The Abandoned Trilogy (Book 1): Twice Dead (Contagion) (58 page)

“Don’t be stupid, of course I didn’t…yes…yes, I did, OK, I was worried about him, don’t you want to get into your chair now Seb?” she sounded desperate and then it dawned on me why.

Seb caught my eye, he was grinning, over her shoulder at me, he knew I knew. My lips twitched but I didn’t say anything as I didn’t want to cause her any more embarrassment, instead I said, “I better get back to the coach, Bryson will have my ass otherwise.”

I started to walk away and Elise called out, “Lucia!”

I turned to look at her, on the verge with Seb who had his hand in the small of her back.

“Yes?”

“I am your friend,” she said, she licked her lips, “I never stopped liking you just because I was piss mad at you and yes, I was jealous and resentful too, I mean, he gave you a rank over me!”.

“I know,” I said and then I added, “You better go to the bathroom, there’s one in the shop behind the counter you can use.”

“I don’t need the bathroom,” Elise said or rather she squeaked it out, “Seb, stop it...oh God…”

“You really do,” I replied as I walked away, “You really do.”

Bryson had just started to look for me and I waved to him as he strode toward me, “Went to find Seb,” I said. I scratched behind Karma’s ears as the young dog bounded up to me, “He’s cleaning his wheelchair tires, something about half the mud of the Downs being stuck to them and him.”

              The twenty-minute stop took just over two hours, but Wolf was OK about this because the keys to the large eight seater people carrier parked in a bay at the side of the station had been found and Mitch was helping load things from the coach into it in order to give everyone more room.

I went back into the shop, I went behind the counter and lifted the framed photo of Ganesh off the wall. I was going to learn all I could about my parents, even my mother, because she was part of me, it wasn’t her fault she was a Bowes-Lyon.

I wrapped it up in some bubble wrap that was under the counter and took it out of the shop and put it into the people carrier.

“Lucia!” Jasmine shouted my name and I went to see what she wanted. Afterwards I had to deal with Cassidy who of course said he was hungry.

He was getting upset, he looked exhausted, so I made him sit down in one of the back seats of the people carrier and sent Eden to get me a bag from the supermarket which had some chocolate and several boxes of
Diazepam
in it.

I pressed 20mg of the drug into the chocolate, I had seen Adag give him this amount in his nighttime drink.

Stevie stood anxiously by his friend and I sent him to get some bottled water which Cassidy drank thirstily after devouring the chocolate.

“You can stay in here for the drive home,” I said to him.

“Can Stevie come with me?” he asked anxiously.

Private Curtis was going to drive the People Carrier with Jasmine and the children, I took him to one side and asked him if both Cassidy and Stevie could travel with them.

“He’s done really well,” I said looking at Cassidy who was drinking more water. He was holding Stevie’s hand and his friend was patting him on the shoulder in a comforting way, “He won’t cause any problems, he will be a sleep soon.”

Peters nodded his head and I then moved onto my next task. Speaking to Wolf about living arrangements once we got back to Thorncroft.

“You, me and Elise, will deal with that once we get there,” he said as we walked across the petrol’s forecourt together, hand in hand, he took my hand, I didn’t, I was a bit embarrassed but I knew why he had done it, he was making it clear to everyone that I was with him, not only as an unwilling co-opted officer but his chosen partner; he barked out orders, and God help anyone, who didn’t jump to it quickly enough, “Sargent Lyndon, start loading everyone up into the coach, Private Bryson, do a head count, Private Topaz, that is your third cigarette, can it, Phoenix get the Bee-in-the-SKY to do recognisance, we are not stopping until we get to Thorncroft, so make sure you don’t need the toilet, because if you do, you can piss your pants! Private Salter, get your damn arm back in that sling, whoa soldier, did you just roll your eyes at me? You didn’t? I beg to differ, you and I will be having words when we get home! Private Declan, you are not Twice Dead yet, so don’t use that as a damn excuse not to help get this show on the road, move it! Corporal Williamson, you are on duty right now, snogging is not permitted until you are off duty, even with one’s own husband!”

Out of chaos came order. Very soon we were loaded up and ready to go, a convoy of three vehicles now. Seb was the last person to be loaded up.

He and Elise came out of the shop together, he rolled over to Mitch, apologizing for being late but the loo at the back of the shop wasn’t disabled, accessible he explained and he had almost fallen off the pan three times.

Elise looked a bit flushed.

“You OK?” I asked her.

“Yes, Ma’am,” she said. She was aware of Wolf looking at her, his expression unfriendly but professional.

“You and Seb OK with each other now?” She nodded her head and I smiled.

“Good,” I said.

She hesitated and Wolf said calmly, “Yes, Captain?”

“Would it be alright Sir, if I..” she bit her lower lip, “If I sat with Seb in the back of the coach?”

She waited for him to refuse. Wolf stared at her.

“We will make a legacy,” I said to Wolf and he turned to look at me, puzzled, “Us, the Thorncroft survivors, Captain Lacks-Renton has found her partner, the Vanilla bastard as she calls him, this is just the start, we will be hybrids, soldier, civilian, and disability and Wolf, there will be children, eventually.”

              “Vanilla Bastard?” Wolf repeated the words, slowly and precisely.

              “With all due respect Sir,” Elise said but this time she said the words quite meekly, “He is White…really White…”

              “Keep the soldiers in order at the back Captain,” Wolf said to his subordinate and she snapped to attention, saluted him and to my surprise, saluted me too.

              She started to walk toward the coach, everyone was in a vehicle bar us three, the engines were purring and Mitch locked the coach’s wheelchair doors, gave them a hard rattle to make sure they were secure, then gave a very loose army salute to Wolf and Elise because he didn’t want to be bollocked out again before climbing onto the coach. Jasper was driving the rest of the way to Thorncroft.

              “Captain,” Wolf called out to Elise as she started to mount the steps of the coach and she turned at his voice.

              “Sir?”

              “I suggest that the next time you go to the bathroom; you make sure your shirt isn’t inside out when you leave.”

              Elise’s combat jacket was on the right way but Wolf was right, her combat shirt, dirty as it was, was inside out.

              “Yes Sir,” she said, “Sorry Sir.”

              I choked back a laugh and Elise’s eyes narrowed, “Just remember Ma’am, I’m in the charge of the Pack Runs and that includes all ranks, even those with disabilities…” and then she was inside the coach and making her way down the back to sit with Seb.

              I was almost wetting myself with hysterical mirth. How Wolf wasn’t laughing was beyond me but I just couldn’t stop laughing but I did it as quietly as I could, squeezing Wolf’s hand so tightly I think I stopped his blood circulation.

              “I don’t know how you do it,?” Wolf said and then he began to laugh as well.  We both laughed until we were crying.

              “Do what?” I said as we wiped our eyes and he pulled me to his side, kissed my forehead, we took one last look at the petrol forecourt and then we both headed for the coach and the last leg of our journey back to the sanctuary that was Thorncroft.

I started this story at the end.

The end of our world as we all knew it
.

The Twice Dead are evolving, they are learning, whatever created them has a purpose, they aren’t the mindless meat eating machines the New World Succession still think they are. At the moment their inhuman eyes are not on us hidden away in a Dead Zone on the periphery of an ancient forest in the South of England, but that could change at any moment.

The New World Succession isn’t the Utopia its deluded orchestrators anticipated it to be. The perfect plan to create a perfect new world with a chosen elite is a lot like the contagion itself. Flawed, unstable, and extremely dangerous. What I said to Duke whilst I was his captive I realised I actually meant.

This motley group of people, made up of the unwanted, the abandoned, a mad scientist, his broken family, a possibly brain damaged traitor and a bunch of now AWOL Yank soldiers would take on not only the Twice Dead but they would eventually bring down the New Age Succession, one way or another.

Together as I had just said to Wolf, we would create a legacy that would go on to OUR next generation. What my aristocratic mother’s brother had helped create, I vowed to destroy. He had started it; I would end it. Along with my fellow survivors.

Adag had somehow foreseen the future, a fragment of what could possibly be. My restricted file. Of course! Not just restricted because of what happened with Jack and Theresa but because more than likely my mother’s family had ensured I remained hidden from the world. Locked away just like the Queen’s hidden disabled cousins.

That was why Adag told me I should think about having children. What better way than to have your revenge on people who so value a supposed pure bloodline. Bring a child in the world who represented everything they hated. The faith of an Indian Grandfather, mixed blood and the brilliance of Bowes-Lyon’s mind.

But this was my battle, I would not have children, the Bowes-Lyon in me would die when I died but not before those whose tainted blood ran deep in my veins paid their dues. A monster to kill a monster. That was how it always should be. It was fitting.

No, this will not be our end, this will and is our beginning…

End of Part One of the Abandoned Trilogy

Quotes by the Abandoned

“The world has been turned on its head, society as we know it is gone, for the disabled survivors of this apocalypse perhaps that is not such a bad thing…”
Quote by the late Adag Clarke, former residential Assistant Manager for Thorncroft Home for the Physically & Mentally Impaired

“
Well, we know one thing for certain about the Twice Dead, they don’t eat Paisley slippers and NHS dentures,”
Quote by Lucia Lal, resident of the Thorncroft Home for the Physically & Mentally Impaired

“
I thought it was Vampires who hated garlic, we got that fucking totally wrong, didn’t we?”
Quote by Mitch Lyndon, Coach Driver & Handy Man for the Thorncroft Home for the Physically & Mentally Impaired

“
In a Twice Dead Apocalypse I have come to realise, insane things can and will happen, and they are usually orchestrated by Lucia Valerie Lal,
” Quote by Colonel Mason Wolf, American Army Officer

“Private Bubba Declan’s arse is a dangerous weapon, it could be used as a weapon of mass destruction is all I can say!”
Quote by Percy Williamson, part owner of the Tea & Herb Cafe in the Village of Thorncroft and married to Gabe Williamson

“She is their leader, not surprising considering who her maternal Uncle is,”
Quote by Private Benjamin Duke, Epsilon Command spy for the New World Succession

“
Who wants any special needs soup? Extra garlic can be added,”
Quote by Eden Manders,
resident of the Thorncroft Home for the Physically & Mentally Impaired

“I always said I’d stay single, but what do I go and do when the end of the world happens? I find myself a man, not only that but he is in a Goddamn wheelchair…and he’s white!”
Quote by Captain Elise Lacks-Renton, American Army Officer

“
It’s not good if you get bitten by a Twice Dead,”
Quote by Cassidy Richards, resident of the Thorncroft Home for the Physically & Mentally Impaired