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

by Suchitra Chatterjee

“He went to the garage; he said he had to change over his chair.”

  I went to find Seb. He was coming out of the garage in Lewis. He was strapped into it from the shoulders as well as around his waist I noticed.

  “I was going to give Mitch this,” I said handing him the spare Glock “But he has his own weapon.”

  “I don’t know how to shoot,” he said as he gingerly took the gun off me.

  “Neither can I,” was my unhelpful reply, “So learn fast.”

  “Fuck,” I showed him how to load the magazine then explained how to fire it.

  “You have 17 cartridges in each magazine,” I said, “You need to aim for the head.”

  “I know,” he looked grim, “Do you think the garlic fields will protect us?”

  “Maybe, we can only hope our theory is right.”

  In the office, I heard Corporal Peters say to Private Jasper that the Colonel was about thirty miles away, but the Twice Dead were converging on them and we needed to evacuate as fast as possible because there was no chance of defending the home even if they got to us twenty minutes in front of the Twice Dead.

  Phoenix and Paul were working together on the computer, their flat monotone voices giving out directions and information.

  “We need to stay here,” I said immediately.

  “We’re moving out,” Private Jasper said before I could tell him about my wild garlic theory and the Twice Dead, “We’re going to try and meet the Colonel at a designated point, that is if any of us make it, we’re nearer to it than they are, get the girls, and the others, we’re loading up.”

  “We are better off here because of the…” I began, but Phoenix interrupted me.

  “Brocklease Bunker, we are meeting at Brocklease Bunker.”

  Brocklease Bunker? It took a moment or two for me to register what Phoenix was telling me. Of course. I saw the logic in it. I nodded my head, understanding why he had agreed with our moving out of the home away from the wild garlic fields I prayed where the reason the contagion hadn’t affected us.

  The coach was still in the drive way. I hadn’t really taken much notice of it for a while even though I had been in and out of the garage on several times. I knew that Mitch had been working on it since the first day of the contagion but I hadn’t really given it much thought.

  But apparently Mitch had been customizing the home’s communal transport. For on the front of the coach itself was a heavy set of metal bull bars. They were curved, thick, shiny and welded securely into place over the grill.

  “Shit!” I said to Mitch as I reached out to touch the solid metal frame that was now welded onto the front end of the coach, “When did you put those bloody things on? Come to think of it, where did you get them from?”

  Mitch grinned at me, “Apparently they came with the coach when it was delivered years ago, been in storage, we never got rid of them, they’re not illegal here but they aren’t pedestrian friendly, hence why they went into storage.”

  “How the hell did you get them on?” I moved around the coach to take in the bars, running my fingers over them, feeling the coolness of the solid metal.

  “Stevie and Cassidy helped,” Mitch admitted and I laughed.

  “I hope you told Adag what you were doing this time!”

  “I did,” he said, “She agreed.”

  Seb was loaded up first into the coach Lewis, it didn’t take long, Mitch had long practice of getting Seb into the coach. The girls and the dogs were next; Gabe and Percy had put their pink leather harnesses on and were carrying bottled water, dog treats and their weapons, brand new cricket bats.

  The girls were clutching their outsized handbags and had sensibly put on their coats.

  Stevie and Cassidy were next, I sent them to get their outdoor coats telling them it could turn cold and we didn’t know how long we would be away from the home.

  I then went into the kitchen and quickly put together some food, filling several Tupperware tubs with cheese, bread sticks, crisps and bars of chocolate. I grabbed the trolley we had used to forage with put into bottled water, two 12 packs.

  I took this out to where the coach was and Mitch slung it into boot.

  Phoenix was put in the front of the coach behind Private Jasper, with his computer and a portable power pack. He would be moving from using our satellite to using one in space in order to keep track of the Bee-in-the-SKY and the Drones.

  There was only room for one wheelchair in the coach, but the Home’s Land Rover, had a seat that had been adapted to hold a disabled person and with Private Jasper and Corporal Peters help they got Paul into that seat and strapped him in, putting his foldable manual wheelchair into the boot.

  Adag insisted on driving the Land Rover; she knew it well she said as she slid into the driver’s seat and then proceeded to scare the shit out of all of us when she set the siren off. The dogs went into a barking frenzy in the coach and the air was filled with various expletives from those near to the Land Rover.

  Adag had the decency to look sheepish.

  “Sorry,” she said. The Land Rover had once been owned by the ambulance service and been donated to the home a few years ago, after being adapted for our use. The siren for some reason had not been disabled and every now and then, it was set off by someone, causing temporary mayhem as the person driving the vehicle tried to switch it off.

  Private Jasper would drive the coach; Mitch would take his van, which he had loaded with other certain items from the kitchen, the garage and his collection of military memorabilia. He had told me what he had been doing over the last few days on the quiet.

  We were a motley crew I thought as I put my coat on, zipped it up, and slung my canvas bag over my shoulder, but perhaps that was a good thing now.

  As the Land Rover was the most stable of all the vehicles, being a four-wheel drive, I opted to put the grenades into the back seat, padded with blankets and old towels.

  Corporal Peters was riding shotgun with Mitch, and in order to keep in contact Mitch had produced three old green army walkie-talkies, all fully functional with batteries in them and tuned into each other. This was how we were going to keep in touch in our mini convoy.

  A ten-minute lesson on how to use them was given to me and Paul, Corporal Peters already knew how to use one, not surprising really, some military equipment didn’t much change over time.

  I was sitting in what was normally was the PA’s seat by Private Jasper whilst Phoenix was behind the young soldier with his laptop, which was controlling the Bee-in-the-SKY.

  The tiny Drone could only be used for us now, as we needed it more because we were on the road. Wolf and his convoy were on their own until or if they got to the bunker, but they had the advantage of being in military vehicles.

  When we pulled out of the grounds of the home, I wondered if we would ever see it again. I thought I understood the logic of Phoenix choosing Brocklease Bunker as our meeting point. It would definitively prove our theory because Brocklease Bunker was a huge piece of military owned land that held an ancient forest that had last been utilised during WW2. A massive stone bunker had been built on the land and it had been used for secret training for D-Day; it was decommissioned in 1950 and then allowed to go back to nature.

  There had been talk about developing it, but for some reason the MoD had never got round to doing anything with it and a few years ago it had been declared a place of natural beauty and part of the green belt so it would never be developed on. Its status was still ambiguous, as the MoD still officially owned it so the public never traversed it as it was cordoned off with high metal gates with big padlocks.

  The space it took up was a vast swathe of trees, bluebells and more wild garlic plants than you could shake a stick at. It had an ancient lagoon, that was said to be deeper than Loch Ness, but what was even better I thought was that it was known for its copious waterside wild garlic.

  Brocklease Bunker had come up in Phoenix’s search for all things wild garlic, but no survivors had been found there
because no one lived there.

  It was thirty or so miles from Thorncroft as the crow flies as they say. As we bounced along the empty road with burnt out cars Phoenix directed the Colonel via Private Jasper as to how to get to Brocklease as well as avoid the Twice Dead.

  I was thinking about my wild garlic theory and the Twice Dead, there had to be a correlation, there had to be! If I was wrong, though we were all dead Twice Dead meat. Our Waterloo was possibly at hand. Today I thought wryly, was to be our day of days…

  There are many things I find that I miss now that the world is no longer as it was. Things I took for granted, didn’t even notice in fact.

  The mystery series that I liked to watch each week on the TV, the weekly trip to the library that I actually looked forward to, swimming in the hydrotherapy pool once a month in a sister complex to Thorncroft 40 miles away and those tiny pink and white marshmallows in my hot chocolate on a late Saturday evening just before I went to bed.

  We drove in convoy, the Coach first, followed by Adag with Paul and Mitch with Corporal Peters. In the coach, everyone was quiet. Even the dogs were silent at first, curled up on a seat next to their Masters. I glanced into the large rearview mirror, taking in each face, wondering what they were thinking.

  As we drove toward our destination at Brocklease Bunker, I tried not to think. I cradled the walkie-talkie against my chest. We had tested them out; quickly spoken to each other to make sure we could hear one another whilst on the move.

  Despite the urgency of the situation, Mitch had made us laugh by giving us calls signs of Mob Badge 1, 2, and 3. The coach of course was Mob Badge 1.

  I tried to clear my mind of all thoughts and just allow myself to go into a corner of my mind that was nothing, but darkness.

  However, the darkness I looked to for refuge was filled with the Twice Dead, reaching out to me, swaying, moaning, calling my name and finally I had to distract myself by watching what Phoenix was doing.

  We were on a long stretch of road, a dual carriageway, empty bar the odd crashed car. This was quite a rural area despite the modern road under our tires, and not many cars had been out and about when the contagion had been released.

  In the back of the coach, Gabe and Percy now had everyone singing a dreadful old camp song. No one was in tune, but that didn’t matter. I listened to the cacophony and tried to pretend for the moment we were on our way to Brighton again, to spend a day by the sea. Eating candy floss, licking sticky ice cream from our fingers and looking down at the sea from between the slats on the Palace Pier.

  I wanted to look up to the heavens and see seagulls soaring overhead, I longed to hear the clink of money in the large amusement arcade slot machines and smell old coffee and hot dogs as we hurried along the carpet to where the mini fairground was at the end of the pier.

  I actually had enjoyed that day out with the Home I realised. It had been a nice day. I had gone on the ghost train with Jasmine. That had been an experience. She happily shrieked from the beginning of the ride to the end. She had loved every minute of it.

  And the fish and chips we had been allowed to eat, hot and greasy, and delicious. Cassidy had enjoyed half of my fish and many of my chips. I wasn’t a big eater and I knew he was still hungry as he sat beside me, looking longingly at my leftovers.

  Adag had told me off for that and I had looked at her, saying nothing, but when she turned her back on me I stuck my tongue out at her which made Cassidy giggle.

  “I saw that,” I heard Adag say as she walked away to tend to Mark who was having an argument with Seb. I remember me and Cassidy looking at each other both wondering how the heck she had seen me stick my tongue out at her.

  I had forgotten that. It had been a nice day. A very nice day. There had been other nice days too, with Theresa and Jack, days that were only now pushing their way back into my conscious mind.

  “Ging gang goolie goolie watcha!” I heard Cassidy’s voice; he was in fine fettle, “Ging gang goo, ging gang goo!”

  “Ging gang goolie goolie goolie watcha, Ging gang goo, ging gang goo,” Stevie’s voice was equally loud and Eden and Jasmine were singing along too.

  “Hayla, oh hayla shayla, oh hayla shayla, shayla, oh-ho, Hayla, oh hayla shayla, oh hayla shayla, shayla, oh Shally wally, shally wally, shally wally, shally wally, Oompah, oompah, oompah, oompah!”

  “Somebody shoot me! PLEASE!” I heard Seb yell and I found myself smiling, but my smile faded as I noticed Phoenix was leaning over Private Jasper’s shoulder and speaking to him in a low voice. I leaned forward trying to hear what was being said. I saw Private Jasper’s knuckles tighten on the steering wheel and he glanced at me and nodded his head.

  He didn’t need to say anything; I knew what was about to happen.

  “Be quiet!” I shouted to the singers, “Be quiet!” My voice cut through their merriment and they fell silent, momentarily bewildered by the harshness of my words.

  “Tell them to keep as close to us as they can,” Private Jasper said to me. Gripping the walkie-talkie tightly in my hand I swiftly relayed the message to the two vehicles behind us. I then turned around to the now silent group and said, “Make sure your seat belts are fastened and put your heads down as far as you can! Seb hold on tight!”

  There was the sound of seat belts clicking and I saw in the mirror Gabe and Percy take one dog each and fasten them into the front of their coats before clasping hands.

  Seb was locked in by straps and handles to the runners on the floor of the coach, and he braced himself as best he could.

  Private Jasper put his foot down hard on the accelerator, his eyes focused on the windshield in front of him.

  “It’s going to be messy,” he said, “Really messy.”

  I didn’t say anything, for what could I say? I stared ahead and then they were there. In front of us, on the black tarmac road hundreds and hundreds of them, people, moving toward us, steadily, increasing their speed when they saw the coach coming toward them.

  Here were the Twice Dead in the dead flesh. What we had seen on a computer screen for the last two or so weeks were now well and truly in front of us. And they had no intention of getting out of our way…

  Garlic Petrol Bombs (GPB’S) - originally created by Mitch Lyndon, former coach driver and handy man for the Thorncroft Residential Home. Domestic petrol is mixed with dried wild garlic and placed in a thick glass container, the lid is pierced by a drill and a homemade rag wick added. The lid is sealed with non-flammable glue. The GPB’s are used against the Twice Dead in the way a hand grenade would be used. Since their creation, the GPB’s have become standard issue for all residents when outside the safety of Thorncroft.

  We hit them at speed. Private Jasper put his foot down on the accelerator and kept it down. The sound was stomach churning, and with the impact of the first bodies on the solid metal bull bars, the vehicle shuddered violently. The coach fortunately was a big one, high off the ground because of the wheelchair access needed for it.

  It had toughened glass windows, which, thank God stood us in good stead because with all the bodies and body parts flying past us as we plowed onward and over them, they needed to be strong. The bull bars were acting as a scoop, not pleasant.

  I heard Jasmine scream, Seb swore and Cassidy yelled there was black stuff on the windows. I found myself pulling the Glock out of my bag and gripping the handle tightly.

  We drove at and then over bodies as if they were a bumpy, squelching carpet of flesh that we were trying to flatten out. Many faces scraped by the side windows in a grey blur, teeth exploded out of mouths, hands and other body parts slapped the side of the vehicle with fleshy plops.

  The worst was when a body hit the main coach window that was when you saw bones snap, muscles rip before the broken body disappeared upwards, some landing on the roof of the vehicle and then bouncing off onto the seething mass trying to get to us.

  “Fuck!” I heard Seb scream from the back of the coach, “The roof! The fucking roof!”

&nb
sp; And then it happened. The door to the side of me flew open. It made a cracking sound as it slid on its hinges. I screamed as the speeding cold air blasted in from the outside.

  I heard Private Jasper shout something, but the roar of the wind as we hurtled along the Twice Dead infested road drowned out most of what he was screaming.

  The change in air pressure made the coach swerve violently, I clung to my seat, glad that I had snapped my seat belt around my waist.

  “Hold on!” I screamed to the others behind me, “Hold on tight!” It was inevitable with the amount of Twice Dead on the road that one of them would be able to grab hold of the sides of the door to try and hoist themselves in. I saw two meaty hands, hairy arms with tattoos; he was a big man, face as grey as potter’s clay, long blonde hair blowing in the wind, the torn flesh on his lips rippling over his flesh flecked teeth as he tried to get inside.

  I screamed again, what is it with us women screaming like bloody Banshees? I instinctively fired my Glock at his head, one bullet after the other. Like I had done to the Gorilla. He let go of the door, his head exploding like a black pumpkin as he fell into the seething mass of bodies behind him, but another one swiftly took his place.

  He was reaching for my leg which thank God was covered with thick denim and I had put my adapted Doc Martens on which were firmly attached to my feet. I fired again, but the bullets only caught him in the shoulder and I would not be able to reload quickly enough once the magazine was empty.

  I kicked out with my good leg, and managed to knock one of his hands off the side of the door. He managed to hold on though, forcing himself forward, reaching once again for the side of the door for leverage to get in properly. His mouth was moving, he was gnashing his teeth together, no dentures here, his black-blood shot eyes on my face. He was hungry for flesh. My flesh.

  Private Jasper was unable to help me because he needed to keep both of his hands on the steering wheel in order to ensure the vehicle continued moving in a straight line. He was screaming something at me again; the noise was horrendous. It was like the world’s worst opera playing in the O2 Stadium, with all the music and the cast coming on at the same time and bellowing out their lines, and songs.