The Infected Read Online Free PDF Page A

police car speeding past outside, one of only a handful of cars that I have heard in the last few days, but by the time I got to the kitchen window to have a look out over Erasmus Road it had gone past and I didn’t want to open the window and lean out in case I drew attention myself.
     
    I have managed to speak to a few people on their cell phones – most though were off or went to voicemail… Accounts similar to mine are the norm, some having fled their homes for places that they deem safer – two friends, Owen and Johan, are with, they reckon, about a three hundred others at Eastgate shopping centre, although they aren’t sure if they were simply there when this all went down, or whether they headed there on purpose. Either way, they are barricaded in there and, luckily, have the services of a good fifteen or twenty armed security guards at their disposal. We have organised to call each other every morning to check in and see what news there is. Melanie, a good friend from school is with her boyfriend and brother on their way to Durban – they reckon it will be safer than Jo’burg. She says the roads have been quiet and not too many signs of disturbances. We have also agreed to keep in touch on a daily basis.
     
    So I then turned to the web, and reassuringly or disconcertingly, it depends on which way you look at it, we are not alone with this problem in South Africa. Although most of the major news agencies and web sites have not updated their sites in a couple of days, CNN does report “a strange outbreak of attacks on civilians, by civilians,” but they were “still investigating”. Over in the UK it’s a bit more bleak, but then isn’t it always? The Sky News website has features on a link to swine flu – who knows, it could be a more malicious strain – as well as reports on “eruptions of violence” on the tube, planes coming to and from Heathrow, and in the main tourist spots – along the Thames, at (and in, apparently) the London Eye, and at the Man United vs. Schalke Champions League semi-final on Wednesday. Imagine that? Sixty-odd thousand people in a confined space. If it’s contagious, which I am assuming it is, then that’s seriously scary. (I did some further research and it seems the game was called off before it kicked off due to safety concerns. I hope that’s not the end of professional sport).
     
    Not too surprisingly, most of my ‘intel’ has come from other sources – blogs mainly, and Facebook before the site went haywire. My last Facebook status? “Sam Ward is… going to save the world!” Early reports from people across the world say that hospitals are being overwhelmed with people that were sick – I guess that if whatever this thing is is contagious, then it would have rapidly spread in a hospital environment, hence the telephones which are just ringing. Apparently, and don’t take my word for it, a guy in Mexico says that these people can be “immobilised” by chopping their heads off. Sounds like it is straight from a movie though, and I don’t know how willing you would be to do some head chopping? I’ll pass thanks.
     
    I have seen a few people wandering up and down the street from my kitchen window, usually in groups of three or four, but sometimes alone. I have been avoiding this – naming them – because then it’s sort of like coming to a consensus that they exist, isn’t it? But I suppose it’s gotta be done. Are they zombies? I don’t know, they haven’t seemed to have died, I don’t think. So that also rules out the dead or the undead. So that basically leaves me with the sick or the infected . I think I’m going to go for the infected – the sick sort of implies that they are going to get better, and although I would hope for nothing more, from what I have seen, I doubt it. So ‘the infected’ it is.
     
    Take care
    Sam W
     
    3:44pm, May 7
    Thank God – I eventually spoke to my Dad – they are okay. But I still don’t know about