The Message-Chp4

Jackie was taking the bus home as usual. She took out the novel she borrowed from the library and was planning to read it on the way home to kill time. Days getting caught up with homework, exams and meeting other people’s expectations of maintaining the valedictorian title forced her to renew her due date constantly and never got to sit down properly to read it. Coupled with the fact that having a traveling businessman for a father and a plastic surgeon for a mother who have high expectations on her honouring the family name with her prodigy skills in her studies and having to keep up with the image of being the Golden Child despite the fact that they were already divorced and couldn’t agree with each other on anything except this, she had her work cut out for her. Well, not this time, she thought. I am determined to finish all the leftover chapters if it takes me all night!

She paid the conductor her fare and opened the page she left her bookmark on. When she found the page, she was shocked to see the book all covered with blood. The source came from the spine of the book that filled itself up with blood out of nowhere and overflowed out onto and out of the pages. It began to drip on her palms and onto her pinafore, staining them crimson. The metallic smell of it shot up to her nose and made her want to puke. On all the pages, instead of the words of the story she was supposed to read, were only written with the words ‘Let your dooms begin!’ She couldn’t find a single decent page, and as she flipped through it, more blood trickled out and painted her hands red, and the eeriest part was that as she continued to try and make sense of all this, the books slowly but steadily began to moan in agony, forcing her to fling it at the driver’s direction.

The driver looked up at her and Jackie gasped when she saw that he, along with all the passengers and the conductor, was bloodstained from head to toe and was gazing at her with bloodshot eyes. Their skins were as grey as the zombies portrayed in zombie movies and their clothes began to rot along with it. They began to circle around her, baring their fangs that were almost as sharp as a lion’s, eager to bury them into her robust pink flesh.

Jackie stumbled for her bag and rang the bell to get off, but the driver paid no heed. She had no choice but to jump out of the bus. She landed with a thump on the solid ground, resulting to a loud crack heard somewhere near her chest. She realized that she had broken her ribs but she struggled to get up and called for help anyway.

Suddenly the ground below her feet began to rumble and shake, like the world’s most seismic earthquake ever, and crack without a moment’s notice, making craters here and there. Steam came out of the craters like geysers and hot molten lava spluttered out. More and more zombie-like people appeared out of nowhere and moved slowly towards her, unaware of the sudden happenings around them.

Jackie could do nothing but scream.

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Shah was gradually forgetting the scary library incident. She took her hot shower peacefully and was ready to lay her hands and mouth on her dinner. Then she remembered that her mother was out on a theatre practice and won’t be back until well after midnight. Shah expected that her dinner will be laid on the kitchen table and her mother will leave a note saying ‘I’m gone’, ‘Do your homework’, so on and so on.

Surprisingly, there was no note and no dinner as she expected on the table. It was rather unexpected because her mother seldom did these things, unless she was very, very busy with Committee Meetings and such, and even so, she would make a call home to tell her that her dinner money would be somewhere stashed under the table so that she can order take-out. Since her father was out on a business trip and there was no money stashed in the usual spot, there was not much she can do about it. Shah shrugged and went to rummage the refrigerator for something, just anything leftover, to eat. Fortunately, she found some leftover chicken which she got from one of her relatives’ wedding dinner a few days ago. She took it out and popped it into the microwave oven.

“Only the upper part of the chicken left, but that’ll just do,” Shah said to herself, satisfied with her find. She decided to boil an egg or two and cook curry-flavored instant noodles to go with the chicken.

While she was cooking the lot, she heard a muffled sound coming from the microwave oven. At first she thought it was the humming of the machine but when she listened carefully, it actually came from the inside; the place where she reheated the cold chicken.

Shah couldn’t help feeling curious and stopped the microwave oven. She opened the microwave oven door and a foul smell of burnt flesh emitted out, making her eyes water. When she was finally done flapping away the smell, she took a look at her chicken. The chicken was perfectly fine. Nothing was spoilt. The head of the chicken, which she had no intention of eating, was also in one piece. Shah scratched her head, puzzled and confused.

All of a sudden, the chicken head looked up and opened its dead eyes, staring at her eerily. Shah let go of the plate of chicken in shock and it shattered into pieces. Still the chicken head stared at her. Slowly it said out the words, one by one, “Let your dooms begin!”

Shah kicked out at the chicken and backed away to the kitchen cupboard to get a knife to eliminate it. But the chicken head had a head-start. It rose from the floor and started pecking at Shah. Shah grabbed a table knife nearby and swished at the chicken head for all its worth. The water she was boiling for her eggs and instant noodles rose out of the pot like luminous, boiling arms reaching out to get her. Though she knew that the knife couldn’t penetrate water, she slashed at it all the same. The scalding heat burned her immensely and the chicken head’s pecking was painful yet irritating. But she didn’t stop slashing, not even when she began to lose strength due to fatigue and hunger.

She knew that if she ever stopped, it would be the end of her.