Day Zero

“Gross,” Georgia muttered, frowning.

Elle wrinkled her nose.

“She might have food poisoning,” Elle stated. “I’ve had it before, it’s a lot like this.”

“Food poisoning from what?” Georgia demanded.

“Anything. We’re eating supplies scavenged from the city, and not everything is guaranteed safe,” Elle pointed out. “When I was first living in the city after Day Zero, I ate something that had gone rotten and I got sick. Almost died.”

“How’d you get over it?” Flash asked.

“I found some antibiotics at a pharmacy,” Elle replied. “It saved my life.”

Elle folded her arms across her chest.

If Pix was going to survive, they were going to have to do something.

It would be dangerous.

Chapter Thirteen

2 Days Later

Elle held her breath, crouched behind the pharmacy counter. Jay was right behind her, a bottle of antibiotics in his hand. Elle’s heart raced. Early morning sunlight filtered through the dirty windows of the looted pharmacy.

“Where are they?” she breathed.

“They’re coming around the back,” Jay answered.

Elle closed her eyes and prayed for a way out.

They’d come into town — just the two of them — in a desperate search for antibiotics from the pharmacy. They didn’t expect to find any, but Pix was fading fast. She had barely regained consciousness in two days, and her heart rate was slowing down. Elle and Jay had found an old strip mall. The standard buildings were here; former clothing outlets, fast food restaurants and nail salons. Everything was empty, and only about a mile from the freeway, where Georgia and Flash were watching over Pix.

Everything had been fine. The strip mall was abandoned. Elle had entered the front of the pharmacy just as a parade of vehicles rumbled down the boulevard on the street. Vehicles meant trouble. Vehicles meant Omega.

Elle and Jay had run into the building, searching frantically for the antibiotics. They had been fortunate enough to find a limited amount of medicine, but the patrols were checking the buildings. Omega men, dressed in their dark uniforms, were going through each one. What were they searching for? Elle didn’t know. She didn’t care.

Now they were hiding in the back of the pharmacy, behind rows of empty medical shelving. The patrols were getting closer to their building. There was nowhere to run. A wide, open parking lot in the shopping center made it impossible to escape without being spotted by the patrols. The back entrance was a no-go, too. Patrols were checking the rear entrances.

“We’re screwed,” Jay whispered.

“We have to hide,” Elle replied.

“Where? There’s nowhere to go!”

Elle looked around. The pharmacy was huge, but it had been torn apart. Aisle dividers were overturned, trash littered the floor and shattered glass was sprinkled across every surface. The rumbling engines of the trucks outside rattled the walls.

“We can climb into the air vents,” Elle said. “Come on!”

She jumped up and rolled over the counter, staying low to the ground. The front of the store was filled with high shelving that was bolted to the wall. She swung herself up, climbing each level until she reached the top. Jay did the same.

Elle pointed to the large air vent in front of them. They were big — about three feet wide and two and a half feet tall. “Come on,” she said. “We can fit.”

“This is crazy,” Jay muttered.

They worked to unscrew the vent from the duct, setting it aside.

“Go first,” Elle instructed. “I’ll follow.”

“But—”

“—Just do it!”

Jay crawled inside the vent, making an ungodly amount of noise. Elle watched him disappear into the dark passageway. She crawled in feet first, pulling the vent in behind her. She slowly backed up, farther and farther away from the opening.

They said nothing.

Eventually the door to the pharmacy opened and the patrols came into the store. The voices of the men were clear.

“Find anything here?”

“No one.”

“Copy that. There’s no sign of militia activity here.”

“Well, did you really think we were going to find any sign of them, anyway?”

A pause.

“The National Guard is heading north,” someone said, their voice echoing off the walls. “Didn’t the Colonel tell you? We captured Commander Young. They’re taking him to Los Angeles.”

“What about the other one — Cassidy Hart?”

“No idea where she went. I’d like to kill her myself, though. The reward is huge, enough to set me up for life.”

“There’s a lot of that going around…”

The voices faded into the distance as the patrols left the building. Elle held her breath, the cramped walls of the vent pressing on her hips and shoulders. They waited several minutes before crawling out.

“That was uncomfortable,” Jay breathed, pulling himself onto the top of the shelf. “But good thinking, Elle.”

Elle nodded.

“Did you hear what they were saying? They were looking for militia groups,” she said. “They captured someone important.”

“Chris Young,” Jay replied. “And Cassidy Hart. They’re both pretty well known leaders in the militia groups. We used to hear the militias talk about both of them on the radio in the bunker.”

“I’ve heard of them, too,” Elle mused. “Sometimes the Klan would talk about what was going on in the Central Valley. That was how I got information about the outside world.”

They sat on the top shelf, lapsing into silence.

“We should get back,” Jay said, clearing his throat.

“Yeah.” Elle swung her legs over the side and climbed down. They crept to the front of the pharmacy and peeked out the window. The vehicles were gone. The coast was clear.

Elle and Jay shared a glance as they put the antibiotics into Elle’s backpack. This was their last shot. If Pix didn’t get better, she would die. And they would have to move on without her.

It was a harsh reality.

It was the world that Day Zero had created.

The antibiotics didn’t seem to help Pix at first.

“We can’t move on until she gets better,” Flash said.

“We need to get to Sacramento,” Jay replied. “They’ll be able to help us. They’ll have medical supplies and doctors there, if the rumors are true.”

“And if they’re not? Pix will die,” Flash argued.

Two days had passed since they had administered the antibiotics to Pix. She didn’t seem to be recovering. She was comatose, in and out of consciousness. Elle had found a gash in Pix’s left hip. It was infected, poisoning the rest of her body. Elle’s guess was that Pix had been injured since they had rescued her from the Klan, and the infection from the open wound had finally caught up with her.

“I’m not staying here,” Elle said, leaning against the hood of the jeep. “There are Omega patrols in the area, and they could come back. And let’s not forget that there could be nomads out here. Bad people.”

“Really?” Georgia slammed the door to the jeep, eyes flashing. “We’re supposed to be a team, Elle. You can’t just leave us. That’s selfish and irresponsible!”

“It’s called self-preservation,” Elle replied. “We all need to move forward, no matter what is happening to Pix.”

“Just give her some more time,” Flash pleaded. “We can afford to wait.”

“We’ve been here for four days,” Elle pointed out. “That’s long enough.”

“But anything could happen out there on the road. Pix might get more sick if we try to travel.”

“We have a jeep,” Elle snapped. “We also have gas. We can do this.”

“Yes, we could do that,” Jay answered. “But we can also stay here. We don’t need to keep moving if we don’t have to. We can wait until Pix is better, then we can move on. At least until she’s conscious.”