The Abandoned Trilogy (Book 1): Twice Dead (Contagion)

by Suchitra Chatterjee

  Some of the soldiers had dispersed from the dining room and were now out in the grounds, looking around.

  Seb had been allowed to go into the kitchen to get a drink for everyone, Mitch had checked on Stevie who was still fast asleep and I asked if I could check on the girls and Cassidy. I was told they were still asleep.

  I sat down beside Mitch, reached out, and lightly touched his cheek. He winced.

  “You need some ice on that,” I said.

  “I need a fag.”

  “I’d really like a spliff,” I replied, thinking of the drug dealer in my previous home and how his presence right now would be a gift.

  Adag came from giving Paul his medication, followed by the female officer a one Captain Lacks-Renton. Seb came out of the kitchen with a tray balanced on his lap whilst steering his wheelchair. Mitch got up and took it off him. Phoenix was still catatonic on the floor, staring into space.

  “I used the last of your whiskey,” Seb said to Mitch. We had just taken a mouthful of our drinks when a soldier came from outside carrying Mitch’s old military radio.

  “We found this Sir,” he said “And the car we are looking for, it’s in the garage.”

  We went still.

  Wolf looked at the radio, then he turned and looked at us.

  “That’s mine,” Mitch piped up, “I used to be in the army.”

  “Where is he?”

  “Who?” Adag responded.

  “Don’t screw around,” Wolf’s voice was harsh, “You know exactly who I am referring too,” he shook his head, “You had me fooled, I have to admit, you had me fooled into thinking you knew next to nothing.”

  “Actually,” I said slowly, “We do know next to nothing.”

  It got worse from then on, if that was remotely possible. One of the soldiers randomly checked Phoenix’s computer and of course, what he had been looking at popped up. Then the computer in the office was checked.

  We sat silently where we were. I saw Stevie stir on the sofa, but he didn’t waken.

  “Search this place from top to bottom again,” Wolf said to his soldiers, who dispersed quickly throughout the building yet again. He then he turned to look at us, and I could tell he was furious though he spoke calmly.

  I wonder what he was mad the most about. Being fooled by a bunch of cripples or the fact we had broken into a government computer system, “Who accessed COBRA?”

  I smiled then, I couldn’t help myself and he pointed a finger at me, “If you know half as much as I am beginning to think you might think you know, then you know this isn’t a game.”

  “It stopped being a game when those Twice Dead ripped our friend apart and ate her alive,” I spat out “When were you going to tell us that your supposedly harmless contagion has turned most of the world’s population into the latest Zombie X-Box game with a penchant for tearing people apart and eating them alive?”

  I was, Wolf later told me, one of only a few people who ever took him by surprise. My words shut him up for about 40 seconds.

  Seb laughed, and the officer called Captain Lacks-Renton who had stayed with Wolf turned her head, gave Seb a hard look and said, “What’s so funny wheelchair-boy?”

  “That’s a new one Seb,” I said to my fellow resident, “What name will she think of next, Cripple in a Tank?”

  Seb exploded with laughter and Mitch who had been taking a mouthful of coffee at the time spat it out, laughing along with Seb.

  Captain Lacks-Renton moved forward, her black eyes flashing with anger, but Wolf held up his hand to stop her.

  “Who accessed COBRA?”

  “Phoenix,” I said and my eyes moved to the young man sitting on the ground, “He’s good with computers.”

  I could tell by their expressions they didn’t believe us. Adag who had chosen to be silent for the time being took umbrage at this, her eyes narrowed and she said disdainfully, “Typical person who has never interacted with disabled people before.”

  The sound of glass shattering and screaming put a stop to our conversation. Two soldiers stumbled out of the door that lead to the residential area of the home, one of them had blood gushing down his cheek where he had been bitten. There was a hole in his face right down to the bone. He tripped, rolled, clutching at his face, blood running through his fingers in thick gluttonous ribbons, his shrieks were like nothing I have ever heard before but sadly would hear again.

  The other soldier fell to his knees, blood gushing out of a wound in his neck, caused when Gregory’s arm had smashed through the toughened glass in the hidden door the soldiers had located in their more intensive search of the building. A piece of flying glass had sliced the side of his neck open. Gregory had not bitten him, but his companion hadn’t been so lucky.

  The soldiers had found the TOR door, they had opened it cautiously, but it was not cautious enough for what was now behind it.

  “On the floor! Down! Down! Down!” Mitch screamed instinctively, his coffee cup flying out of his hand. He dived for Seb hauling him out of his wheelchair and rolling with him so that they were both under the dining table.

  Seb swore whilst Adag in turn flung herself on Phoenix who was curled up into an even tighter ball and like Mitch; she rolled with him, getting them both behind the sofa on which Stevie was still sleeping on.

  I hit the carpeted floor covering my head with my arms, but I was nowhere near to the sofa or the table so I was in a more exposed locality and because of this I watched a tragedy unfolding before me.

  Gregory was Twice Dead. Our friend was gone. What had taken its place was a shell of flesh and bone whose strength had increased with the transformation. He swayed, almost gracefully I thought stupidly from where I lay. He was drooling a black bubbling froth and his eyes...his eyes were no longer Gregory’s eyes.

  The gentle giant of a man we had once known was gone. Despite my fear, I felt a surge of grief, followed by anger mingled with fear.

  The wound on his neck was now like a thick piece of flesh and it was no longer pulsating. When he tilted his head, it stretched, but did not tear. The rest of his skin was like smooth grey clay, the type potters use, his teeth were stained with blood and he was hungry. He was spitting blood and skin from his mouth, he was heading toward Wolf and Captain Lacks-Renton who had both dropped to one knee, and I could hear the bullets whistling as they hit Gregory in the chest.

  Captain Lacks-Renton blew part of Gregory’s head off with one of her well-aimed bullets. From where I lay, I saw the top of his skull separate from his cranium; it flew through the air and hit the wall to the side of his. There was no spray of blood, just solid bone that slid down the wall like the top of a satanic cup. It rocked gently on the floor, but Gregory did not fall to the ground. His brain was exposed, not pink and mottled like a normal brain, but a thick black mass bulging upwards.

  He still had his eyebrows I thought stupidly, but a flap of skin dropped over one eye, and he stumbled slightly.

  The soldier who had been hit by the glass was leaning against the wall, blood running through his fingers as he feebly tried to staunch the flow. He was going to bleed to death before anyone could help him I thought. Around me it was pandemonium, the crack of bullets as they hit Gregory’s shredded chest didn't even slow him down.

  I don’t remember getting over to the bleeding soldier, but I did, crawling on my belly across the floor, dragging off my cardigan and stuffing it into his neck and holding it down, hard.

  Our eyes met. He was trying to keep calm, he clamped one of his hands over mine and with the other one, he shoved a revolver into my palm, his eyes were looking over my shoulder and instinct told me what he was seeing…oh Jesus…

  Everything I have to say was happening in slow motion. I had never believed that happened in real life. I thought it was a movie thing, but I can tell you everything at that moment was moving at a snail’s pace at least that is how I perceived it.

  Two years on I can still visualise what happened next. Gregory lurching toward us, arms out
stretched, teeth bared over the remains of his lips, his body pumped full of holes leaking black goo down his once pristine white shirt.

  Wolf was sent flying by a blow to the chest from one of Gregory’s swinging arms, he smacked into the concrete wall behind him and he was momentarily winded. Captain Lacks-Renton was desperately trying to reload her gun from where she was crouched near the office door.

  Have you ever gone underwater and listened to how far away everything sounds above you? Well that was how it felt for me right at that very moment.

  My hand rose upwards as if it was on an automatic switch. I felt the weight of the handle as I aimed for the face of a man I had had once bantered with, whose neck wound I had recently bathed, whose life had been since my arrival at the home, intertwined with mine.

  “I’m so sorry Gregory,” I whispered. The gun I was holding was a military issued Glock 17. Jack, a foster brother, loved anything military. At just 12 he had been a virtual encyclopedia on wheels about all things military. He liked nothing more than to tell me all he knew about guns.

  I would listen to him, go on and on about the different types of guns that were available to various armies across the world and how they should be held, how to aim them and how to shoot.

  Jack wanted to be a soldier, he told me, but we both knew that was never going to happen, like me he was disabled, in a wheelchair, but he loved to read, to learn, to desire, for that was all he could do, dream and desire.

  Not every disabled person is the sum of their disability; they can be more than that. Moreover, it was only now in the midst of a carnage I was beginning to realise this despite living the life of a disabled person for so long.

  The tip of my forefinger pulled on the trigger. I instantly felt the recoil rush up my arm, but somehow I managed to keep my aim in one direction. I followed my line of sight instinctively, and the bullets that whistled out of the barrel finally blew what was left of Gregory’s head completely off his shoulders.

  The force of the bullets pushed him away from us. Flesh, muscle and brains showered the room and he staggered, swinging from side to side like a wounded beast, his head was gone but there was noise coming from his body, like a hissing sound, as if someone was swiftly deflating a pumped up piece of rubber and as the last bit of air escaped the once gentle giant fell down onto his knees with a thud.

  Just like that. He fell to his knees, no head on his shoulders, just a bony stump where his neck was, there was no blood, only black streaks of gunge and there he knelt, still as an obscene stone monument placed on a plinth in Trafalgar Square.

  I stared at him, my eyes were watering as my arm dropped and the empty magazine fell from the handle onto the ground. My other hand was still pressing down on the neck of the wounded soldier, still alive, but badly hurt.

  Captain Lacks-Renton was back on her feet, heading in my direction, shoving me aside taking over, screaming for help, the soldiers who had been scouting the grounds were now in the dining room, crashing through doors, cursing and yelling.

  “What fuck! Get the Medic! Holy shit!” The other soldier who had been bitten by Gregory was soon being tended to by his fellow soldiers; his screams were now just a gurgle. He was as good as dead already, Gregory had proved that. The bite of the Twice Dead infected the uninfected.

  I could hear sobbing; it was Adag, under the table, clinging to Phoenix who was still in a foetal position. Mitch was helping Seb up, getting him back into his wheelchair.

  “What the hell just happened?” Seb said, “Jesus Christ! Is that the Gorilla?”

  What a mess I thought as I looked around the room, the bullets had gone into walls, taking out chunks of plaster and paper, luckily, the walls themselves were made of good quality brick underneath and amazingly not a single bullet had hit any of the windows.

  I held onto the gun, my eyes rested on the spare magazine on the floor that had fallen from the wounded soldier’s belt. I reached for it and snapped it into place as I slowly stood up. I found myself limping away, heading for the broken dining room doors.

  I think someone called my name, but I didn’t answer. I stepped out onto the patio, into the sunlight, into a world that looked so normal as long as I didn’t turn around and look into the dining room behind me.

  I limped over to the tree of blossoms that had yet to fully bloom. Oh how pink they were when the buds fully opened, how beautiful, how exquisite. I reached out and touched the grainy trunk, felt the bark under my fingers, so real under my probing touch. I exhaled, slowly, taking in the scents of the garden. I found myself leaning against the trunk, my back feeling the strength of the living column whose roots would be there long after we humans had faded away into nothing.

  I looked down at the gun still clasped firmly in my hand and then began to raise it upwards, thinking of the beauty of the tree behind me, wanting it to be the last thing I thought about before the darkness fell upon me. The nub of the barrel was cold against my forehead. It pinched my skin as I pressed down.

  “Lucy,” the voice was urgent; invading my thoughts, “Lucy put it down…please…put it down.”

  My vision focused, in front of me was Wolf, beside him was Mitch and behind them, three soldiers.

  “Put it down Lucy,” Mitch repeated, he reached out his hand toward me, but Wolf stopped him.

  “You saved one of my men’s lives,” Wolf said softly, “You could have let him bleed to death, but you didn’t and you saved us all, put the gun down please.”

  “I killed a friend,” I said and grief engulfed me right then, grief like an avalanche. The Gorilla had been my friend. Not a best friend, far from it, but a friend all the same.

  “That was not your friend,” Wolf said in a steely voice, “You called them Twice Dead, you’re right they are twice dead, they died once, they woke up, but they were dead, twice dead and that thing inside of there,” he nodded toward the home, “That was not your friend, I promise you, it was not your friend.”

  My hand trembled, it would be so easy to pull the trigger, I knew how to do it, and it would be so very easy. I think Wolf knew it as I saw him suck in his breath as we looked at each other.

  “Life,” I whispered to the soldier in front of me, “So short, is it not?” And I started to pinch at the trigger, not afraid, just wanting not to be awake anymore.

  “Lucy,” the voice was frightened, full of fear and confusion and there by the shattered dining room doors in their pink and purple towel dressing gowns were Jasmine and Eden. Behind them was a disheveled Cassidy, his eyes swollen with sleep and behind him was Stevie, equally confused and trying to work out what was going on.

  I was distracted. My eyes moved from Wolf’s face and that was when he acted. He lunged forward, grabbing my arm and forcing the gun so that it pointed upwards, away from my skull, the bullet discharged but not into my head.

  Mitch sagged under the weight of his fear, “Thank God,” I heard him say.

  Wolf stepped back from me, holding the gun, breathing heavily, shaking his head but he didn’t say anything, well at least not then. But he was relieved, relieved I thought, and angry at the same time.

  I didn’t protest because Eden and Jasmine were hurtling toward me, calling my name over and over again and then they were clinging to me, crying that they were frightened, there were strangers in the house and where was Shannon, that they felt ill, there was a funny smell in the dining room, like stinky fruit, and the dining room was a mess, there were holes in the wall, what had happened and what was that thing on the floor, was it a dummy, what was it? And where was Gregory and Shannon? Hadn’t they come back from the village as yet?

  Lumbering behind them was Cassidy and a bewildered Stevie and now it was my turn to sink to my knees, taking the girls with me, saying nothing at that moment for what could I say to them? What could I tell them? The truth was way too horrible for them to comprehend, but to lie to them was not an option.

  What was I going to do?

  Colonel Mason Wolf or just Wolf as
we came to know him as didn’t let anything, even the infecting of one of his men with the Twice Dead contagion from stopping him from doing his job. He barked out orders to his troops and within minutes, they were setting up a base in and around the home, including a quarantine for the wounded soldier in the now empty TOR space.

  The broken window of the room was sealed and bolted over and the man put into it. He had been drugged and the wound in his face packed with gauze. Now it was just an ordinary looking wound, but I knew it would change, it would become like the wound on Gregory’s neck. The blood would become black and pulsating, oozing out of the hole in his cheek and then it would become part of his skin, a reminder of what he would become eventually.

  Gregory’s remains were put in a metal container that the soldiers bought into the home and swiftly taken away. I sat in the garden under the tree with the girls, Stevie and Cassidy watched as the soldiers moved swiftly in and out of the building. They had arrived in eight trucks and a jeep, which were lining the long pathway of the home, and from the look of it, they had a lot of equipment with them.

  They worked swiftly and with precision. In and out of the building they went, carrying things in and out.

  “What’s happening Lucy?” Jasmine asked me clutching at my hand, “What’s happened?”

  “I’m hungry,” Cassidy whined unhappily, “I want some food.”

  “You always want food,” Eden began but I turned and gave her a hard look. Eden flushed and looked at the ground.

  “We have to wait Cass,” I said quietly to the young man “But as soon as I can I will make you a nice big meal,” His eyes lit up and he sat down on the bench, he trusted me I thought with surprise. He trusted me to feed him. He didn’t melt down as I half expected him too.

  Mitch had returned to the building and I couldn’t see him or the others. I knew Paul was in his room. I hoped he was OK.

  “I’m really thirsty Lucy,” Stevie spoke and I nodded my head. When I saw the soldiers, carrying out Gregory’s body I stood up, slowly as my bad leg was throbbing.