The Road to Winter (2 page)

It went off, maybe accidentally, I don't know, but someone in the front of the crowd must have been hit because there was yelling and screaming and everyone pushed forward, trapping Jim and Dad against the locked doors of the supermarket. I heard the sound of breaking glass, and when I got a clear view again the doors had given way and the crowd had pushed through into the shop. They clawed and jumped over each other to get to the shelves. Some groups worked together, grabbing trolleys and running down the aisles, shovelling food off the shelves with long sweeps of their arms.

I elbowed my way through to find Dad. I saw him off to the side of the entrance near the check-out, kneeling over Jim and pushing up and down on his chest. There was blood all over the floor. Eventually Dad's hands slowed and he slumped against the wall.

People were fighting each other for food, punching and kicking anyone out of their way. I saw my old football coach, George Wilson, barge his way down an aisle. He caught my
eye and shrugged his shoulders, as if to say,
What else is there to do?
I realised I knew most of the looters—and that's when I understood that there'd be no going back from here.

When I glanced at Dad his eyes were closed, and I saw that he was bleeding. He had a huge gash up high on his thigh and he'd put his hand there to stop it spurting.

I shook him by the shoulders and his eyes opened.

‘Come on, Dad. We've got to get out of here.'

He struggled to his feet and we stumbled out through the doors just as a ute backed up onto the footpath and crashed though the main display window of the bottle shop. Men inside started loading cartons of beer straight from the fridge.

I don't know how we made it home, but Mum ran out to meet us as we came around the corner. Dad was really weak by this stage, hardly able to stand up and mumbling stuff I couldn't understand. He fell into Mum's arms and the three of us toppled to the ground.

Sometimes I go and visit the spot where Dad fell, back near our old house. I can still remember every detail of that day. How I was trapped under his weight and I couldn't shift him. How Mum had taken her shirt off and wrapped it tight around his leg, but the blood just kept coming. She was crying and pushing her face up against his, telling him to hold on, telling him how much we needed him.

Everything seemed to go still then. Mum's arm came around and held my shoulder. I looked up to see her lying next to him. She knew before I did what was going to happen. So we lay
there on the side of the road, the three of us together, wound around each other and holding on like some great force was trying to tear us apart. The pounding in my ear, the big heart in his big chest, began to slow down and the spaces between beats grew longer. I held Dad tight and Mum took his face in her hands, kissing him on his lips. She held him like that until the cold of the evening dropped on us and I couldn't hear his heart anymore.

With the light all but gone now, it's safe to get the fire going in the lounge. The moon is hidden behind thick cloud, so even if the town is being watched from up on the ridge the smoke won't be visible.

I've got two rabbits to boil up. We'll eat one tonight and keep one for tomorrow.

When the next storm front hits, the house rattles and shakes. Rowdy is restless, whimpering and whining with the thunder and lightning, pushing himself against my legs and burying his nose in my jumper. I pull him in close and we both huddle under a blanket in front of the fire. This calms him down and before long he's snoozing in my lap. Just the sound of him breathing is comforting.

After that day at the supermarket, the whole town began to fall apart. Locals started ransacking houses looking for food, fuel and medicine. In the weeks before he died, Dad had been stockpiling stuff from his hardware store in an old garage at the back of a property on a quiet street away from the middle
of town. He only knew about it because he used to deliver gas bottles to the holiday house next door, but it meant we had our own supplies.

The virus was spreading faster. Angowrie was quarantined, with no one allowed in or out, but most people were too scared to stick around. They took off into the bush to find their way north, carrying whatever they could in handcarts and pushers. There was hardly any fuel left, either. A group of men had taken over the petrol station, guarding it night and day. When the electricity dropped out they set up hand pumps to bleed the tanks into forty-four-gallon drums that they traded for food.

In the end, I still don't know how many people died and how many left, but pretty soon the town was close to deserted. Mum and I sat up into the night and tried to decide what would be best—to try our luck going north or to stick it out in Angowrie and hope that things got better? As much as we talked I reckon we both knew we wouldn't leave. We had buried Dad in the backyard, and neither of us could bring ourselves to leave him.

Then Mum got sick.

Rowdy and me had come back from setting our traps one afternoon and heard the coughing from inside the house. Mum yelled at me through the window not to come in, to stay outside.

I opened the back door slowly and saw her sitting at the kitchen table, and it hit me then how tired she had been those past few days, going to bed early and getting up later each morning. She looked up at me and held up a hand.

‘
No, Finn. Stop
,' she cried. ‘You can't come in. Don't come near me.'

I stood, frozen, in the doorway. Her hair and clothes were wet with perspiration, and her whole body was shaking.

‘Listen to me, darling, listen carefully. Go and sleep in the house next to the storage shed with all our supplies. I'll be okay. Don't worry about me. I love you, Finny. You know that, don't you? I love you with all my heart and there's nothing I want to do more right now than hug you. But you can't come back here, baby. Never. You understand? Never.'

Now, when I think about that day, I struggle to picture her face. It's strange the things that stay with me, standing there and looking at my mum for the last time. I remember the light, the way the sun slanted through the kitchen window and caught the wall. I remember the smell of the rabbit I was holding and the feel of the rough pads on the bottom of its feet. And I remember the way Rowdy hung back from the door like he could sense the disease.

I went out to our shed and lay down on an old mattress on the floor. I slept on and off, hugging Rowdy to keep warm. In the morning the house was quiet, but the back door was open and I could see right through the kitchen and down the hallway. Even though I knew it was dangerous, I walked down to Mum's bedroom.

Her bed was empty and the sheets cold. She was gone.

I spent most of that day searching for her. I tried to get Rowdy to track her, but he backed away when I held a shirt of Mum's under his nose.

I took my bike and ventured further out onto the tracks that
led north. She wouldn't have been able to walk far.

By the time the sun had set and the light dropped away I was up the top of the valley near the fences. I'd stopped crying; I don't think I had any more tears in me.

I found myself in my favourite spot, on top of the ridge overlooking the whole town. With no lights, no movement, no humans, it was just the shell of a town really—maybe not a town at all, just burned-out shops and ransacked houses.

A few months after I lost Mum, I discovered Ray. I had been hunting out in the Addiscot Valley, about two hours east of town. As I was setting traps along a fence line, I looked up to see this old bloke pointing a shotgun at me from about twenty metres away.

‘Oi,' he said. ‘Bugger off.'

I was so shocked to hear another voice I just stood there staring at him.

‘Go on,' he said, ‘I told you to bugger off my land.' He jerked the shotgun at the bush behind me.

‘Sorry,' I said. ‘Just trying to catch some food.'

He lowered the gun and turned his head to the side like he was hard of hearing.

‘I know you, don't I?' he said.

I couldn't place him. His hair was long and wild and grey, and most of his face was hidden behind a beard.

‘You're Tom Morrison's boy, aren't you? From the hardware?'

‘Yeah.'

‘You always spoke funny,' he said, scratching his chin. ‘I
recognise your dog, too.'

‘Rowdy.'

‘Yeah, well,' he said. ‘I'm sorry, son, but I only got enough food for myself. How you faring?'

‘Getting by. Mostly rabbits and fish.'

‘Your mum and dad?'

‘Both gone.'

‘How long you been on your own?'

I shrugged. ‘Maybe six months.'

He was nodding and looking past me into bush, as though he was expecting someone else to be with me.

‘Seen any Wilders about?'

This was the first time I'd heard about the gangs of men roaming the country to the north.

‘Nope,' I said.

‘Many people left in town?'

‘None. Just Rowdy and me.'

‘None?'

‘Yep.'

‘Shit.'

Through that first winter me and Ray traded food every month or so. I'd catch rabbits for him and he'd give me honey from his hives or veggies grown in his garden. It was tempting to move out there and live with him—I reckon he would have liked that—but I had my stores to protect and his farm was too far from the surf.

This storm is taking its time to clear. I don't sleep well, worrying about how the house will stand up to the rain and wind.

The next day, when I check the river mouth in the afternoon, the sets are lining up like corduroy. Dad used to say that; meant they were one after the other. So I grab my board and paddle out again, duck diving under the sets as they crash over the bar. They're bigger today and I need to be careful not to drift too far inside the peak.

But I've only had a couple of waves when I hear Rowdy going apeshit. When I look back to the beach I can hardly believe what I see. He's got someone bailed up, leaping up and down and barking at them, then dropping to the ground like he's ready to go at them. I'm whistling for him to back off, but the waves are making too much noise for him to hear me.
There's nothing for it
, I end up thinking.
I'll have to head in.

I undo my leg-rope in the shallows and hold the board in front of me in case I need protection. But this bloke's just standing there, putting his hand out, trying to soothe Rowdy.

When I get closer I see he's as small as me, thin as a whippet. Rangy. Hair long and ropey right down his back and falling across his face. He's wearing an old pair of shorts and a way too big jumper.

Then he starts talking and it hits me. It's a girl. Voice real high and panicky.

‘You gotta help me,' she says. ‘Wilders. They're coming. They're tracking me.'

I'm struck dumb like an idiot. I haven't heard a girl's voice in so long it takes time to sink in. I understand enough to sense danger, though.

I drop my board and take off for the safety of the tea trees. She's onto the idea now and so is Rowdy, all three of us belting up the dunes, sending sand flying in the air behind us.

We reach the top and dive under the overhang. The girl's got me by the arm and she's not letting go. I peer out and see five of them—Wilders. I've steered clear of gangs like this when I've come across them north of the fence lines. As far as I know they haven't ventured into town before.

These are big blokes. No guns, but carrying long bits of wood. Looks like knives taped to the ends. It's no secret which way we've taken off, with our tracks all the way up the dune like a big sign saying, ‘Up here, up here'.

I see them start to climb, lumbering-like. Slow. And not real smart, either. They don't split up and try to head us off. Like dogs on the scent of a feed, all running together in a pack. I know I've got them covered but I don't get cocky. I've always had a plan for this. Head for the bush upriver. Lead them away from home. Get into the thick mimosa and stay low, then double back home after dark.

She's still got me by the arm, the girl, hanging on like a leech. Even in the panic I think how strange it feels to have someone touching me. So I look at her and say, ‘Keep up,' and start running again.

Rowdy bolts ahead like it's a big game, and the girl's matching me stride for stride, doing it easy by the looks. We've got a hundred metres on them by the time they fight their way out into the open. I slow a bit because I want them to see us. I've got to draw them away from home. I hear them yelling and hollering, probably thinking they're onto us.

I reckon we've got them beat when I hear it. It takes a while to sink through my thick head because I haven't heard that noise in so long it's like an echo. A motor. I look up and there's another big bastard on a trailbike weaving his way through the tussock grass and coming straight for us. He's got a metal stake in his hand and he's holding it like it's a tennis racquet.