The Gunslingers #4: Jace and the Angel
She looks like a shining angel, beautiful, but just out of reach. Her hair flows down her back, long and golden. Her eyes shine that beautiful kind of blue that you see in one in a million people. Her lips, scarlet, like a perfect rose, look just so inviting.
“It’s hopeless, Jace.” She raises her arms and the long white dress that accents her body perfectly rises with her. “Please, stop.”
“Sandra!” I call, but the words drift off into the space between us. The large, empty, black space. Her radiance seems to be the only thing in this world. I reach out, she’s so close, my hand misses her, she’s so far away.
“Stop, Jace.” Her face looks pained, her perfect lips slant downwards into a frown. A single tear slides down her face and drops down into the endless darkness below her. “Stop.”
“Sandra, I love you!”
“You couldn’t love me, Jace.” She slides her hands in front of her, as if praying.
“I tried, Sandra, goddamn it I tried!” She begins to float away.
“You couldn’t save me.”
Everything rushes into focus quickly, the room I’m in is not shaking, it is not spinning, but I still feel like im going to be sick. A pretty blonde pushes a lock of hair behind a small perky ear beautifully adorned with a tiny pearl.
“How’s it going?” Her voice seems so peaceful, so calm.
“I…” My lungs flair up a little and I can’t make a sound.
“It’s okay.” She presses a soft hand against my forehead and all of the pain seems to drift away. It feels like I just took a strong pain-killer and the whole world is melting away. She smiles and then fades into darkness.
When her face comes back into view, it seems less beautiful, more chaotic, and hairier. Saul scratches his beard and looks down at me.
“Shit, Jace. You gonna’ get up or what?” I can feel my muscles becoming less tight and raise an extended middle finger to Saul.
“I’ll get up when I feel like it, ass.” I slowly sit up and realise I am on a long couch in an apartment I’ve never seen before. Two women are standing across the room, eating small packets of crackers. The one I recognise as the blonde who was helping me before, but the other, a more athletic black woman with a short haircut, I’ve never seen before.
“Alex and Annie were kind enough to let us use their apartment while you rested.” Saul smiles with no visible duress. He isn’t lying, these people can be trusted.
“You had a negative reaction to the inhaler that I gave you. It managed to get your heart beating at a steadier pace, but it did something to your lungs,” Annie shyly pushes a lock of hair behind her ear and smiles. “I’m not a doctor or anything, but it seems like the rest has seemed to work well for you.”
“Thanks.” I say with a weak smile. She seems young, maybe early twenties, not that twenty-eight is ancient or anything, but under these circumstances she probably sees me as an old bastard.
“We hit up some abandoned stores while you slept, that is, me and Saul did, Annie stayed here. We managed to get a little food and some water, you should eat.” The black woman, Alex, doesn’t look too much older than Annie. I guess she’s twenty-four and Annie’s twenty-two. Annie carries over a small bottle of water only half filled and a couple haggard looking crackers.
“Thanks.” I say with a smile. She smiles back and our eyes connect for an instant. She drops her head and slowly walks back over to Alex. “So what’s next? For all of us I mean. We’re better off working in a group of four than by ourselves.”
“That’s what we were thinking.” Alex’s voice is full of confidence and power, she was clearly the leader before we met up with them.
“I think we should do some quick blood tests, just to be sure that we aren’t walking into anything we don’t want.” Saul says, not trying to be subtle at all.
“I’ll pass…” Annie says, a deep fear in her eyes. Alex turns to her and whispers something that doesn’t quite get to my ears. Annie nods and follows Alex over to Saul, who is already setting up the needles. Alex drops down onto one knee and pulls up her the sleeve of her U of T shirt and Saul presses the needle into one of her veins. The thick scarlet liquid flows into the empty hypodermic needle. Saul pushes the blood into an empty vial and drops the solution letting the small drops float to the bottom.
“Moment of truth!” Saul says with a smile. We all move a little closer and watch as a swirling blackness replaces the scarlet blood. “You’re kidding…”
“Another one?” I ask and Alex runs a hand through her short black hair.
“What do you mean another one?”
“The same thing happened with Jace.” Saul says as he places the vial of black blood into the case where he’d found it. “Let’s try you.” He nods his head towards Annie. She looks hesitant at first, but then moves forward and turns over her arm. All along the inside of her arm are tiny marks where needles had been before.
“What the…” Saul says but Annie interrupts him.
“It’s a long story, do you want to take a sample or not?” her face fills with pain and fear and I instantly wish I knew what it was that she was talking about. Saul doesn’t hesitate; he plunges the cleaned needle into Annie’s arm and draws out a full sample. It doesn’t look like she even notices the pain. The blood is pushed into a vial along with a drop of the solution, and once again we wait. And wait.
“Did you shake it enough?” Saul gives me a look, wordlessly saying ‘don’t tell me how to do my job’ so I raise my hands. “Your call, man.” He shakes the vial once more, and we wait. And wait.
“No response.” Saul puts the blood sample into his case. “Peculiar.”
“Why’s that?” Annie says, nervously.
Without looking up, Saul says “Everyone is either infected, or not infected, but according to these results, you are neither.” He looks up and squints his eyes. “Have we met before? Annie, was it?”
“I don’t think so…” She turns, gets up, and walks away. “This is really a waste of time, we should be looking for supplies.” I get up and follow her to the door.
“She’s got a point.” Alex says as she gets up and stands with us.
“Fine, give me a minute.” Saul opens the lockbox in the case and pulls out a tiny needle with what looks like no more than a teaspoon of green liquid in it. He raises it to his neck and plunges it into the right side about two inches above his shoulder.
“Shit, Saul. What the hell is that?” He pauses at the question.
“… Insulin, I have diabetes.” He says with a neutral expression on his face. My grandfather had diabetes and never once did I see him stab a needle into his neck, but I decide not to bring it up. “Let’s get going.”
I open the front door of Alex and Annie’s apartment complex and we’re met with a thick grey fog. The sun has barely come up and it’s almost impossible to see more than a few feet in front of you.
“There is no way this fog is natural.” Alex says looking around. “Did it even rain last night?” An infected stumbles out of the fog towards Saul who chops its head off with his machete.
“I have no idea. Maybe we should turn back.” He says, shaking the blood off of his weapon.
“No.” Annie has a look of fear and anger on her face. “Let’s go, I saw a small pharmacy to the west of here, maybe we can find Jace an inhaler.”
“The fog isn’t too bad; I think I can lead us around.” I don’t know what Alex is talking about; I can’t see a damn thing.
“Lead the way, ma’am.”
The journey is long, slow, and tense. The infected linger below and behind cars even when there isn’t a veil of fog, and with this extra layer of impairment, no one feels safe. I take a mental note of what I have on me. I left most of my pack back at the apartment but I didn’t leave empty handed; one rifle (strapped to my bag), one hunting knife (in my hand, but can also be place in an easily reachable pocket), one box of rifle ammunition (in bag), and my map of Toronto which does no good when you’re trying to find individual stores. I look at my group, each clutching their weapons tensely. Annie looks so innocent, with the small black pistol that she probably kept in her purse before the outbreak. She probably comes from a rural town, most other girls would have a small Taser or can of pepper spray. Next to her, Alex looks like Artemis; bow in hand, poised and ready for the hunt. Saul seems less tense than everyone else. He’s standing up straight, his shotgun lazily draped over one shoulder and his metal briefcase still handcuffed to his wrist.
“This is it,” Annie says, recognising the Pharma-Plus. “It’s pretty small, maybe just me and Jace should go in, you guys can wait out here and keep watch?”
“Jace and I” Saul corrected.
“You want me and Saul to wait here? Why?”
“You have the best weapons.” Saul and Alex look down and agree that they are in-fact packing the most heat. I wish that I could argue for my rifle, but it’s not very good, even at a distance.
“Sounds like a plan,” I say, trying to take the lead. “I’ll go first.”
The inside of the drugstore is almost completely cleaned out. It’s just wishful thinking, but I still feel a bit letdown when I see that the confection isle is completely wiped clean. Just the thought of a Ferrero Rocher brings a tear to my eye.
“Find anything?” I call, but Annie doesn’t respond. “Annie?!” I rush back to where we’d split up and see her sitting of the floor of isle 6 with her head in her hands. “Annie what’s wrong?” I drop down on one knee to see her eye-to-eye.
“Please, Jace. Don’t leave me alone with him.” Her voice is feeble and shaky. “Please, Jace.” I look and can see she’s been crying, a lot.
“Who, Saul?” I ask, trying to sound caring. She nods slightly. “You don’t have to tell me anything, Annie, I’ll make sure he doesn’t hurt you.” She moves towards me and wraps her arms around me, hugging me tightly.
“Thank you.”
“It’s no problem, really,” I hug her back, and the awkwardly try to slide out of it. “I’m gonna’ go look for an inhaler, okay? You stay here and get yourself together, cool?” She nods and I stand up, she’ll be fine. As I walk over to the actual pharmacy part of the store, I wonder what it is that is scaring Annie. I get that guys with beards can be creepy, but Saul isn’t that bad? I hop the counter and try not to think about it. If Annie wants me to know what’s up, she’ll tell me. I start looking around the inhalers; most of the drugs had been left untouched, except the narcotics of course. Best way to get out of this hell is to go to a different world altogether. There are several different ones; ones for children, ones for adults, ones for the elderly, but none that would help me. My condition isn’t something that happens to most people.
I notice it two seconds before its teeth dig into my ankle. My foot shoots forward, smashing into the insane looking infected. I slam my knife into its head and it stops moving. I take a deep breath and hope that Annie didn’t hear the commotion. I wipe of my knife on the counter beside me and put it back in my pocket. I look down at the sickly green corpse that used to be a man. Probably also had legs at one point. I push the legless infected over and see that it had been sitting on a pile of drugs. I look closely at the assortment of bottles, and yes, there it is! A small inhaler sits in a package with three canisters of TX-270. Completely un-opened. I grab the package and put it in my pack. I’m about to get up when another drug catches my eye. Written in a boring, computer generated font was one word.
Diazepam
I pick up the bottle, full, all 240 capsules of medicinal strength Valium. One pill was a quick fix for seizures, anxiety, and… insomnia. In reality, the bottle weighs no more than a pound, but in my hand, it feels like a thousand. I take a deep breath and try to remember what my sponsor told me. The urges are only as powerful as you let them become. I go to put down the bottle just as Annie walks up behind me.
“Everything okay?” my hand shoots into my bag and lets go of the bottle.
“Yeah…yeah, I got an inhaler.” I can hear myself stuttering.
“What was that noise? Oh…” she says, seeing the dead...deader… infected. “You killed it?” She has a disgusted look on its face.
“Yeah, it was looking for lunch and I wasn’t looking to be on the menu.”
“Good call. Should we split?” I answer with a nod.
“Where’s Alex?” I ask, allowing Annie to stand behind me a little.
“She went off exploring.” Saul says nonchalantly.
“What?!” Annie and I say in unison.
“You think I could stop her?” Saul scratches his beard and flicks a piece of dirt away that had been lost in his facial hair.
“Guys, it’s fine,” Alex says, sauntering back to the group. “I found something.”
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