The Virophage Chronicles (Book 1): Dead Hemisphere

by Landeck, R. B.

  “Eeeeeww!” Anna screamed the moment she had poked her head through the hatch, and she refused to go any further.

  In the end, though, they were able to retrieve several boxes with old Christmas decorations, which they eagerly unpacked, sorting out whatever they thought they might use for their ‘Welcome Home’ theme. They lost track of time for a while, and Julie’s watch said noon when she heard loud banging on the front door downstairs.

  “Stay here, sweetie, I’ll be right back.” She put down a roll of red ribbon and made her way down the mahogany stairway.

  The banging continued and got even louder before she had even made it into the hallway.

  ‘This is odd. Wanjiru must have forgotten her keys’, Julie thought to herself.

  She stepped into the front entrance, and her eyes widened. Wanjiru’s face was pressed up against the small window set into the middle of the heavy front door, her face distorted from exertion and fear, her fists hitting the solid wood with a ferocity Julie hadn’t known she possessed.

  Julie rushed to the door, unhooked the security chain, and unbolted the upper lock, quietly cursing the need for such measures in a city that was infamous for its burglaries and home invasions.

  “Wait, wait, I’m here!” She yelled as she finally managed to disengage the last lock at the bottom.

  No sooner had she turned the knob and begun to open it, Wanjiru burst in, nearly bowling her over, the massive door threatening to knock her out cold. Julie stumbled back, and her tailbone connected hard with the carpet across the dark hardwood floor. Wanjiru stumbled and landed on top of her.

  “Oh my God…Oh my God…that man…close the door…,” she stammered.

  Julie, still startled, stared at Wanjirus pale and sweaty face in bewilderment. A large bloodstain on her blouse spread out right below her shoulder, and for a moment, Julie panicked, but then realized it wasn’t hers. Wanjiru rolled over and off Julie.

  She now lay on the floor, her chest and belly heaving as she tried to catch her breath. She clutched her arm. More blood oozed through her fingers and onto her dress.

  “The door…” she hissed through gritted teeth, and Julie wasted no time to slam it shut.

  She looked outside through the small window, but there was nothing out of the ordinary. The front area, the small parking bay, and the guard hut were all as they always had been. The guard though appeared to be missing, and Julie vowed immediately to reprimand him for not being at his post as soon as she had looked after Wanjiru. She returned to the large woman sprawled out in the corridor right behind her.

  “It’s all quiet out there. Relax. Whatever it was, it’s gone.” Julie tried to calm her as she started to tend to the wound.

  Lifting up Wanjiru’s hand still covering her forearm, she could see two semi-circles of cuts, like bites taken out of an apple. She knew what she was looking at, but at the same time couldn’t quite comprehend it.

  “What happened to you?” She wondered out loud as she inspected the cuts more closely.

  Ever so slowly, colour returned to Wanjiru’s face, and with Julie’s help, she was able to sit, propping herself up against the dark wood panels that ran the entire length of the hallway.

  “Are you sure he is gone?” Her voice quivered, and tears rolled down her cheeks, her eyes darting back and forth between Julie and the door.

  Julie reassured her that she hadn’t seen anything untoward and that the gate was closed, and nothing had moved inside the compound. Then she offered to go and find the guard just as soon as she had dressed Wanjiru’s injury. At the mention of the guard, though, Wanjiru’s eyes once again widened, and she shook her head in fear, pushing herself into the wall.

  “No, no….not him. Not the guard…” she stammered, closed her eyes, and mumbled a prayer.

  Julie was confused. She rushed to the kitchen and returned with a first aid kit, one of several Tom, ever the planner, had insisted they strategically place around the house. Rinsing off the dirt and coagulated lumps of blood with sterilized water, she could now see the full extent of the injury. It wasn’t life-threatening, but the puncture marks were deep, and Wanjiru had been lucky not to lose a chunk from her arm. She disinfected the wound and stemmed the renewed flow of blood with a pressure bandage, another addition to the kit Tom had insisted on, on the back of his days and experiences in the service. Giving it one final wrap with a large bandage, covering the surrounding areas above and below the injury, Julie admired her handiwork and the fact that it all appeared to be holding.

  “Come on, we sit down in the kitchen. I’ll make us some tea.” She put one arm around the heavy-set woman and supported her with the other, and together, they managed to get her off the floor and into the breakfast nook, where Julie was able to elevate the arm, Wanjiru wincing in pain every time she moved it.

  Chai, Kenyan tea boiled in milk, was poured from the thermos she had prepared earlier, and the two women sat in silence for a moment, Julie looking quizzically looking at Wanjiru as she stared into space, her mind a million miles away.

  “Now tell me. Slowly. What happened?” Julie needed to know.

  Anna was still busy upstairs. Whatever it was that had occurred, she did not want her to hear about it or get involved.

  “Miss Julie…” Wanjiru shook her head, “…it was terrible. Like the devil himself was trying to devour me.”

  Her cryptic answer did little but add to Julie’s confusion.

  “Look at me, Wanjiru,” she pressed. “Tell me what exactly happened?”

  “As you know, I went to the market. You know, the one on the way to Mathare slum. I like it because they don’t charge Mzungu prices, and I have people there that I know.”

  The housekeeper pulled herself together and took a deep breath. She relaxed a little now that she had begun to tell the story.

  “When I got there, it was not like it usually is. I don’t know how to describe it. People were…nervous, like they knew something was about to happen. Many stall owners had already sold most of their things, and it was only 11 o’clock in the morning. People were buying a lot and the matatu station, you know where the minibuses leave for up-country, was going crazy with people trying to leave.”

  Wanjiru took a sip of tea and shook her head as she went through the events in her mind. Julie hung onto her every word.

  “I went to a woman, I know. The one that always sells the Sukuma Wiki that you like. She was crying and praying. She said that word had gotten around that the devil had come to Nairobi and that he was eating souls by the dozen.” Wanjiru started to shiver.

  “Of course, I did not know what she was talking about, and so I sat with her, and we talked a bit more. She told me her son had come home last night, and at first, she had thought he was but drunk. But then he attacked her. There was blood pouring from his eyes and ears. And it was only thanks to her landlord, who woke up from the mbulu, that she was still alive.”

  She crossed herself with her healthy hand.

  “They locked her son in his room, and he had been behaving like a mad man inside there the whole night. I asked her why she was at the market today, and you know what she said? She said that even though evil had befallen her son, she still needed to make a living and that she had called the pastor to come in the afternoon to heal his spirit. But all around, I saw people full of fear. Fearful of something they could not see.”

  Wanjiru’s eyes welled up with tears now as she braced herself to continue.

  “So I bought only a few things. I did not want to stay in this place. I took a matatu back to here, but as we came into Westlands, there were soldiers and police. And they pointed their guns at us and made everyone get out and sit on the side of the road. Then they made us pull up our dresses and sleeves, and they looked around our heads and necks. We thought they wanted something else from us. You know, the thing men sometimes do to women. But they were only interested in looking at our skin.”

  She paused, shaking as she tried to pick up the cup of tea
Julie had poured for her. Tea spilled over the table, and she placed the cup back onto its saucer without taking a sip.

  “There was a man who had an injury on his leg. It wasn’t bad, but you could see it clearly. They took him away and put him on a truck. He was pleading with them and yelling, but they wouldn’t listen. They never do anyway.”

  She took another deep breath and grimaced. Holding her injured arm, she waited for another spasm of pain to pass.

  “When they had looked at all of us, they let us get back into the matatu. They even said we were the lucky ones because they would close off all the roads within the hour. So I thought to myself, ‘what is the reason for all this?’ But I didn’t dare ask them, because I did not want to end up on that truck like that man. So I got off at the stop down the road. You know, the one outside that shiny new building with all the mirrors on the outside. Even there, things were not like they normally are. There is always a lot of business going on there. Big cars coming and going and men in suits always standing around talking and shaking hands.”

  She scoffed at the hustlers, the thieves and the fatcats that called themselves entrepreneurs; parasites living off the gullible and those lower on the social ladder than they were.

  “But today, there was nothing. Only the guard and Mama Samaki. You know, the lady that sells the fried fish at Mzungu prices. There were no customers. No cars were going in and out and no men in suits.”

  Wanjiru seemed to drag out her story to avoid its inevitable ending.

  “So I walked down the road towards this house, and I could not even see any matatus, and the people that were out were moving. Moving like they wanted to get away from here. I was starting to get a very bad feeling, and so I moved fast, too. But then when I got near here, I saw David, the guard, outside the gate. He was banging on it, and I was thinking: ‘You stupid man, you have locked yourself out.’ I even joked and asked if he had made an appointment to see you, Miss Julie. But when he turned around, he didn’t look like David anymore at all.”

  Despite the pain, she covered her eyes with both hands as she wrestled with the memory.

  “There was dark blood all over his face, and his eyes….his eyes!” She spluttered, tears streaming down her face. Julie stroked her hair and waited patiently until Wanjiru calmed enough to continue.

  “His eyes were grey! You know, like the eyes of a fish that has been out in the sun. And he did not say anything. His mouth just opened and closed, opened, and closed. So I asked him what was wrong and offered to take him inside to sit down, but when I touched him…when I touched him is when it happened. He didn’t even look at me. He just grabbed my arm and bit me. He bit me so hard I screamed. I was bleeding and tried to get away, but he wouldn’t let me. In the end, I pushed him, and we both fell into the ditch next to the entrance.”

  She looked at the bandage on her forearm, wincing as she touched its edges.

  “I don’t know what happened then. All I know is I climbed out and ran. Ran to the door and tried to get in. My handbag, my keys, my phone…even the shopping. It is all still out there. I am so sorry, Miss Julie.”

  She broke down. Burying her head in her arms, she sobbed uncontrollably. Julie rubbed her shoulders, consoling her as best as she could while trying to digest what she had heard. Somewhere between deep concern for Anna and herself and the incredulity of Wanjiru’s story, she found herself as much alarmed as helpless.

  From the little she knew about this country, it was not unusual for people here to mix reality with superstition or let innuendo become fact, but together with what she had seen on the news, Wanjiru’s story almost made sense. Enough sense at least to take some precautions and make sure the house was locked down and basic preparations made.

  She cursed the fact that Tom was away and, at the same time, worried even more about his situation. Wherever he was, if things were about to get as bad in Nairobi as Wanjiru’s story let on, then she did not even want to imagine what he was facing in the Congo. She could only hope that the system - his organization’s, the UN’s, or whoever’s - was working and capable of getting people out of before everything fell apart.

  Despite all this, for a moment, Julie’s face scintillated as she smiled. There had been times when she had lamented Tom’s excessive pragmatism, but now as her mind was already working overtime going through priorities and options, she was glad that some of it evidently had rubbed off on her. Renewed confidence flickered that they both would be able to cope with whatever may come, and she felt an even stronger connection to him than she had before.

  “Right!“ She placed both hands on the table and straightened up. “First things first: You need to get some rest, Wanjiru. And we need to make sure that David, if he is still out there, stays out there. So you go lie down, and I’ll check the doors and windows.”

  “I’m sorry, Miss Julie. I should be…” Wanjiru wanted to protest, but she knew herself that she was in no condition to be of any use, at least for now. Julie had already gotten up, taken their cups, and started her round of observations through the ground floor windows.

  Wanjiru meanwhile slumped over the table and cradled her head in her arms. Exhausted and drained, she fell into a deep sleep.

  Julie came around the corner towards the front door and almost bumped into Anna, standing on the other side of the wall that separated the breakfast nook from the hallway.

  “What is happening, mum?” Anna looked at her mother with frightened eyes.

  Julie crouched and fixed her with a level look of assurance.

  “You have been listening in, you cheeky monkey, haven’t you?” She poked Anna, making light of the situation.

  “It’s nothing to worry about, really. Auntie Wanjiru had an accident. It was a misunderstanding, nothing else. It’s all fine now.” She made an attempt at a comforting smile and immediately knew that she had sounded unconvincing.

  If there was anything she knew about Anna, it was her uncanny ability to pick up on moods with frightening precision.

  “Why don’t you go and sit with Wanjiru for a moment. You will see, everything is OK,” Julie offered, and to her surprise, Anna seemed to believe her.

  “I think I will let auntie rest while we finish the decorations for daddy.”

  Julie hugged her, careful not to show how much she herself felt fragile and anxious.

  With Anna back upstairs, she continued her tour, looking out through each window and checking the exterior. More or less like all residences in Nairobi, theirs, too, had grilles on doors and windows, deterring all but the most determined and well-equipped intruder. She checked the locks on the front and back doors and then the balcony on the first floor. Satisfied that the house was as secure as it could be, she checked the pantry and water supply, something she had gotten used to quickly in a context where service disruptions and food shortages were ordinary occurrences.

  Again, satisfied that they would be OK at least for a little while, she sat down in the living room and turned on the TV. Flicking through the channels, and without the benefit of Wanjiru’s story and the Nakuru footage, one might have been forgiven for thinking everything was indeed Ok.

  Most local channels played their usual mishmash of Nigerian music videos and Kenyan gospel songs, while others featured the kind of mind-melting endless political discussions that had led her to abandon TV almost altogether. Al-Jazeera was preoccupied with the situation in Gaza, and Sky News worried more about the price of butter in the UK than it did about anything else going on in the rest of the world. It was only BBC where the news ticker on the bottom of the screen started spitting out updates on the evolving Ebola crisis. A brief announcement of a special bulletin 'just ahead' interrupted the program.

  When it came to Africa, most media houses nowadays considered the subject poisonous for their ratings. After decades of images of starvation and war, of violence and destitution, Western audiences had been engineered to the extent that reports no longer drew the viewership they once had. The African p
light was no longer sexy, and with most viewers unable to discern the 54 countries it comprised, it was now mostly charities that, somewhere between sitcoms and cooking shows, pumped out same-ish adverts perpetuating the incongruous stereotypes that had long become fact in Western minds. Julie shuddered.

  It seemed to take forever to get through the programme and past the endless coverage of sports, business, and economic developments, but finally, the breaking news segment began.

  She turned up the volume, careful to keep it at a level that would neither raise Wanjiru from her much needed rest, nor alert Anna to the fact that all was far from swell in their corner of the world.

  The announcer started with a brief rehash of the Ebola epidemic, most of it already well-known and repeated ad nauseam, at least to Julie, who had been as much part of Tom’s journey into the humanitarian realm as anybody could have. The initial outbreak had been contained to a relatively small area in the Northeast of the Congo, they said, but had then somehow broken through the containment measures and spread much further afield. It had been a much more rapid onset, it seemed, as even the neighbouring countries, which, after multiple outbreaks over the past few decades had been used to putting up defences, were struggling to control the spread of the disease.

  During the last big outbreak, there had even been scares in the UK and the US, mostly caused by careless response personnel, who had failed to declare feeling a little off at their home airport’s health checkpoints, but even those cases had been dealt with quickly, and disaster averted without too much effort. Julie remembered the coverage about an Ebola scare a mere few months prior to their arrival in Kenya.

  A woman had reportedly arrived back in-country from visiting her husband back in the Congo. Within days she had come down with something inexplicable, her illness eventually bearing all the hallmarks of Ebola. Authorities struggled to isolate people she had been in contact with, and within 24 hours of word getting out, her home town had emptied, leaving nothing but boarded-up shops and deserted streets. It had been a tense time for the government, which did its utmost to avoid a general panic, only for the ghosts of fibs past to come and haunt its credibility. It was the doctors, the lab technicians who finally examined her blood samples, who were able to put an end to the rumours by announcing the negative tests and things had returned to normal at an alarming speed. Emergency biosafety teams were withdrawn from airports and screening stations taken down, and cross- border traffic resumed as if the virus had never existed.