The Abandoned Trilogy (Book 1): Twice Dead (Contagion) (47 page)

My head shot up and Wolf met my gaze head on, “If you argue with me,” he said, “I will have you sedated, understand?”

What could I say? I gave him a malevolent look, but limped off with Private Bryson, followed by an anxious Stevie who sensed something was not quite right with me, but didn’t understand what it was.

Zimmerman was heavily sedated. They had lain him out in part of the space normally used for Seb’s wheelchairs. He was lying on what had once been a large thick piece of grubby, but soft rubber matting that Mitch always kept in the boot of the coach in order to cushion the manual wheelchairs he used to put into the boot. There also several wheelchair cushions that he had never got around to moving and so a kind of bed had been made for Zimmerman and he was covered with equally grubby old blankets, once again used in the past to keep the wheelchairs from banging into each other during a trip. A folded up coat served as a pillow for his head.

Zimmerman’s sister Rachel was sitting on one of the coach seats looking down at him. She turned when she heard the clump of my feet on the steps. We looked at each other, but I said nothing.

Bryson made me sit down on one of the seats and he sat opposite me. I hurt all over. Stevie had followed us onto the coach.

“Where is everyone?” I said to him and I peered out of the window behind me, “Where’s Phoenix? Salter, I didn’t see him, is he OK?”

“Phoenix is with Mitch,” Stevie said, “And the others, the Colonel made them all go into the Woods.”

“How did you know that Duke was here?” I said suddenly, my question was directed at Bryson.

He smiled faintly, “Your Bee-in-the-SKY,” he said.

“Phoenix saw everything,” Wolf’s voice, he had stepped quietly onto the coach and Bryson swiftly stood up, he was still a soldier, “He told me.”

The humming noise above us, of course, I had just assumed it was the birds, luckily so had Duke.

“Private Bryson ensure that the others are bought back here from the woods, we will have to set up camp here for tonight, in the morning we will sort out how we can all get back to Thorncroft.”

“Yes Sir,” the soldier swiftly left the coach. Wolf glanced at Rachel. Stevie hovered nearby.

“Stevie,” Wolf said, “Can you tell Private Rodriquez to choose two men to guard Duke, and then get Lieutenant Barnes to come in here, then tell Mitch to do a weapons count and we need fires to be made up and all food we have to be accounted for, get the girls and children to do that please.”

Stevie nodded his head. He threw me a worried look then left the coach.

“Lucia,” Wolf said, but I wouldn’t look at him, instead I stared out of the window. He didn’t speak again until Nat got on the coach. I made myself watch the hub of activity that was soon going on outside the coach.

I saw Corporal Peters, Salter and Private Jasper appear with the others. Phoenix clutching his computer, walking with Mitch. Jack and Russell were scampering about, Dov and Seth were chasing them, they were laughing. Children are surprisingly resilient I thought, more than us adults.

Jasmine was carrying baby Poppy in her arms, with Cassidy hovering protectively beside her. Eden was talking to Gabe who had Karma on his leash. He was holding Percy’s hand.

I saw Stevie approach Jasmine and Eden and speak to them. I pressed my face against the coolness of the window. There were flashes of green as soldiers moved back and forth.

Salter was looking around, he was trying to locate me, he spoke to a passing female soldier and she pointed to the coach. He started to walk toward it but Private Jasper caught hold of his good arm and said something. Salter looked at the coach, and then nodded his head. He looked worried. I was glad that they were all OK. That was something good if nothing else.

We were exposed out here, but there was nothing we could do about that. At least to the back of us was a sheer drop down to the river and beyond. Order out of chaos was being made.

A hand on my leg made me jerk and pull away. It was Nat. His concerned eyes were inspecting me quizzically. Wolf had left the coach. I was glad. I frowned. Why was I angry with him? He was only doing his job.

“You look like shit,” Nat said candidly.

“You don’t look that hot yourself,” I said dryly.

“Is your head hurting?”

It was. I shrugged my shoulders.

“The Colonel wants me to sedate you,” he said.

My eyes widened and I drew back further into the two seats I was occupying.

“I won’t,” he said taking me by surprise, “If you promise to stay on the coach and try to sleep.”

I didn’t want to sleep, I didn’t want to be on the coach, I just wanted to be on my own, curled up in a ball somewhere, hidden under a hedge never to be seen again.

“How do you know I will keep my promise?” he sat patiently waiting for my answer, not hurrying me.

Nat smiled, “You’ll keep it,” he said.

I nodded my head.

“Good,” he said and he reached out and touched my still damp coat, “We haven’t got much in the way of a change of clothes. He was carrying a spare combat jacket which he laid over me. It was heavy but it was at least dry.

I pulled it close to me and pushed the thick sleeve under my head to create a makeshift pillow.

I didn’t think I would sleep, but I did. As soon as I closed my eyes, the world seemed to cave in on me and when my eyes opened hours later, it was dark and the coach was extremely warm with people curled up on the remaining seats, most asleep. As my eyes got used to the dark interior, I saw that Gabe and Percy where in the seats across from me, leaning on each other, their dogs curled under their legs.

I shifted my body slightly and saw that Rachel was lying by her brother and next to her, top and tail where her two grandsons. The baby Poppy was lying on her tummy next to Jasmine also in the wheelchair space, her blanket over her, and Jasmine’s arm protectively around her.

Cassidy and Stevie were in two seats further down the coach, also asleep and I saw Eden was curled up next to Mitch. Behind them, hugging his computer was Phoenix. He was resting his head on his arm, and he too was asleep.

I turned my head and looked out of the window into the darkness that was lit by flickering fires and the shadows of soldiers moving back and forth.

My muddled brain began to waken up. I shifted my aching body in the cramped sleeping place and felt my bladder throb. I needed to wee big time. I pushed the jacket off my body and slowly eased myself up into a standing position. I decided to wear the combat jacket: it was way too big for me, but it was warm. Dear God, I ached all over. I exhaled and began to edge my way down the coach.

“You OK Lucy?” the soft voice of Percy made me turn. He had heard me moving. Gabe looked at me sleepily then turned in his seat and pressed his face into the side of his head rest,

“Yeah,” I said, “Need the loo,” Percy got up and followed me down the coach. He helped me open the door and then closed it behind me once I was on the ground.

The boot of the coach was open and I saw that some of the soldiers were resting in the space, the others were on guard duty around the fires they had made which were still burning. I didn’t see either Private Jasper or Salter so by the look of it they were both resting as the soldiers on guard duty weren’t ones I knew all that well.

I had no idea where Duke was though I suspected he was on the other side of the coach, either dead or alive as he had taken one hell of a kicking from his former friends. Plus, I had shot him and kicked him in the mouth.

A female soldier, one that I had heard someone call Topaz moved from the fire, she had her rifle ready, her eyes wary, but she relaxed when she saw it was me, “Need the loo,” I said to her apologetically.

She didn’t seem surprised. She pointed with a small pen torch to a shadowy place behind the coach, some of the shrubbery had been yanked out by its roots and leaned against two large trees. Mitch’s spade had been used to dig two holes and chunks of grass and leaves had been used to line them.

This was going to be fun with my bad leg and I said as much to the female soldier. The soldier followed me to the makeshift toilet, using the thin beam of light to guide me, she tapped my arm and I turned. She held something out to me.

“I have a spare one,” she said generously, “You can keep it.”

“What is it?” She leaned over and whispered in my ear. My eyes went wide.

“Oh, ok, how do you use it?” I asked her faintly and she told me. It was easy to use and I didn’t wet my pants as I expected to by squatting on the ground. I didn’t have to squat in fact, I peed like a man. Great invention the army-shee-wee and you could also direct your piss away from your shoes with a rather phallic looking rubbery extension.

I wiped my hands on some moss and stood in the flickering darkness of the field. There was a soft breeze, not cold, but it rippled over my skin and made me shiver. I hugged my body in the oversized jacket.

I turned, not heading back to the coach, but into the darkness beyond. I needed to get away, be on my own. The numbness inside of me was coming back, I kept seeing Paul’s smiling face as he looked at me from the window of the land rover. He was so serene, like Adag had been when she said goodbye to me.

I instinctively knew that they had planned it together. They had played their own part in the rescue of Wolf and his people. I would never forgive Zimmerman for his part in their demise. His actions had taken from me something I had not had since Theresa and Jack. A family.

              Theresa and Jack. I had killed them. I remembered the love in Theresa’s eyes as she looked up at me. She thanked me. She was grateful to me.

              “You’re a good daughter Lucia,” she had said as I pressed the needle home into her vein. She had smiled at me, her eyes drooping as the drug began to invade her bloodstream, “We’ll all be together soo…”

              “Sleep well Mama,” I whispered and I put my hand to her warm cheek, “Wait for me on the other side…”

My chest exploded with pain. I gasped, clutching at my chest. Was I having a heart attack? I swayed but I remained standing. My life was falling apart. It had fallen apart when I lost Theresa and Jack but I had managed to survive but not this time, no not this time.

My feet went from soft grass to gravel and dirt. A pathway. The moon was full, I could make out shapes, of bushes, trees and tightly packed shrubbery. I walked slowly, finding a rhythm in my steps, keeping to the path that began to slope downwards.

It was a spur of the moment decision to take a walk. At first I didn’t intend to go very far. This was the way we had come the day before, in the coach, this would lead back to the edge of Ashby Forest, then to Brocklease Bunker. It was the way the coach should have left, but then I saw the trees, there had been a landslide, in fact not just one landslide, but several, the road was now well and truly blocked. I felt the land under my feet dip and I stumbled.

The land around me was lit up in a dusky yellow hue from the light of the iridescent moon, letting me see the churned up ground, the remains of tire tracks and I knew at that moment the coach had been forced to do a three point turn and that it had taken quite a while.

Several trees blocked the road, along with a shit load of earth and other detritus. I found I was able to squeeze through a gap between a fallen tree and one that was still standing and climb, albeit slowly, over tree trunks, some boulders and finally I was on the other side.

My leg was hurting like a bitch by then and I had to sit down to catch my breath and orientate myself. The moon lit the path/road and when I felt ready I got up and walked down it for a short way. I now know it was a stupid thing to do, but I just wanted my own company for a while, I wanted to think things over, but I found I couldn’t.

I hadn’t taken my bag with me, I didn’t have my Glock or sword. All I had was a Sheewee. If I had been attacked by any Twice Dead who might have been on the prowl, all I would have been able to do was piss on them.

My night eyes made out various shapes in the darkness and I found something to sit on, an overturned tree trunk as it turned out to be and I wrapped my arms around my legs.

What the hell was I doing? I rested my head on my knees, it was cold, but the coat I had on was warm. I didn’t mean to fall asleep but fall asleep I did, a deep sleep where my dreams were as dark as the night and as cold as the last ice age…

I
woke to the soft blue and orange hue in the sky that showed that dawn was breaking. I felt the chill of the early morning air, damp with dew, cool to the touch. My body hurt sleeping in such an unnatural position.

              I moved my limbs slowly, wincing as from pains shot through my neck, my shoulders, back and throughout the rest of my body.

              “Shit,” I muttered. I looked around me, and remembered where I was. I remembered my walk from the temporary toilet, my muddled thoughts began to focus and I wondered what I should do next? It didn’t occur to me to get up and return to the coach. Instead I sat where I was for a while watching the sun rise higher in the sky.

I didn’t know what was a matter with me, my emotions were all over the place, one minute I was OK, the next I was angry, the next I was reflective, then I wanted to cry, oh how I wanted to cry, but I couldn’t. The tears simply would not fall, but I could feel them inside of me, building up like an awful tidal wave that had yet to hit land.

Finally, I stood up and surveyed where I was. I was on the dirt track road we had driven down to get to the ridge. I looked at the landslide I had traversed and blanched. Perhaps it was lucky I had not been able to see much the night before.

I had somehow managed to squeeze through a part of it that wasn’t half way down the hillside. I had been extremely lucky not to end up falling to my death. Would that actually have been a bad thing I thought?

I didn’t allow myself to think about the others who would have more than likely missed me by now. I was thinking about Mitch’s van, it wasn’t far from here and it was downhill, might as well head that way.

I had played my part in ensuring the safety of most of my fellow residents, but I was grief stricken over the loss of Adag and Paul, and it didn’t help that I kept seeing Theresa and Jack’s faces alongside Adag’s and Paul’s. I was also stunned at the revelation that Duke had dropped on me about my biological mother’s brother.

Combine all of this with years of suppressed emotions and you had another bomb waiting to explode. Only this was a human bomb and it was inside of me and I had at some point to decide which path I would take now that my old world had been well and truly decimated decimated.

It actually didn’t take all that long to get to Mitch’s van, it was downhill and I ignored my aches and pains and walked briskly. I was philosophical about being attacked by any stray Twice Dead right then. If it happened, it happened. Whatever.

I saw the van as I rounded the final corner, it was parked were we had left it, right next to the prolific wild garlic field. At first it was a speck on the horizon, but as I moved toward it, it got bigger and bigger. The air was fresh, the sun rising steadily in the sky and then I saw it.

Lewis! Seb’s wheelchair. Next to Mitch’s van.

I stopped in my tracks, yes, a cliché, I know, but I did stop in my tracks. I stopped so suddenly I almost went arse over tit. I blinked my eyes several times, but the chair didn’t disappear. I wasn't hallucinating. There was no one in it, but there it was. Parked right by the back doors of the van.

I found myself increasing my speed as I moved down the hill. I resisted the urge to shout out Seb’s name. Where was he? Come to think of it where was Elise? He had been sent to find her. What had happened to her? What had happened to him? How the bloody hell had his chair ended up here?

I slowed down as I neared the van and Lewis. Lewis looked like he had been dragged through the muddy trenches of Flanders fields not once, but twice. The rubber tires were thick with mud, grass and chunks of slowly drying muck. The back of the leather seat was torn and as I got closer to it, looked like it was warped. The solar panels were cracked, and the heavy duty nylon seat belts had been stretched to capacity.

The metal rod with Seb’s Go-Pro on it though was intact. I reached out to touch it, my fingers brushing over a button and there was a sharp click and the grey screen turned blue and I was suddenly seeing the world from Lewis as he set out to locate Elise.

There was no audio, though I suspect there was some, but I didn’t know how to turn it on. I watched as Seb went looking for Elise, Lewis moved swiftly over the rough terrain as he headed away from us, the chair had no difficulty negotiating slopes, mud, grass and stones. His customizing of the vehicle had served him well I thought.

              The footage was at first just of Seb looking for Elise, heading for the line of trees that Wolf had directed him toward. It was innocuous at first, with Seb finding Elise, pretty much were Wolf said she would be, in a clump of trees, acting as a sniper.

They had some kind of argument, from what I could work out from the silent footage was that Seb wanted to return to the battle but Elise obviously had her orders and she was going to follow them to the letter.

They moved away from the trees that Elise had been using to take long distant pot shots at the Twice Dead. She swung her rifle over her shoulder and walked in parallel with Lewis, obviously they were making their way to where the coach was.

Their encounter with the Twice Dead took them by surprise. One minute they were moving sedately, carefully over the rugged landscape and then I saw Elise fall to one knee suddenly her rifle was raised and she was shooting it, shot after shot. The footage blurred for a second, then it refocused and I saw what Elise was shooting at. Coming toward them at speed up a slope were a group of Twice Dead, not just one or two, but hundreds of them.

Lewis lurched violently to one side, I saw a flash as the Glock I had given him appear. He didn’t shoot it, Elise grabbed it off him. She was shouting something at him. I peered closely at the footage which was of very high quality, so I could pretty much see every movement of their bodies and their mouths.

I couldn’t hear what Elise was shouting at Seb but for a moment she was directly in front of the GoPro and I was able to lip read what she was shouting.

“Get the fuck out of here!” there was no way Elise could outrun the Twice Dead but Seb had a chance in Lewis.

Seb though wasn’t leaving Elise behind, I saw one of his hands briefly come into shot as he grabbed her arm, yanking hard. Lewis shuddered, the chair seemed to momentarily list and then it was moving away, and it didn’t move slowly.

Seb had been customizing Lewis since he had moved into Thorncroft. It was his obsession in the way that Phoenix obsessed about computers, Paul’s fascination with space, the final frontier, Cassidy’s fixation about food and of course Stevie’s passion for weight lifting.

The footage now showed Lewis hurtling across the landscape, the wheelchair was going hell for leather, at speeds it shouldn't have been able to attain; the GoPro recording every moment and bone shaking movement. At one point the ground dipped suddenly and Lewis began to tilt but Elise must have moved her body weight because the wheelchair was swiftly back on its axis. The GoPro’s holder was set on a rigid pole on the chair but the holder could swivel which it did, probably it was controlled by Seb but I doubted if he was controlling it on purpose, he was way too busy trying to keep Lewis upright and moving.

The GoPro swiveled and now it was filming what was happening behind Lewis. It made terrifying viewing for following them at speed were Twice Dead runners, hungry and eager for the living human flesh they could smell.

I quickly grasped the fact that Elise was on the back of Lewis, he had obviously hauled her onto it and she was I guessed kneeling on the heavy plate that jutted out of the back of Lewis, this was normally used for Seb’s customised backpack. She probably had her hands wound in the nylon straps that held Seb in the chair, no wonder they were twisted and stretched along with the twisted back support!

Lewis began to put some distance between itself and the Twice Dead runners, the land before them was at first open fields in various shades of green, and then it changed. It became farmland, as there were many round bales of hay set in neat lines on the field that Lewis was roaring across.

They would now never be collected for winter fodder I thought. The camera swiveled yet again and I saw where Seb was heading for.

A copse, there were trees, many of them in the distance, and a vaguely familiar landscape. Of course! He was heading for a place with plenty of wild garlic! Smart!

Lewis almost made it to the edge of the woods where a river ran long and clear with wild garlic in abundance but then the chair began to slow down. It was going up a steep slope, and at first I thought the battery was draining, the chair had two people to carry, rather than one, it was only natural that it would not be able to keep up such a high speed indefinitely.

I was holding my breath as I watched, momentarily mesmerized by the film content. Lewis slowed to a juddering halt and Elise jumped off, there was a blur, the wheelchair shuddered, lurched a bit and then was still.

The camera swiveled again, Twice Dead were further behind but still there, still running, heading for the slope toward what they saw as their next meal. The Twice Dead had spread out, they were trying to surround the couple, cut them off from getting to a place with wild garlic.

Elise didn’t have her rifle with her anymore, that had been dropped when she had been dragged onto the back of Seb’s wheelchair, she had two Glocks and some ammunition. But Seb had the wild garlic bombs along with extra wild garlic. Lewis had stopped a few feet away from a huge bale of hay.

What they did next was a stroke of genius, and it was why they had stopped. Rather than throw the Wild Garlic Bombs they instead used them to set light to the first of four bales of hay with the bombs.

The bales were tinder dry, the warm weather had ensured that the straw was practically desiccated and of course the wild garlic infused petrol was highly inflammable.

Seb feverishly stuffed some of wild garlic flowers he had in his wheelchair side pouch into the hay itself and then they both started to push the first bale of hay down the slope before setting it alight. It wasn’t an easy thing to do, bales of hay are incredibly heavy but with the weight of Lewis pushing at the base and Elise’s physical strength they soon got it moving and then Elise lit it, with a trusty garage lighter I suspected.

The hay erupted into flames, and the camera recorded it briefly, rolling down the slope before Elise and Seb were heading for the next bale of hay, and the next and then the final one.

The hay bale was tightly packed, and because of this it made them roll faster, the flames increased in size with the spinning of the bale and the first one hit its intended target, followed swiftly by the others.

Well, we already know that wild garlic and the Twice Dead are not compatible so you can imagine what the fiery bales of hay did to the ones they hit head on. Lots of combusting skulls followed by blackened brains soaring in the air. Not pretty, but effective.

The GoPro caught Elise jumping up and down and screaming, her hands waving in the air, she was I suspected shrieking with joy.

They had the sense not to stay around whilst the burning hay temporarily stopped the onslaught of Twice Dead. Elise leapt onto the back of Lewis and they took off, heading once more in the direction of the wood where the growing wild garlic would protect them.

The camera recorded everything until its memory card was completely full. With the end of the footage I stood still for a moment as the screen went blank.

              I turned to look at the van, because the last bit of footage had been Elise helping Seb out of Lewis and into the back of the van. They were safe.

I didn’t bang on the van doors right then, mainly because what I had just seen had left me stunned.

I just stood staring at the van dumbly, trying to take in everything that I had just seen, but not quite being able to. Finally, I started to move toward the van, intending to bang on the doors when the van itself began to move, rocking gently at first, and I thought that the doors would swing open and whoever was in the back of the van would step out, but that didn’t happen.

The rocking was slow at first and then it began to pick up and become more rhythmic and then I heard moaning. Yes, you heard me. Moaning. A man’s moan, then a woman’s I could tell the difference.

I stood where I was, trying to work out what the hell was going on. Yes, I know, I’m pretty slow on the up take. It took Eden to tell me that Jasmine was doing it with Corporal Peters. I hadn’t noticed a bloody thing, but Adag had.

Colour flooded my face. Oh my God, they were shagging! Seb and Captain Elise Lacks-Renton and they were…I turned around, not sure what to do next so I waited for the inevitable as I stared at the bluebells and wild garlic before me.