by Roger Hayden
They came to a pair of double doors, marked “Pharmacy,” and stopped. Rob placed his hand on the door and hesitated. He peeked through the glass slits on both doors only to see a darkened lobby and a barren counter sitting in the corner of the room. He turned to the others.
“The coast looks clear, but we need to be quick. Mila, get what you need. Peter and I will keep watch.”
Mila nodded. “I’m ready.”
“It would be a miracle if anything was left,” Peter said. “Looters probably raided the place weeks ago.”
“I don’t doubt it, but let’s hold out for the best,” Rob said.
He pushed open the doors, and the scene before them unfolded as something far worse than simple looting. It looked like the aftermath of a violent assault. Walls, riddled with bullets. Chairs blasted into pieces. Empty shelves covered the ground. Dried blood smeared on the floor and walls, but not a body in sight.
“I feel like we’re walking through a crime scene,” Peter said nervously as they advanced to the pharmacy counter.
“Just stay alert,” Rob said. “Whatever happened here is over.”
Mila led the way and couldn’t help being distracted by the remnants of violence in their path. A firefight in a hospital? It was incomprehensible. She had known that venturing back to her hospital would be difficult, but could never have imagined what she was seeing. She pushed on and hurried to the counter. The door had already been blasted off its hinges. It lay on the ground filled with bullet holes, spread out in clusters.
“Wait,” Rob said. “Let me clear the room first.”
Mila held up her pistol. “I can do it.” There were rows of shelves aligned from the front of the room to the back. At first glance, she could see that most of them had been pillaged and cleared and were now caked with dust. It was too dark to see what remained. She stepped over the door and gasped. A pair of legs was sticking out from the bottom of the fourth shelving unit down.
“What is it?” Rob asked, running her way. He pulled a ChemLight from his pocket, snapped it and held it up in the darkened stock room as it glowed yellow.
“A body,” Mila said, pointing. The familiar odor of death wafted toward them. Rob urged Mila back and walked past the shelves with his gun drawn and ChemLight held high. He turned and saw the body of a man lying on his back, motionless.
His skin had turned blue. His shaggy hair spread on the tile floor. His mouth agape and eyes widened. White foam had crusted over his beard. Rob held the ChemLight over the man and saw a syringe lodged in his right arm and small empty bottles of morphine lying close by.
Rob looked up. “He must have passed recently. Drug overdose, it looks like.”
Mila approached cautiously and looked down at the man with sadness. “Follow me,” she said to Rob. They hurried down each aisle as he lit the way. Predictably, the pharmacy had been cleaned out, though she was still surprised by the sheer vastness of it.
“This wasn’t random looting,” Rob said. “This was a calculated heist.”
She stopped in front of a shelf that had a few small boxes on it. “Looks like they missed some stuff.” She pulled the bag from her shoulder and tossed the boxes inside.
“What’d you find?” Rob said and held the ChemLight closer.
“Just what we need,” Mila said. “Antibiotics.” She turned around looking across at the depleted shelves. “If I can just get some ibuprofen and IV bags, I think Reba will be fine.”
“Gauze, cleaning pads, disinfectant, medical kits. Can you get any of that stuff? That’s what we need back at camp.”
“Yes, storage room. Third floor. Hopefully that hasn’t been raided too.”
“The only way to know is to check,” Rob said. “But we’re losing time. Let’s move.”
“What’s taking so long back there?” Peter said nervously as he paced the lobby.
“Keep your voice down,” Rob said.
They emerged from the pharmacy to find Peter eager and waiting to move on. “I don’t like this place. It reeks of death.”
They followed Mila to the next door, which led to another long hall full of wheelchairs, gurneys, bedsheets, and papers strewn about. They took the next set of stairs to the third floor.
The administrative floor wasn’t in shambles like the others, but was just as devoid of activity. Its carpeted halls gave them quiet travel to an unmarked room bolted shut behind two doors.
“This is the room,” Mila said.
“Stand back,” Rob said, holding up his crowbar. He thrust the end into the door and pried it open.
Once inside, they were greeted by a darkened room twice the size of a janitor’s closet, with steel mobile shelving units standing against the walls. Rob quickly snapped two additional ChemLights and handed them to Mila and Peter. “Time to load up and get out of here.”
There were only a few supplies left, but it felt like a bonanza. The staff had apparently rummaged through the shelves in haste and had left plenty of valuable items behind. They grabbed latex gloves, medical gauze, disinfectant, IV bags, aspirin, ointment packs, bandages, medical tape, slings, tourniquets, and hand sanitizer. Enough for one haul. With their bags filled, they left the room and headed back downstairs.
The satisfied group moved quickly to the first floor and past the lobby to the exit. Mila stopped and took one last look around, hoping for better days on the horizon.
They slipped through the double doors again and made it outside, taking in the fresh air. Carlos and Brad were waiting, leaning against the tailgate of their truck.
“You’re late,” Carlos said, looking at his bare wrist.
Brad spit the taste of gasoline from his mouth. “Did you bring some breath mints?”
“Sorry. Couldn’t find any,” Rob answered. “We good to go on fuel?”
“Twenty gallons in the tank,” Carlos answered. “You’re welcome.”
“Thank you,” Mila said with gracious undertones. “We owe you one.”
“You got that right,” Carlos said.
With bags in hand, Peter and Rob went to both sides of the truck and opened the doors. Carlos asked Mila about what kind of supplies they’d found.
“Lots of things. Just what we needed. We were very lucky.”
Peter placed his bag inside and leaned on the door. “You wouldn’t believe what that place looks like inside.”
Brad and Carlos seemed intrigued and looked at Mila to elaborate. She waved Peter off.
“It was nothing. Some vandalism—broken windows. Holes in the wall. That kind of thing. The place is deserted in there.”
“Don’t forget to mention the dead bodies,” Peter said.
Their eyes widened. “Dead bodies?” Carlos said.
“Let’s go,” Rob said and climbed into the driver’s seat. “We have more places to hit up.”
Mila approached the passenger’s side with Peter as Carlos and Brad followed.
“Hey, bro. How about you let me ride up front for a while?” Carlos said.
Peter turned around slightly. “Sorry, Carlos. I have to ride up here. The wind isn’t good for my… uh, allergies.”
Carlos and Brad looked at each other suspiciously.
“How convenient,” Carlos said.
“Let’s go!” Rob called out from the driver’s seat. “Time’s wasting.”
He stuck his keys in the ignition when a shot suddenly echoed through the air, shattering the passenger-side window. An implosion of shards slashed through Peter’s right hand. He stood frozen in shock and stared at his bloody hand. But everyone else kicked into high gear.
Mila fell to the pavement and rolled under the truck. Rob ducked down and looked into the rearview mirror. Two men with long hunting rifles were running through the parking lot straight toward them.
“Take cover!” he shouted.
Carlos grabbed Peter and yanked him to the back bumper, where Brad had rolled. A trail of blood followed them as Peter clutched his ravaged hand, shaking. Another shot fired, bl
asting out the front windshield.
Rob dropped down and buried his face in the vinyl seat as bits of glass rained on his head. He pulled his pistol and waited while listening to the sound of the men’s footsteps running across the pavement.
“Everyone just stay down,” he said as quietly as he could.
“What’s going on?” Carlos seethed. “Who’s shooting at us?”
“Ah! My hand. Oh my God!” Peter cried out. His tote bag of medical supplies lay on the ground with its contents spilled all over the pavement.
“It’s OK, man,” Brad said, trying to console Peter. “You’re going to be all right.”
Mila stayed flat on the ground and pulled her pistol out. She could see the men as they moved carefully between parked cars while getting closer with each advancement. From her position she couldn’t get a good shot at them unless they got closer.
She could see their faces; they were void of emotion. The two men both had thick, bushy beards, hats, and green-and-black camouflage gear. If they were hunters, there was no question who their prey was.
Rob rose just enough to peek over the dashboard. The men had high-powered scopes affixed to their rifles. He ducked back down as sweat dripped from his forehead.
The two men remained in their positions—across from each other and crouched behind cars. One had his rifle resting on the hood of a car and his eye at the end of the scope.
Rob cupped his hands over his mouth and called to Mila. “Are you OK?”
“Yeah, I’m fine,” she said from under the truck.
“Listen,” he said, “we can’t stall much longer. When I fire, everyone get in the truck. Tell Carlos and Brad to lie down, flat as they can.”
Mila pushed herself backwards and scraped against the pavement. Another shot rang out and hit the driver’s-side mirror. It split into two chunks that flew to the ground in pieces. The men were getting more brazen and advancing closer by the minute.
“Why are they shooting at us?” Brad said.
Peter moaned in agony while wrapping his hand with the bottom of his shirt.
“I can see them,” Carlos said as he glanced around the rear of the truck. “There’s two of them. They got rifles.”
From the ground, Mila reached out and grabbed Peter’s tote bag. She pulled it under the truck and continued her awkward low crawl to the tailgate, where she met the others—all crouched down and waiting. “Here,” she said, handing Brad the bag. She then looked at Peter. “Let me take a look at your hand.”
He exposed it with hesitation and winced when she touched it. Glass bits were embedded all over his hand. Blood flowed from all the tiny wounds into a thick pool on the ground. “I can’t treat this here. We’ve got to get you back to camp.”
Peter’s face was pale. He nodded deliriously.
“Listen,” Mila said to the group. “Rob’s going to lay down some cover fire, and when he does, that’s our signal to get into the truck. Carlos and Brad, you guys need to stay down.”
They nodded in agreement. Rob put his head just inches above the dashboard to look out. The men had advanced two cars closer with their rifles poised and ready.
“Howdy, strangers!” the man on the left bellowed. “How about you step away from the truck with your hands up. We promise we won’t hurt ya.”
Both men looked at each other and exchanged a laugh. Rob saw his chance. He raised his pistol above the dashboard and fired several shots in rapid succession, hitting tires, windows, and anything in range.
The men flew to the ground, surprised. Rob turned the ignition switch, and the engine roared back to life. He heard two thuds as the truck shook from the back of the pickup. Carlos and Brad were in, flat on their stomachs. Mila came running to the passenger side with her arm around Peter. She pushed him inside, jumped next to him, and slammed the door shut. “Go!”
The hunters jumped up once they heard the engine. Rob shifted the steering wheel lever to Drive and gave it some gas. Their tires squealed, and smoke rose from the tarmac-black skid marks left in their wake.
“Oh no,” Rob said as the hunters emerged with their rifles pointed. They were mere feet away and ready to unload. Mila rose and saw the men take aim. She held her pistol out and fired at the man on her side. The shots tore through his shoulder and knocked him to the ground.
Shocked and livid, his partner jumped out in front of their path and fired a series of shots through the hood, dashboard, and windshield. As more glass fell, Rob plowed through the man and threw him to the side in a contorted heap.
The man’s shoes flew into the air. Mila screamed. Peter clutched his hand in pain. Rob then took a sharp right out of the parking lot and drove off just as he saw the other man crawl out with his camouflage jacket drenched in blood. He went to his unconscious partner, raised a fist in the air, and screamed out in vengeance. For now, they had escaped.
Supply and Demand
It was ration day at Tartarus. A day that all residents—servers and prisoners alike—looked forward to with heightened anticipation. Arthur Jenkins’s control over the town wasn’t by force alone. He and his men had set up a distribution racket of prescription drugs throughout the town. Supplies, food and water were one thing, but nothing was more important than drug treatment and the artificial comfort it provided.
He explained as much to his men following their prison break. “First we get as many weapons as we can. We raid the hunting stores. Then we go house by house and gather up guns, ammo, knives, baseball bats—anything that can be used as a weapon.”
His men listened, ready to launch their full-fledged assault on the town following the blackout.
“Then we hit up the pharmacies. This is crucial. Control a person’s medicine, and you control the person.”
Having acquired a hefty arsenal, they first held up the local Walgreens, confiscating every bottle on the shelves. Then came the raid at CVC: over thirty armed men—storming the aisles and clearing out the store. The police department was already overwhelmed and too over-stretched to intervene. Next came their most ambitious spree yet: Nyack Hospital.
Resistance from staff and security quickly led to a violent standoff and evacuation of the hospital. Arthur’s plan had worked. They had accumulated one hundred thousand doses of opiates and other prescription drugs to last for months, if not years.
Their haul consisted of oxycodone, Suboxone, Demerol, codeine, morphine, amphetamines, fentanyl, Xanax, Adderall, and Ritalin. They had everything to ensure that the residents were dependent, broken, and subservient.
“Why are we doing this?” Larry, his right-hand man, asked one day.
“Because we can,” Arthur said, rocking back in his chair on the front porch. Teresa stepped out with a pitcher in hand. It was late afternoon, but there was still much work to be done.
“You boys want some sweet tea?”
Arthur tilted his head back and looked up through his sunglasses, scratching his chest.
“That’d be lovely, though Larry and I have to get into town soon.”
Teresa smiled and set the pitcher on a small table next to Arthur. “I’ll go get two cups. Don’t want you running off all dehydrated.”
She went back inside. The screen door’s hydraulic hinge hissed with air as it closed, and Arthur looked at Larry with a smile. “Ain’t she great?”
“Sure is,” Larry said. “You ready to do this?”
“Yep. It’s time,” Arthur said, rising.
Teresa came out with two glasses and wished the men well. They each gulped down two glasses of tea, set their glasses down, and stood up, straightening their shoulders, as they prepared for their journey to the town square, where the weekly rationing was to take place. And so it began…
The town square was roped off into sections that led residents toward a pavilion distribution center. More than fifty people waited through the queuing, like customers at a bank. Their currency, however, wasn’t money, it was medicine. Desperate men and women filled the ranks—their face
s stricken with anxiety. Some were already in the stages of withdrawal.
Arthur’s men rationed the drugs carefully: five to six pills weekly and about two hundred milligrams of morphine per week to those who needed it. Though not all were addicts. There were some with need of aspirin and antibiotics. These items were rationed as well, though no one knew the plan for when everything ran out.
The wall project added to the uneasiness. The residents all lived like prisoners, but many were too broken, too desperate, and too doped-up to do anything about it. Saturdays were for normal ration distribution; Sundays, however, were what most people looked forward to.
“Anderson!” Nathan, one of the freemen, shouted from behind a table.
He was one of the few men entrusted with allocating the proper dosage of prescription drugs. Behind him were boxes with enough drugs and medicine to stock three working hospitals. The last remaining physician, Dr. Gary Layish, was a heart surgeon from the recently defunct Nyack Hospital.
He stood by, monitoring the distribution. He and his family hadn’t escaped in time, and he soon found his services in high demand. The deal was simple: he provided medical care to the residents in exchange for immunity for him and his family. Arthur’s men didn’t bother him and he was afforded all the privileges of a freeman, so long as he kept to the deal.
Anderson, a shaggy-haired blond man in his thirties, stepped forward to Nathan’s table and stopped at a marked yellow line. He wore a stained T-shirt, cut-up jeans, and flip-flops. He stood tired and wobbly.
Nathan looked up at him with his glasses resting on the top of his nose, just above his mustache. “Present your ration card, please.”
The zigzag-shaped line behind Anderson stretched past City Hall and out into the road. More would come that evening. Anderson dug into his pocket and presented a crumpled piece of paper the size of a small flier.
