Ryan Westfield - Final Chaos

Jessica nodded. “Sure,” she said. And after a pause, she added, “Do you think they’ll come in the truck?”

“You say that like they’re definitely going to come.”

“I thought that was a given.”

Rob said nothing for a couple moments. He was thinking. His eyes scanned the driveway and moved to the evergreens that surrounded the lake house, shielding it from view. “If it was me,” he said. “I wouldn’t come barreling down the driveway. I’d sneak up. Maybe split up.”

“That’s what I was afraid of,” said Jessica. “Because that’s the same thought I had.”

“So how do we defend against that?”

“Keep an eye out,” said Jessica.

“That’s it?”

“What else can we do?”

Rob groaned. “I think I’m going to need that coffee to be a double. Maybe an extra tablespoon of instant in mine?”

Jessica shook her head. “Rations, remember? They even apply to coffee.”

Rob groaned again as Jessica disappeared inside the house, the door closing behind her.

The seconds turned into minutes, and Jessica didn’t yet return with the coffee. He wondered if she was expecting him to go into the kitchen. But on the other hand, she knew one of them had to be outside at all times.

His mind was tired. Of course she’d come back outside.

Thoughts came and went in cloudy swirls, disappearing and reappearing without any apparent order.

He was vaguely aware that he was losing track of time.

How long had it been since he’d slept?

What was he doing?

Oh yeah, he was patrolling around the house. Where had he been last? Maybe out to the road.

It was time to check on the lake.

By the time he was walking towards the lake, through the trees, he’d completely forgotten about the coffee and Jessica.

Rob knew that sleep deprivation affected short term memory. But that knowledge didn’t help him remember anything.

It was only a few minutes walk down to the lake. Rob stood on the edge and stared out across the calm waters. There was a slight breeze that had been blocked by the trees around the house.

Rob took deep gulps of the air, and it seemed to make him feel more awake.

The lake looked beautiful. The sun, when it peeked out from behind the clouds, glinted across the ripples on the water.

It would have been a nice place to visit on a vacation, if Rob had ever really had a vacation. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d held a job long enough to have a vacation.

What was he doing down here?

Patrolling.

He needed to keep it together.

People relied on him, after all.

Where was the reliant Rob? The hardworking Rob? The Rob with a purpose?

He was fading away. Sleep deprivation and exhaustion were eating away at him.

But he’d push through. Just like he knew Jim would, out there in the nearby town.

Suddenly, Rob realized that something was out of place.

There was a canoe on the edge of the lake. The bow had been pulled up and it rested on the rocky shore. The stern of the long, green, canoe bobbed slightly with the tide.

That canoe shouldn’t have been there.

It wasn’t there before.

Even Rob’s muddled brain could understand that.

His heart started to pound.

Adrenaline started to course through him.

He started to wake up out of his stupor. His brain understood the danger. It was telling his body to marshal all available resources.

So that he could be ready for a fight.

Rob’s hand went to his gun. He got it out. Got it ready. Finger on the trigger.

He sunk down to a crouching position, getting himself closer to the ground.

His eyes scanned the area, moving rapidly.

So the Carpenters had decided to come. And some of them had come across the lake.

But where were they?

Had they already made their way toward the house and Rob had somehow missed their path when he’d come down to the lake?

Or were they there, hiding among the trees? Waiting to ambush him?

Rob felt his hand getting sweaty as it gripped his gun.

It was completely silent, except for a lone bird off in the distance and the gentle lap of the water against the short.

The only thing Rob could hear was his own heart thumping.

Jim moved cautiously but swiftly through the abandoned pharmacy.

As he’d suspected, the place had been ransacked. Probably days earlier.

Everything that could be eaten or drunk was gone. The shelves were empty, and many had been overturned.

There was trash on the floor. All sorts of things, from papers to wrappers. There was even a street sign that had been graffitied, torn off, and dragged into the store for some unknown reason.

Maybe it was the work of a mob. Maybe it was just a few people, desperately looking for something to feed their families with.

Who knew.

What mattered to Rob was whether or not there were antibiotics left.

Most of the over-the-counter products were gone.

Rob moved behind the counter, only to find that the carefully arranged shelves of pills had met the same fate as the rest of the store.

Pills littered the ground, crunching under his boots as he walked.

His heart sunk.

He realized he’d been unrealistic. He’d been hoping to find a neatly labeled pill bottle of antibiotics.

But instead the shelves were empty and what was left of the pills was literally under his feet.

But maybe it wasn’t all lost.

He bent down and scooped some of the remaining pills into his hands. Maybe he could make out a marking. Some lettering. Something that would tell him what the pills were.

Many of the pills were crushed and their markings were unreadable. He spent some time gathering pills that were intact, and began examining their markings with his flashlight.

He glanced at his watch. Five minutes had already past.

He didn’t want to spend too much time here. Who knew who might come along, or what might happen to the Subaru.

There were pills of all shapes and sizes and colors. Most of the markings meant nothing to him.

Five more minutes went by.

Was that a noise?

It sounded like something had moved. A soft thud.

No, probably nothing. Just something off in the distance.

Jim bent his head down again, putting the pills close up to his eye to get a good look at them.

Finally, after what felt like an eternity, Jim found a pill that looked familiar.

It was a white tablet. Oblong and fairly large. The markings, on one side only, read PVK. There was an indent that bifurcated the tablet, making it easier to snap in half.

PVK… PVK…

Jim had seen it before.

He held the tablet up to his nostril and inhaled sharply. Not the safest thing to do normally, but it given the circumstances, it made sense.

It was a unique smell.

One that he’d smelled before.

It was penicillin.

He remembered the smell and the taste. And the memory, then, came flooding back.

PVK stood for penicillin-VK. He’d taken it before, years ago, for some problem that he’d now forgotten about.

He didn’t know if they were 500mg or 250mg. There were no numbers on the pill. But that didn’t matter. He’d give them to Aly anyway, and if she wasn’t getting better, he’d double the dose.

Or maybe it’d be better to start off with a higher dose. After all, the risk of taking too much penicillin wasn’t great. As far as he knew.

No time for that now, though.

He placed the one pill carefully in his pocket, bent down further on the floor, and began searching for more.

Now that he knew what he was looking for, it wasn’t as hard.

Unfortunately, he couldn’t just scoop up all the pills there and bolt out of the pharmacy. If he did that, he’d have no idea if he had enough penicillin or not.