The Jetty Journals
Ian Buchanan
Smashwords Edition
Copyright Ian Buchanan May 2009
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Chapter 1. Introduction
I guess if I am being truthful, I miss the dogs almost more than the people. But the dogs were the first to go. After the plague started I saw a few dogs, and shot some infected ones over the following weeks, but I haven't seen many since. Haven't seen much of anything recently. Very few people and almost nothing on four legs.
It seems like there are less birds, but I haven't been bothered by any infected birds. Just as well. The pelicans and albatross that cruise by are big, and the idea of fending off a feral attack from one of them is unnerving. Out on the jetty I'm safe, but I wouldn't be if the birds came after me.
A dog would be good to have, just to have someone who listens, stop me from going crazy. I can't do it by myself. I talk to myself too much already.
It's hardly an effective threat is it?
"Any more of this self-pity, my girl, and I'll have to give you a good talking to!"
I'd even make do with my grandmother's dog, which was pretty feeble as dogs go. Old and fat - we're discussing the dog, not my grandmother - too lazy to chase a ball.
But you can talk garbage endlessly, and a dog will still listen, and not be critical. My grandmother used to talk his ears off, and he never looked bored with her. Had no time for me, but that's another thing about dogs…their loyalty. I didn't take it personally.
I need a watchdog. I can't be on the alert all the time. I still get twitchy after I crash out for more than 6 hours, and wake up in a cold sweat. A dog could be on watch while I'm asleep. That's what they do…what they used to do, I mean.
Given the lack of an attentive listener, I have decided to spend some time documenting life A.P… "After the Plague". That's what this is. Not a blog, not really a diary, more a collection of observations, important events and useful information. "The Modern Guide to Survival in the 21St Century"….."Life Post-Apocalypse" ….. "The Jetty Journals". When it's too wet to go to town, I crank up the generator, turn on the computer, and add a few more words.
I worry that my mental health is deteriorating. I did briefly think this journal might be useful as a monitoring device, but you can see the logic flaw: If I become worried that I am starting to go a little troppo, I could go back to see how I was a year ago. I could get out last year's journal, and have a read, and think, "You're alright. That reads ok. It isn't Shakespeare, but it isn't Rasputin either." But if I'm crazy, maybe I might just think it reads ok. Or maybe I was mad last year and this year. If I'm really losing it, how would I know?
Very hard to be objective when you're the only one doing the talking.
It's not like I was prepared for all of this. I hardly had the ideal upbringing and education for my current career move as post-apocalypse survivor. If you were expecting to be one of the few people who somehow survived the worst disaster to afflict the world since the ice-age, what pre-requisites would you think essential? How would you prepare? Would you model yourself on me… comfortable middle-class schooling, with vague plans for a marketing degree and a stellar career in the thick of the significant world of business communications, with a special interest in multimedia?
Who needs to know how to light a fire or fix a generator when there are important issues to resolve like deciding whether to tape the football and watch the movie, or vice versa? Why bother learning how rice is grown when you can get sushi delivered?
I don't think you could class my family as survivalists. Our holidays were always to somewhere where my parents could flop out by the pool. We weren't the camping, bushwalking sort. Now, when I occasionally think back to my parent's Docklands palace, it seems like another world, another life. What was I thinking? How could I have believed that was important? Possessions, clothes, haircuts, our car, my "friends". Tax planning. The right restaurant. The right school. Contacts. My career. My handbag.
When the plague hit the city, it hit hard and fast. Everyone I know…knew…did what they were told. Stay inside, keep warm, drink lots of water, don't let anyone in. Mr Allan, our next door neighbour was an international, big-plane pilot, and was an early case. My mother is - was - a nurse, and we got on quite well with the Allans. Mrs Allan was hysterical about it, and my mother, against her better judgment, was persuaded to have a look at him. This was before we'd heard the warnings that were broadcast. A day later and we would have slammed the door in her face, but then there was still some social fabric holding things together. We has been in there for a meal just the week previously…
She was gone for ages, and when she came back my mother was upset, saying Mr Allen was very, very ill. In the time she was there he had deteriorated quickly, and she had waited for an ambulance which was very slow in arriving.
When my father got home he became agitated as my mother started telling him what had happened. My parents didn't argue a lot, but that night my father wound up fast. Our apartment was pretty big, but it's hard to have an argument without being at least partially overheard. My father was going on about things in America, and I heard him say "No. It's happening right now!" I thought he was talking about work stuff at the time. The discussion stopped suddenly, there were a few slammed doors, then quiet for awhile.
I was already in my room, just about to go to bed, when my father appeared in the doorway. He didn't look too good. For a shocking moment I thought he might be drunk, which was unheard of in our family, then decided he was really stressed and exhausted.
"You don't look well. Come and sit down," I said.
He refused, said he wanted to stay where he was.
"What are you doing tomorrow?", he asked me.
Another time I might have made a snappy remark, but it wasn't that sort of night.
"Dad…It's Monday. Tomorrow I go back to school."
I had been off school for the last week. Sounds good, but it wasn't . Year 12 isn't the time to get sick; I had a backlog of work to catch up on. And the reason I'd been off was chicken pox. For some reason I never had it when I was a kid, and it had knocked me around getting it when I was 17. Although I'd been rubberstamped as fit for school, I still felt a bit wobbly. But I was going back tomorrow, and that was that. That was that.
He wiped his forehead. His skin was shiny…sweaty. He swayed a little and carefully took hold of the doorframe. I asked him again if he wanted to sit down, and then he gave a strange answer…
"Yes, I will. Pass me the chair and I'll sit out here."
By then I was thinking that there was something really peculiar going on.
"What is it, Dad? What's wrong? "
He waited until I had passed over the chair, waved me back to sit on my bed, and only then he leaned forward and flopped down into the chair.
"This is going to sound odd," he said, "but I don't want you to go to school tomorrow. I want you to go to…," he hesitated. "Do you remember the Shipton's holiday house in Sorrento?"
I nodded.
"Good. I want you to go there."
"Dad. What's going on?" I had to ask…"Is Mum Ok? What's happening?"
And then he told me. The news stories in America were true, but understated. A viral plague was sweeping the US, and was out of control. He thought Mr Allan was infected, but just one of the first, and that it would spread just as quickly in Australia….and the rest of the world. My mother had gone to bed, sick, and my father was feeling ill already.
I actually though he had gone mad. If they were both sick, I couldn't just leave. Who would look after them? What if I was sick, too? I couldn't just leave anyway. The only way I could get there would be to drive, and I still didn't have my license. The fact that I was thinking of these things was bizarre…I had just missed the last week of school, I couldn't not go! On top of all of that there was a mid-term exam waiting for me in a couple of days.
"It's on the news. It's out of control in the US. They're evacuating cities, but it's too late. It'll be the same here. By tomorrow the roads will be logjammed. You have to get out now!"
It was all a bit much for me, late at night, not-quite-normal-looking father spouting apocalypse stuff. I basically refused to go, said I would stay and look after them, get a doctor in.
"There won't be any doctors!", he replied, "Ring an ambulance. Call emergency services!"
I looked doubtful, and he fumbled for his mobile. He tried a couple of times to dial, but he kept wiping his face and his sweaty fingers slipped on the keypad.
" Hey, It's OK, I'll do it", I said, in a calming tone. I figured if he was having some sort of mental breakdown we might need some help, and I pulled out my phone and dialled. If we could get an ambulance crew here, they'd spot it if he was dangerous. The emergency services line rang, and rang, but no one answered. It cut out. I tried again, the same result. I put the phone down and looked at him.
"Karen," he said, " you need to go. I'm sounding frantic because I am. I want you to get away before the city falls apart. Tomorrow will be too late. "
"But I can't go without you and Mum", I cried. "Come with me!"
"Too late, " he said sadly. "Come and say goodbye to her, then you have to go. Cover your face!", he warned and led the way.
Numbly I followed him to their room. My mother, who had been laughing and energetic that afternoon, was in bed, grey-faced, sweating. My father kept away from me, on the other side of the room, and warned me not to touch her.
Now, if he'd been wrong, I don't know what the consequences would have been. At a base level we would have looked very silly. "Sorry I didn't study for the exam, sir. My father thought the world was ending. I spent the night illegally driving to Sorrento." As it was, 20 minutes later I found myself still with a face wet with tears driving out of the carpark in my father's two-seater, no learner plates, loaded up with tinned food and water. Lucky I had started my driving lessons…..
Melbourne on a Monday night at 11.00 is often a dead place, and it was dead that night. I drove slowly, and I am sure in a distracted, haphazard way, that would have had Mr Caton, my driving instructor, in a frenzy. It would have attracted a police car sooner or later under normal circumstances, but that night the only police cars I saw were rushing somewhere and ignored me.
I got onto the freeway, and was in Sorrento by 1.00am.
The Shipton's kept a key hidden, and I used it to open up. My residual weakness from being ill, the emotional exhaustion of the last couple of hours and lack of sleep had me feeling very light-headed, and I gratefully hit the bed. But tired as I was, I found it impossible to sleep. I wondered if it was me that was mad, or my father having some sort of breakdown. I got up and went to the telephone to call, but it was very late and if they were sick they wouldn't appreciate the call. A friend, Jane, always kept late hours so I rang her, but went straight to messages. I tried the ambulance/police/fire-brigade line again. This time it didn't even ring, just nothing.
Uncertain as to what to do, I turned on the radio, and flipped, in growing horror, from channel to channel. My father was on the money…it was all about the American plague and it's catastrophic effect. It was making a devastating impact. The Shipton's have a TV of sorts, only gets a few channels. I got up, did the usual Uri Geller routine with the aerial, and channel-surfed the three working channels. They were all showing the same CNN footage, only occasionally crossing to Australian commentary, but it painted the same picture as the radio.
I started to feel ill, an oily feeling in my stomach and a feverish wave of cold, even though I was sweating.
I suddenly realised I was going to be sick, and without even time to prepare, repeatedly vomited all over the Shipton's floor, the couch, myself. With TV and the radio blaring away, I passed out.
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Chapter 2. Sick
I don't have a clear recollection of what happened next. I was very sick, for at least two weeks, and it passed in a feverish blur.
I got by with plenty of water, and the food I brought with me. Hardly the stuff for a convalescent. One image I recall sharply was feeling ghastly, but determined to get some nutrition into my system. I remember sitting on the floor, weeping with frustration as I struggled with the can opener and something in a tin. I was too weak to manage the can opener properly, and it took me a long time.
The house was a disgrace. I was sick more than once, and often too feeble to make it into a bucket. And that wasn't the worst deposit I made on the loungeroom carpet. Twice I crawled to the bathroom and sat in the shower recess and rinsed off. That was hard work, as by then I was covered in boils and contact with the carpet on my hands and knees was agony. I couldn't manage the soap, but even just plain warm water made me feel a little better. I kept passing out. Broadcasting stopped on the TV after a couple of days, and the radio was silent, so I lost track of time.
Then one day, I woke mid-afternoon, starving. My skin was healing, and although I was still very weak I managed to open and consume three unheated tins of food….a soup, baked beans and tinned fruit. A balanced meal, almost! I ate again the next day, and was able to manage a proper shower. My skin was still tender, and I was shocked at the scars the sores had left behind. I wasn't model material before, but I wasn't the Elephant Man either. Nowadays I'd give him a run for his money.
After the shower I could see, and smell, the ruin I'd made of the Shipton's house. I suspect that wasn't what the Shipton's had in mind when they offered the house to us. I tried to ring my father…home, work, mobile…nothing. Not that he wasn't answering, just no response from the phone system….no dial tone, nothing. Same for my mother….work, ( not that I am supposed to call her there), her mobile, her pager….It didn't take long to work out no one was available…nothing worked.
The property is a biggish one, on a hill with a very steep driveway. I looked out the window, but it's hard to see much. All these beach bush-blocks are very private and overgrown.
I sat down and thought it through. No phone. No TV, radio. Power OK, water OK. Can't talk to my parents. The idea of walking off and looking for help frightened me. What if I fainted again, and no one found me? What if I fell walking down the steep driveway?
In the end I decided to drive the car…down the driveway, and up the next-door driveway. If that didn't work I'd try the next place, and just keep going until I found someone.
I made hard work of it. I was still pretty feeble, and feeling ill still. When I had to turn my head to look back to reverse out a wave of nausea rolled over me. I bumped my way down the driveway, bumped a bit more gracefully up the next door driveway.
The smell of the Shipton's house was replaced with a different one. A sickly, sweet but gagging smell, it activated some sort of primitive fight/flight response. I didn't know what it was then, but I know it well now…the smell of more than one decaying body. I banged on the door, worked my way around the porch, banging on the windows. When I got to the back door, it was not locked, and after calling out some more, went in.
I backpeddled quickly. I had met the neighbours once, last summer. It might have been them in the bed…hard to tell. I worked my way down the street. The eighth house was empty. By then I had nothing left, and I forced the back door, and put myself to bed in the first bedroom I found.
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Chapter 3. Sean
The bedroom looked like mine…pretty messy, bed unmade, posters, clothes on the floor, a bit whiffy, but I didn't care. I flopped straight into bed, clothes and all, and started to doze off. Now I'm not sure which came first…the sliding, scraping noise, or the sudden thought: "Why is this bed warm?". Whatever it was, despite my fatigue, I was suddenly wide-awake.
There was something shifting under the bed, and it bumped me as it moved. I rolled my eyes sideways to see if I could see what was emerging from under the bed. I guessed the direction 100% incorrectly: a voice suddenly said in my ear, from the other side, "Jeez, you could at least have taken off your shoes!"
I jerked back and found myself face to face with a guy about my age, perhaps younger. He looked frightened, but nevertheless, indignant. His brown hair was tousled and pillow-flattened, with a cobweb dangling across his forehead…he'd obviously jumped from the bed straight under it. He had big hands and feet, but small, rounded shoulders. He was tallish and skinny, but the big hands said he was a growing boy with more to come. He still had a still-childish face with a little snub nose. He was wearing a horrendous pair of tracksuit pants, and a worn-out black t-shirt with some fantasy-dragon-medievalist theme. He was starting to recover, and he said, "Who are you, and what are you doing in my bed?", trying to put a bit of bluster into it.
I sat up and apologised, explained that I thought the place was empty, and quickly gave him a summary of why I was there. "Do you know what's going on? Have you spoken to anyone else?".
He knew a lot more than I did. He'd been sick, but nowhere near as sick as I had been, by the sound of it. And by the look of it…he had almost no scars, looked quite normal.
He spent most of his time on the couch while he was sick, and tried out the TV every day. Broadcasts stopped more than two weeks ago. But he had a computer, and had been trying the internet as well. I asked him to show me, but he said "Nah, it stopped working a few days back. It's the phone line, I think. I can't make a connection. The power's ok."
He had a few pages cached, so I got out of the bed and we had a look. He had stuff from the CNN page, the Washington Post, The Age and the News site, and a blog/rant site. No video footage, but the news-stories painted a pretty grim picture. The Americans had first denied there was anything going on, but had nevertheless burned out whole counties trying to contain what looked like a leak of a military virus. No one knew if it was an accident or deliberate. It wasn't clear what the virus was…it had some of the aspects of rabies, anthrax and smallpox. Whatever it was, there was no developed antidote.
The primitive attempt at containing it by nuking infected areas failed. Each time refugees fled ahead of the holocaust, and the virus spread very rapidly. Because of the speed of infection and the secrecy, it was spread worldwide by travellers at first unknowingly, and then by panic as people ran. Too late, planes were grounded, travel stopped.
I read it all, but to be honest it didn't make an impact. I guess the immensity of it was just too much to absorb, and despite what I was reading I was still assuming it was a matter of finding other people, my parents, getting things sorted out.
The last screen he had was a graphic showing the progressive stages of the infection. I understood the purge stage, and the skin sores, but I didn't get the third stage, which showed a haggard, hollow-eyed face and was labelled "Infectious". The last stage was "Death".
"Do they all die?", I asked.
"You're the only other person I've seen so far. Sean," he said and stuck out his hand.
"Karen". We shook.
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Chapter 4. Breakfast
Sean was getting light on for food. He'd been working his way through the pantry of his grandparents' house, and there wasn't much left. I was ravenous, so he cobbled something together for me which was pretty awful, but I ate it. I sat at the counter in their kitchen while he got it sorted out, and we talked.
His grandmother had bundled his grandfather into a car and headed for the doctor, but they never came back. Sean himself was sick in bed, but with chickenpox. That's why he wasn't at home: his parents were interstate for a few days, so when he got sick his grandma came and picked him up to look after him until his parents got back.
"Snap," I said, to Sean's questioning look.
"I was off school the last week with chickenpox, but it had all finished. I was going back to school the next day when the virus arrived."
We both paused. It was an interesting co-incidence.
"I didn't realise chickenpox would be so bad," he said.
I told him I had been told it got worse as you got older, and that it was better to have it while you were little. Nothing, of course, like the virus.
So, even though he was already sick with chickenpox, and his grandparents apparently had been exposed to the virus, Sean didn't get the virus himself. That was promising. There might be more people who had survived, like me, or were immune, like Sean.
"When did you realise your grandparents weren't coming back?", I asked him.
"I didn't really….at first," he answered slowly. "I was still sick - on the way back - but sleeping a lot. They left late in the afternoon, and I didn't wake up until the next day. It wasn't until that night I started to get worried. I got up and turned on the TV, and then I knew I was in trouble. I've been freaking out a bit by myself. When you came in…," he shook his head.
He sure bounced back fast He was enthusiastic, energetic. He grabbed my empty plate, opened up the dishwasher. "At last!", he gloated. "I've finally got a full load".
He turned to me and explained, "Hard to build up enough dishes for a load by yourself."
Seemed an odd thing to focus on, to me. I tried to direct the conversation.
"You need to get out a bit, Sean. What happens now? Should we go and look for help? No phones, no TV and radio, and you're almost out of food. Time we went out and looked around, eh?"
Sean agreed. "To tell you the truth, I've been going mad here by myself. I didn't know what to do. It's getting late though. Let's go tomorrow. It's a bit of a hike to Sorrento, and you still look a bit crook to me."
I explained that I had a car (but no license!), and he was both shocked and excited at the prospect. We were both still adjusting to the new rules. But tomorrow would be soon enough. I needed the sleep.
Sean suggested his grandparents room, but I took one look at the fluffy pillows and the lilac-scented, crocheted covers and grabbed a blanket and the floor in his room. I was really tired, and dropped off almost immediately, with Sean yakking away as I drifted off. I don't know how long it took him to work out I was asleep…
The breakfast on offer was bran with apricot juice. I tried to force some down - passing on Sean's offer to spoon some peanut butter into it – and promised myself something better soon.
Sean was suitably excited when he saw the car….funny how a mid-life crisis sports car appeals equally to teenage boys, isn't it? I teased my Dad about it, but hypocritically…I liked the car myself
Over "breakfast", before we set off, we had decided what we would do…go to Sorrento to the Doctor where Sean grandparents had been headed, get some food, see if we could find anyone else and a phone that worked. It was a glorious day, so I decided to go via the beach road, which is the longer way. You can get there faster via the backroads, but there is only bush to look at. There's more houses, (plus of course the beach!), on the beach road.
We didn't see anybody. Here and there was the occasional car, badly parked or half on the road. We slowed down and drifted past the first one, but the smell washed over us despite the rolled up windows.
"Doctor's down here," he pointed left.
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Chapter 5. Visit to the doctor
We parked out front, and walked in through the front gate. It was an oldish, glazed-brick suburban house, converted to a doctor's surgery. Nice place…stained glass windows, with rosy garden beds on either side of the curved path. The side of the property had been cleared out, concreted and turned into a car park for patients. The car park was full, and the cars were mostly full. We didn't go close but the smell drifted over to us.
We tried the front door of the surgery, but it was locked. Sean pressed the buzzer, and inside we heard a crash, and a noise. It sounded like a person, but moaning.
"Hello!" Sean shouted at the door, his face close up to the glass. He banged on it.
There was an answering call, again a moan, but much louder, more urgent.
"What should we do?", he asked me.
"We have to break in," I said. "We can't leave them here. We can't call for help. We can justify it, and there's two of us to verify the story if it causes trouble."
"Cool," said Sean, grabbed a stone pot plant and hurled it through the glass door.
I was shocked with the speed of his reaction, and horrified as he stepped through the shredded door, almost before the glass fragments had finished falling. There were big jagged chunks still held in the frame, and glass all over the floor.
He paused, and waited for me for a second. "C'mon," he urged, then turned and went forward, calling "Where are you?", as he moved.
Wincing, I stepped through the frame, my runners crunching on the broken glass. We entered in the waiting room/reception area. A passage led off towards the back, with rooms leading off on either side.
Sean was ahead of me, halfway down the passage, outside "Room 3". Inside the voice was still unintelligible, but now urgent, louder. The door shuddered as the person inside thumped against it.
Sean grabbed the handle. It turned. I had assumed it was locked, trapping the person inside, but it wasn't . Sean tried to push it open, but it slammed shut. "Stop pushing!", he shouted, "We're trying to get you out!".
"This is silly," he muttered. He tried again, and again the door slammed closed after it had opened a few centimetres. The voice inside became frantic, bellowing almost.
"Here, give me a hand," he looked back at me, "On three, we'll force it open."
Then shouting again, he called, "We're going to get you out! Stand back from the door! We're going to force it open!"
Inside, the door shook repeatedly as the person inside bounced against it.
On the count we hurled ourselves against the door, shoulders first. It burst open, catching the person inside a heavy crack and knocking them back. I put up my arm and stopped the door rebounding, then pushed it open. From the doorway we looked in.
The room was a mess…shredded is the best word. Papers, curtains, the examination table, all ripped and wrecked. On the floor, in the wreckage pile, a middle-aged large woman in a torn and dirty receptionist/nurse uniform frantically untangled herself.
"Hey…Missus…are you ok?", Sean asked tentatively.
Looking up at us, her grey face furious, she snarled, and struggled to her feet. Her eyes were shockingly bloodshot, almost completely red. Her hair was a matted mess, stuck to her head, almost wet-looking. But it was the expression of fury on her face that was so confronting. I hadn't ever seen anyone so angry-looking and backed away a little, as did Sean.
Hers hands clawing the air at us, she stood, and without a pause hurled herself at us, bellowing as she did so. I grabbed the door and swung it shut, trying to close it again, but she grabbed the edge and pulled. I held for a second and said to Sean, "Go!", then abruptly let go. She was still pulling at the door and the sudden pressure shift made her lose her balance. She fell back as I turned and madly followed Sean down the passage.
Sean skidded to a halt as he got near the front door, looked back and carefully stepped through. I didn't have that luxury, and ducked and ran straight through without a backward glance, hearing the heavy tread coming down the passage a few paces behind me. Sean waited for me half on the porch, one foot on the path.
The woman crashed through the glass without a pause, and ripped a massive tear down the left side of her face, and an awful slice in her arm. She feet slipped on the glass on the porch floor, and just then Sean launched a second flower pot at her, which caught her square in the guts.
Back she went, through the door again, falling with a crash and a crunch of glass inside. Above her screaming we could hear her thrashing herself into an upright position, but by then we had started running. We were in the car and tearing off when she lurched onto the street. She was saturated in blood, and having trouble walking.
"The blood! She'll die!", Sean cried out, looking back.
"Yes," I said grimly. I stopped, and she immediately hobbled towards us, screaming furiously. "We can't go back to that, " I said, and the car rolled forward. We turned the corner and she disappeared from site.
I was shaking. No food, shock, recovering from an illness… time to get some sugar. We headed to the main street.
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Chapter 6. Sorrento
Sorrento was deserted. A ghost town. No noise, nothing moved, other than some flags flapping limply in the weak sea breeze.
Most of the other towns on the peninsula have grown up along the beach front. You finish up with a town where all the shops face the beach, then over the years a second layer of shops builds up behind them. Sorrento was different. It had been a fishing town, but for some reason grew up at the top of the hill that looked over the bay, in the basic, small-town format of a single main street. The main street ran across the top and down the hill to the pier where the car ferry landed twice a day.
I'm sure a hundred years ago the shops were more functional. Nowadays they were mostly cafes and beachware/clothing/giftware shops, with the occasional useful thing like a hardware store. I was starting the think about the things we might need. Not a lot of it would be in the main street of Sorrento…
We cruised up and down two or three times. "Hello! Hello?", we called out half-heartedly once or twice. It seemed wrong to be making a lot of noise. On top of that, we were both still shell-shocked. I couldn't come to terms with the fact that we had run out on someone so badly injured. My head told me we couldn't do anything else, but my stomache flopped every time I thought of her grasping at us…those eyes…
We looked at each other. "We can't be the only ones in this place," I said, but it was more a question, which Sean didn't answer.
I drove a bit further and parked outside a café….pseudo-Italian…lots of chrome and little marble two-seater tables. It was deserted, of course, but the tables were out and the door was open. "Well, let's at least get some food, " I said.
As we got out, I heard a scratching noise from across the road. I turned, and saw, not running, but staggering, a labrador heading towards us. It gasped as it moved, jaws open, hanging. Its head lolled from side to side, so it seemed to have trouble keeping us in sight.
"He doesn't look too good," said Sean. At the sound of Sean's voice the dog lifted his head, and snarled quietly, and picked up the pace. We both backed away quickly, then turned and ducked into the shop, swinging the door shut behind us. I noticed a simple bolt at the top of the door, and while I was slipping that Sean was doing the same at the base of the door. The dog continued his rush, not pausing at the door, simply running straight into the glass. It shuddered and creaked, but held.
We stood and watched, as the dog repeatedly hurled himself at the door.
"Bloody hell!", Sean exclaimed.
"Do you think the door will hold?", I said.
"Maybe not. Eventually he'll crack the glass, you'd think," Sean replied. We both moved to the heavy big table nearby. Without even discussing it, we flipped the table, pushing up against the door. It was long enough to cover the whole door. I ran into the kitchen and came back with two small sugar bags. We propped one under each leg, which forced the table top flat against the door and braced the glass.
Slightly muffled, the dog continued his efforts, but at least we didn't have to watch.
"I need some food," I said to Sean. "We can work out why everyone hates us after that".
We raided the kitchen with good results. The milk was off, but we found eggs and bacon, cheese and tomatoes. In the freezer were hash browns and bread. We clattered about, finding frypans, a knife and cutting board.
The stove and griller was a bit off-putting…a big, industrial unit. We had a fancy new stainless steel oven at home, which I guess was modelled on a commercial one, but the real thing was a bit different. I fiddled with dials, but couldn't get any gas out of it.
Sean had the food ready, and came to see what I was doing. He rechecked everything I'd checked. We looked blankly at each other.
"Maybe there's no gas," I said. I went over to the tap, and ran the hot tap. The water was cold, and stayed cold. I walked towards the back. They had a small hot water service mounted on the wall…a heat-as-you-go one. It was cold, and the pilot was out. I attempted lighting the pilot, but no gas emerged, whatever combination of ignition-button pressing and lever pulling I tried.
Outside we could hear Fluffy occasionally growling, and still scrabbling at the door.
"Ok, we can't have a fry-up. What else…an egg smoothie? A frozen BLT?"
Sean's eyes' gleamed. "Or a jaffle!", he pointed to a greasy old electric jaffle unit sitting on the shelf. Twenty minutes later we were much happier.
There was a cappuccino machine, of course. A fancy old one with brass sculpted eagles on top. I knew that it had to be warm, and needed time to heat up, so I turned it on and we sat and discussed the next move while we waited. Every five minutes or so one of us would get up and fiddle with it, but we had no idea, really. In the end we boiled some ground coffee in the milk jug under the steam spout, and chewed our way through the gravelly result. It wasn't very nice! A sign on the wall said, "We really care about our coffee!". I don't think the owners would have been very happy with what we were producing.
There was a lot to discuss. Why had Nursey and Fluffy gone for us? Where should we go next? What could we do about food? How many other people had survived? Where were they? How could we get out of here with our furry friend pounding at the door?
The shop had some stairs, and we decided to see if we could distract the dog away from the door. Upstairs wasn't very exciting…a couple of rooms, stored with boxes of papers cups, toilet paper, a few broken chairs… There was a small bathroom, and a couch and TV, but it didn't look like anyone lived there. The room at the front had a small balcony, and we stepped out. The shop had a small awning over the entrance area, so we couldn't quite see the dog directly from above, but we could hear him. I ducked back downstairs and came back with some food. We dropped a piece of bacon but the dog wasn't interested. Sean abruptly lost his temper: "Garn! Git! Geddoutofit!", he shouted. Fluffy immediately emerged into view and hurried towards the centre of the street. He looked around, a bit aimlessly, certainly not up, then started walking back across the road towards the door.
We both looked at each other, realising it was the sound that attracted him. I went back to the bathroom, and grabbed a grubby glass holding a worn out toothbrush. Back on the balcony I leaned back, and hurled the glass. It sailed across the street and smashed in the middle of the road. Fluffy immediately ran to the spot, circling. Sean ran to the bathroom and came back with a small square hand-mirror, which he frisbeed 5 metres to the left, and the same thing happened….Fluffy ran to the spot and circled. He had cut his paws on the fragments, and left bloody footprints.
That was enough to get us going, and we quickly worked out a simple plan. We crept downstairs and quietly moved the table away from the door. Gritting our teeth, we slowly, and silently, pulled back the bolts. Sean then went back upstairs with some pots, and crockery. While he tossed the items one by one, in a receding line away from the café, I ran out to the car and jumped in. As he came running down the stairs and towards the car, I started the engine and we moved off. Sean tossed one last heavy glass carafe, which exploded spectacularly, and shouted "See ya, Fluffy!" as he climbed in. The dog immediately ran back towards us, again snarling, but even if he'd been fit he couldn't have got close to catching us.
If we hadn't stopped, that is.
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Chapter 7. Get out of town!
As we neared the end of the street, a girl, a bit older than us, ran towards us. I started to slow down, but then saw that, like the doctor's receptionist, her face was furious, her hands clawing the air as she ran towards us. I accelerated, but I wasn't a very confident driver. If I'd really gunned it we would have outstripped her, but as it was she ran straight towards us. Although I swerved at the last instant, she threw herself at the car, and hit the bonnet and fell forwards, under the front wheel. I screamed and the car bumped twice as it went over her. I slammed on the brakes and we slid a little as the car stalled. The car scraped to a stop against a brick divider in the middle of the road.
Sean, white faced, spun in his seat and looked back. I was just turning, when my eye caught movement off to the right. An old man was staggering towards us. He was a fair way off, but I could hear him… growling.
Behind us, 200 metres back, I could hear the dog charging towards us, snarling. Suddenly, belting around the corner from the left came a portly middle-aged man, wearing shredded remnants of his pyjamas. He made no sound, but again, his face was a mask of anger.
I was frozen. My instincts were to bolt, but the seriousness of the accident made me hesitate. I turned when Sean gasped.
Behind us, her arm black with bruising and clearly broken, and tire marks across her neck, the girl heaved herself upright and staggered towards us, hissing, the blood frothy on her lips. It took me two goes to start the car, and I dragged it along the wall in my hurry to get going. Sean was shouting in my ear, but I couldn't understand what he was saying. I was too busy screaming at the car to listen.
With a last screech of metal and a sideways flick as we bounced off the wall, we took off.
They all converged where we had been, took a couple of steps following in our direction, watching us recede into the distance. The road curved away behind some trees, and when we emerged further along they had started to disperse. We rattled down the road for a few more hundred metres, then I slowed.
"Don't stop!", Sean called out, his head swivelling from the rear view to look at me then back again.
I was pretty shaken, and needed time to think. I wasn't crying, but my breath was the shuddering, sharp breathing you get when you have the full waterworks. Sean's face was still white, stricken, and his eyes were on high-beam.
"Where are we going, Sean? We've got no food, there's none left at your grandparents. We can't go back there," I jerked towards the town with my thumb, "The town's pretty freaky today."
"It's not just that we're not locals, is it?", Sean sort of laughed, but it choked off abruptly. "It's the virus, isn't it?"
"I guess," I replied. "Can't think what else it is. What would have happened to us if they caught us?"
"This is crazy," Sean muttered, looking around nervously. "Maybe we should move on, stop somewhere safer."
"Sure," I agreed, "But where's 'safe'?"
"There's more houses, more people this side of the peninsula," Sean thought aloud. "If we go on the ocean side, less houses, less people…easier to hide."
I couldn't think of anything better, so we headed to the backbeach road.
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Chapter 8. Refuge
The Mornington Peninsula is a pretty crazy landform…a long neck of land that is one half of a pair of pincers that encircle the Port Phillip Bay. One side of the peninsula is a relatively flat, quiet, safe harbour, the other side is violent surf beaches, broken cliffs, the ocean and Bass Strait, and it can be wild and dangerous. Everyone's heard about Australia's Prime Minister drowning at Portsea backbeach…
Because it narrows to a point, at some places it's a ten-minute journey from one side to the other. Other places, with curved roads and the varying thickness of the Peninsula, it's a good 25 minutes.
Sorrento's one of the thicker bits, which suited me….the wider the gap the better. We limped along the backbeach road, heading north towards Gunnamatta surf beach and the thicker part of the peninsula. Something was scraping, making a hell of a noise. It suddenly occurred to me that we were again attracting attention to ourselves. I stopped and we had a quick look. The front bumper-bar had been pushed towards the wheel, and it was making all the noise. We tried to bend it back, but the bumper bar basically had just started to bend a little when it suddenly snapped. All plastic!
I chucked the piece off into the bush by the side of the road. Out of the corner of my eye, again I saw movement, and on the road a good kilometre back a human figure lurched along the road towards us.
"Sean: look," I pointed back.
He cursed and we jumped back in the car. This time when we started there was no unusual noises.
"They follow the noise, don't they?", Sean said. It was a statement, didn't need an answer.
The road was straight for a good 2 kilometres . I ripped down it, and as we got near the curve, stopped again.
"What now?", Sean looked back nervously.
"Just testing," I replied. "If they are following noises, is the car going to be a problem? Are they going to follow us wherever we go?"
Sure enough, one, then two, then more, figures came onto the road out of the bush. When I say bush, there are houses all along there, just hard to see them sometimes. In a couple of minutes there were at least 15 people on the road. Initially they came straight towards us, but the ones further off appeared to lose the path, and meandered a bit. I was thinking that the sound needs to be continuous, or they need to be close enough to see you clearly, when I heard a scrape from in front of the car.
I whipped round in fright. Stupid! Of course! People ahead of us could hear and aim towards us just as much as the people behind us! Nearby, approaching hurriedly from the front, were two elderly blokes. Frail but looking fierce. We took off, swung around them while they gibbered at us. Just around the corner were a few others, who turned to follow us but were quickly left behind.
The road crested, and spread out before us was a broad, flat pastureland with bush on the left, market gardens and farmland on the right.
"There!", Sean pointed. "See that house?" He was pointing to a market garden, quite a big one, with a farmhouse in the middle.
I looked at him.
"Flat land, clear view right round. We can see anyone coming for miles," he explained.
Sounded good to me. We ducked down the side road to the farm.
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Chapter 9. The farm
I cut the engine and we rolled the last 100 metres towards the farm. We didn't have quite enough momentum to get there, and stopped a little short. We looked at each other.
"What do you think?", we both said at the same time.
My concern was that I didn't know what was in the house, but didn't want to stay out in the open for long.
We decided to do two things…I would turn the car around, ready for a quick getaway, while Sean ran around the house and looked in as best he could.
It only took a minute to do that. The engine sounded very loud after the short silence. Sean came running back, panting more from excitement than exertion. "Hurry! Look!", he hissed, pointing over my shoulder.
From behind a large machinery shed came two farm dogs, both blue heeler-types. They had the now-familiar gait of the diseased, lurching lightly with a rolling walk.
He turned and ran, and I followed. The dogs picked up the pace as we moved, but we had a good lead and made it easily to the front door, which was unlocked. In we ducked and slammed and locked it. The dogs thumped into the door, and continued to throw themselves against it.
We did a quick run through the house, looking for doors that might be open. The back door was a lightweight affair…thin, rattly, loose glass. We scouted around for something to block it. It took a few minutes to rip out a wardrobe door and prop it in place with a small, heavy cabinet backing it up.
There was one body in a bedroom, but we were lucky…the window had been propped open and the door had been closed when we came in, so the smell hadn't built up in the house as much as some of the other places I'd seen. Sean grabbed a towel and blocked the gap under the door. We needed to do something about it, but not just yet.
We did a second run-through, checking for power, TV, radio. Power was on and I cheered up to see the electric oven. The TV and radio were just static. The phone was dead. I did another check through the windows to see if there was anything odd happening outside, then came into the kitchen where Sean was inspecting a massive, room-sized pantry with a look of wonder on his face.
"Look at this!", he gasped.
We had picked a good place. There was a lot of food, both commercial and homemade: jams, pickles, fruit in jars. We cracked the seal on a jar of plums and scoffed them on the spot, laughing with monstrous-looking teeth gummed up with plum flesh.
I opened a big square tin and dug out a slightly stale, heavy fruitcake.
"Right…coffee and a cake, pens and paper, let's get organised."
The farm was some sort of market garden…big square fields of the same plant, leafy and bright green. Sean thought lettuce, I said spinach. There were fruit trees in the back yard, a chookhouse. The farm looked very self-contained. But in spite of that, they had collected a massive stockpile of food. Weird stuff, in whole cartons. I mean, I like creamed corn occasionally, but I wouldn't buy a case of large tins of it. Cases of fish. A freezer, with dozens of packets of supermarket frozen spinach!
Who knows? There were a few religious things on the walls and around the place, so maybe it was some sort of fundamentalist doomsday cache. Can't be critical…they were right! It was the end of the world, after all…..
Over the coffee and cake, we had a couple of options, we decided.
One would be to stay at the farm. Plenty of tinned food, power, water, acres of fresh food on tap. So far the only problem was the dogs.
The concern was that the farm was obvious from the road, and we figured anyone coming along the road would be tempted to call in and visit…and so far we hadn't met any friendly people. But if we kept a low profile, maybe we wouldn't attract attention…?
The farm had fences, but they weren't really anything-proof….just normal three-wire farm fences, not even electrified. And no gates to speak of. We were tossing the idea around that we might need to create some barrier to entry, or at least a warning system to let us know if someone was approaching.
"Well, there's the dogs," I pointed out. "They'll go for anyone who comes in."
"Yes, but we'll never get out of the house. We'll have to get rid of them," Sean replied.
" How long can they last when they're sick like that? You'd think they'd drop off soon anyway.It was at least three weeks since the virus kicked in. If that's what was affecting the dogs and people we'd seen, you'd expect them to either collapse of exhaustion and dehydration, or get better."
We decided to wait a few days and keep an eye on the dogs, see what happened to them and how the illness progressed.
Except first we had one job to do, which was to escort the ex-owner off the premises.
We thought of a few ways to do it, but the idea of running through the back door and away from the house hauling an over-ripe Christian gentleman accompanied by the invigorating chorus of demented blue heelers on the hunt wasn't all that appealing. What we did sounds bad, but we didn't really have much choice…in the end we wrapped him up in his sheets and blankets and bundled him out the window. The mattress, which was also pretty unpleasant and the rest of the bedstuff went out after him, then the window was closed.
The dogs, of course, came round to investigate, but although they had a quick sniff, they weren't interested. That in itself was pretty conclusive of aberrant behaviour, I thought. What dog would pass up the chance to wallow in the scents from a decomposing body? We figured from that that they were only interested in live people.
The smell that clung to us was pretty bad, and Sean and I tossed for first shower. Took a few goes until I felt like I'd got rid of the smell.
Clothing was a bit of a problem. That is, there was a crappy old washing machine, but it took ages and in the end we raided the clean pile in the laundry for clothes while we waited. They were grandpa-ish clothes and looked ridiculous, but better than nothing. I went for some threadbare overalls, T-shirt and an itchy woollen jumper. Sean got into some bizarre RSL jacket and tie costume. Either funny or just weird, but I was starting to get used to Sean and thought it was funny. He acted put out that I would be amused at his clothes, and I laughed my head off even more at his charade of hurt dignity.
I was disappointed there was no radio gear at the farmhouse: "I thought all farmers used radios?", I whinged.
Sean thought they all used mobiles nowadays, and I guess he was right. Makes sense…especially in semi-urban areas like the Peninsula.
But that at least got us started again on what we needed to do.
"What's more important?" I asked. "To find other people? Or to set ourselves up to survive?"
Sean thought for a moment. "We don't even know if there is anyone else alive, " he said, "Anyone not crazy, I mean. I think the priority needs to be to set ourselves up to be safe from these people that keep trying to get us."
"What about if we set it up for other people to find us?", I thought aloud. "If we put up a sign, would the sick people see it? Sick animals wouldn't notice…they only see movement and follow sound."
"And we could set up something else to attract the sickies! You know, redirect them…put them off-track! ," Sean was getting excited.
We worked out what we would do. It would keep us busy for a couple of days, but we'd need to get out of the house a bit.
We decided we'd have to do something about the dogs.
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Chapter 10. The Dog Catchers
Seemed like a good plan when we started. The idea was that I would distract the dogs while Sean snuck over to the shed. He would then set up a trap, using the shed as the cage. The shed was a big steel one, with a mezzanine floor, and a big sliding door.
Sean would attract the dogs, but climb out of their reach. While they milled around below him, I'd follow over and close the shed door, trapping them in. Once that happened Sean could climb out the window. Voila!
Sean quietly opened the window on his side of the house, closest to the shed, and perched on the ledge. When he was ready, I went over to the far side of the house armed with a saucepan and a spoon and got ready.
"You right, Sean?", I double-checked.
"Go for it," he called, perching on the ledge.
"Oy! Doggies! Oy!", I shouted, banging the pots. There was a moment's silence, then a scramble and a snarl, and belting round the side of the house came the two dogs.