The Survivors (Book 1): Summer (17 page)

I braced myself, expecting an explosion of some kind.
 Tears, shouting, blaming, something – but none of that came.  She merely accepted my word with a curt nod and resumed walking.  The only sign of whatever she might be feeling was that one small hand rose to protectively rub her belly.

I had no idea what to say after that, so I just stayed silent, feeling uncomfortable and confused.
 If it was me in her position, I would have been freaking the hell out and crawling up the walls.

Then it occurred to me that perhaps she was just tougher all around than I was.
 This was the only life she'd ever known, a life of death and struggle.  Even if she lost her baby, she would still have Ryan to help her through it.  That kind of emotional support was something that I'd never had.

I guess that was what made her so strong, while I was so fragile.
 I felt a little bit of envy creep into my thoughts, but it was suddenly dashed by a cold flash of realisation.

Crap.
 That means I’m the high-strung sister, doesn’t  it?

***

Skye and the others got their stuff together and left within ten minutes, leaving me alone in their bunker.  As I limped along the corridors looking for little Madeline, I pondered over all the changes that had happened in my life in a few short days.

It’d only been a few hours since I first awoke from my fever, and yet they trusted me enough to leave me alone
with their possessions, including the most precious one of all – Maddy.

In return, I felt a sense of trust towards each of them that I hadn't felt since I lost my family.
 Skye's presence helped with that, of course, but that wasn’t all.  I felt a sense of trust towards Michael and the doctor that almost bordered on affection, despite the conversation I had eavesdropped on.

It had all happened so fast.

Michael’s talk had reassured me and set my mind at ease.  He helped me to understand that this group worked together, like an extended family.  They weren't just a group of random castaways that had come together for mutual survival.  I was surprised by how much they cared about one another.  Each member was trusted just as much as any other.  That was a rare thing in the world that we lived in since the plague.  

Most of the gangs I had seen were just that
– gangs, with one charismatic leader surrounded by a group of minions.  They were not family.  In most cases, they were hardly even friends.  The gangs were held together by one thing: fear.

Despite the doctor’s initial misgivings, they accepted me as one of their own.
 I felt both honoured and bewildered by their acceptance, but in such a short period of time I'd come to value it more than words could express.  I had no desire to lose that trust, or do anything to violate it.

The behavioural conditions the doctor put on me just made sense, and after everything I’d seen and suffered, I agreed with them.
 They were the very same conditions I would have put on him, if I were in his position.  As upset as I was after hearing it, once I thought it through I realised that I understood his reasoning.  I could respect that.

I was a little surprised that he
had agreed to let me babysit Madeline, considering how worried he was at first.  I could only guess that the revelation of my relationship with Skylar changed his opinion of the threat that I presented, since it kind of made me family too.  It bound me to their group dynamic, and to their communal moral code.  If I wanted to stay with my sister then I had to follow their rules.

I found Maddy in her room, playing with a couple of rag dolls.
 She didn't even look up when I entered the room, nor when I sat myself down on her bed with my back against the wall and crossed my legs comfortably.  Whatever little game she had invented for herself was far more interesting than me.

Watching the little girl play, I thought back to when Skye and
I were growing up together.  I’d been ten when she was born, old enough to be fascinated by the new baby but young enough to not really understand her limitations.  Mum had given me a thorough scolding when she caught me filling the newborn's crib up with every Barbie doll I owned.

I had been the only child up to that point, and the only grandchild as well, so I had a
lot
of Barbies.  The memory made me smile.  I was only trying to share.

Madeline looked up at me at last, her head tilted curiously to one side.
 "What are you grinning for?"

"
Nothing.  Just thinking."  I covered my tracks hastily to avoid having to explain my thoughts to the little girl.  "I like your dollies."

"
Thanks." Maddy beamed and held up her dolls one by one as she named them for me.  "This one is Granddaddy, this one is Mummy, and this one is Mister Michael."  

The Michael doll had a piece of old Velcro for hair, and was so overstuffed in the chest that it took all of my willpower to keep myself from laughing out loud.

"What about that one?"  I asked to distract myself, and pointed to a fourth doll that sat lonely in a corner, excluded from her games.

Maddy reached over and picked it up, frowning down at the doll.
 "It was Sophie.  But Sophie died.  Playing with her makes me feel sad."

I
s that the sound of my heart breaking?  Why yes, I believe it is.
 

I watched her set the doll back down, propped against the leg of the bed.

"I'm sorry to hear that.  Was Sophie your friend?"  I asked the question gently, hoping to gain a little insight into the group so that I could be careful of the subject in future.

"
Yes.  We used to play together lots and lots." Maddy looked even more upset now, and I suddenly realised I'd crossed a line.  Michael had lost his niece, but Maddy had lost her only friend.  I hurried to change the subject.

"
Hey, I have an idea.  Do you want to help me make something?"  I asked swiftly, praying she'd take the bait.

She did.

"What kind of something?"  The little girl asked, looking up at me curiously from where she sat on the floor.

"
I was going to make everyone a big bowl of fruit salad to share for dessert.  I could use a hand."  

Generosity wasn't an emotion that I felt often, but when I did, it hit me like a sledgehammer to the face.
 Besides, there was no reason to let all of that fruit go to waste, when there were plenty of hungry mouths that could use the vitamins.

"
Fruit salad, like from the cans?"  She looked up at me with big brown eyes, curious.  "Granddad lets me have those sometimes."

"
No." I shook my head, then stood and offered the little girl my hand.  "I mean a real fruit salad, made from fresh fruit."

"
Fruit from a tree?"  Madeline's eyes went huge, but she bounced up to her feet and took my hand anyway, following obediently as I led her from the room.

"
That's right, real fruit from a real tree."  I smiled down at her incredulous expression.  "Not from a can.  It even has skin on it."

"
Fruit doesn't have skin."  She gave me an owl-eyed look, like I was crazy.

"
Yes it does, but they take the skin off before they put it in the can."

"
But, why does a fruit have skin?"

Okay, she had me there.
 

"
Uh... I don't know."  I shrugged.  "To protect the soft, squishy inside bits, I guess.  That’s why
you
have skin.  I'll show you and prove it, though.  I brought some fruit with me, but Mister Michael put it into cold storage so we'll have to go find it."

"
Okay."  She agreed happily, and together we went off in search of fruit.

Our first stop was the storage room I found earlier, and the big commercial refrigerators within.
 I opened them one by one, until at last I found my bags of fruit.  They were untouched and unopened, just the way I left them when I put them in the truck three days before.

I hoisted them awkwardly and hobbled off towards the kitchen with Madeline hot on my heels.
 When I set the bags down on the table in the kitchen, she was quick to hop up on a chair and look inside them.

"
What's this?"  She asked, holding up a glossy red fruit and staring at it in confusion.

"
That is an apple."  I felt so useful for having knowledge that someone else didn't have, even if she was a child.  "It's delicious.  You can eat it if you like, but make sure you wash it first."

She sniffed it and examined it thoroughly, then hopped off the chair and scampered over to the sink to do as I instructed.
 While she was busy, I opened each of the bags and began sorting out the fruit that was the ripest and needed to be eaten swiftly, from that which would last a while longer.  A few pieces were overripe and would need to be thrown out, so I set them aside.  Ah, such a waste, but that was life.

"
This is amazing!"  

I glanced over my shoulder at the girlish squeal behind me, to find that Maddy had taken her first bite of a real apple.
 She devoured it in record time, then raced over and went to grab another one.

I caught her hand to stop her, and gave her a playful grin.
 "Don't eat too many, you'll get sick.  Plus, we've got to save some for dessert."

She pouted, but obediently retracted her hand.

What a good kid.
 Although I was not the most maternal person by nature, I still reached over and gave her a pat on the head.

"
Okay, now I need a big bowl, a real big bowl.  Is there one here?"  I asked her, and her eyes lit up.  She nodded rapidly, glossy black tresses flying all around her face, then she scampered off to fetch a big plastic bowl from one of the low cupboards.  She came rushing back a moment later and held the bowl up to me triumphantly.  

"
Perfect." She beamed at my praise as I took the bowl from her little hands and put it on the table.  "So what we're going to do, is we're going to wash all this fruit, cut it up, and put it in the bowl all mixed together.  That's a fruit salad."

"
Ooohh."  She sounded genuinely amazed, and my heart melted a bit.  I'd honestly forgotten how adorable little kids could be.

"
Yeah, it's very yummy. "  I picked up a few pieces of fruit and offered them to her.  "I'll do the cutting, but my foot hurts so I should sit down as much as possible.  Can you wash the fruit for me?"  

Madeline nodded enthusiastically, and snatched the fruit from my hands.
 She scampered over to the sink and started washing them with a determined thoroughness. While she was busy, I rose to find a knife in one of the drawers and a chopping board in a cupboard, then returned to the table.  I wasn't kidding about my foot hurting.  All the walking I’d been doing recently was starting to make it ache something terrible.

Still, it felt good to be doing something useful for others; I felt helpful, productive and a little bit domesticated.

I’d even go so far as to say it made me feel like a good person.

I hadn't felt like that in a long, long time.

Maddy and I had finished our project and returned to her bedroom to play with her dolls when the ruckus started.

My head shot up.  I was on my feet a moment later, immediately alert for danger.  My hand instinctively went to the pockets of my cargos, but I swore when I realised my taser was not close at hand.  Maddy gasped and giggled at my naughty language, but she didn't seem concerned at all.

"
Granddaddy's back, Granddaddy's back!"  

She leapt to her feet, chanting gleefully, and skipped out of the room before I could stop her.
 Concerned she might be mistaken, I hurried after her as fast as I could, but she was small and nimble and was gone before I even made it to the door.

Oh great.
 I’d lost my charge on my first day of babysitting duty.  For all I knew there was a hoard of mutated infected coming this way right now.

Thankfully, I was wrong.

"Out the way, Maddy-monkey!"

The voice was deep and commandingly male.
 It took me a second to realise that it was Michael's voice, and that he just sounded a little different when he was out of breath.  He rounded the corner a moment later, burdened by a huge box of god-knows-what but looking flushed and excited regardless.  Madeline was bouncing around him trying to see what was in the box, full to the brim with energy in that way only a small child can be.

I grabbed the little girl as she passed by and
gently restrained her to keep her out of the way as the loot-procession moved past us.  It took them a couple of trips to bring in all of the goodies they found, with the men carrying the heavier items and insisting that Skylar only carry lighter objects.  As much as their chivalry seemed to piss Skylar off, it gave me a bit of a warm feeling to see men being gentlemanly in this day and age.

She stopped beside me after one trip to catch her breath and greet Madeline, and while we were talking she mentioned that they found a lot of useful things in the store alongside the general home wares.
 They found camping equipment, tools, gardening utensils and even seeds that they suspected would probably still be viable.  Although there was no space to grow them here, they brought them all anyway since they might prove vital in the future.

I agreed, of course.
 You never knew what you’d need one day.  Even if we never used the seeds, a rake could be a handy weapon in a pickle.  Besides, every one of us was aware in our own way that we couldn't keep living off the skeleton of a dead society forever.  Eventually, we would need to fend for ourselves and become self-sufficient.

They wouldn't let me do much to help with the unpacking due to my injury, so I settled for keeping Madeline distracted and out from underfoot.
 For whatever reason, she was extremely excited and possessed more energy than all of us adults combined.  As I followed her around, I found myself wondering how my mother had managed to do this for all those years.
 
No wonder she always looked so tired.

In the end, I distracted the little girl by getting her to help me make dinner.
 There wasn't much that we could do that was terribly creative, but we did our best with the resources at hand.  By combining canned meat with tinned Italian-style tomatoes, we managed to craft a fair approximation of spaghetti bolognese.  The packets of dried pasta that we found in the storage room were a little bit floppy, but when they were cooked they tasted just fine.

When the exhausted survivors finally finished their task and filed into the kitchen, Maddy sat them down around the table and handed out plates and utensils like a pint-sized maître d’.
 She took the job so seriously that everyone was smiling by the time the food was ready.  When I served up the food, it was met with exclamations of surprise and delight.  As I found out later, no one really bothered to try and make something that resembled real food anymore.

I never did either, so I understood.
 I just felt like impressing my newfound family in some small way.  To them, I probably looked like a puppy desperately wanting a pat on the head, but nobody said anything.

After dessert, which was a treat for everyone, they thanked me one by one and trundled off to bed.
 The doctor and Maddy went one way, Skylar and Ryan another, but Michael stayed behind to help me clean up.

"
Thank you for doing that," he said as he stacked the dirty dishes in the sink, while I was busy clearing the leftover food off the table.  I glanced at him and found him smiling at me.  "I haven't eaten like that in a long time.  You're a good cook."

A hot flush crept into my cheeks at his praise and I looked away, feeling embarrassed.
 "My mother would disagree with you.  She kept trying to teach me to cook, and then getting frustrated with me and chasing me out of the kitchen."  The warmth faded away as my thoughts drifted back to my family, and I found myself staring down at the table thoughtfully.  "I miss her."

That was the first time I had admitted that fact to another human being since my grandmother died.
 It was kind of cathartic, to tell someone the truth about how I felt.  I didn’t quite know why I felt like I could talk to Michael so freely, but something told me that he would understand.

"
I know."  His voice was soft and thoughtful, barely audible over the sound of the sink filling with water.  "I miss my mother, too.  All of my family.  Especially Sophie."

Even though I was still out of practice at reading expressions and tones of voice, it sounded like the first time he had admitted that to anyone, as well.

Perhaps it was.  He’d taken it upon himself to act as the de facto leader of this group, which meant he had to be the strong one, the one who always stayed positive for the sake of everyone else.  Admitting that he could be hurt was difficult for him.  Even with my rusty social skills, I sensed a great need in him that had gone ignored for far too long.

"
Do you want to talk about it?"  I offered tentatively, uncertain how my offer would be taken.

He shook his head, and stared intently at the filling sink as though it were the most important thing in the world.
 "Not really."  After a long moment, his shoulders slumped and he looked back at me.  "But I guess I should talk to someone."  

There was so much pain in those kind eyes that I wanted to run over and comfort him right then and there.
 But I didn't.  I couldn't.  I was frozen with indecision.  While I hesitated, he opened up and told me the story of his pain.

***

All of his life, Michael had known that he wanted to be an officer of the law.

As a child, he was that kid who always showed up to fancy dress parties in a police uniform
– with the exception of a brief stint when he was six, when he decided that he wanted to be an astronaut instead.  The infatuation with outer space lasted all of a couple of weeks before he lost interest and went back to his original dream.

He grew up in an affluent suburb of east Auckland with his parents and his older brother.
 His mother was born and raised in Beijing, while his father was of mixed race, a union of European and Asian bloodlines who had been born and raised in New Zealand.

They met while his father was in Beijing on business, fell in love and married.
 Michael was three and his brother was six when the family returned to New Zealand in search of a brighter future for their children.

The children were raised bilingual and multicultural from an early age.
 Michael’s mother was intensely ambitious when it came to her children’s futures, the way Chinese mothers sometimes are.  She insisted that they learn multiple languages and instruments, and always demanded that they do well in school.

His father was much more relaxed and was perfectly content to let Michael do whatever he wanted, but it was his mother who was the dominant parent in their union and it was her will that ruled the nest.
 Michael’s childhood was one of school and endless tutoring, with very little time for friends or fun.

For years, his mother tried to convince him to become an architect or an accountant or a doctor, but Michael stayed resolute.
 He watched his brother grow up and go off to university, following his mother’s dream of a good career, but Michael didn’t care about money or prestige.  All he wanted to do with his life was to protect and serve.

By the time he finished high school, Michael was fluent in four more languages in addition to the English and Mandarin that they spoke at home.
 He was an excellent student with top grades, head prefect and a prominent member of the athletics team.  He could play the flute and the cello with reasonable competence, and showed a genuine talent for the violin.  Although he had few friends, all of his teachers agreed that he was a diligent, intelligent and affable young man with a bright future ahead of him.

In spite of all of that, Michael never doubted for a second which career he would choose.

He could have been anything, but the only thing he wanted was to be a police officer.  Every ounce of effort he put into his studies was just another means to push himself a little bit closer to that goal.  The same day that he graduated from high school, he applied to the Royal New Zealand Police College and was accepted.  Six months later, he graduated with honours, and was offered a position in Hamilton.

Eager to be about the career he’d longed for all his life, he took the position and moved south.
 In spite of the move and the clashes with his wilful mother, he was a good son and loved his family.  He returned to Auckland often to visit them, and made sure to always be there for important family events.  He was there for his brother's graduation from university and his wedding, and there for every Christmas.  He was there when his only niece, Sophie, was born, and he was there for her first birthday.

When the plague first started to spread, the constables were kept well informed.
 He told me about the dread he felt in the pit of his stomach when he heard the news that the infection had reached New Zealand’s shores.  He’d spent what felt like forever trying to phone his mother, his father, and his brother and sister-in-law, trying desperately to reach anyone in his family.

There was no answer; the phone lines were always engaged.
 No one answered his emails or his text messages.  It was like they were simply gone.

Then the riots started and he was too busy to think about his family anymore.
 Day and night, he was out trying to calm the panicked populace of his adopted home, only to see them fall ill one by one.  The only person he could rely on was his partner, an older police officer that he’d been paired with to help him learn the ropes.

But then his partner got sick.
 

By the time Michael fought through the crowds to get him to the hospital, he’d lost the ability to speak and his eyes were glazed over.
 The nurses swept him away without a word, leaving Michael to do his job alone.

By that stage, the riots were starting to fade.
 People were just too sick to put up a fight anymore.  Michael did his best to make them as comfortable as possible, but there was nothing he could do to help them.  Exhausted and helpless, the young police officer spent every day and every night out in the city helping anyone that he could, while waiting for instructions from his superiors on what to do.

The orders never came.

At last, he returned to the police station only to find it completely abandoned.  Everyone was gone, from the administration staff to the senior sergeant.  For the longest time, he sat alone in the break room, the very room we were in now, as he tried to figure out what to do.

Like all of us, he
’d heard through the media that there were some people with a natural immunity to the disease, but he never considered that he would be one of them.  He never imagined that he would be left all alone with no one to guide him.  He was just 22 years old, from a sheltered background and a career where he was still used to having someone to boss him around and tell him what to do.  

Now there was no one.

He looked me in the eye when he admitted that he'd been terrified.  I knew he was ashamed to admit it, but I just nodded.  I understood.  I had been, too.

"
I abandoned my post," he told me flatly without breaking eye contact.  "I took my squad car and went north, along the motorway towards Auckland.  The only thing I could think about was finding out what happened to my family."

He explained that halfway there he came across overturned trucks blocking the entire span of the motorway, forcing him to abandon his car and travel the rest of the way home on foot.
 It was more than twenty kilometres, but he walked and walked until finally, he reached the house where he grew up.

The house was empty, the door thrown wide and partially broken off its hinges.
 He saw signs of looting, but no blood and no clue that told him where his parents were.  There were no messages, no notes and the computer was gone so he couldn’t see if there were any half-written emails that they just never had the chance to finish.  He told me how he used the last of the battery power in his cell phone to try and ring theirs, but again there was no answer.