“Did you ever work in a pharmacy?”
“No.”
“Then how the hell do you know what you’re looking for?”
“Prozac is really fluoxotine, so that’s what they should have it labeled as.”
The pharmacy’s employee door was locked. Setting his box-cutter aside, Jack vaulted over the counter. There were two corpses behind it. One of them, a woman, was missing her eyes. The other, a man, lay on his stomach. His head had been bashed in with a coffee maker. Jack knew because the bloody appliance lay next to the corpse.
“Is it bad?” Angie called.
“Not as bad as out there, but it ain’t pretty either.”
He stepped over the bodies and went to the back. Then he searched through the shelves and bins until he found what he was looking for—a drawer full of fluoxotine.
“Bingo!”
“You found some?”
“Yep. Grab me a bag, will you?”
“Paper or plastic?”
“Plastic. Easier to carry.”
Angie retrieved a plastic bag from one of the registers and handed it to him over the counter. Jack returned to the shelf, yanked the drawer out of the cabinet, and dumped its contents into the bag. Then he returned to the counter and smiled.
“Do you have your insurance card with you?”
Angie gave him a puzzled look. “No. Why?”
“Oh, well.” Jack chuckled nervously. “What the hell. Prozac’s on the house today. Can I interest you in some free samples of Oxy-Contin, as well? Or how about some high-grade pharmaceutical marijuana?”
“Just the anti-depressants, please. Thanks.”
“Angie . . .” Jack shook his head. “You should never turn down free weed.”
“We should probably divide up the meds,” Angie suggested. “In case we get separated or something.”
“Okay,” Jack agreed, “but I think we should take them at the same time. That way, we can sort of remind each other. Less chance of forgetting a dose.”
“Good idea.”
“Thanks.”
“So what now?” Angie asked. “Do you think we should leave?”
“That depends. You’ve probably got people you want to check on. So do I. We need to at least determine if the whole city is like this. The power is still on. Maybe we can find a television or a radio—check the news and see if we can learn anything.”
“Something tells me we’re not going to.”
“That’s crazy talk,” Jack teased.
“I just think we just need to prepare for the worst possible scenario. You and I might very well be the only two sane people left in this city. What if we find our loved ones and they’re like everybody else? Or what if they’re still alive—and they try to kill us? Could you defend yourself against your family? Do you have what it takes to stay alive? To kill them?”
Jack’s expression soured. “I don’t want to think about it.”
“You might not have a choice, Jack.”
“Shit . . .”
“And there’s something else to consider.”
“What?”
“While we’re watching each other’s backs, we also need to keep an eye on each other. If either of us misses a dose—or if we’re wrong about that and this . . . whatever it was that caused this, infects one of us, the other could be in real danger.”
“We’ll be okay,” Jack insisted. “In truth, I was thinking about that earlier. I figure that if we were gonna go psycho, we would have changed when Marcel did.”
“We don’t know that. We don’t know anything.”
Jack’s expression fell. “So you think we should split up? Go our separate ways?”
“No. I just think we should be careful around each other. Marcel was complaining about a headache right before he snapped. If either of us gets a headache, we should tell each other right away. Agreed?”
“And then what? We kill the person with the headache? We abandon them?”
“I don’t know.”
Jack sighed. He looked as if he were ready to cry.
“Look,” Angie said after a pause, “I think you’re right about finding some news. Let’s try that first. We’ll worry about everything else in time.”
“Okay.”
Still using caution, they found two student-sized backpacks in the employee locker room. They filled these with bottles of spring water, crackers, sardines, dried fruit, and other canned goods, as well as medical supplies, toiletries, matches, cigarette lighters, and anything else that might prove useful. Jack considered grabbing some cash from the registers, but decided against it. He wasn’t sure what good cash would do them now, except to maybe start a fire with. Angie took a carton of cigarettes from behind the customer service counter.
“Do you smoke?”
She shook her head and then shrugged. “Fuck it. I do now.”
They crept to the front of the store. The electronic eyes above the doors registered their movements and the doors slid open as they approached.
“Oh . . .” Angie stared out at the parking lot. Sodium lights bathed it in a sickly yellow glow. “It’s even worse than it is in here.”
Jack said nothing.
FIVE
The parking lot was littered with corpses and debris. Something had sparked a fire, and many of the cars were now nothing more than blackened hulls. Some of the bodies were burned as well. Crows and other birds perched on the dead, scavenging the choice bits. The stench was revolting. A dog wandered amidst the chaos, but ran away when it saw them.
Slowly, they walked outside, clutching their weapons, supplies, and most importantly, Jack’s magic beans. The doors slid shut behind them, and the electricity went out, plunging the store and the parking lot into total darkness. Squawking, the birds took flight. The stench grew stronger.
“I can’t see shit,” Angie whispered.
“Neither can I. The power must be out everywhere.”
Jack looked around. There were no streetlights or glows from the windows of the nearby buildings. No car headlights, no radios blaring. Even the birds had fallen silent. He gazed up at the sky. The stars were hidden behind a curtain of clouds. He searched for the twinkling lights of a passing airplane, but the sky was empty.
The silence overwhelmed them.
“It’s the end of the world,” Jack said. “For real. The end of the fucking world.”
“No,” Angie disagreed. “It’s not the end of the world. It’s just the end of the people. The world will be just fine. Look around us. The world is still here. It’s just the people that are gone.”
“We can’t be the only ones left alive,” Jack said. “It doesn’t make any sense. There has to be others like us.”
To Angie, it sounded like he was trying to convince himself.
They took a few hesitant steps forward. Jack stumbled over a severed arm and almost tripped. After he regained his balance, Angie found his hand in the dark and held on tight.
“Be careful,” she whispered. “Wouldn’t do to break your leg after all of this.”
“That would suck. Doctors might be hard to come by now.”
She held up a hand, silencing him. Her expression was alarmed.
“What’s wrong?” Jack whispered.
