The Long Fall of Night: The Long Fall of Night Book 1

by AJ Rose

  Elliot looked ahead and spied the telltale mortar and pestle sign depicting a drugstore. The large parking lot in the midst of a U-shaped strip of shops was deserted, but the front windows of the pharmacy looked intact as Ash pulled in and drove around back. There was a lone delivery truck with the name of the store, some mom-and-pop place that had the look of long tradition and small-town sensibilities. For being locally owned, it was large enough to hold more than a drugstore. Not a soul moved in the vicinity. Stopping the van immediately beside a heavy steel door, Ash turned off the engine and looked around.

  “Coast is clear. Let’s go.”

  The bright sunshine beat down on them, so incongruous with the danger they all felt. It was a beautiful day, but Elliot wasn’t comfortable until they were in the shadow of the building. Ash stared at the door’s lock as if he could will it to disappear.

  “Charlotte, go get me the crowbar from the spare tire compartment.”

  On a whim, Elliot reached around Ash and tried the knob. It turned easily, and he pulled, the door coming open with a loud squawk. He cringed.

  “No crowbar then?” she asked.

  “Guess not,” Ash said, getting the door open just enough for them to slip inside.

  They followed him into a back room, concrete floor covered with pallets full of boxes of cereal, canned goods, boxes labeled pickles and salad dressing and various varieties of soup. Elliot moved to inspect some of the merchandise, but Ash stopped him.

  “Russ doesn’t have time for us to raid for food, too. We get what we came for and get out.”

  As a unit, they pushed through the swinging doors into the public area of the store. It was dark, save for the sun streaming in the front windows and giving enough light to see to the back counters, above which darkened signs for the meat and deli departments hung. For a pharmacy, it was a surprisingly large grocery store.

  Ash stretched his tall frame to look around and pointed when he saw the sign reading Pharmacy, large and glaring even in the dark. They moved to the right of the grocery aisles, keeping quiet in case the store proprietor was somewhere on the premises. Elliot considered calling out. Maybe if they explained the situation, they could get some help, rather than going off Charlotte’s few nursing classes for their only medical expertise.

  But if there was someone here besides them, Elliot would just as soon not find out the guy was armed and ready to protect his property. The store was in surprisingly good shape, comparatively speaking. The shelves were pretty empty, but there were no stray boxes on the floor, no tipped over displays. The aisle with water and soda was cleaned out completely, but for the most part, it was just empty, not ransacked.

  “Let’s hope the drugs are as unscathed,” Ash muttered.

  They rounded the last aisle before the pharmacy and noted the pulled down metal screen over the counter, and the door with a combination code on the lock. Behind the grate, the shelves containing vials and pill bottles were neatly organized. Elliot released a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding.

  “Should have brought the crowbar,” Charlotte groused.

  “Hang on,” Elliot said, going to the grate, which kept the controlled dispensary separate from the rest of the store. It reminded him of the pull-down grates at shops all over New York City, metal mesh with rectangular holes and a key at the bottom to release it. This one, however, had a lever on the inside, which could be pulled before the last person exited the drug cage. He studied the mechanism and the tracks in which the wheels descended and ascended, then stuck his long fingers through the holes, attempting to reach the lever to release the catch. He couldn’t quite get there, but when Ash saw what he was doing, he cast about for something long and thin to stick through the fencing.

  “Probably rely on the front door security to keep people out, or on-site security officers to guard it, and make sure people don’t do this,” Elliot mused to himself.

  “Right,” Charlotte snorted. “Because the population of Warren, Pennsylvania, all ninety-six hundred of them, are going to be scoping out Bud’s Drugstore for the good shit. This ain’t New York, boys.” She stomped off and returned moments later with an auto glass ice scraper. Threading the flat shovel portion through the wide slats of the grate, she pushed, her lips disappearing as she tried to exert enough strength to move the metal lever. It budged, then let go with a loud clang.

  Ash winced. “Announce to whoever’s in here what we’re doing, why don’t you?”

  “Like you could have done it any quieter,” she snapped. “We don’t have time to pussyfoot around. Russ is getting worse while you two stand here fiddling with your dicks.”

  Elliot coughed to cover his surprise, then moved to the other end of the counter, wormed his fingers beneath the grate, and with Ash at the other side doing the same, they both pushed. Like a garage door, the grate rolled upward. They didn’t bother opening the entire window, leaving just enough space for them to slide across the counter between the pair of cash registers standing as silent sentinels of the unguarded space.

  “What are we looking for?” Ash asked, moving quickly to the shelves.

  Elliot thanked their lucky stars the pharmacy hadn’t been ransacked for narcotics yet. Which gave him an idea.

  “We should grab everything we can while the grabbing is good. Painkillers, antibiotics, the works.”

  Charlotte huffed. “We don’t have time.”

  Ash cast around impatiently and spied a row of bins labeled with letters of the alphabet. S and T were the two biggest, so he grabbed them, dumping paper bags with people’s names and medications on them to the floor.

  “These will work.” He tossed one to Elliot, then turned to his sister. “We make time. We may not get another opportunity like this.”

  Moving into the stacks, Ash demanded Charlotte rattle off the names of drugs she thought might be helpful. These medicines were sorted alphabetically, not by diseases treated, like they were on the over-the-counter shelves, so they were somewhat choosy but still took what they thought might be useful. Anything ending in “cillin” went in the bins. Elliot was disappointed to see that while his Carbatrol was available, there weren’t that many left in the three hundred-count bottle. Enough for an additional month, maybe.

  It’s more than I have now. He scooped it into his bin, moving on down the aisle.

  “Charlotte, what’s the name of the drug you think will help Russ?” he stage-whispered, not wanting to holler across rows.

  “I have no clue,” she answered. “Look for labels that say coagulants. Something that stops bleeding. Or diuretics.”

  “I think I have something,” Ash said in his normal tone. They hurried to his side to peer at the small box in his hand. It held four vials of a ten-vial pack.

  “‘Reduces cerebral edema for the purpose of reflex vasoconstriction and lowering intracranial pressure,’” Charlotte whisper-read. “Yeah, that looks good. Cerebral edema is fluid on the brain.”

  “These are for injection. Are there pills for the same drug?” Elliot noted the drug name, Lasix, and searched the shelves for another form of it. He came up empty.

  “Oh hell, just bring it with us. We can read the labels in the car on the way back to camp.” Charlotte snatched the box out of Ash’s hand and shoved it in his bin. “We’ll need needles, too.”

  Ash looked at the shelf again, then swept most of the contents into his box. “Let’s get the hell out of here. Elliot, did you get your prescription, too?”

  Elliot nodded. “What about painkillers?” He hurried back to the row he’d been in, searching for Demerol or Codeine, two painkillers he’d had experience with. They weren’t there. He looked in the next aisle for hydrocodone, which he thought was a fairly common generic, but again hit a dead end.

  “Look,” Charlotte pointed to a cabinet beneath the counter marked by three separate doors, each one sporting an imposing combination lock. “I bet you that’s where they are. Narcotics are regulated, aren’t they?”

&nb
sp; “Probably,” Ash said bitterly. “We’re outta time. Let’s go.”

  When they returned to the front of the pharmacy cage, they dumped their booty into plastic bags and scooted back over the counter. Nearing the back of the store, Ash stopped in the family planning aisle and dumped several boxes of condoms into his bag.

  “Charlotte, go grab tampons.”

  She spluttered but did as she was asked, throwing her hands up in annoyance. Elliot’s face reddened at the sight of Ash sweeping a few bottles of lube into his bag as well.

  “We really need that much?” Elliot whispered with incredulity.

  Ash leered and winked. “You never know.” He didn’t wait for Elliot’s reaction, merely turned and strode to the back of the store.

  Elliot followed, head down to hide his expression of hope mixed with consternation at his transparency. He hadn’t stopped thinking about the other night, how being with Ash had been different than any time prior, and how he wanted to do it again but couldn’t see how while they were traveling. Hell, he was self-conscious simply touching Ash in front of the others. He didn’t know how well Ash would receive the advances. But they had more important things to worry about at the moment, so he scurried through the swinging doors to the storage area.

  The drive back to camp was as uneventful as their drug run, which surprised Elliot, but when they got to their spot, nearly two full hours after they’d gone for pharmaceuticals, all that went out the window.

  Brian rushed the van before Ash could come to a full stop. “He’s worse. He’s had a seizure. It was only a minute long at most, but he’s completely unresponsive.”

  Charlotte, all business with the box of vials and a syringe in her hand, hurried to the tent and disappeared inside.

  “Need help?” Elliot peered through the gaping tent flap.

  “Have you ever done an injection before? The directions in the box say twenty milligrams pushed at no more than four milligrams per minute.” Her hands were shaking, so Elliot climbed in and put his hands over hers before she took the cap off the needle and stuck herself.

  “Let me. You time it.” He carefully pulled the correct dose into the syringe and tapped the bubbles out. “Does the insert say how to inject?”

  “Intramuscular,” she said, frowning at the paper.

  “Help me get him on his side.” They rolled the unconscious man, and Charlotte pulled down the waistband of his track pants to expose the side of one buttock. “Okay, time me.”

  They managed to get the medication in, and Charlotte kept her fingers on Russ’s wrist to track his pulse. After several minutes, she sighed.

  “Now we just wait and see if it helped.” Her hands shook as she pulled her hair back.

  “You go on,” Elliot urged, tilting his head to the tent opening. “I’ll stay in here with him, and you can get some air.” She took his advice, and Elliot scooted to the opening she’d left unzipped so he could hear what they were saying as well as watch their patient.

  Ash guided her to the picnic table. “We’re doing the best we can, sis.”

  “He needs a doctor and a hospital. This is stupid, Ash. We should have just taken him.”

  “You saw how deserted that town was. Where do you think everyone is? Roasting marshmallows over their barbecue grills in their backyards and sharing warm beer? They’re either all at the hospital, or the town has been abandoned. There’s nothing there.”

  She scowled, then put her head down on her arms. Ash rubbed her back supportively but said no more. Even from yards away, Elliot could see the toll the day had taken on Ash’s handsome features, the weary angle of his mouth, the droop of his shoulders, the dark circles under his eyes more purple than ever.

  “Ash, why don’t you get some rest? There are enough of us here to keep watch over Russ while you catch up on the sleep you never got last night.” Brian stood beside them, his face etched with concern.

  At the mention of the previous night, Charlotte heaved a shaky breath and began to cry. Ash eyed Elliot over her crumpled form and gave a tiny shake of his head. Elliot was having none of it, though. They needed Ash most of all. He was the prepared one. He was the strong one. If they were going to get through, Ash needed to be as fresh as the rest of them.

  “Charlotte, you could stand some more sleep, too. Both of you.”

  Shrugging off her brother’s hands, she stood, looking through the trees to the water. “I love you,” was all she said to Ash before stalking back into the tent.

  Elliot could tell by her haunted look she wouldn’t sleep, so he scrambled out of the tent to make room for her, then sat in front of the opening, trying to think of something to help.

  “Hey, can you tell me a little about Riley now? We should probably figure out a way to help him keep this trip more a vacation and less running away from his home, and from what I can tell, he’s too smart to be outright fooled. So we should come up with ways to keep him occupied and involved.”

  She lay wearily on her sleeping bag facing Russ and sniffed. “Okay.” Her voice came out nasal and half-clogged.

  Ash watched them for a moment, then pointed himself at his bedroll.

  “I’ll help keep watch,” Brian assured him with a clap to his shoulder as Ash went past.

  Ash’s reluctance was obvious, but in the end, he disappeared into his tent while Elliot and Brian looked at each other in shell-shocked silence. Charlotte started telling them about her boy.

  7

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Day 5

  Allegheny National Forest outside Warren, Pennsylvania

  * * *

  When the darkness comes, keep an eye on the light—whatever that is for you—no matter how far away it seems.

  —Jan Berry

  * * *

  DINNER WAS A SUBDUED AFFAIR for Ash and his little band of miscreants. He hadn’t thought he’d sleep after their pharmacy run, but as soon as he’d lain on the sleeping bag, he’d been out cold, only surfacing when Riley shook his foot.

  “Uncle Ash, Mom says come eat.”

  He emerged from the tent, rubbing his bleary eyes. The sun had mostly set, and the rest of the group, save Russ, were huddled around a small campfire in the site’s fire pit, camping utensils scraping on plastic plates. His stomach gave a low rumble, and he sat at the end of the picnic table, yawning.

  “How’s Russ?” he asked Charlotte, who darted her eyes to Riley with a look that said not to elaborate.

  “He’s asleep. I figure we let him rest a while longer.” She carefully lifted a piece of fish from the pan resting out of direct heat on the fire pit grate and onto a plate. A few spoonfuls from a can of beans, and Riley set a hot supper in front of Ash with a fresh bottle of water. He smiled at the boy and ruffled his hair.

  “You’re pretty good to have around, Riles. I think we’ll keep you.” Riley tried to duck and grumbled something about Ash messing up his hair. “So who caught the fish?” he asked, taking the first bite. He wasn’t normally a fan of seafood, but given the circumstances, his taste buds could take a hike if they didn’t like it.

  “Brian,” Elliot said, crouching by the fire and poking it with a long, thin stick.

  “Ah, the fisherman thing,” he remembered. “What’d you use for bait?”

  “Pieces of Vienna sausage,” Brian answered.

  Ash scowled. “Using one source of food to get another sort of cancels itself out, don’t you think?”

  Brian silently pointed to the camp washtub on the ground a few feet from the fire. Ash peered closer and saw two more fish in it, lazily flapping their fins without a lot of room to move. Not enormous, but about ten inches long, the pair of them. That’d feed them one more meal, at least, and one tin of sausages only gave each person one link with one left over. It didn’t take a genius to do the math.

  “They’re still alive, Uncle Ash,” Riley said, standing over the washtub, mesmerized by their movements.

  Brian shrugged. “I figure if we don’t end up eating them, we
can throw them back for someone else to catch. Waste not, want not.”

  Not to mention they wouldn’t have to worry about finding a way to keep them from going off, since they had no ice, and Ash didn’t want to mess with a cooler. He nodded his approval and finished his beans, savoring the smoky taste in the hopes it would mask the fish flavor.

  “How’d you sleep?” Charlotte asked.

  Without thinking, Ash replied, “Like the dead.” It was only when she flinched that he realized what he’d said and felt like a heel. “Must have needed it,” he muttered apologetically.

  The sounds of night asserted themselves, and the group fell silent, the crickets and the crackle of the fire heedless of the tense atmosphere. Elliot cleared his throat, set his stick aside and stood to stretch.

  “What’s the plan for tomorrow?” he asked. Ash realized he was staring and shook himself.

  “Pack up and drive,” he answered, pushing his plate away and finishing off his water. “Might borrow your phone, Brian, if that’s okay.”

  “Sure,” Brian said easily. “Calling your uncle?”

  “Yeah, let him know we’re all right and on our way.”

  Brian nodded and moved to his tent. It was getting dark enough only the light from the fire illuminated their little circle of civilization. He returned with the clunky looking phone and passed it over. Ash made the call. He kept it short. Uncle Marvin was agreeable but distracted, and rang off with the excuse that he was doing some “research” about the situation.

  “I might be onto something.” He was cryptic, as usual.

  “What?”

  “You’ll know when I know. This a good number to reach you again? How secure is your phone?”

  “Satellite phone. I don’t know anything about them.” He rattled off the model stamped on the side and left Marvin to it, promising to see him in a few days. He passed the phone back to Brian. While he’d been talking, Charlotte had disappeared into her tent, and when her sharp cry ripped through the silence, Ash was up and moving, pulling his gun from his waistband before he realized what he was doing.