Page 8 of Chaos Destiny
I retrieved my knife and placed my index finger over my lips as if Thandie would understand what it meant. Still, she remained quiet as I crept up behind the undead drone, stuck a knife through its temple, and watched it drop to the ground.
Headshots, we’d discovered by accident.
The first large group we joined held shooting sessions at their survivor’s camp. When they found out I was a former military sniper, they asked me to take part. Very quickly, I went from assistant to head instructor. After the groups mastered static targets, we brought in fresh blood.
As I’d demonstrated that, with practice, they could get as good as I was, a single headshot took the first Infected down. Then another. And another. Before, we’d assumed it was theaccumulation of “injuries” that killed them. From then on, we went for the head.
After another quick sweep of the exterior, I slipped inside the urgent care center. The front door dropped me into a lobby covered in dirt and leaves and littered with overturned chairs. A few overhead lights flickered, pointing to solar power or the longest-running generator in human history. Once it became widespread knowledge that not everyone who became infected died and that the infection had hit the White House, the power grids didn’t take long to collapse.
The likelihood of us finding anything was low.
By now, anywhere that looked like it could harbor essential goods, like medicine, had likely been picked through. My only advantage was the clinic’s rural location between a thicket of trees. Hopefully, the building was easily bypassed like a woman wearing glasses in a nineties movie.
The lights flickered as I cleared each patient room. I grabbed pairs of gloves just in case. These days, everything was valuable.
The final door had a filing cabinet leaned across it—never a good sign. My senses told me that this room held what I was looking for, but someone had taken the time to seal something inside.
Maybe more than one something.
“I wish I didn’t have to get in there so badly,” I told Thandie.
Inside, I could be facing a miniature herd. Although I was skilled and a good shot, I had an infant with me. An infant whose life was one hundred times more precious than mine. And, if we didn’t make it back, Ari would die.
Alone.
As if no one cared for her.
As if no one ever had.
Thandie let out a low coo as if she’d innately sensed the tenseness of the situation.
I nodded. “You’re right. There should be windows where I can at least see what’s inside.”
I started back down the hallway.
Then, the front door creaked.
Voices followed, none of which I was familiar with.
4
TAYLER DIAZ MD, PHD
“Doc,you’re too important to the camp. You can’t go with us. Plus, Allen said you’re not allowed to leave.”
I continued to check the ammunition on the guns I planned to take with me for this latest run. “Omar, let me run a scenario by you,” I began. “We arrive at that clinic you saw in the woods. Inside, you find a room that’s got all sorts of different medications. Which one of these is the antibiotic? A) Minocycline, B) Amoxicillin/Clavulanic acid, C) Kanamycin A, or D) Ertapenem.”
Omar laughed. “Easy. B. The amoxicillin one.”
“They all are.” I tucked away a pistol. “You need me.”
“If something happens to you, everyone at camp is screwed.”
“Then make sure nothing happens to me.”
He groaned.
I stared at him to make sure he understood that my mind wouldn’t be changed. I was the only person at our camp who could read medications like a novel. We had a few paramedics and nurses, buttheywere the people we needed back at camp. They were used to trauma and stabilization. Once the patient was stabilized, I stepped in.
