Outback Exodus Collected Edition

By

Dawn Millen

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

All Rights reserved

Copyright © 2012 by Dawn Millen

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be resold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase another copy for each recipient. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to the place of purchase and purchase your own copy.

Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Dedication

This work is dedicated to those who have encouraged me in my dreams. To those who have stood by me, kicked my rear end when I wanted to give up, whirled the whip and those who have just been there for me.

Thank you as always. My love and gratitude is always yours.

A personal note from the Author

Outback Exodus and the following books in the series have been a journey like no other for me. To stretch myself enough to write Post-Apocalyptic fiction has been a dream for many years and to finally write the end on book five in the series brings a little emotion as I say goodbye to some of the people I have created, nurtured and loved throughout this journey.

I have so many people to thank for their support throughout the writing of this series. Firstly huge thanks to two of the best editors in the business. You two wonderful ladies have made the story flow, fixed so many errors and suggested so much you have both become a huge part of the books. I love you both for your encouragement, faith in me and support. It is humbling to have your love.

My Beta team are a remarkable group of readers and friends.  My thanks for the many hours of reading, gratitude for the feedback and the errors pointed out. You all make life easier with your positivity, your help and your love.

To the many friends who also have supported me, I thank you from the bottom of my heart.

To my readers a huge thank you too, without your support and requests for more books there would not have been a series written. May you return for more with the Southern Settlements Series and enjoy them just as much. To those of you who have bought, read and reviewed the books, thank you. Authors live and die by reviews and your kind words are always appreciated.

As I write this, this week brings some big anniversaries to my life. This week I enter my fifth year as a widow, my fourth as a writer and my second Christmas in my new home. I look back and hope my late husband would be proud of the way I have picked up my life and taken the steps forward to building a new life. 

Dawn Millen.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 1

Its 5.30am on the first day of January 2013, the sun is hanging like a big red ball just above the trees with the promise of stifling heat.  Dust motes dance along the rays of light and the world is still and quiet, even the parrots that normally screech and scream at this hour of the day are silent. No traffic on the highway in the distance either, very unusual at this hour of the morning. Something does not feel right with the world this morning. The dogs out the back are silent and cowering in their kennels, no barking to greet the new day, no tail wags and no exuberance. Something is wrong.

The silence is unnerving me, the stillness of the morning makes me feel as if I am the only person left alive in the world, something is going to happen, or maybe it already has. I can feel it, the small hairs rising on the back of my neck and down my arms. I just don’t know what is coming. I empty my coffee grounds from my cup onto the ground beside the porch rail where I stand, with a shiver I turn around.

I return to the house and turn on the radio and all I receive is static, the television is the same. The phone is dead and the internet has gone down too.  Here I am alone, twenty miles from town and something is wrong.

Heading for the bathroom to shower and get ready for the day I feel the floor of the house lurch beneath my feet and a long low rumble fills the air with an eerie vibration. The walls start to sway and I grab for the door frame to steady myself as the house lurches sideways, steadies and then moves again with a twisting motion that has windows cracking and tiles popping from the bathroom wall to shatter on the floor.

Earthquake! A bad one too. I mutter to myself as I watch the ground ripple through the now broken bathroom window.

Not good, no wonder everything was so still and quiet this morning I say aloud to the creaking house as my little house dog whimpers and cowers at my feet.

Dust is rising from the cracks that now appear in the wall and the swaying is sending me sliding towards the broken windows but I grab the hand basin and hang on grimly as this wild ride continues. I hear things falling in the rest of the house and further away I can hear gum trees popping their branches and falling to the ground. This rumble is going on and on and the swaying is getting worse.

Please don’t fall down old house, protect me and puppy. I yell above the noise of falling objects and the rumbles from deep in the earth.

Slowly the rumbles fade and the earth stills down. I pull myself towards the door, shaking from fear and the energy that I have expended to keep myself from falling through the broken windows. The floor is littered with glittering shards of tiles and glass; barefoot I am careful to make sure I don’t tread on anything sharp.

I dress and slowly walk through the house collecting the first aid kit, food for myself and the dogs, some clothing, bottled water, blankets and stout shoes, a torch and my personal valuables and papers. There are will be people out there who need help. I also go to the gun safe and collect both fire arms and ammunition as there will also be injured animals that need to be put down. The house is a mess, but thankfully still standing, just with jagged glass in the window frames and broken crockery and ornaments on the floors and cupboards with doors hanging open showing their jumbled contents.

The car shed has twisted slightly on its foundation and the doors are difficult to open, but with a few heaves it opens and I head inside to get the truck out. Four dogs trotting at my heels they are very anxious and afraid. They head straight up into the truck and the three working dogs are tied to the back and puppy gets into the cabin and settles into her normal spot in-between the seats while I put down the armfuls of supplies. I also gather a chainsaw, ropes, chains, an axe and shovel from the shed; I figure I may need any one of these during the next few hours. All of these are thrown on the truck bed with a large tarpaulin to cover them.

Reversing out of the shed I notice that there are a few cans of fuel beside the truck so I pick those up and also put them on the truck with the dogs. 

Driving into town becomes a nightmare of humps, bumps and crevasses in the ground that have been thrown up by the earthquake. Some crevasses are so large that I have to drive for long distances across country to get around them. The drive is difficult and dangerous with many parts of the road no longer there and sudden patches of weird sand that tries to suck at the truck and take it down to who knows where. I learn very quickly to watch for this sand and avoid it as the winch may be needed for rescue work and I don’t want to burn it out.

I see no signs of human life as I drive along through the dust filled air, just a few bewildered cattle staggering through the bush and pull over to check a couple that are close to my route. They will be okay I think and keep driving towards the township that is now just visible on the horizon. The dust pall is huge and I suspect that there is going to be a huge amount of damage to contend with when I get there. 

Chapter 2

Town at last, but not the town that I last saw two days ago. The whole town is a mass of twisted buildings, carpeted with glittering glass shards and a curtain of dust hangs thick over the whole place. Water fountains from the broken water mains in the streets, floods across the roads and through the broken houses and businesses. There are bricks scattered across roads and piles of rubble where buildings once stood. It’s an hour after the earthquake and I see no movement from the rubble except for scared dogs and cats scuttling in and out of the broken buildings. John Creek, Australia has almost ceased to exist. 

I head for the local Emergency Service Compound hoping that any survivors will have made their way there, only to be greeted by a locked door and silence. Pulling out my keys I open up and make my way to the banks of batteries and portable radios. The power is out and power lines lay in swathes around the town, but there are always charged batteries here and radios. When turning on the radio I am greeted with static and although I put out the call sign several times no one answers.... I am alone in a devastated landscape and now have to search for signs of life amongst the town. This is going to be a grim day for me as I know that so many of the town people would have still been in bed and would have had no chance to even brace themselves during the massive movements of the earth.  I grab the keys to the fire truck from the wall; put the dogs on their chains in the shade at the back of the shed, fill their water and food bowls and give them a pat. Then I grab more radios and batteries, drive out of the shed and into the devastation.

I head straight to the local Doctors home to start the search. Doc Tom and his wife, a nurse, will be invaluable if they have survived this and we find others who need help. The house is a pile of twisted and broken wood and tin topped by Doc’s beloved German Shepard dog Wally. Wally is trying to dig through the rubble to get to Doc and Sue and I join him after donning gloves and grabbing a crow bar and a jack from the truck. I am praying constantly now and praising Wally for his efforts to get to his beloved family. I realize that I am standing above the bedroom where Tom and Sue sleep and know that they would still be in bed at such an early hour so I am not hopeful of finding life, but Wally is determined to get through to them, so there may be a possibility that they are alive under the debris. We dig and I move twisted metal and broken wood and plaster away, choking on the dust rising all around us.  The last piece of ceiling plaster is pulled from the ever growing hole in the debris and I discover both Tom and Sue there in the bedroom. Tom is sprawled half in and half out of bed, his arms around Sue as if he is trying to protect her from the falling roof and walls. I know that there is nothing I can do for either of them though. There is blood everywhere, too much blood. With tears in my eyes I watch as Wally worms his way down through the hole in the roof and curls around them both. Then I turn away and head to the next house in the street to begin again, head bowed and tears streaming down my face; knowing in my heart that I will face this same scene over and over again during the hours/days that it may take to search the town.

The search continues with frequent breaks for tears and sorrow as house after house reveal the same thing, broken homes, broken dreams and broken bodies.  I return to the Emergency Service Compound many times throughout the day to rest, check for others around and to keep an eye on my dogs. Each time I return, there is hope in my heart that I will find someone there, maybe injured, but someone. The empty silence is getting difficult to deal with and the body count is rising. I have taken a map from the wall and marked each house that I have searched and listed on it the names of the people whose remains are buried in the rubble. This tallies with the tagging and marking, universal for Search and Rescue, that I have done at each property I have searched and becomes a reference for others who may come to search. It is all I can do at this time. I call frequently on the radio in hopes that someone somewhere will hear my calls for help and come to assist me, but all I hear over the air is the static and the silence of death. 

Am I the only person who has survived this?

Is there anyone else around?

Chapter 3

Late afternoon sees me driving the fire truck to each street and sounding the siren several times. I then leave the truck and walk with a megaphone calling out to the people there and telling them to make a noise, any noise. The silence is deafening though and I hear nothing in street after street. My voice is hoarse now with calling out to empty air and my throat sore from the shouting and the dust. I hear no movement in street after street; not one voice calls for help, no groans or cries from under the rubble. I am beginning to believe I am the only survivor in the area.

It’s almost dark now and I return to the Emergency Service Compound for the last time today, there is no point in searching further through the night hours. It is too dangerous to walk the rubble strewn streets and I would be no use to others who are injured if I hurt myself.

Time for me to feed the dogs, and myself, then rest and recover enough to start searching again tomorrow. Searching, hoping and trying to find someone else, anyone else who has survived this earthquake. I lie down on the cot in the office and close my eyes and try to compose myself for sleep. Sleep, however, will not come, visions of the sights I have seen and the friends I have lost, the devastation and the blood dance behind my eyelids. The tears come, I cry rivers during the night, dozing off and on between bouts of tears and waking to the almost constant aftershocks that are making things so dangerous out there in the town. I hear damaged buildings tumble further down with each shake of the earth.

The hours of darkness pass slowly and with the rising of the sun I awake and through sore red eyes peer at a world that 24 hours ago did not look like this. Once again I feed the dogs, eat cold baked beans as I am too hungry to wait for them to heat through and make coffee on the primus stove in the back room. I am as ready as I ever will be to face another day in this hell hole that used to be John Creek.

The routine begins again with the siren on the fire truck sounding as I turn into the street and the megaphone calling, then the silence as I listen for sounds of life. I work through the town again, street by street, house by house, calling, ever calling and hoping for someone to make a noise, any noise. All the sounds are from the animals crying for food and water, I know I cannot feed them all, so sadly I just keep moving and hoping as I journey through the streets of our small town.

Hour after hour I scour the streets, slowly and thoroughly, I no longer record the names of the dead, there are too many, and it hurts my soul to remember that just two days ago these were living breathing people, my friends and my life.

The radio is still static filled and no voices are heard there either, I am beginning to believe that I am the only human to have survived the devastation of the quake. As the earth shakes yet again I begin to believe that my best chance of finding survivors is to head for the nearest large town and to check on the farms along the road. This I will do tomorrow, but for today I will continue my search of the town in the hopes that one person, just one has managed to survive......

Chapter 4

The hours tick by and slowly I cover each and every street. My eyes are sore from the tears and my voice almost gone from trying to find others who are alive. I have blisters on my feet from my boots rubbing and sore hands from moving the piles of rubble that litter the streets to get the truck through and I am exhausted both mentally and physically. I have seen death before, I am a widow and I was also a nurse years ago and death holds no mystery for me, but to see death on this scale is something that I never anticipated. The horror is just starting to reach my brain.

I reach the end of the main street and turn into Short Street and hit the siren again. Sound echo’s through the stillness of the town then silence as I turn off the truck, pick up the megaphone and start to walk down this quiet leafy street. Megaphone in hand I begin to scan the broken buildings, eyes moving left and right. Searching, ever searching.

There, I see it! Amongst the rubble is movement, slow, shifting of tin and wood as something or someone pushes against it. My eyes widen as I peer towards this moving pile of debris and wonder. The movement is too large for an animal and for the first time in more than 24 hours I am hopeful that I have found someone alive.

I move towards the area, slowly at first, disbelieving after so long. Then I move faster, my feet stumbling over broken bricks and pieces of wood, all thoughts of my own safety have flown, there is someone there. I know that this is the home of my friend Rhys Jones, his wife Wendy and their tiny baby Caren. Rhys owns the local supermarket and Wendy runs the only dress shop in town. Caren is only six months old. I don’t know who is under the rubble, but someone has survived. Now to get them out of there and I hope that they have injuries I can manage.

Pulling my gloves and crowbar from my belt I work my way across the rubble pile that was once a home and calling out to let whoever is alive know that it is me and I am on top of the pile and going to help get them out. I am answered by the deep bass rumble of Rhys’s voice, telling me he is only slightly injured and that Caren is okay, wet, grumpy and hungry, but her cot protected her. His voice breaks as I ask about Wendy. Wendy is gone, she did not survive the initial quake and Rhys doesn’t know how long he was unconscious for, he heard the siren a while ago and had been working to get to the top of the pile of rubble, listening to me getting closer and closer and praying that I would not give up before I found them.

The earth shifts again as an aftershock rumbles through the town. The rubble pile moves with it and I hold my position and my breath hoping that it doesn’t collapse any further onto my friend and his tiny child. 

The shaking settles and I am so glad to hear the cries from Caren and Rhys gently soothing her as we both get back to work, one on the top of the pile of debris and one underneath. 

Two hours pass and there covered in dust, through a gap in the twisted tin, I can see my friend! We both smile as we pass tiny Caren through the hole. Then I tie a rope to a tree in what used to be the front yard of the house and lower it down to Rhys so that he is able to climb out into the daylight.

There we stand, with this precious little life cradled in her father’s arms and with our arms around each other. Rhys now looks at the devastation for the first time and tears flow down his face for Wendy and for the others in town who have not made it. His customers and friends of many years are no longer here and neither is the town where he grew up, married and started to build his family.

We walk slowly back to the fire truck with me answering his questions and explaining that I had been searching throughout the day before and today and had only found the two of them alive. We resolve to give it another twenty four hours of searching here and then to drive to the next town to see if there are others there who have survived.

Chapter 5

We head for the supermarket, where I walk through the shattered window and head down the shop to pick up nappies and baby food for Caren and more supplies for Rhys and myself. I also pick up long life milk, more bottled water, soups and tinned goods, more dog food and first aid supplies. We just don’t know what we will encounter along the journey and I feel that we need to be prepared now for any eventuality.

Next visit is to the pharmacy where I break open the dangerous drugs cabinet for medications, then I pull baby bottles, and other supplies off the shelves and place them into the Fire Truck. I have decided that this is going to be the vehicle that will be the best for us to use due to its high clearance. 

I visit the hardware store and gather jerry cans for fuel and water if we can find an uncontaminated supply and also grab a tent, mattresses, torches, spare batteries, fishing rods and many other things that may come in useful during our travels to find out if we are the only survivors of the quake. 

During this time the aftershocks continue and I run often from the buildings as they shake and quiver around me.  My fear now is that I will be injured by falling debris and will not make it out of here alive. I need to live now and help my friend with his child.

Dusk finds us returning to the Emergency Service Compound and our base; the dogs are let off to have a run and then fed and settled for the night. Puppy is not tied up, but curled up at our feet watching over Caren who we have made a bed for in a drawer lined with blankets. She is now content, clean, dry and fed. 

The sun sinks slowly beyond the horizon, colouring the sky with reds, oranges and purples as it reflects against the clouds of dust in the air from the earthquake. Rhys and I sit in the gathering darkness talking quietly and cry together. Both of us are still shocked by the devastation caused by the earthquake and the lack of human life to be found after it was over. Rhys had a slight cut to his forehead and a large lump on the back of his head where the roof caved in, but after some first aid for his cut and some food he is starting to work through the initial shock and horror. We talk late into the night and watch the stars pop into view in the velvet blackness of the sky. The moon sails across the heavens as if nothing had changed in the world.

But things had changed; nothing would ever be the same again for the tiny township of John Creek or for Rhys, Caren and I. Our world as we knew it ceased to exist and from the devastation of this life we now had to rebuild.

During all this time I had the radio on and there was nothing except static on the airwaves until.......

Chapter 6

0230 hours and suddenly the comforting static was broken by a voice, Rhys and I jumped to our feet and rushed to the radio. 

Is anyone there? a small, frightened voice called over the air

I keyed the microphone and replied, This is Jenny from John Creek, who are you and where are you? I asked.

My name is Robin and I am scared. The voice replied, Mummy and Daddy are in the bedroom and I can’t get in and they won’t talk to me, my sister Tammy is crying too, but I gave her a bottle. The voice went on.

Can you tell me where you live, Robin? I asked. What are Mummy and Daddy’s names? I looked at Rhys and got a nod that he may know who this was and the parent’s names would confirm it for him.

My heart was in my throat as I waited for Robin to reply, with all the stranger danger warnings I was so worried that Robin would not tell us where they were and who they were. We needed that information to be able to help them.

Mummy’s name is Marie and Daddy is called Scott. We live out on the road to the big waterhole. Was the reply after a few seconds of waiting. 

I looked at Rhys and we both spoke at once, the Johnstone’s over on Big Creek Road. It was a lonely and isolated property and those children were just small. Robin was six years old and had just started in school and Tammy was two. We had to get out there and check on what has happened to the parents and bring the surviving members of the family back into town with us.

Robin, do you know Mr Jones at the shop in John Creek? I ask him. When he tells me that he does know Rhys I tell him that Rhys, baby Caren and I will be there soon to help him and Tammy. I also tell him that he is doing such a good job looking after Tammy that Mummy and Daddy would be very proud of their big brave boy. I tell him to curl up with Tammy and that when he wakes up Mr Jones and I will be close to where he is. I also tell Robin to call out on the radio if he wakes and is scared and Mr Jones and I will answer him. 

Rhys and I know that we will have to wait for daylight to drive the 10 miles out to the Johnstone farm as it is too risky to drive the roads in the dark after the earthquake. So we settle down to doze for the next couple of hours. Rhys did remind me that we would need baby seats for the vehicle for all three of the children too and we would have to find them when we woke in the morning. He did know where there were cars with the seats so we would just go and get some.  With that we dozed off again to wake with the sun and drive out to the farm to find Robin and Tammy.

Chapter 7

We woke early and ate a hurried breakfast, feeding and changing Caren between us and then went to find car seats for the children. Then off to face the drive to the farm.

It took two hours to drive the ten miles to the farm due to many trees down on the road, the quake sand bogs and crevasses in the road. We had to take many detours and much rough driving was encountered before we pulled up in the front yard of the half destroyed farm house. 

Robin and Tammy rushed out of the door both of them excited to see the fire truck, but also very worried that they were unable to wake their parents. Rhys and I reassured them that we would go look at Mummy and Daddy for them and try to wake them. 

We left the children on the shady side of the house away from the building and the trees as the ground had started to shake again and we were worried, but we had to check on Marie and Scott. Robin promised to look after the two little girls for a short time while we checked on Mummy and Daddy and they were content with a packet of biscuits from the truck and bottles of water.

Rhys and I walked around to the side of the house where the Johnstone’s bedroom was half caved in and peered through the broken windows.  There they were, both Marie and Scott, still in their bed, but all we could see was their feet.  A huge beam had come down over both of them and crushed them both to death. There was no hope of them surviving. Rhys and I with tears in our eyes walked sadly around the house to tell the children that Mummy and Daddy could not wake up, but that they could come in the fire truck with Rhys, Caren and I. That we would look after them was understood by both Rhys and I as these were children from our town and they had no one else. We were now responsible for ourselves and three very young children. 

Another two hours sees us safely back at our base and the children settled quietly playing with Puppy while Rhys and I are planning a last drive around the township before our final night here and then the drive to the next town. 

This plan was revised and re revised several times over the day during breaks from checking for further signs of life. There were none to be found, however. It was a dispirited crew who finally fed the children and dogs and settled them down for the night. 

Tomorrow would bring new challenges, some we would face head on and some we would gladly not have to face at all and would turn tail and run from them. For now we needed to rest and restore ourselves to face the journey ahead.

Chapter 8

The 4th of January dawns hot and dry again and we rise, feed the children and the dogs and pack up the fire truck to start our journey to the next town. It’s going to take some time to travel the fifty miles between towns with the damage to the roads from the earthquake, but this is a journey that has to be made. There have to be other survivors out there and we need to find them. 

Banding together with others is going to mean that we will be stronger and hopefully we will find others with skills in many areas and be able to form some sort of community. 

With the children settled into the cabin of the truck with the dogs, we set off after one last look at what was left of the town where we used to live. Unrecognisable now as John Creek, just a pile of twisted debris with a pall of dust still hanging in the air, thickened a little with every after shock that rumbles through the ground. We were getting used to the frequent rumbles and the sounds of rubble shifting each time and had learned to navigate around the broken township. Now it was time to move on to Smithtown.

Smithtown, population 5,000, lies due east of John Creek and is the main service centre for our rural area. Shops, schools, a hospital and a small airport bring people from the surrounding smaller towns and villages there to resupply and Rhys and I are hoping that others have been able to make their way there. 

The drive to Smithtown was slow and we had many stops to clear fallen trees and many diversions across the paddocks to avoid crevasses and sand bogs that had blocked the road. There were fences down everywhere and cattle and sheep wandered the roads causing further dangers to vehicles. Five weary hours later we see the township ahead and things look no better here than at John Creek. The dust pall is bigger and there is smoke mixed into the dust from burning buildings. The destruction is on a massive scale with hardly any buildings untouched, so many have little left standing and the fires have burned through great areas of the township. The suburban sprawl and smaller blocks of land mean that once the fires started it jumped from house to house very quickly. 

We can see the hospital sitting atop the hill in the centre of town and it looks relatively undamaged, just a few shattered windows and some of the brick façade has fallen from the clock tower at the top. As most of the frontage is covered with a vine it is possible that the damage is worse than we can see. The vines may be hiding it from view. We will know more when we get to the building. It is the first place we will head for as it would be a refuge for the injured and for those assisting them. I just hope that there are others here who have survived.

Pulling up on the front lawn of the hospital we see that things are not as intact behind the façade as we thought, but that there is movement and life in the building. The automatic doors are wedged open just enough to get a stretcher through and inside the casualty department there are people milling about. Not many people and most have bandages on their bodies covering the wounds from the quake. Shock and confusion abound around the department and the staff members are overwhelmed by the number of people who have injuries that they are unable to treat. The theatres are damaged and there are so few personnel to perform surgery. With only three Doctors and six nurses left and over two hundred survivors with injuries ranging from minor to major there is little hope of being able to save everyone, and so many will not survive today or the days to come. I help where I can throughout the day. My old skills coming to the fore, I tend to minor wounds, check on drips and give pain medications. I do find myself present at the deaths of so many we are unable to help as they succumb to their injuries, the only help we can give them is pain medication so they do not suffer unduly. Sadness rules the memories I will carry of this day, closing the eyes of small children for the last time, seeing mothers and fathers crying for those already lost or for those who will be lost, it breaks my heart. Soon I am weeping too, along with the grieving community, grieving for them, for the friends I have lost and for myself and the life that was and will never be again.

In the meantime Rhys has found somewhere to set up camp and has pitched the tent and settled the children. The area is a cleared grass lawn close to the hospital, but with no buildings close and no trees. Ever mindful of the aftershocks, he has chosen well. The dogs are tied to the fire truck, one on each of the two sides, at the rear and the house dog is in the cabin. This will prevent others from taking what little we have, which is little enough to survive on for a few days and we do not know when we will be able to get more supplies. We are hoping that the government is able to help, but nothing has been heard here at Smithtown as to other survivors. We presume that we are on our own and take precautions to ensure that we can keep the children safe and the supplies as intact as possible. We will share with others, but under our own terms and not surrender to pressure. The dogs will be a good deterrent to those people who believe that they have the right of strength and might during these situations to take from others.

As darkness falls we huddle around the tent, talking about what we have seen and done during the day and wondering how many have survived in other towns and villages throughout the country. We are now four days out from the quake and no contact from outside our area has been heard and survivors are trickling in slowly from the outlying villages to Smithtown. Yes, there are survivors, pitifully few though and most are injured, many are actively grieving the loss of family members and friends and everyone is in shock.  That shock makes us all vulnerable at the moment and I wonder to myself how vulnerable we are, Rhys and I, three small children and four dogs. 

Chapter 9

As the stars begin to sprinkle the sky we settle for the night, curled up with the children and puppy in the tent. Rest is very necessary for us now, it feels safer here, but how much safer I do not know. My thoughts run through the day as I compose myself for sleep. Visions of what I have seen, done and experienced over the last few days dance behind my closed eyelids and sleep is slow to come, but come it must as my weary body craves rest and recovery.

Sometime later I awake and scramble out of the sleeping bag as I hear a low growl from Girlie who is tied to the fire truck. Ever alert, she is telling me that someone is around. There must be men around too as Girlie is one dog that cannot abide men due to abuse when she was young. I quietly move towards the flap of the tent and peer out. Hearing a rustle behind me I glance back and see Rhys also getting out of his sleeping bag. I signal for him to remain quiet until we know what is going on.

Girlie, Duke and Buster begin to bark and I decide that I have to expose myself to whoever is outside and find out what is going on. I quietly open the flap up and step out into the cool night air. Glancing left and right trying to detect movement in the darkness.

Over to the left I see five people walking towards our tent and they are carrying bundles in their arms. I can make out the figures of three men and two women and the bundles carried by four of the adults are small children wrapped in blankets and the other young male is carrying food and water for them. My eyes blink once or twice and then I recognise one of the figures as my friend Krystal, her partner Raymond, and their children Steve, Sandy and Thomas. With them are Paul and Sandra with little David and Carol. Friends, good friends and they have survived. My heart overflows and tears are running down my face as I run to help them with the children and hug and hold my friends. We are a bigger band now, but we are together and stronger for it.

Krystal and I nursed together many years ago and she was up at the hospital and had heard that there was a retired nurse from John Creek arrived with others today and took a chance on it being me. Raymond and Rhys are old friends who went to school together and although their lives had taken different tracks had always kept in touch. Krystal’s friends Paul and Sandra and their children had also survived the earthquake as both families had been camping down at the lake near Smithtown and had been sheltered by canvas, had they been at home it is doubtful that anyone would have survived as both houses were totally destroyed and one had been consumed by the fire that had raged through the western quarter of the town.

Our band of adults now consists of two nurses, a shop keeper, Raymond who is a mechanic, Paul is an engineer and Sandra is a designer of beautiful clothes. The children, eight in all now, range in age from 14 year old Thomas down to tiny six month old Caren. Out of the darkness Raymond’s dog, Jet, appears and a great amount of tail sniffing and wagging starts among the dogs. A reunion is soon underway and stories of survival are swapped and questions asked and answered as we find out what has happened to other friends, family and people in the business community. The fate of many of our friends is uncertain, but then we expected that from the damage we have seen and we sadly conclude that many of our friends just did not make it out of their homes as the earthquake struck.

We shuffle around the children in the tent and settle them for the night. The adults huddle outside the tent and the talking and comparing of experiences continues. We tell of the earthquake and the fear that we felt, the aftermath and our first impressions of the devastation. Then the tears come to us all as we talk about the searches we made through the rubble of our towns and the lost friends and family and the loss of our lives as we knew them. This night is for sharing our sorrows, talking through our grief and for building bonds within our group. Those bonds will be strong, lifelong and will carry us into the uncertain future that is now such a part of our world.

Chapter 10

As we talk the stars and moon wheel across the sky and the first streaks of daylight appear on the horizon. A new day begins amongst the devastation wreaked by the earthquake and what it will bring is a mystery and one that will be solved in the coming hours. We sit on the hill top and watch as the first rays of the rising sun pick out the rubble piles that were once homes and shops; we watch the dust rising along the sunbeams. Smoke still hovers in parts of the town, less now as the fire has consumed most of the combustible materials and smoulders in small areas. Starving pets wander in and out of the wreckage of homes looking for the families who have always fed them and not understanding where they have gone or why. The sight of all of this silences the conversation and we just sit and stare at what was once a thriving township in the dust filled outback of Australia.

The children start to stir and we prepare breakfast for them, feed the five dogs and get ready to start the day. Sandra will care for the children today while Rhys, Paul and Raymond join the pitifully small group of searchers who are going house to house looking for survivors while Krystal and I will go to the hospital to assist with those who have survived and are injured. Krystal’s older son Thomas asks permission to go with the men to help look for others and after some discussion Krystal and Raymond decide that he can go as long as he is with one of the men in our group. The children have been exposed to so much death that there is no longer any point in sheltering them from it. Sandy will stay and help Sandra with the younger children though, at 12 years old he will be a good assistant for Sandra and a playmate for the younger ones. With these plans made we all hug one another and move off to face our day.

Walking into the hospital Krystal and I are greeted by the exhausted staff who have worked through the night and after a handover of the patients who will be in our care for the next few hours we start work, dressing wounds, many of which have now become infected, checking drips and bathing those who are unable to wash themselves. Clean linen is now becoming scarce as are medications to treat the infections and relieve the pain and we can only give painkillers to those whose need is highest. We fear that there will be no resupply at all for some considerable time, if ever. The uncertainty means that we must preserve our stocks for the people who have the greatest need or for those who it will help the most. Need is now taking over want in this disaster, the lack of communication with the rest of the world is making decisions for us we would never make under normal circumstances.

I have at least three patients who will not make it through the day and all we can do is make them as comfortable as possible, wash them down with cool water and hope that their suffering is not too much. Infection is rampant throughout their bodies and there are few drugs left to fight major infections as much of the drug stocks have been depleted due to the high infection rates. Sadly I minister to these patients knowing that we cannot help them. It is up to their bodies to fight this last battle, but it is a battle they will probably lose and all I can do is to sooth them when they cry out and try to make sure that during their last moments they have the sound of a caring human voice and the touch of gentle hands. Some patients, however, will survive their injuries and those are the ones we must work hardest to make sure that they do. They are young, strong and have plenty of fight in them. The trauma of what has happened has not destroyed their will to live, nor have their injuries or the depravation of what now amounts to a third world hospital situation. They will heal and will go forward to make new lives in this world. This gives much pleasure to all of us who are caring for them, in this area of the hospital there is laughter, smiles and through the pain there is the joy of survival, the joy only known to the young. Those of us who have faced the situation outside know that there is much work to be done and many lives lost. We have to rebuild now and scatter from the townships because of the unburied dead who are now so numerous that the survivors are unable to give them the attention that they deserve. Disease is now a big worry and we are on constant watch for it amongst those that have survived, in particular the injured, the very young and the very old, all of whom are vulnerable to infections. 

Lunchtime brings food and conversation as those who are able cook for those who cannot. We feed those who cannot feed themselves and then eat ourselves. So many things are running out in the township now that food is becoming an issue and some of the men have gone out and foraged for fresh vegetables and fruit in the gardens of the town and others have taken guns and hunted down wandering cattle and shot them for food. We have to be aware though of the supplies that we cannot replenish so easily and ration things like flour and sugar. The shops in the main shopping centre, though damaged, are supplying these things at the moment, and an armed guard has been placed at each shop to make sure that no one takes more than their share. We have to share what resources there are and make sure that everyone has a fair and equal share. 

A meeting of all survivors has been called for tonight at the sports stadium to enable fair division of work and supplies, to call the role of survivors and their skills and to discuss the options that we have upon leaving Smithtown. We must plan where to go, how to get there and what to take with us. We need to be as self-sufficient as possible on this journey. Lists will be made, checked, remade and rechecked over and over in the next few hours and days. We cannot afford to make mistakes with what we need. Shops, homes and offices will be scoured to ensure that we have what we need and then we can pack up our band of survivors and make our way to our next destination. 

The day draws slowly towards sundown and our shift change. During handover I have to report that sadly two of the expected deaths on my patient load have happened and that the last one is just hanging in there at the moment and with hope her suffering would soon be over. I can also report that two of the younger patients are doing well and are up and about. Discharge is going to be an issue though as there are no family members left to care for them. This is a problem with several of the children and will also have to be discussed during the meeting tonight. We will not abandon any child or adult who has survived.

The day has been punctuated by aftershocks, some small and some much larger ones. We are getting to the stage where we don’t feel the little ones so much now, but the larger ones bring fear and rain plaster down from the ceilings of the old building. I for one am not sure how much longer the old place will stand up to this and ask for this to be included in the list for discussion tonight.  We may need to move everyone to a tent hospital outside for the safety of both the patients and the staff. As it turns out I am not the only one who is concerned about this and it has already been listed for discussion. 

Now it is time to head back to our camp site and find out how the others fared through the day, relax a little before the meeting and eat. My body craves food and rest badly at the moment, but as I am one of the healthy ones I have to keep going until others are strong enough to join the communal effort. I smell the food before I get to the tents pitched close to the fire truck and I walk faster drawn towards that wonderful smell and the light of the fire.

Chapter 11

When I arrived back our group was all settled with their dinners on their laps and the children were already eating. The men and Thomas have had a big day and all look tired, they did however find two people in the rubble who have a good chance of survival. Thomas is so thrilled by this that he has the biggest smile I have ever seen on his face. One of the people they found is a friend of his from school named Kyle, who once recovered will become part of our group as there appear to be no other family members amongst those that have survived.

The sky wheels through its sunset ritual and soon it is dark and time to head for the sports ground and the meeting. We trail off in our groups and people arrive and greet each other with great enthusiasm. Survival during a disaster seems to bring camaraderie to the fore and helping hands are everywhere.

The meeting is to be chaired by the local Police Sargent, Gavin Brown, and with his towering height and loud voice he is soon calling us all to order and requesting quiet. Once the group settles down he begins to address the crowd.

G’day folks, it is time we got this show on the road. He booms across the crowd of around 150 people.

We have some big decisions to make tonight and we had better get on with it now and sort out what we are doing and where we are going. I know that it has been a rough few days for everyone, but the risk of disease from the bodies in the rubble is now becoming an issue and we have to leave the town as soon as possible to avoid everyone getting sick. There are just not enough of us left to clear the rubble away and bury the dead properly. His voice breaks as he says the last few words.

Silence greets the blunt statement and people gaze at Gavin with disbelief and tears in their eyes. Leaving their town is the last thing many of these survivors want to do. To leave behind their pasts, face an uncertain future and be unable to bury their dead. No wonder they are in shock. Murmurs of protest soon start in the crowd as they digest those first words from Gavin. 

Those protests are building up and Gavin is going to have to squash them very quickly or this meeting will get out of control very quickly. He cannot afford to lose control of the group or there will be no chance and people will die from disease. Gavin pulls himself up to his full height and his bright blue/green eyes flash behind his glasses as he glares down towards the area where the loudest protests are coming from.

Following his eye line I spot the cause of the commotion and it is with no surprise that I see John Evans, a 40 year old electrician, known far and wide for his aggressive attitude and his tendency to hit first and ask questions later. This is going to be a full on confrontation and one that Gavin must not give way on. John Evans has to be silenced and quickly before disquiet spreads and upsets the whole crowd. John is winding up; intent on having a confrontation, Gavin has to act quickly.

John Evans, when did you do your Public Health and Disease Prevention Training?’ Gavin asks, his voice dripping with ice and his eyes flashing fire. Doc Eden is our Public Health specialist and she says that we have to leave the town, unless you would rather stay and risk typhoid and cholera." Gavin’s voice continued above the murmurs. The crowd stills and becomes quiet; faces register shock, more tears form on some of the faces. The message is getting through to them. John Evans stands and glares at Gavin until one of his mates pulls him down to the grass to sit again. The crowd is ready to listen at last.

Eyes turn to the front once again. The mere mention of typhoid and cholera have jolted their focus to the here and now and the reasons for leaving. Helen Eden makes her way to the front of the crowd and stands beside Gavin on the grandstand steps and looks around the expectant faces, clears her throat and begins to explain why we must leave Smithtown.

I know that none of us wish to leave our town, Helen begins, it is necessary though to prevent the spread of disease. Those of us who have survived are going to have to manage without a lot of the drugs until the government is organised again and able to supply the necessary medications. As we have had no contact with anyone outside of the immediate area we have no idea when this will be. Helen’s gentle voice echo’s around the field in the silence of the night. Tonight we have to plan where we will go and what we will take with us to enable us to build a future. I am going to hand the meeting back to Gavin now and let him organise a group of people to lead us. Thanks for listening everyone. With this Helen walks down from the stadium seats and heads back towards the hospital and her patients.

Gavin again stands to his full height and looks out across the group of people huddled on the ground in front of him. I am going to select a group of people to plan this as we do not have much time before we have to leave here. We all need their specialist skills to get us through the next weeks and the travel. I have put together a list of those who will form this committee and will read them out to you all now. Gavin then clears his throat and starts to read from the list in his hand.

Doctor Helen Eden for her medical background, Raymond Willis for mechanics, Andrew Johnson for communications. Approval so far from the crowd encourages Gavin to go on. John Evans for electricity and generators, Rhys Jones will be quartermaster and in charge of supplies. Krystal Willis will head up the nurses. The list continues on. Paul Smith will bring his engineering skills, Wendy Williams and Sandra Smith will be working with the children. He continued down the list. I have also selected Jenny Fredrick to be my second in command due to her Emergency Service background. Folks I would like you all to have a good think about what we will need to make a journey and start making lists. It will be essentials only, so ladies, no ball gowns! Your lists need to be given to the committee members by tomorrow night. Gavin says with a smile. 

Gavin concludes his statements with, "Okay, everyone, we have a lot of work and little time to do it. We need to be organised and out of here very quickly. Let’s get busy. Committee members please stay back as we need