“I looked up a video online. Bike cops liked to lock up their bikes outside my apartment while they went into the coffee shop across the street.” The dial finally stops and he spins it one last time to reset.
“All right, all together now.”
“Eighteen,” Cara says.
“Thirty-two.”
“And five makes...” The lock snaps open. “Public domain version of Yahtzee.”
He pulls the locker open, and I shine the flashlight in. Cara was right. Someone did use this place as a hiding spot for the supplies they wanted to trade once the superflu had burned itself out.
Only the locker is filled not with medicine or first aid but with candy and black binders stacked three in a row.
Rocky Horror laughs as he flips open one of the binders. “It’s porn!”
“What?” I attempt to look but he pulls it away.
“No! You’re underage. Cara, lookie.” He giggles as he turns it around to her. She frowns.
“They’re printed-out pictures of websites,” she tells me from the other side of the binder. “Why bother stockpiling this?”
“Probably thought the web would go down eventually and he could use porn sheets as currency.” Rocky Horror grabs another binder. “Aw, he didn’t discriminate. This one’s got bi porn!” He flips through it and flinches at whatever is on the next page. He snaps the binder closed and throws it back into the locker. “Oh, no. We don’t need to look at that anymore. Grab the candy for the kids and I’ll teach you how to pick those other locks.”
We watch as he demonstrates on the second locker, then we try our own. Cara eventually gets it, but Rocky Horror finally has to take over and open mine. He takes the lock off, then snaps it closed again and hands it to me.
“You can practice later.”
Rocky Horror’s locker is filled with canned food and Little Debbie snacks that have probably gone very bad by now. Cara’s locker is filled with clothes—but most are men’s size XL so they would be pretty useless for her.
I open my locker and the first thing that catches my eye is the white pill bottle in the cubby up top. The label says clindamycin hydrochloride. I flip it sideways to read the directions, trying to figure out what kind of medicine it is.
“Jesus.” Rocky Horror grabs something else from the locker.
“Is that weed?” Cara asks.
I look up from the bottle to see the large ziplock bag of marijuana.
“And that’s not it.” He picks up a package the size of a brick. “Gotta give the guy credit for diversifying his investments. Drugs, porn, and candy.”
The bottle doesn’t say what clindamycin is, and next to “dosage and uses” on the label, it just says “see accompanying prescribing information.” But the name sounds familiar. Like I’ve heard it before.
Or maybe read it. I put it in my bag.
“What’s that?” Cara asks.
“I’m not sure. But considering what it was stashed with, I’d say it’s either prescription painkillers or antibiotics.” I want to check my mother’s journal before I tell anyone what it is. “Let’s get back to theothers. We can come back tomorrow when there’s more light.”
Rocky Horror puts the brick of drugs in his pack, and I raise an eyebrow at him. “Look, if it’s heroin, it’s a painkiller. I’m going to give the Nomad doc the option. Especially if they’re going to have to cut anything off anyone out there.”
I know he’s talking about Andrew. If these aren’t antibiotics, Rocky Horror is right. Andrew might need the heroin. I nod and we head back outside.
I was right. I had read the wordclindamycinbefore. It’s third down under the list of antibiotics in my mom’s journal.
I open the bottle and pull the cotton ball plug from the top, then shake out one of the 150 milligram pills. They’re green-and-blue capsules. My heart surges with hope because this is exactly what Andrew needs.
I take one of the pills and put the bottle back in my bag—replacing the cotton to keep it from rattling—then head over to where Andrew is lying atop his sleeping bag, awake but looking like he wishes he weren’t. I hold out the capsule. “Antibiotics.”
His eyes go wide as he holds out his good hand. “You found some?”
