Aftermath (Invasion of the Dead) - Part I (2 page)

“Fuck
you.”  Greg opened the top and swallowed a mouthful.  “Ahhh.”  He burped.  “Warm as piss.”

“Y
ou’d drink that too if it had alcohol in it.”

“Fuck yeah.”
 

“You’ve tasted piss?”  Dylan said,
picking up the stack of mail.  Greg spat a stream at Dylan’s feet and they both chuckled.    

“
Postmarked two weeks ago,” Dylan said.

Kristy appeared in the doorway
holding a newspaper.  She was about five and half feet tall, and although the activity and rations had dropped a few pounds, she still complained about her weight.  Callan figured dissatisfaction with their weight was part of a female’s DNA.  He didn’t think it was a problem, and neither did Greg or Dylan.  She wore a yellow singlet that contrasted her blonde hair, golden tan, and sparkling blue eyes.   

“
The place is dead.  I found this newspaper.  Look at the headlines.”

VIRUS REIGNS OUT OF CONTROL
.  MILLIONS DEAD ALONG THE EAST COAST OF AUSTRALIA.

“What the fuck?”
  Callan said, jamming the gas trigger into the bowser with a rattle and clunk.  A cold shiver touched his skin.  He recalled hearing about a virus on the news before their trip, an influenza pandemic in Hong Kong.  There had been a few cases in Sydney, one in Melbourne, but it was minor news.  He walked towards Kristy as Sherry came out holding two bottles of Pepsi.

Dylan took the paper from
her and read silently, his face twisted with disbelief.  Overhead, a flock of cockatoos squawked loudly.

“What does
it say?”  Callan said.  “Read it aloud, man.”   

“
It’s that virus.  It’s killing people everywhere.  They’ve shut the doors at the Royal Melbourne and Monash hospitals.”  He read further along.  “The Army’s been called in.  They’re telling everyone to stay inside and limit contact.”

“What
’s the date on the newspaper?”  Sherry said.

Dylan turned
it over.  “The fourteenth.”

“Twelve days ago?”
  Kristy said.  “If the Monash is over capacity there must be a
lot
of sick people.” 

“It’s reached
Adelaide.  They’re saying,” he scanned the text, “that flu shots and antibiotics are not effective.  It’s… viral.  They don’t know what’s causing it, where it’s come from, or how to stop it.”

Greg said, “Maybe they’ve got it
under control by now.  I read that after the bird flu, the government put in all sorts of measures to cope with this sort of thing.” 

“What’s the government saying?”  Kristy said.

Dylan skimmed the pages.  “Not fucking much. 

Callan
said, “Sounds bad though.  The paper was three weeks ago?” 

Dylan said,
“Yeah.  Let’s check out phones.  Anyone got reception?”

Callan retrieved a slim device from his hip pocket.  “
Fucking phone networks.  We’re still too far out.”

“
No internet or e-mail either,” Greg said.

Kristy said, “There might be a landline.”

“Good thinking, Doc,” Callan said.

They followed her in
side and the smell hit Callan immediately, screwing up his nose.  Greg separated another can from the pack and popped the seal. 

It was a typical country gas station store
; dark and dingy, a fifty-foot square room with a dirty window out to the pumps that probably hadn’t been opened in twenty years.  The counter consumed too much space and any more than four customers meant queuing out the door.  Perforated hardboard lined the walls so the proprietors could hang every product a person might need for a camping expedition.  Convenient food items like potato chips, lollies, chocolates, even a couple of bread loaves filled the remaining shelves.  This was the last place to stop before the hour-long drive up the windy dirt road to the upper reaches of the lake. 

Callan stood in the centre of the room as the others poked about.
  He didn’t like the look of the place or the intuitive feeling of concern in his gut.  It might have been the newspaper article.  The fridge was dark, and the light switch didn’t work, but the front door hadn’t been locked and the gas pumps still worked.  Why would someone do that and then disappear?  Mingled with a musty smell was the aged scent of rot.

“Shit, no power means
we can’t buy ice,” he said.  “The cubes I made in the car freezer might not last the rest of the trip.  I don’t want that meat stinking up my boat.”  They had shot a dozen rabbits the previous night and stored the meat in the big boat fridge with a little ice to last the trip home.  In the heat though, it had probably melted, and would smell by the end of the day.  

Dylan disappeared into the back room.

“This bread is mouldy,” Sherry said.   

Kristy said
, “There’s no cash in the register.”  She reached the landline and lifted the phone to her ear, pressed the reset button a few times, then placed it back on the holder.

“
Guys!  Get in here,” Dylan yelled.

Callan felt his nerves jingle.  He pushed past Greg and Sherry and stepped through a small doorway into a storeroom where
inventory stood in leaning columns.  Empty boxes lay strewn about, canisters of salt, pepper, tomato ketchup, cans of baked beans and sachets of powdered mashed potatoes.  Another door along the back wall led to a second room.  Callan strode over the supplies and went through.

The room was neat, orderly.  Books
filled long shelves, blankets sat piled on a chair.  The place had that familiar old smell of his grandma’s house, when she had been alive.  A pink and green floral rug covered floorboards, on which a sofa couch had been folded out into a bed.  An elderly couple lay with their arms curled around each other, their eyes closed.  Their pale skin had dried like parchment, and flies buzzed around the room.  The smell was horrendous, biting into his nostrils with putrid teeth.  On a wooden bedside table sat a bottle of medication. 

Pills
, Callan thought, ramming the crook of his elbow over his mouth. 
They committed suicide.
  He wondered what might drive them to do that. 

“Shit,” Dylan said
.  He took a deep breath with his nose pinched shut.  “I don’t think we need a doctor to call it.” 

Sherry
pressed her lips in a thin line, which meant severe concern for her.

Kristy
stood at the bed, peering at the bodies.  “Why?”

In a low voice, Dylan said,
“Let’s see if we can find any more newspapers.”  He walked out, followed by Greg and Kristy. 

Sherry
stepped to Callan’s side.  “I don’t like it,” he said.  What if the old couple had committed suicide because of the virus that had swept through Sydney and Melbourne?  If it was bad enough to make killing yourself a better option, they were in big trouble.

He
signalled Sherry to leave and followed her, closing the flimsy wooden door after them.  He pulled her to him, and at first, she resisted, but he squeezed her hand and she let him put his arms around her.  It was their first hug in a week.  He had engaged her every night as they had crawled into their sleeping bags, but found only excuses.  They hadn’t had sex on the trip and that alone was messing with his head.  All she had to do was touch him, but he hadn’t been able to arouse her interest through any physical or emotional switches.  

“I’ve got a bad feeling
,” he said.  “Taking pills to die isn’t the way I imagine myself going out.”

“You think they killed themselves because of the virus?”

“Maybe.  The only other thing I can think of is that one of them had a terminal illness and the healthy one didn’t want to go on alone.”

“
That’s stupid.”

He wouldn’t call it stupid. 
The thought of living without Sherry tightened a knot around his gut.  He could understand why a person might do that.

Callan
led her towards the exit, feeling the softness of her fingers.  He missed the contact.  “Let’s just get home and see what we can find out, okay?”  He took her face in his hands and pulled her too him.

She turned away.  “Not know, Cal.  I feel strange.”

“Sure, I understand.  There are two dead people in the other room.”  He watched her walk through the doorway, feeling a familiar defeat.  Originally, he had courted her for six months, enduring several knockbacks.  Sherry originated from a wealthy family in Albury and that had made his task challenging. 

“Do you know how fucking hard it is to be the daughter of my parents?”  She had said to him one day.  “
Nothing
is good enough.  They try and tell me who I can see, what I can do, when I can do it.”

“You do what you want,” Callan had said. 
Her independence was one of the things that had impressed him. 

“I’m always conscious of what they’ll say.  I fucking hate it.”  She had smoked back then, pulling out a cigarette
and lighting it with a stiff hand.  He still didn’t know why she had quit.  “Expect to get a call or visit from my father, too.  He’ll read you the
family laws
, what they will and won’t accept of your behaviour.  Tell him to fuck off.”

“I won’t give you up easily,” Callan had said.  “You’re everything to me.  I love you Sherry and I haven’t said that too many times before.”
 

He
recalled how her lips had curled at the edges, showing perfect teeth, and a hint of the love she would one day possess.  What had happened to them?  Somewhere, it had started to unravel, and he had no idea how to fix it.   

In the shop, Dylan filled
a cardboard box with items from the shelves: matches, batteries, mosquito repellent, wicks for the gas lantern, and a packet of firelighters.

“What’s that for?  Call
an said.

Dylan shook his head.  “You never know.”

“The milk has curdled,” Kristy said, peering into a carton. 

Greg leaned against the
brown laminated counter drinking from his third beer.  “This isn’t looking too good.  I dunno about you guys, but that voice inside my head is telling me some heavy shit has gone down.”

“
Any older newspapers?”  Callan said.

Kristy said, “
Nothing.  This is it.  We’ve got twenty copies though.”

She
rry said, “How long do you think they’ve been dead?”

“A
few days, maybe more.” 

“
Maybe this virus is the reason we didn’t see anybody up at the lake,” Dylan said. 

Callan said, “It’s
always dead up that end.  Even at the height of summer you don’t see many people.”

“
But
nobody
?  No water skiers or fishing boats?  I don’t buy it.  I wish I could talk to my father,” Dylan said.  “Virus outbreaks are like a hobby of his.  He follows them pretty closely.  He’ll know what’s going on.”

Callan prickled.  “
He’s an expert on viruses now?”

“
I didn’t say-”

“
I’d like to talk to my father, too.  I’m sure he’d have a good handle on things.”

“I’m sure
, but I know my father will have been tracking this thing.  He kept a detailed record of the bird flu outbreak.  Kristy read it.  You were impressed, right?  We’ll see what he’s got when we reach my place.” 

Callan
had promised stop arguing with Dylan, but Sherry’s rebuff had stung, and any talk of Dylan’s father just pissed him off.  Mention of Kristy reminded of their growing friendship.  He didn’t want that to go any further, at least for Greg’s sake.  

“I’m not sure this is the time for
arguing,” Kristy said.  “I saw Dylan’s fathers work and it was impressive.  Hopefully he’s done the same again and we can learn from it,
if
it’s needed.  We’re getting ahead of ourselves though, aren’t we?”

“
Doesn’t mean Dylan’s house is the first stop,” Callan said. 

“
It makes sense though,” Greg said.  “It is the closest.”

“
Shut up man.  Whose fucking side are you on?” He couldn’t believe Greg would agree with Dylan.  “There’s a quick way to my place.  If we take the back roads, it won’t take any longer than getting to Dylan’s or anyone else’s house.  We’ll be there five minutes and then we can go wherever you guys want.”

“Don’t be a shithead, Cal,”
Kristy said.  “I thought you’d stopped taking those asshole pills.”

“
Okay,” Sherry said, stepping in.  “That’s enough.  We all want to get home, right?  That’s our goal?  To get back to Albury safely?”  She waited.  “Anybody disagree?”  Sherry had a business management degree from Deakin University, and was classified as “highly influential” in the DISC personality profiling system.  It was impatient bossiness, but Sherry preferred the term “leadership”.  She was well organised too, and Callan had seen her form a coherent, successful team amongst a previously dysfunctional group of people.  She had Callan tied around her little finger, but he didn’t mind.  When she walked into the room, his heart stopped.  He thought he would walk through a burning house for her.  “It’s time to get organised.  Imagine there’s no power or water for a few days.  What do we need?”