Anthony Newman - American Survivor

The office was a wreck and had been looted several times. The locked cage where the Veterinarian stored the prescription drugs had the door smashed, and bottles of pills and loose pills were scattered all over the floor. Joe took a broom and dustpan, swept the pills together, and placed them in a bag. He then searched through the bottles and found several with drug names that sounded familiar. He filled his backpack and duffel bag with all the drugs he thought were worth taking. He added several bottles of rubbing alcohol, bandages, and other assorted medical items to his bags.

Joe was thankful all of the animal cages were empty because he had dreaded the thought of animals starving to death. He walked toward the front office when he spied a door on his right. He opened the door to see a huge mess of office and janitorial supplies. He sorted through them and selected a bundle of copy paper and a package of various colored marking pens for Cloe and a six-pack of toilet paper.

He then searched the desks in the front office found nothing of value. Joe then moved to the Vet’s office and found several books on animal medicine and a copy of The Pill Book, which appeared to explain about many medications and what they do. He thought that perhaps Cobie would know something about the animal drugs and hoped most could be used for humans. As he was about to leave he saw a metal First Aid cabinet on the wall and emptied the contents into his backpack along with a First Aid book that was in a rack below the enclosure. Joe didn’t see anything else worth taking and headed back to the Jeep to unload his bags and start scavenging again.

He went back through a different part of the subdivision and noticed the gunfire sounded much closer to his position. He saw several dead bodies that were outside of a house. The windows were smashed in and bullet holes riddled the area around the front door. Joe heard something across the street and dove into the bushes beside the front porch. It was very dark under the canopy of shrubs as Joe crawled toward an opening to see what had made the noise.

Joe saw two young men with AR-15s in their hands and sawed-off shotguns hanging from slings over their shoulders. They were talking as they scanned the houses along their walk.

“I know those Muslims are back in town tonight. Big John wants them dead, and he will reward us if we bring a dead one to him,” the short one said.

“I don’t know. Let’s find a hiding spot and then go back to the crib in the morning. We ain’t heroes. You saw what those camel jockeys did to that carload of Jews. I don’t want no part of them. John needs to get off the drugs and help us get the fuck away from those animals,” said the tall one.

They kept talking as they walked on up the street, but Joe couldn’t make out what they were saying. The men were out of sight, and Joe sat still for a few minutes more to make sure they were gone. He sat under the bush with a strange feeling that something was wrong around him. It was pitch dark under the bush, and he didn’t hear anything. Then it dawned on him that the smell of a scented soap had caught his senses. He stayed very still for a minute and didn’t take a breath. He was right. He heard someone or something breathing close to him.

Joe said, “I’m not going to hurt you, but if you don’t show yourself I’m going to let loose with this shotgun.”

“Don’t move or I’ll pull this trigger,” a voice in the dark said.

“Look, I’m just hiding from those men and don’t want to hurt anyone. Just take your finger off the trigger, and I’ll leave,” said Joe with fear in his voice as he slowly pointed his pistol at where the voice came from.

“I followed you from the Vet’s office, and I need some of those drugs for my husband. Give me that bag, and I’ll let you go.”

“No, I won’t do that, but I will share them with you. I have a sick daughter who needs antibiotics. Do you know what your husband needs? What happened to him,” Joe asked.

“That gang chased a man close to where we were hiding, and a stray bullet hit him in the thigh. Do you know any first aid? I did the best I could, but I can’t stand the sight of blood,” the lady said.

“How far away is he,” Joe asked the lady.

“Maybe a quarter mile west. We have a hideout in a building north of that self-storage lot on Highway 66.”

She pointed southwest and said, “It’s that way a couple of blocks.”

“Okay, I’ll share my meds with you and take a look at your husband. Do you have anything to trade? I need some vitamins, soap, and women’s stuff,” Joe said as he struggled to remember Cobie’s list.

“We have some extras of those. Follow me,” the woman said as she stood up behind the bushes, and then added, “The gangs patrol on foot, but the Arabs drive military vehicles. They like to fool people into thinking they are the US Army and kill or capture anyone who approach them.”

The woman stuck to the shadows close to buildings as much as possible as she worked her way to their hideout. She led him to a building north of the self-storage units. She walked up to a building that had been half burned down and slipped around to the backside where she moved a couple of charred boards and went into the blackness below. Joe followed her when a light illuminated the floor ahead. There were burned chairs, boards, and ashes piled along their path until they turned a corner. She knocked three times on the door and then opened it to reveal a room lit by a kerosene lantern. There were several adults and children in the room. One of the women raised a knife when she saw Joe enter the room.

“Jane put the knife down. He is here to help us.

Joe stared at the lady who had convinced him to help her husband. He turned to the lady with the knife and said, “You had better get something besides a knife if you want to stay alive out there. Now let’s take a look at your husband’s leg.”

The man was asleep on top of a stack of boxes with his leg propped up. Joe pulled the blanket back and saw the wound appeared to be recent.

“Can you boil some water to help sterilize my knife and whatever else I’m going to use to get the bullet out? The bullet must have hit something else, or it would have gone clean through the fleshy part of his leg. Give him these Ibuprofen pills. Thank God, it’s on the outside just above the knee. I’ll dig it out and give you some of my antibiotics to keep the infection down. Jane, take this book and find the section on puncture or gunshot wounds and read it aloud,” Joe said.

“Hey, what are your names?”

“I’m Ginny West, and Dan is my husband. We’re from California and were up here on vacation with Jane and her family. Her boyfriend Bill left to find help yesterday and hasn’t come back yet,” the lady responded.

“I’m Joe, and I… err live a ways from here and scavenge in town every now and then.”

Joe turned to look at Jane and saw tears flowing as she tried to keep her children calm. Jane began reading from the First Aid book while Joe examined a pile of their tools to find something to pull the bullet from Dan’s leg. He saw a pair of needle nose pliers and gave his knife and the pliers to Ginny to sterilize in the pan full of water heating on a camp stove.

He looked around the room and saw Jane, her two teenaged boys, and Ginny and her teenaged girl and boy. All were dirty and malnourished. He now had an inner battle going on in his mind with an angel fighting a little red devil over if he should help them. He knew he could provide for himself and maybe the girls back at the cabin but seven more people could cause them all to starve or worse. They could cause him to be discovered. He felt like crap thinking about abandoning them when they had so much need. There had to be a solution he could live with. Then he asked himself what would Grandma do?