Hockey Girl

As Ebola hits eleven hundred and thirty one in Africa people protesting against quarantine units being set up in their neighborhoods stop the authorities removing bodies from the streets in West Point – a seaside slum in Monrovia.

A mob raids a quarantine unit in a school chanting, ‘Ebola is a hoax!’

Many folk believe the malady is imported by Westerners, is witchcraft, malaria or trickery. People think Westerners are injecting Ebola into victims and stealing bodies. Everything is looted, even blood soaked mattresses and blankets. Ten ill people are spirited away by family and seventeen run off under their own steam.

The next day the seventeen escaped from the quarantine areas are still at large. Cameroon closes all its land and sea areas with Nigeria.

A blogger in New Zealand claims the government leaked the Ebola into the Hutt Valley to kill ferals and left wing voters. Many people believe this. The Ebola spreads as New Zealanders insist on visiting folk who can supply them with marijuana, homemade liquor, or other illicit substances. Rents drop to an affordable level as there are so many empty homes and those still working get a reasonable wage as workers are now a commodity. The air and waterways have never been so pure. Roving packs of dogs bereft of their owners and used to a diet of Ebola victims are now another hazard keeping folk in their homes. The stench of corpses in houses, factories and public buildings is unbearable and attracts vermin from the bush in their thousands. As children cannot attend school for fear of spreading the contagion, lessons are given over the radio. Many adults benefit from this windfall. A large portion of the populace hasn’t read a book in years.

Arthur DuPont is near mad from having Ebola whilst using ecstasy. Needing more drugs Arthur decides to take his bike over to his dealers to score. Arthur is hanging out for a buzz. Growing impatient Arthur threw the motorbike into first gear and blatted down the drive and into the avenue .The back wheel snaked left and right before it bit the ground and after a quick flick into second the man and machine disappeared down Ample Alley (a hangout for the unemployed).

It was at this moment Tilda Grabshank looked up from pruning her roses and seeing him riding into Ample Alley called out, ‘score a tinny (marijuana) for me Arthur!’

The big A laughs and wheelstands the length of the ill reputed stretch of tarmac, lays it down and wheel spins around the corner into Ungracious Grove, almost laconically and then mirthlessly engages third gear and twists throttle viciously to roar towards motorcycle freedom . Insinuating a guise of insincerity Arthur mockingly ushers fourth gear into play and experiences sensory overload.

A young woman eyes him and he coolly ignores her as he would a red light.

Arthur moves his bulk across the seat adjusting the ballast and jettisons the helmet finding it tiresome. Nimbly he drops the cycle down to third and lifts the front wheel as he plans his purchases from the grocery store. In the most bored fashion he casually loses two police motorcycles chasing his fast moving ass. Arthur now dismounts the bike whilst it is still moving to purchase a coffee; the beast roars off on its own into a mall. People’s screams are audible above the perfectly tuned engine. Arthur now admits to himself he has a low boredom threshold and decides he should smoke marijuana like his dear old Gran.

***

A Spanish nurse dies after treating two priests for Ebola in Spain. An American from Texas flies home without telling anyone a woman with Ebola vomited on him when he was in Africa helping folk. After a week the man dies. A nurse treating him contracts the disease. The Americans as usual panic. His family is asked to leave kindergartens, schools and jobs even though they have no symptoms. They are all quarantined.

Wellington New Zealand. The sound of his feet running down the path matched the beat of his heart and the tone of the ringing in his ears .The man’s eyes bloodshot like the sunset on an oily pond stared madly ahead as he leapt a low hedge and headed out of the park towards the public library. The Ebola was coming off him via his tears, mucus, sweat and blood.

The man runs into the main street spitting at people. After smearing his hands across his face and neck he rubs them over folks in the crowd. His temperature is extremely feverish and he is in great pain as his intestines hemorrhage .The man cares nothing for this, he wants it to end and he wants to take as many with him as he can.

The policeman across the road kneels on the cold concrete taking aim; he has already shot five ‘Bolas’ in the last two months. Following the screaming man in his sights he waits till the feverished, irrational runner appears in a gap amid the crowd and gently eases the trigger towards himself. The first bullet leaves a furrow along the man’s shoulder.

‘You’re nicked,’ the policeman thinks to himself wryly.

The Ebola victim with blood pouring from his nose and eyes twists as the next bullet enters his chest, rams through the left lung and drills through his spine then leaves his upper back. The blood and bone sprays into the crowd. Two of the onlookers will now have

Ebola .The man’s bowels empty and the coppery smell of blood emanates from the corpse. The two infected will spread it to a daughter, brother and wife who will give it to a colleague, a bus driver and a vicar.

The crowd gathers and stares at the man wondering why he would be selfish enough to wish to spread this misery. Maybe the Ebola had deranged his mind. They drift off many wearing face masks as the men in the suits and goggles come and put the corpse into a body bag and then drive off with a full load to the crematorium.

Later the policeman James Talbot is in the back yard burning his uniform and cap. He says to his wife that night, ‘I see them as zombies from a film, it’s the only way I can pull the trigger. It could be an old school friend or a person I played rugby with, God Janet, I need a beer.’

His wife shakes her head; it’s not New Zealand the way she wants it.

***

After the police turn up at the beach slum in Monrovia, Sierra Leonie to catch a girl who has escaped with Ebola they are met by a mob throwing stones. The police open up with live rounds on the crowd.

Callahan lives in Minnesota, he sat on a plane next to a nurse who had treated a Liberian man in hospital. The safety gowns left the nurse’s necks exposed. The health authorities try to trace 132 people who shared a flight from Cleveland Ohio to Dallas with the nurse. Reaching deep inside himself Callahan sought an answer to this sickening situation he had found himself in. Walking out of the bathroom over to his bed he sat down and stared at the wall.

The thermometer had read the minimum temperature for Ebola. ’He had it! He was doomed. He felt lousy. What would his girlfriend say?’

This is it. ‘Damned Ebola, it was everywhere, a merciless death sentence.’

Clinically Callahan had a 59% chance of surviving the malady.

’Maybe it’s time to go anyway I’m 56, seen a few years, don’t have any kids or a job.’ He thought pragmatically.

*

Brian Whitby lives in a derelict squat in South London he coughs, shivers, sweats and has headaches. Brian’s fellow squatters think he is having drug withdrawals and just get on with their own survival. They share needles and joints with Brian. After a week four of Brian’s companions have Ebola, when a police raid occurs they all move on to other squats. Ebola spreads through London. Ebola cases have been found in Scotland, France, Poland and the USA.

Senegal closes its border with Guinea. Thirteen people have died in the Congo with diarrhea, fever and vomiting. Two people are confirmed to have died from Ebola in Congo but as they are known to eat bush meat (bats or monkeys etc.) it is thought to probably be the earlier Congo Virus and no connection. The entire slum area in beach front Monrovia is cordoned off— there are more riots. Authorities admit the disease is spreading faster than they predicted, in a month there are four thousand dead. Hundreds a day catch Ebola. Nurses strike as so many of them die they feel they should be paid death wages. Ebola is on a relentless march, authorities predict the contagion rate will be five to ten thousand per week by the end of 2014. The Ebola now has gone from 50% to 70 % mortality rate. Ebola mutates at a deadly rate. The more it is harbored in people the more lethal it has become. One hundred health workers have died in Liberia. 40% of farms have closed from people afraid to work or travel together. Many are dead. Soldiers in Guinea shoot anyone crossing the border. Seven hundred prisoners are freed in Monrovia to ease risk of contagion. After hundreds more health worker deaths it is found the face masks don’t filter out the disease. The deaths in West Africa reach 4800.

The USA and some other countries immediately quarantine returning health workers from Western Africa, as soon as they arrive home. A healthy woman, a medical worker, is so incensed by this paranoia she threatens to sue. The UN states that people won’t volunteer to go and help after being stigmatized like this and the Ebola will spread. There will be more Ebola internationally and a greater chance of it getting into America .The government sees the sense in this and releases the woman. Ten doctors have died of Ebola in Sierra Leonie.

***

Two weeks later New Zealand is a pariah state shut off from the rest of the world much the same as the African Ebola nations. Instead of being surrounded by the military, this country is encircled by the sea. The economy has collapsed and the nonpayment of debt has caused the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank to order extreme measures to curb spending. All roading and other infrastructure are ceased, benefits and pensions are halved, companies and land are sold to foreigners and all learning institutes are shut down. Spraying for Ebola in working class neighborhoods doesn’t go according to plan. The security services are allowed to listen to every cell phone and land - line conversation. All texts, emails, face book, everything is read by big brother. Security cameras are everywhere. Academics and journalists commenting negatively on the government’s friends in the gambling, tobacco, alcohol, rental and especially pharmaceutical industries are attacked by the Prime minister’s blogger friends. Fifty graves a day are dug in the capital. Minimum security prisoners are released if they bury corpses.

Famous sports players relay messages on television and radio. There is the leader of the All Blacks rugby team, the captain of the national cricket team and after a television crew is sent to Turkey – Annette Hastings, the much loved leader of the Black Sticks women’s hockey team. New Zealanders love Annette especially after her New Zealand Woman’s Weekly interview showing her to be a compassionate, clean-living role model. Kiwis adore Annette for leading the team to yet more international victories whilst many in the squad were grieving themselves. Many career women appreciated the fact that Annette had sacrificed motherhood for her vocation. Green leaning individuals worshipped the skipper for her work in environmental protection. Along with the other sporting heroes Annette looks directly into the camera with a caring, intelligent look reminding folk to not touch a sufferer’s skin or hair, to wear a mask in public and report immediately to authorities when loved ones fall ill – even if they have a raised temperature. Many watching this responsible public figure can envisage her becoming a Dame one day. The hockey team is not allowed to return home for their own safety.

***

The two brothers are alcoholic. Matt and Eddy have livers like slugs dipped in hydrochloric acid; they are both in hospital and are on portable drips. After a lifetime of being drunk, wheeling the portable drips about the hospital corridors visiting friends is simply another laugh. This chapter is merely an anecdote to tell drunken or drugged friends. The Ebola they have is contagious and security guards in protective gear have had to take them back to the isolation ward and lock them in. The two have never really been sober since they were fourteen. One has five children the other three, all to different mothers. The siblings are a product of that section of New Zealand who proudly call themselves ‘wasters’. Friends have smuggled sherry laced with methylated spirits inside crutches and hollow walking sticks to the alcoholic siblings. A cheap and nasty concoction, but guaranteed to give a hit.

In Africa people are too poor or religious to be drugged or drunk half the time. In New Zealand many choose to spend all their spare money on ‘partying’. Controlling a large portion of a nation that is drunk, stoned or tripping whilst ill with Ebola is alike trying to herd leopards; the government have many all-night sessions. People, (because marijuana and other substances they have used all of their lives are illegal), have a culture of seeing the authorities as enemies and killjoys. Now this segment of society, being quite casual and transitory, are spreading the Ebola everywhere.

The siblings with Ebola are typical. The two don’t give a fruit bat’s cuss whether they live or die. Unlike Africans the brothers Matt and Eddy have no fear of death. The two have weathered drunken brawls, driving under the influence and alcohol poisoning. Dying from Ebola will give their friends a story.

They just want to be ‘out of it’.

’Who cares?’

Matt and Eddy are seen at a party a week later drinking and passing joints around whilst wheeling their drip frames about. With the needles still taped into their arms they just laugh about getting a free ‘buzz’. With eyes bloodshot from Ebola, everyone at the soiree agrees they look the same as ever. Most laugh at the hospital gowns with the split at the back. When the ill men can’t control their bowels there is uncontrolled hilarity. One of their sons there to talk his father into returning to hospital sees what is happening and flees the scene. The young man Billy grew up seeing all of this first–hand and is used to men his father’s age dying around the fifty mark. Billy is more worried about his kids and the community at large. He decides to leave town for good.

***

At last the New Zealand Black Sticks are arriving back in their home country. Looking at the capital Wellington from the plane they can see only one or two vehicles on the road. The team is very subdued, many of them have lost loved ones and the news is grim. Fifty percent of the population is dead and Ebola is still rampant. Even the plane seems unwilling to land on the decimated country. Bouncing and juddering it seems the foreign pilots are nervous to be here in these infectious islands and aren’t as relaxed as they usually are. They won’t leave the airport and venture into the capital before they fly out again. The team can see people in bio-hazard suits and masks approaching them in two buses. They look like buses in space. The usual welcoming fans are not in sight today. The passengers are taken to a quarantine area where they are tested for symptoms. The team is halfheartedly congratulated by a low-ranking government official followed by some polite clapping from the other passengers. They are the only complete sports team in New Zealand. Everyone is given a small booklet on avoiding the virus and the new laws introduced to cope in the calamity. These are….

. Do not leave your home town

. Only sleep with a person you are married to

. Never spit, sneeze, blow your nose or bleed in public; absolutely do not lick stamps.

. Failure to report Ebola cases (even family) will lead to imprisonment

. No public gatherings – horse racing, musical assemblies, rugby, church etc.

. All body residues to be burnt at neighborhood incinerators

The taxi back home for Hockey Girl is sobering.

Hockey Girl asks the driver, ‘how bad is it?’

The man whizzing along through Kilbirnie replied, ‘ it’s bad for business and lonely, all my street is dead, my entire family is gone and I’m the last one left in my ten story building, the dog packs are unreal, the rats bad and Australia is thinking of taking us over. My wife lives in the safer part of the city with her rich sister and won’t sleep with me as sperm is contagious for two months, even if you survive Ebola as I did. I have to spray the areas in the cab you’ve touched, when you leave, with sodium hypochlorite. The smell is dire.’

Although the air is clean and clear, there are hardly any human beings; Annette is having some second thoughts now when she sees the destitute city—it is a zombie town. The successful hockey captain looks out of the taxi window at homes with long lawns, empty streets with just the odd cat. The capital is a picture of bleakness. The cycle tracks Annette loved were void of contrivances. The taxi drives through Newtown. Here are more people at least. Many of the survivors are staring into space looking traumatized and stunned. Others seem to have lost their minds and are shouting at lamp posts or walking about naked. There is a woman pushing a pram with a doll in it. Another man rides around and around in a continuous circle on his bicycle giving the fingers to no-one in particular. Hockey Girl feels relieved there are still Wellingtonians alive; she reflects on her mission and thinks she may have underestimated the amount of deaths she would cause.

The car pulls up at Annette’s home and Steven stands at the end of the driveway. Annette is glad he is still alive. Having done his penance the Hockey Girl feels satisfied. Besides if the last men left were like the cretinious taxi driver, it would feel like the Stone Age.

Looking exhausted Steven calls out, ‘I can’t help with your luggage Annette, as I’m not allowed near the driver!’

Hockey Girl nods and wheels her baggage up to her husband and they embrace.

***

Internationally people start to panic. American schools close because teachers have merely visited Texas .The teachers were up to five hundred miles away from the hospital that nursed the Ebola victim. Sports players from the three infected African countries are stopped from playing in countries far away from the outbreak even if they haven’t been home for two years. When it is found a laboratory technician from the Texas hospital is on a cruise ship the person and their partner are confined to their cabin. The ship is not allowed to berth in Mexico and heads back to Texas. Passengers go from being concerned to stark panic when the cruise is abandoned. In some African countries hospital staff are running away from anyone arriving at hospitals with any type of fever. It is now known that when patients start bleeding from the gums, nose, even injection sites or have diarrhea they are generally past saving. In Freetown, the capital of Liberia, volunteers are retrieving one hundred corpses a day. Seventy percent of infections are caused by families preparing corpses of deceased relations. A fifth doctor in Sierra Leonie contracts the infection. In this country alone there are 140 Ebola burial teams. Many villages are abandoned, crops are left unharvested. Ebola is introduced to Mali, there are four deaths including a nurse.

***

Invercargill, New Zealand— the bottom of the planet, next stop Antarctica—South Pole. Johnny is walking home from primary school, life is pretty bad. Johnny’s father left and moved to Australia when the Ebola started with his girlfriend. The lad is nine years old. Johnny’s mum, always a drinker, is now a complete lush, plus she has advanced Ebola. Afraid of losing Johnny she forbade him to tell anyone about her alcoholism and illness.

The old gate creaks like a weightlifter’s floorboard as Johnny pushes it open; he then walks along the aging concrete path. The boy walks up the wooden steps and onto the verandah boards which groan like a mother’s hangover.

Hanging his school satchel on the coat rack the lad calls out, ‘Mum I’m home!’

There is no reply. The boy can hear the radio playing the Doors on the rock station.

Pretty normal but something feels wrong. Johnny goes down the hall and into the living room. The boy’s mother Erica is lying prone on the couch, her head on the arm looking up at the ceiling. Next to her on the coffee table, an overflowing ashtray and a dozen empty cans of beer.

‘Hi Mum,’ the boy says and walks over to see what state his mother is in.

Johnnie’s mother is gazing up at the ceiling; her mouth is overflowing with vomit. There is a stream of her stomach contents—food, booze and Ebola tainted blood running down her neck and pooling on the couch like red custard. A whole cigarette has burnt down to the nicotine stained fingers. There are flies on Erica’s eyeballs, in her nose and feeding off the stomach contents in her gaping mouth. Transfixed Johnny can’t figure out whether she has expired from drinking or the virus. The boy stares at her for ten minutes before he gathers himself. Most of the neighbors have died and he is getting used to death.

Johnny rings his Grandmother, ‘Hi Gran, Mum’s died of Ebola, can I stay with you?’

The boy can hear the old lady thinking then she replies ‘I’m sorry she’s dead Johnny but the world’s a better place now. She was just another pisshead anyway. The Ebola’s finished off most of my friends. Some were glad to go, but I can’t risk coming over. Spray her and the room with detergent then wrap her in that plastic that’s out in the shed. I’ll get your Uncle Bill to come over and help you bury her outside. Pour petrol over her then burn the body. The cops don’t care what people do with the corpses now. You can stay at your house in quarantine for three weeks and if you’re ok you can move in with me, alright love?’

The boy stares at his mother’s cadaver, the vomit still seeping out of the gaping mouth, ‘Ok Gran.’

***

The Liberian government orders cremations of all corpses. The people hate this and believe strongly in burials after the cleaning of the bodies and hair of the dead –even braiding occurs. The new law ensures many keep their loved ones at home to die. There are many secret burials in the night. Everyone is making mistakes. Sierra Leone and Guinea note this and allow burials to continue. Hospital staff are so frightened now they run away from people who come in with problems as minor as a headache. West African Ebola deaths hit 5200. Medical workers in Sierra Leone strike as they have received no promised danger money.

***

Grabbing Annette’s gear Doctor Steven leads her inside their home saying, ‘ all the neighbors are dead Annie, the army picks up the rubbish, only people who have survived Ebola are allowed to deliver the mail and groceries.’

Over a coffee the New Zealand hockey captain and her husband talk.

‘Any news of the laboratory theft Steven?’

‘All the police on the case are dead; everyone is so traumatized; only murder is investigated now.’

‘Did you work on the Ebola the whole time I was overseas?’

‘Yes tirelessly but we lost so many and no cure, now as you now it has gone global, I’m surprised they let you fly home.’

‘We couldn’t stay there.’

Steven stares at his tanned, beautiful wife and sends up a thank you prayer.

He is full of love and really believes there is a God, looking at this icon of strength for a damaged country he mentions,’ Australia is the only country without Ebola Virus. The only people they let in are doctors and their families. They are in deep prevention mode. They really are a lucky country.’

Annette looks at her bedraggled spouse and nods, ‘I’ve been thinking Stevie, this place seems hellish now, let’s move there, I’m thinking about a new career as a crop duster pilot, and that place is so big, they must need so many!’

As the radio plays the new version of ‘Do they know it’s Christmas?’ Steven looks at Annette’s hockey stick and the neighbor’s dog burying his owner’s arm next to the swimming pool and says, ‘I’ll book the flights.’