PART 1: The Man Across the Street

The first time I saw HUMAN BLOOD printed on Rafael Dimaano’s red cooler, I almost dropped his coffee.

By then, half our street already thought the new man across from my sari-sari store was a vampire.

I wish I could say I was the sensible one.

I was the reason the rumor started.

My name is Nena. I have run that store for almost twenty years. I know who buys noodles on credit before payday, who sends a child for fever medicine at midnight, and who suddenly needs breath mints when his wife is away.

People say I notice too much.

Usually, that is useful.

Then Rafael moved in.

He arrived after sunset. The next morning his curtains stayed closed. The day after that, too.

I never saw him outside in daylight.

Around seven each evening he crossed to my store in long sleeves, a cap, sometimes gloves, even in terrible heat.

He was polite. Quiet. Maybe thirty-five.

His shopping list was not reassuring.

Ice. Distilled water. Alcohol. Bleach. Batteries. Medical tape.

Then my sister Tess sent me outside with a plate of pancit.

Rafael smiled. “May garlic po?”

“Of course.”

His smile disappeared.

“Sorry, Aling Nena. I can’t eat garlic.”

“Allergy?”

“Serious one.”

That should have ended everything.

Instead Tess waited until his gate closed.

“Ate.”

“No.”

“Wala akong sinabi.”

“Good.”

I lasted until Mang Ruel came for cigarettes.

I told him only the facts.

That is what I told myself.

“Black curtains. Sleeps all day. No garlic.”

Mang Ruel stopped chewing.

“Nena.”

“Don’t.”

By Saturday he owned binoculars.

Soon everyone had another detail.

A white van came after midnight.

Rafael carried red coolers inside.

Boxes with medical symbols arrived at his gate.

The barangay group chat became useless. Nobody typed vampire at first. They used a bat emoji, a coffin, a garlic bulb.

I kept saying, “Hoy, tama na. May explanation ’yan.”

Unfortunately, I usually said it right after providing fresh information.

Then Mang Ruel hung garlic beside his gate, facing Rafael’s house.

“For insects,” he told me.

“Ruel, pati insects nahihiya.”

I made him remove it.

But Rafael had already seen it.

After that, he stopped lingering at my store. He used to ask about my day. Once he fixed the loose wire on my freezer for free.

Now he bought coffee and left.

Then came the cooler.

He set it beside his shoes while paying.

Across the lid were the words:

HUMAN BLOOD — HANDLE WITH CARE

I stared.

“I work nights for a blood collection center,” he said.

My face burned.

“Oh.”

“Mostly transport and donors. Kaya gabi ako.”

A normal explanation.

I opened my mouth to apologize.

That same night, Carlo from next door came running to my store.

“Ate Nena! There’s a man bleeding inside Rafael’s house.”

I should have stayed behind my counter.

Instead I crossed the road.

Tess, Mang Ruel, and Lola Cora were already beside Rafael’s window. Lola Cora had brought a folding stool.

A gap showed beside the blackout curtain.

“This is wrong,” I whispered.

Then I looked.

A man lay in a reclining chair, sleeve rolled up.

A tube ran from his arm.

Blood flowed into a hanging bag.

Rafael stood beside him in gloves, watching the line.

Mang Ruel whispered, “Diyos ko.”

Rafael suddenly turned toward the window.

The curtain snapped shut.

We scattered.

By breakfast, nobody was asking whether Rafael was a vampire anymore.

They were asking what we were going to do about him.

PART 2: Why Everyone Got Sick

For the next week, Rafael became the man nobody sat beside.

Children were called indoors when his gate opened. Someone removed his name from the basketball team list after he had already paid for a uniform.

When he came to my store, conversation died.

One evening he started toward the bench outside, saw Mang Ruel and Kuya Boy there, then quietly went home.

“Tess,” I said, “I started this.”

She did not rescue me.

“Medyo.”

“I never called him a vampire.”

“You didn’t need to, Ate.”

I decided I would apologize.

Then our fiesta happened.

The covered court was packed with folding tables, karaoke wires, children under chairs, and food from half the street.

Mang Ruel had made a giant tray of pork marinated with enough garlic to make your eyes water from across the room.

I prepared separate grilled fish for Rafael with clean utensils.

He arrived after sunset.

The table nearest the entrance went quiet.

For a second he looked ready to leave.

I hurried over.

“Rafa. Dito ka. I saved food.”

“No garlic?”

“Wala. I checked twice.”

“Salamat, Nena.”

That thank-you made me feel worse.

He sat alone anyway.

Then Mang Ruel called across the table, too loudly, “Rafael, hindi ka talaga kumakain ng pork?”

Rafael looked at the garlic-covered tray.

“Not that one.”

Someone snickered.

I said, “Enough.”

Then Tess grabbed my arm.

“Ate. My stomach.”

She rushed away.

Lola Cora bent forward in her chair.

Kuya Boy dropped his drink.

Then someone vomited beside the stage.

Within minutes the fiesta collapsed.

People were sweating, shaking, asking for water. A woman fainted. The karaoke died in the middle of a love song.

“What did everyone eat?” I shouted.

“Everything!” someone yelled.

Kuya Boy suddenly pointed at Rafael.

“He’s fine.”

Every head turned.

Rafael was standing beside his table, perfectly well.

Mang Ruel looked at him. Then at the pork.

“The garlic protected us from him.”

“Ruel!” I shouted.

But panic had already spread.

“He didn’t eat it.”

“He knew.”

“Maybe he did something.”

Rafael looked around the court.

His face was not angry.

It was hurt.

“You really think that?” he asked.

Nobody answered.

I stepped forward. “Rafa, hindi.”

He looked straight at me.

I had started the rumor. Now I wanted him to trust me.

Then Tess collapsed against a chair.

Rafael moved first.

He caught her, lowered her carefully, checked her breathing, then shouted, “Who ate the pork?”

Hands went up everywhere.

“Who didn’t?”

Mine.

Rafael’s.

Carlo’s, because he had eaten cake for dinner like a criminal.

All three of us were fine.

Rafael pointed at Mang Ruel’s tray.

“Take that away.”

“My pork?” Mang Ruel groaned.

“Yes. Your pork.”

Rafael began checking people. Who had fainted. Who could keep water down. Who was elderly. Who needed transport first.

A nurse arrived from the health center on a motorcycle through the rain.

She saw him and immediately called, “Rafa! Ilan ang severe?”

She knew him.

Of course she knew him.

They worked together while the first vehicle carried the worst cases away.

Then the power flickered.

Too many people were still sick.

Rafael looked toward his house.

“I have backup power, cots, clean water, and supplies. We can move the worst cases there until more transport comes.”

Nobody moved.

That was the house with the black curtains.

The red coolers.

The man giving blood.

Rafael stared at us.

“If you’re afraid of my house, matakot kayo bukas. Tonight, help me.”

I picked up Tess’s shoes.

We carried her across first.

Then Lola Cora.

Then Mang Ruel.

Inside were cots, sealed medical supplies, backup batteries, and a refrigerator with a glass door.

I stopped in front of it.

Behind the glass were rows of red blood bags.

Mang Ruel grabbed my wrist.

“Nena,” he whispered. “What did we walk into?”

PART 3: What Was Inside His House

What we walked into was the safest house on our street.

It just took us several more humiliating minutes to understand it.

The nurse hung clear IV fluids for the badly dehydrated. Rafael moved from cot to cot, helping her check everyone.

He gave Tess his own pillow.

He put a fan beside Lola Cora.

He even covered Mang Ruel with a clean sheet after Mang Ruel had spent two weeks treating him like Dracula.

Sometime after midnight, Lola Cora woke.

She saw the clear IV tube taped to her arm.

Then she saw Rafael’s open cooler on the counter with two sealed blood bags inside.

Rafael stood beside it wearing gloves.

Her eyes widened.

“Nena.”

I hurried over.

She whispered, “Nakuha niya tayo.”

“Lola, no.”

Mang Ruel woke at exactly the wrong moment.

He saw his IV.

He saw Rafael.

He saw the blood.

“He’s draining us!”

The nurse spun around.

“What?!”

Tess woke with a gasp. Somebody started praying.

Rafael closed his eyes like a man reconsidering every life choice that had brought him to our street.

The nurse marched to Mang Ruel and pointed at the bag above him.

“Saline ’yan. Tingnan mo!”

Mang Ruel stared at the clear fluid.

Then she pointed at the cooler.

“That blood came from donors. Walang kumukuha ng dugo mo.”

Silence.

Lola Cora leaned closer to inspect her IV.

Mang Ruel did the same.

Then Tess started laughing.

Lola Cora followed.

So did I.

Rafael tried not to.

He failed.

Even Mang Ruel finally laughed, one hand still on his stomach.

Then Rafael explained the truth.

His skin was extremely sensitive to sunlight, so he worked nights and kept blackout curtains closed during the day.

Garlic could trigger a dangerous allergic reaction.

The gloves, coolers, tape, and strange hours were all part of his work with blood collection and transport.

And the man we had watched through the window?

“A donor,” Rafael said.

I covered my face.

“Of course.”

“The mobile unit lost power nearby. I have backup equipment here, so we finished the collection.”

Mang Ruel whispered, “Ay, patay.”

Rafael looked at him.

“Not dead. Apparently that’s the problem.”

By sunrise, everyone was stable or had been taken to proper medical care.

The likely culprit was Mang Ruel’s pork, which had sat out far too long before cooking.

He looked genuinely wounded.

“My secret marinade.”

Tess, pale on her cot, said, “Secret weapon pala.”

Nobody laughed harder than Rafael.

Later I found him beneath his awning, staying out of the morning sun.

“I started it,” I said.

He did not pretend not to understand.

“I told people facts. Then I watched them turn those facts into something ugly, and I kept talking.”

Rafael looked across at my store.

“I knew there was a rumor.”

“How much?”

“Enough to know somebody left garlic on my gate yesterday.”

My stomach dropped.

“I’m sorry, Rafa. Sobra.”

Mang Ruel appeared behind me holding that same garlic string.

“Ako rin,” he said. “Sorry.”

Rafael glanced at it.

“Please keep that over there.”

Mang Ruel threw it into the trash so fast I nearly laughed.

Then Rafael looked at me.

“I want one thing.”

“Anything.”

“Next time I buy coffee, somebody sits with me.”

That hurt worse than if he had shouted.

After everything we had imagined about him, all he wanted was a place on the bench.

Two weeks later, Rafael’s blood center brought a mobile donation van to our street.

Nobody gave a grand apology speech.

Mang Ruel and Kuya Boy built a shaded walkway from Rafael’s gate to the van.

Tess taped a sign over one food tray:

GARLIC-FREE — SEPARATE UTENSILS — HUWAG GALAWIN

Lola Cora told every donor how she had once awakened in Rafael’s house convinced he was stealing her blood.

“Lola, please,” Rafael groaned.

“Totoo naman.”

Then Mang Ruel rolled up his sleeve.

He looked at the blood bag beside his chair and swallowed.

Rafael raised one eyebrow.

“Problem?”

“Wala. Basta ikaw bahala pag nahilo ako.”

“I saved you once already.”

“Practice.”

That evening, after the van left, Rafael crossed to my store for coffee.

Mang Ruel was already on the bench.

He slid over and patted the empty space beside him.

“Dito.”

Rafael sat down.

“Only if you stop cooking pork.”

Mang Ruel nodded solemnly.

“Fair.”

I handed Rafael his coffee.

Across the road, his blackout curtains were closed. A red cooler sat just inside his gate.

I noticed both things.

Of course I did.

I am still Nena.

But Rafael was laughing on my bench now, shoulder to shoulder with the same neighbors who had once been afraid to sit near him.

And for once, I knew when to keep my mouth shut.