He looked at the manager.
“Just take it, Doc; it’s ok.”
John paused, curious.
“Why are you here, Ernie?” He motioned to the darkened store. The elderly couple slowly dragged the trash bag full of defrosted food: the air around him was thick with the rising scent of decay.
Ernie looked at him, slowly shaking his head.
“Don’t know, Doc. Habit, I guess. No family. Dolores and the kids left me last year. Just habit, I guess.”
John nodded his thanks and tossed the loot into the backseat of the car. Backing up to the Dollar Store, he went in and found much the same chaos, this store torn apart, with no one inside.
“Who’s in there?”
Turning, he saw Vern Cooper, one of the town police, looking through the broken front window.
“It’s me, Vern, John Matherson.”
“Out of there now, sir.”
He came out and felt a change, a profound change in his world. Vern had always been so easygoing, almost a bit of the town’s “Barney Fife.” Now he was carrying a shotgun and it was half-raised, not quite pointing at John but almost.
“Just looking around, Vern.”
“John, I could arrest you for looting.”
“What?”
“Just that, John. It got real bad here last night.”
“Yeah, I heard.”
“Just get out of here and go home, John,” Vern sighed.
John didn’t hang around to ask for details and did as Vern “suggested.”
At the U-Rent store they had already sold out of extra propane tanks, and John didn’t even bother to go into the hardware store; it was utter chaos, with a line out the door and halfway down the block. The mere fact that he had a car that moved caused nearly everyone to turn and look at him, a reaction that made him nervous. So he just turned around and went home.
The rock salt was a golden find, he realized, and they had then unpacked all the meat, salted it down, then repacked it. Next had come a wood detail, for sooner rather than later he knew the propane for the grill would run out, and by the end of the day they were all exhausted.
He had promised Jen they’d go see Tyler today, then make a run up to her house to get some clothes and of course, check on the cat, so John got back in the car. It was only a short drive up to the nursing home, just about a mile. They passed half a dozen abandoned cars, a family walking by in the opposite direction, mother and father both pushing supermarket shopping carts, one with two kids inside, the other stacked with some few family treasures. Who they were he didn’t know, where they were going he could not figure out, nor did he slow to find out.
Again, such a change. A week ago, seeing a couple like that he’d have pulled over asked if they needed a lift; the sight was so pathetic.
As they pulled into the parking lot of the nursing home John instantly knew something was terribly wrong. Three people were wandering about outside. At the sight of them he could see they were patients, shuffling, confused, one of them naked.
“My God, what is going on here?” Jen gasped.
John started to go for the nearest of the wanderers, to guide her back inside, but Jen shouted for him to follow her.
And the moment he opened the door, he knew something was horribly wrong. The stench was overwhelming, so bad that he gagged, backed out, and gasped for breath.
Jen, made of far sterner stuff, just stood in the doorway.
“Take a few deep breaths. I’ll be down in Tyler’s room.”
John waited for a moment, tempted to light a cigarette. He held back, having gone through five packs in just two days. That left him six packs plus two cartons and he was already beginning to count each one.
He took another deep breath, braced himself, and went in. Again the stench, feces, urine, vomit. He gasped, struggled, nearly vomiting, and fought it down.
The corridor, which a week before had been so brightly lit and spotless, was dark, a large linen gurney parked in a side alcove the source of the worst of the smell. He quickly walked past it, turned the corner, and reached the west wing’s nurses’ station. One woman was behind the counter and looked up at him wearily. Her gown of Winnie the Poohs was stained and stained again. He spotted her name tag: Caroline, and vaguely remembered she was usually part of the night shift.
He wanted to blow but could see she was exhausted, beleaguered.
“How are you, Caroline?”
“Fine, I guess,” she said woodenly.
He looked down the corridor. The stench was so overwhelming that he felt it should be a visible fog.
“What in hell is going on here?” he asked. “What do you mean?”
She was in shock. He could now see that. The poor girl was numbed, hollow eyed.
“When did you last sleep?”
She looked up at the clock on the wall. It was frozen at 4:50.
Feeble cries echoed down the corridor: “help me, help me, help me…”
“A few hours last night, I guess.”
“Are any other staff here?”
“There’s Janice down on the other wing. I think Waldo is still here.”
“And that’s it?”
She nodded.
“I’ll be right back.”
He braced himself and started down the corridor. All exterior doors were open, but there was no breeze and the heat was suffocating. Yet another building designed for complete climate control and year-round comfort with computerized environmental controls. The small windows in each room barely cracked open, and the temperature inside was as high, perhaps higher than outside.
The first room he looked into revealed an elderly woman; he remembered her as having Alzheimer’s. She was rocking back and forth, sheets kicked off, lying in her own filth.
The next room: two elderly men, one sitting in a motorized wheelchair that no longer moved, the other lying on a bed, the sheets drenched in urine.
They both glanced up at him.
“Son, could you get us some water?” the one in the wheelchair asked, ever so politely. “Sure.”
He backed out of the room and went back to the desk.
“Can I have a pitcher for some water?”
She shook her head.
“We ran out last night.”
“What do you mean, ‘ran out’?”
“Just that. No running water.”
“Don’t you have a reserve tank? Aren’t you supposed to have a reserve somewhere?”
“I don’t know,” she said listlessly. “I think there’s an emergency well that runs off the generator.”
“Jesus Christ.”
He opened the door to the hallway bathroom and recoiled, gagging. A woman was sitting on the toilet, slumped over… dead, already the smell of decay filling the tiny room.
He turned and went back down the main corridor to the kitchen, storming in. One elderly man was there, balanced on his walker, heavy steel fridge door open, a package of hot dogs in his hand, and he was eating them cold.
“Hi there,” the man said. “Care for one?” And he offered the pack up. “No thanks.”
John went over to the sink, turned the taps… nothing. “Damn it.”
Back out in the dining area, he took the lid off a large recessed canister that usually held ice. There was
