Edge of Disaster

by Alex Gunwick

“I don’t know.”

  He made a good point. He’d expected to run into at least one or two people. The sun hung low on the horizon, but it hadn’t completely set yet. Why was the neighborhood so quiet?

  “Do you smell that?” Boyd asked.

  “Yeah, smells like death.”

  “We should get face masks too if we can find them.”

  “Let’s try that dollar store.”

  “They won’t have antibiotics.”

  “No, but sometimes they have aspirin and medical supplies. I don’t mind strapping tampons to my leg, but if I have the choice, I’d prefer maxi pads. More absorbent.”

  “You’re killing me with your feminine hygiene talk.”

  “But it works.”

  “True.”

  As Luke approached the front of the dollar store, he signaled to Boyd to be quiet. He peeked around the corner through a glass window into the store. Toppled shelves lay at forty-five degree angles against the wall. Fall-themed knickknacks were strewn across the floor. A headless ceramic turkey lay shattered next to a cash wrap. Cardboard boxes with charred edges were piled in the center of the store, as if the looters had tried to set the whole place on fire.

  “Damn,” Boyd said.

  “As far as I can tell, it’s clear. Let’s see what we can find. Don’t turn your back to the front of the store and keep the rear exits in mind, just in case.”

  Boyd nodded and stepped over the window seal. Luke followed, crunching through shards of shattered glass. Most of the shelves were empty. He walked through a pile of empty plastic packages. They’d been ripped open, their contents stolen.

  He found the medical supply section. A lone bottle of talcum powder lay on its side. Bandages were scattered across the floor. No point in taking those. They definitely weren’t sanitary anymore.

  After searching through several other aisles, he crossed to the other side of the store where Boyd poked through a pile of books.

  “Find anything?” Luke asked.

  “Some coloring books, crayons.”

  “We could use those to make candles.”

  “We’ve got flashlights. I sure as hell don’t want to have to carry more than what I’ve already got,” Boyd said.

  “I hear you. Just thinking out loud.”

  “We’re not that far from my house. Maybe ten miles. We should be able to make it there by tomorrow. I only want to carry what I already have, unless it’s something really good. What did you find?”

  “Nothing. It’s been stripped clean.”

  “Should we hunker down here for the night? I doubt anyone would try to search this place after dark. Everyone in the area probably knows it’s empty. Hell, they might have stockpiles in their houses.”

  “Are you suggesting we break into people’s houses and look around?” Luke asked.

  “No. But I smell a lot of death. We could try to look through any empty houses. See if they left antibiotics behind.”

  “Breaking into someone’s house to steal their stuff doesn’t feel right.”

  “Even if they’re dead?” Boyd asked.

  “What makes you think we’re going to find a bunch of dead people?”

  “You don’t get that kind of stench unless there are a lot of dead bodies around.”

  “How would you know?”

  “When I was a kid, we lived on the other side of a mortuary. I could always tell when they were doing cremations. The scent of burning flesh is about as distinctive a smell as you can get. I know what death smells like, and it’s all around us. I wouldn’t be surprised if the whole neighborhood had been slaughtered.”

  “By who?”

  “Who knows? Gangs. Criminals. By now the prisons have probably run out of food. They might have released the prisoners.”

  “God, I hope not.”

  “Me too.”

  “I guess we could look around and see if any of the houses are vacant.”

  “Let me see your leg,” Boyd said.

  Luke peeled the bandage back. Angry red lines radiated out from the wound. Puffy skin surrounded it while a trickle of white puss oozed from the flesh.

  “That’s not good. Is it hot?” Boyd asked.

  Luke gently placed his fingers over the skin. “Yep.”

  “Then we need to get antibiotics. It already looks like you might have a blood infection. If we don’t get medicine into you as soon as possible, you won’t make it home to your family. Hell, you might not even make it to my house.”

  “Thanks for cheering me up.”

  “Anytime. Let’s slap a tampon on that and get moving. The longer we wait, the worse it will get. I know you’re hung up on the ethics of taking antibiotics from people, but without them you’re going to die.”

  “I don’t want to rob anyone.”

  “We’ll only take what we can find in empty houses. And if we don’t find anything, we’ll look for a fish store. Let’s go, Mr. Snuggles.”

  “Don’t even think about giving me that nickname.”

  Boyd laughed. Luke reached into his pack and grabbed a tampon and some tape. After covering the wound and securing the makeshift bandage, he headed toward the front of the store. Taking supplies from other people didn’t sit right with him, but Boyd had a point. If he didn’t get antibiotics soon, he wouldn’t be around to debate ethics in a post-apocalyptic world.

  Luke pulled a white bandana out of his pack and tied it across his face to cover his mouth and nose. The stench of decaying corpses made their voyage through the storm drains smell like a rose garden in comparison. He hopped a white picket fence in the backyard of the third house on the block. So far they’d found four dead and no antibiotics. He wasn’t sure what would be worse: Finding more dead bodies, or running into a living threat.

  “Hopefully this one’s the ticket,” Boyd whispered.

  “God willing.”

  Luke ran to the back porch and pressed his back against the wall. He stood still, listening for several minutes. The absolute silence grated on his nerves. Was everyone dead? Had some group systematically wiped out every family on the block?

  As he turned to peer into a rear window, he held his breath and hoped he wouldn’t find himself staring down the barrel of a gun.

  The bedroom contained a set of dressers, a bed, and a closet. Everything looked normal. But he’d seen that before in the previous homes, at least in the bedrooms. The bathrooms and kitchens had been completely ransacked. Nothing was left. Not even a single Band-Aid. But he wasn’t ready to give up hope. He only needed one bottle of medicine.

  “Let’s check the living room,” Luke whispered.

  Boyd nodded and followed him to a sliding glass door at the rear of the house. A quick glance revealed another nightmarish scene. An older man lay sprawled in a recliner. The top part of his head had become a liquid halo of flesh and bone on the wall. His jaw hung open and he regarded the ceiling with opaque eyes.

  Across the room, a woman slumped across the couch. A TV remote lay at her feet, as if she’d been watching it when the killers had entered. The center of her chest bore a large red hole rimmed with congealed blood. A second gunshot had ripped through her temple.

  Bile roared up Luke’s throat. He stumbled to the kitchen and hurled into the sink. The gore didn’t bother him. He’d seen far worse as a SEAL. But to think this could be his family’s fate too cut him to the core. He’d spoken to Liz several days earlier, but that didn’t mean a damn thing. Life could be ripped away in an instant. All it took was one desperate man to destroy a family.

  “You okay?” Boyd asked.

  “Yeah.”

  Luke turned on the faucet. Nothing flowed. He grabbed a roll of paper towels from the counter. As he wiped his face, his stomach clenched. He fought a second wave of nausea. Sweat broke out on his forehead.

  “You don’t look so good. Maybe you should sit down.”

  “We have to clear the house first.”

  “Whoever did this is long gone.”

  “I
want to be sure,” Luke said.

  “I’ll lead.”

  Luke nodded. He didn’t mind letting Boyd take over. The man had proved to be more than capable of clearing a room. The longer they worked together, the more they were becoming a team.

  After checking all the bedrooms, including the closets, they swept the bathroom. The medicine cabinet hung open. It was as empty as the rest.

  “You know those night stands we saw in the master bedroom?”

  “Yeah.”

  “We haven’t been searching those,” Boyd said.

  “You think they might have meds stashed away in them?”

  “Maybe. My grandparents had medicine in theirs. I got into it once when I was a kid. Took an entire bottle of blood pressure pills. They had to take me to the hospital and pump my stomach. I was unconscious for two days.”

  “That explains a lot.”

  “Funny,” Boyd said dryly. “They found me before the brain damage kicked in.”

  “I don’t know. Lack of oxygen fries those brain cells.”

  “Remind me again, why am I helping you?”

  “Because I’m Mr. Snuggles.”

  Boyd doubled over laughing. When he finally straightened, he wiped tears from his eyes. “God, I needed that.”

  “Let’s find some medicine.”

  Luke headed into the master bedroom. The first drawer contained a worn copy of Pride and Prejudice. He closed it.

  When he opened the second drawer, he spotted two pill bottles. He turned up the label on the first one. Lipitor. That wasn’t going to help.

  He twisted the second bottle around. His heart sank.

  “Well, the good news is that I found some. The bad news is that I’m allergic to it.”

  “What is it?”

  “Penicillin.”

  “I’m not allergic. Mind if I hang onto it? Antibiotics will be a hot commodity until they get the lights back on.”

  “Take it.” He handed the bottle to Boyd.

  “Should we go back and check the other bedrooms?”

  “In the other houses?”

  “Maybe we missed something.”

  “It couldn’t hurt,” Luke said.

  They returned to the previous houses and searched. After coming up empty, they approached the fourth house.

  “You hear anything?” Boyd whispered.

  “No. You?”

  “No.”

  “Let’s do this.”

  Luke walked through the shattered sliding glass door. Unlike the other houses, this one wasn’t full of corpses. On high alert, Luke headed down the hall. He walked slowly, cringing as warped floorboards creaked. So much for stealth.

  One of the doors in the hallway was closed. He approached the room. As he reached for the doorknob, he changed the grip on his gun to stabilize it. He turned the doorknob and pushed it open. A pink cradle sat in one corner, a rocking chair in the other. Several bags of diapers and a huge pile of clean washcloths were stacked on a bookshelf alongside a copy of What to Expect When You’re Expecting.

  He glanced back at Boyd who was fixated on the cradle. He was probably thinking the same thing, please don’t let there be a baby in it.

  He swallowed the lump in his throat and plodded through thick brown carpet. A heaped blanket lay inside the cradle. He stopped breathing. He reached for the blanket.

  It moved.

  He jumped back, slamming into Boyd.

  “Did you see that?” Luke asked.

  “Please tell me I’m hallucinating.”

  Luke stepped forward and grabbed the edge of the blanket. As he peeled it back, a cat leapt out.

  “Shit!”

  The tabby cat raced between Boyd’s legs and ran out into the hall.

  “A damn cat?” Boyd said, breathlessly.

  “I thought I was going to have a heart attack.”

  “You and me both. Maybe we should have taken the Lipitor.”

  “I’m tempted to go back for it after that.”

  “At least it wasn’t a baby.”

  “Thank God.”

  “How long has that cat been in here?” Boyd asked.

  “The window’s open and there’s a hole in the screen. She’s probably been coming in and out since the apocalypse. Let’s check the rest of the house.”

  “If anyone was in here, they would have shot us by now with all the noise we’ve been making.”

  “Good point. But let’s check anyway.”

  After clearing the rest of the house, they headed back toward the living room. The cat stood in the middle of the kitchen next to an empty bowl.

  “She must live here,” Boyd said.

  “Let’s see if we can find something for her to eat.”

  Most of the cupboards were bare, but he managed to find a couple of cans on the top shelf. After using a manual can opener, he dumped the slippery contents into the bowl. The cat gorged on the food.

  “We should find him some water too,” Luke said.

  “I’ll check the garage. Sometimes people keep cases of bottled water in there.”

  While Boyd went to search, Luke rummaged through the rest of the shelves. He found a half-eaten package of saltine crackers and several cans of green beans. He cracked open a can and drained the water into the cat’s bowl. The cat meowed and brushed her head against Luke’s leg.

  “I found a couple of bottles of water,” Boyd said as he set the bottles on the counter.

  “I’ve got beans. We should eat them since they’re relatively heavy.”

  “Hang on, I found something else in the garage.” Boyd disappeared for a minute before returning with several cans. “Chili con carne.”

  “Oh hell yeah.”

  “We can even eat out of bowls like civilized people.”

  “Civilized…” Luke shook his head. “Can you believe all of this? I still feel like I’m in some kind of nightmare.”

  “I’ve been trying to wake up for almost two weeks.”

  “How could this have happened in America?”

  “We got complacent. Too many countries have nukes. And it might not have even been a single country. It could have been a rogue organization like ISIS. You wouldn’t believe how many nukes have gone missing from Russia over the years.”

  “I believe it,” Luke said. “All it takes is one to start a war.”

  “I wish we had more information about what’s going on. I never thought I’d miss the news as much as I do. Hell, I’d even take fake news over no news.”

  “I don’t know if I’d go that far.”

  “You’re right. I miss the old news anchors who would just tell us the facts without adding their opinions into everything.”

  “The good old days,” Luke said with a nod.

  As they dished out the chili, they fell into a comfortable silence. Luke devoured two cans before calling it quits.

  “Should we stay here tonight?”

  “We could try it. Whoever lives here could come back, but I doubt it,” Boyd said.

  “They could be anywhere.”

  “Maybe they’re not even in the country. If they were on vacation when everything happened, they’d be stranded overseas.”

  “I’m glad I was still in California,” Luke said. “It’s been hell trying to get this far. I can’t even imagine trying to navigate life in another country.”

  “I can take first watch.”

  “Great. All that chili put me into a stupor.”

  “Just be sure to crack a window. You don’t want to gas us in the middle of the night.”

  Luke laughed. “I’ll be in the master bedroom. Might as well sleep in a bed while I can.”

  “Sounds good.

  Boyd sat in a chair next to the sliding glass door. From his position, he had a clear shot at all of the doors including the one from the garage into the kitchen.

  Luke headed into the master bedroom. He pulled the top drawer in the night stand out and dug through its contents. A bottle of amoxicillin rolled toward th
e front of the drawer. Perfect!

  After popping two pills, he kicked off his boots and flopped face down on the bed. He was asleep before his head hit the pillow.

  Hours later, he woke to the sound of breaking glass.

  16

  Elijah strolled up and down the line of five men who stood at attention in front of the gun shed. Turner leaned against the shed door.

  “What has Turner told you about our community?” Elijah asked.

  “You’re a group of God-fearing men who are preparing for the end of days,” Gunther said. At six foot three inches, he towered over the others. Elijah hated having to strain his neck to look up at him, but the man was a solid wall of muscle, perfect for enforcing Elijah’s rules.

  “What else did he say?” Elijah asked.

  “That you’ve been having problems with some woman and her brats,” Steve said. He was short and stocky. A glint of darkness shimmered in his beady eyes. Elijah would have to keep a close eye on him. He could either prove to be a great asset, or a loose cannon.

  “Yes. The woman and her kids live in a cabin over the hill and past a stream. They are a huge threat to our community and I want them brought to one of the empty houses. They need to be taught… manners.”

  “You want us to kidnap them?” Jim asked. The third man wasn’t nearly as big as the other two, but he sported wiry muscles in his arms. He could probably snap a man’s neck with little effort. However, his hesitation wasn’t welcome.

  “You’re here on a trial basis,” Elijah said. “If you’re not comfortable with keeping our community safe from all threats, you’re welcome to leave at any time. In order to remain with the group, you must complete this mission. We’re only taking five recruits right now. I trust Turner’s judgment. He wouldn’t have chosen you if he didn’t believe in your skills, and I wouldn’t ask you to capture these people if they weren’t actively trying to destroy everything I’ve worked to build.”

  He stopped to assess their expressions. The skepticism in Jim’s expression slowly faded. Good. Elijah didn’t want to have to kill him, but he wasn’t about to let anyone walk away from the community again. Not willingly. He couldn’t afford to have word get out about his little haven away from the nuclear wasteland.

  “You will leave tonight,” Elijah said. “I expect you to return with the woman and her kids by sunrise.”