by Mainak Dhar
Protima walked into the complex. People wandered around as if dazed. There were a few foreign diplomats, several people who had gathered for a book discussion and many members who had come with their families for lunch. Now they were trapped in a city that was fast becoming a slaughterhouse. Some people huddled around a TV in the library. The news was on, and the anchor was facing the camera and reading from a prepared script. All pretense of normality had been discarded – her clothes were crumpled, she wore no makeup, and the dark circles under her eyes were obvious. As someone off-camera prompted her, she began reading.
‘The infection is continuing to spread, and many cities are now totally cut off from all communication with the outside world. After the nuclear strike on Tel Aviv and retaliatory strikes on Tehran, the Middle East is in the grip of an all-out war. The Chinese government has for the first time publicly accused the United States of being behind this crisis by using illegal biological agents, a charge the US has denied. Tensions in the waters of Taiwan are high after two Chinese planes were shot down after approaching a US carrier. Closer to home…’
The woman paused and looked up at the camera, her eyes betraying just how horrified she was at the news she had been handed.
‘Closer to home, rogue elements in the Pakistani military took advantage of the chaos to launch tactical nuclear weapons at two forward operating bases of the Indian Army. The Prime Minister has condemned the action and said that India will react with appropriate measures.’
Protima sat down against the wall, and while close to a hundred people were packed into the library, not a single word was said. What was there to say? Every single one of them was thinking the same thing Protima was – there was no longer any hope. It was only a matter of time before either the Biters got them or the unfolding nuclear madness claimed them.
Someone got up to turn off the TV, but several others pleaded with him to keep it on. A compromise was reached, and while the TV was kept on, it was put on mute. Protima kept staring at the screen, hypnotized. The worst nightmares of the human race were coming true, with visuals of nuclear mushroom clouds interspersed with the now-familiar images of marauding packs of Biters ravaging entire cities.
She was shaken out of her stupor by a man shouting at the top of his voice outside the library. A Caucasian man, his face reddening, shouted to no one in particular.
‘I am the bloody Defense Attaché of the United Kingdom. I cannot be holed up here like an animal. Someone get on the phone to the bloody High Commission and tell them to get me out!’
Nobody stirred, and a woman tried to pacify him as his shouting gave way to sobs and he collapsed. It would take time to sink in that ranks and badges of status no longer counted for much.
A helicopter passed overhead and several people got up, shouting excitedly, pointing out the window.
‘They’ve come to get us out!’
‘Finally, we’re saved!’
Protima looked out the window, and her heart sank. It was a small, black helicopter, certainly not one that could carry more than a couple of passengers. A single man stepped out, wearing black sunglasses and a dark suit. The British Attaché had raced out of the building and met the man as he approached the library. Protima strained to hear their exchange.
‘Thank God you’re here. Get me out. I’m the British Defense Attaché.’
The man who had just arrived fished into his pocket to take out a photograph, which he showed to the British diplomat.
‘Have you seen this woman? Our aerial team saw her headed here.’
Protima felt her mouth go dry as she saw that the photograph was hers.
Getting no answer, the man pushed the diplomat out the way and walked towards the library. The British diplomat took the man by his shoulder, spinning him around.
‘How dare you push me? Which government do you represent?’
The man calmly reached into his suit, took out a pistol and shot the diplomat in the head. Then he continued walking towards the library. Several people had witnessed the scene and screams rang out all around Protima as people scrambled towards the back of the library. The door swung open and the man walked inside. His eyes locked on Protima and he smiled.
‘Doctor, I had hoped to meet you here. Now, will you be kind enough to hand me the package or should I take it from you?’
There was a sudden barrage of firing outside and the man turned to see what was going on. That gave Protima the time to run deeper into the library. Hiding behind a bookshelf, she saw the man talk into his earpiece.
‘She’s here, but looks like the Biters are at the gate. I’ll get the package and be out in a minute. Bloody Biters are everywhere.’
There was another rattle of gunfire and then it stopped. Protima thought of the policemen at the gate, but for now her greater concern was survival. She went deeper into the library, people screaming and sobbing all around her. The man pursuing her was now just feet away and through the gaps between the books, Protima saw the library door open once more. She caught a glimpse of khaki police uniforms and was about to call out for help when she stopped. The ones who had just entered the library were no longer policemen,. They had blood all over their tattered uniforms, and they shuffled inside the library, emitting low-pitched moans.
The Zeus agent turned and fired at the approaching Biters, and a couple of them went down. But there were too many of them entering the library and the people inside were screaming in panic, producing an ear-splitting crescendo. Protima didn’t wait to see what happened. She ran further towards the back of the library. That was when she saw the vent. She pulled it open, breaking a couple of her nails in the process, and scrambled inside, crawling on all fours. From behind her came screams and the sickening sounds of teeth tearing into human flesh. Protima kept crawling and turned a corner, finding herself in total darkness. She clutched the package tighter, and moved forward, trying to feel ahead of her with her free hand. The floor moved under her hand and she tried to put more pressure on it to see how stable it was. The next thing she knew, a whole section of the piping gave way and she fell. She hit her head on something, and then there was darkness.
***
Protima woke up face down in something wet, her head aching terribly. She was lying in a pool of her own blood. As she tried to get her bearings, she realized she was lying in near-total darkness with a foul stench all around her. She felt a stab of panic as she tried to remember what had happened to the package she had been carrying. She felt around her for the envelope and clutched it to her chest as she sat up. Protima reached into her pocket to take out her mobile phone. As she shone it around her, she saw that she was inside drainage pipes or perhaps sewers. She had lost all track of time in her flight from the Biters, but with the mobile showing that it was now past seven in the evening, she must have been out for several hours. She drifted in and out of consciousness for some time before she finally managed to get herself up and walk down the tunnel.
Holding the mobile in front of her like a torch, she proceeded down the tunnel. She tried to brush away the wetness around her eyes, and when she saw the red smear on her hand, Protima gasped. She had no idea how badly she had been hurt, but there was no way for her to stop and check. She had to get to… safety. She stopped herself at that thought. There was no safety for her. If the Biters did not get her, the Zeus agents would.
She sat down against the wall, trying to collect her thoughts. Her stomach was rumbling, but hunger was the least of her worries. She had to push on and hope she could find a way up to the surface soon. What she would do then she forced herself not to think about.
Something brushed past her leg and she screamed, only to realize it had been a rat. When man had finished destroying civilization, perhaps rats would reclaim what remained. She got up and walked on, flashing her mobile in front of her every once in a while. It was now past two in the morning according to the display on her phone, but down here time did not matter. It was dark, with the floor covered in slime and puddles of water
. Finally, unable to walk any more, Protima curled up against a wall and slept.
When she woke up, for a minute she hoped it had all been a nightmare and perhaps she was back in her hotel room. However, the musty odor and her dark surroundings told her that her nightmare was only too real. She walked some more, but realized that unless she ate or drank something, she would not last long. Water was more important to keep herself hydrated, so she forced herself to take a drink from a puddle of water. It smelt terrible and had a metallic tinge to it, but she forced it down.
Her fear and disorientation had given way to anger. Anger at the men who had brought so much destruction upon her and millions of others. No matter what it took, she would survive and get the truth out. She pushed on and smiled for the first time in many days as she saw a flicker of light up ahead. She could not tell how far it was, but at least there was hope. Her stomach continued to growl and she felt faint with exhaustion and hunger, but she kept going.
When she came closer to the light, she screamed in frustration. The beacon of hope she had been following was a single hole about a few inches in diameter in the roof through which daylight was streaming in. Protima sat down against the wall, drained of energy and hope. She tried to get back up but her legs did not have the strength. Through the light streaming into the tunnel, she took a look around and saw what appeared to be grass or leaves lying near her feet. The wind must have carried them through the hole in the roof. She picked them up, trying to determine if they were edible. Having already drunk the filthy gutter water, Protima was beyond the point where taste mattered, but she didn’t want to eat something that could make her sick or worse.
She smiled a bit as the smell brought back long-lost memories of joints smoked surreptitiously in college. Ganja leaves were abundant in this part of India, and while they could not sustain her for long, it was better than dying of hunger. She bit down on the leaves and ate about half of them within seconds, tucking the rest into her pockets for later. A short nap later, she resumed her journey.
After a few more hours of walking, she began to feel giddy. Whether it was exhaustion or the ganja, she did not know, but she held onto the wall for support. Protima saw shadows ahead of her and called out, but there was nobody else there. She heard her husband call out to her, which was impossible. She stopped again, her head spinning, and sat down and took a nap before continuing.
As much as she knew it was messing with her head, hunger and desperation won over rational thought and Protima finished the rest of the ganja leaves over the next two meals. She thought she had been down for more than three or four days, but it was impossible to tell. More than once she saw light up ahead, only to find nothing more than small holes. She wondered what the world up there was like, whether there were any more people left, or if the whole world had now been infested with Biters. She wondered what the men who had brought this upon the world were doing now.
She sat down once again, trying to clear her head. She had found more ganja leaves, and they had left her in a dreamlike state. She knew she was hallucinating when she saw her husband, but it was beginning to feel good. She welcomed the thought that she was not alone down here. So when she heard her husband’s voice, she would answer back.
That was when she heard the shuffling noises up ahead. Her mind snapped, as if waking from a dream. This was no ganja-induced hallucination.
She was not alone.
By now her eyes had begun to adjust to the dark and she saw a flicker of movement ahead of her where the tunnel curved to the left. She took out her mobile phone and held it in front of her, but its feeble light did little to illuminate whoever was coming her way.
‘Hello, who’s there?’
Protima regretted the words the moment they left her mouth for her question was answered by a series of grunts and screeches. Down here, in the dark and in the endless tunnels, there was no escape. The growls and grunts ahead intensified as the Biters came towards her with increasing speed. She saw several figures moving towards her in the light her mobile threw out and she turned to run. Biters were not exactly known for their speed, but down here, trapped and with her mind numb with fear, the Biters would not need much speed to catch up with her.
She kept running, her heart pounding, trying to ignore the howling coming from the pursuing Biters. She held her mobile up to see what lay ahead and her heart sank. She was approaching a dead end. The Biters were now no more than a dozen feet away. There seemed to be at least three or four of them. For a moment Protima was paralyzed with fear, with the injustice of having her life snuffed out in a sewer. Then a thought came to her. As the Biters shuffled closer, she reached into the package she had been carrying and took out one of the vials Stan had sent. She had no idea if it would work, but if there was even a slim chance she could survive to unmask a conspiracy that had led to the deaths of untold thousands, she would take it.
The nearest Biter was now almost within touching distance and Protima gagged at the stench of decay. She opened the vial and drank its contents in one long swallow. A burning sensation worked its way down her throat, but she did not have much time to contemplate what the liquid was doing to her. A callused and bloody hand grabbed her shoulder and pushed her down. The next thing she felt was the sharp pain of teeth biting down on her arms. The other Biters gathered around her prone body, and as more of them bit into her, Protima screamed again and again. Tears were flowing down her cheeks as she felt her eyes closing. Then she saw no more.
***
Protima opened her eyes and sat up in a panic, expecting the Biters to be still around her. There was no sign of them. Her phone was lying by her side, and when she picked it up, the screen was cracked, but there was still a faint light coming from the display. The battery was likely almost dead and she passed the phone over her body, seeing bloody bite marks all over her upper arms and chest. The blood had largely dried, telling her that she must have been out for several hours at least. The weird thing was that while she was bloody and mangled like a freshly butchered animal, she felt no pain. Had the vaccine worked? She gathered up the courage and spoke out aloud.
‘Hello, my name is Protima and I am definitely not a bloody Biter.’
As her own voice echoed back to her in the tunnel, she burst out into uncontrollable laughter. She had not been transformed into a Biter after all! As she began walking down the tunnel, she found her earlier fatigue and hunger had disappeared. She was feeling reinvigorated with a spring in her step. What had the vaccine done to her?
The Biters must have come down into the tunnels somehow, so there must be an exit. She broke into a near-run, eager to escape her underground prison.
After fifteen minutes, she saw light ahead. Part of her was wary that this would turn out to be another hole in the ceiling but she kept going, and soon she saw that it was an opening to the outside world. A small ladder led up to a circular manhole. Protima tucked the package under one arm and climbed up.
After so much time in the darkness, the daylight blinded her. When she forced her eyes open, she saw she was near the Yamuna river, with the Commonwealth Games village to her right and the large Akshardham temple complex a few hundred meters away. She was more than fifteen kilometers away from the India International Center where she had fallen into the underground tunnels. Just how long had she been underground? Her mobile phone was long out of battery and she had lost her watch somewhere down there. Between the extreme fatigue and hunger and the hallucinations brought on by the ganja leaves, she had fuzzy memories of how long she had wandered underground till the Biters found her.
As she looked around, it struck her just how silent it was. Normally, the bridge in front of her would have been full of cars and trucks, honking their horns so much one would be forgiven for believing that was a prerequisite to getting a driver’s license. There would have been children flitting around the huts on the side of the road, where their parents would have been hawking whatever they could – motorcycle helmets, coconuts, magazi
nes. The huts were there, but there were no people in sight. Vehicles were strewn all over the bridge as if a child had scattered them around after playing with them and forgotten to put them away. As Protima approached the bridge, she realized that there were people there after all; it was just that they were not alive any more. The stench of death permeated the whole area and decomposed bodies lay in the cars and on the bridge.
A school bus stood abandoned on the side of the road and Protima wondered if any of the children had made it to safety. She walked closer, and was shocked as she heard a whimper, quickly cut off. Protima called out, ‘If you’re in there, I mean no harm. Come out and we can help each other.’
Someone moved inside. Her hopes lifted for the first time in days. The prospect of meeting another human being was so exciting that she threw caution to the wind and ran towards the bus. A small girl emerged first, perhaps no more than five years old. Behind her was a young woman. Both were cut and bleeding, but looked to have avoided serious injury. The little girl took a step towards Protima but the woman held her back with a hand on her shoulder, her expression changing to undisguised horror. She screamed and broke out into sobs.
‘What’s wrong? Are you hurt?’
The little girl was now staring at Protima and she spoke in a hoarse whisper.
‘This Biter talks, Mama.’
Protima stopped, stunned at the words. That was when she caught a look at her reflection in one of the bus’s windows. A gasp escaped her lips as she realized what had happened to her. She sat down on the ground, stunned. The vaccine. Was this what it had done to her? Death would have been preferable to the monster staring back at her in her reflection. She had not felt any hunger or fatigue after being bitten, and she had thought it had something to do with the vaccine. It perhaps did, because while she could still think and speak like a human, she looked like a Biter. Her eyes were yellowing, and seemed to be devoid of any expression, and when Protima tried to force a smile, she recoiled at the hideous grimace that was reflected back.
