nail on the roof. I shut my eyes and put my hands in both of my ears to block the horrifying sounds. It was strange that despite the sounds, my parents were still sleeping, unbothered by the ear-splitting noise. I opened my eyes and our wall clock told me that it was already two in the morning. I got up from the bed and decided to look out the window.
Bravely, and heart beating so fast, I stood on my toes to peek outside, and through the narrow space between the bamboo slats, right in front of my naked eyes, on the surface of the roof of the pigpen, there, I saw three black baby-like figures holding each other’s hand and jumping on the roof in a counterclockwise motion.
The silhouette looked like babies. I didn’t see their faces but they were making a horrifying sound similar to a demonic laugh, a desperate and thrilled one. I wanted to scream but it seemed that my voice was stolen by the horror I just witnessed. I was shaking, and breathing felt like a curse. In the blink of an eye, the sound disappeared and so did the figures. Dumbfounded, I returned back to bed and called all the saints to protect me. The loud sounds I thought were coming from the arboreal animals were actually coming from the unexplainable.
The following day, I told my brother and my mom about what happened but they refused to believe me. Of course, they wouldn’t, who would believe this kind of story if they didn’t hear the sounds?
Weeks had passed and the uncanny encounters started to occupy my dark nights. The howling of the dogs, whimpers of a lady, the scratches on the ceiling, a random “psssst!”, big and heavy steps on our roof, the dragging sound of metal chains, the sound of a pig at midnight, and the shadows on my periphery were some of the things that haunted me at night and whenever I was alone. The days I spent in that house awakened something in me, an ability to perceive the unnatural.
I have never told anyone about the nightmares that even today try to invade my consciousness, afraid that a stronger force might revel in it.
Years later, we moved to our new house but the horrors that only myself believe to be real is an excess baggage that I just can’t dismiss.
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James Permejo, 20, thinks the horrors are still there, underneath his bed.