Aftermath, p.5
Aftermath, page 5
"Just one minute, Mr Frizzell.” She swiped the badge in front of the still-powered magnetic lock. The light turned green, and the door opened. She grinned and made a show of looking at an imaginary piece of paper. "How is Donna? Does she need any more haemorrhoid cream?”
A sharp squeal shocked Io to her core. Whack! Her hand slammed into the back wall as she swung out, barely registering the other person in the room. Fight or flight. She got ready to attack but the other person just stood there, frightened. Her heart throbbed in her neck and she slowly lowered her arms.
"You nearly gave me a heart attack.”
The boy clutched a thick textbook, wider than his forearm, keeping his eyes fixated on Io’s hands. He was shaking and Io took a small step back to give him some space. His shoulders lowered slightly, and he glanced past her to the pharmacy. It occurred to her that maybe, just maybe, she should not let him see the decaying body of whoever that was.
"My name is Io.” She smiled, crouching down to be at his level. This was incredibly uncomfortable, so she sat on the cold tile floor instead. "What’s your name?”
He looked about twelve years old, but his skin was extremely thin around his bones. She looked past him to a pile of empty water bottles and protein bar wrappers. He was relatively clean, but he’d obviously been stuck in here for weeks without a bathroom. She pulled her scarf more tightly around her nose and mouth.
"Hey, I’m a friend.” She leaned against the wall, looking out at the body on the floor. "I’ve got some food.” She flipped open her bag and pulled out a half-kilo block of edam cheese. She cut a small bit of mould off the edge with a knife and then cut several more slices and held them out. The boy watched her hand with intense interest but didn’t reach out. She pulled out a cloth and placed the cheese on it, sliding it awkwardly toward him.
He took a piece off the cloth and nibbled the edge, devouring the rest within seconds. Smiling, she cut off several more pieces and added a little selection of dried fruit and nuts to another cloth. The boy happily devoured the food, oblivious to the world around him.
"Do you talk? Can you hear me?” She tried to make eye contact, but he was extremely busy giving the sinkhole outside a run for its money in the ‘Who can eat the most’ race. "It’s cool if you don’t talk. I talk a lot.”
He stood up and took a halting step toward her, still clutching the textbook to his chest: Martin’s Physical Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences. It looked complicated but she wondered if it might have the information she needed. "Is that your book? You’ve been reading it?”
He nodded, the first sign that he could hear her.
"Do you know a lot about pharmaceutical sciences?” She pointed at the title and smiled. The boy nodded again, taking another step toward her. "That’s so cool. Does your mom work here?”
"My dad.” He pointed toward the front, past Io. "He’s the pharmacist.”
"Do you come to work with him a lot?”
He nodded but offered nothing more.
"I never got to go to work with my dad. He was in the navy.” She mimed a boat in the ocean with her hands. She was lying. Her dad had spent most of his time at sea fishing, getting drunk, and not being there. It was fine. Not that this little boy would care either way, but she had grown accustomed to talking about his time in the navy. It almost seemed real.
"My dad doesn’t like boats.” His voice was raspy, like worn out sandpaper.
She nodded, looking at the body outside and down at the badge she had in her hand. Wiremu Remeka-Waapu. "What’s your dad’s name?”
He paused; his eyes fixated on the pharmacy past her shoulder. "Wiremu.”
She nodded, concealing the hot dread that rose in her gut and threatened to overwhelm her. "What’s your name? I told you mine.” She smiled, masking the sympathy she worried might overcome her.
"Henare.”
"Nice to meet you, Henare.” She stood up nonchalantly, keeping her body between the door and Henare’s sight-line. "Outside this room isn’t super safe, but I can get rid of some of the dangerous stuff and then we could get out of here together.” She dusted off her pants and smiled at the emaciated brown face of the boy who still clutched the textbook tightly.
He nodded and took a step forward.
"No!” She stopped him, a little too forcefully. She winced. "I mean let me go make it safe for us. You wait right here. Okay?”
He stepped back and sat down on a small red chair that looked like it had come from a kindergarten.
She smiled and shut the door behind her. Luckily, there was a reasonably large rug behind the counter and with a little effort she rolled the remains onto it. It was heavier than she expected but she dragged it around a corner, out of sight. She only vomited once, when the torso? was disturbed and a writhing mass of larvae spilled onto the floor. She looked around the shop, finally settling on a giant bottle of baby powder that she spread liberally over ‘the spot’. It didn’t mask the smell at all, but the scene wouldn’t be quite as traumatic to the kid.
Dusting her hands with some of the powder, she re-entered the back room and waved Henare out. "So, Henare ...” She began looking at the assortment of pills and bottles and packages arrayed behind the counter. "I need some antibiotics for this infection on my face.” She waved vaguely at the pills behind her. "You don’t happen to know where those might be?” He was looking around the shop, probably searching for his father. She glanced furtively at the garbage can, images of rotten flesh intruding in her thoughts. "I sure could use your help.”
He walked over to one of the dispensers and expertly dispensed a pile of pills into a brown bottle. "Amoxicillin clavulanate. 625mg three times daily for seven days, for infected wounds.” He handed her the bottle then filled another from a different dispenser. "Zithromax, 3 times daily for five to seven days for Pneumonia.”
She popped one of the pills for infected wounds immediately and pocketed the pneumonia pills. "What about if I needed Rubifen?”
He nodded and went through the door to the back room, returning quickly with a small packet that Io recognized. "Take one 20mg tablet daily.” He raised his voice for the first time. "DO NOT STOP TAKING THIS MEDICINE.”
It caught her off guard until she realized he was reciting the instructions that were printed in all caps on the Rubifen. "Is there more Rubifen back there? I’m not sure if we will be coming back this way.”
Henare hesitated. "My dad said to stay in the back.”
Io grimaced and took a small step toward him. "I know, bud. And you did a real good job staying put.” She glanced at the garbage can again. "But we are going to have to leave before this whole place is swallowed by the sinkhole outside. Okay?”
He gulped nervously, walking into the back again.
Io sighed, prepared to carry him out if she had to. Before she could take another step toward the door, Henare returned carrying several boxes of Rubifen, hundreds of pills. "Do not stop taking this medication.” His voice was weaker this time. He looked tired and worn, like a desiccated leaf just barely hanging onto a branch. Casually, she popped a pill into her mouth, putting the rest in her bag.
"Thanks, Henare.” She pushed herself off the wall with her shoulder and looked out onto the treacherous, jagged chunks of road. "Are you any good at climbing rocks?”
Henare looked at the road, then back to the store. He appeared to be weighing up in his mind whether to follow Io or not. Eventually, his eyes settled on the road and he nodded. "My dad takes me to the reef sometimes. We catch crayfish, and sometimes kina.” Despite his emaciated legs and arms, Henare proved to be surprisingly agile, climbing pieces of road that stood half again as tall as him.
Io scouted the path ahead and helped him over the larger holes. He seemed to have warmed up to her a little, but something was off. She didn’t have a ton of experience with kids, her niece lived in Auckland and she hadn’t heard from her or her parents for … Twenty-seven days since ours went too. The song played loudly in her head, but she kept it to herself.
The buildings around High Street had mostly collapsed in on themselves and the hillside beyond was a mess of dried mud and putrefaction. They needed to get back to the oak tree on the hill, away from the city, away from the ocean, away from everything. As they climbed the freshly churned slope, the remains of Otago Harbour came into view. Separated from the mainland, Waverly and Musselburgh glistened darkly in the afternoon sun. Images of the shining white houses that used to dot the hills around the harbour superimposed themselves over the blank slate before her eyes. Tsunamis had claimed all of South Dunedin and washed away most of the peninsula. Only mud and the most deeply rooted vegetation remained.
“What is it?” Henare’s tiny voice surprised the glazed expression from her face and she smiled down at him.
“Nothing really. Just remembering what the Peninsula used to look like.”
He paused for a second, looking out over the devastation. “There’s a boat.”
She followed his finger as it traced the boat’s path through the ocean. He was right. Gleaming white and blue, a huge yacht cut through the waves in the distance. Too far to signal, but she couldn’t help but smile. It was so easy to think that she was all alone out here, pleasant even. She had been on her way to check a small farm north of Dunedin. The owners wanted to sell but had vastly overestimated the value of their “brand”. That was twenty-seven days ago. With the network down, she hadn’t heard from her boss, Kaylee, and definitely didn’t expect to see her randomly on the street.
Plumes of black, greasy smoke rising from the smouldering remains of the realty office. A deep scar tearing right through the centre of the block and into the roads on either side. Cars hanging halfway into the newly torn rifts, doors closed, alarms blaring. She called out, knowing in her heart that there was no point.
“Are you okay?” Henare tugged at her puffer jacket, his tiny hands buzzing around her, vying for attention.
Flies circled above the ghastly remains of a woman slumped over a bench at a bus stop near the edge of town.
It took her several seconds to fight the images away. “Yeah … sorry.”
“It’s okay.” He plopped down on the ground near a bush that had slid from somewhere higher up. It still looked alive, and it even boasted a small red bloom near the top. “I sometimes forget to look up as well.”
She grinned. “You do?”
He nodded. “Yep. Dad says I’m super special which is why I get lost sometimes.”
She pulled up a clod of dirt and sat beside him, Dunedin’s tangled sprawl below like the floor of an early childhood centre. “So, you’re special too, huh?”
He picked up a rock and threw it down the hill. “Yep. I’m on a spectrum.” He traced a line through the air.
“That’s cool.” She tossed a rock down the hill. “I have ADHD.”
He nodded. “I knew that. That’s why you take those pills. That’s what they’re for.”
“Yep. Thanks for helping me with that.”
“Dad would have helped, if he were around.”
Io was abruptly uncomfortable and pulled a few almonds out of her bag to fill the suddenly awkward silence. “Well … we have a bit of ground to cover before the sun goes down. I have a tree a couple of hours walk away that’s pretty stable.” She looked north, searching out hazards. “I’ve got a spare blanket and plenty of food as well.”
Henare dusted his butt off and walked up the slope. “Are there … other people there?” She caught his eyes briefly, a flash of hope, sadness, and questions that she didn’t want to answer.
“I’ll be there, buddy … and we will be able to see anybody else coming or going into the city from there.”
He clambered up the hill, small clods of dirt rolling down toward the craggy broken street. A low rumble had Io falling to the ground, covering Henare with her body. The earth around them shifted back and forth, an infernal shaking accompanied by the roar of collapsing structures. She dared a glance down the hill and watched as the pharmacy was swallowed by the sinkhole.
Eventually, the ground stopped moving and they were no worse for wear. She couldn’t stop Henare from looking back down the hill, though. “Now my dad has nowhere to work.”
Caught off guard, Io chortled. “You’re right there.”
The sun was setting as they approached Io’s tree. Set on the edge of a paddock, it did indeed have a good view of the road into Dunedin. From this distance, the city even sort of resembled a city and not a smouldering pile of debris and dead bodies. Sunlight glinted off the cresting waves of the inlet as they crashed silently into South Dunedin. The seawall was long gone. She caught a brief glimpse of the same boat headed further south … perhaps to Invercargill?
The tree itself was thirty metres tall, with a wide, sprawling canopy that provided ample shade, while the trunk provided some protection from the wind. Gnarled roots ran from the base out into the paddock, creating small storage areas that Io had taken the time to label: protein, medicine, soap, sanity, miscellaneous. In fact, Io had labelled several root cubbies miscellaneous. They were filled with random objects from before the big one, each one amazing and simultaneously banal, with limited to no survival value: a tambourine, a pack of incense with an incense burner, a stress ball, and several Tupperware lids were just some of the items leaning against the edges of the various cubbies.
As if she were tidying up her house for company, she moved bits out of the way, swept some of the dirt across the base of the tree and apologized to Henare for the mess. “Sorry … I wasn’t expecting to have anyone over.” She paused. “I’ve got some toys … if you like toys?” She grabbed the tambourine and tapped a little beat. Henare shook his head. “Umm … I’ve got some paper and some coloured pencils?” She pulled out a pad of stained paper that had been left to dry in the sun. The edges had curled up but it was otherwise dry enough to draw on. “We could draw some pictures before dinner?”
Henare shrugged and looked back toward the road. “Is this the only road out of Dunedin?”
She nodded. “Mmm hmm … I mean, there are other ways, but this is the only road.”
“Did …” He choked up a little, struggling to get the words out. “Did my Dad … walk past?”
She sighed, weighing up the truth versus a lie. “I haven’t seen anyone.” As his face fell, she quickly reassured him. “But I sleep sometimes … and you were still in Dunedin.” He shrugged, accepting the logic of it. She passed him some pencils and the pad of paper. “I’m going to make us some dinner, okay?” She pulled out a can of kidney beans, a can of peas, and some fresh garlic that she had found a few days ago in one of those honesty boxes on the side of the road, by a farm. “Are you allergic to anything, bud?”
“Bees.”
“Anything you can’t eat, I mean?”
“Dad says I shouldn’t eat so much sugar.”
She laughed while she relit the small cooking fire in a pit she had dug for the purpose. “Your dad sounds smart.”
The evening came on silently, but brought with it a chill that she couldn’t shake. She stoked the fire up and draped blankets over the boy. He had eaten dinner and fallen asleep next to the fire seconds later. She tidied the dishes and looked north, away from the road. The clouds hung low over the hills, not quite within reach, but close enough to reflect the glow of her campfire. In the distance, maybe two kilometres away, she saw another reflected glow. Was that another fire? She stood and tried to get a better view.
She shook her head. Tomorrow. They could go look tomorrow.
She lay down in her usual spot and had just begun to drift off when she suddenly felt it — a sinking feeling in her stomach.
Instantly, she was alert and on her feet.
She grabbed Henare by his shoulders and thrust him away from the tree. The ground began to shake and move, like the bellows of an ancient, hungry god.
CRACK.
She felt the sound as its vibrations coursed up through her feet. The tree … her tree, rustled as it fell, branches snapping and flying in all directions. Io imagined she was landing on the beach at Normandy, bullets flying through the air. She shoved Henare away from her just as an enemy shell landed nearby. She was stuck. She knew her leg was broken but couldn’t look. Henare’s concerned face was the last thing she saw before she passed out.
“Lunchtime!” The chirpy voice came from too close, and Io tried to get up, to get away from the tree. “Whoa there … you’re not walking anywhere for a while.” It was a man’s voice, a pleasant baritone. She smelled toast and eggs. She opened her eyes. She was lying in a bed, in a house and a tall, slender middle-aged man stood nearby holding a small decorative tray covered with a hot breakfast. “I hope you like eggs, ‘cause these are fresh out of the chicken this morning.”
She was hungry. She spoke through mouthfuls of breakfast. “Is Henare okay? Who are you? Where am I?”
The man smiled with his mouth, but Io could see pain in his eyes. “Henare is getting better. I’m Henare’s dad. This is kind of a shelter. For survivors.”
“You’re Henare’s dad?”
He nodded.
“But … I saw …”
He let a tear roll down his face. “I know. You talk in your sleep … and Henare told me you had my husband’s … Wiremu’s badge.”
She stopped eating and looked down ashamed. “I … I am so …”
“No. Please. You don’t owe me an apology.” He moved to the side of her bed, his face flushed, he tried to hold back his tears. “You saved my son. You brought him back and I …” He wiped the tears that were freely flowing from his eyes. “… I owe you everything.”
