Patient Zero

If we head back to December last year I was in Wuhan for secret reasons of my own when I had a chance to meet a gentleman we shall simply call ‘Simon’. Simon was a-coughing and a-spluttering and had a bit of a temperature and he put it down to the blood orange he’d had that morning. Thinking back now I’m pretty sure he was lying to me and was, in fact, patient zero and patently hadn’t just been eating oranges. He said he was just looking after the injured bat in his left hand…

Anyway, since I’ve had a few hours at home on my own I thought I’d put together this photofit. Over to you internet. You’ll have him worked out in no time…   

Cheers

id-iom

Advertisement

Skin and Bones

Sooooo, I’ve written a zombie book called Skin & Bones. I’ve yet to do anything with it other than give it to a few friends to read so thought I’d remedy that by attempting some feeble marketing for it and giving it a shameless plug here. This text would ideally be the back of the book blurb. If you’re at all interested then drop me a line. Here’s what the text says:

This morning you woke up feeling a little unwell. You have no appetite, your head is aching, your throat is sore and you think you might have a slight fever. You don’t know it yet, but the zombie virus has already been working away inside you for a week or so and has been busy attacking your immune system. It’s reached the stage where it’s really about make it’s presence known.

Exactly when and where you were infected is unclear as it can take anything between 21 and 30 days from initial infection to the first proper symptoms. What is more certain is that you are now infectious yourself and have been for a while. Your family, friends and anyone else in close contact with you are all in mortal danger.

The next couple of days will determine if you are one of the lucky few who has some natural resistance and will, at least, survive the infection stage or not. In the highly probable event that you have no resistance then, at some time between 3 and 4 weeks after infection, you can expect the whites of your eyes to turn red, your vomit and diarrhoea will now be charged with infected blood and large blood blisters develop under your skin. You are now at the peak of infectiousness as the virus particles, eager to find their next victim, replicate swiftly inside your body.

What comes next is straight out of a movie. Your brain heats up and you become more aggressive as your mental faculties begin to deteriorate. At some point you’ll become unconscious and then the next time you open your eyes you will no longer be in control of yourself. You are now constantly hungry for human flesh and have the overriding urge to bite someone. Satisfying your cravings is now all your limited intellect can cope with. Congratulations, you are now a zombie.

Calling you a zombie would probably suffice in a pinch but isn’t quite correct however and the term ‘living dead’ would probably seem a better fit. But you won’t care. The virus has made permanent changes. From the second you were infected the grave is your only and eventual way out. At least by that point you’ll have no knowledge of what you’re doing. Just following some of the baser human instincts that have been modified and enhanced. Your end is nigh. Along with just about everybody else’s…

Cheers

id-iom