October is known as the spooky month because, as everybody knows, Halloween is celebrated every 31st day of the month. What was once the first day of a three-day hallowed festivities in remembrance of the dead is now a celebration of all things creepy dead and alive — a celebration that has been fully embraced by big capitalist corporations (but I digress).
People from various places around the world celebrate Halloween in different manners. Here in the Philippines, we often share stories of kababalaghan that involve supernatural encounters and the like, as well as throwing horror-themed parties, and visiting dead relatives in cemeteries. Granted, these activities are usually held on November 1st and 2nd, All-Saints’ Day and All Souls’ Day, respectively, but with each passing year, more and more Filipinos and Filipino establishments (especially the hip ones millennials go to) have started celebrating Halloween on October 31st.
So this is supposed to be a tale of spookiness (the title is an amalgam/pun on “spooky” and my name “Kennan”, in case you didn’t get it). Let me start off this tale by saying I am not one to immediately accept these horror tales as facts. There has to be logical explanations how and why all the supernatural stories we hear happened. I will concede, though, that there are things that science can’t quite explain. That’s not an admission that scientifically unexplained things are automatically supernatural in nature, though. However, horror stories are fun to share, no doubt about that.
Some friends and myself were in Bantayan Island in Cebu for a weekend getaway/team building at work. Since Bantayan has plenty of bike rental shops, we rented some bikes, and decided to look for a pizza place at 12 midnight. Was there an actual pizza shop that was open at 12 midnight on a remote island far, far away from civilization, you ask? The answer is yes! So we ate pizza, and did other normal millennial things at midnight, then biked our way back to the resort we were staying in.
The roads were dark, as is normal for remote islands. Sure, there were streetlights, but the gaps between them were a bit big, so there were certainly unlit areas that totally increased the spooky vibes. At first, everyone was just trying to get back as fast as they can, not out of fear or whatever, but sleepiness was starting to set in. All of a sudden, a distinct crying sound was heard. Ahh crap. When everybody reacted to the sound, it was all but confirmed that it was not just our imagination.
Lo, and behold, standing beside a streetlamp, there was a little girl, about 5 years old, crying, her face covered with her hands (as is normal for little girls to do when sad, right?). Against our better judgement(?), we pulled over near the girl and asked what the problem was. I vividly remember having a foot firmly on the pedal of my bike, and saying to myself that if the girl had a meaty, disfigured face like in horror movies, I am going to pedal so hard and not look back.
Well, it turns out she was a normal human girl who lived in a hut on a grassy field nearby (there were indeed small houses inhabited by locals) and that she was crying because here sister, who was standing in the dark all this time like a complete weirdo, was mean to her. What a relief. So, my friend comforted the girl, she stopped crying and we went on our way. We laughed about the whole ordeal upon arriving at our resort, but we almost pissed ourselves out of fear the entire time it happened.
Okay, so that supernatural experience turned out to be a boring, normal one. But, hey at least we didn’t encounter ghosts then, so that’s always good.
Or maybe that’s just what the undead wanted us to believe!!! *cue creepy, fading music*
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