To the left, he spotted one. A small pharmacy, probably family owned.
The pharmacy looked strangely normal, as if it was any other day, except for the absence of lights. A couple cars were in the parking lot.
Jim swung the wheel around and pulled the Subaru into the parking lot.
He killed the engine, pocketed the keys, and got out.
Grabbing his backpack from the rear, he unzipped it and checked the contents.
Everything was there. A hammer. A crow bar. Bolt cutters. A pair of thick work gloves. All taken from Aly’s mother’s basement.
Hopefully breaking in would be as simple as breaking a window.
It wasn’t like he had to worry about alarm systems.
Jim glanced up and down the street. He saw no one.
But he didn’t expect it to stay that way. For all he knew, there were people waiting and in hiding. Ready to pounce. Ready to take from him what he had.
Jim strode swiftly across the parking lot, heading towards the rear of the store.
The front windows of the pharmacy were shattered. Piece of glass were completely missing in places.
Jim figured it was safer to go in the back. He wanted to stay out of view as much as possible.
In the back, the pavement of the parking lot was cracked and weeds grew. There weren’t any cars there. Just an old, rusted dumpster that was overflowing with trash. It reminded him of the area behind his little computer shop.
For all Jim knew, people had ransacked the shop, stealing cell phones and expensive electrical equipment, not knowing that it was all worthless now.
There was a back door to the pharmacy. Instead of a thick, steel door, it was a regular wooden door with a pane of glass.
Small town, thought Jim.
He couldn’t have gotten away with a door like that in Rochester.
With the hammer, Jim gave the glass a single, hard, whack.
The glass shattered.
Not wanting to injure himself, Jim got a glove on his hand, reaching inside. It wasn’t hard to find the deadbolt.
A couple seconds later, the door was wide open.
The darkness of the interior yawned in front of him.
Jim’s flashlight was still working, and he flicked it on, and took a single, cautious step inside.
But not before taking his revolver from its holster and getting his finger on the trigger.
As far as he was concerned, it was time to shoot first and ask questions later.
24
Rob
Rob was beyond tired. Beyond exhausted. He felt almost like he was living in a dream. He’d never pushed his body this hard.
He’d never walked this much. Or stayed awake this long for so many days on end. He’d never eaten so few calories in his entire life.
But he kept going.
And that was new to him.
He’d always found a reason to quit everything. Or, if he didn’t quit, he’d give up in some way or another.
He’d been fired from too many jobs to count. And while he always acted like he didn’t know why, he always did. After a couple weeks, he’d lose interest in the job and start slacking off. He’d show up late, leave early, just about everything he could to ensure he’d get canned.
Of course, it might have been happening unconsciously. Or at least part of it.
The jobs had seemed meaningless. He’d always sold tires or hotdogs or even insurance. And in the back of his mind, he’d known that none of it really mattered.
If he hadn’t sold the goods, someone else would be happy to step in and fill his shoes.
But now, things were real.
People relied on him.
Jim relied on him. Jessica relied on him. And Aly too, probably more than any of the rest.
If Rob failed, the other three might not make it.
What Rob did mattered.
He had a purpose.
And that was why he’d pushed himself harder than ever.
There’d been moments, sure, where he’d almost caved. There’d been moments where he’d found himself alone in the kitchen with all the food. He could have easily snuck a few hundred extra calories.
But he’d somehow stopped himself. He hadn’t given in. Just thinking about them all starving in a few weeks was enough to stop him.
He’d continued to work on his firearms training after the Carpenters had shown up.
When they came again, he wouldn’t feel like he couldn’t shoot. He’d remember everything that he’d been taught and put it into practice. He could almost see Mr. Carpenter lying on the ground already, a bullet in his chest.
He wasn’t someone who liked to hurt people. But that cheap shot, the way they’d shot Ally when driving away, well that was too much. It made his blood boil.
Rob was standing outside the lake house, watching the end of the driveway intently.
It had only been a few hours since Jim had left.
The door behind him opened, and Jessica stepped out.
“How’s Aly doing?”
“Same as before. Doesn’t look good.”
“I hope Jim gets back soon.”
“Me too. I hope he gets back. Period.”
“He will.”
“How do you know?”
“I know him. I’ve seen him once he puts his mind to something.”
“Let’s hope that’s true.”
“What are we going to do about the shifts?”
“With just two of us, you mean?”
“Yeah.”
“We’ll rest when we can. A couple hours here or there. Should be enough to keep us going until Jim gets back.”
“You look like you’re going to pass out right now.”
“I’ll be fine. You should get some rest, though.”
“I’m fine, too.”
Rob grunted. “Why don’t you make us some coffee, at least, if we’re both too stubborn to take a break.”
Jessica nodded. “Sure,” she said. And after a pause, she added, “Do you think they’ll come in the truck?”
“You say that like they’re definitely going to come.”
“I thought that was a given.”
Rob said nothing for a couple moments. He was thinking. His eyes scanned the driveway and moved to the evergreens that surrounded the lake house, shielding it from view. “If it was me,” he said. “I wouldn’t come barreling down the driveway. I’d sneak up. Maybe split up.”
“That’s what I was afraid of,” said Jessica. “Because that’s the same thought I had.”
“So how do we defend against that?”
“Keep an eye out,” said Jessica.
“That’s it?”
“What else can we do?”
Rob groaned. “I think I’m going to need that coffee to be a double. Maybe an extra tablespoon of instant in mine?”
Jessica shook her head. “Rations, remember? They even apply to coffee.”
Rob groaned again as Jessica disappeared inside the house, the door closing behind her.
The seconds turned into minutes, and Jessica didn’t yet return with the coffee. He wondered if she was expecting him to go into the kitchen. But on the other hand, she knew one of them had to be outside at all times.
His mind was tired. Of course she’d come back outside.
Thoughts came and went in cloudy swirls, disappearing and reappearing without any apparent order.
He was vaguely aware that he was losing track of time.
How long had it been since he’d slept?
What was he doing?
Oh yeah, he was patrolling around the house. Where had he been last? Maybe out to the road.
It was time to check on the lake.
By the time he was walking towards the lake, through the trees, he’d completely forgotten about the coffee and Jessica.
Rob knew that sleep deprivation affected short term memory. But that knowledge didn’t help him remember anything.
It was only a few minutes walk
down to the lake. Rob stood on the edge and stared out across the calm waters. There was a slight breeze that had been blocked by the trees around the house.
Rob took deep gulps of the air, and it seemed to make him feel more awake.
The lake looked beautiful. The sun, when it peeked out from behind the clouds, glinted across the ripples on the water.
It would have been a nice place to visit on a vacation, if Rob had ever really had a vacation. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d held a job long enough to have a vacation.
What was he doing down here?
Patrolling.
He needed to keep it together.
People relied on him, after all.
Where was the reliant Rob? The hardworking Rob? The Rob with a purpose?
He was fading away. Sleep deprivation and exhaustion were eating away at him.
But he’d push through. Just like he knew Jim would, out there in the nearby town.
Suddenly, Rob realized that something was out of place.
There was a canoe on the edge of the lake. The bow had been pulled up and it rested on the rocky shore. The stern of the long, green, canoe bobbed slightly with the tide.
That canoe shouldn’t have been there.
It wasn’t there before.
Even Rob’s muddled brain could understand that.
His heart started to pound.
Adrenaline started to course through him.
He started to wake up out of his stupor. His brain understood the danger. It was telling his body to marshal all available resources.
So that he could be ready for a fight.
Rob’s hand went to his gun. He got it out. Got it ready. Finger on the trigger.
He sunk down to a crouching position, getting himself closer to the ground.
His eyes scanned the area, moving rapidly.
So the Carpenters had decided to come. And some of them had come across the lake.
But where were they?
Had they already made their way toward the house and Rob had somehow missed their path when he’d come down to the lake?
Or were they there, hiding among the trees? Waiting to ambush him?
Rob felt his hand getting sweaty as it gripped his gun.
It was completely silent, except for a lone bird off in the distance and the gentle lap of the water against the short.
The only thing Rob could hear was his own heart thumping.
25
Jim
Jim moved cautiously but swiftly through the abandoned pharmacy.
As he’d suspected, the place had been ransacked. Probably days earlier.
Everything that could be eaten or drunk was gone. The shelves were empty, and many had been overturned.
There was trash on the floor. All sorts of things, from papers to wrappers. There was even a street sign that had been graffitied, torn off, and dragged into the store for some unknown reason.
Maybe it was the work of a mob. Maybe it was just a few people, desperately looking for something to feed their families with.
Who knew.
What mattered to Rob was whether or not there were antibiotics left.
Most of the over-the-counter products were gone.
Rob moved behind the counter, only to find that the carefully arranged shelves of pills had met the same fate as the rest of the store.
Pills littered the ground, crunching under his boots as he walked.
His heart sunk.
He realized he’d been unrealistic. He’d been hoping to find a neatly labeled pill bottle of antibiotics.
But instead the shelves were empty and what was left of the pills was literally under his feet.
But maybe it wasn’t all lost.
He bent down and scooped some of the remaining pills into his hands. Maybe he could make out a marking. Some lettering. Something that would tell him what the pills were.
Many of the pills were crushed and their markings were unreadable. He spent some time gathering pills that were intact, and began examining their markings with his flashlight.
He glanced at his watch. Five minutes had already past.
He didn’t want to spend too much time here. Who knew who might come along, or what might happen to the Subaru.
There were pills of all shapes and sizes and colors. Most of the markings meant nothing to him.
Five more minutes went by.
Was that a noise?
It sounded like something had moved. A soft thud.
No, probably nothing. Just something off in the distance.
Jim bent his head down again, putting the pills close up to his eye to get a good look at them.
Finally, after what felt like an eternity, Jim found a pill that looked familiar.
It was a white tablet. Oblong and fairly large. The markings, on one side only, read PVK. There was an indent that bifurcated the tablet, making it easier to snap in half.
PVK… PVK…
Jim had seen it before.
He held the tablet up to his nostril and inhaled sharply. Not the safest thing to do normally, but it given the circumstances, it made sense.
It was a unique smell.
One that he’d smelled before.
It was penicillin.
He remembered the smell and the taste. And the memory, then, came flooding back.
PVK stood for penicillin-VK. He’d taken it before, years ago, for some problem that he’d now forgotten about.
He didn’t know if they were 500mg or 250mg. There were no numbers on the pill. But that didn’t matter. He’d give them to Aly anyway, and if she wasn’t getting better, he’d double the dose.
Or maybe it’d be better to start off with a higher dose. After all, the risk of taking too much penicillin wasn’t great. As far as he knew.
No time for that now, though.
He placed the one pill carefully in his pocket, bent down further on the floor, and began searching for more.
Now that he knew what he was looking for, it wasn’t as hard.
Unfortunately, he couldn’t just scoop up all the pills there and bolt out of the pharmacy. If he did that, he’d have no idea if he had enough penicillin or not.
One penicillin tablet became two, then three, and pretty soon he had a handful of penicillin.
He didn’t stop there. Not while he had the chance to gather up medicine that might save the life of someone else down the line.
He knew time was passing quickly. He knew he shouldn’t spend too long there in that pharmacy.
But who knew when he’d have another chance like that.
Glancing at his watch, Jim saw that half an hour had passed. He’d been absorbed in the whole process, the collecting.
Finally, he had enough tablets.
Jim stood up.
Suddenly, he realized that he’d been so absorbed in gathering the pills that he’d neglected to keep checking his surroundings.
He shouldn’t have done that.
But he’d be OK. After all, he would have heard if someone had been approaching.
Jim moved cautiously back around the counter and towards the back of the store.
Trash crunched under his boots and he shone his flashlight as a guide.
He was almost to the door that he’d come in through.
“Hands in the air,” came a gravely deep voice.
Jim turned his head to the right where the voice had come from. His Ruger followed the path. And his flashlight.
“Drop it and hands in the air.”
Jim’s flashlight illuminated the man. A regular looking guy. Except that he had a gun in his hand.
An image of Aly flashed through Jim’s mind.
He wasn’t going to leave without those pills.
He had to get back to her.
The guy would rob him. There was no question. Jim saw it in his eyes.
The guy was good. Waiting for him like that. Jim should have noticed.
But the guy had made one crucial mistake. H
e hadn’t shot Jim dead when he’d had the chance.
Jim saw the guy’s gun moving, tracking towards Jim’s chest.
Jim pulled the Ruger’s trigger. A good fast pull.
The Ruger kicked.
It was a good shot. Right in the stomach.
A whooshing in the air. Jim heard it. But it was too late.
Something hard hit him in the back of the head.
Someone else was there.
Pressure in his eardrums. Blackness overcoming his vision. But just for a moment.
Jim staggered forward, almost falling. But he caught himself at the last moment with his leg.
The heavy thing crashed again, this time into the small of his back.
Pain flashed through him, roaring out in all directions, up and down and across his back. And down his leg.
Jim lurched forward again, but he didn’t fall.
Jim’s face was only a foot away from the man in front of him, who he’d just shot.
There was blood on the man’s shirt, around the stomach. His face was contorted into rage and pain. His hand still clutched his gun.
And he was slowly raising that gun. It cost him a huge effort to do so. But inch by inch it was rising.
In another couple seconds, he’d shoot Jim.
Jim ignored the pain in his back, the black spots that remained in his vision.
He acted more out of instinct than anything.
Jim pulled the trigger again.
The Ruger kicked.
The shot rang out throughout the store.
The bullet struck the man in the face, leaving a grizzly mess where his features had been.
Jim swung around, trying to meet his still unseen attacker.
But he wasn’t fast enough.
Another blow to his back knocked him over. He lost his balance and he tumbled into the corpse of the man he’d just shot.
26
Jessica
Aly hadn’t been doing well. Jessica had stopped by her room when she’d gone inside to make the instant coffee, and Aly had been awake and moaning in pain.
There was much to do for her, other than dole out a few more tablets of aspirin. She was already taking a lot, and they didn’t want to overdo it. A couple tablets every few hours already was approaching a few grams of aspirin a day.
Surviving: The Complete Series [Books 1-3] Page 15