The Virophage Chronicles (Book 2): Dead Hemisphere [Keres Rising]

by Landeck, R. B.

  Wiping the sweat from his forehead, he edged forward and peeked around the corner into the next property. A newly-erected six-storey insurance building, it featured the usual tinted glass and polished steel exterior, with a fence, retractable anti-ramming bollards and a boom gate that could have rivalled a diplomatic mission. The roller-mounted main gate had been pulled shut and secured with an enormous padlock. Much like the place where he was now, it seemed deserted. With a little luck, he figured, they would be able to make good progress, provided they were able to continue avoiding detection and situations, the kind the remaining looters had found themselves in.

  He climbed atop the wall with little effort and continued to scan the modern steel and glass structure that stood out against the antiquated buildings around it. Except for an enormous 90s Toyota Landcruiser, the type used to ferry security teams between sites, the front car park was almost empty. All shiny and new, like in the window of a luxury showroom, the only other car was a late model BMW. No doubt executives had escaped in their company cars, and were by now were either sunning themselves on deckchairs somewhere on a Yacht or luxury island resort or were shambling about along with the thousands of others in search of their next pound of flesh.

  Amadou smiled to himself at the thought. He had never held the rich or powerful in high regard. For most of his young life, they had done little to help him. Worse, it had probably been someone just like that responsible for the suffering he and his family had endured, back when he still had a family. The need for that pound of flesh is what drove them in life. Now it would only be too befitting for it to dominate their minds in death. Near the stairs to the large glass front of the main entrance and foyer, a wide dark opening led to a basement parking garage. It sat like a gaping passage into the unknown, threatening to swallow anything that entered it now without so much of a chance of return.

  Although the building seemed quiet enough on the outside, Amadou decided he would give the garage entrance a wide berth and be sure to mention same to the others. He let his feet dangle over the wall’s edge, enjoying the breeze gently blowing across the neighbourhood from the back, thankfully towards the march of the dead outside and thus dispersing their sickening stench.

  He keyed the radio and again gave the ‘all clear’ advising the others of his progress. Tom initially had sounded a little miffed at his deviation from the plan to move one compound at the time, but soon eased up as he reminded himself that time simply wasn’t their friend at this point, if ever again.

  Amadou holstered the radio, slung his AK, and pushed himself up, taking an extra second to ensure enough clearance from the wall before leaping down onto the paved forecourt. He let his knees absorb the impact and rolled to his right, only too aware that a sprained or broken ankle in their current situation could well mean certain death. He quickly recovered and, crouching with his weapon already unslung and at the ready, began scanning the area around the gate, while watching the basement entrance out of the corner of his eye.

  There. He thought he had imagined it, but something had moved just behind the BMW parked next to the guard post. Amadou blinked, reassuring himself the jump hadn’t affected his vision. A few seconds passed. There it was again. A scraping sound followed by a shuffle. Something heavy pulled itself across the pavers and dragged something else with it. Pointing the AK’s barrel squarely at the source of the sound, Amadou crept forward, quiet and low, just as he had done thousands of times before back in the deep forests of the Congo. Moving along the perimeter wall, he made a 90 degree turn to the right just before reaching the gate, allowing the guard hut to provide him with cover from whatever was moving about just behind it. He hated going loud unnecessarily, but at the same time, had lost patience over the last few weeks and the hate that had grown within him for what were little more than walking abominations increasingly threatened to overtake his even most basic safety precautions.

  Leaning against the warm exterior of the guard hut next to its service window, he steadied himself and then his weapon. Quickly shifting his weight, he took a peek around the corner before returning to cover. Amadou shook his head. This couldn’t be right. Leaning forward, he took another look.

  Sure enough, just inside the front fence, in the gap between the parked vehicle and a stormwater run-off running along its length, a guard in full uniform was crawling toward him on all fours. Tethered to a rope tied to a hydrant further back like a guard dog, his clothes were shredded, and dark streaks had formed on the ground behind him. Leaving coagulated blood and tissue in his wake, the bare bones of the guard’s knees scraping across the concrete made the only sound inside the compound. His arms barely supporting him, he pulled himself along, the wound at the back of his neck clearly visible whenever his head bobbed up and down like a dying animal’s.

  Amadou silently stepped out from cover and stood watching the creature. His past experiences with the living aside, it had been some time since he had seen such a deplorable sight. He couldn’t help but feel pity for this thing, for some reason forced to carry on its demeaning duty even in death and the misery that followed it. Sensing movement ahead, the creature raised what was left of its head. Its lifeless eyes inspected its surroundings, its nose trying to sniff out its elusive target. A jagged hole gaped in the centre of its face. Fringes of rotten flesh and white bone extended outwards as if his head had exploded from within. As its head drooped again, Amadou got a better look. Someone had shot the guard in the back of the neck, yet somehow managed to miss the brain.

  Instead the bullet had passed through the back of the mouth, creating a large exit wound where formerly his nose and upper jaw had been. No longer able to moan, a wet sniffling sound escaped its mouth as hunger took over its last remaining faculties its instincts were telling it that food was near.

  Amadou stood still for a while, watching the thing pull itself towards him, debating with himself whether to shoot it or just advise the others to stay clear of the front of the parking lot. Killing the dead or the living, it mattered little. As much as he hated the former, he was weary of killing altogether. He took a step backward, ready to turn around and make his way back to the others, the only family which he was likely ever to have again. That much he knew was certain. Amadou again keyed his radio, when he heard a slight metallic sound behind him. He raised his weapon and swung around, but it was too late. Something heavy hit him square in the forehead with an almighty thud. His vision blurred, he went cross-eyed and his knees gave way.

  The last thing he heard was the clattering of his AK falling to the ground. Then darkness followed.

  CHAPTER 8

  It had been an exciting few weeks. First, there had been the long-awaited interview. No thanks to his brother, who, as was usually the case had overstated connections to the powers that be, his application had gone through on its own merits.

  The recruiter had been a scar-faced veteran, but one with a good memory of his own beginnings in an industry that was as unforgiving as it was chronically underpaid. The man’s few questions, thus, had gathered around attitude and life views much more than on the technical aspects of the job, of which there were few, to begin with. He had answered everything as honestly as he could and even when it came to what he preferred to call a troubled youth, had spoken freely about his brushes with the law, which eventually had seen him take a different path in life as perhaps his parents or even he himself might have wanted. Now, married, with three children and living in Kibera, one of the world’s biggest slums, that path had come full circle. In a labour market where PhDs competed with High School graduates for manufacturing jobs, someone like him, without formal education or credentials, stood little chance of ever digging himself out of the pit.

  He had gone home that day, half not believing the recruiter’s words when he welcomed him to the company with an emphatic handshake. It wasn’t until he stood in front of the security firm’s quartermaster, receiving a brand new uniform, belt, and boots that the reality sunk in. He was now off
icially part of the working population.

  His wife had taken the news with a mix of relief and concern. No stranger to the fact that nightshifts in Nairobi came with significant risk, it had taken a considerable amount of effort on his part to convince her that she would not instantly become a widow, not least if he had anything to do with it. Within a week, he had found himself in the company’s run-of-the-mill basic training. He soaked up lessons on laws and procedures with ease, and even his trainers were astonished by his ability to absorb new knowledge, along with an almost contagious positivity with which he approached the rather mundane tasks of this very much entry-level occupation.

  It took less than a fortnight, and he received his first assignment. His freshly starched uniform ironed to perfection by his wife in a labour of love using a charcoal-heated iron-box, he now found himself looking up again at the steely façade of the brand new building with pride. A pale moon had begun to rise behind it, and his boots glistened with the shine he had spent hours perfecting, using little more than a banana peel. He had been on day shift the week before, and even then, the contrast between his assignment and the place he called home had been utterly striking.

  Now, alone in the dark, standing in the imposing structure’s shadow, it was nothing short of baffling. Nights in Kibera seemed light-years away, and the modern building’s silent nonchalance gave him a sense of peace and belonging he hadn’t felt in years. Who were the people that occupied it, the people who were given cars the value of which could easily sustain his family for a decade? What did they do right to obtain such riches and, more importantly, where had he gone wrong? The night shift’s peace turned into a vortex of regret and self-doubt as he strolled past the vehicles, and he did not like it. The businessmen and women working inside the building, albeit somewhat aloof, had been cordial enough. As if poverty was a virus, a flu that could be caught from getting too close to one of his kind, they would wave and smile vaguely from behind their car’s tinted windows. Only occasionally would they cast a second glance his way as they made the quick transit to the foyer, in a hurry more out of awkwardness than actual pressure.

  The big lady just outside the entrance had been different, though. Selling snacks and fried fish, she would take up residence at sun-up, sometimes staying on well after dusk. The secretaries and bosses’ underlings would send him to get them their lunch from her while their parvenu masters revelled in better fare at one of the local five-star restaurants. She was the motherly sort and always up for a chat through the gate. His eyes fell on the spot where a few hours earlier, she had still been selling the last remaining, discounted snacks to passers-by on their way home. He missed her bubbly demeanour, her earthiness connecting him to his roots. For the next eight hours, still, he would be the boss of all this. It was he who had the keys to the site, and it was he who could do as he pleased.

  At quiet times like this, the potential to achieve, the kinship to the people in their designer suits, was as palpable as the Githeri he would have on his way home after the shift. He felt a rush of warmth as he again reflected on how he had gotten here. It was but a small step towards something bigger, something he could not quite put his finger on. But big change was coming. He paused.

  A distant gunshot had the hairs on his neck stand up. Occasional gunfire echoing through the wealthy, well-protected estates of Lower Kabete and Spring Valley was not unusual. Prowling gangs of burglars, armed with anything from Rungus to Pangas and firearms, went about their brutal nocturnal business, often only to be confronted by one of the many roadside emergency response units keen to earn their keep. Gun battles or executions, thus, were not uncommon, and many unarmed night watchmen’s lives lost in the process. It was always the same. A lone guard or two doing their rounds or having tea as they always did, assaulted by a gang of thugs having bypassed security. Tied up, gagged, severely beaten, or slashed with machetes, the watchmen were usually left to their fate, choking to death or bleeding out as the perpetrators made their getaway. It was the price still far too many paid in an environment where it was hard to tell the good from the bad and where often those tasked with enforcing the law were just as complicit in breaking it.

  Lately, though, the stories he had heard had changed somewhat. Rumours of gangs larger than before, crazed and frenzied, violently attacking people at random. Neighbours, most of them casual labourers, gardeners, or domestic cooks, had come home with horror stories of people even getting bitten to death in the process.

  The Kibera grapevine spoke of a resurgence of Mungiki, a banned gang cum religious cult with ties into every conceivable strata of society. Recruiting from the poor and unemployed, it was rumoured to serve as a factotum to the corridors of power, its existence shrouded in much folklore and its violence ever-prominent as it went about its gruesome bidding. But what he was hearing now didn’t seem to fit the popular narrative. Sure, the acts of violence seemed befitting of an entity like Mungiki, but they were far too random to make any sense and even though the gang had previously been known to maim, dismember and behead opponents, crazed attacks using nothing but their teeth seemed out of place, to say the least.

  This wasn’t the only thing out of the ordinary, though. As the national police’s paramilitary wing, the euphemistically titled General Services Unit had always been the one to deal with situations that required that little bit of extra persuasion. Dispersing protests and quelling civil disorder with anything from long batons to teargas and even live ammunition, they were as feared for their brutal efficiency as they were criticised for their relaxed approach to human and civil rights. Whenever those in power felt the need for swift resolution or definitive armed intervention, the GSU was the proverbial ton of bricks to descend on the scene. Part warning, part morbid obsession, newspapers, and social media regularly featured images of the branch’s exploits. Olive drab-clad officers wielding G3 assault rifles, standing over the outcome of yet another bust. Corpses of suspected criminals spread out on the pavement, half-stripped, and limbs awkwardly twisted, but always next to the purported arsenal of weapons they had allegedly used to return fire. In a city where being a suspect was as good as being guilty and crime, the only paying job accessible to many, the GSU had no trouble keeping busy.

  Oddly though, the first attacks of crazed individuals attacking people with their bare teeth went virtually unreported by the media. GSU deployed and cleared up the situation, but without the usual displays of its success. Bodies of both attackers and victims were swiftly carted away in covered trucks, never to be seen again. Rumours of Ebola, already having swept through Uganda and now finally jumping across the border, kept the public eye on the West, the news too big to be diluted by coverage of a few localized Mungiki incidents.

  It was when the first army trucks parked up along all major entry points into and out of the city that people began to realize something sinister was afoot right here in their back yard. Officially the government had declared a national emergency drill involving all elements of the security apparatus. But within days, policemen and GSU, normally very much part of the daily landscape, especially in and around the slums, had all but disappeared. Replaced by heavily armed soldiers and an entire brigade of army engineers strategically positioned to, as the government had put it, protect vulnerable populations and prevent the kind of scenes broadcast from Uganda, regular police had been summarily dispatched to assist in border security operations. Why these involved specially-designated trains bound for coastal Mombasa in the exact opposite direction of where the threat was actually coming from not only boggled many a mind but provided ample fodder for running jokes around the government’s incompetence along the way.

  The laughter stopped when the first shipping containers arrived. Eventually limiting access to and from Kibera to less than a handful of locations, security forces were not only quick to establish checkpoints but also recruited every able tradesman for the construction of what they called a protective perimeter.

  Things started off relativ
ely benign, and in the beginning, checkpoint personnel were almost jovial in their approach, sharing the odd cup of chai with the residents and generally trying to go about their job without causing too much disruption. But as reports of attacks became more frequent and the government, its hand forced by news coverage of Ebola victims in Eldoret, a mere 200 miles from the capital, finally acknowledged the existence of the virus on Kenyan soil, the mood among the security forces changed. It was but for the fact that his employer, the largest security company in the country, provided transport for its guards to and from shift, that he was mostly able to bypass the increasingly tense situation at the checkpoints, where a tightening of procedures often meant waiting in queue for hours at the time. Soon armed personnel was joined by medical teams, who screened and scrutinized residents on exiting the slum. A slight cold or a fever, previously easily dismissed as nothing but another case of Malaria were suddenly enough to be refused exit. Within less than a week after that, special passes were introduced, restricting travel outside the boundary to all but those on essential business. Appreciation for the protection afforded quickly turned to anger and dismay as the few remaining avenues to make an extra shilling in the bustle of the wealthier suburbs evaporated, and residents found themselves under virtual lockdown. Without a formal employment contract, like most of the casual workers, his wife, no longer able to reach her employer, a Dutch family in an international charity-paid 5-bedroom house, soon lost her cleaning job and with it the little bit of extra income they so sorely needed. It was up to him now to do the best he could, and he had no choice but to hang his hopes on the promise of the kind recruiter that moving up through the ranks for once in his life was not entirely impossible.

  Sitting down on one of the yellow bollards along the driveway, his mind wandered back to his wife and children. By now, they slept, tucked-in, warm and sheltered from whatever was out here, stalking the neighbourhood around him. He closed his eyes and imagined the rural home he would build for them one day, if only… He shook his head. ‘No. Not if, but when.’