Forager (9781771275606) (22 page)

“
Get back here, coward!” Josh yelled into the night.

The only answer he got was the sound of Fred’s fading
hooves.

It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t nice, but the thought of face
planting Josh made me grin all the way out of town.

I didn’t bother to be quiet. Josh wouldn’t be, not after what
I had just done to him. It was a small victory. I hadn’t stayed to
fight, but what sane person would?

Where had the courage for my actions come from? Every other
time Josh bullied me, he’d left me paralyzed with fear. Was it
different because I’d spent the last two days totally on my own? Or
because Sawyer needed me, even if he didn’t want me to go? Or was
it being shot at by Scavengers? I didn’t know, but my grin turned
into a broad smile. Even bigger than the one I wore when I had
pulled the gun on Josh. This time, he knew it was me.

The sun had dipped below the horizon, but it was still light
enough to let Fred run. We raced out of town, but night was closing
fast.

With Fred at a run, sticking to the dirt along the side of the
road, we passed the cornfields and soon came to the intersection
where the house with the caved in roof stood. I turned Fred east
and kept her running.

Even with the light fading, I didn’t slow down. I needed to
get us as far as possible before darkness slowed Fred. We passed
the underground house and kept going. The pounding of Fred’s hooves
on the dirt lane was a steady drum.

The shadowy spaces between the trees and at the bottoms of the
hills grew larger and larger. I kept a wary eye out for Scavengers.
Getting shot at was not an experience I wanted to
repeat.

The light faded away. Darkness forced me to pull back on the
reins. Fred was blowing fairly hard, so I dismounted and let her
catch her breath. My legs ached, but I walked Fred until her
breathing was easy and relaxed.

The darkness brought on the noise. The constant chirping of
crickets was accented by the occasional hoot of an owl or the cry
of a coyote. All the sounds were familiar, but out here in the wide
open spaces, they were clearer, purer, rawer.

It surprised me when, right around when the moon set, I
arrived at the pharmacist’s house. It had taken me half a day to
get this far on my first trip. Stopping to inspect all those barns
and sheds for combines had taken longer than I’d
realized.

Fred grazed in the tall grass of the front yard, while I tried
the three doors leading into the house. None of them would open,
not even with the pry bar.

I didn’t want to waste the time, but I decided to check the
windows. If they were locked, I’d go ahead and break one. Weather
would get in, and in a few years the house would be a ruin, but the
sacrifice would be worth it if I saved Sawyer.

Slipping the pry bar in my back pocket, I squeezed behind the
bush blocking the closet window. Branches scratched my arms and
snagged my clothes. As I shuffled along in the tight space, I
kicked over a rock about half the size of a loaf of
bread.

The window was, as I expected, locked.
Working my way out from behind the bush to check the
next
one, I
happened to look down. The moon was in exactly the right place for
the object under the rock to flicker. I got a nice long scratch on
my forearm bending down to get the item, but it was worth it. The
key looked as new and shiny as the day it was made. I hauled myself
out from behind the bush and raced to the front door.

I put the key in the lock, gave it a turn, and I was
in.

I opened every curtain I could get my hands on, but the
moonlight coming in wasn’t enough to chase away the darkness of the
room.

I took the candle and matches out of my pocket and began the
slow process of trying to get a flame. The head of the first match
disintegrated as it slid over the rough striker on the side of the
box. After the tenth match, a spark ignited. It fizzled for a split
second, but no fire.

With only two matches left in the first box, one finally lit.
The flame surprised me so much that I almost dropped it. I fumbled
with the candle, trying to find the wick for so long the match
nearly burned out.

One candle didn’t put off much light, but it was far better
than the scant moonlight coming in through the windows. I began to
search the house. In here somewhere was the medicine that would
cure Sawyer. It had to be.

What if it wasn’t?

Don’t think about it, you idiot. Just find it.

I couldn’t stop the wild pounding of my pulse, or the fear and
excitement of the search. The flickering flame threw huge,
distorted shadows on the walls and ceilings. I even spooked myself
with the wavering shadows from the furniture. Thinking I knew what
I was looking for, I searched for small blue bottles with
child-proof lids. I’d seen enough of them around my parents’ house,
as Dad used to store old quarters in them.

Holding the candle low—so it lit up the largest possible
area—I pointed it forward. The arc of light only illuminated the
room for about eight feet, but it was enough to let me distinguish
the furniture, a built-in bookshelf, and a couple of
doorways.

The first closed door I tried led to a coat closet. Next were
two open doorframes set at right angles to each other. One led to
the kitchen, the other down a long hallway. I tried the kitchen
first.

One by one, I opened the doors and drawers. I found a blender,
a toaster, a coffee maker, and numerous other kitchen appliances.
Plates, bowls, drinking glasses, wine glasses, and coffee mugs
stacked the shelves in abundance. Pots and pans of every shape and
size twinkled in the candlelight, but nowhere in the kitchen did I
find a single pill or bottle of medicine.

The only good thing to come out of my searching was a
stainless steel five-gallon stockpot with a lid, and several sharp
knives. I put them on the counter. Even if I failed with the
medicines, at least I wouldn’t be going back
empty-handed.

Two doors led out of the kitchen. The first led to an attached
garage, the second to the basement. I decided to try the
garage.

A car took up the space in front of me. The same advertising
was on the door of this car as those in the shed. The one window in
the garage let in a small amount of moonlight. That, and the
candle, helped me see a workbench, a pegboard full of tools, and
two large metal cabinets.

I went straight for the cabinets. Inside the first was shelf
after shelf of painting supplies. The second was full of small
gardening tools and equipment.

A pile of small containers on the bottom shelf made my
heart jump. Cautiously, I brought my candle as close as I dared to
the first bottle on the shelf. The label was yellowed and faded,
but I was able to make out a bush with pink flowers on it. The next
bottle showed a picture of a tomato plant.
Darn
. Closing the cabinet doors, I went back
into the house.

In the hallway, I checked a closet and an office and found
nothing of use. Further down the hallway was the bathroom. The
medicine cabinet made my blood pump. Inside were several small
containers and jars of what I thought might be medicine. Reaching
for the rolled up papers inside my shirt, I realized that there was
no way this could possibly be the cache of remedies from the closed
up pharmacy. There wasn’t enough here to fill this cabinet, let
alone a whole store full of shelves.

I took all of the bottles and stuffed them in my shirt anyway.
If the cache wasn’t here, something in one of these containers
might help Sawyer.

There were two more doors in the hallway. Both led to bedrooms
furnished with kid-sized beds and dressers. I spent a few minutes
in each, opening drawers and checking closet shelves, but came up
empty-handed. It was time to try the basement.

Back through the kitchen and down the stairs. Even with the
candle, the steps were tricky. I stumbled once, but grabbed onto
the handrail before I fell and cracked open my skull.

At the bottom was a room I
couldn’t see the far end of.
Walking the perimeter, I checked doors as I
reached them. I searched two more bedrooms before I came to a
locked door.

Why would someone have a locked door inside their own
house?

I answered my own question.
Because there was something behind it that
could be harmful to the other people in the house.

I’d seen the games and toys in the closet, meaning the two
bedrooms upstairs were for children. It only made sense for the
pharmacist to be careful. The door didn’t have a handle of any
kind. I assumed it would push open when the lock was released. The
lock was an electronic keypad, something I’d only seen in movies.
Beneath the key pad was a small silver cover.

Pulling the cover loose, I found a corroded nine-volt battery.
I wondered if I could make up a bunch of salt water cells to
activate the lock, but realized power wasn’t going to do me any
good without the right combination.

I reached to my back pocket for the pry bar. It wasn’t
there.
How
could I have missed that falling out?
I couldn’t believe it. The pry bar was
heavy, it was awkward, and it didn’t really fit in my back pocket.
It wasn’t surprising that it fell out, just that I hadn’t noticed
it missing. I had to find it.

Thundering up the stairs to
check the garage, I smiled when I found a pry bar hanging from a
pair of hooks on the pegboard.
It was identical to the one I’d been
using.

Back in the basement, I tried slipping the pry bar between
the door and the jamb. A soft
ping
reached my ears when the pry bar made contact with
the door.

Huh? That sounded like metal on metal.

Taking the tool, I knocked it against the door. A much
louder
bang
followed. The door was steel. I tried like crazy to get the
pry bar to slip between the door and jamb, but it was too
tight.

The steel door and the strange lock made me positive the
inventory from the pharmacy was inside.
I stood outside the door trying to
think of a way in. I knew the meds were in there, they had to be,
but that door was solid steel. I was so close, only one doorway
away. I slammed the pry bar into the wall in
frustration.

To my surprise, the tool punched right through the drywall
and
tinged
off something hard. Twisting and turning, I jerked the bar
free, leaving a hole about the size of my fist.

I held the candle closer to the hole and almost singed my face
trying to see what was behind the drywall. I was going to have to
make the hole bigger.

It took a minute or so of grabbing and pulling to open it to
about a foot square. This time when I held the candle up, I saw
cinderblocks mortared together.

I smacked the exposed wall with the flat of my hand. I’d need
a sledgehammer to get through there…or would I?

I didn’t have to make a hole big enough to get my whole body
through, not if the lock on the door was equipped with a latch on
the back side. All I needed to do was bust open a hole big enough
to get my arm through.

I was pretty sure I’d seen a hammer on the pegboard in the
garage, and I needed more light. Out in the garage, I found a claw
hammer hanging right where I thought it would be. I searched the
garage a little further hoping to find a sledge hammer. No
luck.

In the kitchen, I gathered cups from the cabinets. The
saddlebags held everything else I needed to make light. I made
three trips up and down the stairs carrying water-filled cups. Back
upstairs, I dripped a bit of wax on the kitchen counter and stuck
the candle in it. If I took it with me, it would get blown out the
minute the door opened.

Outside, Fred was standing in the yard asleep. She awoke
enough to give me an irritated snort. The medicines from the
bathroom cabinet were still in my shirt. I stowed them. Then I
grabbed the saddlebags and returned to the house, where the glow of
the candle led me into the kitchen. Picking it up, I went
downstairs.

I made the batteries and hooked up the bulbs. Then I went back
to the wall and ripped out chunks of drywall. By the time the glow
from the LEDs was bright enough to let me see what I was doing, I’d
made an opening big enough to work in.

I blew out the candle so I didn’t waste it, grabbed the
hammer, and attacked the wall. The first few blows only sent tiny
pieces of concrete flying in my face. There was nothing I could do
about the sharp stings, so I kept on pounding.

A few hits later, I was
rewarded with a chunk
half the size of an apple. I kept at it. After
forty swings, my arm was sore. After sixty, blisters puckered my
hand. Blood from several cuts left trails in the concrete dust
plastered to my arms. In the dim light, it looked black.

Stopping to catch my breath, I wiped the grit out of my eyes.
The lights illuminated the dust hanging in the air as I surveyed my
work. The cinderblocks were like square eights laid on their sides.
I’d broke through the first half of the concrete block to the
hollow, and had started swinging on the back side, but the hammer
wasn’t long enough for me to get a solid hit on the back half of
the block. In order for me to break it out, I was going to have to
remove the front half of the surrounding blocks.