The Abandoned Trilogy (Book 1): Twice Dead (Contagion) (22 page)

“No Sir!” Private Salter’s face began to infuse with colour again.

“Ms. Lal?” Wolf looked at me and then at the soldier who he was keeping standing at attention.

“No problems at all Colonel,” I said placidly, “Stevie, please go and shower, you honk!”

Stevie laughed, he smiled at Wolf who to my surprise smiled back.

“You will teach me how to march like you promised Kai?” Stevie was unaware of the tension in the room.

Private Salter didn’t answer, Wolf looked at him curiously and then said, “You were asked a question Private Salter, please answer it.”

Private Salter’s face was a picture of misery, and I was surprised that I felt sorry for him, “If the Colonel allows it,” the soldier finally replied and Stevie looked at Wolf eagerly.

“I don’t see why not,” Wolf’s reply wasn’t what I expected, “It will help you keep up with your drilling, in fact I think for the duration of the quarantine you will spend it here, helping Ms. Lal and the residents”

“Yes Sir!” Private Salter didn’t seem horrified by his punishment, in fact if I didn’t know any better, I’d say he was relieved.

Stevie let out a little whoop of delight, “We can play checkers again!” he shouted.

“Shower! Now!” was my response to Stevie’s happiness and he laughed and headed for his room.

“Go back to the billet Salter,” Wolf said to the young soldier, “I’m also imposing a curfew on you, and heed this warning, if I get one more bad report about your conduct between now and us leaving here, you will be doing more than an eight-hour full pack run.”

“Yes Sir,” Salter said. I saw his expression flicker again when Wolf mentioned the billet he had to return too.

“If he is to help us in here,” I said to Wolf, “It might be good if he billets over here? Just a suggestion.”

Wolf gave this some thought and then he looked at the still squirming soldier, “Your choice Salter,” he said.

“I’ll stay here Sir,” Salter said.

“Get your kit and update the Captain, “the officer said to the soldier, “Your curfew is from 1900 hours until 0800 hours, don’t break it, or I will bust your ass from here to Pearl Harbour.”

“Sir! Salter saluted the officer, started to leave, then he hesitated, swung on his heels to face me, before blurting out, “I’m really sorry for what I said before, I know you won’t believe me but I…”

“I do actually believe you,” I interrupted him as I flicked open my sketch book to a blank page and reached for my tin of charcoal pencils, “And I accept your apology on behalf of Gregory and my friends.”

I smiled at him then, “Now bugger off and get your kit, dinner is at 5, you can help cook it,” I made a point of not looking at Wolf when I spoke and as soon as the young soldier was out of the way I started to draw, my hint for Wolf to do the same.

“Who are you protecting him from?” Wolf wasn’t going to let me off that easily.

“The same person you are,” I said without looking up from my drawing.

Wolf laughed softly but he didn’t ask me anymore questions. When I looked up a moment later he was gone.

In the privacy of Adag’s flat, Mitch, myself, Adag and Seb that same evening discussed what we were going to do when the soldiers were gone and also our theories about the Twice Dead, the wild garlic and of course, why what had happened had happened. We sat around her dining table drinking coffee and picking at some toast I had made.

              Phoenix would come along to these meetings when he felt strong enough and so would Paul. We didn’t want to exclude, Cassidy and the others but they weren’t aware of the rise of the Twice Dead as yet. Until that was addressed, we all thought it best we keep them out of the loop.

Adag was worried about the dwindling medical supplies for Paul, as he was needing more and more pain medication.

              “He needs something stronger than I am able to give him,” she said fretfully as she rolled her coffee cup in her hands, “There is stronger stuff in the Yellow Room but I don’t know how he will react to it, I don’t have enough medical training to make that sort of decision.”

              “Intravenous would be better for him,” I eyed the limp buttered toast in front of me and then slowly pushed it to one side, “It works faster,” I was speaking from my own experience with pain medication.

              “I can give injections,” Adag said, “But put in a line? No, I’ve never done that before.”

              None of us had. The home had fully qualified Nurses on rotation coming into the home as when needed, but Paul had not quite got to that stage where that was needed for him. It would have been soon but now with the end of the world as we knew, there was no one in our group with any medical qualifications, unless you counted the odd First Aid Certificate.

              “We can speak to Colonel Wolf,” I said.

              “Why the hell would we want to speak to him?” Seb said belligerently and he took my slice of toast and bit on it.

              “Because he has a Medic who is a qualified Doctor who probably has drugs we haven’t heard of that could possibly help Paul.”

              “I’ve not got a problem speaking to him,” Adag said, “If it helps Paul.”

“That’s settled then,” I said and then I changed the subject and told them about Salter and how he would be staying in the home until the quarantine was over. Of course I had to explain why.

“Why should we help that little shit?” Seb exploded, “He deserved all he got!”

“He didn’t deserve what Duke did to him!” I snapped at Seb, “And he’s afraid of him, what does that say to you, one soldier afraid of another?’

Seb opened his mouth to argue the point but Mitch interjected, “Lucy’s right Seb, that beating he took, it was done by someone who knows how to really make you hurt and not kill, he’s dangerous.”

“All the more to keep out of his fucking way then,” Seb retorted.

“I’m inclined to agree with Seb on this occasion,” Adag said, and she made a face as she spoke, “Oh my God, how the mighty have fallen…”

“Charming,” Seb snorted, “I don’t think he should stay in the home.”

“He stays,” I said flatly and before either Adag or Seb could argue with me, I said softly, “He was crying, when I found him he was crying, that Duke really hurt him, whatever you might think, that’s not right.”

“Shit,” Seb said, he glanced at Adag and she nodded her head.

“If this Duke murders us in our beds,” Seb growled at me, “I will come back as a Twice Dead and have your brains with a nice chianti…” he gnashed his teeth together to emphasise his point.

We all laughed then. Breaking the tension that was building up in the room.

Seb had begun to make a habit of joining Mitch in his garage most days and I watched as a warm and strong friendship began to form between the two men.

Mitch and Seb had never really interacted per se when things were normal at the home. Before the end of the world Mitch was just the coach driver and handy man for Thorncroft, kind, but firm, never losing his temper, but when things change; they don’t change in a small way.

Seb’s new friendship with Mitch was not surprisingly based

on their shared love of all things mechanical, with the Gorilla it had been about the racing, but with Mitch it was about how things worked and how to make them better. And this wasn’t the only change in the status quo in the home that I noticed.

Stevie had taken Cassidy under his wing, they spent a lot of time together, doing weight lifting, and watching wrestling DVD’s on the big screen in the lounge. Stevie also helped Cassidy with his volatile temper, taking him into the games room when he got upset and getting him to play Ping-Pong which he got quite good at and really enjoyed. I sometimes joined them and partnered up with Eden and we played doubles.

              Adag had said it would be good for us to keep as active as we could. I had never been one for exercise though I had enjoyed our fortnightly trip to the swimming pool in the town of Brightpine which was 20 or so miles away from Thorncroft in an easterly direction.

              I had considered swimming in the Monocot lake as it did have a swimming area but it hadn’t been used in years and I wasn’t sure how safe it was.

              Jasmine wasn’t really interested in sports, though she did like dancing and she and Eden now used the Wii on a daily basis in the lounge with one of their dance programs.

              Lieutenant Barnes checked on my leg and gave me some exercises to strengthen the calf muscle. It would never be completely OK, he said to me, like I didn’t know that, but there were some exercises that would help. If I persevered, then I probably could increase the muscle mass.

              Adag in turn spent most of her free time with Paul, his eyes hurt him a lot now so he didn’t like watching his DVD’s as much as he had done before. Adag started to read to him, and he seemed comfortable with her, she had replaced Shannon who had been one of his primary helpers. When he felt well enough, Stevie would go play checkers with him and tell him about Private Salter teaching not only him how to march but Cassidy too.

              Private Salter was put to work doing a variety of tasks. Even with one hand, he was able to do quite a lot. Drying dishes, doing the laundry and of course playing checkers and other board games with the residents in the evening before his curfew.

He talked to me a lot, asking questions, trying to fill in the huge gaps of knowledge he had with regard to the complex world disabilities.

              He also ate his meals with us at the dining table because as Adag bluntly told him, he wasn’t a guest and she wasn’t having him taking his food into his room, only Phoenix and Paul were allowed that privilege.

Private Salter got to be exposed to the other residents in an intimate way that slowly helped him understand more about disability.

              Seb made a point of not speaking to Salter unless he had too, but the others were more forgiving, and they included him in their conversations, their board games and of course their love of DVD’s.

              I had told Salter to evade any questions about when they would see their family and friends again, and to give him credit he obeyed me.

Wolf used the office in our building during the day, and at night he joined his unit in the conference room billet. He often left the home late, I knew this because I would usually be curled up on the sofa either reading a book or watching a DVD when he left the building for the night.

              In the old days I went to bed at a certain time, my life had been well regulated as I said, but Adag had cut Seb and me a lot of slack since the end of the world. Seb liked going to work in the garage with Mitch after supper, and he often stayed with the older man in his quarters until midnight when he would head for his room via the kitchen.

              Wolf didn’t leave Salter with us totally unsupervised, Captain Lacks-Renton came in each day to check on him, and his curfew was rigidly kept to. He didn’t see much of his comrades other than the Captain, the Colonel and occasionally Private Jasper and a female soldier called Topaz.

              I, myself got into a routine of going to see Phoenix in his room each day, going over what he was finding out during his monitoring of the Twice Dead and COBRA. He got used to me tapping on his door and entering and flopping down on his armchair.

              I usually bring a can of coke or some snack for him. We watched hours of Drone footage together. He made notes, I made a point of not writing anything down, consigning everything I thought potentially important to my prodigious memory.

From what he was monitoring, Phoenix was seeing less and less survivors being found by the military. He was also seeing an increase of attacks on the military convoys that were out of the safety of what we now called the Elite Enclaves where the chosen were based.

“Do you think they intended to stay underground if everything had gone the way they wanted?” I asked Phoenix, as we saw footage a group of Twice Dead prize open an overturn Humvee like a large sardine can to get at the contents, “I mean can you imagine the clean-up needed to make the world inhabitable for them?”

“No,” Phoenix said as he watched a soldier being eaten alive by a group of Twice Dead. He had switched off audio. I had got used to seeing guts and carnage on Phoenix’s computer screen but I still had trouble with the sound.

“No, what?” I said.

“No I cannot imagine the clean-up to make the world inhabitable,” he replied.

I laughed. Phoenix took things literally. Talking to him could be surprisingly refreshing rather than frustrating which surprised me.

I chatted to Phoenix during our time together, most of the time he didn’t answer but I was happy with that, he was my sounding board in a way, and occasionally his logical mind would answer the questions or problems I was trying to work out.

“I wonder if there were survivors in Thorncroft,” I mused my thoughts out loud.

Phoenix looked at me almost quizzically, I remembered then he wasn’t aware of the smoke that had been seen when Wolf and I had gone to look for Stevie. I told him what had happened and also where the smoke was supposed to have come from.