Alice in Deadland Trilogy

by Mainak Dhar

  Neil was not dissuaded. He had heard it all before, and it did not bother him. He might not have had much, but one thing he did have was boatloads of determination. He was only eighteen, but having grown up in an orphanage had matured him much faster than others his age. He had quickly learned that if he wanted to do something with his life, he would need two things – education and money. So he had studied his butt off and got admission into one of the best colleges in New Delhi, and he worked two part-time jobs to pay the fees and save up for a professional degree. He did not know much about what was expected or even whether he would be good at it, but his dream was to get an MBA. For Neil, it was simple – he wanted a job. A job that made sure he no longer had to worry about money; a job that helped him get rid of the label of being a nobody that he had carried ever since he had been born; a job that paid him enough and gave him enough respectability for someone like Neha.

  But for now, he still had to get her to date him. The very first time he had seen her, up on stage during a college function, he could have sworn a voice whispered into his ears that she was the one. He had had his share of crushes, but with Neha, it was different. He would hang around after class, whiling away time over cups of tea so that he could see her finish her class and get into her chauffeur-driven car. He signed up for an extra credit in Philosophy and suffered through incomprehensible lectures on Kant and Plato just so he could sit behind her. Of course, she had never noticed him. Neha was one of the most popular people on campus, and he was an outsider. Most of the kids came from privileged families, with cars, flashy phones and late-night parties they attended together. He was the poor orphan from a different world.

  With half the college queuing up to be Neha’s boyfriend, on the face of it, Neil’s chances were slim. But he was not one to give up so easily. So a few Google searches later, he had found out something that nobody else knew. Neha was a volunteer for the Make-A-Wish foundation, and so Neil had offered to volunteer there as well. Six months had passed, and then he had been called up for his first wish – to accompany a five-year-old with leukemia to meet her favorite movie star. The movie star had agreed and Neil and another Wish Granter were to accompany the child and her family from their humble home on the outskirts of Delhi to meet the star in a hotel.

  When Neil had first seen the little girl with her hair all gone to multiple sessions of chemotherapy, something in him changed. He realized that while he had started this all as a ruse to get closer to Neha, he wanted passionately to help these kids – to give them the joy that came with fulfilling their wishes, to bring some hope into their lives, if even for a day. Joy and hope that nobody had brought into his when he was growing up in the orphanage. Every time one of the kids smiled, it felt like in some way he was making up for all the nights he had cried himself to sleep at the orphanage. So he had dived into his volunteer work with a vengeance and in the New Year’s party, he was given an award for being the most active and enthusiastic Wish Granter in all of Delhi.

  That day, Neil learned another lesson – that sometimes just doing what was right eventually got you more reward than any amount of scheming and planning. He sat at the same table as Neha that night, and they immediately hit it off. She saw not another boy from college wanting to get into her pants, but a gentle, sincere boy who gave so much of his time for a cause she so dearly loved. Neil learned that Neha had lost her mother to cancer, which had made her embrace the work of the Make-A-Wish foundation with such fervor. They stayed in touch, and within days, Neil got the news that for the next wish, he was to partner with Neha. In some secret corner of his mind, he wished that Neha had requested specifically for him to be her partner. The more prosaic truth was the Wish Granter paired with her had fallen sick and they had picked Neil at random, but that did not bother Neil; he saw this as a sign from God that the wheels were finally turning in his favor.

  Of course, that also meant that he had to go dressed as a giant bunny. It seemed that the little girl they were to help that day was a huge fan of the book Alice in Wonderland, and wanted Wonderland to be enacted for her. She was to be dressed as Alice, Neha was to be the Queen, and of course, Neil was to play the part of the role of the rabbit who led Alice down the hole. Neil knew he looked silly in the oversized bunny ears. He was tall and lanky to the point of looking gaunt, and the large, floppy ears only made him look even taller and thinner. But it would make a sick little girl smile, and yes, it would allow him to spend time with Neha. After the wish, he had planned on asking her out for a coffee, and pleasant thoughts of their first date occupied him as he rode his bike to the girl’s home, where he and Neha were to prepare a Wonderland-themed birthday party for the girl and her friends.

  ***

  Neil had been riding his bike for almost thirty minutes when he first got a sense that something was wrong. Normally, in the middle of a Saturday afternoon, traffic should not have been so bad, but now cars were backed up as far as he could see. The girl’s home was in a compound of low-rise apartments just a few kilometers away from where he was now, near the Delhi zoo, but with the state of traffic that he saw around him, there was no way he was going to make it in time.

  Loud music sounded to his right and an auto-rickshaw pulled up. The driver was smiling and singing along, and when he saw Neil stare at him, he turned the music down. ‘Don’t look so serious, young man. We’ll be stuck here for quite some time.’

  ‘Why, is there an accident or something up ahead?’

  The auto-rickshaw driver looked at Neil as if he were an idiot. ‘Don’t you watch the news? The demons are loose now. I hear they think the bloody Delhi Police will stop them. All they know is how to take bribes.’

  Neil leaned closer to see what the man was talking about, and caught a whiff of country liquor. There was a half-empty bottle nestled against the man’s legs. No wonder he was babbling about demons. The man saw Neil’s expression and pointed to the bottle. ‘My friend, you also go and get a good drink before the demons come.’

  One of the cars inched forward, and Neil maneuvered his bike through the gap. He managed in this fashion for a few minutes, moving perhaps a few hundred meters, when he saw that the road ahead was blocked by a police jeep. Three nervous-looking constables were standing in the middle of the road, diverting traffic. Not able to move further on his bike, Neil got off his bike and walked towards them.

  ‘What’s happening? Why are you blocking the traffic?’

  One of the policemen, a kind-looking old man who looked like he had been pulled out of retirement, stepped forward.

  ‘Son, we’re just following orders. It seems there’s trouble up ahead near the Taj hotel. Officially they haven’t told us what’s going on yet, but if I were you I would go and spend this time with your family.’

  Neil thought back to what had happened in Mumbai a few years earlier when terrorists had attacked a number of hotels and other targets. His heart sank since he knew that Neha’s home was close to the Taj.

  ‘Is there a terror attack going on?’

  The policeman shook his head.

  ‘No, son, it’s worse. Have you been following the news about the strange disease that showed up in China?’

  Neil got most of his information from the Internet, and sure, he had heard about how a new virus was supposedly taking hold, and how some people were spooked about it. But then, that was the media’s job, right? To make everything seem like the end of the bloody world was in sight. He still remembered how they had drummed up SARS, mad cow, bird flu and God knew how many other epidemics that were supposedly going to kill millions, and of course, nothing happened. Plus, the news from the US was just a day or two old – surely no virus could spread so fast? And even if it did, why would the cops be so paranoid?

  He took out his phone to call Neha to check what was going on. There were several unread notifications on his Facebook and Twitter icons. As he watched, the count seemed to increase steadily. With slightly shaking hands, he opened up Facebook and scrolled through
the status updates of his friends.

  ‘What the hell is going on in Delhi? Isn’t traffic bad enough on normal days?’

  ‘They say it’s a virus? I think the only virus has affected the traffic lights.’

  ‘Maybe the cops just want some bribes to let us through. Recession must be hard on them as well. ☺’

  But then the messages started getting more somber.

  ‘My bro came home and says he saw something on the road near his school. He won’t stop crying and he’s scared stiff. WTF is going on, please?’

  ‘I stepped out to buy some Coke and the cops are now telling everyone to stay in their houses and lock their doors. Are there terrorists around?’

  ‘Stay safe, guys. The government has declared a state of emergency. How can they do that without even telling us what’s going on?’

  ‘One of the news channels got an interview with a guest at the Taj. He was babbling about monsters.’

  At that point, Neil stopped, a knot forming in his stomach. He had dismissed the auto-rickshaw driver’s comments as the rants of a drunk, but what was really going on? What was this talk of monsters?

  Then he saw the status update that galvanized him into action. It was from Neha.

  ‘I’m scared. I can see these… things… walking outside. There are some cops firing at them. I’m alone and my dad’s at work. Don’t know what to do.’

  Neha was alone, and in danger. Monsters or no monsters, Neil was not going to leave her alone at a time like this. He responded to her update with a simple comment.

  ‘I’m coming for you.’

  He revved his bike and tore through the police barrier. One of the cops grabbed at the bag that contained his props and in the struggle, managed to snatch the bag away, leaving just the large bunny ears in Neil’s hands. Needing both hands free to control his bike, Neil put the ears on top of his head and rode off towards Neha’s home as fast as he could.

  A thin boy wearing pink bunny ears was hardly the sort of one-man army movies or novels would portray, but today Neil George was angry enough to go to war with anyone who was threatening Neha.

  ***

  Neil didn’t have to go far before he saw the first signs of trouble. He needed to take a right turn near the Old Fort to get to Neha’s home, but the road was blocked by people running across the road from the government colonies to the left. Many of them were well-dressed and perhaps the families of the officials who stayed in the apartments, but there were also some pavement dwellers and even some policemen. One of the policemen took one look at Neil and shouted, ‘Have you lost your mind? Don’t go any further.’

  Neil didn’t have time to ask anyone what was happening, since the crowd seemed to be seized with a wild panic. While he waited for them to pass, he took a quick look at his phone. There was a new update on Neha’s Facebook page: ‘Neil, don’t come here. They are all around.’

  Neil started his bike and rode straight past the fleeing crowd. Neha was clearly in great danger and he was not going to leave her.

  Neil had progressed only a half-kilometer further when he first saw them.

  An elderly man staggered to the side of the road, blood all over his clothes. His white hair was covered in red and his face was barely visible behind a mask of blood. The man was moving slowly, as if in immense pain, and before he could consciously think about it, Neil had stopped the bike near the old man.

  ‘Do you need help?’

  The man’s head snapped up and Neil realized that something was terribly wrong. The man’s eyes were yellow and vacant and his lips were drawn back, making him look more like a snarling dog than a human being. Neil noticed the foul smell, like that of dead rats, and he wondered what was wrong with the old man. That was when the man growled and lunged at Neil, trying to bite him.

  ‘Holy shit!’ Neil almost fell off his bike in terror but recovered his wits in time to start his bike and speed away. Now other bloodied figures emerged from the colony. They were all shuffling along in a slow gait and as Neil caught a glimpse at one or two of their faces, he saw the same lack of expression. They snapped and clawed at him with their teeth or clawing in the air as he passed.

  Neil was more scared than he had ever been in his life. What the auto-rickshaw driver had said came back to him and he wondered if these were actually demons. A couple of the Facebook posts had said that someone in the government had announced that this was the result of the virus that everyone had heard about sweeping through the US, but Neil wondered how a virus could possibly turn people into the inhuman wraiths he saw all around him.

  He swerved his bike to the right just in time to avoid three of them coming at him and rode down a side street. An overweight man ran onto the streets and right into the path of the three Neil had dodged. One of them clawed at the fat man’s face, drawing blood. As the man clutched his bloodied face, another one bit into his shoulder. Blood spurted out in a fountain and the man went to his knees, as another one of his attackers bit him.

  When Neil found an isolated patch hidden by a clump of trees, he stopped his bike. He retched and retched again as he remembered the blood, the fat man screaming as he was bitten and the sickening fetid odor.

  Neil sat there for some time, wondering what was going on. Just then, his phone rang. It was Neha.

  ‘Neil, please don’t come here. They’re calling them Biters. They attack any person they see, and once they bite you, you become like them in a few hours. They’re saying on TV that the government is trying to quarantine parts of the city to contain the spread of the virus.’

  ‘Where are you, Neha? Are you okay?’

  ‘I’m hiding in our apartment. The Biters are all around the colony and I don’t think they’ve seen me yet.’

  Hearing Neha’s terrified voice was like a splash of cold water. Neil was still scared, he still did not understand how a virus could have caused so much carnage, and he didn’t know how he was going to get through the rampaging Biters to get to Neha’s home. But hearing her gave him something to focus on, something that took his mind away from just how terrified he felt.

  ‘Neha, stay there. I’m less than a kilometer away, and I’m coming to get you.’

  ***

  Around the next corner, Neil saw a scene straight out of a movie. An aging policeman was standing with a rifle in his hand, shepherding dozens of terrified people into a high-rise apartment building. Neil had no idea if that guaranteed them any safety against the Biters, but in a city where everyone seemed to have lost their mind, this one policeman’s selfless act of bravery stuck a chord.

  A crowd of Biters, at least twenty strong, advanced towards the policeman, who had by now sent the last of the civilians into the building and turned to face the Biters. Neil had slowed his bike down, waiting to see what happened, praying that perhaps the policeman would stand a chance. The Biters were advancing, fanning out like a pack of animals to encircle their prey. The policeman showed no sign of panic, indeed he moved deliberately, and with, for lack of a better word, dignity. He knelt and brought his rifle up to his shoulder. As the Biters came in even closer, Neil sent up a silent prayer for the old man.

  The policeman fired and Neil smiled as one Biter went down, spurting blood from a direct hit to the chest. The policeman fired again, and another Biter went down, this time with a gaping neck wound. The policeman might have been incredibly brave, but he was certainly not suicidal. Neil saw that he was buying time, and with every shot was moving closer to the building where the door was still ajar, and those he had saved were cheering him on. The old man fired twice more and two more Biters went down.

  Then Neil saw something that in one fell swoop took away all the hope he had harbored. The first Biter who had been shot was now sitting up, and despite the bloody mess on his chest, got up and began walking towards the policeman. The second Biter, with a grotesque hole where his neck should have been and his head hanging slightly to one side, was also sitting up. The policeman dropped his rifle and Neil could s
ee that the old man’s lips were moving rapidly in prayer, but there would be no saving him today. The Biters ripped into him in a frenzy, and they tore the policeman apart till there was nothing but a mess on the road.

  The people shut the door but the Biters were banging on it, and Neil knew it would be a matter of time before the door gave way. Something snapped inside Neil, and he felt a surge of anger. He picked up a metal rod lying on the side of the road and drove his bike as fast as he could towards the Biters. He swung the rod with all his strength. It connected with a satisfying thud and a Biter fell, his head smashed in. He did not get back up. Neil knew he did not stand a chance against all the Biters, but, having extracted revenge for the policeman’s sacrifice, he swerved away towards Neha’s home, the rod now tucked under his arm.

  Most roads were blocked by bands of Biters and he took another detour through the normally busy Khan Market toward Neha’s place. The market was deserted, other than Biters roaming around and bodies lying in the street. That was when he saw a group of Biters crouching over a prone figure. It was a thin, elderly woman, and she seemed paralyzed with fear, clutching a large package to her chest. Neil swooped in, and once again, his rod did its work, splattering the brains of a Biter on the pavement.

  ‘Come on!’ Neil grabbed the old woman with one hand and pulled her towards him. She seemed to have recovered her wits a bit and sat behind him as he sped away. She was mumbling something, clearly in shock.

  ‘Look, I need to get to my girlfriend’s place. Where can I drop you?’

  There was no reply, and Neil was beginning to get irritated, knowing that every second with her was a second wasted.

  ‘You must have a home or a family somewhere?’

  The woman just sobbed, and Neil realized that he was perhaps being too tough on her.

  ‘I’m sorry. Things are crazy and I just want to make sure she’s okay. I’ll drop you wherever you want, just tell me where.’