Work in progress

The following is part of a novel I am in the process of writing. It is the beginning of a story called Gift Wrap. Please keep in mind that its work in progress, and I really hope you like it. The whole book will be interview style short stories with a larger story arc to be found within them.

I am speaking to Dr Jhonas Bluth, acting head of what was the CDC but is now a loose collection of scientists and science teachers, trying to push forward in the reserch of what is still not understood whist teaching the new genreation to continue their ongoing study of what happened and finally answer the only questions worth answering right now, “will it return”. He was working with Dr George Grason when he became the first American casualty of the XXXXXX. I ask him to explain the events that lead to this:

Well....the whole horrible business began in Seol. We were flown in by the UN as part of the research team that was supposed to help prevent, cure.... God I dont know, whatever we could do to try and stop or at least understand what, at the time was being referred to as a virus. The plane ride over had been horrendus to say the least, we were given potos, video and research notes about the situation. Gastly images of death, decay and a level of violence and inhumanity the like of which I pray to never see again. Then.....then we were expected to sleep, all the time knowing we were to step into the ninth circle of hell when the plane landed and sort the whole mess out. You think that leaves you with a mind that is willing to allow itself to rest?

I shake my head trying not to break his train of thought.

Exactly. Every one of us on that plane got off looking more like the dead thatn the dam “infected” did, infected was what we were still calling them at the time. We immediately set to work. We were driven straight from the plane to the reserch lab located a safe distance from the last know area of infection. As we neared the facility we were all issued masks. Several of the doctors began to panic. They kept asking if this unknown had become air borne, the fear in the eys of the others belied their stoney silenced exteriors. We were proptly told that this was not a safety measure, it was only to try and reduce the smell that we were headed towards. The problem with a country that is slowly becoming covereed in decaying corpses is that the smell overpowers everything. Imagine when you have had meat go off in the fridge, the feeling of nevery getting out of your nose, that would most likey only have been a kilo at most. Now imagine that times a thousand. Hundreds of corpses slowly decaying en-mass in the hot humid landscape of Asia. The combined weight of several thousand rotting bodies. That is a smell we all know now and something I fear will never be forgotten by anyone. I will most certainly never forget it. The masks did however also allow for some protection against the other diseases that undoubtably were arround at the time, the most worrying of which was collera. We cremate or bury bodies for a reason, and that reason is disease. A mass of corpses will harbour bacteria and disease better than any viral research facility. A corpse is the perfeect host for all manner of hideus illnesses and we now had hundreds of these walking viral studdies all collected in a fairly small area. Spread out just enough to cause many areas uninabitable without the use of a hazmat or biological containment suit. But I digress.

He fidgits slightly and restarts his explanation:

Our base of operations remanis a souce of puzzlement and unanswered questions to me still.

Because of what happened there, I ask instictively foregetting momenteraly about the tape recorder.

….Oh no no no, you have misunderstood me. It remains a facination to me as we had entered through hermetically sealed doors. This was the first of many surprises. The whole bulding had been custom designed for situations such as this. When this building was created it included features that were custom designed to either stop a virus or bacteria entering or more likely to prevent it leaving. You must remember that this was a pharmasutical research lab, where they designed consumer medicines, variations on asperin and spot creams. Simple things that were sold over the counter, they had no need for all these safety measures unless something a little more secretive was being researched.

Once inside the first of the hermetically sealed doors we found ourselves stood in front of another identical set of doors. The gap between them housed two old wooden benches, one to either side of us and hazmat suits with gas masks hanging on pegs above each bench, roughly four on each side. We were instructed to put the masks on whilst we were decontaminated. A common procedure for this sort of situation. We stripped down to our underwear and once we all had our masks on a gas was pumped into the room to remove any unwanted bacteria and the like, that we may have picked up outside. The gas was then vacuumed back out of the room and we were told to wait for blood samples to be taken. Whilst we were waiting I realized that we could not see anything from this vantage point. No reception, no sign of life at all, just bare walls an security cameras. These little mechanical watchmen were everywhere.

A few hours later we were given the all clear and handed scrubs and coats by one of the researchers already at the facility and taken through the bare room past the entrance and down a rather long set of stairs to the labs.

to be cont.......

If you liked it, hated it, have some constructive comments let me know by sounding off below. 

Warm Bodies - Book Review

Warm bodies is set long after the initial infection began, the dead have risen and overrun the civilized world. The remaining shreds of humanity huddle in stadium fortresses trying to regain their world block by block. We are introduced to R, the main protagonist of the book. R does not know how long he has been dead or why he is still able to function, all be it in a reduced capacity, and it is this premise that leads the book throughout. Rather then focus on the desperate survival of the last of the living Isaac Marion lets us inside the world of the zombies. The narative is mostly presented to us through the inner monologue of R. We hear of how the zombies function as a society, what they do between feeding on humans and even how they create families and school the younger zombies in hunting. The younger zombies (younger in age when turned in to the undead) are shown a captured human and taught how to attack them, where the most vulnerable areas of flesh are, this scene is then seen later as the survivors bring out a captured zombie and attempt to teach the same to their children. Bing as they were once us the parallel lives being lived on either side of the conflict caused me to reconsider how I view the undead and made me look back at other zombie novels and movies and imagine the same happening off screen during those. R himself is doomed to frustration, he has a rich and insightful inner monologue that is almost impossible for him to articulate verbally, as at the start of the book his consecutive spoken syllable record is three however all this is about to change. During a trip to the city to feed, R and his companion M stumble across Juile. R unfortunately has just devoured Julies boyfriend but in eating his brains R has lived this life and knows Juile just as he did. This is where I need to stop the review as to divulge more that this would be unfair, as I think this is something you need to discover for yourself. I found this to be one of the most compelling and enjoyable books I have read in this genre for quite some time and that enjoyment could be found by fans of the Zombie genre and those for whom this is not their usual source of entertainment. I cannot recommend this book highly enough. And urge to read it as son as possible.

You can purchase the book right now here

Coming soon in Book reviews - Feed, The zombie Autopsies and Zombies a record of the year of infection.