by Mainak Dhar
She looked at Neil, and he saw not just fear, but sadness in her eyes, as if she had lost something or someone of immense value. ‘Young man, you have done quite enough for me. Just drop me ahead near the India International Center. It doesn’t yet look overrun and I can see a lot of policemen in front of it.’
He took her near the gate and as she dismounted, he smiled.
‘There must be something really important in that packet you’re carrying. You didn’t let go.’
As she walked into the Center, Neil turned his bike and drove towards Neha’s home, hoping she was still okay and wondering if he would be able to protect her.
***
The last few hours had been so chaotic that Neil had almost run straight into the dozen or so Biters now crossing the road. Neil ditched his bike just in time and lay flat on the grass near the sidewalk. If he had not been so terrified, he might have found it amusing. The Biters were crossing the road single file, slowly, deliberately, displaying better traffic-safety consciousness than the good citizens of Delhi.
For the first time, Neil got a longer look at the Biters, and he was surprised at what he saw. In the initial chaos, the Biters had seemed rabid, attacking people at random. He now saw that they were moving with some sort of co-ordination. The group that had just passed had perhaps been members of one family or one neighborhood, and seemed to be moving together, with the adults in front and back and children in the middle.
Before proceeding to Neha’s home, Neil fished out his phone and checked the news. What he saw froze his heart.
There were unconfirmed reports of nuclear war in the Middle East and tactical nuclear exchanges between India and Pakistan had already taken place. North Korea had lobbed missiles armed with chemical weapons at Seoul and Taiwan and the Chinese mainland were trading missile strikes. Biters were roaming freely in all major cities in the world and most governments seemed paralyzed by the sudden chaos. What had begun as an outbreak of some sort of deadly virus was heading towards a climax where the world melted in a nuclear holocaust.
Neil clicked on the Facebook icon and saw that updates were now scarce. People were perhaps just too busy trying to stay alive… or… Neil didn’t want to contemplate what might have happened. A day earlier, they had been sharing an update on their new dress, or a bad grade in a test, or their mood. There were a couple of updates on the page of Make-A-Wish India, one posted by Dr. Joanne Gladwell, who was one of the senior volunteers at the foundation and took care of a lot of their fundraising activities.
‘Calling all friends. The US Embassy staff and families are all headed to a safe zone near the Domestic Airport. The Indian Army has secured the area and is calling on all civilians to head there.’
The airport was at least an hour’s ride away, and Neil considered the corpse-littered street ahead of him. He could just get on his bike and make straight for the airport. The Biters, as horrifying as they were, did not move too fast, so there was a good chance that he could get there in safety. Or he could still try and get to Neha. He weighed it for a few seconds. Sure, he had called Neha his girlfriend to the old woman, but that was wishful thinking. Neha was someone he had a bad crush on, but to be perfectly honest, she was not even a close friend. He looked at the last update from Neha on Facebook.
‘Neil, they are in the apartment downstairs! Don’t come, please. I want you to be safe.’
That made up Neil’s mind for him. Here he was, worrying about his pathetic little life, and there was Neha, in imminent danger, trying to keep him safe. It did not matter whether she was his girlfriend or indeed, whether they would ever get a chance to form any sort of relationship. There was a relationship bigger than one formed by love, lust or relation. That was the fact that they were all human, and if people were to have any chance of surviving, they would have to stick their necks out for each other.
Neil hefted the metal rod in his hands. Till that morning, he had never struck another person, even in a schoolyard scrap. Neil had always been the one to walk away. Other boys in the orphanage had only paid lip service to the sermons doled out by the Catholic nuns who ran it, but without a family or much to call his own, Neil had embraced their teachings. He wondered how what he was seeing around him squared with all that he had been taught about good and evil. In his young mind he reconciled himself to the fact that the devastation unfolding around the world was a sign of the End Times, and that now was the time when good and pious people would have to step up and help others.
He waited till the last of the Biters was out sight and then mounted his bike for the last stretch of his ride to Neha’s home.
***
Neil had been a pretty keen cricket player as a child, and he tried to block out the blood and splattered brains, instead pretending that he was playing a game of cricket and dispatching each delivery out of sight. He held the thick metal rod in a two-handed grip, almost perpendicular to his body, in a stance that would have been more at home on a baseball diamond than a cricket pitch, and waded into the Biters outside Neha’s home.
He had arrived to find a good half-dozen Biters clawing at the door to the stairwell that led up to her apartment. The apartment downstairs had been torn apart, and other than huge bloodstains around the floor there was no sign of the inhabitants. The rod made solid contact with another Biter’s head, this one a middle-aged woman who had an iPod dangling around her chest, the earbuds still in her ears. As the Biter fell, her head cracked open and Neil took a breather. Fueled by rage and adrenaline, he had waded into the Biters, and now three of them lay at his feet. But that still left three more closing in on him, drooling and growling, and his shoulder felt like it was on fire. He resolved that if he got out alive, and if anyone made movies ever again, he’d write to them telling them just how unrealistic their fight sequences were. He could barely breathe, and had to muster every single ounce of strength left in him to lift up the rod again and smash it against a Biter’s head. He missed but made solid contact with his shoulder. The Biter, a big man in a bloody, torn vest, roared and clawed at Neil’s hand, drawing blood.
‘Shit!’
Neil looked at the growing trickle of blood on his forearm and backed away. He had no idea if the virus or whatever made people into ghouls could be transmitted by a scratch, but he figured he would find out soon enough.
‘Sissies scratch. Men do this!’ The normally mild-mannered Neil’s face was a mask of rage as he swung his rod again and smashed open the Biter’s head. The two remaining Biters looked down at the carnage around them, and for a second, Neil hoped that they would decide to cut their losses and find easier prey. Instead, they roared in fury and advanced on him again.
In his duels so far, Neil had learnt an important lesson. He could break their hands, smash their knees, crack open their ribs, but they would keep coming. The only thing that stopped them was smashing open their heads. So he had quickly overcome his squeamishness and started aiming only for the head. The first time he had made solid contact and taken off a Biter’s head, he had screamed aloud.
‘Off with their heads!’
Wearing his bunny ears and having set out to enact Alice in Wonderland, he though it only appropriate and he was repeating that battle cry as he took on the remaining Biters.
The rod he was carrying was covered with blood and other gore that Neil did not want to think about. Neil swung his rod at one of the remaining two Biters and missed, slipping on the blood on the floor. He tried to recover his footing but fell hard on his back, the rod rolling a few feet away. Neil backed away as the two Biters steadily advanced on him. Both had their blood-stained teeth bared and were a mere couple of feet away when they staggered back as a thick foam enveloped them. Neha stood in the doorway, a portable fire extinguisher in her hands. She sprayed the Biters again and then screamed at Neil.
‘Come on!’
He grabbed the rod and the two of them ran out of the apartment building, leaving the two Biters behind. Neha got on the bike behind Neil and th
ey sped away.
‘Where do we go now?’
Neil knew the answer to that. The problem was getting there in the fading light with millions of Biters rampaging through the streets of Delhi.
***
They had stopped at an abandoned gas station to top up Neil’s bike for the remainder of the ride to the airport. In the twenty minutes since they had left Neha’s home, they had seen plenty of Biters roaming in the streets, but moving at speed, they had managed to get this far without incident. The remainder of the trip to the airport would require them to get on the highway, where Neil hoped they could pass unmolested, but they would not have many opportunities to top up his fuel tank, which was nearing empty. So he had taken the risk of stopping to pump gas into the bike, the rod that had served him so well in his other hand. Neil caught a glimpse in the mirror ahead of him, and he scowled.
‘I forgot I’m still wearing these silly bunny ears.’
He was about to take them off when Neha’s hand gently tousled his hair. Her touch sent a jolt through him.
‘I think you look cute in these.’
Neha laughed but then Neil noticed a change in her tone as she touched his shoulder.
‘Neil, you’re bleeding!’
Neil looked at his hand, still bloody from the scratch he had suffered at Neha’s apartment. ‘Relax, it’s just a scratch.’
‘No, I mean up here.’
Neil caught the tension in her voice and took a look in the mirror near him. There was a red patch on his left shoulder. He dropped the rod and peeled back his shirt. His shoulder was covered in a thin film of blood. He wiped some of it away to reveal puncture wounds.
‘Neil, did they get close enough to…’
Neha did not dare complete the sentence, but the moment Neil saw the wound, the same thought had burned itself into his mind. Had he been bitten? He could not remember it, but then the struggle below Neha’s apartment had been so savage that he had not really been conscious of much other than swinging his rod at the nearest Biter he could see. He had assumed the pain in his shoulder was from the exertion of the fight. But now, looking at the wound, he was beginning to have doubts. He looked at Neha, his eyes filling with tears.
‘How long do I have? Have you read anything on the Internet?’
He could see that Neha was starting to cry as well and sobs racked her body as she tried to turn away. ‘Maybe it’s just a cut.’
Neil got up, holding her shoulders so that she was forced to look straight into his eyes. ‘How long do I have?’
Neha spoke in little more than a whisper, seemingly forcing each word out. ‘They say that the speed at which the infection takes hold depends on how deep the bite is and the number of bites. Some people with minor bites thought they had got away but became Biters after three or four hours. People who are bitten repeatedly turn pretty much immediately.’
Neil looked at his watch. He had been bitten perhaps thirty minutes ago. Even assuming he had a couple of hours, the best he could hope was to get Neha to the safety of the airport, and then what? He had met many brave boys and girls during his work with Make-A-Wish, and he had marveled at their strength in the face of terminal illnesses. He found his knees buckling and realized that he did not have that same strength. Of course, they had months or perhaps years to go – he did not even have one day.
He just sat there for a few seconds, Neha squatting in front of him, her hands on his shoulders. His mind was numb, with fear, with self-pity, with regret for all the things he would never be able to do. He looked up into Neha’s tear-filled eyes, and felt a renewed resolve. Neha must have seen the change in his expression.
‘What’s wrong?’
He stood up, and finished filling his bike’s tank, and then looked at Neha.
‘If I drive really fast, I can probably get you to the airport in thirty minutes. So we should still have time before anything happens to me. But before that, will you grant me one last wish?’
Neha burst into tears. ‘Neil, maybe it’s just a cut…’
Neil held her shoulders and she hugged him.
‘You know better than that. Now, we don’t have a lot of time. Will you fulfill my wish?’
Neha fought back her tears and nodded.
‘I was thinking of asking you out for a coffee after the party today. Will you go out with me on a date? I don’t have much money, I don’t look like much, but I do have these funky bunny ears and I am currently the world champion in the game of Biter Swatting with my rod here.’
Neha laughed and hugged him tight.
‘Lead the way, my bunny-eared hero. Where shall we have our date?’
And so they sat in an abandoned Pizza Hut. They didn’t eat or drink anything, but just sitting there, holding hands, made Neil forget, if only for a moment, what he was faced with. For that fleeting moment, he was living his dream.
They talked about their families, their dreams. Neil told her about how he was saving up to go to a good college, maybe get an MBA. Neha told him about how she hated being always told what to do, and being expected to join the family business after an MBA, and how she would much rather become a journalist. They talked about their likes and dislikes, about movies, and music, and friends at college, and then Neil took a look at his watch. It had been just fifteen minutes. The most magical fifteen minutes of his life. But now he had to get Neha to safety. He got up, but she stopped him.
‘Your wish isn’t yet over. There’s something left.’
Then she leaned close and kissed Neil.
***
The highway looked like a giant junkyard, with abandoned vehicles littering it. There were bodies strewn among them, but Neil tried to focus on the path ahead as he maneuvered his bike between the vehicles. They had seen groups of Biters when they had left the city center and taken the road to the highway, but they have been traveling too fast for the Biters to catch them. Now, hemmed in by abandoned cars on all sides, and in the fading light, he was forced to trade speed for safety, and there was no telling what lurked behind the next car. Neha was acting as the lookout, and once or twice she yelled out warnings of approaching Biters, but in both cases, it turned out to be a case of nerves, made worse by shadows being thrown around them.
Then she screamed, but even before the words left her mouth, Neil saw the danger. Two Biters had come out from behind a car to their right. With three abandoned cars blocking the way to their left, they did not have enough room to avoid them. One of the Biters was a frail old man with his face largely ripped off below the nose. The other was a younger man, wearing a bloodied Mickey Mouse t-shirt. Neil told Neha to be ready to grab the handlebars when he told her to, and then accelerated his bike, speeding towards the Biters. He turned the bike sideways at the last moment and kicked out at the older Biter. The momentum of the bike , more than Neil’s strength or aim, sent the Biter sprawling. The other Biter was coming towards Neil, bloodied mouth open, ready to bite, when Neil screamed at Neha to steer the bike.
‘Mickey Mouse, meet Bunny Ears.’
With that, he swung the metal rod over his head and crushed the Biter’s skull in one blow. The older Biter was scrambling to get back up, but by then Neil had sped away down the highway.
For the next ten minutes or so, they rode in relative peace, and with fewer cars visible on the road. Then up ahead Neil saw some vehicles moving at high speed. There were a couple of SUVs and what looked like five large Army trucks. The windows of the lead SUV were rolled down and rifles stuck out at least one window.
‘They look like Army vehicles. Maybe they’re also heading for the airport.’
Just then, Neil was racked by a violent coughing fit, and he barely managed to bring the bike to a stop before he fell off. Neha had fallen and scraped her knees, but she hardly noticed the pain as she ran towards Neil.
Neil was now on his knees and continuing to cough. The front of his shirt was now coated with blood and his hands were beginning to shake.
Neha started to c
ry, but Neil got up and pushed her towards the bike.
‘Not yet, not yet. I have to get you to safety. I may not last till the airport but I can get you to those Army trucks.’
Neil drove faster than he had ever driven before, with Neha clutching him tightly as he bore down on the vehicles he had seen. He saw someone lift the flap on the rear truck’s cab, and a rifle peeked out. Neil wanted to shout at them to not shoot, but when he opened his mouth, more blood came out. He would just have to take his chances. He increased his speed and came alongside the lead SUV, motioning frantically for it to stop. A man in military uniform pointed a rifle at Neil.
‘Sir, I will shoot if you do not move away from this convoy.’
Neha shouted back, ‘We need help. I’m trying to get to that safe zone at the airport, and my boyfriend needs medical help.’
The man with the rifle turned to talk to someone inside and then another face peered out, a familiar face. Then the convoy came to a halt and a man in an Indian Army uniform ran out from the SUV. He addressed Neha.
‘Ma’am, were you with the Make-A-Wish Foundation?’
When Neha nodded, he pointed back to the SUV.
‘We really don’t have space in there for anyone, but Dr. Gladwell recognized you from the foundation and is asking that we take you along. Anyway, the airport is gone, so we’re going to another army shelter nearby, and you had best come along.’
He took Neha’s hand and was pulling her when she looked at Neil. ‘Can you help him?’
The soldier looked at Neil, pity in his eyes as he took in Neil’s bloodied clothes and his yellowing eyes. ‘Ma’am, I’m really sorry. We can’t do anything for him any more. We need to get going.’
When Neha hesitated, Neil took her hand. ‘Please go, Neha, and take care of yourself.’
He was saying the words in his mind, but he realized they were coming out all garbled as more blood came out of his mouth. He felt another sharp stab of pain in his chest and he pushed Neha away. The soldier half dragged her to the SUV and then the convoy drove away.