by K. M. Gibson
She let her head hang. “I want to call my mom.”
Dave looked at her sideways. “Where? Edmonton?”
“Yeah.”
“Fuck…I wonder what shape that city’s in.”
Her hair stood on end. The radio was blaring it at her as the earthquake rumbled beneath her.LARGE SEISMIC ACTIVITY HAS BEEN DETECTED IN…
“Edmonton,” she whispered.
“I think they were hit harder further south,” he mumbled. “We caught the pretty end of it.”
“You don’t know that.”
“No, I don’t. And I hope I’m wrong. But even the men in blue are losin’ their shit. They’re all freaked out by something, and it ain’t the bug that’s got them pissing their pants.”
She glanced at the officers standing by the doors and the stage, hard and grim with their hands linked behind their backs. Their face masks protected them from more than the virus.
Dave shook his head. “Fuck, I need a smoke.” After a brief silence, he shifted on the spot, then ran a hand through his thick, messy hair. He groaned a bit, then ran both hands over his head. He started raking his fingers on his crown, then clamped down.
“What’s wr…” Her mouth slowly fell open.
“This isn’t good,” he groaned, and brought his knees up to his chest, his face twisted in a fierce grimace, his hands clutching his skull like he intended to split it open to stop the pain.
“Dave,” she whispered, then grasped his shoulder. “No no no Dave—”
A sharp ringing in her ears. What had been a dull, unnoticeable ache at the back of her head bloomed, and it continued to grow hotter, wider. Too hot, too wide. It felt like her brain had suddenly inflated and was pushing up against the limits of her skull. Her face pinched and her mouth flew open in a wide yawn of pain; she dug her nails into her scalp, as if that would distract from the pressure and the flare, as if raking the skin off would make it stop. Oh, God, it burned, and she couldn’t get it out, couldn’t get it away—
You’re sick you’re gonna die you’ve got what everyone in Toronto had and you’re gonna die.
Slowly the ringing dimmed and the pain ebbed. She opened her eyes as much as she could and peered around the room. No one seemed to be in pain, no one seemed to even notice her and Dave writhing on the floor. The ringing got quieter and quieter, and then it muted completely.
She let go and looked about as if she would find her headache in the room, waiting to attack her again.
“Hey, you okay?” Dave muttered. He looked like a man who’d worked a full day’s labour. She felt the same way.
“Did your headache stop?” she asked.
“Yeah. Just up and quit. I thought I was gonna have that ’til death do us part or some shit like that.”
Catherine shook her head and puzzled over it.
“Well,” Dave said in such an uncharacteristically soft voice that Catherine felt dregs of fear slide down her spine, “we’re still probably royally fucked.”
Hours passed and things in the gym got worse. People began to slink against the walls, clutching their heads and moaning in low, terrifying gasps. Catherine waited for the headache to hit her again (It’ll come back any moment and destroy me) and it made time tick ever so slowly. It made her perspire, made her heart beat quickly. She was dying and she couldn’t even feel it.
One of the officers at the door turned to leave, and one man raised his hand and shouted in a wild, animal like howl. “Come back here, you don’t – don’t—” His voice was lost in a growl of pain.
“Where’s he going?” she wondered aloud.
“Maybe he’s going to go find someone who knows what the fuck he’s doing,” Dave muttered. “They haven’t offered us any sort of information outside of ‘We have dicks for heads.’ Plus, they haven’t given us any coffee or food yet.”
It then occurred to her that she hadn’t had anything since breakfast the day prior. It also occurred to her that the officers hadn’t taken proper care of them because they couldn’t. The earthquake didn’t just happen to the people crammed in the gym.
“What’s going to happen, then?”
Dave gave a dry laugh. “I dunno either.”
In twenty minutes, an officer with a cart of food came back (“Speak of the Devil,” Dave had said), and an old, thick, greying man in a dark blue suit with flair covering his breast walked in behind him. He was carrying his hat under his arm and wore a face mask. He whispered a few things to the officer by the door, or so Catherine assumed, for he leaned over and eyed the man wearily. He then straightened and said to the room, “Good afternoon. I am Superintendent James Long.”
Catherine shifted upward and Dave leaned against his knees, both of them alert and eager to listen. Only a few others showed piqued interest or any sign of hearing James. The woman from the highway was now leaning against the wall with her mouth hanging open while her children were curled tight against her.
“We have some refreshments for you, as well as some food. We thank you all for your cooperation, and we promise that soon an area will be arranged for you to spend the night in the Wood Buffalo municipal region. We are doing everything we can to keep you informed and taken care of in the meantime.”
She saw Dave’s hands clench into fists.
“Why are we cooped up in this tiny shit hole?” a man shouted from across the room. He wasn’t sick, as far as she could tell. “You’ve made us sick by putting us in here. What’s happening with our vehicles? What’s the news with the earthquake? What the fuck is going on? Why haven’t you done dick all for us?” His voice echoed harshly.
“Fuckin’-A,” Dave growled.
James hesitated, licked his lips, and swallowed his apparent anger, then said, “We’re doing all we can for you right now. Please recognize this as a national emergency. This entire city is under distress, and we only have so many officers and resources to handle this situation. Thank you for your patience.”
With that, James left the room with a brisk pace. The officer who brought in the cart began to pick off some meals, and turned to the closest person on the floor. The woman swiped the Styrofoam dish from his hand, sending sticky stew flying. “I want a fucking phone call.”
Prison, thought Catherine.
“Ma’am—”
“I want to know if my family is safe!” she shrieked. “There was a fucking earthquake and we’re all stranded, or didn’t you notice?”
The officer looked accosted. He looked to his colleagues by the door, and one of them stepped forward to touch the woman’s shoulder gently, to which she shrugged off angrily. “That’s enough, ma’am.”
“It is not enough,” she hissed bitterly.
“We can’t offer you a call because there are no outgoing calls possible.” He had tried to say it quietly, but the entire gym had fallen silent to listen. The words hung in the air. Even though Catherine was at least thirty feet away, she could still see the slow way the woman’s face twisted around on itself just before she wept.
“Oh, God,” a man muttered from across the room, and made the sign of the cross.
“I guess I’m not getting back for work Monday morning,” Dave joked humorlessly.
All she kept thinking about was what had happened to her friends, her mother. The man. No phone. That ever-prevalent thought circled through her mind and she could not stifle it: This doesn’t happen here. This can’t happen here.
“This is fucked, Catherine. We’re all fucked.”
By the evening they were transported to a community hall, staffed with cots, blankets and more officers. Most of the people who had fallen prey to their crippling headaches were in functioning condition, but their pain was still visible in their faces, even after they received a booster shot – which, Dave swore up and down, was more likely to turn him into Spider-Man than help him fight the “fuckin’ virus.” Superintendent Long was at the hall as well, but he did not make any speeches. He knew no one cared to hear him speak any longer, for he, along w
ith everyone else, only cared to know what exactly happened to everyone everywhere else.
“Hey, Catherine,” Dave said, glancing at her sideways. “You got any headaches yet?”
She looked up from her plate of pork and beans. “No.”
“Me either.”
“Do you think—”
“Some of the other people seem fine too. I dunno, now that we’ve got that shot in us…”
They were quiet. Catherine slowly turned her fork over in the pile of food on her plate. The beans slid over the pork. She hadn’t eaten anything in a day, but after a bite of her food, she’d lost her appetite. She clutched the water bottle and took a long sip. She wondered.
“Dave…do you have family there? In Edmonton?”
“Huh? Well, kind of. Yeah. I’ve got an ex-wife and kid back home somewhere. I…actually didn’t think about them ’til now.”
She retreated into herself. She thought about her mother, wondering where she was, if she was all right. Then she thought about the man, and everything that had and had not happened in the last four years.
“You?” Dave asked as gently as he could.
She shook her head. “I mean – yes. My mother.”
“That’s right. And Dad?”
“No,” she muttered. After a long pause she added, “I never met him.”
“Oh.” His response was quick yet full, and she could tell he wanted more out of the story. Part of her wanted to keep it to herself but another part of her felt inclined to talk. Maybe it was the fact that Dave was the closest thing she had to a friend in this unimaginable horror that made her attach to him so readily. She briefly imagined being separated from him and found herself distressed.
“My mom never really told me…she didn’t…I don’t know what happened between them. I brought it up once out of curiosity, and…”
“Sometimes I wish I didn’t know my old man. Sack ’a shit, he was. Not to say that your father woulda been a dick, but…fuck, I should just stick to sorry.”
Catherine smiled briefly – it felt so stiff, it almost hurt. “Thanks for trying.”
“Yeah.”
“I can’t eat this.”
“Me neither. Tastes like glue and cement.”
“I think I’m going to go find a cot.”
“Okay, sleep tight, kid.”
“Thank you.”
“Mm.”
“Thank you for everything. Very much.”
He looked at her wearily. “Yeah, okay…no problem.”
“I’ll see you tomorrow.”
The next two days were quiet. Catherine woke up, ate a bite of each meal, spoke with Dave, went to sleep. All of them waited nervously on any news, some word on what exactly was happening. Those who felt well enough to do so protested. There were no blows, just angry, terrified voices trying to claw their way out. The rest remained sedentary, not getting worse, not getting better. The thought of the virus floated away without much thought for Catherine. Perhaps what she felt wasn’t part of the pandemic at all, but a simple headache.
On the third day, Catherine awoke to see a group of people huddled around a cot a few rows up from her. She craned her head. She couldn’t see what they were looking at. They were all murmuring.
She got up, keeping her eyes glued on the group, then made her way over to them. As she drew nearer, she spotted Dave. He turned to look at her. His expression gave her pause. She approached hesitantly.
The community hall was lined with storm windows, high up along the ceiling. It was early morning, and golden light poured in. It made the dead, swelled, puffed skin on their faces and necks look translucent; she could see the broken blood vessels just under the surface, like they had melted. The mother and her children died with their arms wrapped around each other.
Her insides pulled up tight into her chest, and she turned away from the scene, trying not to throw up.
The same day, they learned that a plane had flown south. The farther south the scout team went, the bigger the craters and crevasses were. By the time they got to where Athabasca had once been, they had to turn back.
It was Christmas Day.
A week after New Years, Dave nor Catherine had felt any more symptoms of the virus. Thirteen people had died and had been taken off by the RCMP somewhere outside of the community hall. Everyone else was kept indoors; no one was allowed outside. One day no food came. They hounded the officers for questions, but none offered any answers. Every eight hours they rotated, and someone new from the outside would come into the hall, only to be goaded for answers once more. But there were none, other than: no news, no phone calls, no reports, no ideas.
By the next day the community hall had figured out that food was actually on high shortage. There were no trucks coming in, and no trucks could go out. A local distributor had spread word that a search party had gone north to find extra supplies, but considering Fort McMurray was the largest collection of people in Alberta this far north, it wasn’t likely they would find enough to feed twelve people.
She was sitting on a bench in a hall near the front of the building. The hall served as a daycare or a preschool. Colourful coat hooks lined the walls with animal-themed name tags above them. Names of children that no longer existed. Over three quarters of the people in the community hall had succumbed; she could only assume that three quarters of the outside world had died as well. She was hungry, cold, and she was certain she had caught some sort of infection. The facility had run out of hand soap and sanitizer days ago.
How long it would last? Them being caged in a hall? She was certain this was illegal, and almost positive that this operation was no longer headed by any federal body. The officers didn’t anymore know how to keep them safe than the people did themselves.
“You look at me when I’m fucking talking to you!” a man shouted from down the hall. A few more words were muttered, and the man shouted again. “Yes, there is a pretty big god-damned problem here!”
She slowly stood and made her way towards the double doors from where the argument drifted. The doors were wedged open. She pressed herself up against one door and slid to the edge to peer around the corner. A man and a woman stood facing two officers, and the man looked furious. They were standing by the main doors, the officers blocking the couple’s path.
“For the final time, you are not permitted outside. Please step back, sir.”
He let out a humourless laugh. “‘Step back’! Hah, you hear that, honey? He’s asking me to ‘step back’ again. My God, if I’m not fucking tired of being told to step down from my own free will. Stay cooped up inside with the fatally ill, starve, be miserable. ‘Step back’!”
“Sir, calm down—”
“You’ve overstepped your boundaries by a long shot, you asshole,” the man snarled. “I will not calm down. My wife is sick with a cold. We all need food, goddammit! My life is in jeopardy in this miserable shit hole, and your men have done nothing for us. You’re screwing us over.” He turned from the officer, leaned against the wall and stuck out his rear. “This is how you have us.”
The one who had been nose to nose with the angry man looked to his partner and gave him a tired, critical look. Even though they still wore their masks, Catherine could see the wear in their expressions. They looked just as tired about the entire situation as the angry man was. The second officer stepped forward. “Come on, let’s get you—”
“Don’t touch me!” the man howled savagely, then turned on his heel to swat away the officer’s hand. The officer changed stance while the other fell back. The man lunged forward, hands in the shape of claws, swatting at the officer’s mask. It was knocked from his face and torn through the middle amidst the struggle.
“Sir!”
“What the fuck—”
The man was pushed back. The officer fired once.
The gunshot was deafening; it whipped off the walls with a tremendous clap.
The woman fell to her knees, her cry muffled in Catherine’s ears. The body
slumped on the ground like it had no bones. A chunk of his forehead had been blown straight off, and it left an unbelievable amount of blood in its wake.
“BILL!” the woman screamed over and over. Catherine spun away, her hand clamped firmly over her mouth. All she could hear was the gunshot and Bill’s name echoing over and over and over. All she could see was red. She ran to the washroom without even realizing her legs had carried her there and she dived into a stall to puke.
Scattered footsteps ran by the door. More and more people piled up towards the doors, crowding to see what they already knew had gone wrong. Catherine stared into the toilet bowl, watching her vomit float around, trying to get the grotesque image out of her head, trying to forget what she had seen.
But it can’t be unseen oh God the howls they’ll never be forgotten—
It flew up her oesophagus without warning and she choked for a moment. She hacked and coughed for a while before her breathing returned to normal. When she flushed the toilet, water did not refill the bowl.
The hall was crowded, but even so she found Dave’s eyes almost instantly. They were like live wires, bright and full of intensity.
They were all barred in the kitchen while the officers cleaned up the mess.
“I’m scared, Dave,” Catherine muttered tearfully. It was late at night, they had missed their sixth meal in a row, and she was certain yet another person had passed away not ten feet away from where they sat.
“Hey,” Dave said, much the same way he had said it the first time she started to cry in front of him.
“I don’t want to be here,” Catherine tried to say, but it came out garbled in a whine. “I want to go home. I want to see my mom. I want to know she’s okay and I want this to be over…”
Dave moved to her cot and placed an arm over her shoulders. It was easy to crumble under him, to lean against his shoulder like she had done it so many times before. She cried freely and she clutched his jacket, afraid he’d disappear if she let go.