"Sandra," I tell her, beaming my eyes at her, "You're not my parent. Don't boss me around. I don't understand why my parents left you here to take care of me. I can take care of myself. You're like, sixteen, making me four years younger than you. This is just ridiculous," I crossed my arms. "It's only a two week vacation for them, I could handle myself for that period of time."
Sandra glared at me, rolling her eyes over to the small cut on my hand I got from slicing bread. "Clearly," she replied sarcastically. "And besides, your parents aren't here, they left me in charge." She paused for a second, hesitating a bit. "I'm going to try my best to say this in a way little kids like you understand," she says, taking a step closer to me. "Since I'm in charge, you do what I say." She smirked, feeling as if she had won the argument. I frowned, turning my head to look at the floor.
I sighed deeply and turned away from her. "Whatever," I uttered, walking up the stairs into my bedroom. I felt her eyes burning on me as I walked away.
She was always cold, and she always spoke to me in a condescending way. She'd been taking care of me since I was eight, and stopped when I was ten. But at this age, according to my parents, she was required to look after me for their two-week vacation. She'd appear like an angel in front of my parents, grinning while she received her payment from them, but rolling her eyes while facing me.
It was about 4:00. It was a school day, Friday to be more specific, and of course, teachers never abstained when it came to handing out homework, especially on weekends. I took out my textbooks and notebooks. Social Studies, Language Arts, and Math. Of course I had to have the three most boring subjects in school. I groaned, tilting my head up. Teachers never really looked into checking my homework, they would always take a quick glance or two to see if I'd done it, and then they would check it off in their grade book. So usually, I would jot down some random answer or whatever. I wasn't a perfect straight-A student, although my parents wished that I was.
I glanced back up at the decorated clock in my room. 4:06. It can wait, I thought, shoving my textbooks and notebooks off my desk, because really, who wants do homework on Fridays? Why not watch some TV for the time being? It wouldn't hurt for a minute or two.
Of course, I forgot that I lost my remote for the TV two nights ago. Never getting up from my chair, I scanned my bedroom for my remote. It was a mess, it would be impossible to find it without standing up and taking in the energy to find it. I sighed, standing up from the chair, rummaging for the remote.
I went for the least obvious place to find, well, anything that I'd lose in my room. I stuck my hand under my closet, my hand feeling something solid. I perked up, feeling as if I'd already found the remote. I grabbed the object. I praised myself for finding the remote, but an unpleasant smell took over my nose. Flinching and turning my head away, I examined the closet from underneath once more, only to find a box of three day old taquitos. I shrugged. I can pick it up later.
I pointed the remote at the TV. It immediately turned on. It was last left on the WABE news channel. And as usual, there was Carley, the skinny woman who always reported live on afternoons. I wanted to change the channel, since the news always appeared to be boring to me, but a lot of times, she screwed up a lot reporting live. It was actually pretty funny. Like, this one time, she would mess up on one of her lines, and the camera man had to "whisper" them to her. She looked like an idiot, but as I mentioned earlier, it was funny when she screwed up at certain times. She's the reason why I watch the news, believe it or not.
"So here we are attending the Cherry Blossom festival in Macon," she began, clearing her throat. "Everyone's enjoying themselves and it seems like they're, they're, uh-" she hesitated, turning her head away from the camera, her attention getting caught by some unfamiliar noise, looking at, I think, people walking slower than usual and groaning. It was very unusual, and I could now see why she had hesitated. I was so perplexed now, at this unfamiliar sight, but this other woman suddenly stood in front of the camera, glaring at Carley.
"What the fuck are you doing!" The woman barked, pointing her finger into Carley's chest, "Carley, I told you that if you screw this up again you're-"
A thing, coming out from nowhere, the ones that I believe Carley was looking at the distance, don't exactly know how to describe it, sunk its teeth into the woman, dragging her down onto the floor screaming in pain. Her blood squirted out from her neck, Carley immediately took a step back, looking away in disgust.
"HELP ME!" She cried, trying her best to catch her breath, but the thing tore her stomach open, eating out one of her intestines. I jumped up a little after that, and felt nauseous, acid reaching all the way up to my throat. She lay in her own pool of blood, lifeless, her eyes rolled up. The camera tilted over to Carley, who was looking away from the camera and violently throwing up.
I could hear so much screaming going on in the background, and loud noises of groans. The TV screen suddenly went black. Over and over, I kept thinking to myself, what just happened? It looked nothing like a gimmick, seeming that a woman was laying in her own pool of REAL blood! No ordinary thing could actually rip someone's skin open!
"AAAAAHH!" I heard a scream, presumably coming from downstairs, coming from, I think it was Sandra. I never heard her scream like that at once during my lifetime of knowing her. She must have really hurt herself with something, I believe.
"Sandra?" I called out rushing out my room, running down the stairs into the living room.
I was wrong. She didn't hurt herself with something, something was hurting her. I saw her in the living room, with one of those things as seen on telivision, she was on the floor and it was on top of her. Seeming as if they were tackling, she was trying with all her strength to get it off her. I never took my eyes off that thing. It spewed blood out of its mouth, dripping it all over Sandra. She tried to scratch its eyes out with her nails, but she flinched at its smell. She frantically looked at me, desperate for help. "AAAHH! NOOO! GET OFF ME! CLEMEN-"
It was too late. It took a bite out of her chest, her blood staining the carpet around her. I panicked. I was so confused to what was going on around here. I could hear screams and cries of pain from the outside. I felt like the whole world was coming to an end. I really had no idea as to why there were human-like corpses roaming the town, eating people.
So transfixed in with my own thoughts, I hadn't realized that the thing was finished with eating Sandra. She looked disgusting, as her skin was pale and how a huge wound was evident on her chest. I swallowed my own vomit. It groaned, slowly making its way towards me, its arms stretched out. I panted heavily, backing away from it, not so sure where to run off to away from this thing. Panicking, I ran through the sliding glass door in the dining room which led to the backyard, closing it behind me. I looked for possible escape routes, but there was no way out of my backyard as there were three of the human-like corpses scratching at the gate, which was my only possible exit out of the backyard.
I then looked up at my tree house, one of the things that I dreaded so much, but it could save my life. They can't get me if I'm all the way up here, I thought. Maybe they would go away as time passes.
I scrambled up the ladder of the tree house, causing me to temporarily almost lose my footing. I gasped as my fingers almost slipped off the ladder, but I still managed to maintain my grip, quickly entering it through the sliding wooden door. I closed it quickly once I was inside. I sighed, and took a peek outside through the cracks of the tree house. The thing was still clawing at the sliding glass door, desperate to get out. More of the corpses gathered up, packed around the backyard gate.
I softly cried. It really feels like this is the end. The screaming of the people and my neighbors never stopped. I could hear more groaning noises by the second, never seeming to end. The forest, which was behind our backyard gate, seemed to be crawling with dozens of them. I pressed my hands tightly against my ears.
Would I be next?