Alice in Deadland Trilogy Page 4

  'Alice, they look to me to be their leader, but I was an old woman even before I transformed, and while I had my skills, being able to fight and lead in battle was not one of them. You are the one who must take on my mantle and continue our struggle.'

  Alice could take it no longer and blurted out, 'What struggle? Why don't you just leave humans alone? What harm have we done to you that you lead these creatures to attack us?'

  The Queen sat down, and while a smile played at the edges of her lips, her eyes were as lifeless as ever.

  'I don't blame you for believing what you do. You've grown up hearing only one side of the story, and from my old life I know just how good the powers that be are at propaganda.'

  She saw the skeptical look on Alice's face and continued.

  'I won't try and convince you because my words would be of no value to you. So I will let you see through your own eyes.'

  She nodded and Bunny Ears grabbed Alice by her arm and led her out. She was dragged more than led up a series of winding tunnels and then suddenly she found herself outside again. It was getting dark outside and she was in a thickly wooded area. She saw a broken sign and she recognized the symbols from some of her training when they had been familiarized with the surrounding landscape. They were near the Yamuna River – or rather what used to be the river, but now was a dried up trickle after the nuclear firestorms and subsequent battles had destroyed the dams and reservoirs feeding it. She sensed movement around her and she saw that there were at least a dozen more Biters hiding among the trees.

  After more than an hour of waiting, she turned to Bunny Ears, asking him what it was he had brought her here to see, but he merely grunted in reply, as if telling her to shut up and wait. Then as she watched, something strange happened. She saw a large group of Biters emerge from the trees, perhaps a hundred or more of them. They were all walking in single file, which was totally contrary to the image Alice had grown up with of them being savage, mindless brutes incapable of any act of co-ordination or reason. But what totally took her breath away was the fact that the Biters were not just a random group out to inflict violence, but seemed to be a social grouping of some sort. There were a handful of women, many of them carrying small children. The children themselves looked like something out of a nightmare, with their yellowed skin and many cuts and bruises on their blood covered bodies, but all the same, they were children. Alice had no idea if these were families formed and born after the adults had been transformed to Biters or if these were families that had retained some of their old bonds even after they ceased to be human. Either way, yet again irrevocable proof was in front of her eyes that there was much more to the Biters than she had been brought up to believe.

  As the column came closer, Alice got a better look at them. With their bowed backs and trundling along slowly in single file, they looked more like a group of refugees than a band of marauding monsters. She heard Bunny Ears screech behind her, and two Biters in the group ahead responded in kind. What was the Queen trying to show her by sending her here? True, there seemed to be much more to the Biters than what she had grown up believing, but so far she had seen nothing that would change her mind about joining the Queen or fulfilling some deranged prophecy of hers. No, if there was one thing Alice was sure of, it was the fact that she would find the earliest possible opportunity to escape.

  Just then, the convoy in front of her stopped in its tracks, many of the adults looking up at the skies. Several of children began howling, their inhuman cries making Alice's hair stand up on end. She didn't know what had suddenly brought about the change in their behavior, but within a few seconds the group transformed from an orderly convoy to a totally panic-stricken mob. The Biters were now screaming and running in such a panic that she saw more than one run into trees and fall down. Bunny Ears had now emerged and was howling, an ear-splitting noise that was taken up by the others who had been hiding in the trees with him. It almost looked like he and the others had been sent by the Queen to shepherd the group to safety through the woods, but now there was no more semblance of order. The Biters were running around, screaming like wild animals that have caught a scent of hunters, and one of them, a woman with a bloodied and mangled child in her arms, came within a few feet of Alice. She glared at Alice with hate-filled eyes, and baring bloodied teeth, seemed ready to pounce when Bunny Ears knocked her off her feet with a blow to the back of her head.

  Alice still didn't know what had caused such bedlam when she heard a familiar sound. The whirring rotors of approaching helicopters. She looked up to see several black helicopters approach the clearing. Zeus had arrived.

  ***

  The female Biter who had been knocked over by Bunny Ears was getting up unsteadily on one knee when her head exploded in a spray of blood. Alice screamed and dove for cover behind a tree as more snipers aboard the oncoming helicopters opened fire. She watch three more Biters caught in the open fall, their heads split open by high-powered sniper rifles, before the others scattered among the trees. The child the Biter had been carrying was now feet away from Alice, and looking at its hideous form, with its mangled face and bloody skin, it was hard to feel any emotion the way one felt towards human children. Alice was about to crawl away under the bushes nearby and try and escape, but something held her back. She looked back at the child again, and this time his eyes met hers. There was no innocence, no love: just the blank, hate-filled expression that was characteristic of Biters, and while he could not even walk, he began to crawl towards her, baring a handful of half-formed teeth. The rational part of Alice's mind told her to run, but she was transfixed at the sight of this little child who would no doubt bite Alice and transform her into a Biter like him given half a chance, yet who was little more than a child. A helpless child.

  Just then, a huge Biter easily standing more than six and a half feet tall ran over in front of her. He was wearing a floppy hat and much of the left side of his face was missing. He picked up the child and ran towards the nearby trees as Alice heard a fresh burst of firing. This time it was not the distinctive pops of sniper rifles, but the staccato bursts of automatic weapon fire. That could mean only one thing: Zeus troopers were now on the ground.

  Alice looked to her left and saw something was which no less than a miracle: her backpack, which Bunny Ears must have dropped there in the chaos. She remembered the signal flare that had been there and crawled towards the backpack, grabbing it before she again retreated behind cover. She unzipped it and breathed a sigh of relief as she saw the signal flare was still there. She looked around and saw that Bunny Ears was nowhere to be seen. Now was her chance. She popped the flare and soon a red light shot up in the sky. She watched it sail above the treeline and hoped that it would get the attention of the Zeus troopers and someone would come to get her.

  She did succeed in attracting attention all right, but of entirely the unwanted variety when she saw two Biters homing in on her. They were screaming and coming at her with their teeth bared. Alice realized with a shudder that one of them must have claimed a victim in the fighting now going on all around her since his mouth was covered with fresh blood that was dripping onto his muddy and torn shirt. There was no time and no place to run, so Alice got ready to face her attackers. The first to reach her was the man with the bloody face, a thin man who was missing his left arm below the elbow and seemed to have half his hair burnt off. As he screamed and leapt towards Alice, she went down on a knee, sweeping him off his feet. She had no weapons with her, but she brought her foot down on the Biter's windpipe in a crushing kick. It would have killed a grown man, but the Biter screamed and began to get up again. The second Biter, a tall man wearing a blood stained vest and shorts, was now almost upon her. Alice ran towards him, dodging his outstretched arms, and then turned around on her heels to kick his foot from under him behind his knee. It shattered his leg, but as Alice well knew, that would hardly be enough to stop a Biter on the rampage. He got up unsteadily on one leg, as Alice tried to run only to come straig
ht in the path of the first Biter, whose neck now hung at an awkward angle, but his mouth was open and he lunged at her.

  Alice closed her eyes, bracing herself for the attack that never came. She heard a loud pop and when she opened her eyes she saw the Biter's headless body lying just a couple of feet from her. The second Biter, now limping towards her, met a similar fate as another round slammed into his head.

  She looked into the trees ahead and saw a black clad man kneeling, a rifle at his shoulder. He wore the black battle dress of the Zeus troopers, but unlike the others she had seen, he had no helmet to cover his close-cropped black hair, which was covered with flecks of grey. He saw her and grinned and began to run towards her.

  Alice took a step towards him, her heart racing in anticipation of her coming rescue, when three Biters jumped out of the trees and in the path of the Zeus trooper who was less than a hundred meters from her. He shot one in the head at point blank range before another Biter knocked the rifle out of his hand. Alice had been trained to fight since she was a child, but she had never seen anyone fight like the Zeus trooper in front of her. Unfazed by the loss of his gun, he unsheathed a large knife at his belt and jumped up, bringing it down into the skull of the nearest Biter, who screamed and went down, not to get up again. The third Biter was now almost upon him, and he rolled out of the way, taking out his handgun, and put three shots into the Biter's head.

  Two more Zeus troopers now appeared, and judging by their salutes and the deference they showed the grey haired man, it seemed that he was an officer of some sort. He pointed to her and the two of them began to jog towards her. That was when the large Biter with the hat came crashing out of the trees. He grabbed the nearest trooper and snapped his neck, the sickening crunching sound carrying to Alice. The second trooper tried to bring his rifle to bear, but the Biter bit him on the neck, and he went down spurting blood. Alice knew what would come next. The trooper spasmed and went rigid, and when he got up again, Alice saw that his eyes were the vacant, lifeless eyes of the undead. His head exploded as the grey haired officer fired, preferring to kill his own man versus having him turn into one of the undead, as the Biter with the hat reared up to his full height and screamed. More than a dozen Biters now emerged into the clearing and the Zeus officer retreated into the trees, looking at Alice once. As their eyes met, he cocked his arm back and threw something at her before he disappeared into the trees, pursued by the Biters.

  The object he had thrown landed a couple of feet away from Alice, and she ran to pick up what he had thrown just as Bunny Ears reappeared with three other Biters. He grabbed her arm to pull her away but before he yanked her off, she looked at the small blinking object in her hand. It was a radio beacon that would give away her position as long as she carried it. There was to be no escape today, but as she slipped the beacon into her pockets, she felt a new surge of hope.

  Help would be on the way soon.

  ***

  'So, what did you learn from your trip?'

  The question had been asked as if the Queen were enquiring about a field trip to a museum instead of her having just been in the middle of a life and death struggle, so Alice wasn't quite sure what the Queen had in mind. That became clear when the giant Biter with the hat appeared and uttered a series of guttural growls.

  'Hatter here tells me that you caused a fair bit of inconvenience, but if anything is to be learnt from today's experience, do learn that we are not fools. We did not send you out to offer you an easy and convenient escape route.'

  'So why did you send me out there? I've seen enough battles and there's nothing I saw that I haven't seen before.'

  The Queen turned on Alice with a fury, baring her teeth, and for a second Alice was truly fearful that she would attack her. But then the Queen seemed to control herself with a conscious effort of will, and answered in a soft voice, 'You just used your usual prejudices to filter out what you didn't want to see. I wanted you to see us as we are: a society, a group of sentient beings. Different from humans, but no less deserving of the right to exist. Not animals to be hunted down and exterminated.'

  That did ring a bell with Alice. True, she had never imagined that Biters could be organized in some sort of social unit, and certainly had never bargained for the fact that she would see babies and what appeared to be their parents together. Still, that did not change the fundamental equation. The anger at all the cruelty she had seen Biters visit upon humans in her life came back to her as she answered the Queen with a bitter tinge in her voice.

  'I have seen enough innocent humans slaughtered by Biters. I have seen babies bitten by Biters. I have seen good, decent people turn into bloodthirsty Biters after being bitten. So it's not as if your precious Biters are innocent, helpless victims.'

  The Queen hissed, though Alice sensed more regret than rage in her reaction.

  'I had hoped you would begin to change your mind and embrace your destiny, but it looks like your mind is still too closed. Oh well, I hope you can reflect on it over the next few days.'

  With that, the giant Biter referred to as Hatter gripped her arm and pushed her roughly out of the room. She was led to a small, dark room and the door slammed shut once she went in. Alice huddled alone in a corner of the cold, dark room, and took out the beacon from her pocket. She watched the small blinking red light till exhaustion overtook her and she fell into an uneasy slumber. She dreamt of a Biter baby having its head shot off, and she woke up covered in sweat. There was no more sleep to be had that night.

  ***

  FOUR

  If the Queen's intent had been to torture Alice into submission, Alice thought she was doing a pretty good job of it. For the next two days, she got nothing to eat or drink other than a single glass of dirty water that was shoved into her room once a day. The room was totally dark all the time and Alice soon lost track of time. She screamed her rage out for the first few hours but then just sat in silence against the wall. She may have been trained as a warrior from an early age, but nobody had ever trained her on what to do if she were captured. It had never occurred to anyone that someone could be taken prisoner by the Biters.

  Finally, hungry, thirsty and disoriented, she was on the verge of asking for the Queen and agreeing to whatever crazy prophecy she seemed to believe in. Anything to get out of the room. Anything to get a bite to eat or a drink of clean water. That was when Bunny Ears opened the door and pulled her out, leading her to the Queen's room. Alice found the Queen sitting at her desk, chewing ganja leaves and holding the charred book that seemed so important to her. When Alice entered the room, she called out loudly for food, and Hatter came in, holding a hunk of nearly stale bread. As disgusting as it looked, it was the first food Alice had seen in almost three days, and she hungrily wolfed it down.

  The Queen waited for her to finish and then sat down in front of Alice, the book on her lap.

  'Alice, I was wrong. In my anger, I thought that frightening and intimidating you would bring you to my side, but if you are to fulfill the prophecy, it cannot be through fear. It has to be because you believe in our cause.'

  Alice, bitter and angry after what she had endured over the last two days, blurted out, 'Yeah, and locking me in a dark room and starving me will make me believe in your prophecy. Or will it be the bloody ganja leaves you gulp down?'

  Alice saw the muscles on the Queen's face tighten, and once again she saw a glimpse of the rage she was capable of, but she controlled herself as she responded to Alice.

  'No. You remember the old quote about the truth setting us free.'

  Alice had never heard the quote, but listened as the Queen continued.

  'Tell me, what do you know about what you humans call The Rising?'

  Growing up, Alice had heard the story many times from her parents, and then it had been amplified and embellished by countless conversations with other kids, so the answer to her was obvious.

  'Everyone knows about it. One day, something happened, and the dead started coming to life. Befor
e anyone could do anything, they started attacking others, and those bitten turned into...Biters, I guess. They couldn't be killed other than through a shot through the head, and they soon overran most cities. Then the governments got desperate and bombed the cities after evacuating as many people as possible....'

  She couldn't finish because the Queen had got up and screamed, an inhuman howl that shocked Alice so much that she got up from her chair, which clattered to the ground behind her. The Queen was now speaking fast and with such anger that spittle was flying from her mouth.

  'It did not just happen. We made it happen.'

  Alice wasn't sure what she was referring to and asked what she meant.

  'Us. Human governments, or at least some elements in our governments. The US government had been experimenting with chemical and biological agents that would transform our troops into super-soldiers, into berserkers immune to pain. At the same time, there was research on modifying these to create agents that would drive enemy troops insane, a rage virus which would transform them into wild animals who would kill each other. We experimented with rats, with monkeys and...with humans.'

  Alice found that hard to believe and gasped aloud.

  'No, dear. We did all that. In secret facilities in Afghanistan and other places. We were drunk with our power, imagining what would happen if we could drop one single canister of this agent in the middle of an enemy army division. It would tear itself to pieces without us firing a shot. Then it all came apart.'