Humanity's Edge- The Complete Trilogy

by Paul B. Kohler

  “No,” Clay said, eyeing the staircase. “Just A and B. I think you’re looking at the second floor, there.”

  “Ah. Right,” Alayna said, waving her flashlight over the map again. “It’s directly above us.”

  Turning toward the staircase, they hurried up, a sudden bounce in Alayna’s step—presumably from the much-needed fuel that the granola bars gave her. She surged past him, entering the darkness of the second-floor hallway first. Her confidence was stronger now than it had been less than an hour ago. Chances of finding any of the crazed seemed low.

  Once in the pharmacy, however, their confidence bottomed out.

  “Shit,” Alayna said, kicking at an empty cardboard box and watching it bounce against the far wall.

  The place had been cleared out. The shelves were bare, with boxes tossed to the floor. All the medication had been taken. The drawers in the pharmacists’ desks had been yanked open, analyzed, sifted through.

  “Think it was the people at the hotel?” Alayna asked.

  “No way to know,” Clay said. He raised his fist, preparing to punch the nearest wall. Anger pulsed within him. “Come all this fucking way, and it’s empty. And now the kid’s going to die.”

  He allowed the silence settle around them. Alayna sighed. Her flashlight to dropped to her side, where it beamed a bright circle on the floor.

  “But . . . these were only the meds that were being sold,” she said, realizing.

  “What do you mean?”

  “The hospital must have NFR meds for their own internal use,” Alayna said. “You know. Supplies they used to actually treat their patients. Everything that was in here was almost certainly for resale.”

  “Okay. Where would that be? I’m pretty sure it’s not in the directory,” Clay said.

  “Near the emergency room for starters,” Alayna replied. “Although it could also be near a nurses’ station. I’m not sure . . .”

  Clay turned back toward the staircase, and was back in the admissions center in minutes. The emergency room sign pointed down the hall. He moved quickly, heart pounding, his flashlight snaking across the floor ahead of him. The rank smell seemed to get worse as they approached the ward—perhaps indicating that the sick and injured had been left for dead when the crazed struck.

  He didn’t want to look into any of the rooms to check.

  When they reached the emergency room nurses’ station, they found it to be similarly ransacked. Boxes scattered on the floor. Cabinets completely cleared out. “Fuck,” he yelled, his voice echoing.

  “I don’t really know . . . I mean, maybe we could check some of the pharmacies around town?”

  They both knew the reality was that if the hospital was ransacked, those places would be, as well.

  Clay seethed with anger. He pushed ahead, opening as many of the doors as he could. They were all pilfered, with papers and empty boxes strewn around. It was almost artistic, the way every door led to more mess. It was a metaphor, perhaps, for this strange, new world. Every town they entered seemed to offer the same dreary, post-apocalyptic streets—the same crashed cars—the same familial memories. The same dead.

  As he made his was down the hallway, he continued to open doors, feeling like a hunter. Alayna followed him, making skeptical noises.

  “I just don’t think we’ll find anything, Clay. I don’t want to waste our energy. Maybe we should just cut our losses? Head back to the hotel? Get an actual good night’s sleep?”

  “No. We can’t have come all this way for no reason,” Clay snapped. “We have to find something. Some kind of . . . anything.” He tried another door, finding more of the same. He shivered, feeling the hopelessness descending like clouds.

  “Fuck this,” he said.

  “Wait. Clay, look.” Alayna pointed toward a dark, massive door at the far end of the hallway, broader than most of the others, with a small green badge near the handle. “It says—it says Internal Supplies.”

  Clay reached it in seconds, grabbing the knob and yanking it as hard as he could. But it didn’t twist. The door didn’t budge.

  Clay gasped, pounding his fist against it. “Alayna, do you know what this means?” he asked. “It means we might have finally found some luck. If we can’t get in there, neither could they. This—this could be our last hope.”

  Alayna put her hands on her hips, watching Clay as he considered the door. They shared a feeling of hopelessness. Their flashlights began to dim.

  Chapter 39

  Clay took several steps back and then lunged at the door, twisting his shoulder and slamming into it. The wood began to splinter, but it didn’t give. Alayna was startled, dropping her flashlight to the ground. She was torn. Stare at Clay in disbelief or watch her flashlight roll off down the corridor.

  “How’d you do that?” she asked.

  Clay turned back, grinning broadly. “I think one more ought to do it, don’t you?”

  “The nanites,” Alayna murmured. “Is that really what it is?”

  “Who cares? It worked, didn’t it?” He stepped back and then threw himself at the door again. It broke away, leaving the knob still locked in the jamb as it flew open. He shone his flashlight in, illuminating shelves of packaged medical supplies—two entire rooms of it, enough to stock the hospital for several weeks.

  “It’s all here, Alayna,” he said. “All of it.”

  Alayna nabbed her flashlight and peeked in behind him, her eyes growing large. “Wow,” she breathed, taking several steps in and beginning to read the labels. “This is all cancer medicine. Can you imagine having to deal with cancer at a time like this?”

  For a moment, an image of a cancer-ridden crazed passed through Clay’s mind: a large tumor growing from the monster’s throat, his eyes secreting yellow puss. He shook the morbid thought away.

  “Stock up on cold and flu medicine,” he said. “And maybe some painkillers, just in case.”

  Alayna started reading labels and tossing things in her backpack. It filled quickly. After Clay offered her his bag, he meandered down the long aisles, looking for mobile defibrillators. His heart pounded, telling him they needed to hurry. They needed to get back to the kid. But without the defibrillators, their own survival was at stake.

  Skirting around the far corner, he saw them. For a moment, he couldn’t believe his luck. They’d wandered through the entire hospital, tearing open nearly every closet door, and here they were, all lined up in a row.

  “Jackpot,” he shouted, rubbing his palms together. He grabbed his second backpack and dropped in one of the four mobile defibrillators, then turned and found Alayna behind him, both her backpacks bulging with the meds.

  “Only one?” she asked. “We’ll need another for later. No clue how long they last. Why not grab them all?”

  “They’re actually quite heavy. I don’t know if we can carry all of them along with the medical supplies,” Clay said, his voice urgent. “Besides, if Lane can’t get this to work, it’ll all be for nothing. And if she does, we can come back for the rest of them.”

  Alayna nodded. “Fair point. But how about we take two just in case? I can handle these two backpacks, if you want to lug the two defibrillators.”

  “Sure,” Clay said, yanking another unit from the shelf. “Whatever you say, doc.”

  Alayna shook with sudden laughter, looking almost manic in the soft light of the flashlight. “I can’t believe we found this stuff. We actually did what we set out to do. Do you remember the last time something worked out?”

  Clay gazed at her fondly, if only for a moment. He began to reach forward, wanting to touch her shoulder—to tell her that things would get easier from here on out.

  But before he touched her, they heard a howl in the distance. The blood drained from Alayna’s face.

  “What—what was that?” she stammered although they both knew exactly what it was.

  “Great. We have company,” Clay said grimly, pointing his flashlight back toward the hallway. “We better get out of here b
efore we can’t.”

  “And how do you think we’ll manage that?” Alayna asked. “I hardly remember the way back to admissions.”

  “We’ll manage, Alayna. We have to,” he said.

  They set off down the hallway, their weapons drawn and their ears sharp, watching for the crazed. They eased down the first hallway and then raced past the nurses’ station, finding themselves deeper in the belly of the hospital.

  “What time do you think it is?” Alayna asked, jogging alongside Clay.

  “No idea,” Clay said. “It was dusk when we arrived in Dearing. But that seems like a million years ago.”

  They continued down the hallway, getting increasingly lost. Clay led them down a series of turns, feeling certain that his path would take them toward the entrance. Instead he led them back to the same place—a sign that read, EAT HEARTY EAT HEALTHY, with a list of fruits and vegetables beneath.

  “You’d better try,” he said.

  They heard another howl, much closer than they were comfortable with.

  “I think I saw some light that way,” Alayna whispered, pointing at the right fork of the maze. “Clay, I think it might be morning.”

  “Lead the way,” he said.

  They hurried toward the soft, grey light that seeped in through a distant window, which they reached after two more turns. The window cast long shadows on the hallway floor. Their eyes rose and waited to adjust to the change in brightness. They froze, filled with sudden panic. Clay’s finger flicked against the trigger of his gun.

  “There must be fifty of them,” Alayna gasped.

  In front of the doors, a horde of the crazed were plastered against the glass, pounding with bloodied fists. Their mouths were wide open, revealing toxic green gums, their eyes yellowed and puss-filled, and they were crying out some kind of animalistic chant. Clay tried not to look at their faces, knowing that in short order, they’d have to shoot them all in the head if they wanted to survive.

  “We can’t make it through that,” Alayna said. “There’s absolutely no way.”

  Both flashlights flickered out.

  “Fuck,” Clay snarled. “I guess we’re really screwed now. We can’t go back through the hospital without light, and we can’t face that many of them head on.”

  The crazed growled, hammering their noses against the windowpanes until they bled.

  “I think I’ll take my chances in the dark,” Alayna whispered.

  “Maybe you’re right.”

  They turned back toward the impenetrable darkness of the hospital, both grateful not to be staring death so squarely in the face. As they took their first steps into the corridors, the sound of rapid gunfire met their ears, growing louder.

  “What the—” Clay turned around.

  The bullets were coming from somewhere beyond the crazed—from someone crazy enough to take on a horde that large without batting an eye. One by one, the crazed convulsed before flailing to the ground in a miasma of blood and puss, their muscles twitching with their final throes. Realizing that the bullets were getting closer, Clay shoved Alayna to the ground and covered her with his body. The bullets began to impact the glass, shattering it into clouds of twinkling shards.

  Chapter 40

  “There. The reception desk. Get behind it,” Clay said, pointing. He had no idea if the person shooting was their enemy. Not knowing if this world would be friendly to other survivors—he couldn’t chance it knowing that someone had literally tied a teenage boy to a bed and left him to die.

  That was the kind of world they were living in.

  Alayna and Clay crawled toward the reception desk as the blasts grew louder, more insistent.

  When they reached the safety of the desk, they hunkered down and waited as the barrage of gunfire continued. They didn’t dare look out, for fear of being struck by a stray bullet themselves.

  “What are we going to do when it’s over?” Alayna whispered. Please, protect me, she seemed to ask. Save me.

  The gunfire finally stopped. Clay peeked around the desk, blinking into the brightness of the new day. Several armed people were storming the steps of the hospital, their automatic weapons strapped across their chests and their motions sure. They looked like full-sized action figures from Clay’s youth, ones he’d positioned on the windowsill and forced to tumble to the floor to their deaths.

  The gunmen stepped over the threshold and into the broken glass, their boots crunching. They didn’t speak. Why weren’t they talking? Clay’s heartbeat ramped up, making them both shake. It was the adrenaline asking him, what are you going to do now?

  He wasn’t going to be a coward.

  “Hey,” he said, his voice booming. “Hey. Don’t shoot. We’re human back here.”

  He heard his voice bounce across the room. The gunmen cocked their weapons, clearly alert. The sounds of the clicking echoed in the stillness.

  “I said don’t shoot,” he said again. “We’re not the crazed. We’re survivors.” He waved the tips of his fingers over the counter, careful not to expose his face or head. “Please. Listen. We’re human. We’re from Carterville. We’re just trying to stay alive.”

  The silence was heavy. Even with their own automatic weapons, they’d never be able to take all of them. They’d be blasted to the ground immediately, their bright red blood running across the linoleum. Their futures—finished.

  Finally, the voice of a woman met his ears.

  “Show yourselves,” she demanded. “Immediately.”

  Clay grasped Alayna’s upper arm, pulling her to her feet. They turned toward the voice. A woman and two men, all three holding automatic weapons. Pointed directly at Clay and Alayna.

  “Don’t shoot,” Clay said, raising his hands high. Alayna followed suit. “We were just looking for medicine. A friend is sick. Real sick. He—he might not make it.”

  The woman jerked her head, sending one of her comrades to take their weapons. Clay watched helplessly.

  “We really, really do need those to stay alive,” Clay said. “How do you expect us to make it out there without guns?”

  “And the backpacks,” the woman said. “Take them, too.”

  The man relieved Clay and Alayna of their packs, including the one with the defibrillators, then walked back to the woman and the other armed man. Their eyes were blank.

  “You don’t understand,” Clay tried.

  “Thanks, but I think we need this more than you do.” Her words were flippant. “I really, really do.”

  The men positioned themselves on either side of her, holding their weapons steady. The woman—tall, blonde, perhaps once beautiful, if that meant anything at all in this new, horrible reality, looked mere moments from laughter.

  Clay and Alayna had become pawns, yet again. And it made Clay’s blood boil.

  Chapter 41

  Clay’s eyes narrowed, making him look capable of madness, of murder. He watched as the strange armed men took the supplies, the things that could have helped him to find his daughter again. His words were hoarse, illustrating his distress.

  “You can’t just take everything,” he said. “I told you. We have to save our friend.”

  “And why on Earth should I care about your friend? Just another man taken out of society. Doesn’t sound so bad to me,” the woman said. “I wouldn’t be surprised if your lady here feels the same. Darling, how often have you been at the mercy of whatever this man wants of you—especially now, with civilization lost?”

  The woman turned toward Alayna. Alayna didn’t speak. The woman laughed softly, as if she didn’t need a response to know the truth. Clay was too distracted to comprehend the anxious spinning of Alayna’s own mind.

  “It’s not just another man,” Clay protested. “It’s a boy. A teenage kid. He’s going to die if we don’t get him that medicine.” He pointed at the backpacks “And the kid. He knows things. Things that could—”

  The woman smiled grimly. “A boy, huh?” Her words dripped sarcasm. “Well. That changes everyt
hing.”

  Clay took a step forward. The woman’s henchmen aimed their guns directly at Clay’s heart.

  “Please.”

  “I don’t owe you anything,” the woman snapped. “I don’t owe you or this sniffling boy a goddamned thing. It’s a dog eat dog world out here, to use an old expression.” She turned, the heel of her boot crunching on the bloodstained glass. “You should just be grateful I saved your asses.”

  Clay was flabbergasted. He realized he hadn’t faced another group of humans since riding into Helen. He hadn’t expected such ruthlessness.

  What had happened to this woman to make her this way? So bitter?

  She began to walk away.

  Alayna balled her hands into fists. “Wait!” she cried.

  The woman’s back stiffened.

  “Wait,” Alayna continued. “I’m asking for just an ounce of compassion. Just a little understanding, please. We’re begging here.”

  The woman flipped her hair off her face, with a mannerism reminiscent of another time. When flirtatious actions spoke louder than words. The men on either side turned with her, prepared to aerate Alayna. But the woman held up a slim hand, staying them.

  “Oh, honey,” she said, her sarcastic tone unchanged. “If I give the two of you weapons, then you’ll undoubtedly shoot us in the back. Imagine it from my side, won’t you? Offer sympathy and understanding? Not today, dearie.”

  “We wouldn’t do that,” Clay stated. “Absolutely impossible.”

  “And what makes you say that?” Disbelief in her voice.

  “I’m Clay Dobbs. That’s why,” he said. “I’m the sheriff of Carterville. This is Alayna Cordell, and she’s my deputy. We’re sworn to serve and protect, and we definitely wouldn’t shoot you in the back. Not like cowards.”

  The woman looked surprised. Clay hoped he’d gotten through to her. She blinked several times. “My, my,” she breathed. “If it isn’t the sheriff of Carterville.”