B M Hodges [Zombie Fever 02] Outbreak (epub)

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.She turned back to the camera, “Remember viewers, you can get all the details of your favorite racers, CARS merchandise, behind-the-scenes clips and live action updates from me, Gemma, at CARSTV.com.sg.Are you ready racers?”“Yeah!” We shouted in unison for the benefit of an invisible audience.“On your marks, get set, GO!” Gemma shouted into the microphone.She jumped out of frame and the cameras turned and focused on the teams.The race had begun.I began to feel light headed.Worried that I would pass out from the adrenaline rush, I took several shallow breaths.I couldn’t let Jamie down.I had to be strong for her.As a group, we rushed madly for the door, colleagues in a shared event just minutes earlier turned enemies at the word ‘Go’.Everyone was pushing and shoving as we squeezed through the showroom exit, spilling out into the parking lot where a line of six CARS rally cars decked out in racing stripes and number decals were waiting.Incidentally, while they looked like rally cars, the teams knew from our briefing at Tua Kee Media that they were simple four-cylinder stock models of the latest Cera economy sedan painted to look rough and tough.If anything could be said about Sheldon, it was that he knew when to cut financial corners for a production.It was easy enough to add the sounds of larger engines and screeching tires in post-production editing.Jamie had agreed to drive first.We threw our bags into the boot and I hopped into the passenger seat of Rally car 5.We pulled on our seatbelts and Jamie started the car.The rest of the teams jumped into the remaining five cars starting their engines and revving them loudly.Chapter 2“CUT!”We heard the muffled voice of Sheldon yelling through a bullhorn at the entrance of the dealership barely missing decapitation from a swinging panoramic camera getting one last shot on a crane above.Jamie shut off the car.We got out and stood around with the rest of the teams.Duh, this wasn’t the true start of the race.We were still in Singapore, home to some of the toughest traffic laws in the world.It would be impossible to race through the busy streets of Queenstown into downtown Singapore, north on the expressways to the causeway bridge connecting Singapore to Malaysia and across into Malaysia to where the events were planned without getting busted by the Singapore authorities monitoring the traffic cams.“Okay, that was great guys.Please go to your assigned transport vehicles and we’ll see you at Danga Bay, the first CARS checkpoint on the other side!” Sheldon enthusiastically shouted through the obnoxious bullhorn in his hands.There were applause from the teams and production crew.Everyone felt the magic of reality TV.The feeling was a certain, undefined yet familiar kind of exhilaration of capturing an ongoing adventure where anything could happen.Jamie climbed back into our rally car and pulled out into a caravan of CARS vehicles.I went inside the Cera showroom, then into the lift and down to the multi-storey car park where I had to pick up a vehicle that would be used later in the production and drive it across the border.We had heard about Tua Kee Media’s cost cutting measures during reality show productions prior to our auditions.And not hiring enough drivers to take all of the vehicles across the border was a fine example.The teams had to split up and drive solo each of the vehicles that would be used in the competition throughout the week, such as the all-wheel drive SUVs for off-road segments and tiny Eg-cars, an egg-shaped car that I predicted would be used for a parallel parking challenge.It was way cheaper than hiring drivers who would have to travel with the nomadic production as it journeyed across the Malaysian Peninsula.I was driving one of the SUVs, but I should have been assigned an Eg-car because the truck was really too big for me to handle.I had to pull the seat as far forward as possible and still my toes were barely touching the pedals.The SUV chugged down the ramp and I fell into formation behind the caravan of Cera cars.Jamie was eight vehicles ahead.We pulled out onto the street and into Singapore rush hour traffic.I was a bit miffed considering how ill-timed this commencement seemed to be.We could have waited another hour and left the dealership past peak hours, avoiding the crawling stop-and-go traffic that plagues Singapore’s streets in the morning.But apparently Sheldon was in a hurry to get over the border.Unbeknownst to us, he had received a call from a friend working at the Singapore Immigration Checkpoint that morning.The friend whispered conspiratorially that Singapore was going to close the border with Malaysia later in the day as a precautionary measure to ensure the infection wouldn’t spread into our glorious nation state.Sheldon had to stick to the production budget submitted to his Tua Kee Media superiors.If the crew and teams couldn’t get across the border that day, Tua Kee Media would cancel his show blaming cost overruns and maybe even fire him for delaying the production.The studio was very cutthroat in that way.Meng told us at one of the photo shoots that that’s how Sheldon got the job of head producer for the reality television department when his predecessor lost control of costs on one of his shows.Supposedly, the filming of a ‘fat camp’ weight loss show had to be put on hold when one of the severely overweight contestants died of heat stroke while running an obstacle course chasing down a pandan cake tied atop a radio controlled car in the midday equatorial sun.There was a payout of thirty thousand dollars for the death of the contestant.The producer was blamed, then fired and Sheldon was hired to take over.Setting the pace for his career at Tua Kee Media, he frugally wrapped up the program under what remained of the show’s budget.The caravan snaked along the CTE expressway north towards the TPE expressway then onto the SLE expressway to the Woodlands checkpoint [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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