TIKTIK (TRUE STORY)

NOVEMBER 8, 2013

                    Tiktik

This story really happened to my grandmother. According to her, when she was still pregnant with my father, there was this one woman who always goes to their house and do home services for them.
Sometimes, this woman offers to clean their house, to massage my grandmother, to take care of their plants, to feed their pigs and chickens, and other things that my grandmother wishes her to do. You know, my grandma was still pregnant that time and being tired does no good to her.

My grandmother and grandfather live together. They didn’t have any offspring yet during that time, my dad will be their first.

This strange woman is very helpful, making my grandpa sometimes feel peculiar about her. She only started coming to their house when my grandmother was already 2 months pregnant.

One afternoon, my grandfather was not home yet from school. He was the supervisor of the local elementary school of the town. My grandmother meanwhile was washing the dishes. From the kitchen window, she can see the garden and the poultry outside . There she saw the woman standing outside, hands stretched to the sky.
Puzzled, my grandma went out to ask the woman what she was doing outside. To her surprise, the woman was no longer there. And then she realized that the woman already bid goodbye a while ago.
Well, my grandma didn’t give that much attention to this strange happening. She thought of it as a simple ‘guni-guni’. But when she told my grandfather, my grandpa thought of it as a bad sign, or that it has something to do with the rumours in town saying that there is an aswang currently roaming around the place.

“So, you think the girl who helps and assists me here is the aswang they’re talking about?” my grandmother asks.

“Well, not that I’m saying it’s really her, but look, she’s new here. She’s a stranger. And then, out of the blue, she went around and offered us help. Isn’t that strange? You’re pregnant. We all know what aswangs like the most.” answered my grandfather.

“You know, this discussion is going no where. I’ll let you with your opinion, but let me with mine too. She’s good and nice and hardworking. She helps me when when you can't.”

“Look—“

“I said let’s stop this now. Okay?”

Then my grandma left and went to their bedroom.

Few months later, nothing bad had happened to my grandma. She’s already 8 months pregnant and her tummy’s already big.

One afternoon, apparently 6pm, she is in the house with the woman who helps her always. The woman hasn’t left yet for the reason that the rain and the air is strong. And my grandmother started complaining about her feeling her tummy aches. She is seating in her rocking chair.

So the woman offered her help. She went near my grandma and started touching her tummy, like feeling it from her hands. Trying to comfort my grandmother. But instead of feeling well, my grandmother feels the hand of the woman like it’s going under her tummy. Like it’s going in.

When she looked to the woman’s eyes, she was like hypnotized. She lied her head on the rocking chair’s back and felt asleep. She only knew what happened when my grandfather told her so.
After that terrifying moment, my grandfather arrived and was surprised to what he has seen. The woman’s tongue was like a meter long and her hand is holding my grandma’s stomach like she is about to cut it open using her amazingly long, sharp, pointed nails.

When the woman saw that my grandfather is there, she tried to attack him, but failed. Because my grandfather has always been suspicious to that woman, he always brings a piece of garlic. It is pinned to his inside polo. And because of that, she wasn’t able to go near my grandpa. My grandpa ran to their room and gets his bolo immediately. But when he came out thinking of slaying the woman, the aswang of that kind, called Tiktik, is already gone.

The Tiktik didn’t fly because she wasn’t able to. It’s not yet that dark of night, that’s why she maybe wasn’t at her real strength yet. Instead, my grandpa thinks she jumped from the window to the back of their house.
From that day on, the neighborhood was furious on catching that strange woman. The woman, however, never showed up again in that town and was gone forever from the place. My grandma, after that incident, hasn’t allowed anyone to go inside their house again while she’s pregnant. Not if she didn’t know the people that well.

THE END