Zombie Fever: Outbreak

by Hodges, B. M.

  “Where’s the bloody fruit and veggies or anything nutritious for that matter?” Quaid was complaining as he stood over the offerings in disbelief, “Now how do you expect me to compete in a race with nothing but off-brand tea and a couple slices of white bread?”

  But he was the only one talking. The rest of us got our food and ate, keeping our thoughts to ourselves. The entire room was hushed, thoughts of that little boy, the Berjalan penyakit and what was in store for us on the second day of the race weighing heavily on our minds. The television had been removed and the remaining hotel staff refused to give us any information about anything, just shaking their heads to our questions and keeping mute. I suspected they had been paid off to remain so silent.

  The cameramen were sitting at a table near the double doors acting in their role as guardians, not letting anyone into the hotel lobby to inspect the damage from last night’s collision.

  The minutes and then hours began to tick by. One hour, two hours of waiting. It was grim. Nothing was happening and it was getting on our nerves. Finally, we heard the crunch of tires on gravel as Sheldon, Kip and Gemma (who for some reason ‘deserved’ better accommodation than the stars of the reality show, I seethed enviously) came strolling into the lobby restaurant, Sheldon in the lead.

  “Good morning, Everyone!” Sheldon came toward our tables smiling and clapping his hands together as though doing so made the long wait we’d just endured disappear. We were all super tense now that the clock was nearing twelve. We had to get on with the race and make it to our next destination, didn’t we?

  “About bloody damn time. It’s quite rude of you to force us to sit here on our arses, don’t you think?” Unlike the rest of us, Quaid wasn’t the least bit afraid to speak his mind. Norris leaned forward, nodding in silent support.

  “It’s all part of the game, part of the game, “Sheldon replied cryptically, although it wasn’t true, he’d overslept after a long night on the phone to his superiors at Tua Kee Media taking care of the mess created by Tucker and Yvonne, “You’ll get your marching orders in due time. Now, let me update you on the current situation. Tucker and Yvonne have been disqualified for failing to complete yesterday’s events. So now we’re down to five teams. That means,” he paused, “there’s now a one-in-five chance at a million dollars.” He licked his upper lip at the thought, letting the moment sink in and become real to us, knowing that greed and the competitive spirit would focus the teams back into the game.

  “Today’s events are a combination of racing and, if everything goes according to plan, events that will test the courage and can-do spirit of each of your teams.” He grinned slyly, “Kip here will be in charge of setting up the starting point and get you going. Gemma and I will hit the road now to the event destination. There will be a surprise celebrity guest at the event. Celebrity guests need a lot of love, so when you arrive look surprised and act happy to see them.”

  “What about the boy? Did he have the fever?” Jamie asked when it looked like he’d finished with his yapping.

  “What boy? Oh you mean the boy from last night? No, no, he was experiencing a bad case of food poisoning. He’s fine. In fact, his aunt picked him up this morning and took him back to play with cousins in their quaint little kampong.”

  We knew he was lying but what could we say? There was a million dollars on the line and no one wanted to jeopardize their chances at those riches.

  “Rest assured that the outbreak hasn’t spread into this region. No worries, lah. But as you know, the outbreak is part of this show. We will be incorporating ‘zombie-themed’ situations and props into the rest of the day’s shows. Don’t let it frighten you. Think of it as a character that has yet to make its appearance until today. So don’t let it take you by surprise if you see someone in full zombie make-up. For safety, we’ve hired another local crew whose primary purpose is to locate and keep at bay any zombies in the general vicinity of our production. I promise you that when it comes to the welfare of my teams, you are number one! You’ll not be put in harm’s way. Any questions?”

  Of course, there were no questions. Competing for a million dollars gives a person a one-track mind. We were all trying to figure out who would be eliminated next and if there was any way we could speed up the process of their demise. Everything else was background noise.

  Chapter 5

  “JAMIE, here’s the exit, slow down! Turn! Turn! Damn it!”

  We careened off the road and down the embankment slick with leafy vegetation between the expressway and the off ramp. I began screaming as the car slid sideways over the wet jungle grass towards the bottom of the ramp and grabbed hold of the dashboard to brace for impact. We hit a large dirt knoll and jerked abruptly to a stop.

  I watched as the other four rally cars shot down the ramp and disappeared ahead along Leboh Ayer Keroh, a long winding road that led to Malacca. I could see Lydia pointing and laughing at us as they sped by, the black lenses of cameras pointing out the rear windows of the departing cars to film our potentially disastrous crash for the show.

  “What the heck were you trying to do? You want to kill us, no?” Felix shouted from the rear floor, trying to pull himself back onto the seat. His camera had hit the ceiling and landed in my lap. I threw it back at him, taking my frustration at Jamie’s inattention and carelessness out of him.

  “Oh, you can speak English, you dick!” I shouted back at him, “Why don’t you do something useful and help me get my door open.”

  I pushed and pushed against the door, but it was jammed shut against the dirt pile so I climbed out my window and circled the car to check the extent of the damage done to the exterior. Luckily, the tires still looked straight and weren’t flat. There was a lot of vegetation stuck to bottom of the car, so I did what I could to pull some of it off. Felix wasn’t being at all helpful, instead, taking out a small handheld camcorder he had in a pouch on his belt to film me as I grappled with the noxious weeds stuck to the grill.

  I approached Jamie’s open window. She was still sitting there gripping the steering wheel, gritting her teeth and staring straight ahead. I gave her my diagnosis, “The frame’s bent and buckled a bit, but it still looks drivable. I don’t know if there’s any damage underneath, there’s too much foliage to see. Does it start?” I asked.

  Still looking ahead, she reached down, twisted the key and pumped the gas. The sedan revved right up. I ran around to my side and climbed back in through my window.

  Jamie turned the wheel back and forth, pumping the car forward and in reverse until eventually we got off the raised dirt mound and were back on the tarmac. I could see a bit of buckling in the roof of the car where the doors came together and the rear chassis felt wobbly, but we were still in the game.

  “We can still catch up,” I tried encouraging her so that she’d get beyond the little accident she’d just caused by her carelessness. Why had she decided to touch up her eyeliner while navigating through expressway traffic? “The card said that the events start at A’Famosa, we can still catch up. It’ll take them awhile to find the entrance if they hadn’t been there before. Can you get back on the road?” The event card and envelope were in the glove box. All the clue gave us was, “Find the queen of shampoo at Porta de Santiago, A’Famosa for your next clue.”

  A’Famosa was an old Portuguese fortress located at the base of a hill in the central part of Malacca town. I knew of Porta de Santiago and the A’Famosa ruins from my father who taught East Asian history at Bayside Secondary school before retiring a few years earlier. I’d even been there a couple of times as a child and remember my father, red-faced, angry, sweating and cursing as he drove around the curving, unmarked streets surrounding the atoll searching for the tiny side road to the Porta de Santiago, a small gate house at the bottom of the hillside and only remaining part of the A’Famosa fortress that was still standing.

  So, according to the brief clue, we were supposed to find a celebrity host who I assumed to be Cindy Chia, an actress who ha
d found fame as the Lurve shampoo spokesperson, at the gate house. And sure enough, when we pulled into the parking lot we could see Cindy standing beside a Cera flag surrounded by the rest of the teams. She was dazzling in a long turquoise evening dress, very inappropriate in the afternoon heat but very photogenic and beautiful. She was daintily handing out the next clue to each of the teams, ever so slowly, so she could suck up as much camera time as possible.

  Unimpressed by the Singapore starlet, Jamie snatched one of the envelopes from her hand and tore it open, “Where o where is old Maarten Janson, Oh where o where could he be? Is he in St. Paul’s or standing stiff beside a tree? Find Maarten and take a photo of his whereabouts with your new cyber-catch digital camera courtesy of Yu-shot Digital. Return with your HD digital photo image and, if Cindy Chia approves, proceed to your next destination and your next challenge.”

  Cindy had a brown leather satchel next to her. As the teams were reading the clues to respective cameramen, she reached inside and began handing out new Yu-shot cameras to the teams.

  “Action!” We heard Sheldon say to Cindy, knowing she’d need a reminder to begin her short but oh-so-important lines.

  “Congratulations! You’ve all won a Yu-shot HD digital camera for making it to the Porta de Santiago. Now you have to decide which member of your team gets to keep it! Ha, ha! Now take your cameras, go up there and find Maarten, you crazy kids!” Cindy swept her arm back and pointed to the ruins on top of the hill, stupidly giving away where the teams needed to go to find him.

  “Cut!” Sheldon said in a sigh, staring daggers into the dopey but breathtaking shampoo queen.

  “Okay, people please remember to find your objective as quickly as possible, daylight’s a’wastin,” he looked at his watch, “We need to complete today’s filming before sundown and have two more stops after this. While there haven’t been any sightings of infected in the area, Malaccan authorities aren’t taking any chances and they’ve imposed a curfew. We’ve been ordered to proceed to our hotel by seven. Anyone caught wandering the streets after dark risks being shot by local authorities. We’re keeping your cameramen down here at the gate for the time being. Don’t worry; there are plenty of stationary and handhelds up there to film you running about looking for your objective. The handhelds have been given out to tourists for an amateur look. There may be some surprises in store for you up on the hill. Okay, Go, Action!”

  We ran together as a group, scrambling up the zigzag path leading to the top of the hill. Norris was the first to pause on the slope, out of breath and sweating profusely. If I had a guess, by the shape he was in I’d say he drinks too much beer and uses the tropical heat as an excuse not to exercise. Then Ahmed was down, resting on a bench and pouring a bottle of water over his head that he’d yanked out of a tourist’s hand. Then it was Derrik and Lydia collapsing on their knees, wheezing loudly. The rest of us were in good physical shape and we bunched together in a pack, sprinting up the hill.

  At the top of the hill we could see the ruins of an old church and etched on a plaque on one of the remaining walls was ‘St. Paul’s Church, 1512’. Quaid got a couple of lengths ahead and began taking pictures of anything he could find that might be Maarten.

  We followed Quaid along the stone path to the rear of the church remains. There, on the edge of the hill and standing on a pedestal overlooking Malacca, was a tall white stone statue of a bishop, his right hand notably absent. Quaid, in his usual reckless ‘action before thinking’ way, took a photo of the statue, sprinted around us and back down the zigzagging path.

  “That’s not Maarten, that’s St. Francis Xavier. What a dope,” Ted told Jamie as we watched the Brit reverse and disappear back down the hill.

  “Maarten must be in the church,” I whispered to Jamie, oh so softly, so that Ted wouldn’t hear, “I bet this Maarten is the proud owner of one of the tombstones inside. Follow me,” I grabbed Jamie’s hand and ran towards the front entrance of the church.

  There was nothing left of the five hundred year old ruins of St. Paul’s Church but walls and a stone floor. The doors, ceiling and windows had been destroyed long ago. Even so, there was a hushed beauty and tranquility in the brick and gray mortared walls. I saw a pair of Korean tourists in one corner of the structure watching us intently through camcorders and a European gentleman sitting on a window ledge filming us with a handphone. I glanced up at the open roof and spotted five stationary cameras mounted at different angles on top of the four walls. I tried not to stare into any of the cameras, knowing they’d cut our scenes if we weren’t looking natural enough. Large rectangular tombstones lined the interior walls of the church, varying between one to one and a half meters tall. The stones were adorned with large crests and lengthy passages carved in Dutch.

  Wait a sec.

  Why were there mounds of fresh dirt underneath the tombstones on an otherwise clean stone floor?

  I was just about to inspect one of the mounds further when Lydia and Derrik found out the hard way. Apparently, they had come to the same conclusion about Maarten and the tombstones. But they were sloppy in their ways and Lydia tromped through one of the mounds of dirt. The soil shifted beneath her and two grey, veiny-looking hands reached up out of the moist loam and grabbed her by the ankles.

  She screamed as a zombie pulled himself out of the ground, moaning, trying to keep a hold of her legs as he moved to take a bite from her exposed calf. The nearby mounds of dirt started shifting and more zombies pulled themselves out of the dirt. Jamie and I held each other in real terror as we watched Derrik pull Lydia free from the gruesome creature.

  “Relax, they’re not really zombies,” Norris whispered behind us, trying not to move his lips so that the overhead cameras wouldn’t pick up what he was saying, “Look, their just bad actors in cheap theatrical make-up.”

  We watched as the zombies shuffled around moaning, bumping into each other and lurching toward the screaming tourists with their cameras courtesy of Tua Kee Media, capturing footage and now huddled together, terrorized, in the corner. They were screaming and scraping at the walls with their nails, the cameras now discarded as they tried to scale the ruins to get away. Evidently, Sheldon hadn’t let them in on the zombie surprise.

  “Look at Derrik and Lydia. Can’t you see they’re just overacting and badly at that?” He nodded towards Lydia, who had her arm over her forehead yelling, “Save me, save me, Derrik!”

  “If I were you, I’d get in there, act scared, get your photo and get the hell out of here. You can bet this will be a big scene in the show. Quaid will realize his mistake and be back any minute with our camera. Don’t let us get the best of you.” He winked, gave us a flash of a smile, then put a panicked look on his face and started pointing at the ‘zombies’, his hand shaking with simulated foreboding.

  “Zu-Zu-Zu-Zombies!” Norris cried in sarcastic dread. His acting was about as good as the zombie actors who were taking their performance to a corny degree.

  We ran through the gauntlet of phony undead, trying to make sense of the Dutch passages on the stones. The zombies kept grabbing at our clothes and trying to corner us. I assumed if that happened we’d probably be taken off the show and declared ‘Eaten’.

  One of the lurching actors wouldn’t leave us alone as we hunted for Maarten’s location along the walls. Sick of him following us, Jamie jumped up and kicked him in the face with a loud, “High yah!” A Canadian tourist was close by filming her attack with his handheld. The zombie actor fell to the ground, blood gushing from his crushed nose. I’m sure he was angry and wanted to retaliate, but was sensible enough to stay in character and just crawled around on the floor spreading his blood in disgusting smeared crimson Rorschach handprints. There would have to be some clever special effects editing here if they were to be put this part in the show, because zombie blood is viral green not healthy red.

  There were a couple of camera flashes around the corner of a low-lying wall just beyond the bloodied actor on the south side of the cathedra
l ruins. Meng, Esther, Ahmed and Ted where surrounding a tombstone taking photos of the Dutch writing. Jamie and I rushed towards them, intending to get our photo and sprint by them and back down the hill to Cindy for our next clue. Jamie snapped the photo and glanced at the screen to make sure the name ‘Maarten Janson’ could clearly be seen.

  Esther and Meng were already leading Ahmed and Ted towards the gaping hole that was the front entrance to St. Paul’s ruins. Meng barreled his way through the bogus ‘zombie horde’, creating a path through which Esther, Ahmed and Ted followed. The zombie actors closed in behind them, doing everything they could to slow the teams down, creating maximum drama and therefore maximum camera time for themselves.

  “They’re never going to let us through,” I said, watching as they turned, formed a zombie wall and began advancing towards us.

  “Here, look at this,” Jamie pointed to a smaller tombstone next to the larger one of Maarten Janson. She climbed on top of it, then up on top of old Maarten’s and then she was on the low-lying interior wall which, coincidentally, intersected with a hole where a large circular stained-glass window used to be on the rear wall of the cathedral. I climbed up behind her and she helped me steady myself on the wall. Not wanting to lose the camera, I stuffed in into my sports bra, which was quite uncomfortable but safer than in the loose pockets of my short shorts.

  Foot over foot we did our balancing act along the top of the brick reached the window opening. It was about navel height and we looked over the ledge to see if we could shimmy out and slip down to the ground. There was about a four meter drop to the flower bed below. We’d certainly get injured if we tried to drop down, I thought.

  “What do we do now?” I asked, looking back across the cathedral, seeing Ted appear at the front entrance and the remaining two teams snapping photos of Maarten’s tombstone, the moaning crowd of zombie actors being held off by Quaid who was swinging a janitor’s broom in wide arcs.