The Carriers

The Carriers Chapter 1

She shook her head, “I went to get my shoes from outside because I didn’t want them to get dusty. Then, Mr. Lacson was running down the street and tumbled into me, then he bit me.”

Regina did her best to hold back her tears but then let out a long wail of pain again. Her arm looked like it had been bitten pretty badly with the swelling being visible from the computer. However, there was another side effect off it. Even from the computer she could see it as clear as day. Regina’s was deathly pale and she walked in the room slowly with an unflinching stare. Both her parents were at a loss for something to say and both just stood there staring right back at her.

“Regina,” said her mom hesitantly through the microphone, “It’s mama do you remember me?”

The six-year-old girl stared back at her in silence but still slowly walking towards the camera and to where Sandra’s husband was sitting once again. In a sudden instant the girl started to shake violently as her hands splayed out into claws.

“Regina,” exclaimed her father as he rushed over to his daughter. Sandra couldn’t believe what she was seeing and she began to sob. Her child had just had what looked to have been bitten by one of her neighbours and she was looked so deathly pale. Maybe it was the camera playing tricks on her or the resolution being too low on Skype, Sandra thought. Sandra’s husband scooped up Regina in his arms trying to calm her because she was now screaming with tears running down her cheeks. After a few seconds the screaming stopped. Both of her parents were now fully gripped in fear and panic both of then on tenterhooks as to what would happen next. And what happened next shocked both of them, right to the core. Regina suddenly opened our mouth revealing all her pearly whites for the camera before she plunged her mouth into her fathers shoulder. Her head violently shook almost like a meat-scavenging animal. She flailed from side to side sinking her teeth deeper and deeper into her father’s shoulder. Instantly blood started to drip down her father’s white t-shirt, first starting out as small droplets but now running pooling at the sleeve before running down the rest of her shirt.

“Sweetie,” Sandra screamed, waking up most of the other passengers waiting for their flights.

“Lady can you keep it down I’m trying to get some rest here,” one passenger groaned.

“It’s my daughter,” Sandra screamed again, “She just bit my husband.”

“Bullshit, what are you talking about? You must have one terrible daughter,” the passenger spat back.

“No it’s true,” another disturbed passenger said, looking over Sandra’s shoulder in horror, “She’s got a firm grip on the guy that's for sure.”

Soon there was a tight huddle of people looking on at the sickening footage. A six-year-old girl had sunk her teeth into her own father and was now ravenously trying to tear off a piece of his flesh. Regina found the shoulder to be too futile and now decided to try for the neck.

Again she barred her jaws wide and then plunged her teeth into her father. Then she started to writher from side to side once again. A husky scream came from her husband whose windpipe was slowly being crushed. He tossed about trying to get his daughter to let go but in doing so overbalanced and hit the bare concrete of their bedroom floor. His head had connected the floor with sickening crunch and a pool of deep crimson blood started to radiate outward from his skull.

Sandra screamed at the top of her lungs, feeling the whole spectrum of emotions from fear and horror to sadness and grief. Those around Sandra started to comfort her but she pushed them away, once again letting out a primal scream that resonated through the concrete and steel of the airport departure terminal. She then began to breath heavily, trying to pull herself together but to no avail.

That was when the notifications started to pop up on her Internet browser.

Darren Legaspi posted: The end is nigh repent and forgive your fellow man

Laura Geronimo posted: The dead won’t stay dead and we are their food.

Jay Rosario posted: My girlfriend just tried to bite me. How fucked is that?

There were more posts where they came from. People all tweeting, posting and commenting about their first brush with diseased flesh eating people. Some of the messages coming through were teenagers eager to ‘kick some zombie ass’. Others were calls for unrepentant sinners to rejoin their religious brethren to repent and go to a better place. Then the final nail came in the coffin came through when another passenger waiting for their plane checked the news on his smartphone. The frightened man held his phone up high, each of the individual fingers in his hand trembling with horror and panic. The once huddled mass moved from Sandra’s computer screen over to the man to get a better look at what he was holding up. Sandra managed to pull herself together as well and moved over to get a better look. The headline of the article read:

‘The Undead are here and they are feasting on the living’.