บท 2: WHAT IS HAPPENING?
Luis is driving the car away from this place, but I told him I wanted to go to Imus to save my mother, who is currently working at the hospital. I was holding the baby while I looked around, terrified of what I saw. People are getting crazy, People are begging for their lives, most are fighting for them to live, People are turning, and worst are people eating people, which I don't understand why this is all happening.
I looked at the baby in my arms; she was sleeping now. I can't leave the baby behind. Even Luis doesn't want me to get her because she will slow us down, but she is a baby. She didn't know what was happening. She is helpless, and I can't understand why her parents left her inside the car. Now, she is in my arms, and we are using her parents' car to escape this place.
"Look out!" I screamed when I saw a man full of blood jump on the car and try to punch the windshield.
Luis suddenly brakes to make the man fall and then drives again. He ran to the man, and I looked back. I saw him get up and follow us as if nothing had happened to him. He is covered with blood, and he looks so scary. I close my eyes because I am breaking about what is happening now. I don't understand why a quiet life suddenly turned into a chaotic life. I remember my sister, and I regret leaving her behind, but I don't have a choice. She wants to hurt and eat me as if something inside her makes her crave human flesh. She just attended the Sunday mass, but that mass changed her and changed our lives in just a snap.
I saw people full of blood on their faces, like my sister, who was acting like a hungry tiger, like Craven. What is happening now makes me worried about my mother and makes me eager to see her and save her just in case those flesh-eating flesh are already in the hospital where she is working. I am terrified now while praying that my mother is safe because I saw people who got bitten stand up and start biting people too. What are they? I thought the zombies weren't real, but what is happening now? I can see a lot of them now.
Luis continues driving no matter what because, like me, he is scared about what is happening too.
He doesn't want to show it because he is the kind of a man holding his emotion, and I know it because we are childhood best friends despite his geeky, weak appearance. I know he is strong inside.
"What the fuck?" I asked because I heard a gunshot. I saw militaries firing the flesh-eating-flesh who was following us, and then they closed the big barricade so that they could not enter.
Luis suddenly stopped when he saw a borderline between Imus and Bacoor. Why is there a borderline now? The military is guarding the borderline, their guns are ready, and they are ensuring that nobody passes the line without their permission. They check each car before they let it pass.
"What?!" The man angrily asked them. He was driving the car in front of us.
"She can't be infected!" He shouted, but one of the militaries pulled his wife out and shot her without words.
I was shocked by what I saw because I didn't expect they would do it. Since that, they are supposedly been protecting people. The husband got mad, and he got out of his car to confront the military who shot his wife, but I noticed black veins visible on his body, and he is saying things that the military couldn't understand, that is why they shot him too, and then they signalled Luis to move forward.
"Please don't shoot us," I said and showed them the baby I was carrying.
"Is that baby alive?" He asked, but I didn't answer because I hadn't heard the baby crying since I had carried her.
He checked on the baby and asked Luis, "Where are you going?"
Luis looked at me, and I answered, "To the Imus Hospital where my mother is working", I said, and a moment of silence filled the air.
"I want to rescue her", I added to convince the military and let us pass because I wanted to get my mother out of the hospital and bring her somewhere safe with Luis and the baby.
"You cannot pass."
"What?"
"Give me the baby."
I looked at the baby sleeping in my arms, looked at the officer, and gave him the baby. The man and the woman they shot suddenly stand up and start attacking them. The military holding the baby is attacked by the man, who turns into a zombie and starts biting him while the wife attacks the others. I saw the gunshot heal, but their eyes were bleeding, and the military attacked by the husband slowly stood up with his bleeding eyes and ready to attack us.
"The baby! the baby!" I told Luis when I heard the baby crying on the ground.
I was about to get the baby, but Luis stopped me. He turned on the engine and started driving the car, but we were sandwiched by the cars, and we were stuck. He bumped the car in front of me at the same time, the car at the back. I saw the infected military carrying the baby, and the baby stopped crying for a while. The army sniffs the baby like a dog, and when the baby starts crying again. It cries blood now, and the baby is infected. That is why she stops crying the whole time we travel from Bacoor to Imus. I thought she was sleeping but was already dead in my arms.
I saw people attacking people now, and they are getting plenty and plenty. We don't know what to do because the border is closed, and we can't go back to Bacoor because the place from where we belong is already infected.
"Hi, do you want to buy the spinning mop I am selling? It is easy to use, and very affordable" The man wearing long sleeves, slacks and a necktie approached us, asking us if we wanted to buy the mop that he was selling, showing it to us, but he was not selling anything, and he is not holding a mop.
He keeps on asking us and repeating the exact words all over. Until he started vomiting blood in front of us, I knew it was not good because Craven vomited it before she turned. The man looked at us, the black veins were now visible all over his body, and his eyes started to bleed. He made a snarling sound and ran to us and banged his head at the window, and then he howled like a wolf and started banging his head at the car window. We don't have a choice but to get out of the car because we can't move forward, and we can't move backwards, either. We ran with the other survivor, and we went to the fence made by the military to protect the city of Imus. I heard gunshots, and the soldiers were firing the ones who got infected so we could cross the fence, but they were immortal. They will fall for a while, then stand up and attack people again. The wounds they got from the gunshots are healing, like what happened to my sister when I struck her in her heart with the broken mirror. Instead of dying, the stab healed and started attacking me again.
"Come on, faster," Luis said and helped me cross the fence.
"Fuck!" I screamed when my pajama got turned, and the fence wound my leg. I look, and it is just a scratch, so I keep running with Luis.
At the front line, a group of soldiers is inspecting again, and I heard one of the soldier's radios that the first and second defenses are already down. That saddens the brothers, but there is no time for mourning.
"Move! move!" One of them said wants us to hurry. We ran as fast as we could, and we waited in line. They are checking our temperature because I remember Craven when I tried to check her temperature. The thermometer didn't detect any temperature from her. The officer looked at the bleeding wound and grabbed me from the line.
"Hey! hey!" Luis said,
"This is just a wound, and I am not infected!" I shouted because I was scared of getting shot.
"I am not infected. Please, please don't shoot me," I begged while my eyes were closed because I didn't want to see him shoot me just in case.
"I just want to go to the hospital to see my mother," I said, and he took my temperature and checked it. When he saw that I was at a normal temperature, he let me go, and Luis followed. Same procedure was done to him, and he let Luis go.
We went to the hospital to find my mother. I checked everywhere because I needed to find her. I went to the counter and grabbed a microphone to page my mother, for her to know I was here, but the microphone was not working. That is why I start walking again to search for my mother in this busy hospital. I looked around and saw them crying, praying and feeling hopeless because they didn't know what was happening, like me. I didn't also know what was happening and how this started. I just woke up and saw my sister vomiting blood, and she acted like she was possessed, and here I am now with the others fighting for our lives. That is why I need to find my mother, and I will never stop until I find her.
"Mom!" I screamed while searching for her left and right.
"Alice", A familiar voice called to me. I stopped and looked back, and it was Linda. My mother's friend.
"Linda," I said, ran to her, and hugged her while Luis followed me.
"You are alive, you are alive, you are alive", She said, almost crying to see me alive.
"You made it", She cried.
"Where is mom?" I asked, and then she looked around and said, "She was here a while ago." She was here a while ago, but now she is gone. So where is she? I need to find her.
"I need to find her," I said, and I started to look around again. If I need to search every corner and every room of this hospital, I will do it to find my mother.
I ran and checked every room with Linda and Luis with me. They are looking for my mother too. I went to the sixth floor from the ground floor and started checking there. I suddenly stopped when a man held me by my pajama and started crying. I looked at him and got pitied because he was a disabled man sitting in a wheelchair. No legs, and he is begging us to give the piece of paper to her parents now, who are now in Quezon City.
"I was a run away before the accident happened to me, and they didn't know that I was here", He cried.
"Please let them know that I am here", He added. I looked at the paper and read what was written there. He is asking for forgiveness for leaving his parents, and he regrets it.
"Is it terrible out there?" He asked. I didn't answer because he looked depressed, and I didn't want to add his depression.
"I am screwed," He said. I put the paper he gave me in my pocket and pushed his wheelchair to the room. I told him to lock the room and not open the door, whatever happens until help comes. He nodded, and he thanked me, which made me smile.
I hear him lock the door, and I leave because I need to find my mother and know he will be safe there. I continued searching for my mother because she was alive. Linda said that she was just here a while ago before we arrived. So it means my mother is alive and not affected, but where is she now? I keep walking even though my leg is hurting and bleeding because I will never stop until I find her.
I opened the last door on the sixth floor when I heard noises, and I was relieved to see my mother there. Helping the doctors stitch the arm of the soldier they cut.
"Mom", I called. She looked surprised, and I ran to her to hug her.
"I am so worried about you," I said.
"I am glad to see you," She said and kissed me on my forehead.
"Where is Craven?" She asked, but I didn't answer because I didn't know how to tell her. She looked at Luis, but Luis couldn't look at her.
"Where is Craven?" She asked again with worry in her voice. Maybe she already sensed something terrible had happened to her other daughter. She looked at me and asked me again where is my sister.
"She didn't make it", I answered, crushing her.
"No... no...I need to see her," She said and immediately removed her gloves and was about to go out the door, but I stopped her.
"Mom", I called her.
"She is still alive, but she got infected. We lock her inside her room."
"That is why I need to see her."
"What would you do? It is too dangerous out there," I said, but still, she tried to go out of the room, but I again stopped her.
"Ouch," I said because of the wound in my leg.
"You are bleeding," She said, hurriedly letting me sit and check my leg. She wiped it with cotton, put medicine on it and put a band-aid.
"You are okay now."
"Thanks, mom"
"What happened to him?"
"We must cut his arm before the virus spreads and infects him."
"Where is he from?" I asked because we didn't see him at the borderline a while ago. We didn't see any wounded soldiers get inside the borderline.
"From Dasma"
"Dasma?"
She nodded.
"You mean they are everywhere now?"
She nodded again.
"What is happening, mom?"
"I don't know, " she answered, looking at us and saying, "There's a virus. A very contagious----" Then she took a deep breath and shook her head.
"I wish we had the answer", She whispered.
I hugged my mom to comfort her because I knew her feelings. After all, she is a doctor, but she doesn't know what is happening. She can't explain, and I understand because nobody knows, by the way. We just woke up, and everything is in chaos now. It happened so fast, and the virus is spreading so fast, but the answer to the question of how, still, nobody knows.
"Aaah", The man who got stitched said, and he tried to stand up.
"Slowly, it might bleed again," Linda said.
"I will be going to kill those fuckers", He said,
"They bit me, and they want me to be infected", He added. He looked at his gun beside him and tried to reach it.
"What is your name?" I asked,
"Lieutenant Roel Loyola"
Nice name.
"I am Alice, and he is Luis, Doctor Linda, and Doctor Madeline, my mother and her nurses."
"Nice to meet you all." He said while looking at us.
"How bad Dasma is?" I asked.
"Very bad", He answered and started recalling things happening in Dasma.
"The IT are everywhere. They start attacking and eating people. No matter how we shoot them, they start attacking again. Their wounds are healing. We tried to protect the municipality, but the IT took over, and we just spread and ran just to get out of Dasma until I reached the borderline, and now I am here. Alive but with one arm."
"How about you? what happened to your place?" He asked.
"Hell"
The Bacoor and Dasma are already affected, and we are in Imus. We are sandwiched by the places that got infected. I sat down and thought about how we could get out of there. I didn't know if the nearby places were safe or if they would accept us because they might think we were already infected. After all, we came from the infected area. I don't know if there is a safe place since this one happened, but we will not give up until we find the answer about what happened and how to solve this.
"We can go there to Makati with my father," Luis suggested.
"I need to see Craven," My mother said.
"That is impossible", I said, and my mother looked at me and said, " I will help your sister."
"It is too late for that, mom. Craven is already infected."
"How?"
"I don't know. She just returned from her Sunday praising and started vomiting blood. I tried to call you, but your number cannot be reached, and I tried to call 911, but their line is unresponsive," I answered, recalling everything that happened to my sister.
"I checked her temperature, but I didn't get any. Until her eyes bled, she kept saying odd things because she had never said those things before, and she started attacking me." I added,
"I stabbed her with the broken glass to stop her from attacking me, but the stab healed immediately."
"That is what happened to my grandma too. Except for the stabbing part," Luis interrupted.
My mother sat on the floor after she heard about what happened to her youngest and whispered, "What the hell is happening?"
Nobody dares to answer because nobody knows the answer. We heard a snarl and a growl outside and a...
TUG
TUG
TUG
We looked at each other at the door because we knew what that meant. We feel terrified when he hears screams from outside. The infected are already inside the hospital, and we are no longer safe.
Roel held his rifle and positioned it while we grabbed anything we could use to protect ourselves if the infected broke the door. I hold my mother close to mine because I don't want to lose her if ever the worst thing happens. We wait until the door breaks because we don't have a choice. We are stuck here inside this room.
"Hell yeah, let's go banging," Roel said, and the door broke.
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