"It's strange…"
Jocelyn wondered why every tenant who rented the pink colored unit in front of their row of townhouses lasted merely a few months.
Even stranger was the fact that almost every tenant would leave surreptitiously n the middle of the night.
But the strangest of all was what the unit's owner told Jocelyn one day,
"I would understand if they were trying to skip out on their rent, but they're not." Even if they leave in the middle of the night, they would call me the next day to settle their accounts," said Mr. Buendia.
Mr. Buendia said the tenants could only point to one reason for leaving.
"The house didn't feel homey. It's as if there is a presence in the two-bedroom townhouse that's pushing them away, and it isn't human," he told Jocelyn.
"They wouldn't tell me exactly what it is but judging by their reactions, it must be really scary," he added.
Helen, Jocelyn's maid of four years, was very scared of the house and would habitually warn her charge, Jocelyn's five-year-old daughter Patricia, to stay away.
"Don't you dare go near that house, I'm warning you. Don't even ride your bike in front of the gate, otherwise the bad spirits will get you," she would admonish Patricia.
Jocelyn reminded her maid that it wasn't right to scare children, especially Patricia who had a very vivid imagination. But Helen was adamant in her statements.
"Ma'am, there really is a malevolent spirit living there, one of the maids who used to live there, Edna, told me."
Jocelyn remembered Edna; she was a pretty, fair-skinned young girl who became Helen's friend. The two maids had a six-year age gap between them (with Helen being older) but they became close because they both came from the same province.
According to Helen, from the moment Edna stepped into the pink house, she already knew something was wrong. She always felt that someone was looking at her. It came to a point that even while taking a bath, Edna was sure she was being watched.
Edna revealed to Helen: "There are times when I thought that it might be my male employer but that's not possible because he does not even notice me."
One night, Edna woke up to a feeling of being smothered. When she opened her eyes, she realized that someone was lying on top of her and was horrified to realize that she couldn't see that someone. There seemed to be a force forcing her legs apart but Edna couldn't see anyone.
She tried to scream but no words came out of her mouth. What was even more horrifying was that whoever was trying to rape her was a hairy man or creature.
Edna realized her rosary was under her pillow; she tried to reach for it. "Maybe it can help me," she prayed silently.
When the pretty girl was able to get her rosary, she positioned it in front of her. Then, everything stopped.
Edna wasted no time in waking up her employers and recounting what happened. At first, they were skeptical but changed their minds when they saw her bed.
It was full of thick strands of black-brown hair!
Wasting no time, Edna, her employers and their children hastily called the movers and evacuated the pink house at 2:30 in the morning.