Logan shivered next to me. We were practically hiding shoulder to shoulder, and as I locked eyes with him, I've never seen him this terrified. But here he was, shaking beside me. His macho-alpha persona was seeping away.
I nudged him, whispered, "You okay?"
This seemed to knock him out of his trance. He turned to look at me for a second, as if he didn't know where he was, and regarded his attention back at the bloody feast in front.
"We should get out of here," I added.
Miguel was even worse. He had his eyes closed. "Miguel?" I called out to him. "I said we should go."
Miguel nodded. Dazed. "Huh? Right. Okay."
We sneaked off slowly from car to car until we could no longer see the vectors feasting on the poor woman in the middle of the pedestrian crossing. We turned to our left as Miguel instructed, and there, clear as day, was the sign ROBERTSON PHARMACY & WELLNESS.
The street was mostly empty, saved for a single male vector standing in the middle between us and the building. I stopped midway and shuffled behind a car. The others followed.
"Okay, Here's what we're going to do--" I began to say.
Suddenly, Miguel came charging out on the street with a snarling face, clutching his cleaver with one hand, and brought it down on the vector's head in one blow. The vector didn't even know what hit him.
I gaped. Logan did the same. Panting, Miguel looked around to make sure no one heard anything before he gave us a shrug.
"I thought it was going to turn around and alert the others," Miguel said. "And the kid..."
"Oh, um...there's no problem," I said, not knowing what to say. Given the state of his cleaver, he had probably used it on a dozen of them trying to wade through the streets to get to the bookstore.
Not wanting to stay on the streets any longer, we crept to the front. A locked gate blocked the door. I peered in; the store remained intact. I didn't see anything unusual inside.
"Jim owns this place," said Miguel. "We can try the back alley and get in there."
"What if the door's locked there, too?" Logan asked.
"His apartment is just above the store. We can try the broken window. I remember Jim asking me if I could fix it for him a couple of days ago since the latch didn't work. Gerta, his wife, is a bit sickly. He didn't want the cold seeping into their room," Miguel explained.
"I guess we can try that."
"Follow me."
We scurried to the back alley in haste when we heard a slight commotion from the street behind us, fearing that the other vectors were finishing up their kill and returning to where they originally began. I followed Miguel to the back. He pointed at the supposed broken window twelve feet to the emergency stairs' right. The problem was, Miguel was talking about the third-floor window.
"How do you know he didn't fix it yet?" I asked.
"Jim's an occasional patron to the diner. He'd complain about it all the time," Miguel said.
I looked up again. It's a twelve feet jump to the window, and the windowsill was not big enough to stick a landing with both feet. One mistake or slip-up, we might get a broken leg or a broken neck.
There was a fire exit door for the apartment on the emergency stairwell, but it's probably locked from the inside. One of us had to get to the window, crawl inside, and open the door. Mounting upon a dumpster nearby, we grabbed the last rungs of the emergency ladder and climbed up toward the staircase. Fortunately, I was not voted to jump the distance between the window and the stairs because I am shorter than the others. That burden went to Logan, who was the tallest. He almost lost a couple of inches from the news, trembling as he gripped the bars from the edge.
"You can make it," I reassured him.
"Easy for you to say. You're not the one jumping off the ledge," he said.
"You play all kinds of sports, man. I don't know. Maybe this would be like a cakewalk."
"Well, yeah, but that's not what I'm worried about. I don't know what's waiting for me inside."
He had a good point. I was too focused on trying to make it to the windowsill that I never really thought of what dangers might be lurking inside the building.
"Just remember, it's point and shoot," Miguel added.
Logan rolled his eyes and slung his rifle behind his back. He climbed over the fence, mistakenly looked down, and gulped. Logan tried extending his legs, but he couldn't reach the windowsill that way, ending up a couple of feet too short.
Without even counting down, Logan suddenly leaped for the windowsill. For a plit second, I thought he wasn't going to make it, barely reaching his arm on it, and maybe grabbed on for a second or two before he fell back down to the pavement. Logan managed to get both arms on the windowsill. With his foot, he found a break on the wall where a mason brick was supposed to be and used it to haul himself up on the window's ledge.
He tried the window. It easily slid up.
"You make it look easy," I commented, grinning.
Logan glared and gave me the middle finger. He cautiously stepped inside.
I listened intently for any sound of disturbance. There was none, but I hoped Logan was doing okay. A couple of minutes passed. Then, I heard the doorknob shuddered slightly. The door opened, and Logan's head peeked out, scowling.
"It's fucking unlocked," he said. "I had to wade through the dark just for an unlocked door."
I knew I shouldn't, but I stifled my laughter, bubbling up my throat. Miguel tried to hide one as well.
"It's not funny, man! I think I bruised my knee when I slammed against a coffee table or something," Logan said, massaging the area an inch below his right knee.
"You find anything inside? Nothing unusual?" I asked when my laughter subsided.
He shook his head. "It's dark. And I didn't want to switch on the lights, so I didn't see anything much."
I shared a look with Miguel. He nodded, "Keys. I know," he said, voicing what I was thinking. "Jim locks up the store around seven, which includes the counter where they kept the meds."
I stepped inside a dimly lit hallway. To our right was an open door, which I surmised was Jim's apartment. Logan led us there. I switched on the flashlight on my rifle. Logan glared and frowned at me again. He grabbed his AR-15 and looked at the flashlight attached to it.
"I didn't even think of that," he said.
I tried not to laugh again. "It's alright. Let's go find those keys."
I made sure that all the rooms in the apartment were cleared first before we did our search. I made instructions for them to follow. There were only three bedrooms and one bathroom. We each took one while I also did the bathroom. I didn't find the keys there, so I moved to the living room and the kitchen.
Logan found it inside a nightstand drawer in his room. It was at least a dozen keys dangling from one silver keychain shaped like an iguana.
"Do you know which one opens the back door to the store?" I asked Miguel. He shook his head. "Damn. Well, at least he labeled the counter key." I pointed to the key in the middle.
We snuck out of the apartment and climbed back down the emergency stairs toward the alley door of the pharmacy. It was a metal door with at least two padlocks on it.
"Watch my back while I fiddle with this," I said.
Logan and Miguel nodded. Between the first padlock, the second one at the bottom was easy to distinguish. The lock had a label on it: BEST, and the only key on the keychain matched the name of the brand. I used that and the padlock unclinched. I smiled and then frowned when I saw that the last one would be difficult due to the absence of a label. It took six tries out of eleven to open it, and when it did, I almost cheered out loud, then realized where I was. I signaled the others that the door was open.
Miguel and Logan approached, and I stopped them midway. I turned to Miguel, asked, "Where do you think Jim is?"
He shrugged, frowning with worry. "He left his keys in his apartment. That was unusual of him."
I nodded, realizing. "I'm sorry, man," I said.
"He was a good guy. I just hoped he's okay. He won't mind if we help ourselves to the medicine. He'll understand."
The store looked different from the inside. Blood was everywhere. Some of the shelves were knocked down, scattering the products all over the aisle. In front of me was a set of bloody footprints that led to another set of keys on the same silver iguana keychain, which I assumed were Jim's spares because they matched some of the labels on the keys. I looked around.
We snuck closer toward the pharmacy's counter, where a glass window separated us from the precious medicine behind it. One light propped up at the far corner inside the room remained switched on, illuminating the space. I didn't see anything unusual.
I checked the door leading to the other side and found it locked. Fortunately, a label that said PHARMA DOOR was on the keychain. I used it, and the door clicked open. I cautiously stepped inside.
There was a body lying behind the counter. I didn't see it from the outside. It belonged to a woman. Her face and throat all got chewed off. I froze, judging if she was going to get up and start attacking us as the others did, but I reckoned that she was dead.
I moved closer, checked for a pulse to make sure.
Yes. Dead.
I turned to Miguel. He was pale as snow.
"That's Gerta. His wife."
I nodded and said my condolences. "Let's make sure this room is clear before we rummage around."
Logan and Miguel both agreed and went in their separate directions. It didn't take long before I made a couple of steps toward the middle aisle that I heard Miguel yelped. I flinched and ran over to where he was. I found him hiding behind a shelf.
"Jim's in there," he whispered, shocked.
I peered through the shelves, saw Jim hunched over at the far corner, staring at the wall.
Logan approached cautiously from behind. I let him know what I found., but he didn't dare take a peek to see for himself. I whispered, "He's going to be a problem if we're going to find the proper medicine for Carson. We have to take him out."
Miguel hesitated at first, but he nodded after and whispered back, "I—I can't do it. I used to go drinking with that guy."
"I understand. We'll do it," I said. I realized that Logan didn't want to do it either. For crying out loud...I glared at Logan, showing him that I am not backing out of this like he was going to. That shut him up. If a gay man were putting on a brave face by volunteering while you cower down, you'd feel emasculated. Well, In Logan's case, that was his egotistic patriarchal bullshit of logic anyway.
Miguel handed me his cleaver as I didn't want to make too much noise by using guns. With me sneaking upfront, I slowly made my way behind Jim. However, midway into our crawl, the man turned around.
Jim lunged.
Finally, I manage to swing the cleaver. It hit Jim right at his cheek. Blood gushed out. He was still moving. I tried prying the cleaver off of his cheek, but it wouldn't budge. He brought me to the ground.
I held him up on his shoulders as he snapped his jaws at me. Logan tried pulling him off of me by the collar of his shirt. He was too heavy, straddled me by the hips and upper thigh, rendering me unmovable and hindering me from rolling out underneath him.
Logan gripped the handle of the cleaver tightly and pulled it out, brought down the cleaver on top of the man's head. Jim collapsed beside me.
Logan dropped the cleaver, wide-eyed, and shaking violently. His breathing hiked up, leaning against the shelf, and slumped down. He looked at his bloodied hands, trying to keep the shaking at bay--a panic attack.
I got up to my feet and went over to him, trying to calm him down. I gripped both his hands, said, "Steady. Steady there. Deep breaths. In and out. In—hold your breath—then out."
Logan did. Miguel crouched down beside Jim's body and said a silent little prayer. He closed both of Jim's eyes.
"I didn't freeze, I didn't freeze," Logan kept on repeating.
"I know. You didn't," I said reassuringly.
After a couple of minutes, Logan's breathing was normal.
"I just killed a guy. I—" Logan's voice broke. I could tell he was holding back the bile threatening to spill out of his lips.
"I don't think it's a man no longer."
"Jim loves Berta. He won't hurt her," Miguel added.
My hands remained tightly entwined around Logan's. He noticed this, and he wiggled out of my grip quickly and then proceeded to wipe his hands with the hem of his shirt. I tried not to get bothered by it.
I said, "Okay. Let's do this quick. Find penicillin or other antibiotics. While we're here, let's get every cold, flu, headache, or any medicine we can put in our bags. Fifteen minutes. Then, we're out."
That's when we heard it.
A hail of gunfire rang from outside. A booming sound followed, coming from a fighter jet screeching from above and then a couple of helicopters after it.
The outside had morphed into a total war zone.