Virus
deur
Jaco Jacobs
Part 1: Pandemic
Chapter 1
Jake, the main character, wakes up with a fright, every muscle (spier)
in his body immediately tense, his hand on the gun (pistool). It’s very
quiet (doodstil) and the only sound is his soft breathing against the
cold material of his sleeping bag. He realizes that it is Sunday, exactly
a week after the outbreak (uitbreking).
Jake likes drawing comics (strokiesprente) and depicts a cartoon with
a boy and his mother, both seemingly scared to death, sitting on a
couch (bank), watching something on TV.
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,Apparently, there were wild allegations (bespiegelings) on the seven
o’ clock news about a possibly dangerous (gevaarlike) outbreak
(uitbraak) somewhere (iewers) in America. Someone claimed
(beweer) that the virus also broke out in South Africa. There were
upsetting images on TV of a blurry (dowwe) video that someone took
with their cellphone (Jake draws his version of this again at the
bottom of the page), excited (opgewonde) scientists
(wetenskaplikes) using incomprehensible (onverstaanbare)
terminology, international airports (lughawens) closing, presidents
all over the world trying to reassure (gerusstel) people and special
news broadcasts (nuusuitsendings) interrupting the eight o’ clock
movie. This all contributes to creating a very chaotic image for the
reader, which then links to how Jake also feels as the world around
him is crashing down into something nobody has ever seen before.
As the chaos continues, Jake and his mom took turns (beurte) trying
to phone his dad until half past one (halftwee) in the morning
(oggend).
Jake draws another picture of what Tuesday (Dinsdag) looked like:
there were still some news broadcasts (nuusuitsendings), but no set
schedule anymore. One by one, the TV-stations started shutting
down.
By Wednesday, the power (krag) went off for the last time and
stayed off. The cellphone and telephone networks were off. The
gunshots (geweerskote) and shouting outside in the streets became
less and less. Jake and his mom tried to decide when would be the
best time to get away since they could not hide (wegkruip) in the
house forever. Eventually the decision (besluit) was made for them:
the following evening, just after sunset (sononder), they could hear
knocks at the front door: “they” (the zombies) tried to break down
the door.
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,Jake reflects on the past few days: how he has changed. He gets up
and gets a hold of his flashlight (flits): he is in a school as the light
shines upon remnants of old school desks (skoolbanke) and broken
plastic chairs.
He wonders if he can dare (waag) switch on the radio. He fiddles
with trained fingers (showing that he has done this many times
these past few days) and turns the knob slowly from left to right.
There is just one radio station still active: DJ Max, playing “The end
of the world as we know it,” by R.E.M.
DJ Max still has a sense of humor left, saying that if it is not your
favorite radio station, then it is too bad for you since it’s the only one
left.
Jake switches off the radio and packs it away. He carefully leaves his
hiding place from underneath the school stage (skoolverhoog). It’s
half past four in the morning (halfvyf). He tries to look past the dead
body of a girl in school uniform hanging over one of the chairs: this
just puts things into perspective again.
There is graffiti against the wall: SCHOOL IS CLOSED!!! In the
beginning there used to be a lot of graffiti when people still thought
this was all one sick joke, when a lot of looting was going on, but that
stopped quickly.
He keeps his hand close to the gun on his hip (heup): a week ago, he
didn’t even have the faintest idea (vaagste benul) how to use a
weapon (vuurwapen).
He walks to the bathroom, thinking how he still played cricket a few
weeks ago against this very school’s team and how he scored
(aangeteken) 36 runs (lopies) to help his team (span) win.
As he opens the tap (kraan), it makes a sputtering sound and then
dries up. Jake expected (verwag) that, but luckily he has enough
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, bottled water in his backpack (rugsak) to last a while. He looks at
himself in the mirror, thinking that this is yet another reason to leave
the city, as it will become one rotting mass very soon without
running water.
For a moment, one might think it is just another normal day in
Johannesburg: somewhere a pigeon coos (koer) and an alarm shrills
in the distance, but then you realize that there is not a single driving
car to be seen. This is the surest (duidelikste) sign that the city is
dead. Jake looks towards a sign indicating the location of a petrol
station (vulstasie). He knows the high way (snelweg) is just on the
other side of that petrol station and if he walks fast enough, he ought
to be out of the city by nightfall. He rubs (vryf) his eyes and tries not
to look back.
DJ Max is speaking again, warning people to stay away from “those
things” that are roaming around (ronddwaal) in the streets. They
might look like people, like your family and friends or neighbors, but
they are worse than anything you have ever seen in a horror movie
(grilfliek). He continues by saying if you are lucky, they will tear you
apart (verskeur) in seconds and if you are not so lucky and survive
(oorleef), well, then that is the scary part …
Jake arrives at the petrol station (vulstasie) and he almost loses hope
when he sees the high way on the other side: it is absolutely stacked
with cars: some rode into each other or just blindly ended up in the
field, people who realized that they had to get out of the city by any
means necessary.
But then he spots a silver BMW-motorbike. He knows the model
because he and his friend, Dennis, used to be amazed at the site of
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