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

by Suchitra Chatterjee

  Seb didn’t want to believe me, and said as much.

  “So who’s taking sides now?” I challenged him before limping off leaving him sitting where he was.

  COBR(A) -stands for Cabinet Office Briefing Room (A) and is based in Whitehall in London. The Committee deals with the UK's emergency response in a national crisis. It is a meeting of cross–government departments responsible for responding to certain emergencies. Depending on the nature of the emergency different representatives will attend the meeting and advise on contingency arrangements. COBR(A) has met to respond to various emergencies since its inception, including the Avian and Swine Flu pandemics, the Ebola outbreak in Africa, and terrorist plots. With the outbreak of the Twice Dead contagion, COBRA was taken over by the military. Very few members of the government survived the outbreak.

  Exhaustion had set in big time. I headed to my bedroom and my bed. I was physically drained and though I had not said it to anyone, I was also in a great deal of pain. My knee, my hip and my head had me feeling like I was going to pass out, but after being sick.

  I sat on my bed gripped my swollen knee with knotted fingers, and rocked back and forth. It was then I felt it digging into my side, hard and cold.

  I had put the Glock 17 into my jacket pocket without thinking, as I didn’t like it on my lap. I pulled it out of my pocket and looked at it. Black, shiny and deadly.

  I started to get up, to go and give it back to Wolf, but I hesitated before sitting back down. I turned the weapon over in my hand. It had a full magazine of bullets in it. Feeling guilty, I opened my bedside cabinet drawer and placed it there. If he asked for it back I would hand it over, until then, it was mine.

  A stabbing pain in my knee reminded me why I had returned to my room. I rummaged in my drawer for my anti-inflammatory drugs and some painkillers. I found six anti-inflammatories and four morphine capsules which I popped into my mouth and swallowed dry, tossing the empty packets onto the top of my chest of drawers.

  I got up and limped over to my bathroom and got some water as my throat was now sore from taking the tablets dry. I drank a glass of water then went back to my bed and sat on, leaning against the headboard.

  I wanted to sleep but the pain was taking its time easing off. I felt a bit breathless, so I adjusted my electric bed so my mattress was elevated.

  I began to feel a bit muzzy headed which was a good sign, I started to drift off, but this was interrupted by a loud banging on my door, making me jerk and shout out peevishly, “Go away!” but it was not to be.

  The door swung open and a soldier stood there, with a large and very heavy green canvas bag hanging from his shoulder. I recognised him as the soldier who had stitched up Eden’s head, had tended the bitten soldier and of course cared for Private Salter. What was his name? Oh yes, Lieutenant Barnes.

  “Colonel Wolf said I was to see you about your leg,” he said.

  “I’m fine,” I knew I was being rude but I didn't much care right at that moment, I just wanted to go to sleep.

  “The Colonel thinks otherwise,” Lieutenant Barnes swung the bag off of his shoulder as he entered my room, and before I could object he added, “And he said if you argued then it would be done the hard way.”

  He waited for me to respond.

  “Shit,” I said.

  “I take that to mean, you don’t object?” Barnes said.

  “Of course I bloody object,” I snapped and I swung my legs off my bed and took a deep and painful breath, “But I don’t have much choice do I?”

  “No, not really,” to give Barnes credit, he didn’t try and candy coat his orders. He placed his medical green bag on the bottom of my bed, and from it produced a A4 waterproof covered book and a pen, “What medication are you on and what is it for?”

  I told him and he wrote it down. I sat on my bed with a sullen expression on my face.

  “I need to see your leg,” he said when he had finished writing.

  “It’s in front of you,” I said

  “Pants, off,” he rummaged in his bag for something.

  “Piss off,” was my immediate reply.

  “I’m a qualified Doctor,” Barnes said, that surprised me, “You haven’t got anything I haven’t seen before,” he turned around and he was holding a syringe, and a swab. I went pale and scrabbled away from him on my bed.

  “What’s that for?” I yelped.

  “Blood test first,” he said.

  “Not a bloody chance!”

  “I need to do a blood test,” he said patiently.

  “It’s my leg that is the problem, not my blood!”

  “It won’t hurt.”.

  “I don’t give a shit,” I said between clenched teeth, “You are not using that on me and you can check my leg with my trousers on!”

  He started to speak again when he saw the empty tablet packets on the chest of drawers. He reached for them, read the labels and said slowly, “Tell me you haven’t taken all of these at the same time?”

  “What if I have?” my eyes were on the syringe in his other hand.

  “Jesus Christ!” he shouted, his expression turning from neutral to shocked concern, “Are you fucking nuts!”

  “I take them all the time,” I said dismissively.

  “This amount? When did you take them?”

  “Well, no,” I reluctantly admitted, and I rubbed my chest with the palm of my hand, “About fifteen minutes ago, but they work quicker that way.”

  “Is your chest hurting?” he said, he moved toward me, and looked at me closely, or rather he was looking at my eyes.

  “Yeah, what if…” I didn’t get to finish my sentence as he had sprinted out of the door shouting.

  “Duke! Colonel! I need your help! NOW!” what the hell was he doing? I didn’t want that bastard Duke in my room, I opened my mouth shout him back but I felt a wave of nausea rush through me. The fuzziness in my head increased, I tried to stand up but found I couldn’t.

  I tried again, managed it this time, and made it out of the door, using the wall to guide me, I got to the open door that lead into the lounge.

  My vision was blurred and then I felt a hand on my shoulder, I turned my head, it was Cassidy.

  “I’m sorry Lucy,” he said plaintively, “Are you angry at me, I’m hungry…can I…Lucy…Lucy…what’s a matter?”

  Cassidy’s face was going in and out of focus, I was going to fall.

  “Cass!” I gasped as my knees gave way, “Cass! Help me! ”I heard shouting coming from the lounge, I sagged against the big teenager’s chest and began to slide downwards. Cassidy gave a little cry and he caught me before I hit the ground.

  “Lucy!” I heard him scream and then it quite literally went black, “Lucy!”

  I came rushing into consciousness with an oxygen mask over my face and a lot of shouting. I was lying on the floor with Lieutenant Barnes looking down at me. My head felt like it was going to explode. I had not felt such pressure in my skull for a long time.

  “She’s breathing!” I heard him shout, and my chest exploded in pain. My heart apparently had briefly stopped, seconds after Cassidy laid me on the ground.

  The Lieutenant had whacked me on the chest and it had kicked started my heart. I sucked in oxygen, gasping for air.

  I was rolled onto my left side; I felt a hand under my head, strong and firm pushing it downwards so my chin was pressed into my throat. I was confused, I tried to speak, but I couldn’t. All I could see was carpet.

  “She’s not long taken them, we need to pump her stomach,” I heard Barnes say. Pump my stomach? What the fuck? No! But I was in no fit state to argue.

  My head was being gripped, big hands, holding my skull, “This is going to hurt,” the Colonel’s voice. I tried to move as the slimy tubing hit the back of my throat, I gagged but it was unrelenting, going down my esophagus and all the way down into my stomach. I heard even more shouting, the sound of running liquid, Adag’s voice, far away, whilst the world spun not just around me but in my head
too.

  I was suddenly gagging, retching, trying to get away from the many hands that were suddenly all over my body.

  “Get the basin!” Barnes voice. I heard and felt liquid flood down the tubing and into my stomach, I was drowning. I panicked, my eyes were watering, I tried to retch, but I couldn’t.

  “Breathe,” the Colonel’s voice, “Remember to breathe!”

  Breathe? How can you bloody breathe when someone is trying to drown you!

  “She needs to stay still!” Barnes voice again, “Someone hold her legs,” I was trying to kick out with my legs, someone was holding my arm down to my side.

  And then Cassidy was on his knees beside me, and his hand, large and strong stroked my soaking wet forehead, “Stay still Lucy,” he said over and over again, “Stay still.”

  “Cass,” I tried to speak but of course I couldn’t.

  A blur briefly above me, and then Stevie was crouched beside Cassidy, he in turn patted my bulging cheeks. I felt the cold of the metal basin’s rim dig into the side of my face, Barnes hand on my mouth, moving the tubing around, and then my stomach contents were no longer inside of me.

  My belly contracted, more contents spewed out, this seemed to go on forever but finally it did stop, the brown rubber tubing hung from my mouth, pressed against my bitten lips, sticky with spit, and stomach contents.

  “Breathe Lady of Shadows,” Seb’s voice was coming from behind me somewhere, “Don’t you fucking die on us!”

  “Piss off,” I tried to gasp out, but I couldn’t. I could feel pulling in my spine from cramp, my legs twitched. I hurt all over.

  Cassidy was rocking back and forth and humming as he stroked my face his eyes never leaving my face. Stevie was by his side. Their presence was comforting; I was glad they were with me.

  “Her legs are like ice,” Adag’s voice, I felt her warm hands on my cold legs, she gently rubbed them.

  “Get a blanket,” Duke’s voice. I was glad I couldn’t see him. Bastard.

  Moments later. I felt a blanket being wrapped around my legs.

  “I’ll get a hot water bottle,” Mitch’s voice this time.

  “This isn’t going to be nice,” Barnes voice, and then his hand came to my face and he gripped the end of the rubber tube, I braced myself.

  It wasn’t pleasant, the pulling sensation was horrific, I thought my insides were being pulled out with the tubing, I was sick the minute the last of the tubing was dragged out.

  Luckily the basin was still near me and Cassidy, bless him, wiped my mouth with the hem of this t-shirt.

  I took in a deep and very painful breath. My head spun again and then Barnes once more was hovering over me.

  “I am going to incubate you,” he said, “Do you know what that is?”

  I did. I managed to nod my head slightly.

  “I’ll sort your leg out whilst you are under,” he said and then he turned to speak to the Colonel who was still behind me, his hand under my head. “We need to get one of the stretcher’s Sir, I’m going to have to put drips in and a catheter, its best if I do it in her room.”

  “I carry her,” Cassidy said protectively.

  “Me too,” Stevie was equally as protective of me as Cassidy was, “We will carry her.”

  “She has to be kept really still,” Barnes said, and before Cassidy could object he added, “I need you to hold both her hands and can you hold her head still?” the last words were directed at Stevie.

  I don’t remember much after that, many hands, words, touch, Cassidy and Stevie with me, and then the sweet pain free, bliss of sleep, however unnatural.

  I spent the next three days sleeping, in that time Nat drained a shit load of fluid from my swollen knee, and pumped and equal amount of steroids into my system so that I would have less pain from inflamed muscles and bone.

  He did several blood tests on me and it was found I was anemic, what a surprise.

  I woke early on the third day. In my bed, the hiss of oxygen in my nose. I stirred, my throat was sore, my stomach ached but I could swallow. I moved gingerly and a head popped up from on the floor.

  Cassidy beamed at me. Through blurred eyes, I saw there was a mattress on the floor by my bed. He scrambled to his feet and lumbered out of the room and moments later Nat was by my side, helping me sit up and taking off my oxygen mask.

  A drink of orange juice soothed my raw throat followed by pureed apples and blackberry with a lot of sugar.

  I won’t talk about the other tubes that I had in me, they had to be taken out and they were. The less said about that the better.

  Before I was allowed out of my bed I got the fifth degree from Adag about the tablets I had taken. I got the impression she thought I had tried to take an overdose.

  I explained to her about the pain and that I just wanted to sleep so I had taken a bigger dose of medication than usual and no, I would not do it again. One stomach pumping in a lifetime was more than enough for me. She was glad to hear that.

  I wasn’t allowed to put my leg brace on for a further couple of days; because of the steroid treatment, instead, I was made to sit in one of Seb’s bloody awful manual wheelchairs.

  “Lend me Lewis,” I said to Seb when I saw him in the dining room on my first day out of my room and he snorted.

  “Not a fucking chance, Lewis has been customised, you’d take off like a rocket.”

  “Better than being in this pile of crap,” I replied grumpily.

  “You’re getting a taste of my world Lady of Shadows,” he said.

  “It sucks,” I made a face and that made him laugh even more.

  Cassidy was hovering nearby, watching me anxiously. He lumbered over to me when I motioned him to come and sit on the sofa next to my chair.

  “Stevie and I have been helping look after you,” he boasted.

  “That’s good of you both,” I said gently. He looked at me intently.

  “Can I make a smoothie?”

  “Ask Adag, but I am sure she will say yes. “He got up and ambled off. Mitch joined me on the sofa and I asked him how everyone was as I had been unconscious for three days. He told me that Paul was really unwell, but holding up, Phoenix apparently only came out of his room when there were no soldiers about.

  Stevie and Cassidy were spending a lot of time together and oddly enough; Stevie’s calmness had rubbed off a bit on Cassidy.

  Jasmine had fallen out with Eden, and they hadn’t made up yet, that took me by surprise. My eyes widened and Mitch grinned wryly, “Adag checked Eden’s room, she found a lot of stuff in there that didn’t belong to her.”

  I was surprised. Seb had obviously spoken to Adag.

  “She’s been nicking things since she moved in here,” Mitch said and he laughed “And none of us realised!”

  I said nothing and he glanced at me, “But you realised,” he said.

  I shrugged my shoulders, “I noticed that when things missing she was always in the vicinity at the time, I wasn’t sure until I saw her with Shannon’s coat and then Shannon said she had lost her purse in town, I knew then that Eden had taken it.”

  “Why didn’t you say anything then?”

  “Same reason as Seb,” I said, “I couldn’t be asked, it was different then.”

  “Adag gave her a real tongue lashing, reduced her to a pile of snot and tears, real this time I think,” Mitch took out his cigarettes, looked at the packet and sighed, “Last packet, going to have to go cold turkey soon.”

  “We’ll be giving a lot up soon enough,” I reflected and then I added, “I never thought Jasmine had it in her to hold a grudge.”

  “The only person talking to Eden other than myself and Adag is Cassidy; Stevie won’t talk to her, ironic isn’t it? The only person who will give her the time of the day is the person she used to bully.”

  “Cassidy lives in the moment,” I said.

  “Not all the time,” Mitch said as he lit his cigarette and inhaled deeply, “We make assumptions don’t we? About what we think we kn
ow.”

  “We are all guilty of that,” I said. To my surprise, he held out his cigarette to me. I found myself reaching for it.

  “Don’t even think about it,” Wolf’s voice made me start in my chair; he had come in through the open dining room doors behind us. He leaned over and took the cigarette from Mitch’s offered fingers and took a long drag then handed it back to him, “Causing more problems again Ms. Lal?”

  “Only if they involve you,” I quipped.

  He smiled, “I thought as much,” he said.

  “Did you find out what that smoke was in town?” I asked him. He didn’t answer at first. He and Mitch looked at each other and I exhaled.

  “What is it?”

  “We think there might be some survivors in the town.”

  The revelation stunned me, “How the hell is that possible?”

  “There’s no Twice Dead that can be seen,” Wolf said, “The Drone went all through the town, where the smoke is coming out is from a chimney in a shop.”

  “What shop?” I asked.

  “The Herb and Tea Café,” Mitch said. I knew the Herb and Tea Cafe, because Shannon always took me there the times when we went out. I really liked it. It was quirky. Eden though didn’t like it, she said it smelt funny and she was right. There were herbs hanging from the rafters, dried garlic lining the windows. Lavender around the door.

  It had been opened by a couple from out of town, selling herb teas and food made from wild grown produce, such as windfall apples, acorns, mint, nettles, wild blackberries and of course my favourite, fresh wild garlic.

  “How the hell did they survive?” I asked.

  “We’re not sure if they have done, we just think they might have survived.”

  “They lived in the basement of the shop,” I said suddenly, “The couple who ran it, I remember talking to them, they turned the cellar into their living quarters, they said they smelt like the shop as they kept a lot of the food and herbs down there too…they…” my voice trailed off. There was something I couldn’t quite put my finger on that was bothering me.