72 The Situation Around the Country (1/2)

Day 3 – 6:23 AM – Urdaneta City, Pangasinan, Philippines

Urdaneta City, about 200km North of Bay City Evacuation Zone. It was the third day of the outbreak and this city had not been fully affected. There would be some skirmishes as the infected arrived but was still minimal. With the remains of the military, local government and local police, they were managing to hold the infected back until now. They blocked the main highways and destroyed the bridges to at least hinder the infected as much as possible.

Still, they were just barely managing. Once the full brunt of the advance of the infected finally arrive this area, their defenses would surely crumble. Some mutated infected already reached their defenses. They managed to kill the mutants but their losses were also devastating.

On the first day of the outbreak, the local authorities were warned about the passenger flights that crashed and the closest one to this city was actually beyond the mountain regions several kilometers north of the city. Fortunately, due to the uneven mountain terrain and other factors, the infected from the crashed plane had not made it out of the forested mountains.

However, while the authorities were all bent on holding back the infected, the city they were protecting was in utter chaos. Most of the population in the city was in panic. They already lost media communication since yesterday. There were no television broadcasts and no internet connection available. The only thing they knew before the connections were cut off was that the whole world was being infested by zombie like creatures.

At first, many of them dispatched the thought as a hoax or gimmick by the government as excuse to deploy marshal law but before the announcement was made, they never heard much from the Malacañang Palace anymore.

By this time, violence, theft, looting, murder and **** was happening in the whole city and the remaining police could not do about it. The situation was horrible and their manpower was not enough for this. They also had no reinforcements to call. They were all left to fend for themselves.

Those who were smart enough went and left the city after collecting as much supplies as they could. They were betting on going to the north - The City of Pines, Baguio City. However, most of the populace remained on the city shelters or barricaded their homes betting on waiting out the outbreak. It was not that they did not want to leave but they had no capability of doing so.

Unknown to the city, by this moment, the final defense of the local government collapsed.

***

Day 3 – 6:23 AM – Baguio City, Benguet, Philippines

The City of Pines and was also called as the summer of the Philippines due to the high altitude of the area and its colder climate compared to other parts of the country all year long.

The city was surrounded by mountain ranges and could only be accessed by the long winding roads across the mountain sides and valleys. It was an ideal place to secure as the mountains could act as a natural barrier against the infected.

However…

Compared to the chaos that was happening in Urdaneta several kilometers south, the whole city was calm. It was calm but not in a good way. No people could be seen in the streets, no animals, and no military. Most people, be it be civilians or the military were holed up in shelters and the buildings around the city. No one dared to come out into the streets turning the whole city into a ghost city.

While the southern areas of Luzon, the largest archipelago, was being invaded by the infected due to the lack of geographical defenses, the natural defenses around Baguio City worked the opposite way they wanted it to be.

As the mountains were highly forested, it would be a good source of food and other construction materials still, no one thought that these forested mountains was the cause of their fear.

It was fine in the first two days of the outbreak and the government actually chose Baguio City as one of the potential settlement areas for survivors and refugees. The military was deployed around the city and was busy in building walls and other defenses. However, just last night, one of the military outposts was attacked. Not by the infected and not by humans either.

Coming out from the mountains, a pack of cloud rats attacked the soldiers. The pack consisted by about 50 cloud rats. It was not a problem for the soldiers to put down such rats if it was before the outbreak but the problem they faced was cloud rats that was way larger than normal. The sized varied with the smallest was the size of a dog while the bigger ones were the size of a cow. Furthermore, their bodies were highly impervious to bullets. A 9mm pistol bullet could only do a shallow wound on their skin.

Normally, these nocturnal rodents were slow and were hunted almost to extinction as food. Now however, these rodents were the ones doing the hunting and in a very feral manner. Due to the surprise attacks, the soldiers lost the outpost with a devastating amount of casualties. It would be good if that was the end of it but the pack of rodents came into the city wreaking havoc and killing the residents.

The pack was soon wiped out with great effort and casualties but then, a monkey-eating eagle about the size of a car flew down into the city to grab a body of a deceased cloud rat. The scene terrified the people. It would be just the body of the large cloud rat for nowbut what if it started grabbing people to feed on them.

***

Found on the other sides of the Cordillera Mountain Region that was surrounding Baguio City was several ethnic tribes were living in their ancestral land. However, each tribes were now gone. What was left on their abodes were bloody mess and dead bodies of their tribesmen.

It was because the tribe members failed to believe the lectures of their seer several days ago. The seer's family evacuated and left the mountain along the other older families under the mocking gazes of other the tribesmen. This was just how much their culture was affected by the modern era. Now however, they paid the price. Just this morning, their tribe was attack by an infected. Not just a normal infected but a mutated one which came from the crashed airplane just one mountain away from their tribe.