Zombiestan Read Free Page A

elected government has achieved. Our mission is on track and I am confident that the day is not far when peace returns to Afghanistan.'
     
    Mayukh's phone rang again. It was Shiv.
     
    'Dude, what do you want to play- Medal of Honor or Dead Rising?'
     
    Mayukh sniggered.
     
    'Come on, Shiv, don't try and change the game just because I keep wasting you on Medal of Honor.'
     
    There was a pause before Shiv responded.
     
    'But I want to kill some zombies. I was reading this amazing book in which zombies come to life. Wouldn't that be cool?'
     
    Mayukh took a deep breath. Shiv was cool, but sometimes he just took everything too literally.
     
    'Shiv, zombies exist only in frigging video games. Speaking of which, we are on for tomorrow and I am going to whip your ass.'
     
    ***
     
    Abu Jindal, who had once been known as Nadir Dedoune, felt like crap. His head hurt, he kept throwing up every hour or so, and his skin had taken on a strange yellow complexion. As he looked at his reflection in the window of a Duty Free shop at Karachi airport, he wondered what bug he had picked up. Perhaps this had all been a stupid idea after all. Growing up as an Algerian immigrant in a poor ghetto outside Paris, he had never known anything other than grinding poverty. There were no jobs, no opportunities, only the condescending and spiteful looks of the rich white French. That was till he met Mullah Amir, who preached to small groups of young men at the local mosque, and had opened Nadir's eyes to the atrocities being committed against Muslims around the world. He had found a new meaning and purpose to his life- to wage Jihad against these infidels. He had made the trip to Afghanistan to take part in some mission that he had supposedly been chosen for. The running around and firing of guns in a camp inside Pakistan had been fun enough, but then he had been totally terrified by what he had seen after the Predator strike that had killed Mullah Omar, Al-Zawahiri and the others. His mission on hold, he had been told to leave immediately.
     
    'Emirates Flight 605 to Paris via Dubai is now ready for boarding.'
     
    It was 5:30 in the morning, and Nadir bought a cup of coffee. No sooner had he taken a sip than he rushed to the bathroom, emptying the contents of his stomach into the sink. When he had retched himself dry, he washed his face, and then looked down to see clumps of hair in his hand. There were a couple of bald patches on his head where the hair seemed to have just come off.
     
    What was happening to him?
     
    All he wanted to do now was to somehow get home and see a doctor. He took out a cap and put it on to cover his hair. He tried sleeping through the flight, though he had to get up three times even before the flight reached Dubai to throw up. On the third occasion he saw blood in the sink. The flight was delayed in Dubai by several hours, which made his life even more miserable. A couple of hours after the flight had left Dubai, the woman sitting next to him, bored of watching the Sun gradually set over the horizon, turned to order a drink. She saw him start to shake, as if having a fit.
     
    'Sir, are you okay?'
     
    Nadir couldn't hear her. His eyes were glazed over and as he shook even more violently, his cap fell off. He was now nearly hairless, his hair lying in clumps all over his seat. As she watched in horror, boils seemed to break out all over his body, oozing pus and blood. He then retched all over the seat in front of him. Passengers screamed, and a Flight Attendant shouted out whether there was a doctor on board. By the time a doctor got to him, Nadir was lying lifeless, a ghastly apparition, covered in his own vomit, pus and blood, a deformed, hairless yellowed being where there had once been a handsome young man. The French doctor felt for his pulse and then shook his head sadly at the Flight Attendant.
     
    'Il est mort.'
     
    There were horrified gasps from several of the passengers who had gathered around to see