The Provider

by John Hunt

  “While you’re gone,” said Mom, “we’ll make tomorrow a cleaning and wash day. There’s a lot of bedding to sort out.” She looked through the window at the sky. “Though it’s not looking promising for drying. Still…the beds need changing, the stove clearing out, floors sweeping, the kitchen area cleaning, a huge pile of washing to do, the stores need sorting. Matthew, Jessie, Bess, Sue, Louise, I’ll need all your help, thanks. Let’s get this place spick and span for when they come back.”

  TWENTY-FOUR

  We set off the next morning, a grey day, with dark clouds scurrying across the sky, a hint of rain in the air. It was two months to the day after the Event. Dad was driving, to get some familiarity with the vehicle. After a few miles, as we trundled slowly along the dirt track, throwing up clouds of dust, he stopped.

  “OK, Jim, I think you should have a go. You might as well know how to drive this, we’re not going to use up petrol just teaching you, so here’s where the learning starts. We don’t need to worry about three point turns, or the Highway Handbook, but you need to be able to get this truck from A to B.”

  We swapped places and he showed me how to engage the gears, set off, change gear, steer and brake. I struggled to get the hang of it, lurching along, and when I pressed the accelerator instead of the brake and ran off the road Bob interrupted.

  “Donald, if you could take over again, we should get a move on. Jim can practice when there’s more space, before he trashes the truck. We could find an empty car park in Anchorage. And we need to be readier with guns than we were last time.”

  As it turned out, that was the only time I was behind a wheel. Within a few years landslides, fallen trees, frost heaves, vegetation, had all made the roads impassable. Walking pace was the best we generally achieved.

  It was late morning before we reached the mess that was Seward Highway. Abandoned old cars and trucks that had been heading out of Anchorage were all over the place, but with no one in sight. To our left, it looked as if the road was blocked, with several cars piled up.

  “Where’ve all the people gone?” I asked.

  “Well,” Dad replied, “when they got stuck, I guess they would’ve started walking along the road. That’s what I’d have done, or walked back to Anchorage. I doubt many would’ve struck off into the hills.”

  We could just get through, pushing the occasional vehicle aside with the truck bumpers. After another few miles, we came to the Alyeska turning. The caterpillar tractor was still there, but now part of a larger barrier. There was no guard, but a car had crashed into the barricade. As we approached some ravens flapped away. Dad went over to take a look.

  “You don’t want to see this,” he said as he walked back. “There’s a couple of dead people, been there a while.”

  “Shall we get through and see what’s happened?”

  “I don’t think so, Bob. I don’t like the look of this. Someone should’ve buried those bodies. It suggests there’s no one around. I think we should move on. Let’s see if we can find anyone to talk to in Anchorage, find what we need and get back.”

  We drove on, more nervously now. We saw a couple of humpbacks in the distance, in Turnagain Arm, leisurely ploughing the waves. About half way to Anchorage we came to the small settlement of Indian Valley. We crawled along, windows open, looking for signs of life. Occasionally we passed an abandoned car, but there seemed to be no one around.

  “There’s something moving in there,” I pointed to the Brown Bear Saloon. We stopped. Dad started to get out of the cab when a dog came running out, fast. Behind it another, and another.

  “Get that window up!” yelled Dad, scrambling back into the cab. Bob had it half way up as the first dog, a big mastiff, hurled itself against it, snarling, leaving saliva and blood smeared on the outside, some spittle splattering over Bob. I was frozen, just glad it was Bob on that side of the cab – I wasn’t sure that I would have got the window up in time. Dad revved the engine and we sped off, with the pack in pursuit. A couple of dozen of them, all shapes and sizes.

  “JC!” said Bob. “They’ve gone savage.”

  “I’m worried about the others now,” said Dad anxiously, looking at us both. “I’m not sure what to do. Matthew isn’t going to be able to fight off a pack like that. The lodge has no defenses. We’ll need to get back as quick as we can.”

  “Should we go back now?” I asked.

  Bob hesitated. “Dogs don’t range widely by nature. We can do what we want to do in Anchorage. We just won’t hang around.”

  We increased speed and after a few minutes saw the Anchorage skyscrapers, set against the stunning white-topped mountain background. It was clear sky ahead of us, but at our back black clouds were building up, coming in off the sea.

  “I’ve got a rough route worked out,” said Dad, looking at the Anchorage map. “We pass a gun store first on 104th Avenue, there’s a pharmacy a little further along, and if that hasn’t got what we need we’ll go to the hospital. Then we want an electrical store, ironmongers, agricultural supplies, food warehouse.”

  “Hang on.” Bob was looking up at the sky. “What’s that weird cloud?” We stopped and he got down from the truck and took a look through his scope. His face paled. “Holy Mary Mother of God! Have a look, Donald. I’ve never seen anything like that before. They’re turkey vultures, bald eagles, ravens, must be thousands of ’em. They must’ve come from all over. That’s where the birds’ve gone.”

  “I’ll drive,” said Dad. “You guys have your rifles ready.”

  We drove on carefully. The hair on my arms stood up when we came across the first dead bodies, but they were everywhere. Some of them had been shot, blood staining the sidewalks and road. I don’t mind admitting, I was scared. Dad looked about the same, and Bob had a wild look in his eyes, I wasn’t sure if he was ready to run or if it was bringing back memories. The dead were being picked at by ravens and magpies, it was like a scene from a horror movie. The bodies were swollen, some the size of cows, leaking fluids. Birds were everywhere, thousands of gulls and other seabirds.

  Dad steered around a corpse and some gulls flew off it, squawking in protest. “God, it’s like that Hitchcock film, Birds. They’ve taken over.”

  The place was overrun with rats, gnawing on the bodies. I saw a few that were huge, more like cats. A blur of color ran out of a building and I saw a fox, a limb in its mouth. It was quickly followed by another. By the time we reached the gun store, I felt as if I was coming down with a fever…hot and cold at the same time. Sweat covering the small of my back and itching in my hairline.

  Things didn’t look promising at the gun store. The metal grille at the front had been forced open, the windows smashed, glass spilled across the sidewalk.

  “Jesus, I was worried about this,” said Bob. “Looks like we’re too late.”

  “What’s that smell?” I asked. “Like rotten eggs?”

  “It’s death, son,” Dad said, tight lipped. “Decomposition. Sewage.” He nodded towards the store. “I’ll keep the engine running. You two go and see if there’s anything left. This might be a plague. So don’t touch anything without your gloves on. Don’t go near any bodies.”

  Bob grunted. “Gotcha.”

  We jumped down, cocked our rifles and crunched across the glass. Inside the debris strewn store the shelves were stripped bare. A quick survey of the back rooms came up empty.

  The pharmacy, our next stop, looked as if it had been gutted, and we drove on to the hospital. There had been fires in this part of town. Whole blocks had been burned down. Some buildings were still smoldering. Apart from the birds, and the occasional dog, rats were the only things moving, and some cats.

  We were a few blocks away from our own home. “Better go and have a look,” said Dad, breaking the silence. “I feel bad about having left Jerry and Marcia there.”

  The street was a mess. Some houses had burnt down, all those standing had been looted. There was no one around. Our house, and Jerry’s next door, were standing, b
ut with no sign of life. The front doors were off the hinges, the insides had been trashed. Dad went in, he was back out again a few moments later.

  “You don’t want to go in there,” he said, looking ashen-grey, wiping vomit from his mouth. “Jerry’s dead, shot. I didn’t see Marcia. Pass me that water, Jim.”

  Dad drove around a body lying in the street. Two dogs were worrying at it. I looked back. The head had no face. My gut roiled and I had to work hard to keep myself from spewing.

  The smell at the hospital was the worst. Dad got some cloths, we dipped them in water and wrapped them around our faces. Mom had given him directions to the medical supplies room. We moved as quickly as we could through corridors slippery with filthy water, vomit, feces, God knows what kind of muck. Doors opened onto wards where we could sometimes see bodies still in bed, faces decomposing, tongues hanging out, where they hadn’t already been eaten, body fluids dripping down to the floor. Rats were everywhere, and columns of ants along the floors, walls, up on the ceilings. I felt cold inside and I couldn’t help it, I puked into a corner, the vomit splashing over my feet. The door to the supply room was open, the shelves had been raided, but there were still plenty of cartons unopened. I guess people didn’t know about medicine the way they knew about guns. Dad started going through them. There was a huge crashing noise in the corridor outside. We froze. If I hadn’t been rigid with fright, I think I would have run for the window. Bob raised his gun and stepped out. He laughed nervously. “It’s just a porcupine. Daft animal’s got its head stuck through a hospital trolley.” It banged along the corridor, tail thrashing as it tried to escape.

  “I’ve never been so close to peeing my pants,” said Dad, his voice shaking. “OK, I’ve got the rucksacks full, let’s get out of here.” We picked our way back through the hospital maze. At the entrance, Bob pointed to another wall, which we hadn’t noticed on the way in. “Look at that.” The word was in rough, six-foot high, white letters, the paint dripping at the bottom:

  CHOLERA

  TWENTY-FIVE

  Bob shuddered. “Jesus. This is a bust. Whoever painted that, I wonder where they are now.”

  We headed back to the truck, shaken. “All those people who were here a few months ago,” I said, my voice coming out as a thin croak. “They can’t all have died.”

  “They haven’t,” replied Dad, “or we’d have seen a lot more bodies. They’ve left. Those who’ve survived must be settled down somewhere, out in the suburbs, cutting themselves off. The townships up Knik Arm – most would’ve gone north. Maybe there are still people downtown, but I doubt it – it’s a cesspit.”

  Bob pointed up to the right. A few hundred yards away there was a six-story block of apartments. Behind a parapet, at the top, a man was standing with a rifle, not aimed at us, just standing there, watching, lowering binoculars. We waved. He put up his middle finger in reply.

  “Let’s blow now,” said Bob. “This place scares the bejesus out of me. Worse than anything in ‘Nam.”

  “It doesn’t look like the locals are keen to talk,” Dad replied. “There’s nothing we can do to help here. It’s so much worse than I thought possible. And we’ve got those dogs to worry about. This scares me, too, Bob, but there are some things we still need to get.”

  We picked up our pace, anxious to get out of there. The wind was whipping up, hurling rubbish along the street. We were just opening the cab door when we heard three shots, in quick succession, and ducked behind it. “Pistols,” said Bob, listening hard. “Sounds like Berettas, army issue. Some distance away, over towards the prison. Not aimed at us, but let’s go.”

  “Wait a minute, Bob. That builder’s depot on the corner, let’s assume now we’re going to be at the lodge for some time. We need to be able to make things, repair things.”

  We drove over fast and set to loading sacks of cement, window frames, panes of glass, tarpaulins, ropes, throwing them into the truck. “Burlap sacks, batteries, mattocks, rope, tools, more nails…we’ll need all those,” Dad was saying. “Bob, cover us.”

  We found another gun store which had been broken into, but not emptied, and took several rifles and boxes and boxes of ammo. The Alaskan Flour Company had been destroyed, it was a mess, rats everywhere.

  “Forget this,” Dad pulled us back to the truck as we tried to scrape some up, “it’s too full of rat droppings. They’ve been all over it.”

  Bramble Electrical Stores had been gutted by fire. The ironmongers had been broken into, but we picked up loads of duct tape, dozens of pairs of gloves, leather oil, cord, everything down to safety pins. “Annie’s Stores, let’s try that,” Dad shouted above the squawk of the birds, “we need thread, needles, canvas…”

  “Jesus, Donald, we could get caught here. But OK, while we’re at it, snowshoes and trot lines,” Bob added.

  Anchorage Sports had been trashed, but there were some snowshoes left. Just then we heard some more shots in the distance. We were desperate to leave by now, and Dad took a couple of corners fast.

  There was something about the speed we were moving which bought things together in my head – the dogs, the gunshots, hostiles, wild animals – we were never going to be able to shoot dogs fast enough if they were coming straight at us. We needed defenses. I remembered the pictures of Russian forts I’d seen in history books. The Kenai Peninsula alone used to have half a dozen of them. But they had stockades, rows of trimmed trees sharpened at the top. We didn’t have the manpower to build those. What could we use?

  “Stop!” I yelled suddenly. “Joe’s Agricultural Supplies, over there.”

  “What the hell?” Bob asked.

  “Do it now,” I shouted.

  I jumped out and ran over as the truck slowed down. Yes, they had them! Large drums of high grade wire, the kind the farmers used to protect their crops. I started manhandling one towards the truck, but it was a struggle.

  Dad and Bob joined me.

  “Jim, what the fuck’s got into you?” Dad almost screamed. “We have to get out of here.”

  “Help me here, Dad, we need fencing. Keep those dogs off. We’ll turn the lodge into a fort.”

  “Not a bad idea, Jim.” Bob scratched his head. “Come along then.”

  While we were at it we took packs of polytunnels and packets of rat poison. The animal feed, grain and oatmeal had all gone. But we found boxes of seeds; we grabbed as many as we could carry.

  By the time we’d finished, the truck was as loaded as it had been on the journey out.

  “Actually, I’m surprised there was so much left,” muttered Dad, at the wheel as we drove down the Parkway.

  “It must have all happened real quick,” Bob replied. “OK, guys, let’s get back fast, while we can still see.”

  Then the sky went dark, as if a curtain had been pulled across. Thunder crashed around the mountains.

  “What about our clothes?” I shouted over the noise. “We’ve been wading through muck, shouldn’t we clean off?”

  “Damn. You’re dead right, thank you, Jim. Last thing we want to do is carry infection back. 5th Mall is on our route. Let’s go get new clothes, if there are any. It’s out of the way, could be safer there.”

  “It’ll be all over the cab as well,” Bob said. “We’ll have to bleach it all down.”

  “And, um, my problem?” I asked.

  “Hell, I forgot that, too. OK, we’re passing a couple more pharmacies on the way out, let’s see what they’ve got.”

  We did some “shopping” in the Mall, especially for boots for everyone, socks, mittens and hats and waterproof wear. In every shop the doors and windows had been smashed, but there were still clothes around – I guess looters hadn’t all been thinking forward to winter. We raced around, grabbing what we could, not bothering to check sizes, guns at the ready. Then we moved on to the pharmacies. The first was a gutted shell, the second had been stripped bare. In the third the door had been broken down and there was a jumble of shelf goods on the floor. There were plenty of condo
ms, boxes of them in the room at the back. “How many should I bring?” I asked.

  “Hell, I don’t know, son. How much sex are you planning on having in your life?” Dad replied. “After today, I’m not sure of anything. Bring them all. Let’s take contraceptive pills as well while we’re here. And these boxes. Bound to be of use. But let’s go. Go…go…”

  It was midnight when we left Anchorage. The headlights weren’t working, and we crept along with the help of a torch.

  “See anyone following us?” Dad asked.

  “All clear,” I replied, looking back.

  We could see the rain coming towards us like a wall across Turnagain Arm. It was lashing the white-capped waters. When it hit us, it was like standing under a waterfall. Visibility dropped to zero.

  “Bob,” Dad shouted over the hammering of the drops. “We’re not going to make it back in this. Can’t see enough. We’ll stop at Bird Point.”

  A mile or two on and we pulled off into a car park overlooking the waters, secluded from the main road. It wasn’t raining so hard any longer, but it was still hard to see without lights.

  Dad sighed with relief. “Jesus. Well, can’t say I’m sorry to leave that place. Hope never to see anything like that again. I don’t think we’ll be going back there any time soon.”

  “Never liked it anyway,” Bob replied.

  “How did you come to live there, Bob?” I asked curiously.

  Bob hesitated. “I was in the slammer there, Jim. Had a bad time when I came out of the army. Got into trouble, wrong crowd, caught a nickle, for robbery.”

  “What’s a nickle?”

  “Five years. Had no money when I came out to go anywhere, just drank. After that minister got me sober, I started work, repairing stuff. Never had a good enough reason to move out. Still want me around?” He looked at Dad.

  Dad looked him straight in the face. “That’s the past, Bob, it doesn’t matter. You saved us, you know that? I’m eternally obliged to you.” He peered into the night. “It’s too dark to go straight back, that torch isn’t bright enough. So let’s strip off, wash in the sea, dump what we’ve been wearing, clean everything up, dry off back in the cab, get into clean clothes, and then we’ll hit the sack under the truck. Not much headroom, won’t be the most comfortable night’s sleep ever, but it’ll have to do. We can at least put a tarpaulin down, some canvas, clothes, keep dry. I think we’re safe here, but let’s keep the rifles handy. Then we’ll get back early tomorrow.”