We stood up and took our places in line at the food stalls. It was telling how we drifted to towards the stalls with our ethnic foods. Jamie and I went for the Malay stall, choosing the simple, yet filling ayam goreng kunyit. Derrik and Lydia, as Singaporean as could be, ordered fish ball noodles. Norris and Quaid came up with an English breakfast complete with fried tomato and baked beans in the company of halal-style turkey sausage and turkey ham. It was as if we were eating our last meal and drifted towards the comfort foods of our childhood.
We sat down and Norris was nice enough to pick up cans of sugar cane and water chestnut juice for us all. Our escorts stayed a few tables distant, conferring with each other over maps of Kuala Lumpur, trying to keep an impersonal aloofness as they considered our presence and purpose in Malaysian as improper and inconsiderate to the dead and dying and just plain crazy.
“So, what do you plan to spend the prize money on if you win, Derrik?” Quaid asked while mopping up the runny yolk of his eggs with a triangle of toast.
Derrik cleared his throat. He hadn’t expected any conversation with the other teams considering they’d been all but ignoring each other as the competition became more and more intense.
But before he could speak, Lydia said, “We’re going in as business partners and we’re going to open a bar in Boat Quay, for locals only,” implying that nosy Ang Mohs who ask questions that were none of their business wouldn’t be welcome.
Trying to be friendly, Jamie leaned over to Norris and said, “If we win, Abigail and I are going to use some of the money as a down payment for a condo in Holland Village and then use the rest to supplement our incomes until it runs out. Hopefully, it will last until we can start to draw from our CPF accounts when we hit retirement age. How about you, boys? Are you planning to take the money and run back to your home countries without giving back to Singapore?” She asked coyly, knowing this would rile up Lydia and Derrik who dogmatically believed all foreigners were pillagers out to drain Singapore dry and take, take, take. Hearing Jamie talk about our plans filled my heart with warmth and I felt joy and a renewed sense of purpose.
Quaid proved them right, “Of course, I’ll be going back to London as soon as I get the cash. The missus and I are planning on having another child and we want to do it back home. We’re going to give up our Permanent Residency status, withdraw our money from our CPF accounts and be done with this stifling hot region. Besides, I have a flat back in London with a mortgage that I could pay off and live happily ever after playing football with my mates while my wife chases after her banking career.”
“Sweet,” Norris said and gave him a fist bump across the table, “My plans are about the same. Do you think I’ll ever work again if I have half a million in the bank? That’s over seven hundred thousand dollars in greenbacks! No way would I stay in Singapore, where I can’t even get a moment of peace from people staring at me and bumping into me without so much as an ‘excuse me’. An early retirement in a nice villa on a secluded beach in Costa Rica is where you’ll find me when, not if, Quaid and I take first prize.”
We quieted down after that, the four of us Singaporeans unwilling to joust with him over who will win.
So we all had big dreams. No one mentioned the hundred thousand guaranteed prize if we made it to the signal beacon on time. I guess the consolidation prize wasn’t so consoling. In fact, it barely motivated Jamie and me, who each made less than twenty thousand in income the last two years.
There was no more talk among the team members and we finished our meals.
Our escorts got up from their table and took each team to separate corners of the eatery for privacy. Apparently, they decided against having us choose our maps in a game of chance. Our particular escort sat down opposite Jamie and me and unfolded two maps in front of us, one of the Greater Klang Valley and the other a map of the Malaysian Peninsula with, what I assumed, was a route drawn with purple marker that we were supposed to take to our final destination. Have you seen a varicose vein? How it presses up against the flesh, all squiggly like, with seemingly no rhyme or reason to is path? My grandmother had some real big ones on the sides of her calves and behind her knees from years of heavy physical labor back when Singapore was developing and the cement buildings were rising from the ground. One particular vein grew out of the back of her left thigh and snaked down her leg, sometimes rising up a few inches, turning one way then the other, then continuing on its journey down to meet the cluster of veins above her ankle. That’s what the route looked like on the map, my grandmother’s varicose vein.
“You seriously don’t expect us to make it clear down there,” Jamie pointed to the end of the line, a city called Kota Tinggi north east of Johor Bahru, “in the time we have left. That’s like a five hour journey on the E2 and in normal, less zombie-like conditions. You really expect us, the two of us to navigate down those back roads alone with nothing but this map? That’s a ten hour drive at least! You have to be friggin kidding me!”
Our escort was neither sympathetic nor verbose in his response, “You are to call me, Bob. It’s not my real name, but the one assigned to me. These are the route planned by your producer, Sheldon. I take you to here,” he pointed to the start of the purple line, “you can quit, run and hide for all I care after that. My responsibility lies with getting you out of the city. Period. If you ask me, you two have the easy route. You should see the other team’s maps. They’ll have a razor thin margin of error before their time runs out.”
Across the room, Lydia swept their map onto the floor and started pushing her escort. Two gentlemen quietly munching kaya toast and slurping half-boiled eggs had to interrupt their breakfast and restrain her while Derrik gathered up their maps, apologizing again and again to their escort. I looked across the room to see if I could read Quaid and Norris’s mood at the news of their journey through the back country across the eastern part of the peninsula. They still had their heads down, studying their map and making notes, apparently not too concerned about length or difficulty of the journey ahead.
Jamie looked to me, exasperated and defeated all at once. I wasn’t sure if she was worried about her driving skill across the winding backcountry roads or my ability to navigate and keep us on track.
“It’s ten o’clock. We have fifteen hours to get to the signal beacon,” I tried to get her to think ahead, “we just have to make it there and we’re a hundred thousand dollars richer. If Sheldon is being truthful, we should be back in Singapore soon afterwards and maybe we can sleep in our own beds tonight! Think of it, just one more drive, no racing against the others. We have plenty of time. Slow and steady wins the race.”
“Don’t forget to watch your fuel. You should have more than enough to make it to the beacon. But should you get below a quarter tank, get to a petrol station and fuel up. The last thing you want to do is get stranded in the middle of Berjalan penyakit country. Okay, I’m going to hit the head one last time. I’ll meet you at the SUV in ten.”
Chapter 10
WE stood outside of our vehicle and watched as Quaid tried to start his SUV. It would turn and turn over but wouldn’t fire up. Andy, their escort, popped the hood and proceeded to knock around inside the engine compartment with a wrench and hammer borrowed from the ever-efficient and helpful soldiers standing nearby. Eager to get started and gain a lead over the other two teams, Lydia and Derrik pulled away with Carl sitting atop their SUV, banging signals into the roof; left one bang, right two, stop pound and kick. We watched as they drove through the front gates of the park and out of sight.
“Do you think we’ll ever see them again?” I asked Jamie who answered by putting an arm around my shoulders and giving me an encouraging squeeze.
It had been twenty minutes since Bob left for the toilet and he still hadn’t returned to the SUV. Norris was goofing around with his camera, filming himself and doing a little semi-factual documentary on the safe-zone surrounding the Petronas Towers. Quaid revved their engine again when Andy signaled and i
t roared into life. Andy shut their hood, climbed atop the roof and secured himself with a rope he’d tied through the luggage rack and recently hacked out escape hatch. He banged on the roof, raised his rifle above his head and shouted a goodbye to us in Malay as they drove away, “Selamat jalan!”
And still we waited for Bob.
After another five minutes he came strolling down the path and said, “Apologies about the tardiness. I wanted the other teams out of here before we left. Change of plans. You two are going to sit in the passenger seat, I’m driving. Look, I’m only doing this for monies promised to me. I’m not about to unnecessarily risk my life for your stupid TV show. I’m not getting paid enough to sit on your roof and expose myself to some little girl’s negligent driving and the off chance of getting eaten by those Berjalan penyakit. I’ll take you to the outskirts of the city as required, then you can take it from there and I’ll get back to the compound. I have two children and a wife safely tucked away in our twenty-second floor apartment. They are relying on me to bring back food and water tonight. Keep your camera turned off and with a little luck we should reach my drop-off point in less than a half hour.”
There really was no reason to object to this new arrangement. Our agreement with Sheldon was only to get footage of the teams at Petronas Towers and to get to the checkpoint in one piece. Everything else was superfluous.
So we climbed in to the passenger’s seat. Bob secured his rifle behind the driver’s seat next to our weapon’s bag that still contained our stun grenades, shotgun, ammo, cattle-prod and the flimsy facial masks we’d discarded on the drive to the towers earlier that morning.
I looked at my watch.
We had a little more than fourteen hours.
Bob started our SUV with a roar and we left the safe-zone, the soldiers at the gate saluting our bravery as we pulled away.
Bob was in a hurry to get this ‘adventure’ over with. He floored the SUV and the engine screamed, pushing out an astounding forty-three kilometers an hour. The streets within the first few kilometers surrounding the Towers were empty of people, Berjalan penyakit and, conveniently, abandoned cars that would have otherwise blocked our path thanks to the diligent efforts of those soldiers we just left in our rearview. Bob made a few right turns and then a left. He leaned over the steering wheel squinting ahead, not worried so much about finding his way to the drop off point but more concerned about streets that could still be clogged with abandoned cars, wandering infected and dead bodies. He silently calculated a few alternate routes in the event the shortest journey became impassible.
There was a cute little bubble compass built on top of the dash board of the vehicle that now pointed west. I knew from studying the map earlier that our solo journey started at a suburb of Klang Valley called, ‘Hulu Hengat’ on Jalan Hulu Lengat.
Sure enough, not more than three kilometers into our journey, a massive Malaysian Scania Fire Brigade Truck lay overturned as if it took a corner too fast and fell on its side and was blocking the roadway in front of us. Bob had to reverse and turn the SUV into an alley, backtracking to find a clear path. The windows of the SUV were sealed up tight and we had the air conditioning on recirculation, but the smell of the dead lying bloated and rotting in the morning sun still drifted into the compartment. Jamie leaned back and fished out our masks and we put them on but they did little to keep out the smell. As we got further from the city center into the suburbs, we began to see more and more Berjalan penyakit wandering around aimlessly. When the infected heard our vehicle approach, they would turn towards us and stand there in silent witness to our pilgrimage.
We passed the charred remains of a shopping center that had to have been quite an inferno when it was ablaze. Bob explained that the army had been setting fire to these building at dusk to attract the Berjalan penyakit away from the city center and pull the remaining wandering infected towards the outskirts of the city. It was an effort to keep all the people still hiding in the high rises safe from infection.
“Why go through all the trouble? Why not just kill them?” Jamie asked.
“These infected are our family, friends, neighbors and colleagues,” Bob replied with a look of sorrow, “The army is doing all they can to respect the living, even those who are infected. By drawing Berjalan penyakit away from the healthy into pockets of suburbs where they can live out their final days without spreading the contagion, we are saving them and their potential exterminators from a negligent form of murder. Negligent in that it’s truly a mistaken belief that you have to get blood on your hands during these harsh times. And for those who are entertained and get some sort of pleasure out of killing them ... well, they’re all going to burn in hell for treating this disease as sport. And then there are people like you.” He spit on the floor of the SUV and shifted into second gear, “You exploit and disrespect the dead and dying with your ‘reality show’.” He shook his head in disgust at the thought of sitting here in the vehicle beside us, “No, in ten minutes we’ll be at the drop-off point and you’re on your own. I’ll take my blood money and wipe my hands of the whole business.”
I wondered if he didn’t understand that was just as culpable as the rest of us by guiding us through the city and taking a pay-off. He’d also have to answer for his sins.
“But didn’t your colleague snipe an infected back there who was nowhere near posing a danger to us on the way to the towers? How do you justify that?” Jamie asked, a bit miffed at being accused of exploitation when she felt that, after the squirrel feed and now being thrown into the center of the quarantine zone, that we were the ones who were being exploited.
“I don’t answer for others. I never said there haven’t been great atrocities to both healthy and infected since the fever invaded our land these last few days. It’s all quiet at present in the city. You missed the initial looting, murders, robberies of the first two days when the electrical grid went down and anarchy ruled the streets. Many of the infected still roaming about are those fools and criminals who tempted fate and ran around amid the infected as if they were immune to the disease. But most of those criminals got what was coming to them. Those idiots tried to take advantage of a tragedy and strode boldly among the infected and dying, not realizing that when you crush a man’s skull or run him over with your car, there is back splatter that gets into the nooks and crannies, door handles and in your fingernails. Rub your tired eyes, touch your face, eat with your hands even after a day of robbing gold watches and pearl necklaces off the dead and you’ve bought your ticket on the slow train to hell. You’ll see. Do you really think the six of you will make it out of here without coming down with the infection? Your fancy bio-suits won’t save you after you’ve slipped and fallen into a pool of goo left by an infected leaking from its splitting skin, and then decide to, say, take a sip from one of those drinking tubes on your suits.”
Jamie put up a hand in front of his face and said, “Alright, alright, gloom and doom. Just s.t.f.u. and get us where we need to go.”
Bob turned onto a one-way street that looked clear for some distance. We were getting further away from the tall buildings of the city and into the sprawl of suburbia, Malay-style, full of crumbling two-story shop houses and neglected government flats. More and more Berjalan penyakit began to appear as well as the number of bodies lying in the streets and on the sidewalks. Bob had to slow down and zigzag around the corpses, trying his best to respect the dead by not treading over them with our oversized truck tires.
The infected came from all walks of life, but for me, seeing the children and teenagers of those suburbs in that condition, meandering along with the rest of the condemned still haunts me to this day. My heart reached out to the little girl staring blankly at our grotesque SUV as we skirted two fallen Berjalan penyakit lying on the ground and flailing their arms and legs as though they were treading water instead of air, unable to find the strength to stand up and continue their quest to satisfy their primordial hunger. The girl was wearing a silk dress that wa
s the color of twilight. It looked as if she had been dressed for her death bed by her loved ones, expecting the coma brought on by the fever to be the end.
A few minutes later and the buildings and shop houses were thinning the nearer we got to the outskirts as were the amount of wandering infected. I was imagining what that girl’s life was like before the virus took over when Bob stopped the vehicle at a road leading into the rainforest ahead.
Bob leaned over the wheel and gave us one last hard look. He sighed and said, “Hey, a word of advice. Don’t trust those WHO paratroopers or any international authorities you may encounter. They’re here for their own reasons and it’s not to help us.” He reached back, took his gun from behind the driver’s seat and got out, slamming the door behind him. We felt the SUV shake as he pulled the scrambler from the rack attached to the rear bumper. There was the high pitch whine of the two stroke engine as he revved the motorbike. I looked back through the side rearview mirror and saw him weaving back the way we came then vanishing around a corner back into the infected city.
Jamie put her hand in mine and stared into my eyes, trying to read if we were on the same page.
“Alright, then. I guess we’re on our own. You have the map and camera ready? We have a performance ahead of us and there’s a hefty sum of cabbage on the table that could lead to a comfortable future.” She slid over into the driver’s seat and put on her seatbelt, “Let’s get to that signal beacon and our ride back to Singapore.” Her beauty was a sharp contrast to the crumbling neighborhood and dead bodies strewn every which way outside our SUV. I picked up the camera, turned it on and pointed at her as she started the engine. What a little trooper. She let out a battle cry, raised her fist into the air and yelled, “Let’s hear it for Gurl Power and Cera Motors!”
Zombie Fever: Outbreak Page 19
