Gray (Book 3) Read online

  “You’ll do until a better one comes along.”

  “I’m terrified they’ll ask me to—I don’t know. Take out an appendix. Deliver a baby.”

  “You could do either.”

  She took an involuntary step back. “I could not!”

  “Shh. Better you than no one. You’re still thinking old-world.”

  She still shook her head. “I’d kill someone by operating on them.”

  “Do you know where the appendix is?”

  “Well, sure,” she said, pointing to her own.

  “You’re way ahead of most of us, then.”

  “But still,” she said. And then she snorted a laugh at her next thought, which she shared with him. “I thought, but I could lose my right to be licensed!”

  “Yep, see? Old-world thinking.”

  “It is. But I don’t want to kill anyone. I wouldn’t even want to kill one of the cultists through medical malpractice. That’s just wrong.”

  “You’ll do your best for these people. If you want to help them, that is”

  Coral tried to imagine cutting open an abdomen. Clamping off blood vessels. Administering anesthesia. Without the right tools and a competent assistant, no, she couldn’t. Wouldn’t. But if there were a fully-stocked operating suite, and drugs, and a nurse…? Maybe. And what if it were Benjamin, with an appendix ready to burst? Would she risk killing him on the table to keep him from dying anyway?

  She’d rather not have to make that choice. But there were a lot of choices she’d been forced to make this past six months that she’d never imagined herself making. Leaving bodies unburied. Killing. Stripping the dismembered bodies of people she’d murdered.

  She glanced over her shoulder at the four strangers. “So you think if we are given a choice, we should go with them?”

  “We were damn close to dying a few days ago. I think we have to see what their set-up is. They have food. Maybe they have a lot more at their home base. Maybe they have antibiotics.”

  She hated that he was right. She liked being with the one person she knew she could trust—trusted enough to tell him the shameful truth right now: “Other people scare me.”

  “For good reason,” Benjamin said. “But if it’s something we can get out of—either from their telling us we can leave, or being able to sneak away eventually once their guard is down—we should see what they have. Maybe we can gear up better before we leave. They might have construction materials, enough to let us build another sled.”

  Her heart lifted at the thought. “That’d be something to take a risk for. But I can’t see them giving away anything they could use.”

  “You could ask for it as salary.”

  “Salary?”

  “Why not? Compensation for your work. Who knows how badly they want you. It won’t hurt to negotiate for pay.”

  She was trying to get her mind around the idea that she might be worth something to these people, that she might be able to barter goods from them for her services. “I’d probably be of more use fishing for them.”

  “Yup, you’re a double threat,” he agreed. “Whereas I’m not that useful.”

  “They don’t know you yet,” she said. “You’re incredibly useful. It’s hard to imagine anyone who would be more so in these circumstances.”

  “They wouldn’t think that. For now, I’m just the guy who comes with the doctor.” That didn’t seem to bother him.

  “That’s right,” she said. “You are. If they want me, we’re a package deal. If they don’t want me—” She stopped herself. She was going to say, “We’re still a package deal,” but she didn’t have the right to choose for him.

  “We’re a team,” he reassured her, as Martin called them back to the smoldering fire.

  Kathy spoke for the group. “We can’t tell you everything. We can’t make an offer to you. But I know Levi—he’s in charge—will want to talk to you both. I think he will invite you in. You don’t seem crazy, and you have important skills.”

  Coral said, “What if we don’t want to come with you?”

  “Then you don’t stay with us. That simple.”

  “And our—Benjamin’s—rifle? My knife? The hatchet? You’ll return those?”

  There was a hesitation at that. “Yes,” Kathy finally said. “Not right away, but eventually.”

  Coral thought the men looked unhappy at that, but none of them challenged the statement.

  “Can we talk about it? The two of us, I mean? Before we decide?”

  “We have exploring to do today, so you have the day. You’ll have plenty of chances to discuss it.”

  “Can I go fishing today?” Coral said.

  “I wanted you to come with me and Martin. There are some things I want you to look at.”

  “What kind of things?”

  Jamie spoke up. “Supplies we found yesterday. We can’t carry everything, and maybe you can tell us what’s most useful.”

  It took her a second to understand why they’d want her to be the one to decide. “Medical supplies, you mean?”

  “Right,” he said. “Doug and I are going to keep on exploring new sites for food.” He glanced at Benjamin. “You can come with us.”

  “No,” said Coral. “He and I stay together. Nothing else is an option.”

  Jamie looked doubtful—or suspicious—at that, but Doug was nodding. “I get that.”

  Kathy decided quickly. “Okay. He can come. The four of us will go back to that barn, and you two keep on checking for houses to the south. We’ll meet up back here for supper.”

  Jamie said, “Don’t be so late this time.”

  “We won’t,” Kathy said. “Unless we run across another couple of stragglers out there.” She turned to Coral. “Can you guys empty out those sacks of yours and bring them along? It’ll be good to have something else to carry supplies with.”

  Coral didn’t like that at all. What little they had, she didn’t want to let out of her grasp. But she couldn’t have it both ways. She needed to decide: trust these people—at least for a while—or part ways now.

  That they were willing to let her leave made her, paradoxically, more willing to stay and see what the strangers’ situation was. “What do you think?” she asked Benjamin.

  “Seems fine to me. If we decide to leave later, we’ll pack our own stuff back up, right?” Benjamin looked at Kathy.

  “Sure.”

  The answer seemed too quick. Coral still didn’t trust that promise. But a week ago, she had been about to starve to death. If the strangers had food, she’d be willing to join forces with them—temporarily.

  She’d be watching them, though, and on her guard today, and she’d make sure that Benjamin and she were ready to flee at a moment’s notice, when they all arrived wherever they were going tomorrow. She wasn’t going to let herself be isolated or locked up again.

  She hoped that she wouldn’t find herself trapped.

  Chapter 6

  Kathy and Martin led them to the remains of a farm. They had found a concrete bunker, or a crawl space, they theorized, that had been under a barn. Some supplies had survived the fire. Most paper and plastic coverings had been burned away, but there were plenty of tools. One of the first things Coral saw was a large stainless tube, perfect for making a syringe to irrigate Benjamin’s arm. She grabbed it. Weren’t the remnants of civilization amazing?

  “How’d you find this place?” she asked Kathy.

  “We’re systematically searching the countryside. The supplies we had at first are getting low. We’ve nearly cleared the area around us. And there are things we never had in the first place that we’d love to find out here.”

  Benjamin said, “Like a doctor.”

  “Yes,” said Kathy. “We have a medic, but she has a limited range of knowledge.”

  “I’m not a licensed doctor yet,” said Coral.

  “I appreciate your making that clear,” said Kathy.

  Martin said, “You see anything you can use?”

 
“Yes.” The equipment must have been on shelves that collapsed, for there was a hodgepodge of it scattered over the concrete floor. Some of it had been pulled out of the snow already. There were scorched leather straps, useless, and a large metal tong that she picked up and opened and closed, like the world’s biggest salad tongs.

  Martin said, “For birthing calves or lambs, I think.” He mimed pulling a calf out of its mother.

  They’d dug through some of this, but other items must still be buried under the ash and snow. “We need to excavate, first of all,” she said, “then decide what’s most important.”

  It took them a couple hours to clean the snow off the floor and find and line up the remaining equipment. Some was ruined by the fire, including some melted plastic syringes she would have loved to have had. But there were needles—a little large-bore for human comfort, but if the only other choice was no needle at all, this would certainly do. “That’ll leave a bruise,” she muttered, turning one over.

  They had unearthed a galvanized tub, and she laid the needle in there. “Any more needles you see, put them in there, too.”

  She found an unbroken bottle of lidocaine, the name etched into the glass, which was better than gold. The horrible image she’d been holding at the back of her mind of trying to remove an appendix without any anesthetic faded. This wasn’t general anesthesia, but it was something. Maybe enough to keep a surgery patient from lurching while she had a knife moving in his abdomen.

  Another glass bottle held bright blue chunks, the size of rock salt. The label was intact but scorched, and as she turned it this way and that, she could make out small print: CuSO4. “Copper sulf…” she said, and thought it through, deciding on “…sulfate. I’m not sure what it’s for. Funguses, maybe?”

  Martin said, “Sure, farm animals get fungal infections, like on their hooves.”

  “We’ll take it, then.” She hoped it wouldn’t do anyone any harm if she tried to use it to treat athlete’s foot or a similar condition. She racked her brain, trying to remember from high school chemistry what other uses there might be for it, but she drew a blank. “It sure looks like it could dye something nicely.” It was as bright a color as she’d seen in months.

  Kathy said, “We’re not at that point of recovery, I’m afraid. What we manufacture doesn’t get decorated. And we don’t make all that much. Not enough raw materials.”

  Martin said, “The optimists will like it. Make them think of a time when they can dye fabric or wool again.”

  Benjamin said, “You’re not one of the optimists, I take it?”

  “We seem to be losing ground so far. I’m hopeful most days—but I admit there’s no real reason to be.”

  “Food is becoming our real problem,” said Kathy. “We’re in strict rationing, and we haven’t seen any game in months now.”

  “I haven’t, either,” said Benjamin. “Remember the rabbit stew, Coral?” He sighed with the memory.

  She nodded but kept her focus on the supplies. A brown glass bottle had a label with the word “injection” still readable, and underneath that, “for,” but the rest of the label had flaked off. Coral unscrewed the cap and sniffed cautiously. “Gah,” she said, recapping it. “That has to be vitamins of some sort. You can smell the B’s.” They had a distinctive odor, rich and yeasty.

  “I guess that’s useful,” said Kathy. “Or will be, as our food supply dwindles.”

  Not really. No vitamin solution could replace calories. “I’d have no idea how much to inject.” Vitamin B deficiency—what were the signs of that? She couldn’t recall. It wasn’t scurvy or rickets—those were C and D deficiencies. She wondered if the solution was edible. One drop in everyone’s food? If she were going to experiment with such things, it should be on herself first. It wasn’t fair to ask others to be her guinea pigs.

  The impossibility of faking the doctor role momentarily overwhelmed her. What the hell was she doing here, trying to pretend to be something she was not?

  The vitamins had started her thinking of food again. She said, “If you’re running out of food, how can you feed the two of us?”

  “It’s not that bad yet. We’ll find a way,” said Kathy, her tone soothing. “For my part, it’s worth giving up a plate of food every month to have medical care for all of us.”

  “How many of you are there?” asked Coral.

  Martin said, “We’d rather not say—not yet. Not until you meet with our leader.”

  “Okay,” said Coral. “I understand. But tell me if I’m taking too much or not enough here, would you?”

  Kathy said, “It’s not too much, I assure you. Nothing would be too much.”

  So there were a number of them. More than the cult. Harder to get away from. A hundred? A thousand? How the hell could you manage to feed a thousand people for over six months? You couldn’t. This was a world in which a small band—or two people—had a better chance of surviving than a large group.

  A plastic crate that had been fused to the concrete held more glass bottles. They clanked together as she pulled out one after another. Only the labels on the center two were readable. Biomycin. Twelve bottles in all. Her heart lifted. “I think this is an antibiotic.”

  “Really?”

  She read aloud from the label. “Not for human use.”

  Benjamin said, “Do you think that’s true? Or important?”

  “I think that in our current state, it’d be worth the risk to try it anyway. It could be that it isn’t manufactured to the same standards of purity as human antibiotics.” She finished reading the label. “It’s IM—intramuscular, injected. It’s important to find a syringe. Even if only one survived, I could reuse it, many times.”

  They all went through the rest of the barn, and it was Kathy who found one thing that wasn’t exactly a syringe but might be adapted. There were fittings that had melted, but the central cylinder was intact. Coral thought it might be made of nylon, which seemed to survive the heat better than most plastics. It had once been clear and had turned cloudy in the heat, was all. It didn’t have a needle attached but a thick metal tube that ended in a bulb, though the bulb was made of rubber and flaked away as she examined it.

  Martin said, “I think that’s for giving them stuff by mouth. You know, like liquid vitamins or drugs.”

  She looked up at him. “Did you grow up on a ranch?”

  “No, but an uncle of mine lived on one. That was when I was a kid, and I went there a couple of summers. I don’t remember much, though, and I might not be remembering right. Sorry.”

  “I think we can use this for our syringe. If we find some rubber, or cork, or some way to attach those needles to it, I could possibly give people shots. Do you guys have any alcohol back—back wherever you live? Either rubbing alcohol or booze. For a disinfectant, so this can be reused?”

  “A little,” said Kathy. “It’s all in the clinic, under lock and key.”

  “Good,” said Coral.

  “We talked once about distilling more from table scraps, but no one organized it. And now there aren’t table scraps.”

  Too bad they hadn’t managed their resources better. She could make this work anyway, figure out how to rig this thing out for human shots. Then the lidocaine and animal antibiotics could be used in emergencies. It’d have to be a life-threatening situation for her to use them, a last ditch effort to keep someone alive.

  She had a weird flash, a surrealistic moment, picturing what she was thinking of doing. It was like playing doctor with a toy stethoscope, but for real, and for keeps. She didn’t know these people, she didn’t like these people, she didn’t owe them one damned thing. But something inside her was saying, loudly, “First, do no harm.” She believed in the concept. Let her not do any harm—at least not to people not trying to do her any. But attack her and Benjamin, and her ethics changed.

  After an hour of picking through the items arrayed on the floor, she was done culling the useful bits. She stood, stretched, and heard her knee joints pop.
She rubbed some warmth back into them, did a couple of squats to limber up, and said, “Let’s get this stuff into the sacks, okay? Benjamin?”

  “Will do,” he said, and he started to transfer what she’d picked out as useful from the galvanized tub to the burlap sacks. “What about all these glass bottles? We can’t toss them in together.”

  “Yeah,” she said. “We need something to pack around them.”

  “You know,” said Kathy, “we might find something at the house.”

  “There’s a house?” Coral asked, looking around.

  “A basement, at least,” said Kathy. “We already checked it for food, but it might have something we passed over as trash that we can use to cushion these supplies with.”

  “I’ll go look,” said Martin.

  “I’ll go with you,” said Benjamin. Kathy had knelt to help him pack the bag and he stood and left her to that task.

  Coral didn’t want him to leave, not even for a minute, but he had been leaving her sight while she fished the past few days. Biting her lip, she watched him go.

  “You must be really in love,” said Kathy.

  “What?” She turned back to the other woman.

  “It’s the way you look at him.” She sounded wistful.

  “Ah,” said Coral. That look was terror at losing him, not romance. “Yeah,” is what she said. “He’s my world, pretty much. I’ve lost so much. I don’t want to lose him.”

  “That’s nice,” said Kathy, “to have someone like that.”

  It was true she didn’t want to lose Benjamin, and if the rest was a lie, it was a necessary one. Still, a twinge of guilt bothered her, a hangover from the way she had been raised. It’s the new morality, not the old, she reminded herself. If a lie keeps you alive, tell it. Tell it a thousand times if it’s working.

  The men returned with painter’s tarps, scorched and dry, but better than nothing. Kathy took out Coral’s knife and cut them into strips. The four of them wrapped all the glass bottles carefully in the tarp strips, and when the burlap sacks were loaded with the wrapped bottles, they were full to the top.

  “Where will our stuff fit now?” asked Coral.