The Survivor Chronicles (Book 2): The Divide (26 page)

The smell increased as they made their way across the front of the store. Xander grabbed a basket sitting by the cash register as they passed by the counter. It clanged against the racks of gum and breath mints lining the counter. A swarm of flies burst up from behind the counter in a buzzing cloud that made her cringe. She didn't have to look behind the counter to know what was back there.

Bobby nodded down an aisle marked bandages, antiseptics, and first aid. Her first confirmation that the store had already been raided came as they stood amongst the bare remains lining the shelves.

"Awesome," Bobby muttered.

He was shaking his head as he stepped over the useless packages of knuckle and fingertip band aids, scattered in with the smaller ones used for shaving nicks. Bobby bent over and pulled a jug of rubbing alcohol from the bottom shelf. All the smaller bottles were gone, as was the peroxide and antibiotic ointments.

"That's going to sting like a son of a bitch," Xander said.

"Good thing you're a manly man," Bobby responded as he dropped the jug in the basket.

Xander looked half tempted to hit him over the head with the bat as Bobby grinned at him. Beneath the smile, Mary Ellen saw the unease in his brown eyes though as his gaze slid to Xander's wounded leg. Drops of fresh blood were seeping out beneath the ruined t-shirt wrapped around his calf. Blood plopped onto the tiled floor in a scattered trail as they left the useless bandage aisle behind.

She grabbed a bottle of ibuprofen from a rack at the end of the aisle and tossed it to Xander. He shook out a couple and dry swallowed them before slipping it into the basket.

Though the aisle containing snack food and water had been mostly picked over, some scraps of candy and soda had been left behind. Though, she was acutely aware that it was the crappy candy and soft drinks that remained.

The next aisle held an assortment of summer water supplies. Bobby grabbed a couple of beach towels from a shelf and stuffed them into the basket too. Mary Ellen claimed a pair of scissors and some scotch tape from the office supplies aisle. It was a ragtag assortment but at least it was something.

In the makeup aisle they discovered the next decomposing body. Mary Ellen was tempted to pull her shirt over her nose but she knew it would be useless. She quickly looked away from the remains. Due to the flies hovering over it she knew this one would be even worse than the remains they'd found in the house.

Bobby went the other way down the aisle, just past the door they had entered through. The pharmacy was set up on the far back right wall, just a small square surrounded by two counters. Her heart sank as she stared at the five rows of shelves within the small room. Apparently this place had survived off of its soda fountain more than its sale of prescription medicine. It had worked for them though; where many small drug stores had folded, this place had still been holding its own.

She couldn't see the drugs as the shelves were perpendicular to where they stood, but if they were anything like the first aid aisle she doubted there was much left that was useful. Xander limped toward the counter and leaned forward to peer over. "You might want to stay on this side," he told her.

"More dead?" she asked.

He didn't answer though, and he didn't have to, she saw the answer in his eyes. Bobby walked through the open plank door in the counter. He glanced to the right and then quickly looked away again. Mary Ellen was tempted by the idea of staying on this side, but Xander was leaning heavily against the counter and the beads of sweat along his brow had intensified.

"Stay," she said to him.

Before he could protest, and she could change her mind, she hurried behind the counter. She was brought up abruptly by the oozing mess on the floor before her. The last time she had vomited, but this time she managed to keep it suppressed as she pressed her fingers to her mouth. She turned away from the mess, before she couldn't, and forced herself down the first aisle as Bobby took a cautious step over the remains.

She frowned as she studied the picked over shelves, Bobby turned around and bent down to look at her through the shelves. "Do you know what any of this stuff is?"

"Some of it, but most of it is a blur. Though, I think this one is for impotence."

"We don't need that one!" Xander called from the front.

"I have to agree with him," Bobby told her.

He rose back up and disappeared from view as he turned the corner into a new aisle. Mary Ellen was fairly certain that she was mostly looking at useless drugs as she left her area behind. She moved past the aisle that Bobby was in and was brought up short before the fourth aisle.

There was another body lying in this one, and judging from the mass of hair surrounding the skull, it had been a female.

Mary Ellen took a small step back. She didn't want to think about what it meant that she was growing accustomed to the smell, and wasn't as astounded by the sight of death. Now that she thought about it though, she realized that the smell of the earth had changed. It didn't exactly smell wonderful outside anymore, and it sure didn't smell great in the car. Somehow, thankfully, her body and nose were already adjusting itself to this fact. Otherwise, she was pretty certain she would spend most of her day throwing up or with a pounding headache.

She'd fled the last time she'd encountered this, she'd been unable to face it, but she had to face it now. Xander's life may very well depend on it, and there was no way to avoid encountering human remains anymore.

Taking a deep breath, she fisted her hands and forced herself to step into the aisle. Fortunately the body seemed to have been a deterrent to the people that had already raided this store. The shelves above the body remained untouched. Unfortunately, the shelves held nothing that she recognized as an antibiotic, and she was pretty sure that one of them was for high blood pressure. Two shelves away from the body had been picked completely over, and she suspected that they had contained all the stronger painkillers.

She spotted a bottle on the floor next to the body but though she was getting better at dealing with the dead, she wasn't going to bend down and grab it. Bobby had already beat her to the next aisle but there appeared to be little that remained. He grabbed a couple bottles of a shelf and shoved them into the pockets of his jeans.

"What did you find?" she asked.

"Prednisone."

"What's that?"

"A steroid. Just about every year I end up getting a really bad case of poison ivy and I have to take it. It makes me sick but it dries the stuff up pretty fast."

"Why didn't you just stay away from poison ivy?"

Bobby shrugged. "I like to hike and sometimes it's unavoidable. The stuff sucks to take, but it's a great anti-inflammatory and it will help keep the swelling down if his leg gets infected."

"Sounds good to me."

In the last aisle she came across an assortment of scattered antibiotics. Most of them had been picked through and taken, but there was a batch of penicillin left behind. "They must have been allergic," Bobby muttered.

"Can you take penicillin?" she called out to Xander.

"I'm allergic."

"Of course he is," she said with a sigh. She still shoved some bottles into her pockets, even if she couldn't take it either the others might have a use for it.

"What about ampicillin?" Bobby called as he twisted a bottle before him.

There was a brief silence before Xander responded, "Only one way to find out."

"Wonderful," Mary Ellen said. Bobby tucked the ampicillin into his pocket and gestured for her to follow him.

Sunlight spilled in as the backdoor was pulled open again. "You guys ok in there?" Peter yelled from the doorway.

"Yeah," Xander called back.

Bobby handed him the bottle of steroids. "It's probably going to make you feel like crap, you're supposed to take it with milk to help, but…"

Xander's nose wrinkled as he shook his head. "I don't think that's an option right now."

"Not really," Bobby agreed.

Mary Ellen handed him the antibiotics. "I don't know what the rules are, don't even know if it will be any more effective if you do, but I'd suggest at least doubling up on whatever amount it says to take."

Xander rotated the bottle in his hand and popped the top. He shook three of them into his palm. "Or tripling," he said with a smile. He tossed them into his mouth along with three tablets of prednisone. He made a face as he swallowed and shuddered. "Awful."

"Let's hope you're not allergic," Mary Ellen told him.

"Not much we can do about it right now anyway. Let's get out of here."

Bobby led the way back outside and held the door open as Xander hobbled out. Mary Ellen glanced anxiously around the alleyway but it remained blessedly clear. "Let's get that leg cleaned up before we go," she suggested.

Xander took a deep breath and nodded as he sat on the hood. She pulled his ruined shirt away and tossed it aside. The disturbing spectacle of the human teeth imprints made her shudder as Bobby handed her the jug of alcohol. She braced herself and flinched as she poured some of the liquid on his leg. Xander hissed; an instinctive spasm ran through his leg as his hands clenched on the hood.

"Sorry!" she apologized.

"Not your fault," he grated through clenched teeth.

Even so, she dreaded doing it again, but she forced herself to do so. Bobby handed her scraps of the towel. She used them to clean away the fresh blood before wrapping a clean piece around the injury and taping it with the scotch tape. It wasn't the best bandage but it was better than nothing.

"You'll be fine," she assured him.

"Of course I will," Xander replied with a smile that didn't reach his striking hazel eyes. Peter accepted his shirt back as Xander removed it from his thigh.

"Time to get back on the road." Bobby clapped Xander on the shoulder before climbing into the car.

Mary Ellen slid behind the wheel and proceeded cautiously down the alley. It felt good to be moving again, felt good to have been able to find something that might help Xander. She was almost out of the alley when a large group of people began to shuffle past. Mary Ellen hit the brakes as a few heads turned toward them and lips skimmed back.

CHAPTER 21

Riley

Somewhere in Mass.

Riley understood the statement shaking like a leaf as she kept her head bowed behind the ATM. She couldn't bring herself to move, she had no idea what had just happened. No idea where Carl and John were and absolutely no idea where the ass with the gun was. She had to look out, but he hadn't known where she was and there was a chance he was still out there, still alive.

But she couldn't hide behind the machine forever.

If he was still alive he would eventually find her. Taking a deep breath, she released it as she steeled her courage and cautiously peeked around the machine. She half expected to get a bullet in her forehead before she could peer out completely but the store remained as hushed as the ocean on a foggy morning.

One eye peeped out around the machine; she realized she had stopped breathing as her lungs began to burn. She released it on a small exhale as she spotted the man on the floor. There was a growing pool of blood around the right leg of his prone figure. Even as the thought of him being dead crossed her mind his head tilted back and his brown eyes met hers.

There was a moment, when their eyes locked, that Riley felt as if the earth screeched to a halt. A moment when the stillness became complete and she saw in his eyes a madness that had nothing to do with the sickness raging outside and everything to do with a sickness inside of him. He'd meant to kill them when they'd entered this store, and she was certain they wouldn't have been his first victims.

Their eyes remained locked before she forced her gaze to the gun lying five feet away from the both of them.

The world lurched back to life as Riley burst out from behind the ATM at the same time the man lurched forward. Even maimed he was surprisingly quick as he scrambled for the gun. Years of softball had honed her ability for the headfirst slide and she used it now as she threw her arms out and launched for the gun.

Her fingers nearly grasped it but they knocked it aside in her fumbling attempt to grab it. It skittered just beyond her grasp as her forward momentum carried her beyond the weapon. She threw out her left hand to block the rack of magazines she was heading for. The rack toppled over with a loud clatter as she crashed into it.

She threw her hands over her head as magazines rained down on top of her. One of the magazines bounced off the bridge of her once broken nose. The break, which had occurred six years ago when she'd lost a baseball in the sun, still brought tears to her eyes every time something hit her nose. It didn't fail to do so now as she blinked back the tears that filled her eyes.

A hand wrapped around her ankle. A frustrated cry escaped her as she flipped herself over, drew her leg back and smashed her foot straight into the man's face. Blood exploded out of his nose, he didn't release her though as his fingers clawed at her leg and he jerked her forward a foot.

She drew her foot back and slammed it into him again with an infuriated cry. His face twisted, his hands slipped on her leg as she used her elbows to back-peddle away from him. He managed to snag hold of the tip of her shoe again as John skidded around the corner. John did a double take before he rushed forward and threw himself on the guy's back.

A strangled cry escaped the man as he reared back in an attempt to dislodge John. Riley scrambled to her feet and grabbed the toppled rack as the man clawed at John. John held on tight though, his arm wrapped around the man's neck in a chokehold that would have made many a wrestling fan proud. Riley swung the rack over her shoulder and brought it down with the full force of her might as John jerked the man's head back.

The impact jarred all the way up her arms and into her shoulder as the rack crashed off the side of the man's face. Blood exploded from his mouth, she was sure even a few teeth shot free as his jaw cracked and the rack was knocked from her grasp. The man's eyes rolled back in his head and he went limp in John's hold.