Spook

Chapter 4
Legends

THE BOY looked as if he was about to say something, but decided against it. Then, he just faded right before Charlie's eyes.

Charlie sighed and headed out of the room. As he was approaching the stairs, his cellphone rang. He picked it up from his pocket and saw from the caller ID that it was Joseph.

"Hey loser," he greeted. "What's up?"

"You off to class yet?" Joseph asked.

"Yeah," he answered. "I'm going down the stairs from my room right now."

"Cool," Joseph said. "Drop by my room so we could walk together. I've got a class in AS¹."

"I have to be in the Math Building before 11:30," Charlie said, knowing full well that the Math Building was so far away from the dorm. AS, on the other hand, was just three blocks away. "I was hoping to just ride the Toki jeepney² to the Math Building," he said.

"Don't ride the jeepney," Joseph said. "It goes all the way around campus. It'll take longer than walking."

Charlie sighed. "Fine," he said as he approached Joseph's room. He disconnected the line and knocked on Joseph's door.

When the door opened, he said, "I hope you're ready 'cause if you're not, I'm leaving..." It wasn't Joseph who opened the door.

"Uh, hi," he said to the boy standing in front of him. "I'm looking for Joseph. Is he there?"

The boy wore a hideously thick, horn-rimmed glasses, which was too large for his face. He looked so thin under his baggy shirt. And his short, dark copper brown hair was sticking all over his head.

"I'm here," Joseph said from inside the room. "I'm just putting on a shirt real quick. Give me a second."

"By the way," Joseph continued. "That's Tim. Tim, that's my friend, Charlie, from upstairs."

"Nice to meet you," Charlie said, sticking his hand out for Tim to shake. Tim just looked at him curiously, never taking his hand. Charlie slowly withdrew his hand and cleared his throat.

"You know," Tim said, still looking at him with ardent curiosity. "There are 71 different apparitions on this wing alone. Most of them don't even know they're dead or that they're sharing the same space with the living. But there's this one particular being that's been following you around like a puppy. I think he's an incubus, which is very curious because he seems to like men..."

"For fuck's sake!" Joseph cut Tim off as he got out of the room. "Don't freak him out with your bullshit."

"You say it's bullshit," Tim looked at Joseph, "but from the look on your friend's face, I'm thinking he knows what I'm talking about." Tim threw Charlie a glance.

Joseph grunted and gave Tim a menacing look. "We're late. Let's go," he said as he dragged Charlie out of the dorm.

They walked in silence for a while. Charlie was thinking about what Tim had said. Was it true that his "other roommate" had been following him around? Could Tim see him, too? And what the hell is an incubus? He knew he'd have to look it up on wikipedia later.

"Don't mind him," Joseph said as they approached AS, accurately predicting what was on Charlie's mind. "He's a freak. And he likes to freak out everyone else around him."

"Doesn't mean he's wrong, though," Charlie muttered.

"What do you mean?" Joseph said. "You believe him?"

Charlie forced a smile and moved his head from side to side. "Never mind," he said. "I'm late, I gotta run," he said as he ran off leaving Joseph on the side of the building.

It was still five minutes before the time when he got to his classroom. There were a bunch of people there already. He sat in the front row, near the door, right beside a Chinese looking guy.

"I'm Rommel," the guy smiled at him.

"Charlie," he smiled back.

"Are you majoring in Comp Sci, too?" Rommel asked.

"Yeah," he replied. "How did you know?"

"Lucky guess," Rommel chuckled. Charlie smiled at him.

When the teacher came in, the class became silent. And after a brief introduction, the class began. It was College Algebra and Trigonometry, which Charlie was particularly good at. He didn't know why, but when it came to numbers and mathematical analyses, he just gets it.

He didn't have a class after that, which was a good thing considering that he hadn't had breakfast and lunch yet and his stomach was screaming for some food. Some of his classmates didn't have a class and hadn't eaten lunch as well, so they decided to go to CASAA³. There, he finally got to talk with some of them.

"So, you're staying in Kalayaan?" asked a petite girl whose name was Jillian or something.

"Yeah," Charlie answered.

"I wanted to stay there as well," said another girl, "but they told me I lived too near to be admitted."

"You're better off," said a big guy with a goatee. "I heard there are a lot of rules, like curfews and some such."

"That's one way to look at it, I guess," said Charlie.

"My parents wanted me to live there," said a tall, pale girl. "But my older sister who stayed there her freshman year told them stories that made them decide otherwise."

"Kinky stories?" asked an obviously horny jock type with a semi-permanent naughty smile.

"No," answered the girl. "Spooky stories."

"Yeah," said the goatee guy. "I heard there are some weird shit going on there as well."

"Did you hear about the girl who woke up in the middle of the night because she heard her roommate crying?" asked the pale girl. Everyone's attention was suddenly focused on her.

The pale girl looked at everyone before she continued. "She looked at her roommate's side but she didn't see anything except for the wall... no bed, no roommate. Then she heard the sobs coming from below her. When she got up to see what it was, she found her roommate sitting on the bed, crying and looking up at her because her bed was floating in mid-air!"

"Or what about that girl who died during the Acquaintance Party?" said Jillian. "They said she tripped on the stairs on her way down to the party and broke her neck. She died instantly. But every year, during the dorm's Acquaintance Party, she appears by the staircase and tries to trip any unlucky girl who passes by her alone."

"My brother told me once that everyone on the second floor of the Girls Wing spent a whole night in the corridors because some ghost kept on tugging at their feet from room to room," said the jock.

"Well," said the goatee guy, "did you hear about the guy who died in his sleep?"

"What guy?" asked Charlie.

The goatee guy looked at Charlie and continued. "They say that the guy and his roommate weren't close at all. They were just roomed together, but they didn't really talk. So, it wasn't odd for the roommate to just leave the guy alone when he saw him sleeping."

"One day, the roommate left their room while the the guy was still sleeping. When the roommate got home, the guy was still in the same position. Didn't even move or turn at all. But the roommate didn't make anything out of it. The next morning, the guy was still in the same position. So, the roommate, thinking nothing of it, just left him again and went to class. This went on for another couple of days until the roommate couldn't stand the stink anymore."

"So, when he couldn't stand it anymore, the roommate decided to try to wake him up. But the guy won't budge no matter how much poking and screaming the roommate did. Finally, the roommate turned him around and found out that he was already stiff and some maggots were munching on his cheek already."

"Eww, gross!" said the girls. "We just ate, you know."

The goatee guy just laughed.

"There is an even more disturbing story," Rommel said, finally breaking his silence. Everybody looked at him.

"I heard that there was this guy who fell in love with his roommate," Rommel continued, looking directly at Charlie. "When he tried to tell his roommate about how he felt, the roommate got so angry and beat him up, accidentally killing him."

"The roommate then stuffed his body inside his closet and went into hiding. They found his body a week later, rotting inside his own closet."

"That's not what I heard," said the jock. "I heard it was the roommate who fell in love with the guy and the guy basically told him to get lost and never talk to him again. So, the roommate, being heartbroken and all, poisoned the guy and stuffed his body in the closet and then left."

"No, he didn't poison him," the goatee guy butt in. "He strangled him and then dumped his body in the closet."

The three guys continued to argue over which story was more accurate. Different thoughts filled Charlie's head... guy in love with his roommate... dumped in the closet... Could it be the boy?

DANNY had back-to-back classes that morning. It was a good thing that his professor for his 8:30AM English class was in a good mood and didn't give him a hard time about being late. The professor was just beginning to discuss the course syllabus when he got in.

After that, he had History, which was terribly boring. He was so excited when it was finally over. He wanted to get back to the dorm to have lunch with Charlie. But when he got to their room, Charlie wasn't there. Only then did he remember Charlie telling him that his first class was at 11:30AM.

He sighed. "Well, I guess I'd better go eat at the dining hall... without Charlie..." he sighed again. He missed Charlie.

"How could I miss him?" he thought as he began eating alone in the dorm's dining hall. "We were just together this morning. And I'll be seeing him again this afternoon." But he couldn't deny the fact that he was missing Charlie. They only had two meals together since yesterday, but now he couldn't picture himself enjoying a meal without his new roommate. "I think I'm gonna hate Mondays," he thought.

He quickly finished his meal and got ready for his 1PM class. He didn't spend a whole lot of time in their room. He really didn't want to be there alone unless it was necessary. Charlie's visions frightened him. "If it weren't for Charlie, I'd be outta here faster than you could say ghost," he sighed.

His class was over by 2:30PM and he had nothing to do anymore. He could go back to their room and wait for Charlie there, but he really didn't want to be alone. He didn't know if Charlie still had a class. He fought the urge to call him. "I don't wanna disturb him if he's still in class," he said to himself. So he decided to pass some time at the AS lobby, wondering why he suddenly became so dependent on Charlie.

He sighed as Charlie's smile flashed in his mind. "Thank God he's not an asshole," he thought. "But why does he have to be so... aaaaargh!" He couldn't even think of an appropriate word to describe Charlie and how good he was making him feel.

"I'm screwed!" he sighed as he looked at his watch, willing for time to go faster so that he could see Charlie again.

CHARLIE still had one more class in AS before he could finally go back to the dorm. It was Intro to Behavioral Sciences, which he wasn't particularly thrilled about. He tried to fight his sleep as the hour dragged on. And finally, after an hour and a half of trying to stay awake, he was free to go and think about what he had learned earlier at lunch with his classmates.

He just got out of the building when his phone rang. A smile crept across his face when he saw Danny's name flashing on the caller ID.

"Hey dude, what's up?" he said after their lines got connected.

"Not much," said Danny. "Just wanted to ask you how your day went."

Charlie laughed a little. "Couldn't you wait until I see you later?"

"Okay, you got me," Danny chuckled. "I wanted to know if you still have a class 'cause I really don't wanna be alone in our room."

"Oh man, what a wuss," Charlie teased. "I don't have a class anymore and I'm on my way back."

"Great!" Danny said. "Where are you?"

"AS."

"I'm in AS, too. Wait for me. I'm on my way out."

Charlie stopped walking and waited for Danny to get out of the building. When he saw Danny running towards him, he couldn't help but smile. Danny really looked gorgeous even when his face was covered with sweat. When Danny saw him, he flashed the sweetest smile at him, which made him forget all the worries that he had.

"Honestly, though," Danny said when he finally caught up with Charlie, "how was your day?"

"Good, I guess," Charlie said. "I saw him again right before I went out of the room this morning."

"Really?" Danny asked nervously.

"Yeah," he said sincerely. "Say, do you know anything about incubus?"

"You mean the band?" asked Danny.

"No. I mean, like, ghosts or spirits or something."

"You think our other roommate is an incubus?"

"Joseph's roommate, Tim, thinks he might be an incubus... whatever that is."

When they got to their room, Charlie told Danny about the different stories that he heard from his classmates. He also told him that he suspected their other roommate was probably the one who died in the closet. He just wasn't sure which version of the story was right. After all, even urban legends stemmed from real stories; stories that just got corrupted as it was passed from mouth to mouth. He just had to figure out which version told the real story behind the legend.

They were still talking about it as they ate dinner together in the dining hall. They were sitting opposite each other trying to eat the pork in brown sauce (they couldn't identify what kind of dish it was exactly) that they were served.

"So, whatever the circumstances of his death was, it probably was the reason why he turned into an incubus," concluded Charlie. "I just wish I knew what an incubus was..."

"An incubus is a male spirit or demon who seduces people, mostly women, and fucks them in their sleep," said Tim as he sat uninvited next to Danny. "They're supposed to suck the life energy of the person they're sleeping with, thus, leaving them sick or, sometimes, even dead."

"Uh, Danny this is Tim," Charlie said as he tried to recover from Tim's surprise appearance. "Tim, this is my roommate, Danny."

Tim just ignored Danny and continued to look at Charlie with interest. "So, from your interest with this being, I'm thinking you've encountered him," Tim said.

"Yeah," Charlie admitted. "I saw him twice already."

"Saw what?" Joseph said as he sat down next to Charlie.

Tim ignored him as well. "Fascinating!" Tim said to Charlie.

"What's fascinating?" Joseph insisted.

Tim gave Joseph an exasperated look and said, "The spirit that keeps on following Charlie." Then he turned his attention back to Charlie ignoring the fact that Joseph's jaw dropped. "So," Tim continued, "He showed himself to you?"

"I don't think he meant to show himself to me," Charlie answered. "He looked so surprised the first time I saw him. I thought he was Danny 'cause I didn't know him yet and I kept on talking to him. When the real Danny showed up in our room, he disappeared."

"Wow!" Tim said.

"You said you've identified a lot of ghosts in the Boys Wing alone," Charlie asked Tim. "Did you see him, too?"

"No," Tim said truthfully. "I saw a couple of apparitions, but both were totally oblivious of the fact that they were dead already. They didn't even notice me or anyone else for that matter. But I never saw the one who's been following you. I just felt him."

Charlie looked at Danny and he felt pity on the guy. Danny was turning paler by the minute. All these ghost talk was totally unnerving him. He was nervously rotating the ring on the thumb of his left hand, as if trying to draw strength from it.

Charlie smiled to himself at the thought that this night would probably end with Danny sleeping on his bed again.

"So, why do you think he's an incubus?" Charlie asked.

"I think you know the answer to that question," Tim said, looking intently at Charlie who suddenly blushed.

"What I meant was, why did he become an incubus?" Charlie clarified.

"I dunno," said Tim.

"Why does he follow me around?" Charlie asked again, more to himself than to anybody else.

"Why is he staying in our room?" he continued.

"I really don't know," said Tim. "But if you wanna get to the bottom of this, I can tell you you're asking all the wrong questions."

They all fell silent.

"So, you can see ghosts now?" Joseph said, breaking the silence. They all looked at him.

"Still the wrong question," Tim said. And they all began laughing out loud.

When the laughter died down, they all fell silent again.

"I've never had a sixth sense," said Charlie after a while. "In fact, I couldn't even feel any of the other ghosts that you're talking about."

He sighed. "You obviously have a sixth sense," he said to Tim. "So how could I see him when you couldn't? Why me?"

Tim's face broke into a smile. "Bingo!" he said. "That's the right question."

¹ Arts and Sciences Building, officially known as Palma Hall in UP. back

² There are basically two sets of public transportation (jeepneys) going around the UP Campus (aside from those that go in and out of the Campus): Ikot and Toki. Ikot, which literally means "to go around" or "spin around", goes around the Campus in the counter-clockwise direction. Toki, on the other hand, is "ikot" read backwards, and goes around the Campus in the other direction. back

³ A canteen located beside AS (Palma Hall). The acronym actually stands for "College of Arts and Sciences Alumni Association", but there's really no association there... just a canteen. back