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

by Suchitra Chatterjee

  Mitch managed to get his car out of its bay without much noise, but as we swung around the corner, and onto the gravel pathway that would take us up the driveway we practically drove into the morning patrol, four soldiers, who had to leap out of the way…oh shit, one of them was Duke, I caught a glimpse of Peter’s surprised face as well, Mitch’s bumper caught one of the soldiers on the hip and he went flying onto the grass verge.

  “Foot down!” I shouted to Mitch who obeyed with a loud curse. We had the element of surprise on our side. We shot over the gravel, stones and dirt in our wake.

  In the rear view mirror I saw the soldiers scrambling to their feet, running after us, I saw one of them raise his rifle, Duke of course, I sucked in my breath but another soldier grabbed his arm, forcing it downwards. Peter’s. I exhaled and sank into my seat.

  Couldn’t anything we did during this apocalypse, ever be fucking easy?

  The town was empty as we drove slowly through it. The Glock was in my lap, our windows were up, and the doors locked. The silence was eerie. I wondered about the dogs and cats who had once been pets in these homes. Where were they? What had happened to them? Had they been eaten by their now Twice Dead owners or had they fled, heading for places where they could find food?

  I liked dogs and I felt awful thinking about the pets and domesticated animals that would surely die; now the world had gone tits up. Perhaps when the soldiers were gone we could see if we could find any animals who had survived and bring them to the home.

  We drove down the town’s main road, other than the stillness and silence, everything had an abnormal early morning look about it, other than the odd house door that was wide open, but even that could be explained away.

  Mitch wasn’t keen on us getting out of the car when we got to the café. He kept the engine running and I peered through the side passenger window. The shop had the closed sign on the door which was firmly shut. Green wooden shutters were padlocked into place over the windows. Right now it was just a locked café, that happened to be closed on the day the world ended. There was no smoke coming out of the chimney now, but that didn't mean anything.

  On the pavement outside the tearoom was a giant misshapen stain and a mangled walking frame; the stain had a black and greasy hue to it, and there were torn clothes scattered in the gutter, along with a pair of worn pink slippers, and what the fuck…I edged my window down and looked more closely.

  “Are those a pair of dentures?” I heard myself say. Mitch frowned, leaned over my shoulder and followed my gaze to where a pair of broken false teeth lay on the pavement, not that far from the slippers.

  Now, it wasn’t funny, because we both had a damn good idea what must have happened outside the shop at some point, but in the worst of situations, the worst of you can come out to get some air. And that is was what happened…to both of us.

  I gazed at the dentures, and then again at the slippers lying forlornly on the pavement. For a moment I managed not to react.

  “We’ve learnt one new thing about the Twice Dead, “Mitch said finally, and in doing so, ended any hope of either of us being respectful and shocked by what had obviously happened on the pavement at some point, “They don't like NHS choppers and Paisley slippers…” I might not have laughed if we hadn't locked eyes as the last of his words fell from his lips. For a fraction of a second I was shocked, yes, I was, but then my lower lip began to wobble as did his. He put his hand over his mouth, endeavouring not to let the laugh that was building up inside of him, out. He failed. So did I.

  We laughed until we both were almost sick. We couldn’t stop laughing. It was hysteria, I realise that now, but it was much needed hysteria. A kind of valve that had to be released one way or another.

  Finally, we stopped laughing, mainly because if we laughed any more, we would probably rupture something internally.

  “I can’t believe we just did that,” I said when I finally got my breath back; I was clutching my stomach, trying to ease the pain of the laughter which was still shuddering through my body.

  Mitch wiped his eyes, “I know, it’s not funny, fuck me, it’s not funny…” our eyes met again and I had to look away. I tried to focus on something else, so I stuck my head out of the wound down window and sniffed the air, it smelt of nothing.

  I tried to discern the scent of the ‘stinky fruit’ that Eden had described about our dining room when Gregory had been a Twice Dead, but there wasn’t anything I could smell that was remotely like that.

  “Doesn’t look like there has been any fires here,” I said to Mitch and then I added, “So much for that theory.”

  “Did you believe it in the first place?” Mitch asked me.

  “Nope,” I said without hesitation, “If those fuckers at that Epsilon Command told me it was the morning and the sun was shining, I’d have to go and look for myself, that’s how much I believe anything they tell the Colonel.”

  Mitch didn’t disagree with me. We stared at the teashop, purposely keeping our eyes averted from the mangled walking frame and other bits of debris scattered on the ground.

  “If there is anyone alive in there,” I said to Mitch suddenly, “Don’t tell them about our Wild garlic theory.”

  “Why not?” Mitch asked.

  “We’ll need to see how they react to us; I mean we’re not mainstream.”

  “Neither are they,” Mitch said dryly.

  “They are more acceptable to society than we are.”

  “Do you think so?” Mitch shook his head, “Gays have had it hard Lucy, they have had to fight hard to get recognition, they might have been further along in the fight for rights than the disabled, but they still have their enemies.”

  I hadn’t thought of that. I had lived in homes where many of the staff were either Gay, Lesbian or Transgender. I hadn’t really given it much thought, come to think it I hadn’t given much thought to most things, until now.

  “Honk your horn,” I said to Mitch suddenly. He did as I said. He hit it several times and we waited. We sat in the car and waited. He did it again, repeatedly; it was a good horn, very loud and continuous.

  We waited. Staring at the door.

  “Do you think they will come after us?” I said to Mitch.

  “Who? The Twice Dead?” Mitch replied, “I fucking hope not!”

  I laughed, “No, you twat, the Colonel.”

  “I have no idea, probably.”

  “He needs to keep out of our business,” I said.

  It was Mitch’s turn to laugh, “Can you see that happening?”

  “Only when he and his people fuck off when the quarantine is over,” I responded in a sour voice.

  “You’ve answered your question then,” Mitch grinned.

  “Look!” Mitch grabbed my arm making me jump in fright. The door of the café was slowly opening and a head was peeping cautiously around the corner of it.

  I instinctively rolled down my window.

  “Hello!” I shouted out, “Hello!”

  “Oh my God! You’re alive!” the head had a body which stepped out from behind the door, he was clutching a heavy golf iron in both hands. Sensible move. We heard the bark of a dog, a “shush!” from behind the man with the golf club and then the words, “Some bloody guard dogs you two are!”

  I started to laugh again. So did Mitch. We got out of the car and met four more survivors of the contagion, Gabe and Percy Williamson and their two dogs, Jack and Russell who you guessed it, were Jack Russell’s. Brown and tan, short strong legs, floppy ears and a happy and loving disposition.

  We went into the café. The tables were neatly set out, ready for customers that would never arrive. Gabe shut and locked the door behind us.

  Of course they had hundreds of questions to ask, it was obvious from the start that Percy was the dominant person in the relationship. He asked most of the questions with interjections from Gabe. Finally, we sat at a table and Gabe fluttered around, making tea of all things.

  As Gabe served us fragrant tea and two d
elightful little dogs bounced around, happy to see more people Percy told us what had happened to them since the world had ended nearly two weeks ago.

  Apparently, the basement flat the couple lived in was a conversion of the cellar, which was deep in underground. Two steep flights of stairs to get downstairs, no windows, so natural light was created from an expensive lighting system.

  The flat also had custom made built in air filters due to being so far underground and also because their store room was part of their living space and was filled with their dried herbs, including of course wild garlic. Even their dumb waiter in the storeroom that allowed things to be sent upstairs to the café was sealed due to the fact it would rattle like hell if it wasn’t.

  I remembered the dumb waiter hatch, Gabe, and Percy had made a feature of it with dried wild garlic flowers, and lavender, but I didn’t say this, and no one else mentioned our Wild garlic theory to them right then, mainly because Wolf and Captain Lacks-Renton were listening in.

  Briefly, they were hermetically sealed in their flat and it was assumed that this had saved them. Perhaps it had, but I had a feeling the wild garlic had played the major part in them surviving.

  When they woke up on the day the world went tits up, they didn’t leave the flat because Sunday was the only day their Café wasn’t open. They pottered around their flat and then in the late afternoon Percy tried to go on line.

  Of course, the message that we had seen flashed up, they had then tried to use their phones, mobile and landline. Gabe had apparently been all for going outside to see what was happening, but Percy insisted they stay in the flat, which saved their lives along with the fact that they had access to their CCTV system, which was in the front of their shop.

  “I told Gabe we had no need of CCTV,” Percy said as he sipped his tea, he looked at his partner and reached over and took his hand and held onto it, “Thank God he ignored me, we could access it via our TV, and that’s when we saw them, people from the town, shuffling around the streets, we were going to go upstairs, to speak to them and then it happened…”

  The two men looked at each other, their faces so animated and happy just moments before seemed to shrink before us and their eyes took on a haunted expression, “It happened outside of the shop, right in front of the camera, some of the people shuffling down the street, they turned on an old woman who was using a walking frame…” Percy swallowed hard, “They ripped her apart with their bare hands and they….” He let out a groan, lowered his head and shook it, “They ate her, they ate all of her…she didn’t fight them, she just let them do it...oh God!”

  “Almost like Shannon,” Mitch shuddered at the memory and we told them what had happened to both Shannon and Gregory.

  “Dear God,” Percy said, and he shook his head, “We knew it was bad…” he glanced at his husband who came over to the table with biscuits and flap-jacks.

  “What did you do next?” I asked as I sipped my hot green tea.

  “We stayed were we were,” Gabe said as he sat down and reached for another cup to pour tea into, “We were terrified, we thought they would try and get into the building, but they didn’t, they just moved on, and we stayed in the basement, we had plenty of food, the electricity was still on, we had water, we watched the CCTV all the time, eventually no one passed our shop, it took a while, they were all going in the same direction, out of town, we were too afraid to go out, we finally came up into the shop the other day, we put the wood burner on in the kitchen and let the dogs out into the patio area, poor things were going stir crazy…”

  “We saw your smoke several days ago,” I said, “You must have done that when we were near to the town.”

  “What happened?” Gabe asked, he looked outwardly calm but I noticed his hands trembled as he sliced what I realised was freshly made cake and handed me a slice, “No Jack, don’t beg, ignore him, you said there was some sort of contagion, that it has affected most of the world, turned them into…oh God, our families…” his voice trailed off and he reached out and gripped his partner’s hand tightly, the reality of everything was hitting home like it had done with us, “And why didn’t you come into town straight away when you first saw the smoke?”

  Now came the hard part. I took a deep breath and told them. About the quarantine, what the army had told us what had happened with regard to the accidental release of the Pathogen and the worst fact of all. The order not to check the café to see if there were any survivors. I didn’t mention our Wild Garlic theory. That would come later, if it came at all.

  I can still remember the shocked expressions on their faces when we told them that the army had been ordered not to check out the smoke we had seen and then the fact we were to be abandoned once the quarantine was over.

  “That doesn’t make any sense!” Percy was the first to speak. Only a moment ago he and his husband had thought that their troubles were over. But they weren’t over. Like ours, they were just beginning.

  “Nothing makes any sense, anymore,” I said and Mitch nodded his head.

  “But why?” Gabe said, he pushed his half eaten flap jack away. Jack, the smaller of the two dogs, pawed at his leg and the man reach downwards, to pick him up and put him on his lap. The dog wiggled forward, eager for a piece of the abandoned flap jack.

  “They have their reasons,” I said.

  “But to leave you…us…” Percy said, he couldn’t take it in, shock was setting in, “Are you sure? Really sure?”

  “Of course she is sure!” Gabe snapped at his husband, “You don’t make that sort of shit up, do you?” he looked at me.

  “No,” I said, and I gave a short laugh, and took another mouthful of tea, “The world ends and we don’t come together as one, we aren’t worth being saved is the long and the short of it, a bunch of people with disabilities and…” I let Gabe and Percy fill in that gap as to why they also weren’t on the list of those worth saving.

  “For God’s sake!” Gabe said, his hands were shaking now, “The end of the bloody world and it’s the haters who are in charge!”

  “And you have to live with them?” Percy recoiled at the very idea.

  “How the hell can you bear to have them under your roof?” Gabe said and he hugged his dog to his chest.

  “I guess,” I said slowly, “Because even though their orders are pretty despicable, we won’t go down to that level, because, well that would make us worse than they are, and the Colonel, in all fairness he has helped us to a certain degree, he doesn’t make the orders and I have a feeling he has tried to get them to change their mind.”

  Why the hell was I sticking up for Wolf? He was a bastard in the first degree.

  The banging on the door made us all jump. The dogs immediately started to bark. Mitch swore as he knocked his cup over and Percy pushed back his chair, grabbing his golf iron, telling Gabe to get the dogs and go downstairs.

  I had my Glock out of my bag, pointing it at the door, my finger on the trigger. Gabe had one of the dogs already in his arms, he snatched the other one up, they were barking frantically because following the banging there was shouting. He disappeared to the back of the shop with the excited dogs.

  Duke’s voice. Shouting for us to come out. Fucking great.

  “Both of you, get downstairs! Now!” I hissed at Mitch and Percy, “Move!”

  Mitch swore again but he grabbed hold of Percy’s arm and dragged him to the back of the shop, following Gabe and the dogs. I was the only one with a weapon of any merit.

  The wood in the door splintered a minute later, and it swung open, and Duke and Private Jasper entered, holding their own handguns, looking around what was now an empty space.

  “Lucy!” Private Jasper shouted, “Lucy!” I was crouching under the hollow of the heavy oak shop counter further back in the shop, holding my breath. I trusted Private Jasper not to shoot me but Duke, he wouldn’t hesitate to put a bullet into me. But in all fairness I wanted to shoot him myself so the feeling was totally mutual.

  They
entered the shop cautiously and then I heard a familiar voice, “Lucy, where the fuck are you?”

  Wolf. Duke wouldn’t shoot me in front of Wolf, I hoped.

  I stood up slowly, after putting my Glock into my bag. Duke swung around, he was raising his arm as he had done in the grounds of the home, but Private Jasper grabbed his forearm, and yanked his arm downwards, much to Duke’s disappointment I suspect, “Lucy!” he shouted and I was surprised how relieved he sounded.

  Wolf’s face was a picture, he pushed passed his subordinates, pointing a finger at me, and I flinched because I could practically taste his fury, “You are in deep shit!” he said between clenched teeth, “Really deep shit!”

  “Up to my ankles?” I said to the furious man and before he could ask me what the fuck I was on about, I added, “I take it that I am upside down up to my ankles in really deep shit?” Private Jasper laughed, he tried not too but he did, what was more shocking was that even Duke smiled, and then he put his gun into its holster.

  “You are so not funny,” Wolf said and he looked around the shop, “Where the hell is Mitch?”

  “With Gabe and Percy,” I said.

  “Who?”

  “The owners of this establishment,” I said calmly, “They’re alive, as are their two dogs, they’re downstairs,” I looked behind me so they knew where I meant.

  Wolf pointed at me, “Outside, now,” he said, and then he turned to Private Jasper and Duke, “Go and get them,” the men obeyed, moving down the back of the shop in the direction I had looked.

  I hadn’t moved from where I was standing, I crossed my arms across my chest and I said belligerently, “I’m not one of your bloody soldiers!”

  Wolf strode over to me, grabbed my arm and yanked me across the room and outside. I tried to pull free from his grip but he pressed his mouth to my ear and growled, “You’d make a shit foot soldier,” he said.

  “The disabled always do!” I snapped back, “Especially ones who have wheels for legs!”

  “You don’t have wheels for legs,” Wolf snarled at me.