The Survivors (Book 1): Summer (2 page)

Years ago, I made myself a promise: if the day ever came when I stopped feelin
g grief and remorse for what I had to do to survive, then I would put my gun against my head and join my family in the hereafter.

December, 2013

Fresh from school and full of energy, I pulled open the front door, trotted inside and flung my school bag into its usual corner by the door.
 It landed with a heavy ‘thunk’, full of books and all the other junk I had to bring home at the end of the school year.

"
Mum, I'm home!"

My voice echoed down the hall as I headed for the kitchen in search of something cool to alleviate the summer heat.
 Although it was only mid-December, it was hotter than Hades and muggy to boot.  The cheap polyester of my school uniform clung in all the wrong places, and it did not breathe at all.

I yanked open the fridge, and relished the wave of cool air that smacked me in the face like a glorious arctic ice floe.
 When my mother didn’t respond, I glanced over my shoulder and called her again.  "Mum?"

After grabbing a can of lemonade from the top shelf, I shouldered the fridge closed and went off in search of my missing parental unit.
 I wasn't worried, but I wanted to talk to her and she was always home at this time of day to greet me.  It was a family tradition for us to hang out for a couple of minutes after school and work, just to talk and catch up on the day.  I was always bursting with gossip, and she was happy to listen.  That’s just how my mum was – she was a listener, and she was always there for me no matter what.

I stuck my head into the stairwell and called out to her again.
 

"
Mu-um?"  I paused, waiting impatiently for a response.

"
She's not he-ere."  The reply came in my father’s voice.  My curiosity was doubly-piqued now – Mum was out and Dad wasn't at work?  My home environment was usually very organised and well-ordered; it was unusual for things to be out of place.  Following the sound of his voice up the stairs, I made my way into his office.  

"
Why aren't you at work?"  I asked, curious.  

"
Why aren't you at school?"  

"
Dad, it's after four."  I laughed and shook my head.  "School let out an hour ago."

His brow furrowed into a look of confusion.
 I glanced over his shoulder at the computer screen behind him, and caught a glimpse of some gruesome photographs on what looked to be a current affairs website.  

As soon as he realised where I was looking, my father spun and switched off the monitor, then turned back to give me an awkward smile.

"I guess I lost track of the time."

"
Uh-huh.  You know they talked about that thing in school, right?  You don't have to hide the photos."  I layered on the sarcasm, the way I always did.

Dad bolted from his chair and grabbed me by the shoulders, a movement so sudden that it startled me right out of my cavalier mood.
 "They did what?"

"
T-they talked about the thing happening in Africa."  I stared up at my father wide-eyed, shocked by his vehemence.  "We got a big lecture about hygiene and stuff in the final assembly today.  I don’t get it. It's just another SARS, it'll blow over soon enough."

My confusion must have been written on my face, because his expression softened as he looked down at
me.   Finally, he released me and turned away, rubbing the bridge of his nose between finger and thumb; a familiar anxious habit of his.

"
I don't think so, sweetheart.  This is different."  He glanced at me again; the look on his face was one I’d never seen before, and that scared me.  

My heart skipped a beat.

"Daddy?"

"
Go get out of your uniform, Sandy.  I'll make us some smoothies and then we'll talk.  Okay?"

Dad always knew how to get my attention, and he knew I loved a good smoothie.

"Okay," I agreed, happy to put the morbid conversation aside.  I left the office and crossed the hallway to my bedroom door, which stood ajar to reveal the mess within.  The sight struck me as strange, because my mother usually picked up after me while I was at school.  Perhaps the impending ‘talk’ I was about to get from my father was the one about how I was old enough to clean my own damn room.

Blast, I'd been trying to delay that one as long as possible.

The door closed with a soft click as I pushed it shut behind me.  I sat myself down in front of my vanity and unlaced my shoes.  When the laces came free, I kicked them off and leaned down to yank off my sticky socks as well.  My clothing was sweaty and repulsive, so I stripped off my skirt and polo shirt and tossed them into the laundry basket by the door.  Silently cursing the humidity, I stood flapping my arms like a demented duck for a few seconds to cool off.  My mother often joked that you needed gills to survive an Auckland summer, and as far as I was concerned she was very, very right.

My household was just an ordinary, average Kiwi family.
 Mum, dad, two kids and a fat old cat, living in a fairly nice house in an upper-middle class area of Auckland’s North Shore.  The house was big enough that my little sister and I each got our own rooms, but it wasn’t huge.  We went to good schools and our parents were always happy to help with our homework.  It was true that we never went on amazing, globe-trotting family holidays, but our grandparents were well-off and owned a holiday house at the beach.  My little sister and I were happy to spend our summers playing in the sun, swimming and building sandcastles on the beach.

Dad was an accountant, and Mum had been an office manager until she got pregnant with me.
 After I was born, she decided to become a stay-at-home mum instead.  We were financially stable but not rich, and we survived comfortably on Dad’s income alone.    I both loved and respected my parents beyond words.

When I cooled down enough to feel human again, I pulled on a pair of shorts and that baby doll tee Dad hated because it showed a little sliver of my belly.
 I enjoyed teasing him about it, and saying that he was just jealous because he couldn’t pull off the look.  He always laughed, but I doubted he’d see the humour today.

My hairbrush sat waiting for me, so I grabbed it and turned to face the mirror.
 A pretty little pixie-face looked back at me, with large blue eyes framed by long lashes, but all I saw were flaws:  my breasts weren’t big enough, my thighs were too fat, and there was a zit on the side of my nose that looked like Mount Vesuvius.

Of course, I knew full well that the flaws weren’t half as bad as they seemed
– Harry chided me all the time for being self-conscious.  It was a girl thing, though.  I figured I’d grow out of it when it was time.

I sighed heavily and grabbed my hairbrush, and then pulled out the elastic band that held my tresses back in a practical schoolgirl ponytail.
 With a shake of my head, golden curls bounced down around my shoulders.  Whatever else I thought of myself, I did love my hair.  Dad always said that it was a gift from my mother.  He was olive-skinned with black hair, while my sister and I looked like Mum: fair skinned and prone to freckles, with blue eyes and naturally curly blonde hair.

The down side was that fair skin meant I burned like a lobster
if I spent too long in the sun.  In the summertime, I turned into a mass of freckles instead of getting a tan. It was only mid-December, and I already had a plague of them dusting my nose.

Today had been my last day of high school, so I had the entire summer ahead of me.
 My next step was deciding what I wanted to do with my life.  Maybe I should get a job?  Or should I go to university next year?  My grades were usually pretty decent, though I wouldn’t have my final results until early next year, so it was really just a matter of figuring out what I actually wanted.  I already knew that I didn’t want to be either an accountant or a homemaker, like my parents.

As usual, I relegated the decision to the ‘too hard’ basket, and moved on without really answering the question.

With my hair freshly brushed and hanging loose around my shoulders, I stood and padded barefoot down the stairs to join my father.   He was in the kitchen as he promised, with the blender out on the bench, fruit everywhere, and glasses waiting for the impending delicious smoothie goodness.  His back was to me as I entered, his attention intensely focused on slicing a banana into little, mushy pieces.

"
Mum will kill you if you make a mess," I said as I slipped onto a stool at the end of the breakfast bar.  My warning made him jump.  He shot a glare at me, but I grinned impishly and planted my elbows on the counter, resting my chin against my knuckles to watch him work.  When he didn't say anything for a couple of minutes, I decided to break the silence.  

"
Hey Daddy, can I borrow twenty bucks?"

"
Eh?"  He paused in his banana-murdering and shot me a confused look.

"
My friends are going to the movies tonight to celebrate graduation.  I wanna go with them."  I paused for a breath, and then lathered it on a bit thicker.  "Please, Daddy?  I'll wash your car tomorrow.  Mum's, too."

"
I—"  Dad hesitated, then looked back down at his fruit.  "I don't think that's a good idea, sweetheart."

His answer surprised me.
 It was true that I could be a bit cheeky on occasion, but I was generally a good kid.  I never stayed out late, never went boozing and hardly ever got myself into trouble.  Dad knew that he could trust me, because I respected his trust in return.

They knew that Harry and I were intimately involved, but they also knew that they had raised me smart enough and worldly enough that I would never come home on drugs or pregnant.
 As far as my parents were concerned, teenagers would be teenagers regardless of what their parents wanted them to do, and smothering a teenager never worked out well.  They wanted me to be comfortable enough to come to them with questions or if I ever needed help – and I was.  They weren’t just my parents, they were my friends.

That was what made his response so strange.
 That, and the fact that Dad had never turned down a chance to have someone wash his car before.  The thing drew bird poop like a magnet, so offering to wash Dad’s car was generally a guaranteed way to get whatever I wanted.

"
Why not?"  Confused, I tilted my head and sought clarity.  "It's just Harry and Katie and a couple of others, you know all of them; you know their parents, too."

"
Oh— that's not it, honey."  He looked at me and smiled weakly.  "I trust you, and I know your friends.  It's just—"  He finally paused and put down his knife, then turned to look at me fully with that same strange expression.  "Sandy, I'm home today because they've quarantined the central business district."

"
What?
"  

I was just a kid, but even I knew what a big deal it was if they closed down the centre of Auckland City.
 It was the biggest financial hub in the entire country, where more than 80,000 people lived and worked on any given day.  I could not believe my ears.

"
Well, a quarantine is when they—"

"
I know what a quarantine is, Dad."  I rolled my eyes.  I swear, sometimes Dad still thought I was five.  "I mean, why?"  

"
Oh."  There was a pregnant pause, and then he sighed deeply.  "The infection is here, sweetie.  They said on the news last night that there is someone being held at Auckland Hospital that tested positive for the disease."

"
Oh, shit."

"
Hey, language.  But— yes.  This morning my supervisor called me, and told me no one was to come into work today.  The next thing I knew, it was all over the news that the council had declared an emergency, and set up a quarantine zone around the hospital.  The authorities just extended the zone to cover the entire central city and the surrounding suburbs.  No one goes in – and no one leaves."

My brow furrowed.
 "No one leaves?  But doesn't that mean that the people stuck inside the zone are at risk of infection?"

"
Yes."  He grimaced and looked at me, and there was a flicker of something in his eyes that I barely recognised – fear.  "The authorities have been talking about it all day on the news.  They say the risk of exposure to anyone inside the zone is pretty much guaranteed, but if they let anyone out there's a risk to everyone else in Auckland – maybe even the entire country.  Anyone that’s inside that zone, stays in that zone."  

"
But what about my friends?"  I stared at my father wide-eyed.  "They all live in the city.  I haven’t heard from them since we left school.  When did they extend the quarantine?  Do you think they might be inside the zone?"

Before Dad could answer, the front door opened; we both nearly jumped out of our skins.
 Mum shuffled in, struggling to juggle a couple of very full grocery bags, with my eight-year-old sister, Skylar, whining for attention behind her.

"
Mum!" I squeaked in alarm and jumped up to go help her with the bags.  I snatched a couple from her hands before she could drop them, then almost did so myself.  "Whoa, these are heavy.  What have you been buying?  Rocks?"