The Cure is Worse than the Disease: A Zombie Story

By JP Marduk

Scientists are coming closer to finding a universal cure for disease, but a doctor’s impatience to treat his own case of terminal cancer has dire, wide-reaching consequences. Once in his system, the Cure triggers an infectious disease that effectively turns its victims into zombies.
As fear and anarchy erupt in Manhattan, the government races to find a vaccine against the Cure. The military are injected with the prototype to help them protect the civilian population, but it becomes clear that the vaccine isn’t working – at best it means that the turning is held off for a few hours after a soldier is bitten. In a desperate race against time, a small group of people try to get back to the original lab, determined to make a vaccine that actually works...or die fighting the Cure.
This is a short story of approximately 10,000 words.
Excerpt:
When they opened the heavily barred door, they were alarmed at how dark it had gotten. None of them had noticed how much time had passed. They were on high alert as they slowly made their way up to Safe Spot B, stepping over the second hand dead that were lying at their feet. At one particular point in the street, there was no way to go around the zombie bodies which had been strewn all across the road. Daren caught Yina’s eye and smirked as he leapt over the mound and turn to face her, his arm outstretched.
“M’lady,” he said with a faked British accent and a flourishing bow. Just as Yina reached out to take his hand, one of the supposed dead sat upright and lunged for Yina’s throat. She stepped back, an involuntary movement that pushed her up against James. James threw his arm across her chest and spun so she would be guarded from the attack. Daren jumped toward the zombie, grabbing it by the neck from behind and pulling it down. He threw the zombie to the ground and shot at point blank range, removing any doubt that the creature was dead for real this time.

• Language: English
• Publisher: 27th Dimension Publishing
• Release date: Oct 29, 2012
• ISBN: 9781618480606

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