CLEANERS

Chapter 3: The Funeral and the Hunt

The drizzle had not stopped since dawn, turning cemetery soil into thick mud. Gray clouds pressed low while wet earth mixed with burning candle wax and sampaguita wreaths.

Two wooden coffins stood at the center of the modest gathering, their plain surfaces darkened by mist and carved with simple crosses. The coffins were closed the funeral director had insisted, given the condition of the remains but everyone knew what lay beneath those wooden lids.

Denmar and Marden stood at the front, their frames rigid. Neither had eaten properly since the attack. Denmar clenched his fists until nails drew blood. Marden ground his teeth constantly.

The priest's voice wavered as he read from scripture, the familiar words sounding foreign in the heavy air. Father Domingo had baptized both twins, married their parents, blessed their house during previous fiestas. Now he struggled to find meaning in their deaths.

"The Lord is my shepherd," he read, though his eyes kept darting toward the treeline. "I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures..."

Around them, relatives and friends wept quietly. aunt elisa clutched her rosary with white knuckled fingers, her lips moving in silent prayer. Their mother's brother, Tito Ruben, stood with his arm around his wife, both stealing glances at the twins with expressions that mixed sympathy with unease.

The neighbors who'd come maintained careful distance, forming a loose circle that left the immediate family isolated. Mang Pedro was there, hat in hand, his weathered face creased with genuine sorrow. Aling riza had brought flowers despite her fear. But others whispered among themselves: "poor boys," "such a tragedy," "what will happen to them now?"

None mentioned the word that hung in the air like incense smoke. None dared name what had really killed the Santos parents, though every person there had grown up with the stories.

When the coffins were lowered into the muddy graves, the sound of dirt hitting wood was swallowed by the rain. Denmar finally spoke, his voice raw but steady.

"They didn't deserve this. They worked for this community, helped their neighbors, raised their children to be good people." His eyes swept the gathered mourners. "They died protecting what they loved."

Marden's voice came quieter but carried further. "We're what's left of the Santos family now. Whatever comes next, we'll face it."

It wasn't a request for sympathy. It was a statement that carried undertones the adults couldn't quite interpret but that made them shift uncomfortably. There was something in the twins' bearing that suggested they weren't asking for protection they were announcing their intention to handle things themselves.

As the ceremony concluded and people began to drift away, the twins remained beside the fresh graves until the last mourner had disappeared. The rain continued its steady percussion against the earth.

"She should be here," Marden said finally.

"She will be," Denmar replied, his voice carrying certainty he didn't feel. "When we find her, when we bring her home, she'll be here."

They stood in silence for another hour, letting the rain soak through their clothes, watching the candles die one by one. When they finally turned to leave, both twins carried something harder in their expressions a resolve that had crystallized into something approaching purpose.

Lito had offered to let them stay with him permanently, but the twins had insisted on one final night in their childhood home before social services made permanent arrangements. The police had released the crime scene, though yellow tape still clung to the doorframe.

---

The house was colder than before, as if emptied of warmth along with its dead. The twins lit a single lamp and spread out what little they had gathered: salt, garlic bulbs, two kitchen knives, a broken bolo blade, a small hammer. It wasn't much, but it represented everything they could scrape together.

Denmar inspected the knives, running his thumb across edges they'd spent hours sharpening. "These won't cut deep enough. Not against to those creatures."

"Doesn't matter," Marden replied, testing the weight of the bolo blade. "We don't need deep. Just enough to make them bleed, keep them back until we can do real damage."

Denmar dropped salt into his palm, watching the white grains glitter under lamplight. He remembered the old saying that Aswang can hurt by using salt.

"They hate this," he said, dividing the salt into small cloth pouches they could throw quickly. "We use it to blind them, buy ourselves time."

They spoke quietly, like soldiers too young for war but with no choice left. Every sound outside made them tense. The hours dragged with anticipation, each minute bringing them closer to a confrontation they knew was coming.

Around eleven o'clock, Marden voiced what both had been thinking. "What if we're wrong? What if they don't come back?"

"Then we've wasted time preparing for nothing," Denmar replied. "But if we're right and we're not prepared..."

He didn't need to finish. They'd both seen what these creatures could do to unprepared victims.

The silence stretched between them, heavy with shared memory and determination. They were seventeen, armed with kitchen implements and folk remedies, preparing to face supernatural predators that could tear apart grown men.

But they were also the only survivors of their family's massacre, the only witnesses to crimes the official world refused to acknowledge. If they didn't fight, no one would. If they didn't survive, the truth died with them.

Near midnight, the dogs began to bark.

Not the usual territorial sounds, but panicked, high-pitched yelping that cut through the night like alarm bells. The barking spread from house to house, then stopped abruptly as if every animal had simultaneously been silenced.

Denmar looked at his brother, seeing his own grim certainty reflected in Marden's eyes. "They're here."

The temperature seemed to drop ten degrees. Shadows moved beyond the windows not random patterns of wind-blown branches, but deliberate, coordinated movements. The plywood covering their broken windows began to creak under pressure.

Five figures slipped through the darkness surrounding their house, their movements fluid and inhuman. When they spoke, their voices carried clearly through the thin walls.

"So these are the orphans," one said, tone suggesting amusement. "The ones left behind."

Another chuckled, the sound like nails on chalkboard. "They smell of grief. Weak and Easy prey."

A third voice, deeper and more authoritative, cut through the others. "Don't underestimate them. They killed Rodrigo with improvised weapons. These children are more dangerous than they appear."

Denmar raised his knife, though his hand shook. The blade felt inadequate against enemies who could speak about their dead comrade so casually.

The tall one's voice came closer, just outside the front door. "Do you really think steel and spice will save you? You should have run when you had the chance."

Marden swallowed hard, forcing strength into his voice. "We're not running. If you want us, try for it."

The laughter that followed was like a chorus of hyenas discovering wounded prey. Multiple voices joined in cruel amusement, echoing around the house as the creatures positioned themselves.

Then the first one lunged through the door.

Denmar threw salt straight into its face, the white grains exploding against their flesh like tiny grenades. The creature shrieked, stumbling backward as smoke rose from contact points where its skin burned. Marden followed with his knife, slashing across another's extended arm, drawing a line of hissing black blood.

For the first few seconds, their desperate preparation seemed enough. They moved together with coordination, one twin attacking while the other provided cover, both drawing on survival instincts they'd never known they possessed.

But the aswang were stronger, faster, and far more experienced.

One backhand sent Denmar crashing into the wall. Concrete cracked. His knife skittered away as he struggled to breathe through the damage he takes. Another gripped Marden's wrist and twisted until bones ground together. Claws raked across his forearm.

"You think you can fight us?" the leader hissed, eyes glowing with predatory satisfaction. "You're just meat. Tender, young meat tenderized by fear."

The twins were losing, their improvised arsenal scattered, their bodies battered by opponents who treated their resistance as amusing. When the lamp shattered under a casual backhand, darkness swallowed everything except the burning red eyes of their attackers.

That's when they broke for the door, stumbling into the night with the creatures' laughter following them.

---

The forest loomed like a wall of living darkness, branches clawing at the overcast sky while the canopy blocked even faint starlight. The twins ran blindly between trees they'd climbed as children, but everything felt different now hostile, alien, transformed by terror.

Behind them, the aswang gave chase, their voices echoing between the trees.

"Run, little prey! Run until your lungs burst!"

But the twins had not run without purpose. In the days since their parents' funeral, they had prepared the forest itself as their battlefield.

The first trap triggered as Denmar leaped over a patch of fallen leaves, yanking Marden with him. The pursuing aswang had no warning before the camouflaged pit opened beneath its feet. Its scream tore through the night as sharpened bamboo spikes drove upward, piercing supernatural flesh and pinning the creature.

"One down," Marden gasped, but there was no time to celebrate.

Another creature charged through the underbrush, only to have a rope snare snap tight around its ankle. The primitive pulley system jerked it upward into the branches, leaving it hanging upside down and thrashing as Denmar flung salt at its exposed face. The white grains scattered like burning snow, each contact point smoking as supernatural flesh blistered.

But the remaining three kept coming, now moving with more caution but no less determination.

The twins fought as they ran, their movements desperate but increasingly coordinated. Days of preparation had created a crude but effective defense network throughout the forest section they knew best. Tripwires triggered falling logs. Hidden pits waited beneath false ground cover. Salt bombs hung from branches, ready to detonate when disturbed.

Yet for every trap they'd set, the creatures found ways around or through. One aswang caught Denmar by the shoulder, its claws digging deep enough to scrape bone before he managed to break free. Marden took a blow to the chest that lifted him off his feet and sent him crashing into a tree trunk.

"This is hopeless," he wheezed, struggling to his feet as blood ran down his face.

"No," Denmar replied, though his own injuries were making movement difficult. "We just need to last long enough."

"Long enough for what?"

Before Denmar could answer, one of the creatures caught him by the throat, slamming him against a tree. Its eyes burned red in the darkness, its jaw splitting wider than any human mouth should allow.

"I'll rip the heart out first," it hissed, breath carrying the stench of decay. "Let you watch it beat while you die."

That's when the branch above them snapped. A spiked log, rigged days earlier, swung down like a pendulum. The improvised weapon crashed into the aswang's side with bone-crushing force, its sharpened point driving deep. The creature shrieked as it was thrown aside, black ichor spraying across the forest floor.

But still the others pressed their attack, and the twins' strength was failing.

Denmar staggered, bloodied and nearly broken, his makeshift weapons scattered. Marden was on his knees, trying to crawl away from a creature that stalked him like a cat playing with wounded prey.

And then the air shifted.

A new voice cut through the chaos, calm, cold, too composed to belong here.

"Enough."

From between the trees stepped a man unlike the others. He wore clean clothes, his hair neatly combed, his face almost handsome, almost normal. Only his eyes betrayed him too sharp, too patient, too cruel.

The surviving aswang lowered their heads slightly, uneasy.

He looked at the twins with mild interest, as though studying insects.

"So these are the ones causing trouble. Children with knives and salt."

Denmar spat blood onto the ground.

"Come closer. Find out what we can do."

The man smiled faintly.

"Brave words. But bravery is useless without power." He glanced at the others. "If you fail again, the Smiling Woman will kill you all. You know her rules. She demands silence. She demands order, perfect to do the work."

The other aswang hissed low, their bodies trembling at the name.

The man stepped forward. His hand began to shift, the skin rippling, bones lengthening, fingers stretching into blades. In seconds his arm had become a living weapon, sharp and gleaming.

The twins froze, hearts pounding. Denmar whispered, voice breaking,

"This... this is it."

Marden raised his broken knife despite the futility, hands shaking but resolved unbroken. "We don't stop. Not ever."

The creature lunged, its bladed arm slicing down with impossible speed, the air itself seeming to scream as the weapon descended toward the twins' exposed necks.

And a crash of steel answered.

A machete appeared from nowhere, its silver blade intercepting the strike with enough force to send sparks flying. The impact rang through the forest like a bell, followed by the surprised snarl of something that had never expected human resistance at this level.

The twins stared in shock as a figure stepped between them and the creature, his machete held steady, his eyes locked on the monster with professional calm.

"You won't touch them," the newcomer said, his voice carrying the quiet authority of someone accustomed to facing impossible odds and winning.

The forest fell silent, all breath held, as predators and prey alike recognized that the night's equation had suddenly, dramatically changed.