“I was bored,” I grumbled. “Chill out.” And then I saw how anxious he looked and laughed. “You’re really playing up the part of the big brother. I’m impressed.”
He must have thought I was insulting him, because he suddenly had this look on his face that he didn’t want to deal with me anymore. I was surprised that I reacted to it. “I don’t mean it like that. Look, I don’t hate you. I’d be dead right now if it weren’t for you. But before we make up, I need to know something, and until I do our relationship can’t start on the right foot. Are you, or are you not, interested at all in Rachel Ann?”
He goggled at me, because clearly this was the last thing he was expecting me to ask. He cleared his throat.
“Because back there, in Sakul,” I said, before he could reply. “You were all like, oh, Rachel, hold my hand, I’ll always protect you...”
“First of all,” Enrique said, “I didn’t say anything like that. Nor do I sound like that.”
I pointed at him. “Uh, yes you did.”
“I was trying to convince her to go home because of you-know-what.”
“I heard you. You even said, You’ve come to mean a lot to me, Rachel.”
“What I said was, You’ve come at a bad time, Rachel. I was trying to convince her to leave.”
“Uh, no. I clearly recall…”
He narrowed his eyes. “Pablo, hasn’t it occurred to you by now that you overreact all the time?”
I sputtered. “I do not.” He blinked at me. I said, “Okay, maybe I misheard. There was a lot of rain and I was pretty mad at the both of you. But I remember you said, Let’s just enjoy this for as long as we can.”
“I said, You just try to enjoy this while you can. We were talking about you, Pablo. She was afraid to tell you about her condition. She loves you. She told me herself.”
“Well, yeah,” I said, colouring. “I know that now.”
He cleared his throat. “Now are we good?”
I shrugged. “I suppose.”
He was quiet for a moment. “Because I didn’t ask to be a bastard, you know.”
“Yeah. I know.”
“I wanted to meet you.” There was an awkward pause. “I know that sounds weird, but I did. I didn’t have a lot of playmates and it made me happy knowing I had a younger brother. He’d always promise he’d take you with him. And then he just stopped visiting, a little bit before Mom died.”
It was such a Dad thing to do. I didn’t want to colour his obviously delusional view, though. I thought that might make me seem like the ass who tells kids Santa Claus isn’t real. “So you knew it was me the first time we met.”
“I’ll be honest: you’re not exactly the Pablo I envisioned. You’re kind of a brat.”
“Kind of is an understatement.”
“I spent most of the time trying to convince myself there were two Julios in the family. Hard enough knowing I was related to you—but for you to be my only brother?”
“Hey,” I said. “There might be others.” I grew serious. “I know what you mean, though. I haven’t exactly been fair to her, have I?”
“I thought you were the father, too. Seeing you act like that made you seem worse. But she cleared it up, that same night Bek-bek attacked you. Kind of a complicated situation you’re in, but I guess love’s always complicated. She really seems to love you, though. Do you love her back?”
I think if this was a movie—that angsty teen movie where I was the main character and Enrique was my trusty, if a little slow, sidekick, this would be the part where I nodded, proclaimed my own undying love, and then got a bunch of superpowers and went off towards a climactic ending that involved Rachel Ann and me romantically sprinting off into a sunset towards our very own happy ending.
But life is more complicated than that. Poor soppy Enrique, with his colourful view of Dad and his dreams of a younger brother who would jump at the chance to accept him, couldn’t see that her pregnancy had made her vulnerable. Mark had just dumped her, her hormones were all whacked out... never mind the fact that she’d always been a couple of sausages short of a longsilog platter. Why would she love me? I’m not trying to score pity points here—I’m just being realistic. I get that she’s fond of me and yeah, probably would’ve agreed to be my girlfriend back in First Year if I hadn’t stupidly let Gracie drag me into her idea of a relationship, but love? The way I love her?
She should know better than that.
Anyway, it’s not like any of this stuff mattered. She was still there, out there with them. Enrique had said they would keep her alive, but for how long? Maybe they would decide I wasn’t worth their time and would try to kill me so they could use that stone again on a more qualified guy. Like you know, someone named “Jesus,” since they wanted irony so bad. I suddenly started wishing I had a cigarette—funny how turning into an aswang couldn’t even kill that craving—and hated the thought that my money was all the way in those pants I left in the woods where I’d turned. By now Ciskong had probably stolen it and used it to buy gin or whatever it was boar-men liked to buy. Shit. I really hated him. Next time I saw him, I would punch him in the face.
“I guess I really have been a stubborn ass.” And I was paying for it, too. That storm was starting in my belly again and the scents from everything alive within a ten-meter radius were making my head swim. “So. How do we do this?”
“Do what?”
“You know. Save her.”
“You want to go back there?”
“Well, yeah. You don’t think I’d just leave her there, right?”
He looked very thoughtful. “I don’t know. I don’t know if you should go back there, I mean. You really pushed it last time, but the longer it goes that you don’t eat, the harder it is to resist her. The only reason I could was because I’ve had a few years of practice. Don’t look so angry. I was going to try and go back there myself tonight. I was thinking I could lock you up in that room, say you’re sick and shouldn’t be bothered... ”
“Are you even listening to yourself? That’s ridiculous!” Sweat beaded on my forehead. “You can’t leave me by myself! I don’t—I’m still—” I started to pant. He leaned forward and patted my back.
“All right,” he said. “I’ll think of something else.”
“Two of us,” I breathed. “I don’t want to be alone tonight. I don’t want her to be alone tonight. I don’t...”
“Okay. Calm down. Two of us then. Against the twenty or so of them. I’m sure there’s a way.”
“And none of those plans of yours that didn’t work.”
“I promise.” He cracked a smile. “Trust kuya. He got you out of there alive.”
I had the sudden impression that he’d been practicing that line all his life. I felt better, hearing it. Chances were he’d probably get me killed, but you had to take what little comfort you could in a life as ridiculously complicated as this one.
Chapter Seventeen
* * *
* * *
The idea that Enrique was my brother never really sunk in until I realized how he was just as insane as I was. His idea of a plan, and “trusting kuya,” involved breaking into a funeral home.
“It’s a necessary first step,” he insisted. “If you’re too hungry when you get close to her, you might regret it.”
“No,” I told him. “No, no, no. I don’t care how great of a bonding experience you think this is, I am not eating decomposing human body parts.”
“They’re not always decomposing.”
“See, right there. Do you realize how bad that sounds? This isn’t how normal people talk.”
If he was going to be my brother, he should have at least learned sarcasm. But no, he chose to look sad instead. “We’re not normal people, Pablo. Not anymore.”
I snorted in disgust. “I can’t accept that.” He opened his mouth to argue, but I cut him off. “Anyway, if they’re not always decomposing, doesn’t that mean they’ve got a lot of chemicals in them? Isn’t that bad for you?”
He shrugged. “Never hurt me.”
I looked at him. He was actually serious. Formaldehyde had never hurt him. I didn’t even know where to start. “Dude,” I said. “This is going to get in the way of you getting women. I don’t think that’s the kind of cologne you want them to think you wear. You know, at best.”
“It’s not really something that comes up on a first date.” Ah-hah! So he wasn’t as humourless as I thought.
Anyway, we got to this place, and a bunch of people were holding wakes. We went into the alley and up the roof as gently as we could. He took out a bottle of beer and handed it to me.
“This part isn’t so bad,” I said, cupping my hand around the bottle cap and popping it open. Enrique looked at me curiously.
“How do you do that?”
“I don’t know. It’s something you figure out when you drink a lot.” I opened his bottle for him too, and then gestured at the rooms below us. “So don’t they stay overnight?”
“Some do,” he said. “But you’ll be surprised at how many families leave their dead unattended. Usually not on the first day, but if you wait around long enough, it happens. Then it’s just a matter of being careful. Always be ready to pretend you’re a long-lost relative or you just got lost, and then you have to grab the parts you don’t think anyone will miss.”
“Ugh. Ew. Don’t make me throw up my beer. Not when I’m not drunk yet.” I glanced at the horizon unhappily. “Are you sure we have to do this?”
“I told you,” he said. He bit his lip. “It’s better than going crazy and killing someone.”
“Are you the only one who does this?” I asked, thinking suddenly of my father. Our father. “Scavenging, like you said. Well, you said Lolo Milyong did it, too.”
“I don’t know,” he admitted. “It’s not something we talk about. From what I understand Lolo Milyong hunted, too—he wasn’t as against it as I am. Wasn’t against it at all. Most of them think it’s a shame, what I do. Berto and those others—they’re always show-boating, boasting about the people they kill and how helpless they were.”
“Ciskong never forced you to stop?”
“He wasn’t happy about it. Said I do it too much, that it’s easier to get caught like this. In this country, the dead are more watched than the living. I mean, a missing kid could just be a missing kid, but body parts getting mysteriously gnawed off in the night?” He sighed. “But I guess he never really put a stop to it because he thinks it’s better than me not wanting to be like this at all. You know. Like Dad.”
I had to drink some more beer to process that. “What do you mean?”
“Berto told me, I guess to try to make me feel guilty. About how Lolo Milyong took Dad here to get turned, and he violently resisted. They got him in the end, but after that he escaped and got back to his mom, and I don’t know what he told her—probably not the truth, but she got mad and took off. Lolo Milyong tried to keep contact with him but he stopped wanting to talk to him or anyone from his side of the family.” He gripped the beer with both hands, like he was wringing someone’s neck. “I sort of started thinking that the reason he stopped visiting was because Lolo Milyong was dying and he didn’t want Lolo Ciskong to track me down to give me his stone. Took him a while to find me, after all.”
Or he got bored. But I said, “Yeah,” and drank again. I didn’t know if we’d ever see my father again, but it would be easier for Enrique to find out on his own. “So I guess they’re really desperate, huh?” I continued, to change the subject.
“I don’t blame them,” he said. “I don’t agree with them... I think we just have to accept our fate, that if this race is dying then let it die, but I don’t blame them. You do what you have to do to survive.”
He said it so sincerely. I kind of respected him for it. It was difficult not to compare him to my father, after that—how different they were in this kind of thing. My father would have made a sharp judgement, followed by a comparison that would paint him differently, better, even the damn hero. It made me a little curious about Enrique’s mother. If he grew up like this despite his genes, she must’ve been a kind person.
We sat around drinking throughout the next hour or so. Enrique got a little edgy as evening drew closer. “I told you, Riko,” I said, getting irritated at how he dangled his feet over the roof and slapped his fingers over his knees. “I feel fine. In fact, I’ve never felt so fine in my life.”
“How fine? Crystal clear? Can you see people with your nose?”
“What? That’s not—” I sniffed. Some kid, I realized, had just walked into the room downstairs. A little girl, scared silly of the body, her fear rising from her pores. I stole Enrique’s bottle—having finished my own—and tried to drown that feeling out with more alcohol. “I’m fine,” I said again. “Do you really think I’ll just change uncontrollably? Is that something that happens very often?”
“It took a few days with me,” he said. “I was very uncomfortable the first night, kind of feverish the next. Maybe three, four days. But then, I ate that first time. That important meal. You didn’t.”
“What if I eat monkeys?” I said. “I think there’s a wildlife nearby. They’re pretty close to people, aren’t they? Monkeys. I’m not opposed to eating monkeys.”
“Shh.” He pointed below. “One of the rooms is empty. There’s a window just around the corner.”
“Oh God,” I groaned. “Do we really have to do this?”
“You love her, don’t you?”
We got to the room through the window, just like he said. There was still a bunch of crackers left on the table, but the room looked abandoned otherwise, and the door was locked. “Come on Pablo,” Enrique said, going around the back of the coffin. I looked at him, and then at the poor guy lying there, all white and stiff. He didn’t look appetizing at all. I started wondering what got him there and why he didn’t have anyone who would stay the whole night through for him. Hell, it wasn’t even seven o’clock.
I heard the crunching and the chewing and turned away. After a while I heard him grunt and walk up to me. “Pretend it’s cake,” he said.
“You’ve made me lose my appetite for cake forever,” I said, although the truth is since last night I didn’t think I could ever eat cake again. “Look, not to burst your bubble or anything, but I don’t know how I’m even supposed to do this. I don’t have umm, utensils.”
He grabbed my arm and yanked me to the coffin. The smell of death and chemicals were like pinpricks to my nose. “I had to turn to get in,” he said. “My jaws, my claws.”
“I can’t do that,” I said. “I don’t know how.”
“That’s what I’m saying. You can get in where I’d been eating. Come on, Pablo. Aren’t you hungry at all?”
I was, gut-wrenchingly so. The mere mention of it made my mouth water, even though my brain was trying to tell me that steak dinners didn’t used to look like this and maybe a burger tonight wouldn’t be such a bad idea after all. I couldn’t make sense of it. I found myself gripping the coffin, fighting all the urges that swamped this alien body. “Please, Riko,” I managed to whimper. “Let’s go. I can’t do this. I shouldn’t do this. This is wrong.”
“But he’s not even alive.”
“I can’t. Don’t make me. Please.”
I think that did it for him. We smelled someone just outside the door, and he conceded and followed me to the window. I was glad to leave that body behind. I’m sure he appreciated my sentiments, too.
Reality set in. Last night wasn’t a dream. The whole damn week wasn’t a dream. I was this—this thing, even when I looked in the mirror and saw the same old cocky guy who drew on the back of test papers hoping the teacher would be amused enough to pass him. I had drooled all over a coffin. Over a dead guy. Not because of that nice gold watch around his wrist or his necklace, but because I wanted to eat him. Fuck.
To make things worse, it was like someone had unlocked a gate inside of me. Suddenly, everything made me drool. I m
ean, we were walking down the street, me in my borrowed shirt and shorts, just seemingly two ordinary guys, and every time we saw someone my heart skipped a beat. A guy on a bicycle with a cap put on backwards. An old lady with a bag of groceries. Jesus Christ, a fat lady practically bursting out of her blouse. And then, a little boy, sitting on a bench outside a store, all alone, the unholiest craving of all.
I felt Enrique’s tight grip. “I know,” I gasped. “This is disgusting. This is a sin, isn’t it? No wonder we’re supposed to die if we so much as step inside a church.”
“That’s not true,” he said. “I go to church all the time.”
“But it’s wrong. This is wrong.”
He shrugged. “We are what we are. There’s no way around it.”
“If I kill myself...” I started.
“Rachel Ann dies,” he finished.
I sighed. “Yeah. We can’t have that.”
He took me to the back of the market after that. The market itself was closed, but we found an entire truck loaded with confiscated, “double-dead” pork meat. I didn’t even need an invitation. My brain shut down and I started gobbling enough meat to make myself want to burst.
I stopped when my stomach couldn’t hold any more, and was surprised to realize that I was still damnably hungry. I mean, it’s like having sandwiches for dinner, no pot of rice in sight. You eat till you’re full but you still want the damn rice.
“Can’t you train yourself to eat this instead?” I asked, watching Enrique shut the back of the truck almost longingly. “I mean, it helps, right?”
“It just buys time,” he said. “You need human flesh to control the powers. The turning.”
“Fuck the turning,” I grunted, aware of how helpless I felt.
But we were full enough to keep our heads straight and it was time. We walked out of town and found a quiet field. Enrique made a depression in the grass, turned around, and then, right before my very eyes, transformed.
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