Death In The Wind

CHAPTER ONE - December 2nd

Breathe in. Breathe out. Breathe in. Hold your breath. Let it out.

You take fresh air for granted. Fresh air, not like the stuff you find out in the countryside, or near the beach, or in a rainforest… but the kind of fresh air that is found everywhere – even in the biggest cities and polluted places around the world. You take it for granted. You take breathing for granted – you forget about breathing because it’s such a normal thing.

If anyone out there has ever suffered a nightmare where you’re suffocating, when there’s no air left to breathe, it’s shocking and horrifying to know that that might come true in the near future. Now, even, as I’m standing in the checkout line of the only IGA Supermarket in Bermagui on the main street. The automatic doors were shut. The windows were closed. You could still see out them, nevertheless.

I’m holding a basket of small essential items – milk, bread, yoghurt, toilet paper and some dog food. I grabbed a packet of gum and shoved it in there while I shifted my weight from one foot to the other impatiently. There was a man in front of me with two trolley-full loads of items. Some were essential while others were a bit strange to find amongst many other normal things. Apart from the uncommon things in his trolleys, there was packets of the same flavour of Doritos filling up nearly half of one of the trolleys. Five, maybe six packets. I chewed my lip anxiously while he continued to pile his shopping onto the conveyor belt, the checkout chick looking bored, but slightly aware that he had so much shopping.

I cleared my throat and the man looked sideways at me. He was rugged and overweight, with a bushy light brown beard flecked with silver and black streaks. I tried to smile but it probably came out false and obviously forced. He grunted weirdly and went back to piling his shopping.

My feet were becoming sore. I’d never had to wait this long in an aisle, especially in such a small town like Bermagui. I looked out the windows that lined the wall in front of me. Outside was the street were few people passed with little kids, or elderly couples. There were more cars passing along the road than there were people. I couldn’t blame them. Why would you be coming into town on such a dreary Saturday afternoon? Apart from the fact that there was nothing to do in Bermagui, all the shops were shut. Except, of course, the IGA, where I stood helplessly. My car – an old 2002 white Toyota ute, sat delightfully alone on the other side of the road, parked and dusty still. I longed to get out of here and into the freedom of the driver’s seat, where I could leave and go home. My eyes shifted from my car to the man again in front of me, who, to my relief, had almost finished his second trolley. All that was left was some weird French cheese which looked like it was blue and mouldy, green olives and a packet of party hats.

The checkout chick looked tired. The beeping of the scanning was giving me a headache. One after the other. Beep. Beep. I was sure I was going to scream.

Instead, I took a deep breath when he’d finished, and saw the mountain of plastic bags full of goods on the other side of the counter. I felt better about my few items and that I didn’t have to carry what he had to carry. He clumsily moved his trolleys through the checkout and started piling all the bags into the trolleys. He was left with a mountain again.

I put my little red basket on the conveyor belt and moved up the line. The checkout girl had a dreary tinge to her usually cheery voice.

‘Hi, how are you today?’ she tried to ask happily. You could see she was sick of being stuck in here. I noticed her name badge. Tina.

‘I’m fine, thanks,’ I lied.

‘That’s great,’ she said, not looking at me. Checkout girls never look at you.

She scanned my few items and they all fit in one bag.

Tina looked at the computer screen that I couldn’t see.

‘That all adds up to…ten fifty, thanks.’

I pulled out my wallet from the pocket of my jacket and handed her a fifty-dollar note.

‘That’s all I’ve got,’ I told her.

‘No worries.’

I heard the cash register ring and open as I looked away. The man with the mountain of shopping was just leaving the supermarket – the automatic doors just closed behind him as moved awkwardly around with the trolleys in his hands.

Then suddenly, he started coughing. I watched him, which was maybe kind of rude. While the girl at the counter counted my change, the man outside coughed and coughed madly.

Maybe he was having a coughing fit, I thought, and cleared my throat again.

The bushy man was coughing so hard now, though I couldn’t hear, I could see him. He let go of the trolleys and they rolled down the small slope of the sidewalk and smashed into a garbage bin surrounded by a blue metal case.

The man coughed and heaved, bending over and putting his hand to his mouth to try and stop. He hit his chest a few times, but nothing succeeded.

He coughed and spluttered and eventually fell to the ground. Maybe he had a heartattack. Maybe he had a stroke? Whatever was wrong with him, he needed help, now.

‘Your change, miss?’ the checkout girl said, but I didn’t listen. I took off past the counter, but something stopped me in my tracks.

A young girl, nine, maybe ten, with long dark blonde hair, swishing in a ponytail, and dressed in a long flowing pink dress down to the floor, came running down the sidewalk just outside the IGA. She was coughing, too, but much worse than the man. She stopped and bent over, like the man, too. She didn’t collapse to the ground though, she shook and heaved, tears pouring from her eyes. She heaved again and blood spewed from her mouth, a fountain of vomit. She stumbled over to the window and started bashing on the glass. She was crying and coughing, blood trickling from the corners of her lips. She coughed super hard again and the window was then splattered with a mixture of blood and mucus. I couldn’t see the girl anymore, but then a hand caught the window and tried to grab something. The girl had collapsed. What were the chances of two people collapsing from a coughing fit? But this was no coughing fit… the young girl had brought up blood. Something was very, very wrong. I couldn’t move. People, just strangers, ran out the automatic doors to try and help them, to call the ambulance. I watched one woman, probably in her early thirties, pull out a mobile phone and take a deep breath in. Her phone then fell from her fingers and plummeted to the ground. She grabbed her throat, her eyes bulging. She coughed once, putting her hand over her mouth. A small amount of blood exploded from her lips, covered her hand.

Her skin turned a strange colour. Purple-red, her veins rose from her skin. She collapsed to the ground. And so did all the others trying to help. I raced to the window to look out. And saw the group of people who were trying to help, surrounding the man, surrounding the girl, all lying in pools of blood.



I tried to ignore the siren of the ambulance as it pulled up hastily outside the supermarket. I couldn't barely hear it. anyway - i was holding my breath as i raced across the hot road to my car. I had to get away - fast. I had heard people talking. I had heard them as they went outside. Their faces of pain and horror replayed in my mind like a movie - i didnt want to see it but i couldnt escape from it.



'The air!' one middle-aged woman with mousy grey hair and an olive green dress had gasped as the doors had begun to shut. 'The air...' She clutched her chest as her eyes began to glaze over. She coughed once, her whole body shaking, and i had to look away.



My lungs were already burning by the time i reached my car. I fumbled with my keys but managed to get the key in the keyhole. i flung the door open with incredible might and dived inside. i let out a long loud breath of air as i slammed the door behind me.

Trying not to look outside was easy enough once i was inside the comfort of my ute. Shutting off all the air-conditioning units was also not very hard. I switched off all the fans and temperature dials as well - i had to make sure no air got in whatsoever.

Only a few people had said it - yet i was well on the way to being convinced that something in the air was not quite right.