by Alex Burns
“So have we,” Jack said, nodding to his grandfather.
“Well, I vote for burial,” Bob Moloney said firmly. “It’s not like we have access to a crematorium here in Turalla, and I don’t feel right making a bonfire out of friends and family.”
“Where would we bury them? At the cemetery? Or?” Jon Wilson asked.
“That’s something we’ll need to decide,” Andy said.
“I don’t think I can decide today,” Mrs Brown said in a small voice.
Andy chewed his cheek and exchanged a glance with Jack.
“How about we have a think and come back to it later. How is everyone for food? Fuel? Heat? Water?”
I glanced at Mum but she didn’t say anything. We were more than fine with all the preparation she’d done, but I was willing to bet most people had not been as paranoid as her and did not have years worth of food stashed in their garage, or vegetable gardens as prolific as hers.
“I don’t have much left,” Rhys the teenager said after a few moments, still looking down at his shoes. “I don’t have any power neither.”
A few people murmured in assent. Power was an issue. A few houses were set up with generators or solar batteries, but most had relied on the now defunct power grid. There was some talk of people combining resources. It didn’t seem practical for everyone to keep living alone and trying to power 25 big, mostly empty houses. Generators still needed fuel, and that would be a problem down the track.
Food was the other main concern. The little shop in town had been picked bare by the survivors.
“I don’t think Doris would have minded, in the end,” Betty said firmly. I had my doubts. Doris, the owner of the shop, hadn’t exactly been known for her generous spirit. She was more likely to haunt the shop lifters.
“What about the supermarket in Braxton? Has anyone been there?”
Jack nodded. “Yeah, I was over there last week. Not many people about. There was still quite a bit of stock out the back when I checked. Nothing much in the actual supermarket though. That’s been picked bare.”
“But they left the warehouse?” Bob asked skeptically.
Jack shrugged. “Seemed to have. Don’t ask me why. Maybe they just didn’t realise it was there, or… I really don’t know.”
Braxton was the next town over. It was about four times bigger than Turalla and had a much larger supermarket and shopping complex than we did. They actually had a main street. Turalla had more of a main corner, with the pub perched on one side, Doris’ little supermarket and milk bar on the other side, the fish and chip shop, a little bric-a-brac shop, a farm supply warehouse and a cafe. The cafe was relatively new. I’d never been there. Yet another thing I’d kept meaning to get around to. The owner wasn’t here though. I wondered if I’d ever have a decent coffee again in my life and then shook my head, vaguely disgusted at myself.
The meeting ended with most people deciding to bury the dead, and some of the men planning to do a raid on the Braxton supermarket’s warehouse for more supplies. There was more talk of pooling resources, of putting all the food together and dividing it up. Mum frowned at that. There was an agreement for people who wanted to help to meet the next morning to start planning the mass burial.
Mum stayed back to help pack up the chairs, but I needed some fresh air. I took Charlotte by the hand and headed over to the little playground. There was just a swing and a seesaw.
“Can you push me Auntie Alice?” Charlotte asked as she clambered on the swing.
“Sure,” I said. I stood behind her and pushed.
“Higher!” she shrieked.
I stared at her flying back, wondering how much of the meeting she’d understood. We really shouldn’t have bought her. It was too much. It was too much for me. I didn’t want to think about it anymore.
My arms started to get tired, but Charlotte kept calling for me to push her higher and higher. I obliged.
“Did I miss the meeting?” a voice asked from behind me. I knew that voice. I hadn’t heard it in years, but I knew it. I whipped around, just missing being hit in the head by Charlotte’s swing. My old high school boyfriend stood there, arms swinging uselessly by his side, squinting at me in the noon sun.
Chapter Seventeen
“Ollie! Oh my god!” He looked both different and the same. Same dark eyes, same crazy fair hair, but trimmer - more confident. Older. “What are you doing here?”
“I heard there was a meeting… but I slept in. Looks like I missed it?”
I nodded and then shook my head. “No, I mean, here in Turalla. I thought you were in San Fransisco.”
“I was… I came back to visit my parents, but then I got stuck here when they closed the border.”
“Oh.”
“Auntie! Push me!”
I turned around and obediently started pushing my niece again.
“I’m glad you’re alive,” Ollie said, stepping closer to me, staring at me intently.
“You too,” I said, feeling slightly flustered. I tried to remember the last time I’d seen him. It had been years. Ollie wasn’t exactly the one who got away, but I did occasionally wonder about him, and what could have been… usually when I was having a particularly materialistic moment and daydreaming about what it would be like to be crazy rich.
“So… what did I miss?”
“Huh?” I pushed Charlotte absentmindedly.
“At the meeting?” Ollie said with a touch of impatience.
“Oh, right. Um…” I didn’t really want to repeat it all in front of Charlotte. “Hang on, I’ll just go see if Mum’s almost done.” I nodded meaningfully in Charlotte’s direction.
Ollie walked back into the town hall with me. Mum blinked in surprise when she registered him.
“Oliver!”
“Hello, Mrs Buchanan.”
“Oh my goodness. I didn’t expect to see you here!”
“I didn’t expect to be here.”
“Right. Well, yes. I don’t think any of us did,” said Mum, sounding slightly flustered. She pushed her hair back behind her ears, and then looked at him with a frown.
“Your parents then?”
“Nope,” Ollie said, shortly. “Just me.”
“I’m sorry. I always liked your mother.”
“Dad was a bit of a bastard though,” Ollie said with a faint smile.
“I didn’t say that!” Mum said quickly.
“He’s joking, Mum. Don’t worry.” I shot a glare at Ollie. “Um, are you almost done?” I asked, looking around. The chairs were all packed away, apart from the one Ina was sitting on. Jack, Andy and one of the men I didn’t know very well were talking intently by the stage. Jack’s glance briefly flickered over me, but then he turned his attention back to the man in front of him.
“Yes, I think so,” Mum said, looking around herself. “Shall we go?”
I looked at Ollie, then back to Mum. “Yeah, but, um…I should catch Ollie up on what he missed.”
“How about I take Charlotte and Ina home, and you come when you’re ready?” Mum said after a moment of me dithering.
I nodded. “Okay.”
I turned to Ollie with raised eyebrows. He gave a non-committal shrug and then strode out of the hall. I followed.
“I’m sorry about your parents,” I said once we were outside.
“Yeah. Well, what can you do? So what did I miss?” He walked over to the playground and sat down on the swing recently vacated by Charlotte.
“You missed the most depressing getting to know you session ever,” I said, sitting down on the other swing. “There’s only about thirty of us left.”
Ollie didn’t say anything. I continued, telling him about the decision to bury the dead and the group who were going to Braxton to raid the warehouse. Again he didn’t say anything.
“What are you going to do?” I asked.
He looked at me.
“I don’t know,” he said simply. “My life plan did not involve being stranded in Turalla.”
&
nbsp; “Or ninety percent of the world dying,” I added in a false cheery voice.
Ollie grunted.
“I thought I’d escaped,” he muttered, pushing himself off the swing. He started pacing around the playground.
“Yeah, well…” I was at a loss as to what to say. Being back in Turalla was the least of our problems in my opinion.
“Everything was going according to plan,” he said quickly, running both his hands through his hair. “I’d escaped.”
“Yeah, well so had I,” I snapped. “Most of us had, if you hadn’t noticed. Just because we didn’t have mansions in San Fransisco or fancy cars or private jets or-”
“I don’t have a private jet,” he said, bemused.
I waved my hand. “I’m just saying… you’re not the only one who was happy with how their life was, before. Just because I don’t have piles of money or,” I waved my hands around.
“It was never about the money, Alice.” Ollie sighed and stepped closed to me, staring so intently into my eyes that I stepped back. He looked away. “Well, not that it’s doing me any good now. All that work, all the wealth that I’d built up - not exactly much use anymore, it it?”
“I guess not.”
“Come on, I’ll walk you home. It’s on my way,” Ollie said after a moment. His parents lived on the outskirts of town, up on the hill. Calling it ‘on the way’ was a slight exaggeration, but it wasn’t like Turalla was that big of a place.
“So, your Canadian didn’t make it then?” he said as we started walking.
I stared at him for a moment, speechless. He said it so casually. “I don’t actually know,” I managed to get out eventually. “He was back in Canada when it all happened. He got stuck, like you. He was alive and well the last time I could get through, so…”
“Just gonna keep going with that assumption, then?”
I nodded. What else could I do?
“You’re probably never going to see him again, even if he is alive, you do realise that, don’t you?”
I stopped walking. “Jesus, Ollie.”
It took him a moment to realise I was no longer next to him. He paused, and turned back to look at me, an odd expression on his face.
“I’m not trying to hurt you, Alice. I’m just being realistic. Do you understand the severity of this situation?”
“I… I know things have changed, and they’re not going to go back the way they were any time soon, but -”
“I highly doubt they ever will. We’ve been sent back to the dark ages. All our technology is utterly useless without the infrastructure to support it.”
“But…”
“But what? What’s the point of being able to design apps for smartphones when no one can use their phones? What’s the point of building electric cars when there’s no electricity? What’s the point of a great social media marketing campaign? Or being able to do someones taxes? Most people’s jobs are utterly pointless and completely useless now, mine included. I don’t know what to do with myself.”
“Bec Harlock’s a nurse. That’ll probably be useful.”
“Who?” he squinted at me.
“She was a year below us at school.”
“Oh. Well. Maybe, maybe not. Healthcare’s pretty high tech these days. Will she know what to do without all her monitors and machines?”
“No idea,” I said darkly. I was rapidly remembering why we hadn’t worked out.
“Did many young people survive here?” he asked after a moment, kicking at nothing in particular.
I ran my mind around the circle, then shook my head. “Not really. Most were middle aged.”
“So, not many people of child-bearing years?”
“I don’t think anyone’s about to rush out and try and have a baby after everything that’s happened,” I said, screwing up my face.
Ollie scratched his nose. “Not now, but if we’re going to continue as a species, logic dictates that we need to reproduce.”
I sighed. “There’s a few who might, one day,” I conceded.
“So, how many?”
“Um, well there’s Melissa and Ben - they’re two teacher’s in their early thirties.”
“Are they a couple?”
“I don’t actually know. Maybe,” I said, wondering.
“Right. Then there’s you and me.” I snorted. He ignored my reaction. “Who else?”
“Well, Bec, like I said, Jack’s a couple of years older than me, Kristy Bell - you remember her at least, don’t you?”
Ollie nodded.
“Yeah, well, all five of her kids died, so I don’t think she’ll be in the right mental spot any time soon, but yeah… um, who else? Neylan might be young enough? I’m not sure. Um, there were a few teenagers - like, five teenagers, I think? Oh, there was Jon Wilson and Crackhead Jimmy.”
Ollie was silent for a moment. He looked at me, waiting for me to say more. “That’s it?” he asked when I didn’t say anything else.
“Yup.”
“Great…”
“Most of the survivors are middle aged, or old,” I said quietly.
“It doesn’t bode well,” Ollie said. “We’re going to have to have a bunch of kids.”
“We?” I said, arching my eyebrows. He just waved his hand. I shook my head. “This isn’t the time to be thinking or talking about this,” I said, hardly believing we were even having the conversation.
Ollie shrugged.
We reached the fork in the road that lead to Ollie’s parents house. I wasn’t entirely sorry to see the back of him as he walked up the track. I shook my head, wondering how his brain even worked.
“I’m not giving them our food,” Mum muttered as soon as I got home and Charlotte had wandered off to play with the dogs. They were racing around in circles out on the side lawn. Maggie was chasing her tail. We stood side by side, watching them through the glass door.
“Huh?” My mind was on Ollie, not food.
“Remember, Bob and Judy and a few others mentioned collecting all the food together in some sort of communal pot or something like that.”
“It might be a good idea? Make sure everyone’s fed and stuff?”
“I don’t know, Alice.” Mum let out a deep sigh and pushed the hair out of her eyes. “I’ve planned, I’ve stockpiled, I’ve prepared myself, and they want me to just hand it over?”
“Well…” I started.
“It’s not fair,” Mum said, ignoring me. “I did this for us. For me, and you, and Charlotte. I didn’t do it for them.”
“I know, Mum. And I’m grateful. But what are we gonna do? Hoard our food and let them starve?”
Mum sighed again. “I don’t know, Alice… If it’s a choice between them starving and you starving, I pick them.”
“Well,” I said heartily. “We’re not even close to that, so…”
“But we will be one day if we’re not careful.”
“But…”
“I’m serious, Alice. We don’t have the infrastructure that we used to. Sure, we can all - should all - start growing our own food, raising some herds… but, well, we live in Australia.”
“So?” I asked, puzzled.
“It’s not the land of milk and honey. Not always. You remember the drought! That will happen again. It’s just a fact of life. But next time we won’t have the rest of the country, or New Zealand or Chinese imports to bail us out and keep us going. We’re on our own and we need to be responsible.”
“Yeah, I know, Mum.”
“Do you?” She ran her hand through her hair, agitated. “Do you know how many people used to die of starvation before the Industrial Revolution? Hell, even after it! Look what happened to China in the 60’s, in Ethiopia, Sudan… that could happen here very easily if we’re not careful. Even if we are careful! You can’t control mother nature. What happens when the rains don’t come? The herds die? The plants don’t grow? What then?”
“Mum,” I said softly, reaching out to her. “You’re freaking me out.”
&
nbsp; “Good! We need to think about this. We can’t just bury our heads in the sand and hope for the best. We need to prepare.”
“Okay, okay. I get it.”
“Do you? Do you really?”
I nodded helplessly at her. I didn’t know what to say. She was right, of course.
Chapter Eighteen
It was gruesome work. Bec raided the clinic and handed out face masks, gloves an smocks for everyone who was helping, but the masks didn’t do anything to hide the stench. Some of the people had been dead for over three or four weeks. After the first house, Mum went back home and made up a eucalyptus oil concoction for us to dip our masks in. The smell of eucalyptus was almost strong enough to mask the stench of decay. Almost.
About a dozen of us did the hard, horrifying work of going door to door and collecting the bodies. Me and Mum; Jack, Andy, Bec, Melissa, Ben, Neylan, Judy, Mr Kenna, Mary, Vincent, and Dr Wood. A few others tried to help. Jon Wilson couldn’t stop vomiting after seeing the first body. I couldn’t really blame him. Maggots were crawling out of poor Steve Brown’s eye sockets. Steve had been James’ boss at the supermarket. Fiona Hall, the minister’s wife, tried to help, but she couldn’t stop crying. She elected to bury her husband and children in the church grounds. One of the old ladies wondered out loud if that was allowed, but Fiona looked at her and asked who was going to stop her. Crackhead Jimmy tried to help, but after the third house and tenth corpse, he wandered off and didn’t come back. Jack found him later, high as a kite.
Ollie declined to help. He’d already buried his parents on their property and said that was enough.
I don’t know how I didn’t cry. A part of my mind, the part that feels, seemed to detach itself. There was a job to be done, and I had to do it. I could fall to pieces later.
A few of the houses were empty. No corpses, no starving or dead pets, and we hoped that they’d gotten out, gone somewhere else, were safe. Maybe they’d come back one day. Maybe.
A few of the men dug a great pit at the base of the cemetery. Jon had ‘borrowed’ one of the delivery trucks from the supermarket for the grisly task of ferrying the dead to the cemetery.