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

by Suchitra Chatterjee

  I watched in horrified fascination as one former human started to run around in circles, high pitched hissing coming out of his throat, his grey fingers pulling at the flesh on top of his skull, plucking away chunks of the sizzling flesh and muscle until glistening bone was exposed. His cranium seemed to expand outwards and then it happened.

  His skull split into three pieces running along the coronal sutures, it was almost like a grotesque lotus unfurling its petals to reveal the blackened lumpy jelly of his brain which began to swell upwards, his eyes literally popped out of their sockets, no joke, in fact they didn’t just pop out, they exploded out, followed swiftly by his brain which became a glutinous stream of black goo that sprayed into air like the fountain I had dabbled my feet in when I visited Brighton all those years ago.

  “Holy fucking shit!” I heard someone scream.

  “That is fucking disgusting!” someone else yelled.

  Another GPB was thrown, with similar results. As I expected the rest of the Twice Dead, got the message and backed off suddenly, moving to the edge of the road, they turned and looked to the moving carpet in the distance. Their reinforcements would be here soon, and by their sheer numbers, they would surely overcome us.

  Their collective intelligence shone through, I listened to the shouting of the soldiers, bewildered as to why the attack had suddenly stopped. They didn’t realise yet that the Twice Dead were intelligent, they were treating them as mindless Zombies. Well they weren’t mindless, they were evolving. Learning. Whatever the contagion had done to them had done a good job in making them into what they were now. A walking, non-verbalizing cannibal with heightened strength and the ability to work in a pack.

  My eyes were on the surge of Twice Dead that would soon be upon us. Seb was moving Lewis around the ground, Lewis moved well I thought, smooth, wasn’t hindered by the soft ground, or the uneven land.

  Wolf didn’t make any small talk, he started bellowing out orders. I caught sight of Duke, we looked at each other, knowing some of each other’s secrets.

  “Where’s Zimmerman?” I said to Wolf.

  “Trapped under the truck,” Zimmerman had been in the truck that had overturned. When it had first tipped, it had only partly gone over, balancing on two wheels, momentum not quite pulling it to earth. He had been climbing out of the back when he had slipped and as he had slipped, the truck had moved violently, spinning almost, he had tried to scramble away, but he wasn’t fast enough, his left leg up to his knee was crushed under the weight of the side of the vehicle.

  Nat and two other soldiers were trying to dig the earth from around the truck door that was pinning Zimmerman’s foot, Duke had the older man propped up against his chest.

  “We can’t free him;” Wolf said savagely.

  “Let the Twice Dead have him,” my words loud enough for Zimmerman and Duke to hear.

  “We need him alive,” I heard the disgust in Wolf’s voice. He didn’t want to save Zimmerman any more than I did. But he was right.

  “Great!” I said savage but we didn’t have time to argue so we didn’t.

  “Cassidy! Stevie!” I swung around as I shouted and they came running.

  “I need your help,” I said to them both, “We have to get this truck off this man’s leg, can you lift it enough for him to be pulled free?”

  They didn’t hesitate. I moved to Duke and the tip of my sword touched his throat, he turned and looked up at me.

  “Lucy!” Wolf’s voice was behind me, I felt his hand on my shoulder, but I didn’t move.

  “Your wonderful New World Succession,” I hissed, “Is dying already. It’s on its last legs before its even started, and guess what? The Twice Dead are evolving, or hadn’t you realised?” he hadn’t, and I laughed and turned to Wolf, “This is the bastard who beat the shit out of Private Salter, he did it to see how I would react to finding him, seems he likes to do little tests on people.”

  “You son of a bitch!” Wolf snarled at Duke, he hadn’t known and we had not been able to tell him. Until now.

  I moved my sword away from Duke’s throat. There was a creak, low, but audible, out of the corner of my eye I saw the truck begin to move upward. Stevie and Cassidy worked together, their bodies took the load, they drew on their collective strength and with a roar, they lifted it up more than three inches.

  “Pull him out!” Nat screamed and Duke obeyed, dragging the Professor free, and blood gushed from the shattered ankle, which Nat pounced on, his fingers working feverishly to stop the bleeding.

  Wolf didn’t ask any questions then, he shouted for Zimmerman to be carried to the coach as soon as possible and he had his Glock out, pointed at Duke’s skull.

  “Where’s the Captain?” I looked around and realised I couldn’t see Elise.

  “Over there,” he pointed to a clutch of trees in the distance, “She’s a long range sniper, she’s been culling some of the Twice Dead coming down from the hill, I ordered her to get back to you if we didn’t make it.”

  I turned around and shouted to Seb, “Go find the Captain, tell her she is leaving,” Seb could move faster than any of us in Lewis. He set off with a wave of his hand.

  “We can’t take all of you,” I said to Wolf, “The coach isn’t big enough.”

  “Load your people up, Nat and whoever else you can squeeze in, Duke and I and will be staying here, won’t we Duke?”

  Duke’s head shot up. Wolf was not a fool. Duke stood up slowly.

  “This is much bigger than all of us,” he said calmly, “You can’t fight it and expect to win.”

  “Won’t matter much,” Wolf said and he smiled, his hand was steady, the Glock aimed at Duke’s heart, “Because we won’t be around to see it,” He moved forward and yanked Duke’s Glock from his holster and tossed it to a nearby soldier and then added, “Magazines, all of them.”

  Duke obeyed, throwing them onto the ground.

  “I think he’s got some sort of radio or transmitter,” I said to Wolf, “He and Private Charles were in contact with your Epsilon Command separate to you.”

  “Shit,” Wolf said savagely, and he pointed his Glock at the young man’s head, “Hand it over you bastard.”

  Duke’s eyes were on me as he put his hand into his jacket pocket. I held my breath as he pulled out what looked like a black power bank, some sort of digital transmitter/radio I presumed, “Ever wonder where you get your brains from?” he asked me.

  I rolled my eyes. Didn't this prick ever give up trying to goad me?

  “Drop it,” Wolf barked out and after the soldier had obeyed him added, “Take your jacket off.”

  Duke hesitated and Wolf fired a warning shot over his head, “Take it off and throw it over there,” he nodded toward a patch of grass to the left of. Duke obeyed, he had got the message loud and clear. A nearby soldier snatched it up along with the magazines from the Glock.

  Wolf then produced two pairs of plastic handcuffs and held them out to Private Jasper who knew exactly what to do with them. And he did it with relish.

  “You motherfucker!” he spat at Duke as he yanked the soldier’s hands behind his back and pushed him roughly to his knees, his own knee pressed into Duke’s back, “We lost some good people because of you!”

  Duke turned his head to look at Private Jasper, “You deserted your friends,” he said sneeringly and Private Jasper flinched.

  “No, he didn’t,” I said, Duke had an ability to hurt you both physically and verbally, but I wasn’t going to let him hurt anyone I cared about if I could help it, “He stayed with friends and those friends are here right now.”

  “You’re all dead meat,” Duke said in a bored voice, and he looked around him at the men and women taking shots at the Twice Dead scouting party, a couple of whom chanced their luck in the hope of grabbing someone to chew on, and were quickly disabused of this idea, “Do you think these idiots can survive without leaders like you and the Colonel?”

  “Shut up Duke,” Wolf growled, “Unless you want to be ga
gged as well!”

  Private Jasper shoved Duke hard so that he fell face first into the dirt, he rolled and struggled to sit up. No one went to help him.

  Wolf turned to the remainder of his soldiers, “I’m staying,” he said to them, “The choice is yours, I won’t order you to stay, if there is room on that coach get on it, but if you go, you honour the sacrifice these people have made, you protect them, you make them your family and you live for, and with them, understand?”

  “Yes Sir!” came back the collective response.

  Eden came running back from the coach with Percy. Her eyes were drawn to the carpet of Twice Dead that would soon be among us. There was no stopping them, but we could give our friends their chance.

  “Move!” I screamed at the soldiers, “RUN, get out of here!”

  Wolf bellowed the same, he had his Glock out and out of the corner of my eye I saw the remains of the Twice Dead scouting party start to move cautiously toward us, stepping over the remains of their fallen comrades, aware that the tide was changing to their advantage.

  Cassidy moved forward without even being asked and then he had Zimmerman in his arms, in the way he once had held me and he began to lumber down the hill carrying the old man. Nat ran behind him with the two soldiers who had been digging at the earth.

  The remaining soldiers hesitated, they looked at each other, they were frightened, and with good reason, I thought. I didn’t hold that against them. I was terrified too but I had made up mind to do what I needed to do.

  “Go!” I yelled at them, “Go! For God’s sake! Don’t be a bloody hero! Get out of here!” One of the soldiers slapped me on the shoulder then started to run, others began to him, two soldiers took their guns out of their holsters and one said to the other, “You know Bubba, I fucking hate Zombies!”

  Bubba, the soldier’s whose accent was similar to Salter’s snorted as he slapped a magazine into his Glock, “I hate them more than you that’s for fucking sure Rodriquez!”

  I became aware of Private Salter by my side, I hugged him hard, “Glad you are OK,” I said. He hugged me back and then he turned to look at what was bearing down on us.

  “Oh God,” he said.

  Cassidy had put his sword by the truck when he and Stevie had helped free Zimmerman. I picked it up, I turned to Wolf and I said, “Bet I get eaten before you,” he laughed.

  “You like to be first in everything,”

  “Coming second is for losers,” I said and I reached out and grabbed Corporal Peters sword off him and handed it to the Colonel, “You’re driving the coach, don’t argue, you know the way out, no one else does, get the hell out of here now!”

  “No,” he began, but the Colonel gave him hard shove in the direction of the slope.

  “She gave you an order!” he roared, “Obey it soldier!”

  Peters didn’t want to go. He hesitated, willing to disobey the order but the final soldier to head down the slope, grabbed his arm, and he was propelled away from us.

  “Mitch, Percy, Stevie, Eden go with Corporal Peters!” they didn’t move, and it was then I noticed that Eden had Jasmine’s sword as well as her own whilst Percy had Gabe’s sword.

  For some reason Stevie had a sword and a cricket bat, rather than two swords. The four of them stared at me silently and I knew they had made a collective decision of who would live and who would die, out of our group. They were sharing our fate just as the Colonel, Bubba and Rodriquez were.

  I nodded my head. I handed both my swords to Stevie to hold. I had one last thing to do I grabbed Private Jasper’s sword from his hand and gave it to Rodriquez, then caught hold of Salter’s good arm, “You two, out of here, NOW!”

  “I’m staying!” Private Jasper pulled free from my grip and I smiled gently at him and I put my arms around him and hugged him tightly.

  “No, you’re not,” I said into his ear,” You are going to take Private Salter out of here because he won’t leave without someone dragging him away, he has one arm that is working, he can’t fight right now, go, please, do this for me Private Jasper, look after him and the others, for me, please.”

  Jasper wanted to refuse, we had, I now appreciated become friends. Good friends in a short space time, bought about by the end of the world.

  “No!” Salter shouted, he would have pulled free but I pulled him to me, holding him tightly, my arms wrapped round him, pressing my mouth to his ear.

  “You will go with him Private Salter, look after Cassidy for me, he will need a friend, teach him how to play checkers, see if you can get Phoenix to come out of his room more, you’ll like him, he’s a digital geek like you.”

  “No,” I felt hot tears running down my neck, and he clutched at me with his good arm, “I’m staying to fight with you and the Colonel!”

  I kissed his forehead hard, and then I shoved him in the chest, with his arm in a sling he wasn’t able to get his balance back and he fell backwards into Private Jasper’s waiting arms with a cry of shock.

  “Your curfew and circuit runs still stand Private Salter and I’m bringing back corporal punishment for minor infringements as of now!” Wolf yelled as Private Jasper dragged the screaming and crying young soldier down the hill, with him. His voice echoed with the drums of the relentless marching feet heading toward us, he was screaming my name, screaming it over and over again.

  How had a shitty foul mouthed little soldier managed to touch my heart when others hadn’t? What did Salter mean to me? And then I knew. I slowly nodded my head. Of course. Now it made sense.

  Stevie handed me back my swords, I looked at Duke who was sitting near a clump of bushes, his arms still tied behind his back. He was looking at me in an odd way, not with hatred or anger, more with puzzlement than anything.

  “Well at least I won’t be a pain in your ass for much longer,” I said to Wolf as I flexed my swords in front of me and then I said thoughtfully, “Do you think the Twice Dead pooh and piss like us?”

  Wolf didn’t bat an eyelid at my comment, he just smiled and then I was running toward the Twice Dead, not away from them, my leg was my own at that moment in time, it belonged to me, a daughter of Kali, Adag had called me.

  I heard Stevie roar behind me, then Mitch, then Bubba, then Eden, then Rodriquez then Percy, and finally Wolf. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Duke, rolling away, I contemplated getting out my Glock and shooting him but I didn’t want to waste a precious bullet on him.

  Like us, he was doomed, it didn’t matter, what mattered was the amount of time we could give the others to get away to the safety of Ashby Forest. There was no sign of Seb, but I wasn’t worried about him. What would be would be.

  The sword in my hand was razor sharp, Mitch had seen to that. I remembered Adag’s words of being a daughter of Kali and then for some reason I then remembered my favourite scene from the second of The Lord of the Rings trilogy, The Two Towers, when King Theoden questions who he is and what he must do in order to protect his people, “Where is the horse and the rider? Where is the horn that was blowing? They have passed like rain on the mountains, like wind in the meadows, the days have gone down in the West behind the hills into shadow, how did it come to this?”

  A Twice Dead threw himself at me, arms outstretched, teeth bared, ready for the kill, his head parted from his shoulders a second later, as did the next one and the next. My swords sang. I would fall in battle soon enough, but it did not matter, not anymore.

  I thought of Jasmine, probably pregnant, a new life for a new world. Two of the soldiers who had run with Nat were female, they would have children too, Cassidy would be looked after, he would remind them of their humanity, his learning disability would never let them forget who had saved them, Gabe would see to that, Adag would help. Paul would eventually die peacefully at home with Adag at his side and she would then have Phoenix to look after. And if Seb and the Captain survived, then they would add to the mix to make it all worth the sacrifice.

  Wolf was shooting and slicing heads off shoulders, and E
den was doing the same, she didn’t falter as black goo flew through the air and heads rolled down slopes. All that dancing and keeping fit had paid off I thought. She was light on her feet, fast, strong. For the moment, we didn’t have time to light the bombs, which we were carrying.

  I saw why Stevie had a sword and a cricket bat rather than two swords. His added strength gave him the power to take a head off a set of shoulders with one swipe of his sword and then with the bat send it flying like a projectile through the air.

  Stevie loved all sports, his favourite was weight lifting, but he was a damn good cricket player too, of course, he had proved that on our journey to Brocklease Bunker.

  And Mitch, a cigarette dangling from his lips was honouring the Samurai Sword that his father had taken as a trophy so many years ago in the East. Honouring it with blood.

  Rodriquez was set upon by two Twice Dead, one of whom managed to knock his sword out of his hand whilst the other leapt on him, landing on his chest teeth bared, mouth wide open ready to rip out the soldier’s windpipe.

  Stevie’s sword sang and the head of the Twice Dead about to bite Rodriquez was severed with a powerful stroke and almost simultaneously the cricket bat struck it and the decapitated head spun through the air and hit another Twice Dead in the face sending it staggering backwards into another Twice Dead.

  A domino effect swiftly ensued. It was comical and I found myself laughing. Yes, laughing. I couldn’t help it. It wasn’t funny at all, but I just had to laugh. Like I had laughed when I had seen the dentures and slippers on the pavement outside of the Tea and Herb café.

  Rodriquez swore and flung the twitching body to one side as black goo, began to pool on the front of his uniform. He scrambled to his feet, feverishly trying to ram another magazine into his Glock.

  “Drop!” Stevie screamed at Rodriquez, “Drop!” The soldier instinctively dropped to his knees and Stevie was spinning around on his heels, his cricket bat slamming into the chest of a Twice Dead who had launched at the standing Rodriquez.