What was important was that it meant I wouldn’t have to eat cat food or bugs for dinner tonight. Been there, done that. Not fun.
When the pantry was clean, I put my tins back in and lined them up in an obsessively neat little row with their faded labels facing forward. Tidy little soldiers, all standing at attention, ready to be devoured at my leisure. Om nom nom.
By that stage, I was starting to lose the daylight.
"Time to batten down the hatches," I murmured to myself as I glanced out the window at the setting sun. While I had artificial light if I wanted it, I did not want to go advertising my position to every Tom, Dick and Harry in the local area. Don't poke the bear.
Bear? What bear? I crinkled my nose; I was really starting to go a bit peculiar, and apparently my head was full of delightfully inappropriate clichés.
I shook my head and decided to let that one go. I'd worry about my mental health later, along with my many, many other problems. Such as figuring out if the plumbing in my new home still worked. Oh, how I longed for a hot shower. That would have been just lovely.
Taser in one hand and keys in another, I trotted back downstairs and peered cautiously out at the office through a crack in the door. Nothing stirred.
Then I crept into the main room of the store, and inspected that just as thoroughly before proceeding. Still nothing.
I stuck my head outside, and looked up and down the street. Once again, I found no signs of life except a pair of magpies chatting about how silly I was for being so paranoid.
You think that's paranoid, maggies? Just watch me.
Still not satisfied, I slipped outside and circled the store in a low crouch, peering into bushes and over obstructions to make sure beyond a shadow of a doubt that I really was entirely alone. One full circuit completed, I turned right back around and went the other way, checking that my footprints were the only ones visible.
Satisfied at last, I returned to the front door of the shop and paused to examine the debris in the doorway, making sure everything was exactly as I'd left it. It was.
I was safe and alone.
Part of me wondered if that was a good thing or a bad thing, but the part of me that remembered the pain of violence most vividly reassured me that it was definitely a good thing. In this messed-up world, there was no one that I could trust, no one that I could love – no one that would put my safety above their own. I was alone in every sense of the word.
With a sweep of my foot, I cleared away as much of the debris from the doorway as I could, then shoved the outer door closed and turned the lock. I didn't have much faith in the door's strength, given that the glass was badly cracked, but it would do. At least if someone – or something – tried to come through it, I'd have plenty of warning.
And the taser wasn't the only weapon in my possession.
Retracing my steps, I retreated back behind the counter and paused to examine the old refrigerator that had once housed drinks for sale to the public. I didn't trust the various kinds of soft drinks and juices, but there were a number of bottles of water inside that were still sealed.
Gathering up an armful, I took them with me as I retreated back into my new home, closing windows and locking doors behind me. First, the office was locked up, then the door to the stairs, and then the door at the top of the stairs as well. Apparently, Benny was as paranoid as I was, or at least liked the security of having several locked doors between him and the rest of the world.
I wasn’t sure what Benny's excuse was, but who could really blame me? I had barely survived my last encounter with other people, and the experience had left me scarred both mentally and physically.
Once I was finally safely confined to my new home, I lined up my water bottles on the kitchen bench – more neat little soldiers destined to sacrifice themselves to fill my belly. I broke the seal on one and sniffed at the contents, then tasted it cautiously. Nothing but fresh, clean water. A little tainted by the plastic over the years, but it wouldn't kill me – at least, not anytime soon.
'Have a drink!' the bottle encouraged, with its happy little cartoon mascot dancing for my amusement.
"Don't mind if I do", I said to myself, and swigged from the bottle as I meandered through my little flat, to close up the windows that I'd opened earlier to let in the afternoon breeze. It was getting cooler, I realised as I studied the setting sun. Clouds were rolling in from the west, obscuring the sunset. It had been fine all day, but it looked like this evening there would be rain.
Not that I minded. I was safe and sound, inside an elevated building well away from the risks of city life. It could rain all it liked. I didn’t mind at all.
***
I discovered that the bathroom fixtures still worked, but hot water was a lost cause until I had time to look at the tank. A cold shower was better than no shower though, so I stripped down hastily and stepped beneath the icy flow, determined to get clean before the sun slipped away completely. With the aid of a bar of soap I found under the sink, I sloughed away the day's grime from my skin, and enjoyed the feeling of relief that cleanliness brought.
A few minutes later, I stepped out and dried myself on a towel liberated from the faithful linen cupboard, feeling like a whole new woman. Right up until I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror, and realised that new woman looked like a crazy woman.
My hair was a mess, unbrushed for days and yanked back into a messy braid. I still wore it long in memory of my mother, but apparently I didn't groom it nearly as much as I should. I usually didn’t have time for that kind of thing, but for some reason, today I felt the need.
I dug around in one of the medicine cabinets until I found a comb and set about taming my bird's nest as I wandered out of the room with the towel wrapped around my naked body.
Boy did it hurt to get all those knots out, but it felt good regardless. Who did I think I was going to impress, anyway? Just me and the magpies, I guess. But it didn’t matter – this was for me, not anyone else.
Just as the sun dipped below the horizon, I paused my grooming to close the curtains, making sure that the thick fabric joined perfectly in the middle to block the light. There were no windows in my bedroom or in my bathroom, but the light might still shine through to the living room if I wasn't careful.
I decided to err on the side of caution once more, so I closed myself into my new bedroom with only a single small lamp above the bed to give me light. That was enough for me to finish combing my hair, then have a basic meal of cold baked beans straight from the tin. I wasn’t going to need the light for very long.
As soon as I finished eating, I set the tin aside and snuggled down beneath the relatively clean sheets, enjoying the softness of the mattress beneath me. It felt so good after months of sleeping on cold concrete padded with dirty, scavenged rags in a pathetic attempt at bedding.
I was exhausted, and fell fast asleep a moment after my head hit the pillow.
Chapter Six
I awoke to the sound of heavy rain on the tin roof above my head, a familiar and pleasant sound. I blinked, then squeezed my eyes closed again, focusing on that sweet noise. It brought back images of summers spent on the beach and winters with family close by. It rained all year round in New Zealand, and the end of human civilization did not change our climate at all.
I often wondered if it had in other countries. We were lucky, down here in little Aotearoa. We possessed no nuclear reactors, no major military installations. Nothing that could break down and poison what was left of our tiny little island nation beyond all repair. Our power stations were either fossil fuel, hydroelectric or thermal, all relatively clean energy sources compared to nuclear.
I wondered what it was like in Europe and America. Had their nuclear reactors failed and spewed toxic poisons into their skies, now that the people who kept them running were all dead? Did their few survivors live under the perpetual cloud of nuclear winter?
Was there even anyone left alive over there? I had no way to know. Communicat
ions were basically gone. There were only a few limited ways for survivors to communicate with one another and they were spotty at best. The mobile phone networks still functioned in some places, but they were useless without knowing the number of the person you were trying to reach. Radio was the only way left to bridge the oceans that separated us from our nearest neighbours, and I had never gained access to one of those. In some ways, that kind of isolation kept us safe.
If only it had been enough to keep us safe from the plague itself.
***
December, 2013
Skylar leaned against me as we sat in the kitchen, drinking milk and eating the cookies Grandma baked for us that morning. We had been banished to the kitchen while the adults huddled around the television in the next room, watching the news. Mum made me promise to keep Skylar away so she wouldn't see what was happening in the world outside. She was just a little girl, but she was bright for her age and knew that something was going on.
"What're you drawing, Skye?" I asked, trying to keep her attention focused on happy thoughts. She glanced up from her colouring with a mouth full of cookies, and gave me a bright smile.
"Zombies," she answered cheerfully, spraying me with crumbs.
"Zombies?" I blinked like an owl caught in sudden light. That was the last thing I had expected her to say.
"Yup." She nodded and went back to her colouring like it was the most normal thing in the world.
"Why are you drawing zombies? Zombies are yucky," I asked her, curiosity overwhelming my caution.
"Cause they're coming," she answered simply. With delicate little fingers, she selected a bright red crayon from the box. I watched as she applied the red crayon to her artwork, scribbling over the figures that looked like members of our family. The sheer volume of crimson that she used bothered me immensely; I was suddenly overwhelmed by the need to talk to my mother.
I stood carefully, so as not to disrupt my sister's artistic endeavours, but she barely noticed. She was thoroughly engrossed in destroying her own creation.
Now I was really bothered.
With barefoot stealth, I crept down the hallway that separated Grandma's kitchen from her lounge, and quietly pushed open the door to sneak a peek. A noise that sounded like a muffled sob jolted me; I shoved the door open the rest of the way to see what was going on. I found my mother with her face buried against my father's chest, while Grandma clung to their hands. None of them seemed to notice me.
On the television, people screamed and surged against police cordons, the low volume of the TV muffling their cries. It was a riot. A full blown riot. In the background, I could see the shopping centre where Katie and I had spent so many afternoons hanging out together and doing nothing, as teenagers are wont to do.
Then suddenly, there she was: My best friend in the whole wide world. Her tear-stained face was split in a scream as she strained against the cordon with the others. Begging to be let out of the quarantine zone. Begging for a chance to live.
My breath caught in my throat, and it was my turn to muffle a cry when I saw that familiar face in distress. Dad heard me, of course. It was too late to protect me now, so he just beckoned me closer and invited me to join the huddle on the couch.
"Is that why you wouldn’t let me call them?" I whispered as I sandwiched myself in between my parents, afraid to hear the answer. Mum clung to me, unable to reply. It was Dad who answered, his voice trembling as he tried to stay strong for our sake.
"Yes. They were already in the zone, Sandy. It was too late for them." He hugged us both tightly. "Your mother and I knew you wouldn’t let them go without a fight, so we had no choice but to protect you from the truth. I’m so sorry." He looked at me, his eyes full of so much pain and fear that I couldn’t be angry at him. "Now, the entire city is quarantined. All of Auckland. No one can leave. The infection is spreading too fast, they can't stop it. Thank God we got out in time."
"I don't think we’ve gone far enough, Dad." In my doe-eyed teenaged wisdom, I had no idea how right I was. "It's only been a week. We need to... go further away. Get away from people. Get away from the towns."
"No, we'll be fine right here. We're five hundred kilometres away; we'll be safe for sure," Dad insisted stubbornly. My grandmother knew better though, and interrupted him with her own wisdom.
"Don't be stupid, Roger. She's right. This isn't the flu we're talking about here. It's come all the way from Africa. It will reach Palmerston North." Her wrinkled face furrowed. "We'll go to the beach house. I'm not sure anywhere is safe, but at least it's isolated. Maybe that will give us a chance."
Dad started to protest, but he was voted down by all the women in his life. We knew in our hearts that nowhere would be far enough to save us, but still we had to try.
Then from behind us came a soft little voice, a voice that filled me with dread.
"I told you." Skylar stood in the doorway hugging her favourite doll, her red crayon still clutched between tiny fingers. "They're coming."
***
Present Day
By the time the sun rose, the clouds were clearing and the rain had come to a halt. The day dawned with a flawless blue sky, adorned with the lightest dusting of high puffy clouds around the ring of the horizon. Another beautiful day in my dead world.
As I often did, I found myself wondering what the date was, but I had given up trying to keep track a long, long time ago. It was at least December, maybe January; perhaps it was Christmas Day? I had no way of knowing. The date is one of the many things that stopped mattering when society vanished from the earth.
I mean, what difference did it make if it was December or January? The only difference to me was how far away winter was, and I would figure that one out when the birds started flying north. In this part of the country, we suffered from no real weather extremes. There was no snow in winter, and the temperature rarely climbed above 30 degrees Celsius in the summertime.
Without the climate to dictate my actions, the days blended together into an endless cycle of day and night. Time only mattered in the abstract and in the most literal sense. When it was dark, I slept, in the mornings and afternoons I worked, and at midday I rested until the heat of the day passed. I had a vague sense of the weeks, months and years drifting by and my body gradually getting older, but no real sense of scale.
I wasn’t even sure when my birthday was any more. I just counted myself a year older with each summer that passed, but sometimes I had trouble remembering what I was up to. I thought I was about twenty-eight.
I stretched languidly in bed, enjoying a moment of peace while I could, then I rolled myself out of bed and padded into my little en suite to indulge in another cold shower. Ten minutes later, feeling pleasantly clean, I dressed and devoured a quick breakfast of minted peas and bottled water before I set off about my day.
I’m going to need to find some kind of protein soon, I thought to myself as I disposed of my trash; I could feel my muscle-mass waning by the day. I put the thought aside for now, and just kept my hopes high that I would find some canned meat during my day’s exploration. If I didn’t, then I would have to consider hunting and killing something – and that was something that I despised. I had killed before and I probably would kill again, but I was not a killer.
Feeling safe with the security the loft provided me, I left my backpack behind and took only the necessities I needed for salvage. I could move faster without the burden of my pack, and with the keys to the store safely deposited in one of my cavernous pockets I felt confident that no one would be able to steal my few precious belongings.
In some ways I was like a skinny blonde turtle. Everything I owned had to fit in my backpack and be light enough for me to carry when I travelled on foot. Even though I was young, fit and strong, I was bound by my natural limitations; there was only so much I could carry and still be able to walk and fight effectively. Whenever I decided to add something to my pack, I had to justify its weight. If it wasn’t worth it, then I had to leave
it behind.
My necessities were few, but practical. Like every teenager, in 2013 I had owned a slick-looking smartphone, but now there was no one for me to call, and it could be days or even weeks between opportunities to charge it. When I figured that out, I discarded the thing in favour of an old GPS unit with a long battery life. The software was ten years out of date, but without city councils changing street names and building new subdivisions, things weren’t exactly changing very fast. I did wonder how much longer the satellites would continue to function, but for now they still seemed to be working just fine.
Like everything else I owned, the GPS had proved its worth many times over the years, but today it would stay at home. I didn’t need a map to show me around this tiny little township. I’d already seen most of the town on my way in, so now I was just going to go back and investigate it in more detail.
Like most other survivors, I lived by scrounging supplies from the ruins of old towns like this one. While I had water aplenty in my new home, my food supplies were running low. Still, water was more important than food and I had lots of it, both safely bottled drinking water and running water from the tap. I didn’t really trust the tap water for drinking unless I boiled it thoroughly, but at least I could use it to wash in or to flush the toilet.
In this day and age, that kind of extravagance was a luxury that a lot of us didn’t have.
Food was a problem, though. For the past several years, I had lived in the ruins of the town of Te Awamutu, about 20 kilometres to the south. I was the only person there, because the place was a total disaster zone. Years before my arrival, a terrible earthquake had reduced the entire town to rubble. There was enough there for a clever survivor to live off for a while, but not indefinitely. Eventually, I had exhausted the supplies I could get at without seeking help from others, so I was forced to come north in search of food.
Compared to Te Awamutu, Ohaupo was in nearly perfect condition. Although there were signs of storm damage everywhere, the buildings all appeared to still be more or less structurally sound. There were a lot of shattered windows and few fences were still standing, but most of the buildings still had their roofs and their doors and porches were intact.
The Survivors (Book 1): Summer Page 4
