After about ten minutes, she began to stir.
I gently nudged her awake.
She turned and smiled.
“I was having some terrible dreams last night and needed a warm body to calm them,” She said in an adorable husky morning voice.
We got out of bed and I turned on the TV while Jamie went into the bathroom to get ready for the day. I flipped through Malay serial dramas and cartoons dubbed in Bahasa. Near the top of the dial I found a news channel and, of course, they were talking about IHS.
“Berjalan penyakit Berjalan penyakit Berjalan penyakit,” Blabber, blabber, blabber. It was enough to make my ears ache. From what I could gather from the video and the bits of Malay I did understand, they were saying that the contagion had now claimed at least forty thousand victims in the northern peninsula and individual cases of infection were now being reported along the east coast as far south as Desaru. Since yesterday, when it was announced that WHO paratroopers would be deployed in the country, a mass exodus of Malaysians had begun heading south towards Singapore and Indonesia. There were photos of corpses of infected who’d succumbed to exposure littering the streets of the cities and north of Kuala Lumpur. Occasionally, a camera would cut to an infected wandering aimlessly among the dead, but from what I could see, the ones that were still alive and posed any danger to the healthy were few and far between. I think the tropical weather had something to do with the quickly dwindling numbers, limiting their life span to a few short days as heat stroke or dehydration did them in. Yes, now that one there was clearly sunburned. The camera zoomed in on his face, which was bright red with blisters covering his cheeks, nose and forehead. His lips were cracked from lack of water. The cameraman panned back to get the reporter in the shot who took as step back and tumbled over a corpse in the road and began to crawl along the ground, the camera’s view shifting up into the sky then settling back on the ground towards the sunburned zombie. The noise of the reporter falling must have caught the zombie’s attention because he started lumbering towards the camera and the video was abruptly cut off.
Jamie came out of the bathroom all dolled up and refreshed for the day ahead. She was wearing her tennis outfit that we’d bought together. The outfit consisted of a white polo shirt, a white visor and wrist bands, little earrings in the shape of tennis rackets and that cute little skirt that tennis players wear in a pretty purple shade. She winked at me and I smiled in return as I went in the bathroom and took a nice cool shower. When I came out of the bathroom in my matching tennis outfit, we again took pictures of each other with her handphone, then packed up and took the lift down to the lobby.
The rest of the teams were already downstairs sitting around the hotel’s three-star restaurant, waiting for the buffet breakfast to be set up. The food here looked a lot better than yesterday’s spread. There were local dishes as well as western favorites like croissants and an omelet station. Everyone was ravenous and we ate two or three plates each, stuffing ourselves until we couldn’t take another bite. That is except for Quaid, the health nut, who ate nothing but fruit and a boring bowl of bran cereal.
We sat at one of the tables with Esther and Meng. I’d been a bit standoffish with the two of them and felt bad that maybe they thought I was a snob. Really, I’m not. They were just a bit unapproachable with their bulging biceps and hard angular faces courtesy of too much testosterone. We got to talking and after a few minutes into the conversation I realized that, aside from her appearance, Esther was actually quite feminine. She complimented us on our tennis outfits, briefly discussed today’s fashion and then talked about how much she missed her four year old son and husband waiting back for her at home. “It really is heart wrenching not to be able to see or talk to them,” she said with a sigh. For a brief moment, I flirted with the idea of letting her use Jamie’s phone before we left Malacca, but I knew Jamie had already used up most of our luck with her antics. And if I told her about the forbidden device, we’d surely get caught.
Sheldon and Kip sauntered in as we were finishing the last of our coffee and tea.
Kip had his bags packed and looked quite irritated.
“Say goodbye to Kip everyone, he’s decided to leave the production,” Sheldon vindictively told us while Kip looked at him in disgust, “I guess you could say we’ve been having creative differences. He’ll be staying with the eliminated teams down south until we finish up.”
Kip stood there, as though he was about to say something, clearly disturbed, but then he turned and walked away.
After he’d exited the room, Sheldon clapped his hands together, “I have good news! There will be no racing to our next destination today. In fact, the Malacca police force has offered to give us an escort all the way up to Port Dickson, our next destination!” Sheldon was very excited about this bit of news, perhaps too excited.
Why did we need a police escort? Were we in some sort of danger?
“We’ll get some great footage and be able to clear the checkpoints without having to queue and wait for authorization. We have about an hour before departure. There’s no need to worry about clues and competition until we arrive. All you need to remember is to stay in formation in the caravan on the way there. Please be in the parking lot and ready to depart in thirty minutes, got it?”
We all nodded and when he left the room the speculation and rumor mill began to churn. I told everyone what I’d seen on the television about the most recent Berjalan penyakit news. Norris added that he’d heard the entire E2 expressway from Kuala Lumpur to Johor had been commandeered by WHO paratroopers who were planning to use it as the only artery north after they evacuated and sealed off the rest of the country north of Selangor. Derrik threw in that he’d heard that the virus had gone airborne, but everyone shrugged that one off as that had been the rumor since the first outbreak and he had nothing substantial to back it up.
We sat there for over an hour and when the police escort finally arrived the production got back into full gear. The police had brought out their best cars and motorcycles for the escort. The vehicles were clean and well maintained like their crisp uniforms. They even brought out an armored personnel carrier with six wheels and a small turret on top. We all thought it was really cool.
Outside, Sheldon and the police chief stood next to a whiteboard near the entrance of the parking lot reviewing the route with a blue marker. There was a diagram depicting the order of vehicles in the escort and how it would proceed. The caravan would start with two policemen on motorcycles followed by the armored personnel car and then two police sedans. The rally cars would then train behind in numerical order of remaining cars 3, 4, 5 and 6. After the rally cars there would be two more motorcycle police, then a gap and finally the rest of the production vehicles with two more police sedans protecting the rear.
The rest of the dozen or so police cars that were milling around would drive ahead of the escort gaining clearance from checkpoints and blocking any side streets so that the ride to Port Dickson would be swift and unhindered.
It took some time to get all the vehicles in the right order out on the road in front of the hotel but when we finally got going, as promised, the ride was swift. I’d say it was too swift in fact. The police escort drove at an exceedingly reckless pace through the outskirts of Malacca town towards the E2 and even more hastily and careless on the E2 towards the Malaysian state of Negeri Semilan where Port Dickson lies.
The television newscast I’d watched earlier was accurate about the mass exodus towards Johor. The expressway was packed with vehicles attempting to travel south, clogging both sides of the E2. I mean traffic was at a standstill, the road now one giant parking lot. Many of the refugees were camped out alongside their vehicles under make-shift tents made from tarps and nylon rope. There were others with actual camping tents and fires roasting otak-otak, fish paste wrapped in banana leaves, and selling it to the other stranded refugees at outrageous prices. Along the far left side of the roadway, the WHO had cordoned off one lane with barbed wired and our caravan zoomed along this emergency lane with police sirens blaring and blue and red lights flashing.
I watched out the window as we raced by the refugees and their cars, trucks and cycles. There were a few times when we passed news crews filming the evacuation. But they were usually sitting high atop their news vans, safely surrounded by their own hastily assembled barbed wire barriers and hired armed guards.
The police escort raced along, sometimes picking up speed to over one hundred and forty kilometers an hour, the cars separated by only about a meter between them. If there happened to be a vehicle moving along the emergency road in the opposite direction, the police motorcyclists were on the scene pulling them onto the narrow shoulder to let our group speed by. We slowed as we approached a check-point manned by Malaysian Health Ministry and a few WHO minders. The checkpoint was demarcated by a four meter high barbed wire electric fence surrounding fifty square meters of tents and temporary structures and then stretching out across an additional hundred meters on each side of the expressway to block anyone trying to go around. There were three inflatable bubble buildings and a large canopy where a couple dozen health care professionals in surgical scrubs and masks armed with point-and-click skin temperature sensors were tending to queues of people stretching back in lines further than I could see. Surrounding the medical staff were about two hundred army personnel in military grade respiratory masks and plastic suits armed to the teeth with machine guns, grenades, pistols, machetes and large wooden mallets made just for zombie head smashing nicknamed the ‘z-eliminator’ hanging from their utility belts.
I saw one of the medical personnel take the temperature of a young man with a scruffy beard then stand up in a panic and ring a bell. Ding, ding, ding. Ding, ding, ding. Four soldiers pounced on the man, dragging him to the larger of the three bubble buildings. They opened the door, pushed him inside as he protested and quickly shut the door, securing it by turning a large wheel-style locking mechanism.
“It doesn’t look like they’re taking any chances,” I mumbled.
“What? How much longer until we reach Port Dickson? I have to pee.” Jamie was watching the car in front of her as ordered, trying to avoid tailgating too close in case of a sudden stop or too far so the footage of the escort driving scene wouldn’t be ruined.
I checked the map, “It looks like we’re almost there. That was the checkpoint between the two states. The exit for Port Dickson is real close.” I had resigned myself to using a small tourist map that only showed the touristy hotspots and the main roads. The map was terribly out of proportion so it was hard to gauge how far we needed to actually travel, but I had the most difficult time reading a real road map.
I was correct. The caravan slowed and descended down the next off-ramp. At the bottom of the ramp there was a large parking lot. We pulled in so that the police escort could turn around and go back to Malacca state. Sheldon pulled up alongside the rally cars, waving for us to follow his mini-bus as he took the lead in the now, much less cool without the police escort. We followed along the winding road towards the coastal town of Port Dickson, oblivious to the fact that we were now unprotected and exposed in the last state buffering the remainder of the Malaysian Peninsula from full on IHS outbreak.
The going was slow and tedious, turn after turn through low-lying jungle forest with intermittent farms of rubber trees and durian plantations breaking through the undergrowth. Eventually, we turned onto a gravel road and crunched along another ten minutes before arriving at a fur farm and goat ranch in the middle of a manicured garden of planted palm trees and well-trimmed ferns. The ranch was rather large and used primarily for raising pygmy goats as its primary source of income. There was a two acre oblong field overflowing with those cud-chewing creatures and beside it, set back against the green jungle, was an ancient and weathered, very picturesque farm house with a banner that said, ‘Welcome Cera’s Amazing Rally Showdown Teams!’ strung over the large double doors. On the right side of the barn, the production crew was setting up what looked to be an outdoor cooking school in an open field surrounding by lush greenery. There were local cast members who’d been waiting for us to get there, milling around in chef hats and aprons. Others were unloading cooking gear and stocking four stainless steel tables with kitchen equipped like cutlery, a chopping block and shiny bowls. The tables were facing another larger table on a dais where most of the hubbub was occurring. There were techy types running around with wires and spanners completing installation of an 8’x24’ green screen positioned directly behind the larger table and dais stretching out on both sides, looking alien in the natural scenery of the open field.
We got out of our cars and assembled in a large huddle surrounding Sheldon for an update on what was expected of us.
It was hot as Hades, but the air was a bit drier than I was accustomed to. Luckily, I had a stick of lip balm I’d taken from the defective product box at the make-up store. I liberally applied it to my lips then gave to Jamie to do the same. Mmm, it was strawberry flavored.
Gemma peered out of the barn and gave Sheldon the okay sign and disappeared back inside.
“Alright kids, welcome to Farm Sheldon, lah. I was lucky enough to acquire this location during some fast and furious negotiations last night from local furriers in Malacca,” He proudly showed us a document, which, apparently, was the deed to the property. “We’ll be using squirrels housed in those two rows of cages you see off to the side of the barn in today’s events, he nodded towards the largely empty rows of cages down the length of the barn.
“As you are aware, the tropical ground squirrel has been implicated in the spread of IHS. Don’t worry, don’t worry, these are a different breed of squirrel from those notorious little buggers. And just to be sure, the squirrels we’ll be using today have recently been tested for IHS. I have the documentation here. So don’t fret about catching ‘zombieitis’ from today’s events. Those cages, incidentally, are where that heavy ammonia smell is coming from. It’s a little stinky, but not dangerous, it just burns the eyes and nose a little.” He waved his hand under his nose.