Off With Their Heads (15 page)
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Gladwell was surprised, though perhaps he should not have been, that the first predators they had to fight off were human.
With the outbreak came a lawlessness that nobody had ever planned for. Initially there was some looting, but soon people realized that money was of little value any more. Prison doors lay open. Serial killers, sociopaths, rapists – the worst of man came out to wreak their havoc.
Three days into their stay in the base, Gladwell and Randhawa had started seeing small groups of civilians escaping from the madness in the city. They had taken them in, though soon enough supplies and food would be a real issue. Then came those who came not to take refuge, but to prey upon a well-stocked settlement. A settlement with food, supplies and women.
The first attack had been smashed before it had really unfolded. Ten men armed with swords and cleavers had tried to enter the complex at night. The American Marines and Indian commandos, by now trained to aim for the head after all their battles with the Biters, had mistaken the intruders for Biters and felled four with headshots before the others screamed in terror and ran away into the night. The next attack had been more serious, with two jeeps full of armed men, members of a paramilitary unit that had decided to use their weapons and training to their advantage. The firefight had lasted more than thirty minutes before they were driven off. But after that, attacks by looters ceased. Word had spread that this particular settlement was occupied by people not to be messed with easily. In the second attack, Randhawa had been seriously wounded, and by consensus, Gladwell was appointed the leader of their small settlement.
That night, Gladwell sat down next to Jo, who was singing to her unborn daughter, hoping that innocent rhymes would register with her instead of the gunfire and screams that she heard all day.
‘How are you doing?’
‘She seems to like the noise. She’s been kicking all day.’
Gladwell kissed her lightly on the head and then sat down to take stock of their situation. They had plenty of ammunition, but at the rate at which they were attracting new members, they would have to organize some sort of effort to get food. By now, nobody believed that things would get back to normal. Gladwell had organized small patrols to scour the neighboring areas, and they all spoke about Biters running rampant. The Internet was down, and there was nothing on TV, but they did manage to pick up radio transmissions from military channels and from private radio operators.
The picture they painted was terrifying. Most of the world had been laid waste by the wars that had erupted, and by the Biters. There were reports that many governments had authorized nuclear airbursts over major cities in a last-ditch, desperate attempt to wipe out the Biters and reclaim the cities. Gladwell shuddered as he considered what would be happening to the human survivors left in the cities.
The ground shook and he wondered whether on top of all the other catastrophes they had endured, an earthquake was next. That was when Jo screamed out to him. He rushed to her, and Jane came into the small room that they shared with three other families.
A mushroom cloud billowed over the city of Delhi. There had been air strikes on the city for the last couple of days and Gladwell had assumed it was another one but the cloud told him that Delhi had joined the list of cities that had succumbed to this madness.
One of the soldiers had told him that if governments were indeed using air burst nuclear weapons then the risk of residual radiation was small. Moreover, they were almost fifty kilometers away from the city center. That was little consolation to Gladwell as he held his family tight and watched another mushroom cloud join the first one. When they stepped out of the room, all the people in their group were standing there, tears in their eyes. If any of them had still hoped that they might go back home, there was no question of that now.
Gladwell heard someone mumble next to him, ‘We killed the world. It’s all dead land out here now.’
That evening, their settlement was eerily quiet. Randhawa was still unconscious and Gladwell realized that no matter how low people felt, Biters and human predators would not stop coming. So he spent several hours making a schedule of who would be on guard duty and also scheduling firearms classes for everyone. In the new reality they faced, they would need every single one of them to be able to fight if needed.
Mentally and physically drained, he joined Jo at night. As he walked in, Neha, the young girl they had picked up on the highway, left.
‘How’s she holding up?’
Jo looked tired and miserable but managed to smile.
‘Poor girl’s been through a lot. Lost her family and then the young man who got her to us. At least we still have each other.’
Gladwell hugged Jo and sat next to her on the floor. He was due for sentry duty in two hours’ time, so he wanted to get as much rest as he could. He ran his hand gently over Jo’s stomach.
‘How’s the little one doing?’
‘Still kicking and jumping around.’
‘Thought of a name?’
Truth be told, Gladwell was so drained that he no longer had the energy to debate names. He was happy to go with whatever Jo chose.
Jo thought of the bunny-eared young man who had got Neha to safety despite knowing that he was doomed and of the wish they had set out to fulfill. She had heard people start referring to the world outside as Deadland and the name had stuck. While she did not want her daughter to be born into such a world, she was not yet ready to give her hope. So she thought of a name that would pay homage to the brave man wearing bunny ears, a name that harked back to childhood tales of a more innocent time, a name that would hold out the promise of a land filled with wonder, not death.
She looked at Gladwell, her mind made up.
‘We’ll name her Alice.’
Alice in Deadland
Civilization as we know it ended more than fifteen years ago, leaving as it's legacy barren wastelands called the Deadland and a new terror for the humans who survived- hordes of undead Biters.
Fifteen year-old Alice has spent her entire life in the Deadland, her education consisting of how best to use guns and knives in the ongoing war for survival against the Biters. One day, Alice spots a Biter disappearing into a hole in the ground and follows it, in search of fabled underground Biter bases.
What Alice discovers there propels her into an action-packed adventure that changes her life and that of all humans in the Deadland forever. An adventure where she learns the terrible conspiracy behind the ruin of humanity, the truth behind the origin of the Biters, and the prophecy the mysterious Biter Queen believes Alice is destined to fulfill.
A prophecy based on the charred remains of the last book in the Deadland- a book called Alice in Wonderland.
Through The Looking Glass: Alice in Deadland Book II
More than two years have passed since Alice followed a Biter with bunny ears down a hole, triggering events that forever changed her life and that of everyone in the Deadland. The Red Guards have been fought to a standstill; Alice has restored some measure of peace between humans and Biters; and under Alice, humans have laid the foundations of the first large, organized community since The Rising- a city called Wonderland.
That peace is shattered in a series of vicious Biter attacks and Alice finds herself shunned by the very people she helped liberate. Now she must re-enter the Deadland to unravel this new conspiracy that threatens Wonderland. Doing so will mean coming face to face with her most deadly adversary ever- the Red Queen..
Mainak Dhar is a cubicle dweller by day and writer by night, with thirteen books to his credit. He has been published widely by major publishers in India like Random House and Penguin, but took the plunge into self-publishing with the Amazon Kindle Store in March 2011 to reach readers worldwide. In his first year on the Kindle store, he sold more than 100,000 ebooks, making him one of the top selling self-published writers worldwide. He is the author of the Amazon.com bestseller Alice in Deadland and you can learn more about him and his writing at
http://www.mainakdhar.com
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