Free Anyone? by Angela Scott Page B

I? I don’t know you.”
    I didn’t think I had ever had a more frustrating conversation
in my whole life. “Are there any other people around? Have you seen anyone
else?”
    He shoved his hands into his front pockets and shrugged
again. “Nope. You’re the first person I’ve run across.”
    “And you didn’t think letting me know someone else existed,
was alive, would be important to me?”
    He removed his hands from his pockets and held them up. “Like
I said, I don’t know you, and right now, I don’t even think I want to
know you.”
    Is he mental or something? “But there’s no one else
around?”
    A huge grin spread over his whiskery face and his eyes
brightened, enhancing a few wrinkles around the edges. “And ain’t that perfect?
The best thing that’s happened to me in a long, long time.”
    I shook my head. Unbelievable. Of all the possible
people to have run into, I had to find this guy! “What are you saying? This isn’t
perfect at all!”
    He continued smiling at me as he squatted next to Callie and
ran his fingers between her ears to calm her. “One man’s hell is another man’s
heaven.”
    “You’re insane!”
    “That’s debatable. I’m not the one shooting out glass doors,
am I?”
    I slipped the safety on my gun and shoved it into my waistband.
“Stop touching my cat.”
    “But she likes it.”
    “Leave my cat alone and go away.” I couldn’t believe I’d
actually said that. The only person I’d seen in nearly two months, and I’d had
enough of him to last a lifetime.
    He stood and brushed his hands off on his pants. “I’m not
finished here. I still need a few things from inside.”
    “I need a few things too.”
    “Then by all means”—he waved his arm in front of him in a
grand gesture—”after you.”
    I walked over the broken glass, grinding the pieces into the
tile. I had come a long way to get here and refused to let him scare or annoy
me into leaving. “I don’t like you.”
    He gave his familiar chuckle. “Few people do.”
    We split ways, he heading to the personal hygiene aisle and I
heading to the back corner of the store toward the pharmacy.
    It wasn’t supposed to be like this. Two people finding each
other in the rubble of an apocalyptic aftermath should come together, lean on
each other for support, and find a collective way to survive. I shouldn’t be
sick and he shouldn’t be crazy. This whole thing was wrong.
    A large security gate ran across the length of the counter.
The door to the pharmacy was locked with some fancy contraption requiring a
keycard plus punch code. Through the metal gate, bottles of medicine lined the
shelves, untouched and waiting. So close, but nearly impossible to get.
    I grabbed on to the gate and shook the heck out of it, pulling
and tugging, using up what remained of my strength and causing my already
aching arm to radiate pain. The gate wouldn’t budge. I slumped forward, my
forehead resting against the counter with my fingers still wrapped around the metal
frame.
    I needed tools. And getting tools required breaking into
another store. The situation was beginning to feel a lot like the book If
You Give a Mouse a Cookie —if you want prescription medications, you’re
going to need tools, and if you need tools, you’re going to have to break into
Home Depot, and to break into Home Depot you’re going to need....
    When would this ever end?
    “Here, hold this. I’ll be right back.”
    I lifted my head, and the insane stranger shoved several
boxes of toothpaste, deodorant, and a stack of spiral notebooks into my arms
before moving past me and down the hall toward the restrooms.
    Really?
    I was about to toss the whole lot on the ground, when he
returned, winked at me, and produced a small black bag. He placed it on the
counter, unzipped it, and removed several small tools.
    “Better than bullets,” he said, as he jammed them into the
lock, twisting and turning them, until with a smile, he slid the gate open.