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

by Suchitra Chatterjee

  “We need to collect wild garlic for the journey back,” Wolf suddenly became professional, “Can you help please Stevie?” Stevie nodded his head, glanced at me and then trotted off.

  Wolf and I faced each other. I didn’t mention what we had done in the woods. It had happened, neither of us could turn back the clock. I wasn’t going to become a soppy love struck person in an instant. Fucking was just fucking and that was what we had both done. We had fucked each other and it had been good for both of us. I would have no regrets, I had too many already.

  But that did not mean he could order me about. My awakening had come at a price and though I would work and live with others, the person I was becoming belonged to herself.

  “I don’t take kindly to having bloody body guards watching over me,” I said pointedly to Wolf.

  He didn’t pretend not to understand what I was saying, “You’re unpredictable,” he said, “And that makes you dangerous.”

  “I’m pissed off that is what I am,” Wolf though didn’t give a shit.

  “When I feel I can trust you, I’ll think about standing your ‘bodyguards’ down,” Wolf smiled at me and I swore.

  “You,” I said emphasizing each word, “Are a son-of-a-bitch!”

  “We established that quite a while ago, I thought,” was his reply and despite myself I found snorting back a laugh.

  “We will have to be heading out soon,” I changed the subject, Wolf nodded his head.

  “Phoenix’s plotted a safe route for us to get back to Thorncroft, there’s a petrol station on-route, we can fill up with diesel, pick up some provisions from the nearest town.”

  “We still have Epsilon Command and the New World Succession to worry about,” I was worried, and I ran my fingers through my hair, I so needed a hot shower and 48 hours sleep, “That explosion won’t have gone unnoticed.”

  “As far as Epsilon Command are concerned, we are all dead,” Wolf’s revelation was totally unexpected.

  “How?”

  “After the attack in Birenchester,” he said, “I put through a false report, I let them think there were more casualties among us than there actually were, I told them that Zimmerman and his family were dead, they ordered us to get to Oxford, it will take them a while to pin point where the explosion happened, by then we will be long gone by then. There is nothing left of our trucks, and even if they find anything, I suspect they will think the Twice Dead got us.”

  “What about the Drones?” I said.

  “Phoenix is about to give them a viral contagion all of their own, don’t worry it won’t be traced, it will show up as a minor fault in the programming in the next 24 hours, they will correct it of course and it will cause a system failure, a cascade effect he called it. You were right, he is good, better than what they have at Epsilon Command.”

  “We can’t be complacent,” I said, “Or underestimate them, OK, they have underestimated us, but we can’t get cocky about that, because they will come looking for us.”

  “We won’t be,” he promised me, “But Thorncroft has more than just the advantage of being next to a shit load of wild garlic, it’s not near any of the UK Command Bases, it’s in what is now designated as a dead zone, after we left the home, it was put on a no go fly area for the drones, waste of resources, as long as we stay away from certain cities, we should be able to keep under their radar, also they have to contend with the Twice Dead, their Drones going tits up, they have far, far more to worry about than a few survivors of an expendable army unit and as far as they are aware, you all turned into the Twice Dead after we left.”

  “I hate what they have done,” I said and I clenched my fists, “What they have done to all of us.”

  “They did it well,” Wolf said laconically, “Mass murder made to look like a tragic accident, they just weren’t expecting the rise of the Twice Dead. I don’t whether to laugh or be pissed.”

  I looked at Wolf quizzically, “You had your doubts,” I said “Why?”

  “I didn't at first,” he said wryly, “I did my job, obeyed orders, but when Epsilon Command ordered me to leave you all behind...” he hesitated, “Well it bothered me, why leave you guys behind when other survivors had been rescued? It didn't make sense; a survivor is a survivor. I didn't want you to be right about them not wanting to help disabled or Gay people. But then they said not to bother going to Thorncroft Village to check for more survivors, well the warning bells were playing a tune I couldn't ignore anymore,” Wolf grimaced “I must have worried them because they got back to me and ordered me to bring Adag and Mitch with us, that had put me even more on edge, especially as they were insistent you all be inoculated even though you weren't going to be coming with us.”

  “You told Adag and Mitch they had a choice to stay or leave,” I said in surprise.

  Wolf smiled as he leaned against the front of the coach “I choose to interpret their order my way,” he said.

  “They would have probably got rid of you when you got back to your base,” I said.

  “More than likely,” Wolf exhaled as he spoke, “I only had doubts, but the inoculations made me really start to wonder, so I decided to see if other survivors had been inoculated, they had been, and then I found out they were all dead, supposedly infected by the contagion, but it was a delayed reaction, well that was what the official report said,” he looked grim as he spoke “I wouldn't have known that if a good friend I have in the London Command Centre hadn't told me the truth on the quiet,” he gave me a slight smile “he told me not to come back, seems that all is not well in the State of Denmark as Shakespeare would say, apparently I’m not the only one to think that something stinks big time.”

  “Infighting and the Twice Dead will keep them out of our hair if we’re lucky,” I said.

  “It won't be easy, like you said,” Wolf pushed his hands into his jacket pockets and surveyed the landscape before us.

  “We do have some advantages that they don’t.”

  Wolf looked skeptical and I said, “We have Zimmerman, we know that something in wild garlic causes the Twice Dead’s flesh to melt into black goo and their organs to explode, and Thorncroft itself is in a dead zone in more ways than one.”

  Wolf laughed then, “We’ll make it work somehow.”

  “We better,” I said with a faint smile and then I added “Because I don’t know what is actually worse, this New World Succession bollocks or the rise of the Twice Dead.”

  Special Needs Soup – phrase coined by Eden Manders, Thorncroft Home resident. Wild garlic and apple soup was cooked by Lucia Valerie Lal and her fellow residents during the first days of the contagion in the home, the original recipe came from Percy Williamson who with his partner Gabe owned The Tea and Herb Cafe in Thorncroft Village.

  We had to drive back to Thorncroft in a roundabout way to avoid the occasional batch of Twice Dead that were still on the prowl though most, Phoenix said, appeared to be threading their way yet again in the direction of certain cities.

  We were split between two vehicles with the majority of us crammed into the coach. Mitch’s van was being driven by a soldier and an escort who was in the back with Nat and the injured.

  Rachel had pretty much handed over the care of her grandchildren to Peters and Jasmine, she looked like shit, I thought. I had noticed that none of the soldiers spoke to her, other than Wolf, Peters, Jasper, Elise and Nat.

  The soldiers. hostility so far didn’t extend to the children, probably because they were being looked after one of their own and his girlfriend.

  I had pretty much cleared the air with everyone, other than Elise who refused outright to speak to me. I didn’t press her, I didn’t begrudge her, her feelings of anger and hostility toward me, along with a healthy dose of embarrassment because I had caught doing exactly what she had stopped Peters from doing with Jasmine.

  The magnitude of the explosion caused by Adag and Paul’s sacrifice was quickly realised when we saw Brocklease Bunker. Or what was left of it. We shouldn't have
stopped there, we did intend to drive through, but we had to detour because the damage to the bunker and the outlying area was as great as the damage we had left behind near to Ashby Forest.

  The coach went silent as we pulled up by the lake. Mitch’s van was behind us. Everyone was looking out of the windows, taking in the surroundings and trying to make sense of it.

  Mitch broke the silence, “Bloody hell,” he said.

  Apt words. The whole WW2 bunker was gone. Reduced to more than just rubble, to dust to be exact. Dust, dirt, clods of earth and shards of trees that had been caught in the force of the domino effect explosion and a crater that wouldn’t look out of place on the moon along with a miniature San Andreas fault line that lead all the way back to Ashby Ridge. All that was left was the building on the island in the lagoon.

  I got out of the coach and stared at the devastation.

  “I’m glad the MoD doesn’t exist anymore,” I said to Wolf who joined me outside the coach, I heard him ordering everyone to stay inside, “Because we would get one heck of bill for the mess we’ve made here!”

  I moved forward, wanting to see more but Wolf caught my arm.

  “We need to get going,” he said. I tried to brush his hand off my elbow but his fingers didn’t budge.

  “Don’t,” he said. His voice was mild, not confrontational but he was going to be obeyed.

  “Stop fucking ordering me about!” I snapped at him, I was still smarting from our last run in.

  “We’re going,” he repeated, “Want some help to get back on the coach?” You have to choose your battles. This was one another I didn’t need to fight. I turned so as to get back on the coach, out of the corner of my eye I saw the building on the lagoon.

  “What do you think that is?” I asked Wolf. He followed my gaze, and frowned.

  “Not sure, “he said. I hoisted myself onto the first step of the coach, followed by Wolf. I was going to have to stand my ground with Wolf at some point but right now was not the time and place.

  Minutes later Mitch was steering the vehicle away from the remains of the bunker with the van close behind us.

  We drove on, the van following us closely behind, eventually stopping in a specific empty town because it had a shopping centre which included a store called the Sporting Gun & Surplus Store. It was the South East outlet of a chain of sporting shops, and this one had a warehouse that Wolf intended to raid of certain items.

  It was odd driving down a road that would normally be filled with cars, people, and noise.

  “It’s a ghost town,” Percy said from his seat.

  “The whole world is a fucking ghost town,” someone at the back said.

  Mitch pulled up outside a parade of shops.

  “Civilians stay where you are,” Wolf stood up and addressed the occupants of coach, “Sparta Group check for hostiles.”

  Five of the soldiers which included Jasper, Rodriquez, Bryson who took Karma with him, Topaz and Isaacs were out of seats and seconds later were off the coach. I watched them through the window, they spread out and moved slowly along the empty streets, their weapons drawn.

  “Captain, follow on.”

  Elise was out of her seat, calling out for her unit to follow her, which included Bubba, Salter, Peters and a female soldier called Chang. She glanced at me as she got off the bus. She had been on the pack-run with Salter.

  Mitch produced his old service gun from his bag, and stood up, “There’s still fight in this old fart yet,” he said pointedly to Wolf who to my surprise nodded his head and he stepped out of the coach, following Chang.

  “Group Olympia!” the last of the soldiers on the coach got up, and Cassidy called out, “Can we go to the shops, Lucy?”

  “Soon!” I called back, “The soldiers need to make sure everything is safe for us.”

  At that moment Nat’s head appeared at the door of the coach, he was traveling in the van with Zimmerman and Duke.

  “Is my brother OK Lieutenant?” Rachel called out from her seat. She was sitting by Jasmine, with Dov on her knee.

  “Shame he’s not Twice Dead,” one of the remaining soldiers who was standing up, ready to leave the coach said, his voice filled with hostility.

  “Be quiet Reece,” Wolf said sharply.

  “He’s asking for you,” Nat said, “Colonel, I need some help with Duke and Zimmerman, someone who doesn’t want to kill them both preferably.”

  “Well you are totally fucked then, aren’t you?” another soldier spoke, he was standing adjacent to Gabe and Percy, “I wouldn’t piss on either of them if they were on fire!” There was muttered agreement from the remaining soldiers in the coach.

  “Private Beaty, when the Lieutenant wants your opinion, he will ask for it!” Wolf snapped at the soldier.

  “Sir!” Private Beaty said.

  “You can’t really blame them Colonel,” Percy spoke up, “I mean those two are somewhat on par with Adolf Hitler and the KKK, in fact I think they just might have surpassed them.”

  Private Beaty was a light skinned African-American. He let out a bark of laughter, as did his companions, “Nice one brother,” he said and he held up his hand for a high five which Percy gave him and Jack who was in lap barked and put his paws on the man’s hip and the soldier pulled on the little dog’s ears and chucked him under his chin.

  “I think it’s best if one of my people help the Lieutenant,” I said to Wolf who nodded his head.

  Group Olympia left the coach, with the Colonel giving the two outspoken soldiers hard looks, and Rachel stood up, putting Dov on one of the now empty seats beside her.

  “Nana,” Seth said plaintively as his Grandmother started to move down the coach. She looked at Jasmine who was holding baby Poppy.

  “I will look after them,” Jasmine said and she put her free arm around Seth and Dov scrambled off his seat to join them.

  “Eden,” I called out and she stood up, and looked at me expectantly, “Will you help the Lieutenant please?”

  Nat looked skeptical but I put him right, “Eden has earned her stripes Nat, and she at least won’t try and kill your patients, right Eden?”

  Eden who was now standing next to me smiled sweetly at Nat and said, “I might be sick over them if they are too smelly though,”

  That made me laugh and Wolf covered his mouth with his hand to stop his smile from showing.

  Eden followed Nat out of the coach and then it was time for everyone else to get off once the all clear was given.

  The town was empty, no Twice Dead, the shops were safe to break into and enter. We split up into mixed groups, each group needing to source certain items to take back to Thorncroft.

  Phoenix went with Salter and Rodriquez to an electrical store, he needed things for future use on a technological level, including the latest computer that had just come out before the end of the world.

  Wolf, Stevie, Cassidy and two soldiers headed for the Sporting Centre, whilst I homed in on a chemist, accompanied by Private Bryson who ignored my, “I need to get lady things,” and followed me, with Karma trotting happily beside him.

  Gabe and Percy saw the Home Cook store and were in like flint followed by a bemused Private Beaty who upon seeing what they were looking at, offered to look after the dogs outside the shop.

  Mitch had got Seb out of the back of the coach and the two of them had gone with Private Chang to a bike shop.

  Jasmine took the children with Private Topaz and Bubba to a book store.

  Bryson broke into the chemist with ease. Several alarms of course were set off, as all the stores had to be broken into but these were swiftly silenced.

  Interestingly there was still electricity in the town, how long that would last was anyone’s business. It was really eerie going into the big chemist with line upon line of goods on metal shelves that would never be purchased.

  I grabbed a couple of baskets and turned around to Private Bryson, “I suggest you pick some things up that you might need, I promise you I won’t leave t
he shop without you, deal?”

  He gave this some thought then nodded his head.

  I did pick up a large selection of lady items for all the women and then I went to the chemist area, shouting to Bryson who was with Karma in the men’s section that I was going to pick up what meds and such like that I could for Nat.

  “Roger!” he shouted back.

  “No!” I shouted back, “My name is Lucia!”

  “Idiot!” was his response.

  “No, Lucia, not idiot,”

  “Fuck off!”

  “Who would name their child Fuck-Off?” I yelled as I got into the spacious dispensary at the back of the store.

  There was no response, other than a blast of laughter, and I smiled.

  I knew what to look for in the Morning after pills, not because I had ever needed to use them but because a couple of the girls who had resided at Thorncroft had been a tad promiscuous and Adag had, had to take them into town to get the morning after pill.

  I got a carrier bag to put the tablets, no having to pay 5p levy anymore for a plastic bag to save the planet. I had just done this when Nat’s voice made me jump.

  “Great minds think alike” he said.

  “Yep,” I said, and to distract him from asking me what was in the white and blue carrier bag I was holding I pointed to the locked Dangerous Drugs cabinet, “I highly recommend the pethidine, but each to their own.”

  “The Colonel says at some point we will find a hospital to visit,” Nat strode over to the cabinet, it was locked but he produced a Bowie knife from his equipment belt and prised it open.

  “Do you need dressings?” I asked.

  “Huh, huh,” Nat was taking all the contents out of the cabinet and swiftly put them into his canvas bags, “And iron tablets,” he looked at me pointedly.

  “Not a chance,” I replied making a face.

  “Be glad I haven’t put you on dextran injections,” Nat said, he was going through other medications and I quietly added boxes of condoms to my bag.