Do You Believe In Ghosts?

It depends.
If they are compulsive liars, then...

Seriously, i've had a number of encounters with the "supernatural," so to speak. Personally, I never wanted to believe in them. I was raised by my parents in a conservative sort-of way when it comes to these things. I can almost hear my dad saying "Mga guni-guni niyo lang iyan!" whenever something spooky would happen at the house. My mom is a religious person but talks nothing about ghosts or monsters or spirits or whatever. Being raised that way, I never really thought I would be susceptible to these supernatural shites. On the other hand, ever since I was a young kid, I kind of felt that I had a connection with some "things." Let me tell you a few stories that I experienced first-hand.

One time, probably when I was in grade school, my mom and dad were away on a business trip. I was sleeping in my room one night when suddenly my yayas had to wake me up. At first, I thought there was a fire or something: There was a thin layer of smoke inside the house, almost like a fine fog, and I saw on their faces a look of panic. It turns out the smoke was everywhere in the house. I mean, everywhere. Wherever you go, whatever room you're in. Standing up or crouching down low, the smoke was in your face. The smoke had a smell too. It smelled like candles. It was sort of like the whole house was filled with you know that smoke coming from lighted candles? Yes, it was like the house was filled with hundreds of lit candles. But there were no candles, not a single one in the house. This went on for three days. On the third day, my yayas couldn't bear it anymore. They packed up my things, had our tito pick us up, and we all slept at our other house (Acacia, St., Q.C.). On the fourth day, we returned and everything went back to normal.

Another story I distinctly remember was when we were about to leave the house for an out-of-town vacation with some relatives. No one was going to be left at the house so I remember my dad making sure that everything was locked and every electrical appliance was unplugged from the wall sockets. I remember I was the last one to get ready and everyone was waiting for me. I was brushing my hair in my room. Adjacent to my room was the bathroom. From the bathroom, I heard my cousin (who was supposed to drive for us that day) speaking to me. He said in a deep voice, "Filip, wag ka na umalis ngayon." I was like, "Pfft, lahat tayo aalis eh. Wala namang maiiwan, bakit tayo hindi aalis??" Again, my cousin replied slowly, "Basta wag ka na umalis." As I was hearing this, I was walking towards the bathroom to ask my cousin what's up with him. When I turned the corner, no one was there! No one was actually inside the bathroom! After looking around for a few seconds, I heard the car honking. I rushed to go outside and I saw everyone was at the car already, all packed up, seated and ready to go. No one was in the house but me! I asked them about it, they said they were all there in the car waiting for me. They didn't really pay attention to my questions as they were already half-pissed that I took so long to get ready. But my mind was racing, I couldn't figure out what just happened. Oh my, who the hell was I just talking to..

These were my main experiences with the supernatural, smell of candles, hearing voices, etc.. I even have a lot of minor supernatural memories that may or may not be guni-guni. But that was it. A lot of my experiences were smelling, hearing, even feeling. I haven't actually seen a ghost. Or a monster. Or a spirit. Or whatever. Until. Monster Dog.

Yep, that's what my friend, Robert called it. Monster Dog. I shared this story with them but no one believed me. Absolutely, no one. And I swear, this story is true.

It happened one night, I was driving home I had another cousin in the passenger's seat. We were listening to rock and roll. The windows were rolled down. It was a typical night. As I was driving up north at Rancho Avenue, from the distance, you can see there was like a cat or a dog on the horizon. I knew this because its eyes were glowing from the reflected light from the car's headlights. As I was nearing it, I realized something strange. Usually when a dog or a cat sees an oncoming car, it gets the hell out of the way. This strange fella didn't. It simply stood its ground. It was in the middle of the road and was just standing there on its paws looking at the car. And then, as I was getting near it, I realized this was no ordinary cat or dog. It was bigger than the car! It stood on all fours but its head was a feet or two above the roof of the car. As I was driving past it, (I had to slow down and steer to the right to avoid hitting it.) I swear the monster dog was looking at me. From the driver side you can see that its head was almost as big as the car window. It had fiery-red eyes. It had spikes on its back. You can sense that this mofo was angry. It had fangs about 5 to 6 inches long. It had its mouth half-open. It was drooling. If I reached out, I could have touched it. That was how close I was. I was really close. But the thing did not make a single sound. Not a growl or scratch or whatever. I remember my cousin, upon seeing it and passing it, quickly hid below the glove compartment at the passenger's side of the car. He was shaking and his eyes were wide open the whole time. After I passed it, I looked and saw the creature on the rear-view mirror. I glanced at the road and looked at it again and it was gone. A few seconds later we were home. (Yep, this was just a few blocks away from my house.) I had a hard time convincing my cousin that everything was okay and that he could get out of the car now. He didn't open the passenger-side door, instead he went out of the driver-side door, all the time he was clutching me. That's how scared he was. As for me, that was a surreal experience, I wasn't really scared. In fact, I'd like to see Monster Dog again. No one believes this story and I want to prove everyone wrong. Next time I see MD, I hope to bring a video cam or a digital camera or even Robert. Monster Dog can even eat Bobby's fingers just to prove he exists. I'm sure Robert wouldn't mind.



Writer's own depiction of M.D.