Raven's Hell - Jenika Snow Page 0,8
up and had a few shutters on the mom-and-pop stores banging against the cement walls.
She stopped, focused on each noise, and then moved forward when no corpses made themselves known because of the noise. She moved past a hardware store, a creamery, and even a small clinic. Even though the town was now dead, it wasn’t that hard to see how it might have been before the contamination hit the world.
A small pharmacy was on the corner of the street, and she crossed the cobblestone road and pressed her back to the wall as soon as she made it across. Keeping the knife held to eye level, she tapped it on the glass of the building and waited to see if anything came shuffling out. She repeated the action after a few moments of silence. She waited again and then slipped inside.
The pharmacy was small on the inside, with a few rows of shelving in front of her, the actual pharmacy counter in the rear of the store, and a cashier counter beside her.
The large sign hanging in the center of the store had a mortar and pestle with a recipere in bright-red coloring. The text beneath it read A community helping each other become one.
Rebecca focused on the trashed shelving, boxes scattered throughout the ground, and even money lying on the counter with an inch of dust on it. The interior was dark where the light didn’t penetrate it through the windows, and the stillness was so damn spooky that she felt a chill race up her spine.
Her shoes crunched over broken glass as she moved through the shop, collecting what she could find that was usable. Most of the items were destroyed, expired and unsafe to take with her, or had been totally cleaned out by scavengers.
There was a small room off to the side, and she could see a sink and toilet from where she stood. Moving toward it, she grabbed her flashlight from her backpack, turned it on, and shone it in the room. The bathroom was small enough to hold one person, so when she realized it was empty, she stepped inside.
Shining the light along the wall, she spotted what she had been hoping was in here. A condom and pain reliever wall dispenser hung behind the door, and although both were beat to shit and cracked wide open, she was able to get some of the packages off the floor.
A few single-serve packets of ibuprofen and acetaminophen and even some condoms were by her feet. Although sex wasn’t a part of her life anymore for obvious reasons, she did take the condoms. They were useful in other ways, such as containers for water, which sounded nasty but worked when she was desperate. She shoved the medicine and rubbers in the backpack and stepped back out into the store.
Rebecca moved behind the pharmacy counter, and although she had been hoping she could find antibiotics, even if they were probably expired and wouldn’t help if she had a cold or flu, she saw everything was pretty much cleared out. There was hardly any light in this part of the store, so she swept her flashlight back and forth until she spotted some first aid supplies.
Crouching on her haunches and balancing the flashlight between her neck and chin, she shoved into her bag the gauze, alcohol swabs, A&D ointment, and other small supplies that had been kicked under a shelf. She took the flashlight again, shone the light over the ground, and spotted a few small bottles of saline in the corner under a box.
They were filthy, and a few were already busted open, but the sterile ones she picked up and kept. She stood and glanced around the room once more. This place was picked clean already, and she wouldn’t be able to get anything else of use from it.
Stepping out of the pharmacy, she immediately saw a clothing store a few shops down and made her way over to it. Repeating the same procedure she did for all buildings before she entered, she waited for a few minutes to see if anything partially dead came out. Inside the clothing store proved a little more positive as she saw several racks of overturned clothing and even some vending machines in the corner.
The backpack she had only carried so much, but she was able to find a tote bag and started filling it with some undergarments, socks, and even a couple of pants and shirts that were