The Penance of Leather (Book 1): Ain't No Grave

by S. A. Softley

  My body could still be suffering from shock. I cranked up the heat and the blower on the dashboard. I didn’t notice much difference in how I felt, but I did notice that after a while my fingers moved less clumsily. I worried over it for a few moments, chewing my lip and frowning. There was nothing I could do but keep aware of it and make sure I stayed warm even if I didn’t feel cold. One more thing to worry about.

  After ten minutes, I grew impatient and decided to switch the electronics on. While the computer slowly booted up, I switched on the police radio and cycled through the frequencies, listening for a signal. A few times I caught voices, but they were unintelligible and clearly coming from a great distance. That was concerning. The van’s radio should be able to pick up some very distant signals. Nearby towns, worksites and stations should all have been clearly audible on different channels. It meant that either a necessary signal relay wasn’t getting power or that things were really bad and most of Northern Alberta was deserted. Either way, it seemed that the radio wasn’t going to do me much good right now. I decided I’d try to get the internet up and running instead of spending time broadcasting messages on what appeared to be empty airwaves.

  The computer had booted at last, but was still searching for a signal. I switched on the AM/FM radio while I waited. I only found a few weak signals that I couldn’t make out on the FM dial. I hadn’t really expected much from the FM frequencies. FM radio signals were often inaudible up where I’d worked as well. AM frequencies had longer range. I switched the band, hoping for better results. When the needle hit 740 AM, the speakers crackled to life and I had my first contact with the outside world.

  “…cast system,” a clear, matter-of-fact female voice was saying, “The time is now eleven seventeen am February second.” The date was clearly automated; patched together from bits of pre-recorded syllables. The rest of the message appeared to be pre-recorded by a real person, but it was impossible to tell how recently it had been updated. “As of January 24th,” a woman’s voice said, “a nation-wide state of emergency has been declared.

  “An unknown illness has spread to all major population centres. The World Health Organization has issued a global pandemic alert. There is a total ban on all highway, rail, air and sea travel until further notice. Remain in a secure location with all doors and windows secured. Food, water, fuel and batteries should be carefully rationed. Avoid population centres if possible.

  “The illness is known to spread easily and has an extremely high mortality rate. Avoid contact with large groups of people whenever possible. Symptoms have been known to include but may not be limited to difficulty breathing, high fever, severe joint pain, involuntary muscle spasms, nose bleeds, blood in urine, stool, saliva, and other bodily fluids, haemorrhage of the brain, lungs and eyes, loss of consciousness and extreme reduction in vital signs. Be aware: vital signs may be difficult or impossible to identify in victims.

  “Victims have been known to emerge out of a comatose state with severe and irreparable brain damage and unmitigated aggression. For your safety, do not approach victims of the illness. Contact local emergency services. Victims’ bodies are a severe health and safety hazard and must be disposed of through cremation.

  “Stay tuned to CBC Radio stations for further updates and public service announcements. This has been an emergency broadcast from CBC Radio One, AM 740 Edmonton. Message will repeat.” There was a pause followed by three long discordant tones. “CBC Radio One, AM 740 Edmonton. This is the emergency broadcast system…”

  I turned the volume down on the radio and gazed blankly at the Ford logo on the steering wheel in front of me. So that was that… all major population centres, the voice had said. I wondered how many countries had been hit, how many people… I looked at the computer. In the corner of the task bar, above the animated wireless symbol, a pop-up bubble still read acquiring signal… I stared at it unblinking, my mind devoid of intelligent thought as the sun gradually traced its low course through the southern sky. The light passed quickly, the sun descending more rapidly than the needle on the fuel gauge, which, too, gradually declined.

  Eight

  The light became burnt and dirty, covering the streets in orange, moody tones; filtering through the atmosphere at a severe angle as the sun drew closer to the western horizon. The needle on the van’s fuel gauge dipped just below the halfway mark. I’d been sitting, idling like the van, for a few hours now, returning to a state nearly as comatose as I had apparently been for the last two weeks. This time, it hadn’t been brought on by illness, but by the sheer weight of the world crashing down upon me. The world, which, for all I knew, was in its last death throes. It wasn’t hard to imagine that such an infectious and deadly virus, or whatever it was, could quickly decimate human life across the planet.

  Quarantine wouldn’t do much good; I wondered if it ever really had been effective. Plagues had spread before, regardless of the measures undertaken to prevent infection. These days, people interacted more than ever, travelled farther and faster than ever and so too did disease. If a small northern town’s population had been reduced to zero in ten days or less because of just one sick man on a plane, granted that it was likely due in part to evacuation, I couldn’t imagine what would happen to a crowded city. If the disease had an incubation period of even a few hours before symptoms started to present, a person could become infected and travel around the world, infecting thousands before recognizing the illness.

  All major population centres…

  Git the hell up! I could hear my father snarl, as clearly as if he were right beside me. I jumped, startled. I was seven again. Some shithead ten-year-olds had discovered how entertaining it was to watch me panic in tight spaces. They had locked me in a tiny tool closet in the empty basement of a half-built house that was under construction down the street from my childhood home.

  They laughed at my desperate screams, giggling and pushing each other as I clawed at the door until my fingers were scraped raw and bloody. One of them, I never knew who, had taken pity on me and had snuck off to get my father. I would almost have rather been left in the shed. Almost. The boys had run off laughing down the street as my father threw open the shed door, red faced and snarling.

  Git up! Gawd damnit! Git out of ther! It took all of my strength to calm myself down. Snivellin’ and carryin’ on… Shit! Ain’t no wonder they pick on you. Grow up! Be a man! You think I’d be here today if I’da sat on my ass ‘n cried when my convoy got blowed up by that gawd damn IED? Shit… You got a lot to learn boy… He pulled me up by my ear and clipped me in the back of the head to get me moving. I always wondered how hands could be that hard, that stinging. The next time I ain’t comin’ to help you. You gotta toughen up, boy, I ain’t raisin’ no sissy.

  I hate the bastard, I thought, but he’s right.

  Sittin’ here feeling sorry for yourself... hell! Night’s coming on and it’s the dead of winter and you ain’t done shit but waste gas all day. You better git your ass back in gear, son, if you want to survive… My thoughts; my father’s voice. Well, if the old bastard had done no other good, at least he’d motivated me.

  I decided it was too late to strike out for anywhere new. Besides, the emergency broadcast had said road travel was prohibited. I didn’t much like this town, the pile of bodies still haunted me, but at least it was empty and there were nearly limitless supplies.

  I decided I’d head back to the sporting goods store. I already had a good set-up there. Plenty of gear, plenty of food, gas heaters and stoves and propane tanks… it was as good a place as any. I could keep the Jeep packed in case I needed to get away quick, and I’d drive the police van over there as well to keep the radio and computer handy, though I didn’t know what good they’d be. I thought about packing the police van up instead of the Jeep, but realized that although I’d hate to lose the computer and radio equipment if I left the town, the Jeep made a lot more sense. The van would be slow, heavy and poor for off-roading. With the driver’s side window
now broken, it would also be far too cold to drive the van for long distances. Some part of me also didn’t want to get caught having stolen a police vehicle, regardless of justification, regardless of the fact that I’d learned that society, apparently, had collapsed.

  Besides, the Jeep is stylish, I thought with a grin, and that still counted for something, even in these strange and terrible days. It was set up for off-roading and given that it was the middle of a northern winter and I doubted that the snow ploughs would be keeping roads clear this year, I figured the Jeep was exactly what I’d need. The northern roads could be dangerous at the best of times and were frequently closed even when society was fully functional and not reeling from an unprecedented disaster.

  “Right then…” I muttered, adjusting the seat and mirror and putting the van into reverse. “No use waitin’ around.”

  I was just about to hit the gas when I caught sight of one of the most startling things I’d ever seen: my own face. Terrible eyes stared out at me from the mirror set into the sun visor. It was the first time that I’d seen my own face since the flight fifteen days earlier.

  My hair had grown longer and was a horrible mess; sticking out all over the place; unbearably greasy. I had an unkempt beard, longer than I’d ever grown it even in my long wilderness excursions, which was equally greasy. My skin was pale and waxy, giving me an unhealthy pallor. Worst of all, though, were my eyes. The lenses looked glassy and slightly clouded, as though they were beginning to develop cataracts. The whites of my eyes had turned a startling dark red. It wasn’t the bloodshot that people get when they’ve kept their eyes open too long. It wasn’t even the angry red of pinkeye. There simply was no white left in them at all. My eyes were demon eyes; dark red-brown all the way through, as though all the capillaries had burst and stained whatever stuff made up the white with blood. They were the eyes of the sick man on the plane. My hand rose to my face and I prodded around my eyelid, as though I could wipe away the stain. My mouth hung open. My teeth were yellow; my lips were a frozen blue and cracked from the cold, dry air.

  “What happened to me? What the hell happened?” I muttered over and over, my gaze still locked in horror to the reflection in the mirror.

  After a while, I managed to regain control of myself and pushed the mirror aside. I had to get the vehicles to the shop. I’d look for a bathtub, and a toothbrush. Maybe eye drops. I needed to keep clean or I’d lose teeth; maybe get infected or septic. God only knew how long it had been since I’d been clean.

  I reversed out of the parking lot, driving the few blocks back to my store. I pulled the van right up onto the sidewalk in front of the glass windows it and parked across the front door. I felt better having it fully in sight from inside.

  I walked back down the street to retrieve the Jeep. The sun had sunk below the horizon and a thin strip of orange light was all that remained of the day. No streetlights lit; shadows melted into each other.

  The dark had already spread inky pools beneath the buildings when I returned with the Jeep and backed it in so that it, too, was on the sidewalk, forming a triangular barricade of vehicles against the shop front. It was only a handful of steps from the front door of the store to the driver’s seat of either vehicle. I wasn’t sure why exactly I felt I needed a quick getaway ready, but it made me feel better to have an escape planned all the same. Some extension of my claustrophobia I suppose.

  I stormed around for a while in a rush, looking for cleaning supplies. My skin seemed to crawl with dirt. I had to get clean. I found a toothbrush in the shop and a tube of toothpaste. I scrubbed hard and long, brushing my whole mouth over and over. I began to press vigorously, believing the pressure might clean the weeks of bacteria away. I felt sick. Unclean. I trembled as I brushed; all the shock and strain of the past two days was being released in the harsh, unsteady strokes. I might have been an hour, standing there mindlessly brushing over and over like a man suffering from an obsessive compulsion. I stared at myself in a small hanging camping mirror, spitting dark coloured foam into a bucket, rinsing with bottled water and then beginning all over again. I rinsed over and over with stinging mouthwash, burning away the dirt.

  At last I forced myself to stop, though I did not yet feel clean. I will not break down, I told myself. Not here, not now. This was not the time or place for it. My father had done one thing for me: he had taught me to be strong and hard.

  I boiled water in a large pot. There was no place to have a bath, but I could still scrub myself with scalding, purifying water. I barely waited for it to cool before plunging my hands in; before soaking a soapy sponge and scrubbing it roughly all over my face and naked body. I barely felt the burn of the hot water; too intent on getting clean. Steam curled from the water and from my body, from the puddles on the tiled floor. I stood, wrapped in a microfiber towel, drying under the blue flame of a propane heater, my mind blank.

  I hacked at my still dripping hair with scissors, cutting away the greasy mane, desperate to look less like a starved wild creature. It would never do if someone found me like this. They would burn me like an infected corpse.

  At last I was satisfied. I looked better. I was still pale; bluish, still gaunt, but at least I looked human again, not like some half-dead thing. I shuddered. I looked in the mirror again, running my hand over my face. The illness had changed me. I might never fully heal. There was nothing I could do about my eyes; they might stay like that forever. Crimson nightmare eyes with striking gray irises. Perhaps I could wear contacts; tinted glasses. I put the mirror away. It was dark. The lantern shadows caused my face to appear monstrous.

  Having made all my preparations, I settled in for a second night, trying to calm myself. Within an hour, I had a pot of canned ravioli simmering on the stove. Two propane heaters warmed my corner of the store and I was wrapped in a sleeping bag, sitting on a cot sipping hot tea. The tea helped. My muscles eased and thawed, stiffness released, my tension relaxing somewhat. The liquid helped wash away the dryness in my throat and mouth. It didn’t taste good, but the flavour wasn’t nearly as disagreeable as the food I’d tried to eat.

  I hoped the ravioli bubbling lightly on the stove would be better. I loaded it with salt and pepper, trying to add powerful flavours that might cut through the ashen taste that lingered in my mouth. I started to eat out of the pot, but soon realized I still hadn’t regained my appetite. Everything was still soot and dust.

  What is wrong with me? I wondered. Maybe it had something to do with the days or weeks of plaque built up in my mouth. Or perhaps some kind of brain damage had rewired my sense of taste or something, though that seemed awfully far-fetched. The police bulletin had mentioned brain damage.

  I was reluctant to put the food aside, feeling wasteful, knowing that I needed to keep my strength up and that food could get scarce pretty quick if I wasn’t careful, but I just couldn’t choke down another mouthful. It was a strange feeling: I was still hungry… ravenous, actually, but it felt as though my body rejected the food. My lips were dry. It was difficult to swallow.

  I’ll just have to keep taking it slow, I thought again. It won’t do me any good to force it down. Obviously I was eating enough food to keep me going. People could live on a lot less than we’d become used to eating.

  I focused instead on the liquid, slowly forcing down the rest of the tea and a bottle of water. I did need to stay hydrated. I didn’t know how long I’d been off the I.V. fluids. Dehydration was a serious threat any time, any place. The dry, cold air of a Canadian winter sucked moisture out from every pore in the body. A person could feel it in their skin, in their eyes, in their nose. Many times in the past, I’d woken up with a splitting hangover headache though I’d had no alcohol. The dryness caused pounding dehydration headaches, pain and burning in my mouth and throat and swollen gritty eyes.

  I found some heavy-duty moisturizer and medicated lip balm and lathered my face and hands, hoping it would help me retain moisture. I also checked on the deep wound on my arm. It looked ok to me,
but I was no doctor. I grabbed a tube of antiseptic cream and covered the wound in it, working it in with my fingers. I expected it to sting when I touched it, but I hardly felt a thing.

  Must be pretty well healed, I thought. I decided to leave the wound without a bandage. It was best to keep it dry and open to the air. Moisture could cause infection. I was satisfied that my arm, at least, was healing well.

  It struck me suddenly and unexpectedly as the last of the light faded outside that I had a means of keeping track of the date and time, but only while the emergency broadcast system continued to operate. The broadcast could cease at any time, I realized. A new panic took hold of me, a feeling that I could lose another of the last thin threads connecting me to society, to civilization. It had been terribly disorienting to wake from my long, unnatural sleep and find that I had no way of knowing how many days, hours or minutes had passed. It seemed imperative that I never lose that sense of time again. I hurried through the store with my lantern, looking with urgency for a watch. In the old days I’d been one of the few to still wear a watch.

  In the old days… I realized uncomfortably that I was already considering everything before the flight as some bygone era, some lost age that could never return…

  “In the old days,” I said aloud, feeling that it was somehow truer when spoken. It felt like accepting grief, accepting loss… moving on.

  In the old days I’d been one of the few to wear a watch. Most everyone else relied on cellphones to tell the time. Most everyone else had relied on cell phones for everything. The amount of time I spent outside of a signal area was greater than the time I spent inside one and so I’d carried on wearing a good old-fashioned timepiece on my wrist. I felt naked and lost without it just as many felt naked and lost without their phone.