The Long Fall of Night: The Long Fall of Night Book 1 (19 page)

“What are we looking for?” Ash asked, moving quickly to the shelves.

Elliot thanked their lucky stars the pharmacy hadn’t been ransacked for narcotics yet. Which gave him an idea.

“We should grab everything we can while the grabbing is good. Painkillers, antibiotics, the works.”

Charlotte huffed. “We don’t have
time.
”

Ash cast around impatiently and spied a row of bins labeled with letters of the alphabet. S and T were the two biggest, so he grabbed them, dumping paper bags with people’s names and medications on them to the floor.

“These will work.” He tossed one to Elliot, then turned to his sister. “We make time. We may not get another opportunity like this.”

Moving into the stacks, Ash demanded Charlotte rattle off the names of drugs she thought might be helpful. These medicines were sorted alphabetically, not by diseases treated, like they were on the over-the-counter shelves, so they were somewhat choosy but still took what they thought might be useful. Anything ending in “cillin” went in the bins. Elliot was disappointed to see that while his Carbatrol was available, there weren’t that many left in the three hundred-count bottle. Enough for an additional month, maybe.

It’s more than I have now.
He scooped it into his bin, moving on down the aisle.

“Charlotte, what’s the name of the drug you think will help Russ?” he stage-whispered, not wanting to holler across rows.

“I have no clue,” she answered. “Look for labels that say coagulants. Something that stops bleeding. Or diuretics.”

“I think I have something,” Ash said in his normal tone. They hurried to his side to peer at the small box in his hand. It held four vials of a ten-vial pack.

“‘Reduces cerebral edema for the purpose of reflex vasoconstriction and lowering intracranial pressure,’” Charlotte whisper-read. “Yeah, that looks good. Cerebral edema is fluid on the brain.”

“These are for injection. Are there pills for the same drug?” Elliot noted the drug name, Lasix, and searched the shelves for another form of it. He came up empty.

“Oh hell, just bring it with us. We can read the labels in the car on the way back to camp.” Charlotte snatched the box out of Ash’s hand and shoved it in his bin. “We’ll need needles, too.”

Ash looked at the shelf again, then swept most of the contents into his box. “Let’s get the hell out of here. Elliot, did you get your prescription, too?”

Elliot nodded. “What about painkillers?” He hurried back to the row he’d been in, searching for Demerol or Codeine, two painkillers he’d had experience with. They weren’t there. He looked in the next aisle for hydrocodone, which he thought was a fairly common generic, but again hit a dead end.

“Look,” Charlotte pointed to a cabinet beneath the counter marked by three separate doors, each one sporting an imposing combination lock. “I bet you that’s where they are. Narcotics are regulated, aren’t they?”

“Probably,” Ash said bitterly. “We’re outta time. Let’s go.”

When they returned to the front of the pharmacy cage, they dumped their booty into plastic bags and scooted back over the counter. Nearing the back of the store, Ash stopped in the family planning aisle and dumped several boxes of condoms into his bag.

“Charlotte, go grab tampons.”

She spluttered but did as she was asked, throwing her hands up in annoyance. Elliot’s face reddened at the sight of Ash sweeping a few bottles of lube into his bag as well.

“We really need that much?” Elliot whispered with incredulity.

Ash leered and winked. “You never know.” He didn’t wait for Elliot’s reaction, merely turned and strode to the back of the store.

Elliot followed, head down to hide his expression of hope mixed with consternation at his transparency. He hadn’t stopped thinking about the other night, how being with Ash had been different than any time prior, and how he wanted to do it again but couldn’t see how while they were traveling. Hell, he was self-conscious simply touching Ash in front of the others. He didn’t know how well Ash would receive the advances. But they had more important things to worry about at the moment, so he scurried through the swinging doors to the storage area.

The drive back to camp was as uneventful as their drug run, which surprised Elliot, but when they got to their spot, nearly two full hours after they’d gone for pharmaceuticals, all that went out the window.

Brian rushed the van before Ash could come to a full stop. “He’s worse. He’s had a seizure. It was only a minute long at most, but he’s completely unresponsive.”

Charlotte, all business with the box of vials and a syringe in her hand, hurried to the tent and disappeared inside.

“Need help?” Elliot peered through the gaping tent flap.

“Have you ever done an injection before? The directions in the box say twenty milligrams pushed at no more than four milligrams per minute.” Her hands were shaking, so Elliot climbed in and put his hands over hers before she took the cap off the needle and stuck herself.

“Let me. You time it.” He carefully pulled the correct dose into the syringe and tapped the bubbles out. “Does the insert say how to inject?”

“Intramuscular,” she said, frowning at the paper.

“Help me get him on his side.” They rolled the unconscious man, and Charlotte pulled down the waistband of his track pants to expose the side of one buttock. “Okay, time me.”

They managed to get the medication in, and Charlotte kept her fingers on Russ’s wrist to track his pulse. After several minutes, she sighed.

“Now we just wait and see if it helped.” Her hands shook as she pulled her hair back.

“You go on,” Elliot urged, tilting his head to the tent opening. “I’ll stay in here with him, and you can get some air.” She took his advice, and Elliot scooted to the opening she’d left unzipped so he could hear what they were saying as well as watch their patient.

Ash guided her to the picnic table. “We’re doing the best we can, sis.”

“He needs a doctor and a hospital. This is stupid, Ash. We should have just taken him.”

“You saw how deserted that town was. Where do you think everyone is? Roasting marshmallows over their barbecue grills in their backyards and sharing warm beer? They’re either all at the hospital, or the town has been abandoned. There’s nothing there.”

She scowled, then put her head down on her arms. Ash rubbed her back supportively but said no more. Even from yards away, Elliot could see the toll the day had taken on Ash’s handsome features, the weary angle of his mouth, the droop of his shoulders, the dark circles under his eyes more purple than ever.

“Ash, why don’t you get some rest? There are enough of us here to keep watch over Russ while you catch up on the sleep you never got last night.” Brian stood beside them, his face etched with concern.

At the mention of the previous night, Charlotte heaved a shaky breath and began to cry. Ash eyed Elliot over her crumpled form and gave a tiny shake of his head. Elliot was having none of it, though. They needed Ash most of all. He was the prepared one. He was the strong one. If they were going to get through, Ash needed to be as fresh as the rest of them.

“Charlotte, you could stand some more sleep, too. Both of you.”

Shrugging off her brother’s hands, she stood, looking through the trees to the water. “I love you,” was all she said to Ash before stalking back into the tent.

Elliot could tell by her haunted look she wouldn’t sleep, so he scrambled out of the tent to make room for her, then sat in front of the opening, trying to think of something to help.

“Hey, can you tell me a little about Riley now? We should probably figure out a way to help him keep this trip more a vacation and less running away from his home, and from what I can tell, he’s too smart to be outright fooled. So we should come up with ways to keep him occupied and involved.”

She lay wearily on her sleeping bag facing Russ and sniffed. “Okay.” Her voice came out nasal and half-clogged.

Ash watched them for a moment, then pointed himself at his bedroll.

“I’ll help keep watch,” Brian assured him with a clap to his shoulder as Ash went past.

Ash’s reluctance was obvious, but in the end, he disappeared into his tent while Elliot and Brian looked at each other in shell-shocked silence. Charlotte started telling them about her boy.

W
hen the darkness comes
, keep an eye on the light—whatever that is for you—no matter how far away it seems.

—Jan Berry

D
INNER WAS
A SUBDUED AFFAIR for Ash and his little band of miscreants. He hadn’t thought he’d sleep after their pharmacy run, but as soon as he’d lain on the sleeping bag, he’d been out cold, only surfacing when Riley shook his foot.

“Uncle Ash, Mom says come eat.”

He emerged from the tent, rubbing his bleary eyes. The sun had mostly set, and the rest of the group, save Russ, were huddled around a small campfire in the site’s fire pit, camping utensils scraping on plastic plates. His stomach gave a low rumble, and he sat at the end of the picnic table, yawning.

“How’s Russ?” he asked Charlotte, who darted her eyes to Riley with a look that said not to elaborate.

“He’s asleep. I figure we let him rest a while longer.” She carefully lifted a piece of fish from the pan resting out of direct heat on the fire pit grate and onto a plate. A few spoonfuls from a can of beans, and Riley set a hot supper in front of Ash with a fresh bottle of water. He smiled at the boy and ruffled his hair.

“You’re pretty good to have around, Riles. I think we’ll keep you.” Riley tried to duck and grumbled something about Ash messing up his hair. “So who caught the fish?” he asked, taking the first bite. He wasn’t normally a fan of seafood, but given the circumstances, his taste buds could take a hike if they didn’t like it.

“Brian,” Elliot said, crouching by the fire and poking it with a long, thin stick.

“Ah, the fisherman thing,” he remembered. “What’d you use for bait?”

“Pieces of Vienna sausage,” Brian answered.

Ash scowled. “Using one source of food to get another sort of cancels itself out, don’t you think?”

Brian silently pointed to the camp washtub on the ground a few feet from the fire. Ash peered closer and saw two more fish in it, lazily flapping their fins without a lot of room to move. Not enormous, but about ten inches long, the pair of them. That’d feed them one more meal, at least, and one tin of sausages only gave each person one link with one left over. It didn’t take a genius to do the math.

“They’re still alive, Uncle Ash,” Riley said, standing over the washtub, mesmerized by their movements.

Brian shrugged. “I figure if we don’t end up eating them, we can throw them back for someone else to catch. Waste not, want not.”

Not to mention they wouldn’t have to worry about finding a way to keep them from going off, since they had no ice, and Ash didn’t want to mess with a cooler. He nodded his approval and finished his beans, savoring the smoky taste in the hopes it would mask the fish flavor.

“How’d you sleep?” Charlotte asked.

Without thinking, Ash replied, “Like the dead.” It was only when she flinched that he realized what he’d said and felt like a heel. “Must have needed it,” he muttered apologetically.

The sounds of night asserted themselves, and the group fell silent, the crickets and the crackle of the fire heedless of the tense atmosphere. Elliot cleared his throat, set his stick aside and stood to stretch.

“What’s the plan for tomorrow?” he asked. Ash realized he was staring and shook himself.

“Pack up and drive,” he answered, pushing his plate away and finishing off his water. “Might borrow your phone, Brian, if that’s okay.”

“Sure,” Brian said easily. “Calling your uncle?”

“Yeah, let him know we’re all right and on our way.”

Brian nodded and moved to his tent. It was getting dark enough only the light from the fire illuminated their little circle of civilization. He returned with the clunky looking phone and passed it over. Ash made the call. He kept it short. Uncle Marvin was agreeable but distracted, and rang off with the excuse that he was doing some “research” about the situation.

“I might be onto something.” He was cryptic, as usual.

“What?”

“You’ll know when I know. This a good number to reach you again? How secure is your phone?”

“Satellite phone. I don’t know anything about them.” He rattled off the model stamped on the side and left Marvin to it, promising to see him in a few days. He passed the phone back to Brian. While he’d been talking, Charlotte had disappeared into her tent, and when her sharp cry ripped through the silence, Ash was up and moving, pulling his gun from his waistband before he realized what he was doing.

“Char?”

“I need light,” she hollered. Riley ran to the table and scurried to his mother’s tent with the heavy duty flashlight.

Ash grabbed it and trained it on his sister, hunched over Russ with her hand on his neck, frantically searching for a pulse. After a moment, she looked at him, helpless.

“I can’t find one.”

“Try his wrist.”

She did, and then hung her head, shifting her grip to hold her boyfriend’s hand. When she looked up again, her eyes were wet, and she could only shake her head.

“Fuck,” he muttered, heedless of his nephew standing beside him.

“What?” Riley asked.

Charlotte crab-walked out of the tent and stumbled to the edge of their clearing, her shoulders shaking as she hugged herself in the chill, which had crept up since sunset. Riley watched her go and then turned his questioning face to Ash.

“Russ took a hit to his head last night, buddy.” He tried to answer with a smooth voice, leading the boy away from the tent. “Sometimes, someone looks okay after a knock on the head, but they might be more hurt than first thought.”

“You mean like a seizure or something?”

“What do you know about those?” Ash asked.

“I know Elliot has them. I heard you guys talking the other night. And Mom said Russ had one this afternoon.”

“Kind of. We don’t know what was actually wrong with Russ, but his injury must have been worse than we thought.” He swallowed, Riley’s scared eyes beginning to show his understanding.

“He’s going to be okay, though, right? I mean, he kind of acts like I’m dumb sometimes, but he’s the best of all the guys Mom’s dated.”

Ash crouched in front of the boy, keeping the light off their faces and pointed up so there wouldn’t be any sinister shadows on them.

“No, Riley. Russ isn’t going to be okay. We couldn’t take him to a doctor. He fell asleep and isn’t going to wake up.” Ash looked around for help, but Charlotte was on her knees in the sparse grass at the edge of the trees, and Brian and Elliot stood by the fire looking horribly uncomfortable and clearly not sure of their place in this moment. Ash was on his own.

Riley’s eyes filled with tears, and his chin wobbled. “He’s dead?”

Ash swallowed. “I’m sorry.” Shit, he’d been trying to make the trip seem like fun for the kid so he wouldn’t realize how dangerous it was, but the circumstances of their departure, and now this, made that impossible.

“Uncle Ash,” Riley moaned, clearly unable to process the information. Ash tightened his arms around the boy’s frail, heaving shoulders and made soothing noises. “I thought we were just going camping,” Riley moaned, hiccupping with the strength of his sobs and the last word wailing from his thin little body.

“We are, buddy. But here’s the thing, and it’s the truth. You know how your house didn’t have power?”

“Yeah.” Riley wiped his nose on Ash’s t-shirt.

“Well, a lot more people than we first thought don’t have power either. So it’s going to be hard to find things like doctors and batteries and stuff. I’ve packed a lot of what we’ll need in the van, like the tents and food and water and bandages, but we’re going to have to get used to living different than before. At least for a few days while we’re driving across the country. No McDonald’s, and you better watch how much you play your 3DS, okay? We can’t charge it back up.” Riley’s shaking didn’t abate, but he didn’t say anything. Ash’s chest hurt with the reassurances he couldn’t give the boy but so desperately wanted to. “Hey,” he said, bringing Riley to arm’s length. “I’m not going to let anything happen to us, okay? I promise. We’re going to sleep in a tent every night, do a lot of fishing, and during the day, we’ll keep going to Uncle Marvin’s house in Washington. Once we get there, things will be easier. He has power. I just called him, and he said he’s looking forward to seeing us. So you’re gonna have to trust me. I’ll get us there. No matter what.”

Riley sniffed and swiped the back of his hand across his nose, clearly trying to get it together. Ash hated that at Riley’s age, he’d be learning what true danger meant. “Okay,” was all he said.

“So make sure you listen to me when I tell you to do something, all right? I’m gonna need your help, buddy. We all need to be each other’s best friends and help out where we can. You’ve been doing great with getting the camp set up and grabbing the flashlight for your mom and giving a hand with dinner. I need you to keep on doing that, okay?”

Riley nodded. Ash let him fall back to his chest and cling, though his crying had mostly subsided.

After a moment, his thin, high-pitched voice wafted out of Ash’s t-shirt. “What do we do about Russ? We have to bury him, right?”

Ash frowned. What were they going to do about Russ? They didn’t have anything they could use to dig a grave, and he seriously doubted Charlotte would be okay simply leaving his body behind.

“I’ll think of something, okay?” he said, stroking the back of Riley’s head. “We’ll say goodbye the right way.” They stayed like that for a moment, then Riley pulled away. “Can you do me a favor and take my plate down to the beach, rinse it off? We can’t clean it in the fish tub, and the river water should be good enough. Take the flashlight with you.”

Elliot met Ash’s eyes, then followed the boy so he wouldn’t be near the water in the dark by himself. Ash stalked over to Brian and mumbled, trying to keep his voice low enough for Charlotte not to hear. “What do we do with his body?”

“Have you got something in the van to wrap him in?”

Ash considered, then remembered Charlotte kept an old blanket in there to sit on when Riley had soccer games or wanted to spend the day at the park. He’d left it in case they needed it on chilly nights, but given they had warm sleeping bags, it wasn’t likely they’d miss it.

“Yeah.”

“Then we’ll wrap him up and take him into town. If you don’t want to go to the hospital in case they’re overrun, we can find a funeral home and leave him there. Or we can hit a hardware store and get the supplies we’d need to bury him ourselves.”

Ash tried not to shudder. “That’ll take all damn night, and we honestly would need more than a couple shovels.”

“Maybe we should see what Charlotte wants to do,” Elliot said, coming to stand on Ash’s other side, setting the clean plate on the table. He surreptitiously let his knuckles brush the back of Ash’s hand, and Ash gave in to the urge to grab on. It was fleeting, only a second to squeeze and let go, but it shored him up.

Riley had gone to his mother, leaning over her back with his arms around her neck. Ash would have expected him to curl up in her lap, seeking her comfort rather than trying to give his own. Sadness deeper than Ash had known since his parents’ deaths settled in the pit of his stomach, cold and barbed like frozen razor wire. They’d once been a team, the three of them, and he’d left them to go off to college, knowing it would be better for all of them when he got out, but he still felt like he’d abandoned them, and now, when they needed him most, he was an outsider.

“Let’s give them a few minutes.” He stalked to the van to snag the blanket, trying to collect his thoughts. Day one on the road, and they’d already suffered the loss of one of their group. Some protector he was.

“If it weren’t for you, we wouldn’t have made it out of Charlotte’s house, and there’d be more than one person to bury,” Elliot said behind him, causing him to jump and bump his head on the open back door. He turned to glare, but it lost its potency in the dimness of the weak overhead vehicle light. He slammed the door, plunging them into darkness.

“Doesn’t make it feel any better,” he muttered.

“I know you saved her, and that boy is saying goodbye to one of several father figures in his life, none of whom are as important to him as she is. Or you are.” Elliot stepped closer, eyeing him seriously as he put a hand on Ash’s shoulder and slid it up the side of his neck. “I know you saved me, too,” he nearly whispered.

Ash snorted. “From what?” It was dismissive, but his stomach was in knots, and this guy didn’t know him well enough to put him on such a pedestal.

Maybe you just don’t want the pedestal because everyone you’ve ever put on one has fallen off spectacularly.

Elliot shrugged and looked away. “You can’t take a compliment, can you?”

Ash shifted, torn between trying to get Elliot to step out of his personal space and dropping the blanket to wrap his arms around his lanky frame. All he did was sniff. “Nothing to compliment.”

A wry smile was barely visible on Elliot’s lips. “No, you just have the brains to have gotten your family and me and Brian out of a horrible situation—”

“And into another one,” Ash interrupted.

“With our lives intact and a better chance than we’d have had otherwise.” Elliot blinked owlishly behind his glasses, getting even closer.

“Who are you and what have you done with the guy who had a panic attack on the side of a highway?” he asked, fighting the ironic twist of his lips. The nervous guy who’d demanded Ash pull his car over was nowhere in evidence. Regarding him critically, Ash could see how well Elliot had been adapting to their new situation, and if anyone had asked him a week ago, he’d have said Elliot wasn’t capable of that much self-composure. Maybe it was because Elliot had dealt with his father, or because Brian had shown up and he had someone he trusted.

Or maybe he’s seeing more to me than I can live up to.

“Someone told him to stand by his decisions, because if he doesn’t, he won’t make it far in this new life.”

This new side of him was intriguing, which made the razor wire in Ash’s gut unwind a little more, pressing sharp points into his insides.