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When I don’t hear anything, except for the blood rushing in my ears from the run and my untapped wrath, I do a quick survey of what’s left in the store. The checkout station has been ransacked. There’s not a single pack of cigarettes, candy bar, or bag of chips left on the shelves, but the rest of the store looks pretty much the same.
I guess makeup and greeting cards aren’t exactly a top priority when you think the world’s about to end.
The pharmacy is in the back corner, past all the convenience store bullshit, so I unzip the backpack and make my way down the aisles, chucking shit in along the way. Tampons, toothpaste, shampoo, hand sanitizer, protein bars, peanut butter … I can’t believe all this stuff is still here. In Franklin Springs, this place would have been taken over by thugs weeks ago.
Oh shit.
The realization stops me in my tracks and then sends me sprinting past everything else in the store and diving over the pharmacy counter.
The Bonys probably did have guys posted in here twenty-four/seven … up until yesterday. They thought the world was gonna end just like everybody else, so they were out, getting fucked up and killing pedestrians for fun. I saw them. But when they finally shake off their hangovers and figure out that the world didn’t end and it was all just a hoax …
The rumble of motorcycle engines in the distance fuels me as I scour the labels on row after row of identical white bottles with incomprehensible Latin words printed on them.
Goddamn it!
I don’t know what any of this means. Nobody ever took me to the doctor as a kid. The only drugs I know are the ones with street value, and of course, those are long gone.
Rain would know what to look for.
Rain.
I unzip the front pouch on her backpack and read the label on the pills she swiped from Carter’s house for my bullet wound.
KEFLEX (cephalexin) Capsules, 250 mg
I kiss the label and drop the almost-empty bottle back into the bag. The roaring of engines grows louder as I scan the shelves for anything starting with a K.
Forget about the drugs! Run, dumbass!
Epinephrine … flurazepam …
Go! Now!
Glucophage … hydralazine …
What are you doing? Do you think that Quint kid would be up in here, finding meds for you right now? Fucking run!
Keppra—no. Shit. Too far … Keflex!
The moment my fingers graze the five-hundred-count bottle of antibiotics, the crunch of broken glass under boot heels roots me to the spot.
“Argh!” a deep voice growls just before the sound of something being smashed echoes off the high ceiling. “They took all the goddamn smokes!”
I crouch down on the floor between two pharmacy shelves as a second pair of feet comes crunching into the store.
“Ah, man,” a younger voice says, so quietly I can barely hear him. “They took all the Mr. Goodbars.”
“Fuck Mr. Goodbar!” the older asshole yells, followed by the sound of hollow cardboard containers tumbling to the ground. “If you don’t find me a cigarette, a cuppa coffee, and something for this gotdamn migraine in the next five minutes, I’ma beat yer ass, boy.”
“I—”
“Four minutes!”
“Okay, fine.”
I unzip the backpack, tooth by plastic tooth, and slide the Keflex bottle in as quietly as possible.
“I’ma check the break room for a coffeepot,” the older asshole grumbles. “Anybody tries to come in that door … shoot ’em.”
