by Patten, Sean
The girl eventually calmed down, and when she did Ed handed it back.
“Don’t ever point this thing at someone with your finger on the trigger unless you’re planning on killing them. Got it?”
Surprise appeared on the girl’s face. She was clearly shocked that she’d gone from holding all the cards to being lectured over the span of about a minute. And I was having flashbacks to the shooting lesson that Ed had given me, a small smile forming on my lips in spite of everything happening.
“Fine,” she said. “Got it.”
Ed handed the gun back to her, handle first. The girl took it, clicked the safety, and shoved the thing into her apron, as if not wanting to look at it.
“Now,” said Ed, putting his hands on his hips. “Tell me your name.”
“I’m Sherri,” she said. “Sherri Jones.”
Then her eyes latched onto me, going wide. It was an expression I’d seen many, many times before. She recognized me.
“Wait a minute,” she said. “Holy shit! You’re Amy Hendricks!”
“Yep,” I said. “Just like I told you.”
Normally being recognized could be…kind of a chore. Meeting fans was always nice, sure, but sometimes it could get to be a little overwhelming. At that moment, however, it was actually kind of nice. A little reminder of the world before.
“Oh my God,” she said, her hands opening up in front of her. “I’m such a big fan. Your last album…it was so good I wanted to just die.”
“Thank you,” I said. “Always nice to appreciate what we’re doing.”
I caught myself as I used one of my usual lines, specifically on the word “we.” There was no KPX anymore. There was no “we.”
“But wait,” Sherri said. “Where’s the rest of the band?”
“They’re…back at Dead Air,” I said. “I left because Sandy Vista’s my hometown.”
“Oh, that’s right!” she said, still eager and excited. “You’re from there. How could I forget!”
Ed cleared his throat.
“Don’t mean to break up the fangirling,” he said. “But we came here for a reason.”
“Oh, that’s right,” she said. “The Sandy Vista shipment. Let me get it for you.”
Sherri turned and ducked behind a shelf on the far side of the room. As she was gone, I took the opportunity to look around the place. There were wrappers for assorted kinds of junk food here and there, along with empty water bottles. Whatever Sherri had been surviving on, it was clear that she didn’t have much left.
She returned a few moments later with three rectangular boxes that she could barely carry all at once.
“Okay!” she said. “This should be everything. Normally I’d make you show ID and sign for it all, but I think we can pass on the ID part on account of you being famous. And skip the signing on account of the world coming to an end.”
“What’re you doing here, Sherri?” asked Ed.
“Just surviving, I guess,” she said. “I was working when the power went out, me and the rest of the crew. Once we realized that it wasn’t coming back on, the other two people on staff left to get back home, and then it was just me and Kyle.”
The color drained out of her face at the mention of her late co-worker.
“He…he said he was going to go and get supplies. We had nothing here but soda and candy and stuff and he said we could only live on this for so long. I mean, this is a pretty good place to hide out, right? But I forgot that he had the keys…”
“Good thing we got them, then,” said Ed. “And not one of those psychos out there.”
She nodded sadly, and I got the sense she was still thinking about her late coworker, still processing what had happened.
“Is that everything?” she asked.
“Not…not entirely,” said Ed.
I cast a confused expression in his direction.
“What’re you talking about?” I asked.
Ed forced his mouth into hard line.
“I need another medication,” he said.
“What?” I asked. “What kind of medication?”
Without saying another word, Ed went for the nearest prescription pad, along with the pen next to it. He quickly scribbled something down before ripping the pad off and handing it to Sherri. She took it and looked it over, her expression one of mild confusion.
“Um, yeah,” she said. “We’ve got that. A lot of it, actually. It’s right this way, come on.”
Ed shot me one more glance before snatching the paper from Sherri and crumpling it up. Together, the two of them went behind one of the shelves, returning a few moments later with a small box that rattled with each step.
“What is that, Ed?” I asked. “What do you need all those pills for?”
“Don’t worry about it,” he said. “It’s not your concern.”
“I think it is my concern,” I said. “Because we’re working together.”
“Not for long,” he said. “I’m gonna make sure you’re safe with your mom, and then we’re done. Don’t you worry about me.”
“Ed!” I said. “Tell me what’s going on!”
“I said, it’s not your concern!”
His voice was loud and sharp, enough to make both me and Sherri freeze in place.
Ed sighed, realizing he’d gone a touch too far.
“We can talk about it once we’re out of here.”
He turned his attention to Sherri.
“Listen,” he said. “This place is safe for now, but you can’t stay here forever.”
She cocked her head to the side.
“Are you…asking me to come with you?”
“Right,” said Ed. “We can take you over to Sandy Vista with us and—”
“Oh!” she interjected, shaking her head. “No. No-no-no. I mean, thank you, but no thank you.”
I was confused.
“What?” I asked. “You don’t want to come with us?”
“Not there,” she said. “You couldn’t pay me to go to Sandy Vista. I mean, even without the thing with nearly the whole town being abandoned.”
“What? Why not?” I asked.
“Because…I hear things working here. There’re a lot of bad people here in town, lots of pill poppers and addicts who’re always trying to scam me their way into their next fix. And I’ve overheard them talk, and they’re always talking about Sandy Vista.”
“What?” asked Ed. “What do they say?”
“Weird stuff,” she said as she crossed her arms under her chest. “Like how none of the dealers they know go there, how some of their friends have wandered over there thinking they can squat in one of the abandoned houses, then they never come back.”
“What else?” I asked, desperate to know more.
She only shook her head.
“That’s it,” she said. “Nothing concrete, only vague things I overhear. I mean, I’m just the pharmacist, after all. Not like they’re going to open up to me about those things.”
“Come with us anyway,” said Ed. “It’s no good here.”
She shook her head.
“No, thank you,” she said. “No way you’re getting me anywhere near Sandy Vista.”
“But you can’t stay here,” I said. “It’s dangerous.”
“It’s more boring than anything else,” she said. “But it’s safe. These walls are reinforced, and it’d take a tank to get through that glass. Only thing is…”
“What?” I asked.
“The stuff that Kyle went to get. It was energy bars and water that got stashed in the wrong section in back. No one would know it was there if they weren’t looking for it. Could you…?”
“Sure,” said Ed. “Tell me where it is.”
“I just…I know it’s only in back but I don’t…I don’t think I could see him…”
“I get it,” said Ed.
Sherri gave him the details and he was soon gone.
“You…you have family here?” I asked.
“Yeah,” she said. �
��My sister. But she’s in LA and…I don’t know. I just need to hunker down in here until this all blows over.”
Ed was back before the conversation could go any further, two big boxes and a couple dozen water bottles in his hands. He dropped the goods onto the back counter, his face red from the exertion and reminding me of how’d he’d looked before he’d had his most recent spells.
But this time, instead of simply clutching his chest and waiting for it all to pass, Ed did something different. He got into his new supply of pills, opened one of the bottles and hurriedly fished out a pair of white, oval pills. He popped them into his mouth and followed that up with a swig of water from one of the bottles he just brought. Sherri and I watched, saying nothing, as the red flush and tight tension disappeared from his face.
“Fuck,” he said. “Fucking hell.”
“It’s a wonder you’ve been up and running without those,” Sherri said. “If I—”
“That’s enough,” he said. “I know what I’m dealing with.”
But I didn’t.
Ed took one more swig of the water before turning his attention to Sherri.
“Look,” he said. “I don’t like leaving you here alone like this. If anyone came in here and—”
“It’s fine,” she said. “I’ve got food and water and some trashy books and I’m fine. I’ll just wait another week and figure out my next step. Besides, I’ve got the key back, so it’s not like anyone’s going to be getting in. And if they did…”
Her eyes flicked to her gun, a small smile forming on her lips.
“Just make sure you’re ready to use that thing next time,” Ed said.
With that, Ed grabbed the boxes and we said our goodbyes to Sherri, the girl locking the door behind us as we stepped out of the supply area.
“See?” asked Ed as we made our way through the main floor and into the back area from where we’d entered. “No hesitating. Lucky for her we were friendly. But if we’d had other intentions in mind, it might—”
“What’s going on with you?” My words flew out, the two of us standing in the back alley behind the pharmacy. “I’ve been pretending things have been fine for a while, even believing you when you told me it was cramps or heartburn or whatever bullshit you fed me. But there’s something wrong with you, Ed. And I want to know what it is. And don’t give me any excuses or bullshit or anything like that. I want to know what the fuck is going on with you, and I want to know right now.”
Ed glared at me hard, the box tucked under his big arms. For a moment, I worried that I’d crossed a line, one that made me worry for a brief moment that I’d crossed a serious line.
But it didn’t matter if I had. I needed to know.
“You want to know what’s going on with me?” he asked.
“Yes!”
He set the boxes down on the hood of the car, a bang sounding out.
“I’m dying, is what’s happening. Happy now?”
14 Ed
The first half of the drive back to Sandy Vista took place in total silence, nothing but the growl of the engine to fill the air. Amy didn’t seem to want to hear any more. She didn’t need to, really. I figured she’d found out what she needed to know, and that was that.
After a time, however, she finally broke the silence.
“What is it?” she asked. “How are you dying?”
“Why?” I asked. “Want to try and open me up and fix what’s wrong?”
“Don’t be a smart-ass,” she said. “I’m asking because I’m concerned.”
I checked myself, knowing that she was right. Amy wasn’t the scolding type, and after all that lies and half-truths I’d fed her I figured a little straight shooting was the least I could do.
“Been so long since the doctor told me what was going on that I can barely remember the exact diagnosis,” I said. “But there’s no cure. I know that much.”
“Be more specific. Please, Ed, I just want to know.”
I sighed. “You hear me talk about the shit I used to get up to when I was younger?”
“Kind of,” Amy said. “Just that, whatever you did, you ended up crossing paths with the Black Mountain guys.”
“Hung around in bad circles, yeah,” I said. “Lived hard. Drank, smoke, did whatever drugs and pills I could get my hands on.”
I shook my head in disbelief in the way I always did when I thought back to my reckless-as-hell youth.
“Eighteen to twenty-five’s like a damn blur,” I said. “Only got my act together when I met my ex. But that’s a whole other thing.”
Amy said nothing, waiting for me to go on.
“Now, for most people wild years are something that their bodies can recover from. Humans are tough, and it takes more than a few wasted years to do lasting damage. But not for me. Around thirty I had my first ‘event,’ as they put it. One second I was with my ex and my baby girl eating some fast food in the park, the next I was clutching my chest, feeling like I was gonna die.”
“You had a heart attack?”
I nodded.
“One of those. Shit hit me hard and fast, and I woke up in the hospital surrounded by doctors. They ran some tests, trying to figure out what the hell a reasonably young man in reasonably decent shape would be dealing with old-man shit. I figured it was a consequence of my party years, but a few days later they got back to me with the bad news. Turns out that I had a weak heart from birth, and it was finally catching up with me.”
“You didn’t know about it until then?” Amy asked.
“My parents didn’t exactly spare no expense when I was born,” I said. “She stopped in, popped me out, and sent us on our way. And besides, this was before genetic testing or whatever they do now was as good as it is. Easy to be born with something that you didn’t know about until it reared its head decades down the line.”
“They couldn’t do surgery or anything like that?”
“Nope. No surgery for a weak heart made worse by bad treatment. Not like I could afford it even if they did, you know? So they just did what doctors do best—wrote me a script for some pills and sent me on my way.”
I took the bottle of pills I’d stashed in the cup holder and gave it a rattle.
“Doctors said I should be able to live a long, normal life as long as I had a steady supply of these. Shit’s expensive though, and me and Steph were barely getting by when Sarah was a kid. You can guess how that ended—things soured between us, we fought all the time, and I ended up turning back to the same damn shit I’d wasted my youth on. Steph found out and, well, she threw me out. I can’t blame her.”
I shook my head, lost in memories. “Got my shit together eventually, of course—found a job and a place to live, got back on the meds—but by that point the damage was done. Steph had got a job in Europe, and she took Sarah with her.”
Amy was quiet for a long moment, clearly trying to process all this.
“I’m sorry, Ed,” she said at last.
“For which part?” I joked darkly. “Really though, I’m doing okay. Surviving.”
“Right,” said Amy. “You’ve got your pills, so you’re good. We’re good.”
There was a trace of worry in her voice, and I could tell that she was having a hard time with this, and trying to talk herself into believe that everything was now A-okay.
But I knew it wasn’t.
“For now,” I said. “But I don’t just take these when I’ve got an event coming on—I gotta take one every day. Now, Sherri back there set me up right, but this is a three-or-four-month supply at the most, and that’s assuming I can hang onto the damn things. I’ve had some problems with that in the past.”
I thought back to the shithead kids who’d taken my car, my blood boiling as I pictured them driving off with my meds. No good thinking about it, though, not unless I wanted to piss myself off into a damn heart attack.
“Okay,” said Amy. “Then…we just keep finding pills for you. We got these easily enough. And LA’s just right over there.
I bet they’ve got enough pills to keep you fine for years, and—”
“You’re not getting it,” I said, cutting her off. “I’m a dead man walking. If I didn’t find these it would’ve been just a matter of time until I keeled over. Hell, I’m pretty surprised that it didn’t happen already. Yeah, you’re right that I got these. But I was lucky. And as time goes on meds are going to be in shorter and shorter supply.”
“What if people start making them again?”
She was getting desperate, I could tell.
“Even if the infrastructure got up and running again, which it won’t any time soon, people are going to be making antibiotics and emergency supplies; they won’t be manufacturing pills for conditions that mostly affect the elderly. No, what’s out there is what I have. And I’m going to be fighting with everyone else in the same boat as me.”
More silence. Amy seemed to be processing everything. And my eyes kept flicking down to the little white bottle of pills, the only thing keeping me alive and kicking. I hated it. I felt dependent and weak.
“I just thought of something,” she said, a touch of excitement coming into her voice. “So, you said that your partying and drugs and whatever else made your condition worse, right?”
“Yep.”
“So…what if the opposite is true? What if the way people are going to have to live now will make you stronger? I mean, it’s not like people can sit around watching TV and eating junk food anymore, right? We’re going to have to be more active and in better shape. I might even have to put some muscle on my body, maybe even some fat for when winter hits, right?”
Amy smiled in my direction, apparently trying to get me on board with her attempts to lighten the mood. But I wasn’t feeling it. Sure, I’d made peace with my shitty ticker, but laying it all out for her like this was having the effect of making me dwell on it.
“Maybe,” I said.
“But I’m right, Ed,” she went on. “I bet in a year with all this running around everyone’s going to be in better shape. And your heart’s going to be tough as hell, and—”
“Or it won’t,” I said, cutting her off.
“Listen,” I said. “Maybe I’ll be better, maybe I won’t. But you need to have somewhere in the back of that head of yours the idea that I’m not going to be around forever.”
