The Esso bashed on the door again. Fucksake, we’re all freezing our tits off.
Li said, I’m just not lying to myself anymore.
Rich stood looking at her. She walked to the door, easily, steadied herself on the frame before she opened it.
See? she said, with her forehead against the cold metal. I do belong in here.
The runny nose turned into a cold, turned into a low-grade fever and a drag in her bones. She couldn’t get herself into the van. The driver backed away, a couple of Essos called her out of the line. It was hard to tell who anyone was now, behind the masks, but she could see in their eyes that they didn’t think the masks would save them. They kept their distance walking her over to the sickbox. Coughbox, the women called it. Deathbox. Okay, she thought. This.
She could hear it as she got closer. She wasn’t coughing yet, but soon she was. Soon every breath turned into a coughing fit. She lay on a cot someone didn’t need anymore and worked full-time on breathing. Not with her brain, just her body. Her body didn’t want to quit. All around her women were doing the same work, coughing up phlegm, coughing up blood, coughing till they couldn’t breathe and still coughing, a wet desperate sound.
Someone was moaning, an aaah aaah that came and went around spasms of coughing. Someone was asking for water, she thought it was Camila. Li was burning with cold and everything was heavy, her hand when she tried to lift the bottle, the blanket. Her neck and stomach hurt. Her lungs had fists and they were bashing at her temples trying to get out.
Something wet on her forehead. Blood? But it was cool, there were hands lifting her head, like she was a child.
The truckie said, Hell of a spot for a date. The water was cold and heavy in her mouth and it tasted of nothing. She went away down somewhere.
When she came back up, Essos in coveralls and masks and gloves were carrying more sick women in and dragging dead women out to make room. The air in the container was foul. She felt paper-thin and all her muscles hurt. The water bottle was empty and she was so thirsty.
Her knee crutch was beside her, when someone should have stolen it by now. She got up off the cot shakily and did up the straps and went outside.
There was a different stench out there, something sweet and leathery mixed in with the dump rot. And smoke. It was still morning, the light grey and indeterminate, a strong wind gusting from the west. Li buttoned her jacket and turned the collar up. She saw bodies lined up by the fence and went over there. They lay uncovered on their backs, or curved against each other, the way they’d slept in the cold. Essos came and went, bringing more bodies. No one told her to report for shift. They moved past her like she was dead, too. She came closer and recognised faces. Jun, who cried when they shaved her head. Tammy, who told them to wake her when she snored. A woman she’d worked a double shift with on the smelter, shared a readybar with, never asked her name.
Then an Esso dragged another body over and went away and left it there, and she wanted to say, No, you’re wrong about her, but she knew he was right.
When the boat was sinking, Cami called to a man in the water and the man reached his arms up to catch her baby. Emilio was little but he had strong fingers, she unfastened them and held him over the side and he didn’t cry. He looked at her and she let him go, and a wave came and when it passed the man was still holding up his empty arms.
Li felt a deep longing to lie down beside her. When the feeling got too strong she looked away from Cami, out through the fence. Saw more bodies in the next compound, and the next. There were fires in the No Go, smoke on the wind that carried a smell like burning hair and a smell like melting copper. She heard a vehicle heading back in towards maingate, heard dogs snarling.
Behind her, Megan said, You were in there for three days. We’ve been burning bodies every day. I kept expecting to see you.
Li rested her forehead against the wire. She said, Three days?
Management quarantined themselves in the complex. Megan’s voice was flat. I saw the convoy heading out there two nights ago. Then she said, Benj is dead.
Li turned around. Megan’s eyes were swollen and she wasn’t wearing a mask anymore. Li had watched Benj play footy once, had recognised him because he looked like his sister.
They kept saying they were going to upgrade him. If he’d been in security compound with me he might not have got the cough. Megan wiped her eyes and nose on the back of a filthy hand. He told me I wasn’t trying hard enough to get him out.
Did you see him?
Khaled dumped his body, I didn’t even see his body. She looked away and Li saw a spasm go through her.
She remembered waking Camila from her dream about her son, always the same dream. Holding onto her while Cami said, It gets darker and darker and his mouth is open but he never cries.
Megan said, Medic wanted to see you if you came through it. He said it’s important.
She let Li through the first set of link gates. The rest of them were unlocked. In the other compounds she passed through, there were more bodies on the ground, more Essos dragging bodies. No one stopped her or asked where she was going. It was quiet, just the wind blowing rubbish around. The only labour she saw were queueing outside the food shed, but there was no
