DEAD HEMISPHERE
THE VIROPHAGE CHRONICLES
BOOK 1
Dead Hemisphere - The Virophage Chronicles by RBLandeck, published by RBLandeck Books, 00100 Nairobi, Kenya
© 2020 RB Landeck All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher, except as permitted by U.S. copyright law.
For my wife, Sharon
Thank you for opening your heart, my eyes, and the door to places I never thought possible.
FOREWORD
I remember how, at age 12, on my way home from school, I found myself standing in front of a shop window, terrified and yet strangely mesmerized by the movie poster on display. In the absence of videotapes, heavily cut, 8mm single reel releases were still the only available format for home use, but I knew of only one person who actually owned a projector. There was no doubt. I wanted, no, I had to see this film. But how was another question. For now, all I had was the shop display with its lobby cards depicting images so horrifying they not only preoccupied my nightmares but created a sense of dread deep within, the kind I had never felt before. An addictive delight in something so ghoulish that it was impossible to shake and instead lay siege to every waking thought.
I stood in front of that display every day on my way to and from school until they changed it out. Then I consumed every bit of media from the film I could lay my hands on. From reading the book and looking at movie magazines, to listening to Goblin’s disturbingly eerie soundtrack on vinyl while imagining the scenes in my darkened bedroom.
But it wasn’t until almost two years later when the advent of VHS finally allowed for my inaugural viewing of what is still one of the most influential movies of my life, igniting a lifelong love affair with George A. Romero’s 1978 Dawn of the Dead and a genre not only exciting to those who can see its social relevance but easily misunderstood and dismissed by many for its affinity with gore. From that point forward, no walk down an empty road or a trip to the cellar has ever been the same!
These days, the marketplace (thankfully not yet the world!) is crawling with the undead and any imaginable variety thereof. It’s getting a little crowded for my old friend, the Zombie, the plethora of thematic offshoots consequently not always dignified, or at least not paying the respect to the original idea, and what, pardon the pun, brought it to life.
Now, later in life, I can see how the latter still derives meaning from global developments, many of which periodically give rise to a general feeling of Angst, a fear of the future and of doom that nowadays seems to lurk around every corner, relentlessly pursuing us all without reprieve.
For the last 10 years, I have called East Africa my home, where I continue to work in some of the most volatile contexts in the world today. Contexts, where life is as fickle as can be and threats as real as they come. Contexts that give rise to some of the most terrible diseases, wars, and suffering humankind has ever seen. I have always wondered, thus, why the concept of global apocalypse, as far as entertainment media are concerned, seems mostly reserved for Western settings.
It is in this vein that I have tried to write this book: A homage to the genre and, at the same time, an amalgamation of experiences on a continent that is as beautiful, gentle, and genuine as it can be raw, brutal and terrifying at times. Dead Hemisphere is not only a book series from East Africa. It is a book series for East Africa.
I sincerely hope that you enjoy reading about our potagonists' journey as much as I enjoyed writing it. I have tried my best to tell their story and avoid mistakes that so often plague this type of publication. For the ones that have persisted despite these efforts, I beg your indulgence. But at the end of the day, it all boils down to a simple piece of wisdom.
To borrow from the ultimate authority on the subject of the living dead, George A. Romero:
“The only advice you can give is, 'Don't let the bad stuff keep you down.”
Oh Lion in a peculiar guise
Sharp Roman road to Paradise, Come and eat me up, I'll pay thy toll with all my flesh, and keep my soul.
---- May Stevie Smith
PROLOGUE
First light fell through the torn floral curtains covering the small window. It crept across the compacted dirt floor of the Spartan mud hut. A figure sat on the edge of the bed against the back wall. His gaze followed the trembling fingers of light until they covered his own in the first warmth of the new day. He looked down at his greyish hands and watched as another bead of cold sweat dripped into his palm.
It had started as a general malaise. Easy to dismiss and nothing unusual. When he first went down with the fever, which to anyone else might have looked like another bout of Malaria, his wife had been the first to notice something different about him. Here in central Africa, the flu and other diseases were as commonplace as the parasites that spread them.
And yet there had been unmistakable signs. Signs that something more sinister was afoot. Dark blotches had appeared on his back within days, and instead of slow improvement, he had seen his health deteriorate rapidly. His wife had initially sought help from the village medicine man. And when his potions and rituals failed, she had sought advice from the pastor. But in the end, even the older and learned man from Kinshasa was of little avail beyond words of comfort.
It was when the neighbour’s wife from across the maize field came running one morning that things took a turn for the worse. She had burst into their hut, wide-eyed, beside herself with grief and screaming in panic. Her husband had come down with the same illness a few days earlier and finally passed away in the night under the most horrid of circumstances.
Within a few days, reports started coming in from all around. Distressed neighbours from near and far sought help, sharing their stories of loved ones succumbing to what everyone began to suspect was another outbreak of Ebola.
His wife had sat by his side in tears, while his children watched on, huddled together in the far corner of the hut, frightened as their father, face swollen almost beyond recognition, slipped in and out of consciousness. They had heard about this terrible disease that now and again rose its ugly head and lay waste to entire villages. But they had always just been stories, anecdotes relayed via the inter-village grapevine. Now death was on their own doorstep, here for their father. And as the children sobbed, his wife had sat in silence, cooling his forehead with a damp cloth and wondering what their future would look like if they were lucky enough to escape without falling ill as well.
It was then that a miracle had been bestowed upon them. It had started as a faint hum, but soon the swishing of rotor blades filled the air all around their hut, a growing whirlwind threatening to dislodge its thatched roof. Like a furious angel, the large white helicopter had landed in a tornado of dust and debris, spilling forth its cargo of unusual saviours.
Men in bulky white full-body suits, complete with oxygen tanks and large hoods, had burst into the hut minutes later and begun their work, with the rest of the frightened family cowering on the other side of the sparsely furnished space. One of them, who as much as he had arrived with the others, stood apart from the group. The man wore plain clothes, corduroy pants and a checkered shirt, the type and style of a school teacher’s. He paid no attention to the men and their apparatuses, but instead just knelt down next to the children. He calmly explained he was a doctor and that they had a new medicine that would save their father’s life. It was all he ever had to say. Before long, their father was given a range of injections, and the white angel disappeared again into the blue sky, taking with it the men and their equipment, leaving behind the family in prayer that the kind doctor
had spoken the truth, and that he would keep his promise to return within the week to check on progress.
For the next 24 hours, they had sat and watched their father. Slowly at first but then ever more rapidly, his symptoms eased. Miraculously the swelling subsided, his features once again recognizable. The bruises disappeared, his fever dropped dramatically, and the very next morning, he opened his eyes again for the first time in days. His wife and their neighbours summoned the preacher and held impromptu sessions of prayer and worship. They gave thanks and praise for the husband’s speedy recovery, which no doubt was nothing short of a miracle granted by the Almighty himself.
Now, two days later, his hands trembled in the beams of morning light breaking through the torn curtain covering the tiny window near his bed, and beads of sweat splashed onto the red dirt floor below his feet. 'I just need to get up and get going,' he thought to himself. 'Do some work outside, look after the crops, and I will be right as rain again.'
Feeling weak, he pushed himself up from the simple makeshift bed and, careful not to wake his wife and children, stepped outside. The warmth of the morning sun felt good on his cold and clammy body. He noticed the dark veins. Standing out against the greyish black skin, they now covered most of his arm and torso.
“Time to get moving,” he mumbled in defiance and, grabbing his old hoe, walked along the narrow dirt path leading into the family’s maize fields. He paused for a moment as he passed the makeshift cemetery. The horrors of war and the unimaginable cruelty with which warlords had ruled had left their mark on his family, just as they had on the entire region. In the tall grass, roughly carved crosses, crooked and weather-beaten marked the resting places of loved ones gone before him. His nephew and niece, along with their father and mother, or what was left of them after the marauders had done their bidding, now lay here, peacefully and forever united in the very soil that had sustained their family for generations.
And then there was Amadou. His second nephew and the one the rebels had taken away. Taken away to be transformed into one of their own. His would be an entirely different kind of living hell, one in which he would be as much a perpetrator of evil as a sufferer from it. They had never heard from Amadou again after that fateful day. He often wondered whether the boy would ever take his rightful place here among his beloved, or whether his body would be cast aside and left to rot wherever it may fall in the course of the rebels’ reign of blood and terror.
He sighed. Burdened by the memories of the violent deaths of his brother’s family, he lumbered on into the fields. Tall green corn now lined the path on both sides. The upcoming harvest would be a proud achievement, widely celebrated each year in a region where life was fickle at best, and infestations destroyed entire crops in the blink of an eye. His hands stroked the leaves of the plants he himself had sown earlier in the year, a reminder of the cycle of life and how apt he had become at farming, despite his father having passed too early in his life to have given him the necessary knowledge.
He reached the far end of the fields where the maize plants skirted the edge of the forest and paused again. A never-before-felt tiredness swept through his body. His knees grew weaker by the minute. What had been a brisk walk during the last few yards had slowed to a shuffle. Like invisible hands drawing him to the ground, he felt the energy draining from within. A dark force descended, compelling his very soul to surrender. His mind threatened to succumb to its siren call, and momentarily he tried to shrug it off. Shaking his head in disbelief at how much the illness had taken out of him, he thanked God and the men in white for his recovery. As much as he tried, though, the fog in his mind grew stronger with every attempt to resist, soon muffling every rational thought, taking over his motor skills and draining him of the very will to go on. It took but a few more clumsy steps before he felt himself fall to the ground.
Helplessly and unable to move any further, he lay there on his back, his empty eyes staring at the blue sky above, limbs pinned to the red soil beneath him by some unseen, all-consuming power.
‘It will be fine,’ he heard himself think, the voice fading into the mist that now completely engulfed his mind. ‘I’ll just lie here for a little while…It will be fine.’
The sun was already low, its last heat-filled ambers burning across the treetops to the west and bathing the maize field in a fiery hue reserved for but a few minutes each day right before dusk. It was still as it always was at this time, when even the usual daytime breeze retreated in awe of the spectacle that was sunset, leaving the air filled but with the sound of the insects heralding evening and the night to come. His eyes opened and stared up at the theatre of orange light across the sky and the clouds above. He had laid there for hours, perfectly still, resting on the warm earth, surrounded by the tall plants. Now, after what seemed like an eternity, his limbs sprang back to life.
Trembling at first, at last, he moved stiffly, pushed his upper body off the ground, and sat for a while, gazing ahead in stupor. His eyes wandered down along the well-trodden path. Somewhere off in the distance, children’s laughter caught his attention. His head tilted with curiosity. Within a few moments, he managed to get back to his feet. He stood in silence, regaining focus with every passing second. Tall among the maize, he swayed in the evening breeze like the plants around him. His legs barely obeyed his command, but ever so slowly, he found his groove and began his long journey back, here and there staggering off the path and into the field, following the magical sounds of children at play as it shifted direction.
Cattle scurried out of his way as he approached their homestead, but he paid no attention and instead picked up his uncoordinated pace towards the lure of the noise up ahead. Dusk was already firmly at hand, the colours of the day reduced to lifeless shades of grey when he finally stepped out into the open. He felt irresistibly drawn to the hut now. There, their evening meal was bubbling over an open fire, and inside their small but comfortable abode, his wife and children were busy shucking corn as they did most evenings.
He was close now, the flames from the fire reflecting in his eyes and dancing across his pale features. He stretched out his hand towards them. His wife placed another batch of maize into the basket in front of her and looked up. With a furrowed brow, she let out a sigh of relief as she finally saw her husband emerge. The children, seeing their father’s outline appear as it had done a hundred times before, jumped up, screeched with joy, and ran towards the dark figure.
“Dad, dad…you are finally home. Mum was worried!”
He raised his stiff arms in excitement, his gaze fixed upon them. He tried to speak, but all that escaped his gaping mouth was a sorrowful moan.
The boy, eager to welcome him back, was first to reach him but recoiled when his eyes finally met his father’s. They had once been the loving eyes of a man who cared more for his family than anyone could have imagined. Eyes with such passion that it radiated through and from him in everything he did. Yet now they were no longer those of the man he knew. Empty, lifeless and grey, devoid of any feeling but burning, hateful lust.
He wanted to get away from this thing that had taken possession of his father, but it was already too close. Cold hands clutched at him in deadly embrace, drawing him to its cadaverous mouth and the gnawing teeth that lay beyond it. No matter how hard he tried, he was unable to free himself from its vice-like grip. He watched in horror as his father, with a nimbleness belied by his uncoordinated gait, closed in. Teeth wrapped around his arm. Jaws chomped, again and again, tearing warm flesh from bone. The boy writhed in agony and screamed for his mother. Bone-chilling screeches for help pierced the night air.
Like an octopus consuming its prey, the father consumed the boy, his bloodied mouth blindly tearing into soft tissue wherever it could find it.
Frozen in place, first in disbelief then in shock, both the boy’s mother and sister had stopped in their tracks upon hearing the first screams. Torn between protecting her daughter and coming to her son’s aid, the mother finally did what the
y had rehearsed a thousand times. She quickly shoved the frightened girl towards the safety of the hut and the secret hiding places that lay within. Almost instantly, satisfied that the girl had complied, she started running towards the indiscernible tangle of limbs and shrieks mere feet away from her. But even as she sprinted towards her son, she could see that it was too late. The boy’s body went limp, and his last cry for help subsided in a gurgle of gushing blood from an angry wound in his throat. The gnashing teeth, discarding their former prey, now honed in on their next target.
In blind rage, she threw herself against the thing that had somehow taken over her husband’s body. She pounded her fists against his arms, his shoulders, and head, but it was no use. Spurred on by the warmth of her flesh, his dead eyes locked with hers, and she knew she would not escape. He dropped the lifeless body of the son, a son his former self could have never hurt, let alone laid a hand on, and instead, his hunger refocused on the living thing before him.
Somewhere behind the row of maize baskets in the back of the hut, the little girl hid, listening to her mother’s screams. She sobbed as quietly as she could, her eyes wide with terror at what had happened and what she feared was to come. She knew better than to shout or move. Life in rebel-held territory had taught her well. She cowered behind the fullest basket she had been able to find and sought that magical place within her. The place her mother had taught her to go to whenever things got scary, which they had done several times before in her short life so far, although what was happening now made the very word lose much of its meaning. She shivered with terror as every fibre of her being fought to go against her mother’s advice and leave her hiding place. All she wanted was to take off from this dreadful place. Run, run, run from their home, which until minutes ago had stood for all the love and protection she could have wished for.
The Virophage Chronicles (Book 1): Dead Hemisphere Page 1
