You must survive! - by Francis Allan M. Barangan
Mood:  don't ask
Topic: The Last Days
Carrie is 9 years old and has been living and hiding with her mama since the outbreak of the living dead. Her papa was a police officer who were assigned to a team that was supposed to stop the living dead from their tracks but instead was slaughtered and eaten alive by the walking corpses. Since then, she and her mama were hiding in the basement underneath their two story house which has been filled with food, water and other supplies to last for at least two weeks. Carrie remembers when the living dead finally reached their streets, she can still hear the breaking of windows and their horrific moans as they enter her home. She can still hear the screams of their neighbors who were caught outside and those who did not get down to the basement in time. But Carrie and her mom is safely locked in the basement and they stayed there for three days until the horde of flesh eaters have moved away.

When they opened the door, her mother almost screamed in shock. In their living room lies the body of Andy, the teenaged son of their neighbor. His face is half eaten and his body has been ripped apart. Andy is now a living dead trying to move towards Carrie and her mom although he doesn't have much left to pose a threat to them. Regaining her wits, her mother smashed Andy's head using the butt of the shotgun that Carrie's dad left her. The resulting blow squashed the zombie's head sending pieces of brain matter across the room.

The scene in the streets are much worse. The once clean street are now littered with chewed up body parts and dried blood from the recent attack. The once noisy neigborhood is now silent. Carrie and her mom are the only living people in their neighborhood.

In the days that followed, Carrie's mom taught her everything her husband taught her to survive in the wild. She thought it best that her daughter should know these things now and to prepare her for a world that is more dangerous than the world she grew up with. Carrie listened and tried to understand everything that her mother is teaching her especially the one thing that her mother says is the most important thing she needs to remember. "Carrie, if I'm bitten and I died. Do not mourn me. Do not stay with me. Leave this house and do everything that I taught you. You must survive."

Everyday, her mother keeps telling her those words and Carrie nodded. But in her young age, Carrie couldn't think of leaving her mother. She thinks that whatever comes their way, she and her mother will still be together. Oh so she thinks.

One day their food and water is running very low. Her mother has been spying the old shopping mall which they could see in the distance. She thinks of the big freezers and the food that might still be stored inside. With their supplies running so low, she makes the determination to go out and raid the shopping mall herself. Carrie wanted to go out with her but she thinks that with her daughter in tow, she could be putting both of them in danger. No, she tells Carrie. Lock the door and stay inside, she tells Carrie and promised she won't be long.

Carrie waited inside the house and tried to stay alert of anything that moves outside. From time to time she creeps to the window to see if her mother has returned. Her mother is gone for a long time now and the sun is starting to set. Carrie starts to worry. Is her mother okay? Why isn't she here yet? Those are the questions that have been coming in and out of the little girl's head.

Suddenly she heard a moan coming from outside. Looking out the window she spotted a group of flesh eating corpses lurching on the street. Carrie begun to get nervous and longed to scream in fear. The corpses stops from time to time to sniff the air. Two of the corpses lurched towards a maggot infested body part in the streets. They licked the badly decayed flesh but realizing it is no longer fit to eat, dropped it and took no more notice of it. The zombies slowly marched passed by her house sniffing the air for the smell of fresh meat. Carrie is curled up in fear when in her surprise she heard the voice of her mother outside the door. She looked outside and saw that it is indeed her mother. She opened the locks and opened the door in which her mother hurriedly went inside as silently as possible along with a big sack. When she's finally inside she hugged Carrie and told her she couldn't come at once because she's avoiding the zombies that just passed by their house. But she told Carrie her mission is a success and showed her the food that she was able to get from the shopping mall's supermarket. Steaks, canned goods, softdrinks and a lot of mineral waters. Tonight her mother told her, they dine like queens.

After a few days, Carrie's mom is again thinking of going out for more food. She told Carrie she won't be long and told her to lock the doors like before. Carrie watched her mother went out cautiously and disappeared. Since this is the second time around, Carrie is no longer afraid of being alone thinking her mother will return before the sun sets. And true enough, her mother returned with another large sack of food.

A few days after that Carrie's mom is looking towards the shopping mall in the distance. She seems to be in deep thought. When Carrie asked her what's the matter she told her, "You know what baby? We could leave this house and go to that shopping mall. The mall is much more secured than this house. See this?" she took out a set of keys from her pockets. "I found this inside. These are the keys in the mall. Maybe we can try to leave inside the mall. There's is still so much food inside."

So Carrie's mom laid plans for them to move in the mall. But first she told Carrie that she needs to go out again for some firearms that is on display in the mall. "If we go out now I will be putting you in danger, so I need an extra firearm to protect us until we reached the mall." So Carrie watched her mother went out again after she told her she won't be long. Though this is the third time, Carrie felt that she should have persuaded her mother not to go. She can't explain the feeling but she felt it is not the right time for her to go.

Five hours have passed and the sun is already set. The streets are dark now. Carrie is now very worried. Her mother is gone for so long now. What could have kept her? She's in that state of thinking when she heard two loud knocks from the door. She peeked outside and saw her mother lying on the ground. She hurriedly opened the door and saw her mother in pain. She crawled inside as fast as possible and told Carrie to lock the door and put extra barricades in the window. A zombie attacked her while she was on her way home. She managed to kill it but not before it bit a chunk of flesh from her leg. She lost a lot of blood on her way home and she told Carrie she might not survive the night. She gave her daughter the keys to the mall and told her the mall is already secured. She gave her daughter .38 handgun and gave her instructions on how to use it. She asked Carrie what she should do? Carrie spoke the words she told her to do if something bad happened to her: "If I'm bitten and I died. Do not mourn me. Do not stay with me. Leave this house and do everything that I taught you. You must survive"

"Good." her mother told her then she drew her last breath and died. Carrie cried and cried but there is nothing she could do now. Her mother is dead and soon she will be a zombie. But she couldn't leave her mother. Not now. How will she live? She can't live without her mother with her. Carrie closed the eyes of her mother, pulled a sheet which has been lying around and put it on top of her. She sobbed for a few minutes then all of a sudden she darts up the stairs went to her bed in her room upstairs and sobbed once more until she fell asleep.

Carrie wakes up with the sun in her eyes. The birds are chirping outside and it looks like it's a good morning. She lie on her back and felt her stomach rumbling. She's hungry. While she's thinking of that she heard someone is already awake downstairs. It's her mother she thinks, maybe fixing up breakfast for her and her papa. She's in that state of mind when clutched a set of keys by her bed which reminds her of what transpired the night before. Fear runs thoughout her body as she realizes the movement downstairs could only be caused by her mother waking up as a flesh eating zombie. Like a flash she heard the words that her mother keeps repeating to her in her head. "If I'm bitten and I died. Do not mourn me. Do not stay with me. Leave this house and do everything that I taught you. You must survive" The words keeps playing and playing again in her head as she hears the lumbering footsteps of her mother coming up the stairs and closing in on her room. She clutched the keys and opened the window. Outside her eyes fixed on the large rope that is hanging from their neighbors roof. She heard the door opened behind her. She heard the hiss of a hungry zombie.

She jumped.

She managed to grab hold of the large rope thus slowing down her descent and making her way to the ground easily. She heard the gurgled hiss and moan of the zombie upstairs who eight hours ago was her mother. She doesn't look back at it but just walked on towards the mall that her mother prepared for her. Her mother taught her everything she needs to learn to survive and she will use it. She promised her mother that much and she won't fail her.

She will survive.