Free The Abandoned Trilogy (Book 1): Twice Dead (Contagion) by Suchitra Chatterjee Page B

pressed ourselves away from the sight of the door, which wasn’t easy as Seb’s wheelchair was cumbersome, thank God he wasn’t in Lewis.
    Phoenix stepped aside from the door and Gregory stumbled out of the office. We heard his footsteps as he headed to the dining room. There was silence for what seemed forever, then we heard a thud, as if something had been hit, hard, another thud, then another, followed by a high pitched screeching noise, and then the crash as something dropped heavily to the ground.
                  Then silence. We waited and then Gregory’s voice, “It’s down.”
    Adag, then Seb and finally I was out of the door, followed Mitch. Stevie was still fast asleep on the sofa; whatever Adag had put into his orange juice was strong, thank God.
    The Drone lay on the floor in several pieces. Gregory was holding one of Stevie’s exercise dumbbells, which he had used to bring the machine down with. He had managed to come in from behind its swiveling camera lens, which was focused on Stevie’s still body. He had struck it hard each time he said, the damn thing didn’t want to go down, but he had won in the end.
    I noticed that Gregory’s eyes were dilated again and his tear ducts were now getting clogged with a greasy looking black goo, the stuff leaking from the wound in his neck had saturated the double folded towel around his neck. He sank down onto a chair, the metal weight sliding from his hand and onto the floor as Seb and Phoenix went to look at the shattered Drone on the floor.
    I went and got more towels from the kitchen and with Adag changed the dressing on Gregory’s neck. I bought a black rubbish bag with me and we put the saturated towels into it. The flesh around it looked like it had been chewed on. I swallowed hard. That was what had happened. Gregory had told us. Ben had gone after him after…I refused to dwell on the thought.
    Phoenix and Mitch had picked up the pieces of the Drone and taken them into Phoenix’s room. Phoenix said something about looking at the Hard Drive to see if there was information, he could extract from it other than the films and the photos it had been taking.
    Seb went and closed the dining room doors; it was starting to get dark. He drew the curtains and as Adag tried to persuade an exhausted Gregory to sip some tea I went and made sure all the external doors were locked.
    I came back into the dining room. Adag was watching Gregory who was shivering now. She had another duvet for him and he was wrapped up in it.
    “I feel like shit,” he croaked. He looked like shit and I said as much. It got a smile out of him.
    “Do you think anyone will come for the Drone?” I asked.
    “More than likely,” Mitch’s voice was flat. He had lit another cigarette after he had left Phoenix with the remains of the Drone.
    “What do you think they will do…with us if they do come?” I had to ask the question.
    Mitch shrugged his shoulders.
    “Do you think everyone; you know like the people at Ben’s place…” I stumbled on my words, but managed to blurt them out “They are like him, doing what he did…”
    “That wasn’t Ben,” Gregory said from his chair, he wheezed as he spoke, “The body was Ben’s, but it wasn’t Ben who ripped Shannon apart, it wasn’t Ben.”
    “A Zombie Apocalypse,” Seb spoke suddenly.
    “Don’t be stupid Seb;” Adag said sharply, “We haven’t got time for your puerile jokes.”
    “I’m not joking,” Seb snapped back, “I don’t know what else to call it, I mean Shannon is dead, more than dead in fact! There isn’t anything left of her to put in a coffin, so you tell me, what do you want to call it? A sunny day in Thorncroft town were Zombies bite your throat and then eat you?”
    Adag couldn’t answer that. Instead, she headed for the kitchen saying she would make tea and toast for us all and could someone please check on Paul and the others to make sure they still asleep.
    Mitch left the room, he didn’t