The Survivors (Book 1): Summer (3 page)

Mum looked up, and shot me an uncomfortable smile.
 "Canned food and bottled water.  A lot of it."

"
Geez, is the apocalypse coming or something?"  I asked.  My parents exchanged a glance.

"
I was just about to tell her," Dad said, and then looked back at me.  "Sandy, they're going to lock down the whole city soon.  They haven't told the public yet, but you remember how your uncle Rick works for the council?  He saw the plans on someone's desk to extend the quarantine zone.  So you, me, Mum and Skylar, we're going to go for a bit of a road trip.  We’re going to get out of Auckland tonight, and try and get as far away as we possibly can.  We'll go to Palmerston North and visit Grandma, and see where it goes from there."

I looked at him for a long time, and then I switched over to stare at Mum instead.
 I could see in both their eyes that they were deadly serious, and that they were scared.  Really, really scared.  As much as I wanted to ask about my friends, the look in their eyes made me think better about pushing for an answer.

Then I looked down at little Skylar, and saw that she wasn't oblivious to the mood in the room either.
 She sensed the fear Mum and Dad were trying to hide, and clung anxiously to our mother’s hand.  With no other safe recourse but a healthy dose of sarcasm to try and lift everyone’s spirits, I looked over at Mum and quirked an eyebrow.

"
Uh, Mum?  If we’re leaving again in a few hours, then why did you bother lugging all that stuff inside?"

My mother blinked owlishly at me, then looked down at the bags scattered around her feet as though seeing them for the first time.
 As I turned towards the stairs, I heard her muttering a muffled curse, and the sound of my father’s laughter.  At the foot of the stairs, I turned back and shot an impish grin at my father.  

"
So, can I swear
now
?"

I’d never imagined that ten years later I would be dragging around the corpse of a rotten old man.  I thought I'd be something special by now:  A doctor or a lawyer, maybe a scientist or an astronaut.  Maybe someone's wife.  Maybe someone's mother.

I had never thought that I would be a survivor.

The things that you learned as a survivor were hard and brutal life lessons, like how to ignore the smell of decay.  How to push aside your every instinct and kill when you have to.  How to ignore the feelings of guilt, and the incessant gnawing of depression around the edges of your psyche.  I was not very good at any of those things, but I had no choice.

"
I'm sorry," I whispered to the old man as I dragged him out of his beloved store as quietly as I could.  He had a nametag on.  His name was Benny.  Knowing that made it so much harder to ignore the pain; it made him even more human in my eyes.  He wasn’t just meat, he was a person, just like I was, just like my family was.  A good, loving person who sure as hell didn’t deserve the bum fate that life had given him.

And he didn’t deserve to spend the rest of eternity rotting between a dumpster and a stack of mouldy cardboard boxes.

I stood and looked down at the worn old face, etched with age and diseased torment.  He wasn't there anymore, I reminded myself.  Maybe he hadn't been there for a long time.  He wasn't a nice old man named Benny anymore, just meat, rotting meat that was going to attract rats if I left him too close to where I was sleeping.

If there was one thing our new civilization did have in droves, it was rats.
 At least they seemed to be immune.

There was one good thing about Ebola-X, though.
 Once the infected organism was dead, the virus went into overdrive and consumed the rest of the remains fast.  Usually, within a few weeks, not even the bones were left behind.  Not always, though.  Sometimes the virus burned itself out before the remains were entirely gone.  There were skeletons everywhere; five million people didn’t just vanish into thin air without a trace.

I often wondered what would happen once the last of the infected finally fell, and their remains dissolved into eternity.
 What would happen to the disease?  Would it just die out, or would it mutate to survive?  Would it find a way around my immunity so that it could consume me, too?  Or would it go the way of the dinosaurs and become nothing but a terrible memory, leaving a bleached bare world for me and my descendants to reconstruct over the next hundred generations?

More hard questions.
 I was just too tired to think about it today.

With one last look at the old man, Benny, I grabbed my backpack from where I left it and turned my back to him.
 But a twinge of guilt plucked at my heart and made me hesitate.  I looked again; his blind, old eyes stared blankly up at the clear blue sky, focused on nothing.  Could I live with myself if I just left him there, in the open, to be eaten by the birds and rats?  I tried to tell myself that I had to, or I’d end up digging a grave for every corpse I saw.  Being the world's most prolific gravedigger wasn’t quite the legacy I planned on leaving for my children.

Still...

It was a haphazard grave at best, but I grabbed a few of the grimy cardboard boxes and gently piled them atop the old man's corpse to cover him up with as much respect as I could manage in the circumstances.  Although it wouldn't really keep the rats at bay, at least it would keep the birds from taking his eyes.  That bothered me a lot.  I guess it was a phobia.

With my civic duty done, I tried to put poor old Benny out of my mind and turned my attention back to setting myself up a nice little base of operations.
 At least, that was what I hoped to achieve.  The store looked promising from afar: A stand-alone building at the end of town separated from the nearest other buildings by a decent sized car park on the right, a road on the left, and a narrow walkway behind that separated it from the old motel in the rear.  From what I could see, it looked like there was a loft above it, probably where the owner used to live.  If I was lucky, there might even still be power.

The power grid had been spotty for a number of years, though the fact that it was still on at all was amazing.
 I had heard rumours of a selfless group of survivors working in one of the big power stations, trying to keep the electricity flowing for as long as possible.  Whether that was true or not, I didn’t know.

When
had I arrived in town early this morning, there was a single street lamp glowing brightly in the semi-darkness, like a beacon of hope drawing me in with its wordless promises.  Perhaps this place would offer a respite from the trauma I had suffered in the south.  Maybe I could stay a while, and be safe and comfortable.  I hadn’t felt either of those things in a very long time.  So far, I had not seen any signs that indicated anyone else lived in this area; after the abuse I’d suffered over the years, I had become very good at detecting the signs of danger.  A tui had sung on the power lines overhead as I’d tiptoed past the sign that welcomed me to the township of Ohaupo, and its song was a familiar memory from my childhood.

The township was a tiny, quiet place, a blip on the map somewhere between Hamilton and Te Awamutu.
 At first glance, there wasn’t much here – a small group of shops clustered around the main street, a handful of homes and a motel, and a few farmsteads further out.  It was the kind of place that a snobby Aucklander should turn her nose up at and drive right on through.

But I was no snobby Aucklander anymore.
 To me, this little hamlet set in the flat green pastureland of the Waikato was a relief to both the eyes and the soul.  Most of the survivors congregated in the shells of the old cities, picking out a living from amongst the shattered ruins torn apart by ten years of storms and earthquakes and flooding.  I learned a long time ago that tiny townships like this one often provided a bounty of supplies, if I was lucky enough to be the first one to land there.

Once again, it looked like I had rolled high.
 The only sign of life was Benny, the tui, and a couple of cheeky magpies that chided me as I crept down the barren streets near their nests.  As far as I could tell, there didn't even seem to be all that many rats.  Like the survivors, the pests tended to be more attracted to city life.

I left Benny to his eternal sleep and returned to the shattered remains of his livelihood to see what I could salvage
from the wreck.  If the place proved to be liveable, then I would go back and move his corpse further away, but there was just no point in wasting my energy unless I knew this place was worth the effort.

I passed through the front door and crept back inside in a low, stealthy crouch-walk, my body as conditioned as a soldier’s by years of having to survive on my own against all the odds.
 The main room of the store was a mess.  Shattered discs formed a hazardous carpet that crunched underfoot as I checked between the shelves for any signs of danger.  I found nothing, only dust and discarded merchandise.  Content that I wasn’t going to be jumped from the shadows, I picked my way to the front counter to investigate what lay behind it.

I ducked behind the counter and paused to take stock of the contents of the refrigerators, then glanced towards a narrow doorway to my right.
 My heart sank when I noticed the lock, still intact and shiny even after all these years.  Refusing to give in to disappointment, I looked down and around, and used my booted foot to shove aside piles of cracked plastic until finally the glint of steel caught my eye.  Correction, several different glints of steel.   

Jackpot.

Careful not to cut myself on the mutilated shards, I pried the key ring out from beneath the rubble and held it up to the light.  To my eternal relief, all the keys looked more or less intact.  I crossed to the door and tried a couple in the lock until one of them turned.  The door popped open to reveal a small office, decorated simply with a couple of desks, some computer equipment, a filing cabinet and large framed painting of brightly-coloured lilies hanging on the wall.  

Then the stench hit me and sent me reeling back, gagging.
 Afraid that I was about to find another corpse, I dropped my backpack outside the door and yanked a small cloth mask out of one of the cavernous pockets of my cargo pants.  This wasn’t the first time I’d had to deal with stench.  In a world where almost everyone was dead, you had to find ways to keep the odour at bay.  My method was a strip of cloth soaked in the strongest perfume that I could find.

I dove into the stinking gloom and looked around.
 Thankfully, I didn’t find another body, just one little glass jar sitting open beside an old computer.  It was a very, very rancid jar, that presumably had once contained some kind of pickle.  Now, after a decade’s worth of decomposition, the olfactory nightmare had sprouted fungus almost ten centimetres high.   Suddenly feeling amused, I briefly considered keeping it to try and harvest penicillin.

I didn't, of course.
 The smell was just too horrifying.  Instead, I yanked open a window and dropped the doom-pickle into the long grass below, careful not to break the glass or make a sound.

Beyond the office, I spotted a second doorway.
 I went over to open it and found a set of stairs leading up into semi-darkness.  From within one of my many pockets, I drew out a torch and clicked it on, then scampered up the stairs as quietly as I could.  One of them creaked ominously underfoot, making me flinch.  As unlikely as it was that anyone was alive up there, you never knew.  I hadn't survived this long by being careless.

At the top of the stairs, another door opened onto a small, dusty landing, decorated by ancient furniture and lit from above by a little rectangular skylight.
 Another piece of art hung on the wall; this time, it was a painting of a beautiful landscape, a quaint little village bustling with life.  I stopped, and stared.  It took me a minute to recognise that it was a painting of Ohaupo township, the way it had been before the plague came and turned this lovely place into a ghost town.

God, how that brought back memories.

December, 2013

The drive south felt like it was taking forever, with a nervous eight year old constantly begging for attention.  Where were we going?  How much longer would it be?  Why weren’t we going home?  It seemed like Skylar had a million questions.

She was driving me crazy, but I was worried about her.
 She was my baby sister, after all.  I was ten when Skylar was born, an unexpected burden on a family that had been perfect just the way it was.  My parents had only planned on having one child, and I remembered listening to them argue when they found out that Mum was pregnant again.  A second child interfered with all their plans for the future, their financial stability and their hopes for my education.  

I had been too young to understand the problem; I was intrigued by the idea of having a baby to play with.
 The arguments continued right up until the day that Skylar was born, but  once they saw her little face, they couldn't help but fall in love with her.  The burden of a new baby became a blessing.

Just not right now
.

"
Skye, please shush."  Mum was eternally patient when it comes to her kids, but even she was getting frustrated.  The stench of fear in the car was so thick that you could cut it with a knife. The three of us were jammed into Mum's tiny hatchback, while Dad followed behind in his bigger sedan.  Her logic didn't make any sense to me, but for some reason Mum insisted that we travel with her, while Dad carried the supplies and the cat in his car.  I realised that she was feeling extra protective, and that her maternal instinct had gone into overdrive the moment that her babies were threatened.

I was upset, and Mum knew it.
 My parents had insisted that I not contact anyone, not even my best friend Katie, or Harry, my boyfriend.  I wasn’t even allowed to check if they were okay, and it was driving me crazy.  Normally I was willing to accept that Mum and Dad knew best, but in this case I thought it was completely unreasonable.  They’d even had the nerve to take away my cell phone.  

"
But Mum, I need to pee!"  Skye whined from the back seat, dramatically clutching at herself as though that would make her plea look more genuine and urgent.

"
Just hold on a couple of minutes longer, there's a petrol station right up the road."  Mum’s voice carried an element of frustration, but she struggled to stay calm and reasonable.  "You don't want to pee in the bushes like Mushkin, do you?"

Mushkin was our elderly tabby, who had a bit of a bladder problem.

"Mum, Mushkin doesn't pee in the bushes; he pees on the little rug by the door," Skye said matter-of-factly, with admirable wit for one so young.

"
He does what now?"  Mum exclaimed and glanced back over her shoulder at Skylar.  "Damn, I was wondering where that smell was coming from, but I could never find the source."

"
Language, Mother," I said dryly.  

My mother shot me a dark look, but it didn’t last for long.
 

"
Honey, I need you to help me.  Please?"  This time, her tone was one of earnest appeal.  

She sounded exhausted, but concern for my friends made me tense and angry.
 Although I knew it was petty, I decided that the silent treatment was in order and said nothing.  

"
Sandy, please?  I can't do this by myself.  I know you're angry at me, but we’ll talk about everything later, I promise.  We’ll work everything out, but we shouldn’t discuss it in front of Skye."  

Mum was pleading pathetically, and trying to appeal to my good-natured side.
 It worked.  I was not made of stone, even when I was annoyed at her.  I sighed and looked at her.

"
Fine, but I'm holding you to that promise.  What do you need?"  I asked gruffly, doing my best to maintain my show of being the injured party.

"
Send a text to your father. Tell him we need to stop at the next town for a rest," she answered.  With one hand on the steering wheel, she fumbled in her purse for my phone and then offered it back to me.  

I hesitated, staring at it as if it might explode in my hand.
 "But I thought you didn't trust me?"  

The wounded look that she gave me made me immediately regret saying it.

"I do trust you, honey.  There are just some things that we need to keep to ourselves.  Promise me you won’t text, call, email or Facebook anyone without my permission, okay?"

"
What about Twitter?"

"
No, no twitting either."

"
Tweeting, Mum.  The verb is tweeting."

"
Well, whatever it is, none of that.  Promise me."  She suddenly reached over to grab my hand; her palm was sweaty and tense.  That broke the last of my resistance.  I couldn’t stay mad when she was trying so hard to be brave for our sake.  I had been trying to gloss over the seriousness of the situation to make it seem less scary, but I was not oblivious to it.  There was only so long that I could deny reality before I would have to accept it and deal with it, even if I didn’t want to.

"
Okay.  Okay, okay, I promise.  I won’t contact anyone." I summoned a weak smile to reassure her, then switched on my phone and thumbed through a text to my father to pass on the message.

Once it was sent, I resumed staring out the window.
 A green government-issue road sign rolled past, announcing that the township we were about to enter was some little town called Ohaupo, a tiny place that was nothing more than a blip on the map.

***

Present Day

I stared at the painting, thinking back over the way I felt when I first came here at the age of eighteen.
 I had been passing through on my way to somewhere else, but my first impression of the place was that it looked dull, like one of those little country towns where old people go to die.  Back then, it had been alive and full of people.  

Well, not full in the Auckland sense of the word, but there were people nevertheless.

It looked like they were all gone now. They were either dead, lingering in the purgatory of undeath, or had left for other places.  There was a thick layer of dust on the little decorative table directly beneath the painting, and the tiny china figures were faded and dirty.

Faded and dirty, kind of like Mum and Dad and little Skylar
, I thought.  The idea brought tears to my eyes.  I hadn't seen any of them in so long.  It hurt just to think about them.

I shoved that thought back into the little corner of my mind that kept me awake at night, and tried to focus on the task at hand.
 There were only a couple of hours of daylight left, and it was best for me to use them wisely.

At the end of the hallway stood yet another door, this one hanging slightly ajar.
 An angular beam of afternoon sunlight shone through the crack, making the dust stirred up by my footsteps sparkle like fairy dust.  I pressed the door open with one hand, the other resting on the pocket where I kept my taser, just in case.

I needn't have bothered.
 Nothing stirred within.

The place had stood undisturbed for years, a time capsule dating back to a whole other era.
 The landing opened into a small living room, with an antique couch and a plump armchair sitting in front of a box television that was probably older than me.

Dust coated everything, shimmering in the rays of afternoon sunshine that filtered through net curtains.
 Behind the television, large windows overlooked the street below, framed by thick curtains in an old damask print that gave the room a special kind of rustic charm.  Shelves covered in knick-knacks decorated the walls, and an old, framed black and white photograph of a happy couple on their wedding day took centre stage directly above the television.

Beside the photograph was a small urn, just big enough to hold a person’s ashes.
 I stepped closer and stared at it, then reached out to brush away the dust that blurred the inscription.  It bore a woman's name and a short verse.

Margaret.

Beloved wife, beloved mother.

Rest forever in Heaven.

I stood back to consider it, feeling an unexpected rush of relief course through me.  It hurt to think of an innocent little old lady going through what Benny had to suffer – or worse, having to watch him go through it.  But she had been dead long before he became infected.  She was already at peace, and never knew what would happen to her home and her world.  That thought gave me some sense of peace, as well.

Perhaps later on, I would bury them together.
 It seemed like the right thing to do.