***
The sun’s nice and warm today, not searing hot. We spend the day at the bottom of the hotel’s drained swimming pool. It’s completely surrounded by a tall fence and all these other buildings, which is about as safe as any area can be these days.
Kean has dragged one of the white plastic sun beds down into the deep end of the pit and is relaxing in the sun with his jeans rolled up.
Somewhere in the middle Liss and Henry are laying on their stomachs, drawing games on the pale blue cement bottom with a stick of chalk. I sit with Trouble, in the shallow end. We’re leaning our backs against the side, just under a slice of shade. Trouble is studying the back half of the Chinese-English dictionary, running his finger down the page, while I study the front of mine.
It’s harder than you think, trying to communicate with a few bare-bone words. In the past hour we haven’t got very far. It’s pretty frustrating, so I kind of understand how he must have felt before meeting us.
I know he’s from China because when I ask, by pointing to the Chinese versions of where and from, he points to the Chinese title on the front of the book. Man would I have felt stupid if he was really Japanese or something.
Anyway, next I point to when and then point to the ground. Trouble holds up seven fingers and then flicks through his book and points to month.
See what I mean? All that to get seven months. It’s tough going.
Trouble points to where, gestures to all of us, and then does a long slow movement with his hand.
I think he’s trying to ask me where we’re going, since it’s pretty obvious where we’re from. Besides, that’s the first thing I’d be asking too.
I flick through pages and find the word I’m looking for: safety.
The coolness of the concrete is seeping through my clothing. I take a sip of my mineral water as Trouble points out another word: family.
I shake my head, but look for an appropriate word anyway. I choose gone.
I point to family in his dictionary and then at his chest. He shakes his head and points to my dictionary. His family is gone too.
Liss giggles and I look over. Henry slaps his hands over his face, pressing his head against the floor while Liss does a little fist pump. Henry’s wheelchair is inside. Just watching the two of them laid out on the ground playing, you wouldn’t be able to tell he’s paralysed.
Beyond, them Kean is stretched out, staring up at the sky. When I look at him I just think of the hand holding thing, remembering the way his palm felt, warming against my skin. I have to look away again because I don’t know what it means, if anything. Was he just being friendly? Is he interested in me? Am I interested back? I know how dangerous that could be.
I have to think of something to ask Trouble so don’t have a constant barrage of ridiculous questions running around in my head.
There is actually something else I want to know. I point to Trouble’s arm, and poke it with my finger. He looks down at my hand but doesn’t protest so I push his sleeve up until it reveals the tattoo of eight numbers. I know it’s a date, only a month before the outbreak.
He glances at it and stares at the closed book in his hands for a while. I just wait.
Eventually he starts flicking through the pages and uses his fingers to hold two places. The first word he shows me is girl and the second is baby.
Whoa.
If that’s the date of his baby’s birth, and I’m pretty certain it is, his daughter would have been a month old when the outbreak happened. And if she’s not here in his arms then she must be…
I glance at his face but don’t want to stare. His expression is strangely plain, like he’s purposely trying to show no expression at all. I nod and flick through my book. Sorry.
He looks over and says a word out loud in Chinese. I pull my legs in so I’m sitting cross-legged.
It’s weird how a thought can hit you so hard and make you feel all wacky. I never knew his kid but I know Trouble. And it makes me sad to think of him loosing his baby, because he seems like such a nice guy. I don’t know how I’d ever smile again if I lost Liss.
Suddenly Trouble stands up. He points to food in his dictionary and then points at Liss and Henry. I don’t really know what he means so I shrug.
Then he shows me another word: make.
I give him a thumbs-up and when he reaches Liss and Henry I call out, “Trouble wants your help making dinner.”
Liss jumps up straight away, looking smiley. Trouble pockets his mini dictionary and kneels down to help Henry. He kind of gathers Henry in his arms and still kneeling he nods to Liss and looks over his shoulder until she understands.
Liss claps her hands together and climbs onto his back, locking her arms around his neck.
The image of Trouble, carrying Henry in his arms and Liss on is back, as he marches up the steps of the shallow end, is so strange. The sunshine smile returns to his face and Liss giggles until they disappear inside.
I run my thumb over the pages of the dictionary a few times, making a fan noise as they flick past.
“Hey,” Kean calls. He’s still laid back but his head is raised. “Come and sun bathe with me.”
Oh, crap. I don’t know why but suddenly I’m nervous. And there aren’t even any infected people around.
I stand up and wander into the deep end. Kean jumps up and starts climbing the poolside ladder. “Have my seat,” he says. “I’ll get another one.”
I sit down and stare up at a floating puff of cloud. Behind there’s a gentle clattering, and then a clanging on the ladder. Finally Kean pulls his chair right next to me. He lies back and looks over. “Nice, huh?” he says. “Imagine if this pool was actually full of water.”
“I can’t remember the last time I went swimming.”
“I haven’t been since Henry’s accident.”
I don’t know what to say to that. When I do speak, somehow I don’t realise what I’m doing. It’s like my mouth is on autopilot. “Trouble had a baby daughter when the outbreak hit.”
Kean looks over. His light green eyes lower a bit. “Oh, man.”
“All his family is gone too.”
“No wonder he likes us. We’re like the most random family ever put together.”
I had enough difficulty making the leap from just Liss and me, to working as a team of five. But family? That’s something completely different.
“We are family,” he says, looking over my face. He drops his head back and closes his eyes. “We eat together, we live together, we move in formation together.”
I try to imagine what it would be like if Liss and I woke up tomorrow and we were on our own again. I’m not sure I could do that anymore. I’d miss Trouble and the background noise of two brothers trying to outwit each other. Crap.
“What did you think when I held your hand?” Kean says.
I glance over. “What?”
“You know.” He shrugs, watching me. “What did you think? Good, bad, happy, sad… angry?”
“I don’t know.” My brow furrows. “Not angry.” I shrug. “It wasn’t exactly life changing.” That definitely did not come out right.
“Oh, ouch.” Kean closes his eyes again. “I’ll have to make sure the kiss is out of this world then.”
I’ve lost the ability to speak out loud. The words just sound in my head like: what? and what do you mean? and oh my God… what?
Suddenly Kean laughs. “Relax, it was a joke. I won’t kiss you.” He looks over at me. “I’m not brave enough, anyway.”
“I doubt that,” I say. “You shimmied in front of an infected man.”
“Yeah…” Kean gives a short laugh. “But that’s different.” He pauses for a split second. “You know, there was this girl I liked back in school. Hailey White. Man, I must have had a crush on her since primary school. She was in my group of friends too. And for years and years I just watched her, waiting for the chance to actually tell her, but I never had the guts. And then the infection happened…”
&n
bsp; “Where do you think she is now?”
“Dead. Definitely dead.”
“You don’t know that, though.”
“Nah, I kind of do. She was a big wus. I heard she once cried at an episode of Home and Away.” Kean’s smile seems distant. “And not in a this-show-is-so-bad-I-can’t-believe-I’m-watching-this kind of way.”
I laugh but don’t know what to say so I just stare up at the sky.
He looks over suddenly. “You watched Home and Away, didn’t you?”
“I may have… dabbled, but I wouldn’t say I was a religious about it.”
“Ok, you can get away with that.” Kean nods. His voice tightens. “You’re pretty brave, you know.”
I shoot him a sideways glance. “I’m not.”
“Yeah.” He nods. “You definitely are. “Bold and brave in a balls out kind of way. When you jumped out of the car, like thirty seconds had passed since running out of fuel and you’d already hatched a plan to save our butts. And when you were sprinting through the infected I was just watching thinking… wow. I also thought you were going to die. But mostly I was thinking wow.”
I smile but say nothing, just keep squinting up at the sky.
“You did surprise me by going back into the tunnel for Trouble.”
I look over at him. “How come?”
Kean shrugs slowly and doesn’t let his shoulders drop again until he speaks again. “You just seemed like you didn’t want us there in the first place.”
“I didn’t.”
“Do you now?” Kean asks.
A few seconds pass before I answer. “Undecided.”
Kean laughs.
“It was really stupid going to the shopping centre,” I say. “I shouldn’t have done it. I don’t even know why I did. It’s so unlike me.”
“Putting your ass on the line for someone you care about? That sounds like you in every way.” Kean rolls onto his side, studying my face in that way that makes me feel like I’ve got food on it or something. “We’re alive,” he says. “And better yet we’re able to talk to Trouble… sort of. But now he can communicate with us properly if he wants to. That must be such a release for him.”
“That’s why I didn’t want other people hanging around in the first place. I get stupid,” I say. “If something happened to me, Liss would be alone. And for what? A book?”
“You can’t think like that. You can’t hold her hand every step of the way, just like I can’t with Henry.” Kean’s eyes narrow. “Not that we hold hands… because that’s just weird and… besides the point. Anyway, you kind of have to trust them to be able to look after themselves sometimes. Even though you don’t want to.”
“It’s hard though.” I twist onto my side and lean my head on my hand. “I remember once Liss and I were finding shelter for the night. We were in a housing development, still under construction, so it was completely fenced off. We were on one side of the fence and this guy… this grown man... comes out of nowhere screaming for help, you know? He sees us, comes straight to us and just stares at me, yelling for help. And here I am with a nine-year-old kid. He just keeps on screaming and rattling the fence, and then of course the infected people come around the corner. He didn’t even try to climb or run away. He just… let them have him, like he just couldn’t deal with it.” I pause to push a stray stand of hair from my eye. “I don’t understand it. It’s like some people just can’t look after themselves.”
“Yeah, but that’s not your problem. You can’t be held responsible for everyone.” Kean’s eyes slide away for a moment to the shallow end of the pool. “Just before we ran into you on the freeway,” he says, “Henry and I had been hiding in a house with this woman called Marlena. She must have been thirty something, you know, normal looking, normal acting. She was a high school teacher back before the outbreak, so I figured she’d have to be pretty strong-minded and reasonably trustworthy.” Kean gives me this look. “And then, one night, when Henry’s already asleep, she starts telling me that we can’t survive with him around. He’s too slow, too difficult to look after because he can’t walk… a big liability and all that. She starts trying to convince me to leave my own brother. To just let him die.”
“Wow.”
“And Marlena’s getting so worked up about it, you know, she’s shaking and her voice is getting louder and louder. So at this point I’ll tell her anything to shut her up. I say okay, in the morning we’ll leave Henry behind and it’s not till then that she finally calms down. Meanwhile, Henry’s heard all of this, he woke up sometime in the middle of her crazy rant, and so as soon as Marlena falls asleep, we bolt. We pack our stuff and just roll on out of there.
“I wouldn’t have left him, I’d rather die. I think in a way Henry keeps me sane and I keep him alive, and it kind of works because we both need each other. Though sometimes he drives me insane and sometimes I almost get him killed.” Kean shrugs. “Can’t be perfect every hour of every day.”
“I can’t believe she tried to make you leave him.”
“Yeah.” Kean gives a breath of a laugh. “And that same day we met you guys. I pretty much thought me and Henry were dead, you know? I didn’t have a destination, didn’t have a plan. I just felt like we had to keep moving. I pretty much promised myself I’d never work with anyone again but then I saw you guys. You and Liss, just like the girl versions of us. And on top of that you had this guy with you who didn’t speak a word of English! I mean, that’s hilarious! Enough to send anyone running. When you offered us a lift, I didn’t even have to think about it. I just couldn’t believe it.” Kean rubs his thumb over his bottom lip. “To you guys it doesn’t even matter that Henry’s in a wheelchair. We get around it. We make things happen anyway. You guys make me feel like I’ve got something to fall back on. Some other reason to keep going.”
I stare at his smile for a while. His teeth are perfectly straight and white, like movie star teeth.
“So… thanks for giving us a lift.” Kean glances at my free hand and a thrill runs through me. I lie back again, cross my arms over my stomach and stare up at blue sky. Yep, I am a wus. I can deal with hordes of infected people but I can’t deal with a single guy. “I wonder what’s for dinner,” I say.
Kean laughs. It sounds more like a nervous release than a happy sound. “I’m going to hazard a guess at chocolate, chips and other closely related items.”