Suburban legends: A trilogy of terrors
MANILA, Philippines – Abandon all hope, all who read this, for doom is upon us. No one will be spared this year as we unearth the forlorn voices beneath Metro Manila’s concrete-laden surface. Here are three suburban legends to get you spooked this Halloween (if day-to-day living in this city doesn’t already spook you). In these, are all the lamang-lupa thag Korina Sanchez can only dream of featuring in her equally dreadful weekend program.
Lost soul in the city
Forget Balete Drive—Mother Ignacia is the new place nobody wants to be in.
Word on the street is that one should be nowhere near the vicinity by the strike of 12 noon. Yes, in broad daylight, an eerily unknown damsel is said to haunt Quezon City’s gateway to Hell in search of her lost love.
“Nasaan ka,” she wails. “Mr. Pastillas!”
Hello from the other side
Things seem to be more interesting, if not outrightly confounding, when flipped in reverse. Flashed in front of a mirror, Leonardo Da Vinci’s notes prove to be a hand-sketched goldmine of unparalleled wisdom in the arts and sciences. The backmasked version of Revolution 9 by The Beatles led many of us to believe that the “real” Paul McCartney had already died. Even Led Zeppelin’s Stairway to Heaven was not safe from occult speculations as backmasked portions of the classic rock anthem were thought to be hymns to Satan.
Rumor has it that if you play Adele’s Hello backwards, you will hear a man’s voice crying over the telephone. It is said to get even more sullen a few seconds later into the track. A paranormal expert I’ve consulted reports that it might just be Drake crying about the awards he’s going to lose to the British pop siren.
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That elevated quickly
Elevators have always been the stuff of modern horror lore, both here and abroad. In fact, if you look up the elevator ritual on your friendly creepypasta wiki, you’ll know that its mysteries don’t really stop at the (virtually nonexistent) 13th floor.
A longtime friend and BPO employee once recounted to me her grisly experience in riding a lift at a certain building in Makati. It was a mid-September night two years ago, she recalled, when she came in late and inevitably had to take the elevator alone. Up it went until the third floor where a man in his 60s, grey of hair, pale of skin, and in a grey suit came into the view when the doors slid apart. She learned that they were heading to the same floor.
All of a sudden, the lights went out and the tacky jazz music came to a halt. Nothing was left but cold, dead silence.
It was then when she felt trapped in a quiet panic even she as a team leader could not assuage. The hair on her nape began to stand on one end. Her head started to grow too big for the skin tightly wrapped around it. Pearls of cold sweat nearly crystallized on her temples. Finally, an icy whisper brushed over her shoulder.
“Tsk, brownout na naman. Noong kabataan ko noong ‘70s hindi nangyayari ‘to. Mas maganda talaga nung martial law, number 1 pa tayo sa Asia...”
She has never forgotten ever since.
