The Survivors (Book 1): Pandemic

by Burns, Alex

  Of course, no vehicles passed us on the whole ride. I still wasn’t used to the lack of traffic. You’d think after a few months, I’d be used to it. But I wasn’t. It was eery riding into Braxton and not hearing any cars or trucks. We didn’t speak as we peddled along past the houses. I peered at the homes, wondering if anyone was still alive in there. There was a general air of neglect about the town. The once immaculate nature strip with its ancient oak trees was overgrown, and a few branches that must have come down in the last storm still lay where they fell.

  We crossed the railway lines with no sign of any people. Jack slowed down and called out to Tom and Yi-Ling to stop.

  “My house is down that road,” he said with a nod towards O’Malley St. “D’you guys mind if I have a quick look at it? I can meet you at the pharmacy.”

  “You have a house in Braxton? I didn’t know that,” I said, my thighs grateful to have stopped peddling for a moment.

  Jack gave a self-conscious shrug. “I wasn’t really spending much time there before… what with helping Pa and Nan out on the farm and everything.”

  “Right,” I said with a slight frown. He seemed a bit cagey, like there was something he wasn’t telling us. I shook my head. It wasn’t any of our business, whatever it was.

  We stood watching Jack ride off down the street and then looked at each other.

  “Lead the way,” Yi-Ling said, hopping back on her bike. “I don’t know where it is.”

  Tom and I exchanged glances. I nodded for him to take the lead.

  Movement out of the corner of my eye made me pause. I turned and stared at a yellow brick house. Was I imagining it, or was the curtain moving? The back of my neck prickled at the thought of someone watching us. I stared for a moment longer, and then decided I was probably imagining things. I got back on my bike and rode after Tom and Yi-Ling. I threw a glance back over my shoulder at the house. Perhaps there was someone alive there, watching us. Braxton was bigger than Turalla. If the death rate had been similar, then there must be around three hundred survivors or more. Where were they?

  We reached the main street with still no sign, other than the possible flick of a curtain, of any living people. We slowed down. The doors to the supermarket were smashed. I peered in, but couldn’t see very far past the registers due to the darkness. The shelves I could see were empty. A few of the blokes from Turalla had raided this supermarket a few months back, and no doubt the survivors of Braxton had taken anything of use or value in the months since. I shook myself. It wasn’t food we were after anyway.

  We kept riding, past the supermarket, past the butcher and bakery. The bakery’s door was smashed as well, but the butcher’s wasn’t. The gift shop seemed mostly undisturbed, as did the tourist information centre, and the hairdresser’s.

  “This is so weird,” Tom muttered as we slowly rode past the bottle shop, dodging the broken glass on the footpath. There didn’t seem to be a single bottle or can of alcohol left in the place.

  We cruised to a stop outside the first pharmacy. I propped my bike up against the signpost out front. I glanced up and down the street again. There was no one, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that someone was watching us.

  Yi-Ling clutched the back of Tom’s shirt as they stood in the open doorway. I hovered behind them, peering over Tom’s shoulder to see inside. It was pitch black. The front windows were painted over and not much natural light was making it past the door. I fished around in my backpack.

  “Here,” I said, handing Tom a torch. I flicked the other one on and gave my brother a nudge in the back to make him move.

  He swept the torch around the shop. One of the shelves had been tipped over. Bottles of vitamins and boxes of medicine lay scattered on the floor.

  “Can I have one of the flashlights so I can try and find what we need?” Yi-Ling asked, slightly impatiently. With a guilty start, I handed her the torch I was pointing around aimlessly. I didn’t have a clue what I was looking for.

  “I’ll stand guard,” I said. I wasn’t entirely sure what I was guarding against, but I felt uneasy. Perhaps it was just the strangeness of the situation.

  While I’d technically gotten used to the new reality of Turalla, the last time I’d been in Braxton it had been a busy day and I’d bumped into at least five people I knew from high school (some who I pretended not to see), and recognised a lot of other faces. The main street had been full of cars, kids were playing in the playground in the nature strip and the bakery had sold out of pies. Where were they all now?

  I half watched the empty street and half watched the light bouncing around the pharmacy as Tom and Yi-Ling searched through.

  “All the oxycodone and hydrocodone’s gone,” Tom said.

  “I think all the opiates are,” Yi-Ling said, her voice slightly muffled from the back of the shop. “Aha! Found it.”

  Tom hurried over to her. “There’s not much,” he said, disappointed.

  “We can try the other one as well,” I said from my spot by the door. The two of them rummaged around for a few more minutes, shoving boxes of pills and small bottles into Yi-Ling’s backpack.

  There was no sign of Jack, nor anyone else, as we left the pharmacy.

  “What did you get?” I asked, eyeing the backpack.

  “There was some antibiotics,” Yi-Ling said as she swung the backpack over her shoulder and climbed on the bike. “And I got more bandages, antiseptic, anti-inflammatories, a few other drugs that might come in useful and there was a couple of epipens and a few relievers and preventers for the asthma, but I’d like more if we can.”

  The other pharmacy was down the end of the main street, past a few more shops, the motel, another pub, and a few houses. A gaping black ruin stood where the Middle pub used to stand.

  “Wonder how that happened?” Tom said with a sigh and shake of his head.

  I stared at the pub, thoroughly disconcerted. I’d spent more than a few nights there with my friends the summer after we finished Year 12. I was surprised the fire hadn’t spread to the neighbouring buildings.

  We reached the second pharmacy. It wasn’t quite as dark, compared to the other - they hadn’t covered up all their windows, so some of the afternoon light was streaming in through the western window. It was an even bigger mess though. I stood gaping at the piles of hair dye, shampoos and sundry other products scattered across the floor. It looked as if someone had just swept everything off the shelves for the pleasure of it. Why would they do that? It seemed so pointless.

  I followed the other two into the store, gingerly stepping over the mess. They headed straight for the back, where the pharmacist would be if this were a normal day. Yi-Ling and Tom both ducked behind the counter and started rummaging around, opening draws and shining the torch in, muttering to each other. I didn’t understand most of it. Every now and then Yi-Ling would shove something else in her bag.

  “Bingo,” Tom said. He held up a few packages and Yi-Ling grinned.

  “That’s the stuff?” I asked.

  Yi-Ling nodded. “It’s enough to last us awhile too, thank goodness.”

  The hairs on the back of my neck stood up, and the next thing I knew, something grabbed me around the throat and put me in a headlock. Someone. I gasped and my hands automatically went up to the arm around my neck. I should have gone to those jiu jitsu classes with Tristan. He’d been bugging me for years to come along. He’d have been able to get out of this situation in seconds. I tried to pry the arm away from my neck, but that just made them grip tighter and made it harder to breath. I took a ragged breath in through my nose and quickly regretted it. Whoever it was behind me smelt like a garbage truck.

  Yi-Ling and Tom hadn’t noticed anything amiss yet; they were still rummaging through the asthma medication drawer, talking excitedly to each other.

  I tried to say something, but the pressure on my throat was too much and it came out as a low groan.

  Tom looked up and froze. He reached an arm out to Yi-Ling.

 
“Hand it over, or she gets it,” a raspy female voice that did not belong to my captor said. The person holding me was bigger and heavier than I was. I tried to move around to see who was speaking, but the man held me too tightly.

  “What do you want?” Yi-Ling demanded, frowning at the gatecrashers. She crossed her arms and glared at us. My eyes widened. The arm around my neck tightened again, and I scrabbled frantically at it. It was becoming hard to breath. I tried stamping on his toes, but he just yanked me upwards, making it even harder to breath.

  “Let her go!” Tom snapped, stepping forward. Yi-Ling held her arm out, stopping him. What was she playing at? I needed help!

  I stood there limply and decided to stop struggling. Maybe that would make him loosen his grip. Black spots were starting to dance around my vision.

  “Now, now, easy there,” the man holding me said softly. I wasn’t entirely sure if he was talking to me or my brother. “Just do as we say, and she won’t get hurt.”

  “What do you want?” Yi-Ling repeated.

  “What you’ve got,” the raspy voice said. “Sounds like you found some good stuff.”

  “It wouldn’t help you, not unless you’re asthmatic,” Yi-Ling retorted, still glaring at them.

  “I don’t believe you,” raspy voice said.

  “She’s a fuckin’ chink, you can’t believe anything they say,” my charming captor muttered.

  “What did you just say?” my brother demanded.

  “Hand it over,” raspy voice said.

  “No,” Yi-Ling said.

  “We need it,” I managed to whisper. “For my niece. She has asthma.”

  “Enough of the fucking asthma bullshit! I know you’ve got the good stuff!”

  “What good stuff?” Yi-Ling asked. “It looks like you’ve already taken most of the ‘good stuff’.”

  “Let her go,” a dangerous voice growled from behind me. I heard the unmistakable click of a gun.

  The man holding me started to turn around, his grip on my neck tightening. Jack stood in the doorway, his shotgun levelled at a skinny blonde woman who was missing half her teeth. Meth heads, I thought. Fucking druggies. The look on Jack’s face scared even me.

  The woman’s eyes jittered between the gun and the man still holding me.

  “What do I do, Kaz?” he whispered frantically.

  “Let. Her. Go.”

  Jack took a step closer. He squinted at my captor and lowered the gun slightly. “Fucking hell, Dale. What the fuck are you doing, you moron.”

  “Shit. Jack.” The arm loosened around my neck, and I could breath properly again.

  “Get out of here, both of you. Now.”

  Dale, my erstwhile captor, let go of me completely. I stumbled away from him, rubbing my neck.

  The woman, Kaz, gawked between Dale and Jack. “But…”

  “Let’s go,” Dale mumbled, grabbing her by the arm and hauling her out. “Sorry,” he muttered to Jack as he passed.

  Jack shook his head, but let them pass and then followed them out. Tom, Yi-Ling and I stood frozen in the wrecked pharmacy until he came back in.

  “They’re gone,” he said. “Are you okay?” He stepped closer to me and touched my arm.

  I nodded, rubbing my neck. “Not sure how much I longer I would’ve lasted though. The black spots were getting pretty big.”

  Tom and Yi-Ling rushed over and both started checking me over for damage. I pushed them away after a minute.

  “I’m fine,” I muttered. “You knew them?” I looked at Jack, who was frowning at me. He hadn’t put his gun away.

  “Him. Don’t know her.” He paused and scratched his beard. “Dale was my apprentice for a year or so, a few years back. Had to let him go, he wasn’t exactly the reliable type.”

  “No kidding,” I muttered, rubbing my neck again.

  “He was a nice kid, just easily led astray and didn’t exactly mix with the best crowds,” Jack said, still frowning at me. “You sure you’re all right?”

  I nodded. “Yeah, I’ll be fine.” My heart was still beating crazily fast, but I didn’t want to admit that, and I wasn’t entirely sure my legs were completely reliable.

  “Think I need to teach you some self-defence along with the shooting and riding lessons,” Jack said, deadpan.

  “No kidding,” I said with a faint smile.

  “Let’s go,” Yi-Ling said. “We’ve got what we came for.”

  “Did you get enough?”

  “Who knows? We have enough for now…”

  “That’ll have to do.”

  I blinked as my eyes tried to adjust to the bright sunlight outside. All four of us quickly grabbed our bikes and clambered on. I just wanted to get out of there before anything else happened. The others seemed to have the same idea. Without a word, we started peddling, going back the way we came. Tom set a fast pace, but I didn’t complain. Within a few minutes we were on the outskirts of town, and a few more minutes and we were out amongst the paddocks again.

  “Sorry guys, I need to stop,” I wheezed after a couple of kilometres.

  “Are you okay?” Tom slowed and circled back to me, eyeing me with concern.

  I nodded. “Just need a break. My bike riding muscles are non-existent.”

  Yi-Ling jumped off her bike and wheeled it over to the shade of a large gum tree. She pulled a drink bottle out of her backpack and handed it to me. I took it gratefully.

  “How’s your house?” I asked Jack, trying to distract myself. I rubbed my neck. I could still feel the pressure there. I suddenly wanted nothing more than a hot shower.

  “Still there,” Jack said. He leaned against the tree, watching me drink. “Sorry I took so long. One of the neighbours came out to say hi.”

  “Oh! That’s great!”

  Jack made a non-committal noise.

  “What?” I asked. Tom and Yi-Ling both watched Jack expectantly. “Well, let’s just say, I’m glad the farm is closer to Turalla than Braxton.” He picked up a twig from the ground and started breaking it into small pieces, throwing them away from him one at a time.

  “Why?”

  “Old Don said it hasn’t been very pleasant there,” he said after a few moments. “Seems most of the town leaders and stronger personalities died. They haven’t banded together at all like we have in Turalla. Everyone’s just fending for themselves. The bodies are mostly all still in the houses, and he said there are a few gangs going around terrorising the people who are left.”

  “What? That’s nuts,” Tom said. “Why would they do that?”

  Jack shrugged. “Don thought some of them were prisoners.”

  “Prisoners? From what?” Yi-Ling asked.

  “They set up a new prison a couple of years ago a few k’s out of Braxton. The opposite side to Turalla.”

  “I’d forgotten about that,” I muttered. It was a high security prison as well. The inmates wouldn’t have exactly been the nicest people, with high morals. The locals hadn’t been super thrilled at the prospect of a prison being set up in their backyard, but the government had overruled them and it had supported a few more jobs in the district. There had been a few protests when it had first been proposed, but people got used to it once they realised the prisoners were behind lock and key and couldn’t get out.

  Well, not anymore it appeared.

  “Yeah, well, seems like a few of them survived and made it out and now they’ve got free reign to do whatever they want.”

  “But…” I started. I didn’t know what to say. Braxton was a country town. I expected anti-social behaviour in the city, but for some naive reason, I’d assumed country people were, well, different. We were all meant to know our neighbours and help each other in the country… not steal from each other. I supposed if you ended up in a maximum security prison, you probably weren’t all that community minded.

  “Was Dale and that woman…?”

  Jack shook his head. “Doubt it. Male only prison, and Dale was just a small time drug dealer as far as I know
. I saw him at the footy sheds a week or two before the Red Death hit, so pretty sure he wasn’t in prison a week later.”

  “How’d they get out?” Tom wondered out loud. “The prisoners, I mean.”

  “No idea. Someone must have felt sorry for them all locked up.”

  “Why?”

  “Not all of them were cold blooded serial killers,” Jack said with a sigh. “What would you do? Leave them there to starve amongst the dead?”

  I frowned at the dirt. What would I have done? Did it matter what crime they’d committed? Would I have left them there to starve?

  We sat there for a few more minutes while I got my breath back and massaged my sore muscles. My thoughts drifted. How many people had perished in the weeks of the Red Death, who hadn’t died of the Red Death? People in hospitals, nursing homes, prisons… young kids whose parents died and weren’t there to take care of them anymore, people who relied on carers to take care of them… I closed my eyes briefly and then shook my head. I couldn’t think about it. It made me want to scream.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  The two dogs rambled ahead, racing about each other, following scents and generally have a grand old afternoon. I followed behind them, lost in thought and not appreciating the mild spring day in the slightest. I kept replaying what had happened the day before in Braxton in my mind. What would have happened if Jack hadn’t arrived when he had? I rubbed my neck. I’d woken up to it nicely bruised.

  I hadn’t entirely meant to go there, but the dogs went that way and I didn’t try to stop them. I hadn’t seen him for a couple of weeks. He hadn’t been there the last time I’d tried to visit.

  Every time I went to Ollie’s house, he’d added something new. I stood outside the gate, looking up. A camera looked back at me. That was different. I wondered if it was powered or was just for show.

  I tried to push the gate open, like I had every other time I’d visited. It wouldn’t budge.

  I knocked.

  Nothing.

  “Ollie! You there?” I called out, feeling slightly self-conscious.