Where did she find the strength to go on? I looked at the faces of my fellow residents one by one and thought about their grief when they learned their families were gone. Seb had been stoic about his family, matter of fact about it, but I sensed he was holding his grief deep inside of him. He was strong, he didn’t care he said, they had abandoned him. They had forgotten him. Been ashamed of his fall from grace. Why should he grieve? That was what he said to me but I knew he was hurting but he refused to show it.
Mitch cleared his throat as we huddled around the turned earth, “We are here to say goodbye to the Gorilla, he was a colleague, a friend, a carer, we lay him to rest here in the grounds of the home Thorncroft, his place of work, we won’t forget him, he is still with us, he is still our friend…” he then leaned over and dropped an old lighter into a gap between the stones, “Sorry I pinched your lighter,” that made even Adag smile, Mitch was a terror for appropriating his work colleagues lighters and forgetting to return them.
Adag stepped forward next, she knelt down and placed a small clear plastic bag with four strawberry cream Cadbury’s Roses in it. She carefully tucked it under two stones so it would be safe. They had been Gregory’s favourite sweets and all the staff and residents if they had any Roses chocolates would give him their strawberry creams.
“Food for your journey,” she said and then she stood up, “Goodbye Gregory.”
Seb edged Lewis near to the grave and from down the side of his wheelchair he produced a can of beer. He flicked open the can and poured the contents over the stones near his feet.
“You only let me drink this low alcohol shit,” he said, “Bastard,” his voice cracked slightly and he put the empty can on top of the stones, “You knew I liked Red Stripe.”
Jasmine and Eden had an armful of pink blossoms which they scattered over the stone covered mound, “We will miss you Gorilla,” Jasmine said and Eden echoed her words
Cassidy was next, Gregory had been kind to him, kinder than some of the other staff in the home. He often let the teenager choose the Saturday night movie when he was in charge of the weekends much to the irritation of the other residents as Cassidy always choose the same film. WALL-E.
Cassidy had bought one of his WALL-E models with him, which he put next to Seb’s empty can of beer.
“You liked EVE, Gorilla,” he said as he stepped back from the grave, and then he added, “And I’ve got two of them,” this made me smile.
My offering was a book, “Brother in the land,” I said, and the book the words were from was placed with the other gifts, I had wrapped in clear cellophane so it would not rot. “You are our brother in the land,” I also placed an old Mobile phone on the stones, Phoenix’s gift, as Gregory was always coming to him to fix his phone when it broke.
Stevie placed a pack of cards next to my book, he and Gregory often played cards together, usually on a Sunday when it was quiet. Like me he had wrapped the cards up, in cling-film. He knelt down on one knee and carefully put the cards between two heavy stones, he touched the gift lightly, “Bye bye Gregory,” he said softly, and he patted the stones and lowered his head.
Paul handed Adag an old remote control, covered in black gaffer tape and blue tack, it had a crack in the side and the rubber buttons were stick, “You wouldn’t throw this away,” he said, “You said it still worked,” the remote control was added to the gift pile.
It was done. We stood for a moment longer in silence. And then I heard one of the soldiers say loudly, |” Waste of fucking time,” a cold fury ran through me, for it was the same voice I had heard when we had returned from our foraging.
I swung around, ready to retaliate but Wolf’s voice was like a whip, beating me to it, “Private Salter you will keep your opinions to yourself, Captain Lacks-Renton, I think everyone here needs an eight full hour pack run right now!”
Whatever a pack run was, it caused a collective groan from the other soldiers, followed by swearing and muttering that Salter was going to pay for his “big fucking mouth,” Wolf turned to me and the others, luckily, only a few of us understood what the soldier meant with his words.
“My apologies for that,” Wolf said stiffly.
“No need Colonel,” Adag spoke, I could taste the acid in each and every word that dripped off her tongue, “We don’t expect any better from your men.”
“Well I do,” the officer said, he was furious, surprising “Captain, you heard me, full pack run now!”
The Captain bellow out an order and the soldiers moved swiftly away, I saw someone thump Salter hard on the arm, making him stumble and the words, “You little fucker!”
Wolf then swung on his heels and headed back to the Home.
I looked at Seb who raised his eyebrows. Mitch exhaled and muttered, “Fucking Yanks!” as he walked off, heading for his garage.
Adag pushed Paul in his chair, the young man looked very tired. The others trooped after her, Cassidy was saying he wanted a drink of tea and Jasmine had linked Eden’s arm and they were now giggling, the sombre and uncomfortable moment forgotten as they talked about what they like to cook for the next meal.
“Come on Stevie,” I said to the young man who had not left Gregory’s grave with the others. I touched his shoulder. He turned to look at me and said softly.
“Are my family dead Lucy?”
I went still. My first thought was to lie, to say no, but I found I couldn’t lie. Not to him.
Instead I said, “I don’t know Stevie.”
“Yes you do,” he wasn’t angry, he wasn’t even accusing me of anything; he was saying what he felt and thought.
“No, really I don’t,” I shook my head, “I wish I did.”
“Do bad people want to hurt us?”
A good question, “Sort of,” I said, “They used to be people, but something happened to them, something bad and now they aren’t good anymore.”
“Is that why Gregory became bad?”
“Gregory was never bad,” I said firmly.
“I saw him,” Stevie said simply, “I thought it was a dream, but it wasn’t, was it?”
What could I say? Tell him it was a dream when it wasn’t?
“No, it wasn’t a dream,” I said finally, “But Gregory wasn’t bad because what you saw wasn’t Gregory anymore.”
“But it’s Gregory here now?” he pointed at the mound of earth now covered in pink blossoms.
“Yes,” I said simply, “That is Gregory now.”
He nodded his head, “I won’t tell the others,” he said taking me by surprise again.
“That would be for the best,” I responded.
We walked slowly back toward the building and before he headed for the dining room and his companions, he looked me in the eye and said, “He likes you.”
I blinked, “Who likes me?” I said.
“The man who shouted at that soldier, he likes you,” And with those words Stevie trotted off leaving me staring at his broad back and wondering if all people with learning disabilities had a touch of insanity encoded into their DNA.
Adag was giving Paul his pain medication. Seb went to join Mitch in the garage where the driver was tinkering with the engine of the home’s coach. Cassidy was sitting at the dining table with a jigsaw that he was doing with Stevie and Eden had put a DVD on to watch.
I limped into the kitchen; the brace on my leg was beginning to chaff. I needed to take it off and elevate my leg. Jasmine was making a cup of tea for herself and I said mildly to her.
“It’s good manners to offer to make tea for other people too Jasmine.”
She blinked at my words then went to the kitchen door and shouted out if anyone wanted tea, which they all did and she trotted, back to make it. I told her to make it in the big metal teapot and use less tea bags because we needed to make them last.
“We can buy more from the shops,” she said.
“Not for a while,” she looked puzzled, but she did as I said.
I headed for my room, the door to the TOR, whi
ch had been converted, into a quarantine room was open.
I saw him lying on the mattress, trussed up like a turkey, from his ankles, to his knees, around his midriff, and then his hands, clasped in prayer with the white plastic wire that you often see police officers use on aggressive prisoners.
The hole in his cheek was filled with the black ooze that I had seen coming out of Gregory’s neck. He hadn’t changed totally as yet, his eyes were still human and they met mine.
A soldier in a biohazard suit, the unit’s Medic, I presumed was kneeling beside him, they had a cannula in his neck and he was endeavouring to push liquid into the tubing. Another soldier, also suited up, was holding the sick man’s shoulders, and another was kneeling on his legs to hold him still.
Two other soldiers in yellow stood a way back from the men working on their comrade.
“Fuck!” I heard the Medic say, “It’s backing up!” I watched in horrified fascination as the liquid in the injection began to leak out of the top of the syringe. The cannula in his neck seemed to pulsate and then there was a small explosion of black blood which made the three men tending to him jerk back. It splattered over them but they were protected by their suites. The cannula flew out of the bitten man’s neck, luckily it didn’t hit anyone.
The bitten soldier began to shake and froth at the mouth. One of the soldiers standing away from the men kneeling on the floor spotted me looking in.
I saw the bitten man sit up, snap his teeth together, his eyes met mine, the whites in them were almost gone. He was fighting the Pathogen, physically and mentally fighting it from taking over his body but he was losing the battle. He was slowly turning into one of the Twice Dead. His body jerked, and he began to drool and the spittle was tinged black. His breath rasped in his throat and I heard the words, “…Wolf…get Wolf…”
The bio-suited soldier who had seen me at the door moved fast, he stepped out, slamming door shut behind him, he pulled his bio hazard helmet off his head and I looked once again into the unfriendly face of Corporal Duke.
“This room is off limits,” he said, “Get out of here.”
“He’s going to go into the sleep coma, isn’t he?” I said before I could stop myself, “Are you trying to keep him awake?” I shouldn’t have spoken; I should have gone to my room but my curiosity got the better of me.
Duke stared at me and I felt my skin prickle. He surveyed me with his bright blue eyes. Nazi eyes. That was what an African girl at one of my schools had said of the blue eyes of the youth who had just racially abused us both in the school lunch room.
“You’re not stupid, are you,” not a question. A statement. His words got my back up.
“No, I’m not, what’s your excuse?” I shouldn’t have responded but I simply couldn’t help myself.
“Get out of here,” he said, his voice was level and he smiled at me.
I took the sensible option this time, I limped away, aware of his eyes still on me as I headed for the sanctity of my bedroom.
In my bedroom, I took off my brace and sat on my bed as I rubbed my leg, which was throbbing. I was suddenly really tired, I knew how Adag felt, the responsibility that had been thrust upon my shoulders was beginning to chaff as much as my leg brace.
I didn’t owe anyone in this building anything; no one was my responsibility, not Cassidy, not Stevie, not Eden, not Phoenix, not Paul, not Jasmine, no one. Social Services who had once ruled my life no longer existed. They were gone, Twice Dead, or in their case Four Time Dead, no that wasn’t fair, they had done their best for me, I had fared better than many people who ended up in care and Foster homes.
I sighed, reaching for my bedside drawer and some painkillers. There was a knock on my door and I called out for the person to enter. It was Adag; she came into the room and shut the door behind her.
“Is Paul OK?” I asked her, for I couldn’t think of any reason why Adag would come into my room.
“He’s sleeping,” she said and she pointed to the chair that was next to my desk, I nodded my head, and she sat down.
“We need to talk,” she said.
“OK,” I said uncertainly.
“I’ve spoken to Mitch,” Adag said, “He thinks I’m wrong, I need to know what you think.”
“About what?” I was puzzled.
“We’ve got no chance of surviving here,” she said bluntly “But once the electricity goes off and it will eventually, we will have no power to cook, we’ve got water, and a reasonable store of food, but without the power to cook it, it’s a moot point. Yes, we can make a fire, we have the bar-b-que area, but we will only be able to use that now, in the summer, what about the winter, and the food won’t last forever. Mitch says we can try and leave in the coach, but where can we go? For some reason the outbreak that has changed most people hasn’t come here, and by the look of it, it won’t come here for whatever that reason might be. I could be wrong, but I have a feeling, not that it counts for much, that I’m not. I don’t know why and I doubt if I will ever know why, but once we leave here there will be more Twice Dead than just Gregory and the poor man he bit, we could barely deal with Gregory, how the hell can we be expected to deal with more than one?”
Her words made me feel cold inside, but I understood what she was saying. She continued, “The soldiers here now will abandon us very soon…”
“You and Mitch can go with them,” I interrupted her to point out this fact.
“I’m not a brave person Lucia, I’m scared out of my mind, and part of me wants to go with them, but the very fact that their superiors are willing to let you and the other residents die makes me not want to be part of their new world, I’d rather live and die in this one, because at least it tried to make a difference, Mitch feels the same way, at least about staying here.”
I had never really had any feelings about Adag; she was the Assistant Manager of the home, good at her job, efficient, kind when she needed to be, stern at other times. She did not inspire love and devotion in the way that some of the Auxiliary helpers and PA’s had done for some of the residents, but she had done her job well and she was still doing her job even though she must have been sick with worry over her daughter Pia in London.
“Why are you telling me this?” I asked her.
She took a deep breath, “You know we keep very strong medication on site, some of it intravenous, don’t you?”
I did, Paul took a lot of Morphine, some of it intravenous and for some of the more difficult residents there was medication to sedate them when necessary, kept locked away and only used by certain trained personnel in the home, like Adag.
“There could be a time,” she said slowly, “When we might have to use some of that medication.”
I went still.
“Mitch says I shouldn’t be thinking such things,” she continued when I said nothing in response to her words, “But I am a realist Lucia, what if something happens to Mitch, me, you, what will happen to the others then?”
“There’s Seb,” I heard myself say and Adag smiled.
“Out of that wheelchair he needs help, once he can’t charge his power chair, he will be as helpless as the others.”
I hadn’t thought about that: I had thought about a lot of things, but funnily enough not that. I wanted to tell her she was being stupid, melodramatic, that we were going to be OK, that the electricity might not go off for years, but I knew she was right. We’d struggle for a while, doing our best with what we had, if the Twice Dead didn’t make their way to the home we would be physically safe, but Adag was right, being physically safe simply wasn’t enough.
When the power went there would be no heat, in the summer, it would be OK, but like she said, not in winter. We had food, but even if we rationed it, it would not last forever. We could try and go into town like I had thought of, but once again, there was the problem of meeting up with the Twice Dead, we hadn’t been able to handle one much less more than one. We might stand a chance if Wolf and his people stayed, but that was never in the equat
ion and I didn’t give it much mind.
“When the time comes,” Adag continued looking at me with her unwavering gaze, “I hope I can rely on your help?”
I sat on my bed, my palms pressed flat on the mattress. I pushed harder, wanting to feel the pressure to prove I was actually alive. For the moment I was. I wanted to say to her I didn’t understand what she wanted of me but I did understand, more than she would ever know.
Slowly I nodded my head to her request. Her shoulders sagged with relief and she gripped the arms of the chair she was sitting on, “Thank you.” she said.
“I’m not really keen on injections,” I said, “I’d rather drink something if you don’t mind.”
“Of course,” Adag said briskly, “They won’t feel anything, it will be like before, they will have a drink, go to sleep and then we can give them the injections so they won’t wake up, you and I can drink a concoction I will make up for us, we will just go to sleep, it won’t be painful, I promise you.”
“What about Mitch?”
“He said no, we’d manage, he wants us to hope, I want us to hope too, but without more than what we have now there is no hope, he won’t ever know, he will go to sleep like the others, like we will afterwards.”
“When?”
“When it gets too difficult,” she said and she stood up, “We’ll know, for the moment, well let’s live the best we all can.”
I nodded my head. She smiled at me, “Thank you for having the strength to do what is right,” she said.
What was right? What was right? What was wrong? I didn’t know. Philosophers down the ages didn’t know. What I did know what was we were no gung-ho survivalists like Wolf and his people, we were a group of disabled people in a home who had limited resources, no weapons, no allies and eventually at some point, no electricity to keep our home warm and everyone fed.
True we had found food in the wood, we could get fresh water from the stream, but Adag was right, it was still not enough.
Later that evening I went out into the darkness of the garden and sat outside the kitchen door on the bench. I wanted fresh air and the coolness of the night before I got ready for bed. I had a bottle of water in my hand in my hand and I sipped from it slowly.
The Abandoned Trilogy (Book 1): Twice Dead (Contagion) Page 12
