by D. Gideon
“I listened to the Governor’s reasoning,” Frank continued, “and in the end it makes sense. We’ll get all of our goals accomplished much faster this way.”
Simon drew back. “Whose goals?”
“The Mayor’s goals, and the Governor’s goals,” Frank said. “The President’s goals, if you want to get right down to it. The point is-”
“Fuck their goals. I took an oath to protect this county and the people in it. So did you, Frank. What he’s saying here will require breaking that oath.”
“It might seem like that at first, but in the end you’ll still be keeping it,” Frank said. “We’re out of options here, Simon. You heard what that Dominion Power rep said last night. Years without power. Years. If we’re going to get through this, we need to work together; the Governor’s office, the Mayor’s office, and the Sheriff’s office. You need to step up and play ball.”
“Play ball? I’d heard from the other Deputies that orders had come down to let all the lower-security inmates go. I was expecting that. But this? This isn’t playing ball. This is sentencing innocent people to death.”
“Oh for fuck’s sake, stop being so dramatic. Once the people do what the Mayor tells them, there won’t be any problems,” Frank said.
“And what’s the Mayor going to tell them to do?” Simon said.
Frank shook his head. “You’ll just argue with me, and that won’t get anything done. There’s another town meeting, tomorrow afternoon at the Rec Center. Get with Kenny then or beforehand, it’s up to you. I’ve got to go.” He turned and started back to his car.
“And if I don’t acknowledge these orders?” Simon called, holding up the letters.
“Not my call,” Frank said, opening his car door. He pointed to the windshield. “Dash cam shows I gave them to you like I was ordered to do. Officer Sturgeon can verify.” He stuck a leg into his car, then paused and looked back up at Simon.
“Simon, we’re going to have National Guard here Sunday or Monday. If those orders aren’t carried out by then, it’s not going to end well for you. Just a warning, friend to friend.”
They watched as he folded himself back into his car, started it, and drove away. Fish heard the crumpling of paper and looked over to find Simon with the letters balled up in his big fist.
“How bad is it?” Fish asked.
Simon was still staring out the door, jaw set in a hard line.
“I need that list of who I can trust, and I need to talk to Father Bill right now,” he said.
Chapter 32
Thursday, September 6th
Salisbury, Maryland
Mid-morning on Thursday we were sitting under a tree at the edge of a small shopping plaza in Salisbury. The night before we’d made our way to a plastics company where I had originally hoped to stop and grab some fifty-gallon barrels. With the truck, we could have gotten a number of them and taken them home to use as rain barrels. With just the bike trailer, that wasn’t an option. We did still get some use out of them, though. It had been raining off and on while we walked, so once we made it to the property, Marco strung up his tarp to catch rain and funnel it into one of the barrels.
We’d had a cold dinner of canned peas and carrots. I had been feeling increasingly worse throughout the day even with the pain pill, and would have welcomed a little fire. I had a ferro rod and packet of dry tinder in my bag, but everything was too damp to even try. Not that Marco would have allowed it; it would have been a beacon to anyone passing by on the highway. We’d slept in a large plastic culvert stacked up against the building, waiting to be shipped out, and started out this morning just after daylight.
It had taken us nearly three hours to cover just three and a half miles, and that was my fault. I felt like shit. At first, having the bike trailer allowed us to walk for longer distances before getting so tired that we had to stop. Franklin’s pain pills had helped with that, too. But the last of those had worn off last night, and now I was feeling everything they’d helped me ignore.
Many of the birdshot wounds on my shoulder were inflamed and itching. The skin around them had turned an angry shade of red. I ached everywhere, my head was throbbing…I felt like I had the flu. The ibuprofen didn’t even seem to be helping anymore. I knew it was the infection working its way through me. I had to get some antibiotics.
“Something is off,” Marco said, squatting next to me. “I don’t understand why those two stores look untouched.”
The plaza bent in the shape of an L, and the pet store was tucked into the corner. The large “anchor” store, a discount grocery, had obviously been looted. Businesses at the far end of the plaza had busted windows and glass doors. But the pet store, and the small beauty supply store next to it, looked undamaged.
“Maybe all of the animals are already dead, and you can smell it from outside the doors,” I said.
“That wouldn’t explain the store next to it, though.”
I shrugged, and groaned. King, laying next to me with his head in my lap, gave a little concerned whimper and tried to nuzzle closer. My right shoulder and arm were stiff, and any movement was painful. I hadn’t even been carrying the shotgun this morning. Marco had used paracord to rig a sling for it, and he carried it slung across his chest. I still had the Beretta in my waistband and my knife at my hip, but that was the extent of what I was carrying.
“Let me go and check it out,” Marco said. “If I don’t see anything wrong, I’ll go around back and look for a way in.”
“No. We’re not splitting up,” I said, pushing against the tree to stand. “Even just the length of a parking lot.”
Marco’s expression showed that he clearly wasn’t happy with that answer, but he helped me up.
We went to the end of the plaza and worked our way up, staying close to the storefronts. Marco had his Glock in one hand and the neck of the trailer in the other, its hard tires crunching over pebbled glass. King followed a little behind us, keeping off of the sidewalk. As we got closer, I saw that there were various sizes of orange rocks spread out in one of the parking spots in front of the pet store. Each one had a black cord extending from it, bundled up and wrapped with a rubber band.
“Those are heat rocks,” I told Marco. “They’re to keep reptiles warm. Maybe someone did break in?”
The beauty supply store had huge top-to-bottom posters in each window, where women showed off their hair extensions and nail tips. The posters served to block sight into the store, and the doors were covered on the inside with long sheer curtains. The pet store’s windows and doors had vinyl decals across the bottom half depicting an underwater scene full of multi-colored fish, but above those, we could see inside.
There was a man sitting just inside the doors on a roll-around office chair, shotgun laid across the arms. His chin rested on his chest, and his hands laid across the shotgun, limp. I couldn’t tell if he was asleep or dead.
Marco set the trailer hitch down and reached for the door.
“Wait,” I said, grabbing his arm. “Hold on a sec.”
I unzipped a pocket on the back of my thigh and pulled out my wallet. I still had eighty-five dollars in cash, and I pulled that out now.
“If I show him this, maybe he won’t shoot us immediately,” I said, tucking the wallet away. I knocked on the glass door. The man came alert immediately, grabbing his shotgun and standing so quickly his chair rolled away.
“Alice! Alice! They’re back!” He yelled, and pointed the gun at us.
“Wait, wait!” I called out, trying to put my hands up. Marco did the same. Behind us, the door to the beauty supply opened and a tall, broad woman with dark skin leaned out. She had what looked to be a Glock in her hands, also pointed at us. I was relieved to see her finger wasn’t in the trigger guard, at least.
“Keep those hands up high, sugar,” she said, her voice rich and thick.
“I told your friends if they came back I’d fill them full of buckshot,” the man called out, loud enough for us to hear him through the d
oor. “You’re not getting in here! This is my business and I haven’t done anything to you!”
“We’re not with anyone else,” Marco said.
“We want dog food,” I said. “I have money. I can pay you.” I shook the money. “See? For my dog.”
I gestured my head behind me. I knew King was back there somewhere.
“They’ve got a dog, Boyd,” Alice called out. “Doesn’t look too friendly.”
“That’s because you’re holding a gun on me,” I said.
Boyd lowered the shotgun a bit, standing on his toes to try to see over the decal on the door. I saw him glance at the money in my hand.
“You got ID?” he asked. Confused, I nodded and started to reach for my wallet again.
“Ah ah ah,” Alice said. “Don’t put ‘em down until we tell you to.” Then, to Boyd, she called out, “You going to let them in?”
“Get their ID in case they attack me,” Boyd yelled, lifting the shotgun back up.
“Okay young lady, you first,” Alice said. “Hands down, move slowly. I see that gun at your waist; you make one move towards it and you’re dead.”
I lowered my hands, wincing, and nodded. Slowly, I pulled my wallet back out and extended my ID towards her. She shook her head.
“Put it down right there,” she said, motioning to the small ledge at the bottom of her window. I did, and backed up. “Now you get his ID,” she said, motioning the gun to Marco.
“Front pocket, right side,” Marco said.
“I can’t get his wallet without going near his gun,” I said to Alice.
“Just move slow then,” Alice said. “Trust me sugar, I don’t want to shoot nobody else. You don’t make me nervous and I won’t.”
I tried putting two fingers in Marco’s pocket to fish his wallet out. It was down too far.
“You’re going to have to go all-in,” Marco said, and he couldn’t help but smile.
“Don’t even try to enjoy this,” I said, shoving my hand in. I pulled out his wallet and flipped it open. There were two IDs with different names, along with his UMCP student card. Resisting the urge to look at him, I slid out the license that had his name as Marco Vicente and set it on the ledge next to mine. I pushed the wallet back into his pocket just far enough that it wouldn’t fall out, and stepped back.
Alice leaned forward, the pistol still aimed at us, and gathered up the IDs. She glanced back and forth between us and them, and nodded.
“I’ve got ‘em. They’re real,” she called out.
“Give her your guns,” Boyd yelled.
“No,” Marco said, his voice firm. “You could get us inside and kill us, take our money.”
“He doesn’t want to hurt you. He just wants to be safe,” Alice said.
“I don’t know him, so I don’t trust him,” Marco said. “I’m not taking the chance.”
“Okay, hold on,” I said. “What if I put down my gun and go in alone? Marco can stay out here with you.”
“No,” Marco said. “What is to stop him from taking you out-of-sight and raping you?”
“Sugar if he did that, I’d shoot him myself,” Alice said. “Boyd ain’t like that. She’ll be safe. I give you my word.”
“It’s hard to take the word of someone pointing a gun at me,” Marco said.
“What’s the hold-up?” Boyd yelled. Evidently he couldn’t hear us clearly if we weren’t screaming.
Alice sighed. “Look. You want food for your dog. We don’t want our stores looted. That’s all that’s going on here, right?”
Marco and I both nodded.
“Okay. Then let your girlfriend go inside. You sit down there on the sidewalk, keep your hands on your knees, and just look pretty for a few minutes. I’ll stand here with you and watch through the window. If he does something, I tell you, and we both blow his ass away.”
Marco considered her for a moment, then nodded at King. “King goes in with her.”
Alice frowned, then nodded. “Young lady, put your gun on the sidewalk. And you go ahead and sit down now, pretty boy.”
I couldn’t resist. “His nickname’s Romeo,” I said. Marco gave a dramatic sigh and looked at the sky, muttering something in a language I couldn’t understand.
Alice grinned. “I can believe that,” she said. “He sure is easy on the eyes.”
Marco settled himself to the ground, and I carefully pulled the Beretta from my waistband with two fingers and sat it on the sidewalk out of his reach. Boyd came forward and unlocked the door, then backed up quickly.
Opening it, I looked back at Marco. “If he does something, put a bullet in his head,” I said.
“Eventually,” Marco said, his expression promising much more.
“King, come,” I said, snapping my fingers. King trotted through the door and I stepped into the thick, humid air of the pet store.
Chapter 33
Thursday, September 6th
Salisbury, Maryland
“You sure that’s gonna be safe?” Boyd asked me for the third time. I’d just swallowed down a Fish-Mox capsule and was leaning on his counter, head resting on my hands. When I’d first stepped into his store, the increased humidity from the fish tanks was a soothing balm to my clammy skin. Now that I’d been in here for a while, though, I felt like I was trying to breathe water.
“It comes off the same manufacturing line as the human pills,” I said.
“It’s just weird to think that when my daughter had a tooth infection last year, I could’ve just come into the store here instead of going to the pharmacy,” Boyd said.
“They just change the wrap on the bottle. I’d tell you to call Poison Control and give them the number on the pill to see for yourself, but…” I waved a hand over my head.
“Yeah,” Boyd said. “I hear ya. I wish they’d hurry up and get this fixed. With my filter system back there for the tanks I’ve got about two weeks of water left for the critters, but every day I’m losing the ones that need the power.”
I lifted my head and looked around. I wanted to tell him the power was never coming back, but to do that would be to admit that the money I’d already handed him was worthless.
“That’s why the heat rocks were outside,” I guessed. He nodded.
“I’ve been rotating them, letting the sun heat them up. It’s helped, but not enough. And I don’t even want to add up what I’ve lost in fish. It’s gotten to where I have to scoop ‘em out by the hour.”
His animals were obviously lovingly cared for, and he had a full array of rodents, birds, small mammals, fish, and reptiles. It looked like he had been doing well keeping them healthy despite the lack of power.
“Boyd, how long are you and Alice planning on staying here? In your stores, I mean? It’s gotten pretty dangerous out there.”
“You don’t need to tell me that. Alice had to shoot a man last night. He ran off, and we haven’t seen a cop to report it to.” He adjusted the ball cap on his head and shrugged. “We’ve talked about it, and we’re going to stay until the power comes back on. We just can’t risk losing the stores. It would take too long to rebuild, even with insurance.” He looked over at King, who was staring up at a lively military macaw that kept dropping seeds on his head and telling King he was a good boy.
“It would kill me to lose Moose,” Boyd said, nodding at the parrot. “If someone stole him, or set the place on fire…” he shook his head. “All of them. I can’t let them die like that. I won’t.”
“And what if it doesn’t come back on for weeks?”
He looked alarmed for a moment, then chuckled and waved a hand. “They’d tell us if it was going to be that long.”
I wiped sweat from my forehead and rubbed my hand on my pants. It wasn’t fair that he didn’t know. It wouldn’t be right to take everything I’d bought and leave with it, knowing he’d still be sitting here days from now. He’d be away from his family, his animals would be slowly dying, and sooner or later someone would show up at his door with more guns than he h
ad.
“Boyd, you can tell I’m sick, right?”
“Well, yeah. You look like you’ve got the flu.” He pointed at my shoulder, on full display thanks to Chelsea’s I Love Fluttershy tank top. “If it wasn’t for those holes in you, I wouldn’t sell you my rabbits. I won’t sell ‘em to someone who looks contagious.”
“Okay. I’m about to tell you something, and I’ll understand if you want to take the rabbits and the pellets back. But I can’t leave without the antibiotics. I’ll help out around the store to pay for them or something, but I really, really need those.”
Boyd’s eyes narrowed, and he glanced quickly out at Alice, who was still standing by the window. She was chatting with Marco and smiling, but every few seconds she’d look inside and make sure we were still behaving.
“I’m not threatening you, and I’m not going to hurt you,” I said. “It’s just something you and Alice need to know.”
His hand drifted to the shotgun that he’d laid across the counter.
“You came in here saying you needed dog food, but you didn’t buy any. You’re asking weird questions. You’ve got my spidey-sense going now, and I don’t like it,” he said. “Talk fast.”
Chapter 34
Thursday, September 6th
Salisbury, Maryland
I pushed the door open and swung the cat carrier out, nodding at the trailer.
“Move the packs over and make room for this,” I said, setting it down. King stepped around me and sniffed at the carrier. “Set them on top of this bag of pellets, to give them some cushioning.” I laid the pellets down on top of the cage and sat down against the wall, sighing heavily. I felt like I’d been standing for too long.
“You don’t look so good, sugar,” Alice said. “Besides the birdshot holes, I mean.”
I patted my bulging thigh pocket. “I took some antibiotics. I should be doing better in about twenty-four hours.”