Disclaimer: I make no claims to the Walking Dead Universe. Robert Kirkman has all the shiny there. This is only my humble tribute.
Chapter 1: Ripple
Paint It Black cover by Hidden Citizens
Lisa sat on her patio steps, watching a thin blade of flame in the heap of glowing ash that took up her fire pit, waiting for her friend to finally spit out what was bothering her. A couple of empty cans of Mugshot IPA were scattered between them. "It's getting late," she commented.
Carrie's apartment complex was a block down the street, and she wouldn't have normally worried - both of them had walked home from the other's place any number of nights - but the blonde was acting twitchy.
"JJ's at Dalton's and I don't have to work tomorrow," Carrie dismissed, tipping back the last of her beer.
'But I do,' Lisa thought. Behind them the low drone of the dryer continued.
Carrie dropped her empty can on the patio. It wobbled precariously and then fell over. "How's your mom?" She wondered.
Lisa's face involuntarily pinched, "The same. Everything's finally squared away, mostly." She toyed with the tab on her own empty beer. "She still won't go to the grocery on her own or touch a computer. I had to go to the DMV with her Thursday to get new tags."
"She married your dad at seventeen. He took care of everything. It's got to be a hell of a shock," Carrie sympathized.
True. And maybe it was mean, but in light of her mother's meltdown she was grateful she'd been a daddy's girl.
For all of the, what Lisa was positive, were undiagnosed anxiety issues, her mother had something about her that was like chewing on tinfoil. She thought the woman could out stubborn and catastrophize anything. Her father, on the other hand, had been, at turns, gregarious and shrewd. He taught through experience while her mother told cautionary tales. Both of her parents could be, when defied, unforgiving and unsympathetic. Their response to her failed marriage had proven that.
Irrespective of their pitfalls, Lisa loved both her parents with the desperation of an isolated only child. She was incredibly grateful that before her father's end, she'd had the opportunity to know him with adult eyes. The alternative could have been devastating.
In the nine months from her dad's initial diagnosis of cancer to the day she'd had to make the decision to take him off of life support, she had learned the deepest parts of herself. She was comforted to know that they weren't the only parts of herself.
"Yeah." Lisa brushed the criticism aside and scooted to fully face her friend. "I don't want to talk about my adventures in parenting my parent. You've been unusually quiet and I've been patient. Unlike you, I have a shift tomorrow starting at nine. So, out with it."
Carrie pursed her lips and frowned. "Reggie messaged me today."
Lisa felt her own face pull into a frown. "I thought he was supposed to call you as soon as he landed. Didn't they send him to Colorado or something for a training exercise? He should have called you yesterday."
"Not an exercise." Carrie reached around behind her and pulled the last beer from the six pack. She popped the top, then held it between her knees while she grabbed her phone. "He sent me a video." With a few swipes of her fingers she cued up the file and set it to play, angling the phone over so that Lisa could see it.
The video started normally enough, a handful of young people in combat gear riding in a heavily built vehicle. Whatever road they were on was rough, as evidenced by the jostling of the camera. There was some ribald chattering, and Lisa picked out Reggie's voice in the mix. The vehicle came to a stop and the group disembarked onto the side of a dirt road.
Below them was a sloping sightline to a small town. From the distance they were at it was easy to make out that there were less than a few dozen buildings in the proper. It looked like some idealistic mountain town.
Two pairs split off from the main group, each set containing someone armed with a sniper rifle. Lisa's brow furrowed when the camera focused on another sniper who was setting up on the side of the road and taking aim at the town.
"Where are they?" She wondered aloud.
From above where her head had dipped down to be closer to the screen, Carrie intoned flatly, "Silverton, Colorado."
Lisa darted her disbelieving gaze toward Carrie before she latched back onto the screen.
The sniper still in frame pressed his eye to his scope and made a signal with his hand. Next to him, a woman lying belly first in the dirty and scrub of the roadside spoke into a radio. "This is Checkmate Six Romeo, we have positive contact."
"Roger Checkmate Six Romeo. You have permission to engage," a tinny voice from the other end of the radio confirmed.
Lisa felt her jaw go slack. The video looked disturbingly unlike any Reggie had sent them before. But that couldn't be right. If it was an actual mission it would have been classified and they certainly wouldn't be focusing on a civilian population. She was brought out her thoughts when the sniper started shooting.
She flinched as first two, then six, then ten shots were fired toward the town. In between each shot the spotter called out information that was semi-audible. The camera panned around the side of the non-descript mountain two-track. One side, the side leading toward the town, was open meadow. Across the road was the start of a coniferous forest. Pine needles carpeted the ground beneath the bows in deep drifts.
The video continued, the person filming it spinning nervously. Then, from one revolution to the next, a far off cry of warning sounded. The person with the camera whipped around toward the disturbance only to catch a group of people crossing the road around fifty yards down. Small arms fire sounded and a few of the people fell to the dirt. Two men popped up from the underbrush, running back toward the stationary group and the transport.
The muzzle of a gun was brought into frame. "We've got Geeks," Reggie's voice shouted. It was then that Lisa realized the video she was watching must be from Reggie's body camera. That just made things stranger, body cam footage should have been something Reggie didn't have access to send.
The camera turned again and the picture refocused on three people emerging from the shadows of the forest. They shuffled toward the soldiers, moaning and looking, somehow, wrong. She couldn't figure out what, exactly, made her think that.
Before she could ponder it further her friend's brother opened fire on the people. Lisa's hand jumped to cover her mouth.
On screen, the bodies jerked as they were hit. But despite the firepower, they kept coming. Headshots eventually put them down, but more people emerged from the woodland. One woman, who was missing her entire left cheek down to the bone, got close enough that Reggie was forced to fend her off hand to hand before the call for retreat happened.
Once they were back in their vehicle and driving away one of the soldiers asked, "You get bit?" Lisa was so busy processing the trauma of seeing naked maxilla, that the distant thought - What kind of question was that? - barely registered.
The body cam caught Reggie hastily wiping his hand on his pants before he replied, "Nah man, you?" Then the video abruptly ended, the replay arrow displaying on the thumbnail.
There was a silence between them as Carrie cleared the screen and tucked away her cell phone. She took a long swig from the beer.
The abrupt return to her dimly lit backyard was like plunging face first into cold water. In shock, the first thing that came out of Lisa's mouth was "What the hell was that?" What followed were half formed exclamations and queries that culminated in, "That woman had half her face missing!"
"I don't know," Carrie's subdued statement broke Lisa from her ranting. "He sent me this four hours ago. I've tried calling him, but he won't answer."
Lisa looked to her friend, hearing the way the end of the other woman's statement sounded choked.
Carrie tipped her can back again and a chill spilled down Lisa's spine. "I didn't tell you," Carrie continued, "Mostly because I thought it was crazy, but before Reg left he told me that I needed to pay attention and that if anything seemed weird I should take JJ and get out."
During the playing of the video the fire had died down to embers, but Lisa couldn't bring herself to leave the steps to throw more wood on. She felt like if she left the patio something in the dark might grab her. "Weird like what?" She wondered quietly. "And get out where?"
A part of Lisa was already analyzing, comforting herself.
"Get out, like get away from people. Like the sick people showing up everywhere," Carrie pointed out.
A scoff burst from Lisa's mouth. "It's a bad flu season. I've spent most of my shifts for the past week filling scripts for it and I haven't seen anybody like…" She waved a hand toward the phone. "Whatever the hell that was."
It shook her that Reggie would be called out to - quarantine? - was that even the right word? - sick civilians. No. It wasn't possible. They were a first world nation. Things like what were on Reggie's video would be on the news. Only prepper's got worked up like she was working herself up to. She needed to calm down. She needed to calm Carrie down.
"Maybe," the other woman demurred. "As for getting out - your mom hasn't sold the cabin down by Griffin yet, has she?"
"No," Lisa answered automatically. When the question registered she jerked her head to the side to study Carrie's face. The woman's jaw was clenched, her mouth turned down in a frown. "You cannot be serious."
Hysteria around sick people was not unknown to her. Fairburn wasn't a small town, but it had only been two years before that the general populace had been convinced every sick person had SARS and they were all going to die.
Her blonde friend spun the beer can in her hand. "All I know is that my brother was worried enough to warn me. He sent me a video I don't think the government would want me to see. And now he's not answering his phone."
She placed the can behind her on the patio and clasped her hands in her lap before turning to face Lisa. "So I'm asking, once JJ comes back from his dad's, if we can stay at your cabin for as long as we need to."
Lisa crossed her arms, then dropped them to her sides in agitation. "You'll lose your job," she warned. "If you take more than a week you'll be back in court over JJ."
"I don't care," Carrie shook her head, eyes focused out on the dark yard. "You saw the same thing I did. You know Reg. Do you have a better explanation?"
Lisa licked her lips, at a loss. She was tempted to say it was some sick joke. "You're sure that video came from Reggie?"
Carrie nodded and Lisa was stuck. Reggie wouldn't pull a prank like that and those bullets had been real. She'd seen the hole open up in one of the sick people's foreheads. No one else would be able to get their hands on Reg's phone without prying it out of his cold, dead, fingers.
Outbreaks happened. Violent responses to sick people happened. But from the government? In the twenty first century? In America?
Rubbing a hand across her face, Lisa had to concede that something beyond her ken was going on.
…...
"Lili!' The joyous voice caught her attention.
Lisa paused next to the older model Subaru pulled up on the sidewalk in front of Carrie's apartment. She shook her head. Her friend's landlord would rain hell over the tire tracks.
The debate over whether or not Carrie was overreacting carried on in the back of her mind.
Bending down, Lisa could just see JJ through the rear door window. The little boy within grinned out, a slightly turned front tooth making him look more mischievous than was warranted. "Hey Jumpin' Jack," she greeted.
A sudden bustling to her left drew her eye as Carrie shoved another bag into the trunk of the car.
"We going camping," the three year old declared.
Lisa reached forward, popping the door open and squatting down. "Camping? That sounds like fun."
The little boy strained forward against his belt, dropping his open baggie of cheerio's next to him. Lisa automatically reached in to grab the bag and zipped it closed. JJ followed the movements of her hands as she tucked the snack bag next to him and offered his tractor toy to him.
"You comin' with us?" He wondered, taking the toy and perching it on his thigh.
Lisa screwed her face up in exaggerated disagreement. "Not right now, but maybe in a little bit."
In truth she planned to corner her friend and talk some sense into her if she hadn't come back by the following weekend. She'd scoured the internet on her phone while at work but found nothing like what she'd seen on the video.
A slam from behind them drew Lisa out of the car. Carrie brushed her hands on her pants and then adjusted the strap of her purse.
Taking in the blonde's tense posture, Lisa wondered, "You're really going to do this?"
Carrie's knuckles whitened where they rested on her bag. "I've made up my mind. You won't talk me out of it."
Blowing out an exasperated breath, she opened her mouth to argue anyway.
Carrie cut her off. "Give me a hug," she demanded. Rolling her eyes, Lisa leaned into her friend, surprised by the grip the other woman engulfed her in. "You should come down."
"I have to work," Lisa protested.
"You have Wednesday off," Carrie interrupted. "It's not that far. Spend a day, bring your mom. How long has it been since you've been down there?"
"It's been awhile," Lisa admitted slowly. "The deer season before last," she speculated.
Pulling back, she rifled in her pocket, bringing out a clip of keys and handing them to the blonde. For a moment she distracted herself pointing out the keys to the cabin, the shed, and the two gates. "There's toilet paper on the bookshelf by the kitchen for the outhouse. You'll probably have to knock down some spider webs. Did you remember to pack water to prime the pump?"
Carrie nodded, taking the keys and fisting them in her hand hard enough that her knuckles went white. She glanced to them before looking back up and meeting Lisa's gaze. "I know you think I'm being crazy, just…be careful, yeah?" Her eyes danced back and forth between Lisa's own.
"Yeah," Lisa huffed wryly. "I can do that." Dismissing the bubbling in her gut, she bent into the backseat of the car and gave JJ a hug. When she ducked out, she closed the door and he waved a cheerful goodbye. Lisa followed Carrie around to the front of her car. "Call me when you get in," she ordered.
"Sure." Carrie tucked herself down into the driver's seat. She hesitated before closing the door, one shade of blue eyes meeting a different shade of blue. "Be careful. See you later, Lis."
The front door of the Subaru thudded shut and the engine started. Lisa took a few steps back. A rear tire spun before gaining traction, then the vehicle lurched forward. First Carrie, and then JJ, vanished past her as the wagon bumped over the curb.
Lisa stood in the side yard of the apartment complex, next to a muddy rut, watching until her friend's car turned at the light and vanished.
…...
She was labeling the latest batch of prescriptions, and trying to avoid watching the minutes of her shift tick down, when there was a crash from the pharmacy counter. Lisa's attention jerked toward the front in time to see a dark haired head duck down.
Standing, she made her way around the partition, taking in the middle aged man who'd apparently dropped his basket into the display of cough drops, candy, and gum in front of the register. "Is everything alright?" She bent forward to pick up a bottle of peroxide that'd rolled toward her.
Blood shot eyes raised to hers and the man grimaced. "Sorry about that. My grip slipped."
Lisa was startled for a moment by the man's appearance. She'd fielded all sorts of flu riddled people in the past but the man in front of her had an ominous yellow-grey complexion. Shaking herself out of it, she replied, "No problem. I can ring you up over here," she gestured.
While the man made apologetic small talk Lisa scanned his purchases. Halfway through her gaze landed on the poorly wrapped and seeping wound on his forearm. He noticed and gave a little shrug, but didn't comment.
Long after the man had taken his bags and headed for the front of the store, Lisa's stomach continued to churn in unease.
…...
Wednesday was supposed to be her day off but Big Jim had called her in. From her spot by the pharmacy drive thru window she watched convoys of humvees, and big, brick looking trucks, trundle down SR 29 toward Atlanta.
"We're closing down, Lis." Big Jim called to her over the counter.
She swiveled her head toward him, absently stuffing the latest prescription bag into the pick up bin. "It's four o'clock. Pharmacy's open till six," she protested.
Jim rubbed a hand over his thinning hair. "A-yep," he agreed. "But nobody else is coming in today." Lisa blinked in surprise. "Angie and Tooter called off. The rest I can't get hold of. We've been holding the building down all day, can't keep it up."
It had been a bitch manning the whole pharm counter by herself. Thankfully they hadn't had a lot of customers. Her eyes roved over the plastic bins on the floor filled to overflowing with prescriptions. "Alright," she sighed. "I'm on the schedule to open tomorrow. Are we still coming in?"
"Don't think so." He scuffed a shoe on the drab grey carpet. "I tried calling Dave, Mary, and even called up Mr. Colburn. Haven't gotten anything but busy signals and voicemail." Jim looked slightly guilty. "Things are…turning weird." Her shoulders gave an atavistic jerk at the phrase. "I'm not coming in to run this place myself. You can show up if you want, I'll give you my keys, but it might be better if you just stayed home. I couldn't guarantee you wouldn't be the only one here."
Her eyes flashed back to the bins. She thought about the military trundling blithely through town and about snipers on hillsides. There was also the news bulletins to think about. They had been giving a run down of symptoms that, if experienced, required an immediate check in at one of the Red Cross stations that had been set up. Fairburn's was at the high school.
Despite feeling Carrie was blowing things out of proportion, her friend's actions had planted a sense of wariness within her. It was enough to stop her from volunteering. A selfish act, yes, but something she was grateful for after seeing the tall chain link fences that had been erected around the block the station occupied. And they were around the whole block - not just the high school. There were guards stationed at the entrances. They were armed.
"You know, I'll take you up on that." Paranoia made her hand itch for a weapon. "It's just a bad time is all," she lied. Big Jim shifted from foot to foot. "Some of these scripts need to be tossed anyway. I'll do that for an hour or so while I'm waiting. If Dave or Mary don't show, I'll lock her back up. I can drop the keys off to you afterwards if you like."
The older man grimaced. "Nah. The wife's keen on checking on her parents in Greenville. We're gonna take the kids, make a long weekend of it. If things blow over you can hand them back next Tuesday." He shuffled uncomfortably again.
"Sure," she nodded. In her mind she couldn't stop hearing his emphasis on the word 'if.'
Jim folded the key ring into her hand, balled her fingers around it and squeezed lightly. "Watch yourself, Lis. Somebody knocked over the Lightning Quick on Wiesner last night - heard it on the scanner. They threatened poor Claire McAvery with a pistol. But, well, you're a grown woman. Just, mind you don't get caught up in that if people start losing their heads."
Lisa forced a tight smile, even as she felt increasingly shaky inside. A small part of her nagged at her dishonesty and wondered if they weren't both only seeing the worst. "Okay. I got it. I'll bring my piece with me."
He gave a sharp jog of his chin and then headed toward the front of the store at a good clip. Before he got to the door she called out, "Drive safe."
The man she'd worked with for two years paused to look back over his shoulder. "God bless you, Lis." The doors wheezed open soundlessly and he stepped out into the parking lot.
"You too," she murmured to the empty shop.
Her fingers uncurled and she stared at the set of tarnished keys there. The CVS in Fairburn would close early. Mary, the store manager, kept her employee ID number and password on a piece of paper tucked into the middle drawer of the office desk. It would be simple for Lisa to shut off the security cameras.
She tried not to label what she was about to do as looting.
…...
At a little before six in the morning it was still dark out. When Lisa rolled up on the CVS the store was shuttered and the parking lot empty, just the way she'd left it the night before. A breath of relief left her nose.
She'd spent the night with a knot of anxiety gnawing through her stomach. Several times she'd jerked awake, unable to find the cause.
Carrie had called her from the cabin Sunday evening, but hadn't answered the phone since. In fact, her phone had stopped ringing and started going directly to voicemail.
Eschewing a normal parking spot, Lisa pulled up right next to the store's side door. When her feet hit the pavement she couldn't help scanning back over the lot. Black asphalt and yellow lines hemmed in by gray sidewalk strips - the abandoned parking lot seemed eerie. Pulling in a lungful of the cool morning air, her nose wrinkled when she caught the faint hint of road kill. She snuffled out a breath and moved to unlock the double doors.
Fifteen minutes after the store should have opened she couldn't take it anymore. Lisa dragged a pallet jack full of water bottles out to the back of her Jeep before loading them in. Screw this.
…...
She hadn't thought there would be practicalities involved in looting. Her Cherokee could only fit so much stuff.
After her father's first surgery, when she'd spent the majority of three days in the hospital with him, she'd quit smoking. It wasn't the first time she'd quit, but it was the first time she'd found something that prevented her from starting again. She took up hiking. After all, you couldn't hike if you couldn't breathe. By the time her father couldn't drive anymore she'd been solo camping a dozen times.
In those last few months, when her dad had been saying goodbye and she hadn't wanted to recognize it, they'd gone through her kit multiple times. Her dad had greatly enjoyed spending the time during his chemo sessions watching videos on the best gear and cheap hacks for space saving - You don't need waterproof stuff sacks or a bunch of specialty foot care, Li. You just need a compost bag and some duct tape.
And why was it only when her mother wouldn't pick up the damn phone, and she was freaking out, that she remembered that little smile her mother wore when listening to them bicker?
She shunted the low level of terror away and crammed a box full of zip lock bags, trash bags, and tape into her front passenger seat. A crash from across the street shattered the early morning silence.
Lisa immediately ducked down behind the open passenger door, peering through the window and trying to figure out what was going on.
Sometime between her last two trips a smattering of vehicles had pulled into the gas station across the way. Someone from over there had just broken through the double doors at the front. There was the general sound of careless rummaging and some male swearing. A screeching of metal drew her attention to another man attempting to pry open the gate to the natural gas tanks.
"Hey!" The shout came from behind her and made her heart skip in her chest. The bang of the gun going off, she swore, made her heart stop altogether. Lisa immediately collapsed to the ground, accidentally half rolling under the car, before the thud of a body falling nearby her drew her attention.
Lisa's jaw shook with nerves as she took in the body of an elderly woman in a flowery pink nightgown only ten feet away from her. Rhythmic pounding on the asphalt drew close before a whip thin middle aged man appeared. He peered down at the body, then using the toe of his boot, flipped the old woman over.
A hand came up to cover her mouth as Lisa curled further in on herself and gagged. The man with the gun had shot the woman straight through the head and gore oozed onto the pavement. The noise she made drew the man's attention.
"Hey, girlie. Hey." He carefully held his hands out to the sides, gun pointed away from her. "It's alright. I ain't gonna hurt ya."
Lisa's mind picked up on more yelling and running footsteps coming from the direction of the gas station. "Travis!? Becca!?"
"I got it, Bill," the thin man replied.
Peering toward the street, Lisa spied the man with the crow bar from the gas station and two others, armed with rifles. "She bit?" One of the men with a rifle demanded. Lisa's eyes blew wide at the question, Reggie's video flooding back to her.
"Nah," the thin man denied.
The man who'd asked instantly moved the muzzle of his gun to point at her and Lisa froze. "You sure?"
"Cut that shit out, Ned." A square, squat man, silver haired and in his sixties, grabbed the muzzle of Ned's gun and shoved it away from aiming at her. Keeping the restraining hand on his compatriots gun he ducked down to address her, "Honey, it's okay. You can come out."
Realizing she was still on the ground, and surrounded by people she didn't know, Lisa scrambled to her feet. Her eyes darted to the unmoving form of the old woman, now lying face up in the parking lot. A thin trickle of blood ran toward the drain. Lisa couldn't stop her face from screwing up in disgust.
"First time ya seen one?" The thin man asked.
Lisa's gaze darted up to his. He had tired brown eyes, they were soft around the edges. "Yeah," she answered, but her mind was back on what she'd seen in Reggie's video.
"Dad?" A voice called from around the corner.
The thin man whipped around, holstering his weapon. "I thought I told you to stay in the car," he half growled.
The boy, who Lisa would guess was around twelve, crossed his arms. Behind him a girl of eight or so peered out. "We heard you yelling."
"I'm sorry, hun. They darted out before I could stop them," a middle aged brunette, obviously their mother, excused.
Ignoring her, the man grouched, "That don't mean you get out of the car. Go on." He waved a free hand back toward their vehicle.
The mother curled a stern hand around both of the kids' shoulders and led them away.
"You too. Go on back." The thin man tipped his head toward the three near the road. "Go on. I got this handled. We don't have a lot of time and we need that gas."
"You sure?" Ned asked.
When the first man nodded the elder hustled the other two back across the road.
"You are a lucky bug, lady." The original man glanced down at the old woman and shook his head. "I'm Travis." He walked forward and offered his hand.
Lisa blinked in confusion and dully shook his hand. The whole situation had happened so fast she had no idea what to think of it. "Lisa," she half grunted in return.
His lips twisted into a rueful smile. "That peach back there's my wife, Becca. And those two reprobates who can't follow directions are our kids."
Right. Just a guy with his family. He probably wasn't going to shoot her. Her attention drifted to the corpse again.
From the edge of the lot a rattle sounded and Lisa looked up to see another person clawing against the eight foot high chain link. Travis sniffed in disgust.
"Bec, you got them kids in the car?" He called.
"We're tucked in, honey," the brunette called back.
"Good, make sure they stay there this time." Travis drifted toward the fence, jerking his chin to signal Lisa to follow. It was only as she trailed after him that she noticed she was trembling slightly.
Before she got within a dozen steps of the fence Lisa's head jerked to the side and she grunted in disgust. The smell of copper burned her nose and she could easily spy the great chunk missing from the man's neck. She'd bet that shirt he wore hadn't started out that particular shade of disturbing maroon-brown. That wound the man sported was non-survivable, yet he was still up walking around.
"Nasty, ain't it?" Travis asked tightly.
Lisa's mouth puckered and she squinted at the man banging his hands against the fence.
"You came awful close to havin' that old girl over there take a bite out of you," he chastised. He turned his strained brown eyes back on her and lowered his voice. "I vouched for you, so you tell me true. You're not bit are you?" His hand flexed toward his gun.
"No," Lisa jerked her head in a shake. "I ain't been bit. Is that…is that how this, whatever it is, spreads? That's not normal. That's not how disease works. I mean rabies, but…" she trailed off, looking at the man on the other side of the fence as he tried to stick his fingers through to grab them.
"Yeah. You get bit and if you don't die right away then the fever burns you out. Saw my neighbor go that way." He shook his head, as if to shake the memory away from him. "Not pretty."
What was she seeing? The fever burned you out if you got infected, infection came from a bite. So, it was a sickness, but… Her gaze lingered on the exposed muscle in the neck of the man on the other side of the fence. The bite would have taken out his jugular. He should be dead. Her mind could not come up with a single plausible explanation for why that man was still walking around.
"What're you doing out here if you've never seen one of them before?" He gestured toward the man.
Lisa pulled her horrified stare from the fence to look back over at Travis. "I work here." He eyed her carefully and Lisa felt a blush rise to her cheeks. "Thought it might be good to get some stuff." At his skeptical look Lisa felt her metaphorical feather's ruffle. "I'm a pharmacist."
An evaluating look settled over his face, but for a moment, Lisa thought he looked vindicated. "Pharmacist," he parroted in a distant tone. "Huh."
…...
Author's note: I'm wrapped up in a Marvel universe fic and this is my stress relief. Updates will be sporadic and controlled by my inspiration depending on the response to this fic. Happy reading.