The Survivors (Book 1): Summer (8 page)

I awoke to the sound of static and birdsong the next morning, still curled up in the armchair like a sleepy child.
 Unlike all the times that I'd fallen asleep on the couch as a child, this time there was no Mum or Dad to carry me off to bed, so I had spent the night where I was.

I sat up and uncurled, my joints protesting at the discomfort of having slept in such a peculiar position, yet I felt physically replenished. Outside my window, a tui sang a love song to its mate, a pleasant and familiar sound.
 The kitten sat on the window sill, observing the songbird outside with intense interest, oblivious to my awkward stretching.  Once my limbs were awake enough to cooperate, I moved over to the window to look out as well.

The sky looked grumpy and overcast, but it was not raining at the moment.
 That seemed appropriate, since I felt a little grumpy myself.  The thought of spending the day in wet boots did nothing to help my mood.

My clothing was still damp, and clung unpleasantly as I pulled it on, but what other choice did I have?
 I cheered myself with the thought that perhaps, if I got the car going, I could visit some of those outer homesteads; maybe find some clean, dry clothing and spare shoes.  That would be nice.  I wouldn't be able to take them with me when I eventually left this town, but having them for now would be a treat.

At least breakfast was readily available, which always cheered me up.
 Tigger joined me, and ate some more of the cat food from a bowl on the kitchen floor, while I indulged in another can of baked beans.  Oh, what I wouldn't have given for some real beans.  I’d just about forgotten what they tasted like.  Maybe one of the homesteads would have some of those, too.

Maybe they'd have chickens.
 Chickens, even wild ones, meant eggs that could be stolen.  My new home came with a working stove and cooking equipment.  Perhaps tomorrow morning I would have a real omelette for breakfast.  Now, that idea really cheered me up.  

All of a sudden, my capricious mood was gone and I was raring to go.

I packed my essentials back into their pockets and laced on my wet boots, then padded off to check on my Hilux.  The air smelt fresh and clean, and it was pleasantly cool after the heat of the last few days.  Although the sky was still low and threatening overhead, it was nice enough outside and the thought of fresh food spurred me on.

When I arrived at the garage, I ducked in through the side door and checked the room for uninvited occupants; again, I found nothing out of the ordinary.
 The battery was showing fully charged now, so I reinstalled it in the engine and closed the bonnet.  Fighting down a wave of excitement, I climbed back into the driver's seat and tried the ignition again.

The utility roared to life.
 It didn't sound terribly happy, but it was functional.  Functional was what I needed.  Keeping it going long term would probably be impossible, but it worked for now and that was enough.  I disengaged the engine and tried it again, and got the same response.  Content that it was going to work for one more day at least, I hopped back out and scampered over to the big roller doors that blocked my exit.

They screeched in protest as I hauled them up, and then screeched again when I closed them behind me.
 I didn't mind.  I was suddenly in possession of the freedom of wheels, and that pleased me immensely.  

Just let the other survivors find me now; I'll run them over and they can be damned!

My first week in Ohaupo passed peacefully, with my days spent exploring the outlying countryside, and my nights spent tinkering and sleeping.
 It wasn't a good life or even a satisfying life, but at least it was a life.  I was, more or less, content.

Several of the farms did have chickens, and a number of them had vegetable gardens as well.
 Like the chickens, the gardens had gone wild but that didn't bother me one bit.  Wild or tame, fresh food was delicious and it made me feel a good deal happier than I had for a long time.  After a few days on fresh vegetables and protein-rich eggs I felt strong and fit and ready to take on the world – or at least, my tiny corner of it.

The Hilux thrummed contentedly beneath me as I drove out to one of the few homesteads left to explore, hoping this one would yield more treasures to add to my growing stash.
 I had yet to find a functioning element for my hot water cylinder, and I still longed for a nice, hot shower.

I pulled the Hilux up the winding driveway to the homestead, carefully negotiating the rugged potholes and overgrown limbs hanging from the trees that framed the path.
 The house was a large one, someone's retirement mansion after many years of hard work, but just like all the others it was run-down and abandoned.  Nature had reclaimed much of what was hers over the years.

Rose vines crept across the entire front of the house, covering it in a complicated lattice of foliage.
 Even at a distance, I could see fat, happy bumble bees darting from bloom to bloom, glutting themselves on sweet nectar.  

I parked my truck and slipped out with my taser at the ready, and approached the old home to see what I could
find.  The smell was unexpected; an overwhelming mix of sweet, cloying scents from a dozen different kinds of flowers that warred for sunlight.  I swept my gaze around, alert for danger, but detected nothing more hostile than the bees.

The gardens were a beautiful sight.
 Like the bees, I took a moment to enjoy the loveliness that spread out around me, then I turned and picked my way up what remained of the front walkway.  Along the way, I bent to pluck a particularly perfect bloom from its stem and lifted it to my nose to savour the scent.  After so much death and decay, the flower smelt like heaven on a stem.

With cautious fingers, I
stripped away the thorns from said stem and then tucked the flower behind my ear.  It was a silly little thing, but the woman in me longed to keep that beautiful scent close to me for a while longer. It reminded me of my grandmother.  I thought of her wistfully, remembering the beautiful flowers she had once grown around her home in Palmerston North.

Maybe one day I'll go back and plant roses upon her grave.
 She’d like that.

With the softest of sighs, I ducked beneath an overhanging vine and slipped up the front stairs to the porch.
 I tried the front door and found it unlocked, so let myself in.  I doubted there was anyone home to complain.  A quick glance around the dusty interior told me that I was correct – no one had been home for a very long time.

The front door opened into a large and spacious dining room, resplendent in hard woods and rose-print fabrics.
 The floor and fittings were all varnished oak, which had survived the years almost untouched.  All it would take was a touch of polish to bring out their shine and have it looking like new again.

A dinner set waited in a wooden hutch to my left, the kind of good porcelain crockery that stood up well to the years.
 Much like the miniature set I found in the antique store, these were resplendent in rose prints with a hint of gold around the edge of each plate.  The good china, waiting for the family to come home to celebrate Christmas lunch.

They’ll be waiting a while
, I thought with a dreamy kind of sadness.

To the right of that was a set of wide glass doors that led out to an overgrown veranda.
  Wall hangings and paintings that spoke of better times decorated the walls, mounted with good, solid wooden frames rather than the cheap, plastic junk that had become more common in the later years.

A table with enough chairs for six people sat in the centre of the room, and off to one side an archway led towards a kitchen.
 To my right, a long flight of stairs led upwards into shadow.

Foliage blocked most of the sunlight coming through the windows, but it was only dim inside rather than truly dark.
 I could see what I needed to see.  I paused to ponder, thinking how beautiful the place must have been in its prime, when it was clean and cared for and the garden was groomed.

I could imagine a Christmas tree in the far corner, ready to welcome the grandchildren that came to visit on Christmas morning.
 They were probably all dead now, along with their parents and their grandparents.

That thought was sobering and brought me back to the present.
 There was nothing I could do for those people now, except kill them if I saw them shuffling about vacant-eyed at the end of their half-life.  For their sake as much as mine I needed to survive, so that one day my descendants could live like this again.

I went for the kitchen first, as I always did.
 Ignoring the smell from the long-dead fridge, I made a beeline for the spacious double-door pantry.  It was well stocked with all the necessities of life, though most of them well past their best-before date.  On the lowest shelf was a veritable treasure trove of canned goods, just waiting to be plundered by a little pirate like me.  Arrrrrrr.

I grabbed an old rubbish bag from a higher shelf, and knelt down to gather up my bounty, pausing to examine each can before I put it into the bag.
 There was no point lugging something back that was guaranteed to be rotten on the inside, after all.  I learned long ago what survived the years and what didn’t, and which things were iffy.

Then, suddenly, I spotted something at the back of the pantry that made my heart skip a beat.

You knew you were a survivor when the most excitement you'd had in months revolved around finding a single, unopened can of Campbell's Creamy Mushroom Soup in the back of a dead person's larder, wedged behind a huge bag of rotten potatoes.  I pulled it free and held it up, drawing a deep breath to try and contain my excitement.

This flavour had been my favourite in my old life.
 It brought back memories of snacks shared with my mother in winter, sitting around the table at the end of the school day.  Talking, sharing funny stories, and enjoying soup together.

It was so corny that we could have written scripts for commercials.
 Back in the days when commercials still mattered, and Mum was alive, that is.

I knew as well as anyone that canned soups were hit or miss after this long.
 Chances were good that the contents of this can were a mass of congealed black goo by now, completely unrecognisable as any form of food product. But, for the sake of my memories, I would try anyway.

I reverently added the soup to my sack of booty and finished clearing out the rest of the cans.
 To my distaste, I discovered that amongst them was a large amount of cat food.  Great, just what I needed.  More cat food.  Tigger would be happy.  Me, not so much.  At least I could reassure myself that I had a decent firewall of other food between me and the dreaded cat food.

Once I was done with the cans, I looked around.
 A neat row of decorative storage tins painted in pretty colours drew my attention next.  Carefully prying them open one by one, I found milk powder, rolled oats and several kinds of pasta, most of which still looked edible courtesy of careful storage a decade ago.  I added them – tins and all – to my sack, along with a couple of bags of white rice that I found tucked away in the back.

White rice lasted forever if the pests didn’t get at it.
 I practically lived on the stuff when I had access to cooking facilities.   Needless to say, I was sick of it but at least it was food.  Not terribly nutritious, but it kept the hunger pangs at bay.

Sweeping my gaze upwards, I examined the top shelves and found little of interest.
 

Wait… no, what
’s that?  That tin up there, the one painted with the Christmas decorations?
 I reached up on tiptoes and pulled the tin down, to stare at it suspiciously.

Fruitcake.
 It had to be.

I remember the old urban legend that fruitcake was so full of preservatives that it would never go stale, so I couldn’t help but be curious.

I cracked the tin open and peered inside, then promptly closed it again and returned it to the top shelf.  Myth successfully debunked; fruitcake did
not
last forever.  Frankly, I was a little relieved.  If it had still been good, then I’d have been morally obligated to eat it at some point.  The thought of eating decade-old fruitcake was less than appetizing.

The memory of my grandmother’s Christmas fruitcake twisted my gut; no other fruitcake compared.
 Hers was actually edible – and quite tasty, in fact.  The last time I ate it was the Christmas just a few weeks before she died.

Shaking off the wave of sadness, I bundled my loot up on my shoulder and carried it out to where my Hilux waited faithfully.
 It was a heavy burden, but one of the perks of being a survivor was that you were never in need of a gym membership.  If you sat around doing nothing, you died.  Simple.  Staying alive kept you fit and strong.

I grumbled a few choice words under my breath as I unfastened the back canopy of my utility and hauled the heavy bag up onto the deck.
 I left the truck unlocked in a rare moment of carelessness and headed back inside.

My reasoning was simple; who on earth was going to steal my supplies all the way out here?
 The nearest human being was many kilometres away.

I mounted the stairs to search the first floor, where I found myself in a dusty land of yesteryear.
 Old photographs faded with age decorated the walls, and there were a number of empty rooms that seemed to exist for decoration rather than any real purpose.  Through one doorway, I saw a sitting room.  Through another, a sewing room.  A third was a hobby room, where a huge model train set took centre stage, rusting away amidst its carefully detailed landscapes.

Things were in good condition aside from the usual layer of dust, but I left most of it where it was.
 I took only some spare linens and a couple of pieces of clothing that looked to be around my size, and the rest of it I confined to the inventory map in my head.

In the world beyond the decline of man, you never quite knew what might come in handy one day.
 Whenever I saw something that I might need someday, I made a mental note of it in case I needed to find it in future.  It was the survivalist’s mental encyclopaedia: useful only after the expiration of human civilization.

It was also handy to know where things were if you ever needed to find something to trade with other survivors.
 Be it physical items or just information, it all had value.  You could never have too much knowledge.

That thought froze me in my tracks as I was passing back by the sitting room door, and the bookshelves that I had ignored on the way through.
 Books were heavy and you couldn’t eat them, so I generally left them behind when I was out on salvage missions.  This time though, I had a safe berth to return to, a good supply of food, and time on my hands.  It would be foolish not to use the time wisely, so I stepped through the doorway and went over to look at the shelves.

Nothing struck me as particularly interesting.
 The shelves were mostly filled with cookbooks intended for use with ingredients I could no longer get, old magazines advertising businesses long since dead, and books on trains.  Oh so very many books on trains.

I was about to leave when something finally caught my eye.
 Tucked in between the magazines was a small, worn paperback, a tatty copy of some silly romance novel I’d never heard of.
 
All things considered, it seemed like an appropriate way to waste my time, indulging in fantasies that would never be.  

I tucked the book into my pocket and went on my way.

***

Further exploration of the property revealed more chickens, an old dairy cow grazing in a huge paddock behind the house, and to my delight, a small orchard.
 I armed myself with plastic bags, and spent much of the afternoon out amongst the trees, gathering up as much windfall as I could.

There were peaches, plums, apples and pears, a veritable feast for someone in my position.
 Needless to say, it was the peaches that drew me like a magnet drew iron.  I plucked a soft, golden peach from a low-hanging bough and held it to my nose, drawing in a deep breath of the ripe scent.

It was too much for me to bear.

I took a huge bite and closed my eyes to savour the sweet, sweet taste on my tongue.  Oh, how long it had been since I’d eaten a
fresh
peach!  I devoured it in moments, juice running stickily down my chin, then snatched up another, and another.  Finally, my sense of self-preservation kicked in.  It took a hell of a lot of willpower to hold myself back from feasting until I exploded, but the last thing I needed was a tummy ache to go with all my other problems.