The Maid

The new maid Inday had been terribly ill, too ill that it kept her completely unable to do anything but lie down the whole day she couldn't even pull herself out of bed. She was throwing up all over the place, spilling out the contents of her guts, her eyes at times bloodshot and at times glassy, her body seemingly threatening to burst into flames because of a horrendous incomprehensible fever. But the thing that disturbed Mabel the most was her vital signs. From years of experience as a former nursing attendant, she has yet to encounter anything like this, that's why it's difficult to explain the events she observed during the last couple of hours.

She would take her pulse and find great trouble detecting anything. And then at last when she did feel the very faint beating, it was like electricity would flow through her, sapping away her energy. And afterwards, a few minutes of not feeling anything would transpire before yet again, a strange sensation comes creeping in. It was weird. Simply weird. Mabel would have liked to continue checking the maid's pulse at regular intervals and then perhaps clean up the mess but she started feeling dizzy herself, her strength beginning to ebb. It was physically draining.

To make matters worse, the phone had just went dead. There was no one to call for help in this bad weather and terrible situation, considering the distance between their new town house where they have just transferred last week, and the nearest occupied unit five blocks away. She didn't like the way the ailing maid looked at this stage, like the blood had been systematically drained from her frail body but at least she had already fallen asleep although she was still breathing heavily and with apparent difficulty. The medicine she administered was hopefully beginning to take effect. Mabel wondered to herself when would Paolo be coming back?

She left the maid's bedside and walked into their bedroom to catch her breath and wait for her husband there. But she fell asleep. A slight drizzle had started again, the wet pavement glistening under the moonlight. The grass on their lawn gathered dew as the hours passed while a stray dog howled at the moon from faraway.

Paolo honked twice the moment he approached the house, and almost immediately, the heavy iron gate parted in the middle revealing against the glare of the headlight, a woman in flimsy sleeping dress, her flowing black hair accentuating the round radiant face that seemed to reflect the glow of the moonlight. Inday greeted him with a wide smile and watched while Paolo backed the car up into the garage.

"Where's your Ate Mabel?", he inquired.

"She fell asleep waiting for you Sir". The maid answered still smiling broadly, as she walked on bouncy legs, humming enthusiastically while heading back to her room upstairs, the exuberant strides almost a bizarre dance. Paolo wanted to ask why she is up this late and how come not a single light was on inside or outside the house but the maid was gone in an instant and he was just too tired to ask.

Mabel couldn't believe her eyes the moment she awakened late in the morning in which she almost instinctively rushed downstairs without bothering to fix herself. The bathroom had already been scrubbed clean, while the clothesline in the backyard strained under the weight of the still dripping laundry, the smell of freshly-cooked breakfast permeated the morning air from the kitchen, while Paolo sat beside the dining table, his attention torn between a late breakfast and the newspaper in his hands. He noticed her presence and gave Mabel a look of concern and a half-smile.

"You overslept, honey, come on now and let's have brunch."

But with a million questions racing through her mind, food was the last thing that mattered for the perplexed young housewife. "How is Inday? She was sick to death last night, what happened to her? And where is she now? Her words came in rapid succession, desperately craving for answers.

"What do you mean sick? That woman's a machine, Belle, working non-stop. I'm exhausted just watching her go at it. I just had to beg her to please stop, to take it easy, my God. She's upstairs now, resting I hope... Looks like we lucked out on this one, Belle... she's worth every single cent we're paying."

Mabel was incredulous. She had been with many sick people at the hospital, she had personally witnessed how some of them would sink so dangerously close to death only to come back from the brink, but never in the miraculous manner her husband was trying to suggest in the case of the maid. The stench of vomit seemed to return as she recalled how it was last night and so with the feeling of dread that swept her in anticipation of a terrible tragedy and almost instantly Mabel felt nauseous. It all seemed surreal now in retrospect, and maybe it is. She must have been dreaming all along last night. Yes, it could not have been anything but a dream, a very bad dream indeed.

That night as they laid together in bed, she felt Paolo put his arms around her and teasingly nipped at her ear, before gently whispering "So, when are you making the big announcement? I've been waiting for you to say it the whole day, the waiting is killing me, Honey".

"What announcement?" she asked, trying to stay awake.

"Oh don't you play innocent with me, you little liar, Inday told me about it at dinner tonight".

"Told you what?", she was visibly agitated now and this time Mabel made no effort to conceal it.

"Hey, wait a minute, Belle, didn't you tell her you were pregnant?"

"What?" she fought the urge to curse. "The hell with that... I don't even know it myself. Me, pregnant? How dare her say that?"

"You mean?"

"Hell, no. And if this is a joke, it isn't funny. She's making up stories, that miserable bitch. She'll have some explaining tomorrow. We'll see about that."

For several hours, and long after her husband had began snoring the night away, Mabel was still seething. It was impossible to sleep with that kind of temper. Finally she decided she can't wait for morning to come. She rose and instinctively reached for the switch only to find to her shock that the light wouldn't turn on, no matter how many times and in which direction she pressed. Slowly, she found her way to the maid's room, the door unexpectedly unlocked. The stench of vomit assaulted her the moment she walked inside, and because of moonlight coming in from the open window, she could see that the bed where Inday had been lying in horrible condition the night before has remained in disarray reeking of vomit. But the maid was nowhere to be found.

Mabel looked outside the window, into the moonlit night and across the street until she noticed the familiar outline of their roof cast against the vacant lot below. On its slope right above the exact spot where she was standing loomed a shadow that was almost unrecognizable, almost imperceptible at first until slowly it rose, revealing the unmistakable figure of a woman, her long hair drifting in the direction of the wind, Mabel could tell that she was stark naked when the shadow stood still, and then the silhouette started moving, leaping and crawling on all fours, then pacing about and walking on seemingly bouncy legs, the exuberant strides almost a bizarre dance. A stray dog howled at the moon from faraway...

Scarlet Moon

He was just a shadow in the dark but the familiar sound of his voice gave him away. Mark was holding something in his left hand, the other hand hidden behind his back. The pounding on my chest grew stronger the closer he got to me.

"So you came, my dear best friend... So you came... What a surprise... Good evening Jim... Take this, my present to you". His laughter reverberated with pure evil, and as I stood there stunned, he tossed to me the thing he was holding, it was round and black, and oozing slime.

As I caught the thing in my hands, the dim light under the scarlet moon allowing me to barely recognize it, I was mortified to be holding the severed head of Trixie.

Mark advanced, the hidden hand now exposed, he held it over his head and the butcher's knife glimmered in the dark, lusting for my blood. I reached for the magnum tucked in my waist. The last thing I remember was pulling the trigger then hearing an audible snap as the butcher's knife tore through my collarbone. Then I passed out.

We slept in the same room, dodged bullets and endured all kinds of humiliation from the drill sergeant at boot camp. My destiny was to become a cop and I resigned myself to fate with neither regret nor reservation. But Mark thought he was meant for bigger things. The top graduate of Batch '74, he went straight to law school while serving the command, and in five years he blossomed into a hotshot lawyer. The whole time, I was barely making ends meet catching criminals. Finally, I decided to take his lead, and followed my best friend to the legal profession but by then it was already twelve years after he had topped the bar examination. My mid-life decision to change careers was fueled not only by economic necessity but even more so by a nagging envy, which I wouldn't admit. I was nearing fifty when I finally passed the bar, at my fifth try. And then came the fateful night, the frantic call from Marian, the screaming in the background followed by a dead silence, the bloodbath, the night that I almost died.

The first thing I asked for as soon as I regained consciousness, three weeks after the incident was the forensic investigation report. I couldn't stand the post-mortem on Marianne and Little Mark, my godson, whose bodies were discovered in the bathroom. The report included the dog without a head, Trixie, a mild-mannered Rottweiler, the puppy I gave the boy on his eighth birthday and has since grown to become his playmate and friend. There was a graphic description of two dying men at the porch of the Balderrama Mansion, one had a slug inches from his heart, the other had a butcher's knife still stuck at the base of his neck, spewing blood. Yet miraculously, both men survived. Immediately after my release from hospital, I surrendered my badge and left the police force, which felt like losing your true love, but I have a new life now and I shall dedicate this second life to the defense of my best friend, not as a lawman but as a full-pledged lawyer. Nothing else matters.

With a plot full of twist made for the movies, the Balderrama massacre fueled a national hysteria. The family of Marianne was deluged with offers from big law firms hungry for the publicity to gain if they could send the accused to prison, some are simply looking for revenge, his own colleagues who couldn't get over the humiliation Mark inflicted in past courtroom encounters. On the other hand, I painstakingly went bank to my law books, searched the depths of my learning and memory and labored for long hours trying to muster every ounce of useful knowledge from my training in criminal law and police investigation. When a tabloid flashed my mug shot on the side bar of the running story of the massacre with the intriguing caption describing me as a former police major with limited litigation experience having only recently passed the bar, and hinting that the reporter knew of my four previous failures in the bar examination, I wanted to quit. I went from one sleazy bar to the next and stayed drunk for weeks until I was convinced it's still worth a try.

Sparks don't fly when lawyers make their arguments in court. It may seem that way in the movies but in real life, the courtroom is not a theatrical stage of intellectuals who speak in metaphors and pull rabbits out of a hat to win cases. I believe that litigation is hard work and he who put in the grater effort should enjoy a better chance at success; my blue collar approach to what people used to call a white collar job. My faith in my theory never wavered from the day I accepted the case, which no lawyer would dare touch, until the closing arguments.

"Your Honor, my client is insane and he is entitled to the exempting circumstance of insanity".

"We object to that, your Honor. There was no evidence of insanity before, during and after the commission of the act. If anything, the accused is not only mentally sound, but he is actually very intelligent, brilliant if I must say so, being a high-profiled lawyer and a bar topnotcher".

"Sustained".

"Your Honor, what motive can you have to commit something like this?

"Objection your Honor, motive is immaterial when the identity of the accused and his participation in the criminal act are clearly established. And we have sufficiently established that, your Honor".

"Sustained".

I knew I was losing it. But I would rather die than accept my fate. I ripped my clothes, off exposing the ten-inch scar dealt by the butcher knife that ruptured my collarbone. The women covered their eyes and the men cursed. I had thrown the gauntlet at the judge to cite me for contempt but he was too shock to react. I was a man possessed, shouting and cursing while security men struggled to drag me out of the courtroom.

Look here, all you motherfuckers. Mr. Balderrama did this to me. If he had struck sideways, he would have cut my head off and I won't be here speaking to you now. But guess what? I don't hold grudges and I could live with what he did but what I couldn't take is to allow you and your fucking laws to condemn to death this innocent man. The accused is crazy goddammit but you can't see that because you are all crazy blood-thirsty motherfuckers yourselves. Goddamn crazy motherfuckers.

A few months later, the entire nation was in a state of shock. Even the President, stunned, could only quip "no comment" when pressed in an ambush interview. She just couldn't say it was a travesty without incurring the wrath of the justices. It's even worse to call it "the triumph of justice" although that would make for a dramatic soundbite except that it would alienate the voters and seal his coffin in the next elections. Sometimes, it sucks to be a President.

I was literally dragged into a press conference the minute the verdict was announced. There I was chided, ridiculed, and then lionized by a press gone wild over the balding David, as one newspaper put it, who slew not one but a whole battalion of Goliaths in what was dubbed as the trial of the century. The David monicker sits well with me, but I hated the balding part. Can't they learn to give the compliment minus the insult? I was asked the usual questions and I gave the usual answers: how I feel, my message to the family of Marian, my opinion on capital punishment, I was bored from it all. My cellphone rang in the middle of the press conference. The secretary of one of the high-profile law firms was on the line requesting if I can meet her bosses asap, they would be pleased to know if I would consider joining the firm. We'll see.That was all I could say. Then someone from the press asked who would I choose to play myself if this case is made into a movie? The King, no less. But he's dead, they protested. Well, don't they say Long live, the King? The women thought I was cute, and how come you didn't marry, asked one of the women on the front row. It's none of your business, I answered smiling. Then a gay movie reporter apparently eavesdropping during my phone call earlier would like to know if I don't feel embarrassed being seen in public using the cheapest Nokia. I wanted to throw my 5210 at his face but decided against it so I walked out.

Tonight, all the television channels devoted entire newscasts to the verdict. It's amazing how easily these crusading journalists can turn full circle when not so long ago they have all but tried, convicted and crucified my client. Now they all concur that he was just a victim of circumstances and I am the savior. The news ended with snapshots from the reading of the decision, as the closing credits rolled down there was Marian's family grieving, screaming out loud, cursing but unable to comprehend this most hideous of pain, this crushing setback, this madness, this day in hell; and I know that from this moment until the day they die, they will hate me more than they had ever hated Mark, and they will condemn my soul to hell no matter if the whole world loves me now.

I turned off the teevee set and went downstairs to find the gate open. I instinctively reached for my waist, where my gun used to be, and realized just how much I missed my gun and my life as an officer. I looked around but found nothing unusual. Who would dare break into the house of a former police officer? And what's there to rob anyway? The night is cold and the moon is full, so full that it looks so near and almost scarlet in its fullness. I locked the gate, returned upstairs and walked into my bedroom. When I turned on the light, Mark stood in the corner, smiling a wide smile, and with fire in his eyes. He was holding a butcher's knife.