And it was very painful. In fact, he was being tortured. They all would be, including sweet little Emily.
A half-mile northwest of the tattoo parlor was Saint Joseph’s Hospital where they left Janice and Emily. Janice was to assist Doctor Venkat Patel, who was a prison doctor prior to the apocalypse.
Marty and Alexander were escorted by Brien and his men to the Berman Pharmacy, the well-known national chain store, one mile southeast from the hospital. Four skinheads with assault rifles and holstered handguns guarded the pharmacy entrance. The highest ranking guard Brien called “Corporal,” the same title as Laver. After the obligatory “Sieg Heils” and introductions, they were brought into the pharmacy, where they met a white man in his fifties, maybe sixty, with very short gray hair. Short, 5’6” tops, but fit with good muscle tone, he donned a white lab coat, and his swastika tattoo was adorned by two vertical lines to the left, with two crossing horizontal lines. He carried a handgun in a holster.
“Sieg Heil! Colonel,” Brien saluted.
“Sieg Heil! Captain,” the pharmacist saluted back.
“These slaves are a pharmacist and his assistant.”
“Oh?”
“Here are your orders from the Führer.” Brien handed the pharmacist his paperwork. “They’re somewhere in the middle of the page.”
The pharmacist read it over and looked genuinely surprised. “Holy shit, what luck, man! We’ve captured a real bona fide pharmacist? Are you an actual pharmacist? You worked in a drug store and everything?”
“In the flesh,” Alexander added, a hint of pride showing. Then he quickly added, “Sir.”
The pharmacist scowled. “Hell, I don’t like all this ‘Sir’ bullshit.” Then he seemed to remember Brien was in the room. “Still, you’ll address me as such.”
“All right,” Brien said. “My men and I will go back on patrol. Slave Williams, Slave Scoggins, you attack the Colonel in any way, you two, the woman, the child, will all be executed. Do you understand?”
“Yes, Sir,” Marty and Alexander said in unison.
Brien sighed. “I like this slave thing, don’t you Colonel?”
“Yes. Very . . . efficient. Good to see the shoe on the other foot.“
Once Brien was gone, the pharmacist said, “I’m Nicholas Lockett. You can call me Nick when the others are not around. Otherwise, I guess it’s Sir. Anyway, either of you religious?”
“Um . . . yes,” Marty said. “I’m Presbyterian.”
“I’m Catholic,” Alexander said.
“Do you think we’re living in The End Times?” Nick said with a gleam in his eye.
“Uh . . . I don’t know about that,” Marty said.
“I mean we break out of prison, only to find the entire town deserted. Phones don’t work. Electricity’s out. And stories about crazy people raised from the dead. Sure sounds like the end.”
“So you never saw one of these ‘Crazies’ yourself?” Alexander asked.
“Nope.”
“Aren’t you afraid they’ll come back?” Alexander asked.
“We got plenty of weapons.” He patted his handgun.
“I see,” Marty said. Marty wondered how long this group could last with the zombies as a threat, the Hispanics and the African-Americans looming out there, along with possibly the military over in Colorado Springs.
Chapter Forty
Day Ten
Jocelyn woke up shivering several times in the middle of the night as a bitter, cold wind blew through the broken windows of the van. She decided to use meditation to help her endure the cold. She was a shaman, after all, and should put what she’d learned to good use. Working hard to ignore the chill, she put herself into the relaxed state necessary for good meditation, good self-hypnosis, but she could still feel the effects of the cold wind on her body when she started to count down to meditation, and, once in the meditative state, she focused on her breath alone. Thoughts crept in—she had many worries—but she could direct those thoughts gently away.
She woke up sitting in an upright position, realizing she had fallen asleep during her meditation, as she had hoped. She stirred and found her back sore and stiff. Although in a lot of pain, she twisted her body and stuck her head out of the shattered window next to her. The hill on the van’s right side obscured her view of the sun. Her watch read a little past 10:30.
Struggling through the back pain, she checked on Vin. He still lay where she had left him, a pool of liquid originating from under the van collecting against his body. As she approached Vin’s body, she smelled the liquid—gasoline.
The van was leaking gasoline.
She knelt down in the pool and checked Vin for a pulse. There was none, and he was ice cold to the touch.
Vin Scoggins was dead.
She sighed, made the sign of the cross, and said a prayer to Santa Muerte. She knew trying to communicate with him would be futile because he would only remember the past few hours, and he either was unconscious all that time, or just lying here, dying. She shuddered at that last thought. If, however, he were to become a spirit guide, then she could meditate and get more out of him, but the odds of him becoming a spirit guide, and that quickly, were just about zero.
Instead, she sat there and waited for her back pain to subside. A few minutes later, she dragged Vin’s body to the side of the road. Then she climbed under the van to examine the damage to the undercarriage. She found the slow leak from the gas tank but everything else looked fine.
She had nothing to repair the leak with, and she turned on the ignition to verify that it still started. It did, but the fuel gauge read about a quarter tank, enough to get her to Clinton. She then switched off the engine and changed the tire with a growing sense of urgency while more and more of the precious gasoline leaked onto the ground. Once she completed the repair, she was ready to hit the road. She pondered
