Zombie Fever: Origins Read online

  When the true danger of the virus became clear, it was decided that rounding up zombies and subsequent disposal of the infected required an international effort. So after much debate, voting and re-voting the United Nations conferred responsibility onto the shoulders of the World Health Organization.

  With full international authorization and a healthy budget, the WHO created a paramilitary branch of their organization whose main objectives were to contain and eradicate any zombie outbreak in any part of the world. And it only took about a year when, after their fourth deployment and victory against the zombie menace, the WHO’s elite IHS field team members were branded modern day heroes. These days they have their own action figures, a cartoon TV series, a blockbuster movie, arguably the most popular interactive website and a highly lucrative 3D MMORPG aptly called ‘Zombie Hunters’ with over sixteen million paying subscribers.

  So if anything, the pandemic helped to bolster the entertainment industry, creating new jobs for media professionals who took advantage of the zombie trend.

  At the end of the day, the problem with dealing with the so-called ‘living zombies’ is one of simple mathematics. Like an exponential formula, when a zombie makes a public appearance, it’s likely they’ve unwittingly infected several people during the fever stage. Some of them will have already gone out to dinner and shared a dessert with their partner or picked their nose prior to touching a doorknob or sneezed without covering their mouths onto fellow passengers on a commuter train. Then those people go home and hug their family members or shake hands with colleagues at a business meeting. In other words, once a zombie has been reported, more and more infected are already crackling away with the fever or beginning to drag themselves out of the dark spaces with the sole intent to infect others with their gross blackened mouths.

  Whoops.

  Sorry.

  Was that too much info? Jamie often tells me I’m an unwelcome fount of TMI (too much info). I may have got a bit sidetracked with some irrelevant details. Just let me give you just a few more tidbits and then I’ll begin my story.

  Officially, the Malaysian outbreak began three months ago with an isolated case in Perak which spread to eight victims, then eighty-eight in the region. Soon after the infected appeared in their community, the Malays began calling them by a new name, the ‘Berjalan penyakit’, which loosely translated into English means the ‘walking infection’. Hushed rumors from my relatives living in Ipoh were that no one really knew the size and scope of the Malaysian outbreak and there was a common belief that Malaysian authorities were engaged in a campaign to cover up the true numbers.

  This belief was compounded by the Malaysian government’s refusal to sanction WHO’s presence in their country, claiming the international organization was attempting to control the world and would assault the country’s sovereignty. And now they’ve quarantined the states in the northern part of the peninsula and have been trying to enforce a complete media blackout. But rumor has it that containment has been ineffective and, this time, the contagion may be getting out of hand.

  Whew, that’s the gist of what you needed to know before I began my tale.

  But who am I, you may be asking?

  My name is Abigail Tan. I’m twenty years old and a proud Singaporean. My parents are Chinese but many of my ancestors are of Indonesian heritage. So I’m what you’d call ‘mixed race’ living a comfortable balance between two cultures rich in tradition and history. I have lived a quiet life with my parents in a five-room flat in Bishan near the Astrana Junction shopping center. And these days, I’m world famous. No matter where you live or which country you hail from you‘d probably recognize me if you saw me in person, thanks to the infamy brought about by Cera’s Amazing Rally Showdown, CARS for short, and the subsequent brouhaha over the vaccine running through my veins.

  Besides, how could you forget such a pretty face?

  Now sit back and let me tell you about that week of reality television show filming and the horrific events during and afterwards that still wake me up in the dead of night screaming, shivering, drenched in terror.

  *****

  To continue with Abigail’s perilous adventure into the zombie quarantine zone, please purchase the ebook at:

  Zombie Fever 2: Outbreak

  Table of Contents

  Copyright

  Chapter 1: And it begins…

  Chapter 2: Disappear

  Chapter 3: Filial Bu

  Chapter 4: Groundwor

  Chapter 5: Contraven

  About the Author

  Excerpt from Zombie Fever 2

  Table of Contents

  Copyright

  Chapter 1: And it begins…

  Chapter 2: Disappear

  Chapter 3: Filial Bu

  Chapter 4: Groundwor

  Chapter 5: Contraven

  About the Author

  Excerpt from Zombie Fever 2