“Samie Sands has created a zombie series which connects to people. It has background and mystery. Not Dead Yet, book 4 in the series, keeps up that quality and pace.” — Jay Wilburn
Teaser from
Not Dead Yet
by Samie Sands
Book 4 in the AM-13 Outbreak series
CAPE TOWN
Movie Transcript
NB: I have included a transcript in with the filmstrip in case parts of it don’t survive.
Scene One
The camera pans around, looking at the wasteland before me. The endless dead, yellowed grass, and rubble from some unfinished building scatter in view. It’s clear just from this one shot that the world is not in a good place. I’m silent, waiting for a reaction to stir in the audience. I already know that this movie will be a blockbuster, simply because I don’t think there’s anyone around with access to the technology that I have, but I wait for the viewers to figure the monumental sights I’m showing them, out for themselves.
Finally, the camera spins right around until it finds my face.
“Hello, my name is Derek Pillay, I’m thirty-one years old, and I’m here to present to you what life in the apocalypse is really like. I would like this movie to be named Dooies—just in case I don’t make it, although I fully intend to—and I think it’ll be one of a kind.”
The camera moves behind me to show all the equipment I own. My face vanishes and I become a voice-over.
“I’ve always wanted to make films about real life, just like this one, but I haven’t yet had my big break. I’ve gathered up all the equipment I could possibly need along the way, but the opportunity simply hasn’t happened just yet. It’s just lucky for me now that I have a generator which I can use to charge up the camera batteries. It’s power I could possibly use for other things to help me get by, but I’d rather sacrifice all of that to capture this. This really is once in a lifetime stuff, I’d have to be stupid not to go for it.”
I move now, through the barren land surrounding my home. I never had a lot, but I think the scarcity of the shot highlights how bad things have become. A homemade wall emerges, with wooden spikes sticking through it.
“I had the concrete ready anyway, building a wall around my property was on my to-do list forever, but I just never quite got around to it. Then this hit, so I had to. Luckily, because I’d escaped a number of infected right in the center of Cape Town, I knew what to expect, so I created the wooden dooies-catchers at the same time.”
I lift the camera up over the wall to show two of the infected impaled up against the wall. One of them got spiked through the head, so slumps there motionless, but the other one glances up and growls and groans.
“As you can see, once a human becomes infected they stop being…well, human, I suppose. Their skin turns gray, they lose their eyes, they no longer communicate. All they care about is food. This is something discussed in Haitian folklore, that no one took seriously.”
I spin the camera back around to face me, my expression is determined and fierce.
“Well, I bet they’re listening now.”
I perch the camera on a ledge on the outside of my home, angling it towards me so the viewer can see what’s about to happen next. I slowly and purposely pick through all my weapons, examining them thoughtfully as I go.
This part is all for show, I know what I want to do but my aim is to keep the viewer intrigued.
“Luckily, I’ve always lived quite far from civilization because I’ve been a bit of a loner my whole life. I live off the land as much as I can, making a living doing this-and-that, so I’m pretty stocked up when it comes to supplies. Not everyone was so lucky.”
I step back and hold onto the gate, trying to amp up the drama a little. If I ever get to the editing stage of development I might add some eerie music or something.
“Not everyone is strong enough to survive this.”
I fling open my gate and one of them bursts through. He’s ferocious, baring his teeth at me, snarling and reaching out to grab my skin. I act tough, so the audience knows that I have this in the bag. I’m clutching an axe tightly between my fingers, and with one swift movement I slam it down into his head, breaking his skull.
He slumps to the ground, dead and defeated.
“I am, which is why I’m the right person to bring you this film.”
I step towards the camera and flick it off. This part is just the introduction. Maybe the people watching will have been through the apocalypse too, but maybe not. At this point, anything could happen in the future, so I want the viewers to know exactly how the infected were, and how it was possible to beat them.
Check out the Outbreak series by Samie Sands and continue through to book 4: Not Dead Yet.
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