answer your questions while I drive.”
“Ok. Don’t seem to be going anywhere else.”
It was only several more blocks to the shopping plaza with Ingram’s market and the CVS drugstore. The parking lot was nearly full, but no one was about.
He got out and looked at the drugstore, disappointed; it was dark. Damn, it must be closed, but then he realized the absurdity of that; all the stores were dark.
“I think it was EMP, like I just said,” John said, continuing their brief conversation.
“Had the same thought.”
“Why?”
She smiled.
“I help run a surgical unit. We had a lot of disaster drills, especially since nine-eleven. We did a scenario on that one, EMP. It wasn’t pleasant. Kept me awake thinking for nights afterwards. Hospitals aren’t hardened to absorb it; the emergency backup generators will blow out along with everything else, and you know what that means.”
“You’ll have to tell me more later on,” John said. He pulled on the door and it swung open.
Inside was a minor bedlam, a harried clerk behind the counter shouting, “Please, everyone, it is cash only. I’m sorry, no checks….”
John walked past her to the back of the store and the pharmacist counter. One of the regulars was there, Rachel, her daughter was one of Elizabeth’s friends. One of a line of a dozen people, a heavyset man in his early forties, bit of a tacky suit, tie pulled down and half open, was at the counter.
“Listen to me!” he shouted at Rachel. “I need that prescription filled now, god damn it.”
“And sir. I keep trying to tell you, I’m sorry, but we don’t know you, we don’t have a record for you on file, and that, sir, is a controlled substance.”
“I’m from out of town, damn it. Don’t you hicks up here understand that? Now listen, bitch, I want that prescription.”
John caught the eye of Liz, the pharmacist. She was in her early thirties and, John always thought, about the most attractive pharmacist he had ever laid eyes on. She was also married to an ex-ranger. Unfortunately, her husband was nowhere around and with Liz at not much more than five two and a hundred pounds, she was definitely way out of her league.
Liz looked at him appealingly. John took it in, looked around, a book and magazine rack by the counter. Nothing he could use. The cooler for beverages, however, was about twenty feet away.
He backed over to it, not many had hit here yet, reached in, and pulled out a liter bottle of Coors beer. Makala was looking at him with disgust, not understanding what was happening.
Liz, coming up to the counter, tried to confront the belligerent customer, extending her hand for him to calm down.
“Listen, damn it. OxyContin, you hear me. I’ll take thirty and you can call my doctor once the power comes back on and he’ll confirm it.”
“Sir. Please leave this store.”
“That’s it! Both of you bitches, get out of my way.”
He started to climb over the counter, Liz backing up.
John was up beside him and slashed out, the bottle smashing across the side of the man’s head, shattering.
As he started to collapse, John pulled him back from the counter, flinging him to the ground, and for good measure stomped him in the solar plexus, doubling him up.
The man was on the floor, keening with a high, piercing shrill. Everyone else stood silent, stunned. John looked over at Liz. Sorry.
He actually felt embarrassed by what had just happened. He had broken a societal taboo; folks around here did not go around smashing beer bottles across a guy’s head, from behind, in the local pharmacy. John almost expected an alarm to go off, the police to come barging in…. There was only silence except for the pitiful cries of the man on the floor.
Still silence. John looked at the others lined up. Several turned and fled. One woman was shaking her head.
“Is this how you treat strangers in this redneck town?” she snapped. “I’ll be damned if I ever stop here again.”
She stormed out.
He recognized one of the men. Pat Burgess, a Baptist minister, part of his Civil War Roundtable club. Pat nodded.
“Good work, John. Sorry, but with my heart, I’d most likely pitched a coronary if I had taken him on.”
It snapped John out of the momentary haze, the shock, back to the reality of where they were and what had to be done, for that matter what he was here to do.
“Pat, can you see to him? Get a belt or something and tie his hands first. Maybe somebody can look at his face and see if I cut his eye.”
“You did, you goddamn bastard. I can’t see! My lawyer’s going to rip you an extra asshole!”
The man started to scream again and John tapped him with his shoe. He cringed, falling silent.
John leaned over.
“Listen to me. You threatened these women. One more word and I will cut your eyes out,” John said, and the man fell back to crying, clutching his face, blood leaking out between his fingers.
John looked back at Liz, then stepped around behind the counter.
“Liz, can we talk for a moment?”
“Sure, John.”
He motioned to the back corner of the pharmacy area and the two went into the locked area and half-closed the door.
“Thank God you came in, John,” Liz whispered hoarsely. “I’ve had three like that already. We bluffed the other two out, but that guy was crazy. Most likely addicted. Doesn’t travel with any in case he ever gets stopped, and his supply is at home.”
“Look, Liz, I need a favor.”
Liz fell silent, the look of gratitude disappearing.
“I think we got a bad situation,” Liz said quietly. “Don’t we?”
“I won’t lie to you. I think we do.”
She looked back towards the counter, the line of customers, more coming in and queuing up.
“I’ve been here all night,” she said wearily. “I live in Asheville, nothing was moving, I was hoping Jim might come to get me, but he hasn’t shown…”
Her voice trailed off.
“How long before the electric comes back on?”
“I don’t know.”
“How long?”
“A month, maybe a year or more.”
“My God,” Liz sighed.
“Exactly, and you know what I am asking for.”
“John, I have exactly forty vials in stock. There’s one other kid in this town with the same thing your girl’s got. Over a hundred adult diabetics with varying degrees of insulin needs.
“I’ve had four folks down here this morning already asking for extras. I can’t give them out, John. I’m responsible to everyone here, not just Jen….” She hesitated. “Not just you, John.”
“Liz, we’re talking about my daughter, my little girl,” and his voice began to choke.
She pointed towards the neatly arrayed cabinets with medications.
“John, I’ve got hundreds of people I’m responsible for, and if what you said is true a lot of them will die, some in a matter of days. We just don’t keep that much inventory in stock anymore. None of the pharmacies do; we rely on daily shipments.”
“There won’t be daily shipments for quite a while, Liz.”
