The captain raised his booted foot and kicked the door open, splinters flying. He and Ryan entered with blast rifles at the ready and Tamsyn waited outside, blaster in hand, keeping an eye on the street. She glanced at the Creeley house again and bit her lip. The soldiers weren’t wrong in their cold-eyed assessment—the world had gone to hell and she was continually confronted by the unthinkable aspects of the situation she was in now. But she’d made her decision to ally with these people and she believed they were uniquely situated to actually affect the balance of the disaster on Randal Four, so for now she’d swallow her dismay.
And her focus today needed to be on getting the medicine Melly believed would help Cody. She’d find an opportunity to talk to Melly privately and see if the doctor agreed they’d done the right thing today. If she’d been here with them would Jeff have done anything differently? Hard to say. The captain was pretty hardheaded and totally focused. Difficult choices had to be made and she recognized the truth of the statement their tiny team couldn’t solve every situation they ran into. She guessed if she actually left Rosewater with them, she’d better be prepared to handle more incidents of this type.
Ryan appeared in the doorway. “House is clear. Captain’s begun the search for this med we need. He says for you to come in and help while I stand watch.”
Tamsyn holstered her blaster and ran up the steps, passing him on the porch. She found Jeff in the upstairs bathroom, clearing out the contents of the medicine cabinet, dropping the various bottles and injects into a backpack.
“You found it?” she asked.
“No, but remember doc said to bring any medicines we found for her stockpile. This poor lady sure had a lot of problems.” He indicated the bulging sack. “Or she kept every medication she was ever prescribed.”
“But not the one we wanted,” Tamsyn said bitterly. “Check the bedroom next?”
“After you.” Jeff gestured courteously and she exited the small bathroom, heading for the bedroom. The room was in a shambles, the bed covers ripped and dragging on the floor, the nightstand tipped over and the mirror on the big bureau cracked. Tamsyn guessed Mrs. Sanss had torn things up in the final stages of becoming one of the infected and then had fled her home, whether trying to escape the inevitable or to seek victims. An empty vial of a common flu remedy lay empty on the carpet and a bottle of cough syrup had spilled all over the floor, leaving a sticky green puddle. Tamsyn checked the closet while Jeff pulled out the bureau drawers but neither one found what they were searching for.
She stared at him, unwilling to accept defeat when Cody was counting on them. Suddenly she snapped her fingers. “Kitchen. Some drugs have to be taken with food so she might have stashed what we’re hunting down there.”
The kitchen was dated, with faded curtains and ancient appliances clad in colors long out of style. The counters were cluttered with unwashed dishes and rotting fruit so after a quick survey Tamsyn headed straight for the pantry and flung the door open. One shelf was crowded with what had to be a selection of all the supplements known to humanity. Impatiently she plucked the bottles and containers off the shelves and dropped them onto the counter. When she moved three expired bottles of vitamins she thought she was seeing things at first when an unopened box of freyquitanal was revealed. One hundred capsules. There was a half full bottle of the same pills next to it. “Jackpot,” she said, grabbing the two precious containers and backing out of the pantry.
“You found it?” Jeff’s grin was huge and relieved.
She handed him the box so he could see for himself. “How fast can we get to the ranch and let the doctor start administering this to Cody?”
“We’ll be there in less than an hour.” He gave her the box and she stowed it in her backpack. “I don’t see anything else here we need, do you?”
She gave the cupboards, which he’d been going through, a quick check. “No, I have plenty of supplies out at the ranch and you have a cache in the APC’s, right?”
“Right.” He ushered her through the dining area to the front door and Tamsyn burst through the front door to the porch with a shout. “We found it!”
Ryan gawked at her. “Guess we’ll be leaving then.”
“You got it, soldier.” Jeff took Tamsyn’s elbow and steered her toward the APC. “Let’s get out of here before our luck turns.”
She entered the vehicle and took the seat assigned to her, holding the precious backpack in her lap. Ryan went to the controls and Jeff sat in the seat next to him. The hatch closed with the usual sold thunk and Ryan backed them into the street, accelerating so fast she barely had time to glance at the Creeley house.
“There are probably dozens of other Mrs. Creeley’s across the planet, trying to save a loved one who turned,” Jeff said quietly to her. “If she’d asked me to take action, I would have.”
“I know—I get it. I don’t have to like it but there’s not a whole lot to like about the current world we’re living in,” she said honestly.
Chapter Eight
Tamsyn handed over the medicine to Melly as soon as she left the APC. “How’s he doing?”
The doctor shook her head. “I’m seeing a bit of slippage. The black streaks are further up his arm than they’ve ever been before.”
“I’m going to him.” Before Tamsyn could move in the direction of the bunkhouse, Melly caught her arm.
“I need you here first,” she said. “I want to show you how to prepare the freyquitanal. Obviously we can’t simply ask him to swallow a pill because he’s pretty out of it. I’ve set up in the kitchen with a makeshift chem apparatus.”
Tamsyn fell into step with the doctor. “Are you going somewhere I don’t know about?”
Melly shook her head. “Just being cautious. Jeff taught me to understand in the military one is none and I’m probably one of the few doctors left on the entire planet, okay? Trent’s a combat medic, which helps immensely but you showed a lot of promise with all your veterinary experience on the ranch. I want to show you as much as I can, especially about Cody, to create another backup for myself.”
“Like an apprentice?” Tamsyn asked.
“Exactly. If you’re willing. For Cody’s sake anyway.”
They entered the house and headed for the kitchen. “Wow, centuries of civilization destroyed,” Tamsyn said. “If we’re reverting to teaching medicine this way. Don’t get me wrong, doc, I’m glad you’re here but I never thought of myself as a doctor.”
