Tucson, Arizona - August 8th, 2023 0756 hours
Mr. Daniels
“Mr. Daniels! More people are coming!” Kelley, the youngest employee called back from behind mascara streaked eyes.
She was sixteen and terrified, just like his assistant, Janice, and Mr. Daniels himself. Unfortunately he was the senior most person in the store at the time the bombs went off and all hell broke loose outside. Then the power went off and the third person, another young woman barely sixteen as well, left to go find her parents who only lived a few blocks away in one of the nearby subdivisions.
Soon after a couple people came in raiding the shelves for first aid supplies. Kelley tried to stop them and was backhanded to the ground for her efforts. Mr. Daniels scared those ones off by yelling he had a gun and would shoot them from behind the Pharmacy counter. The people looked around, spooked, then left with whatever they had in their hands. Since then the three remaining employees had hidden towards the back of the store, only occasionally going forward to see what they could, too afraid to step out into their new reality. No one else had bothered them until now.
“No… damn it, girls!” Mr. Daniels hissed as Janice sprinted to where Kelley was looking out the door to get a look herself.
“Shit, there’s a lot. They have guns. What do we do!?” Janice hissed to the back of the store while tugging Kelley back.
Mr. Daniels stared in bewilderment. The people before had come from the accidents out front. These people must be from the neighborhood and they came prepared to get what they needed. He had no idea what to do.
“Come behind the counter, let’s see how long my bluff can hold out.” He responded with a confidence he didn’t feel.
Janice and Kelley looked at him with serious doubt. He wasn’t the most intimidating persona. Three hundred pounds of pasty white, red faced, flesh with a bad, greasy comb over. Absolutely nothing intimidating about him, and he knew it.
The girls ducked as they heard the first crunch of glass underfoot as the newest group of looters began to enter their store, their sanctuary.
“Alright, looks empty up front here. Danica, keep your group up here for a minute. Antonio, clear the left, I’ll go right.” A deep commanding voice resonated through the dark, empty building causing Mr. Daniels to doubt his course of action. The man sounded fierce in his little mind, the voice of caution on his shoulder suggesting they just put their hands up and beg for mercy. Was there anything worth saving? He could stop people from taking the drugs from the pharmacy, but was there a reason to at this point?
Before his mind could run that course of logic he suddenly spoke out in the deepest, most commanding voice he could muster. Which in the moment to him sounded more like a mouse squeaking its defiance as a hawk swooped down to snatch it from the field, “NOT A STEP FURTHER! I’VE GOT A GUN AND I’LL USE IT!”
He could see both men in the mirrors that were strategically placed so that store personnel could make sure no one was stealing from the shelves as they went about their day. Antonio, the man identified on the left, stopped immediately and crouched behind a row of shelving. The other man slowed his pace and raised his rifle to his shoulder, but he didn’t stop, he only slowed his pace while giving the other man hand signals to hold still.
He crossed the threshold of the next aisle with his rifle raised, cautiously advancing towards the pharmacy counter in the back where Mr. Daniels and his two young co-workers hid behind shelves. When he was only two aisles away Mr. Daniels called out to him again.
“I CAN SEE YOU! DON’T COME A STEP CLOSER OR I’LL END YOU NOW!”
His breathing was getting laborious and he could hear his heart beating in his ears now, nearly deafening him as the man approached one more aisle. He paused for a moment, waiting for the gunshot that never came, then stepped up to the corner of the last aisle, lowering the muzzle of his rifle slightly.
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“Hey, I’m John.”
Mr. Daniels began to stutter, “I… I s-s-said… d-d-don’t come back here.” His voice was small, terrified, and weak. Any bluster he had found fled him now that man was staring straight at him and talking so calmly.
“I know. But I need to get some things. So do these people, you the pharmacist?”
John hadn’t broken eye contact with him, which he’d realize later was the thing that broke him. His lizard brain recognized a true predator, and this man was that. The fact he wasn’t taking any threatening actions was because he already knew he had the power. He was just going through the motions as he established his domain.
“Go away.”
John looked around, finally breaking eye contact to straighten himself and step out from the flimsy concealment he had taken. Mr. Daniels gulped, as the man stood to his nearly six foot full height. Mr. Daniels was barely five foot seven on a good day. And today wasn’t a good day.
“Look”, John began, “I’m going to pull out two pieces of paper from my shirt pocket. One piece of paper has some medicine I need, and the other has a list of medicines the people in my complex need.”
“Okay?”
“I ain’t here for you or them girls behind that shelf. I’m assuming they were the openers that got stuck here when the shit hit the fan. You got family?”
Mr. Daniels considered what he was saying carefully before responding like he had cotton in his mouth, “No, no family. You’re right, girls, stand up.”
He watched John eyeball the girls briefly before he waved behind him for the rest of his people to come in and begin looting the store. “That’s a shame. Never married myself. Now, if you’s a good man you’ll see to it that these pretty girls make it home to their families. Don’t stick around here, get what you can carry and leave. But, first, if you’d gather everything on those lists for me so I don’t have to hunt it down myself, well, I’d appreciate it.”
After another moment of consideration, Mr. Daniels nodded his head, took the list, looked it over and began collecting the stuff on the list. He grabbed John’s stuff first as it was pretty basic.
“You have gout?” He asked as he gathered the medication.
“Yeah, I was much larger than I am now.”
“And the prednisone?”
“We both know it’s useful for quickly reducing inflammation.”
He nodded in thought as he gathered everything up and placed it in a plastic bag, which John took and quickly stuffed in his pack. It took another thirty or so minutes to gather up the medication for almost three hundred people, an impressive feat if not for the fact he didn’t bother measuring out dosages. He just grabbed whole boxes and tossed them into a bag a woman had brought over whom he later learned was named Danica. He noted that they seemed to have a plan on what to gather first as they went straight for the necessities; Water, jerky, first aid supplies, baby supplies, and toiletries.
While they were working to help the people in their store gather what they wanted, they discussed amongst themselves if they would split up when they left or stick together as long as they could. Janice lived the farthest away, while Mr. Daniels was the next farthest. Kelley was closest, only living a couple blocks down. She was confident that she could make it back on her own, so they had decided that Mr. Daniels would stick with Janice and the three would slit up as they were going opposite directions.
He wasn’t certain that was the best, but Kelley insisted that she would be fine. Even indicating that she’d probably just hang back behind John and his friend Antonio as far as she could. They hadn’t raised an angry word or hand towards them like the first group that had come in.
John started grouping everyone up as they finished filling their bags. He came over to Mr. Daniels with a hand extended and a smile on his face, “I’m glad we could help each other. It’s not too bad yet, though I saw some characters to watch out for.”
Mr. Daniels stood with Janice to his side, both carrying a plastic bag in each hand loaded with water, jerky, and other sundries they had determined necessary while they had the chance to get them. Kelley similarly stood a bit further to the side nonchalantly sweeping her foot across the floor in bored anticipation.
“Eh, it feels wrong just taking this, but… I know what’s going on out there. I should have left earlier.”
“Is what it is, just get…” A shadow fell across the four of them from the entrance causing John’s head to snap over his left shoulder.
He began raising his rifle and backpedaling while reaching out for Mr. Daniels. Mr. Daniels looked on in bewilderment, a feeling like he’d been punched in the gut, then the sound of gunfire reached his ears in the next half second.