It was common sense that the pharmacies were just about the first place to be raided, right between the grocery stores and every gun shop that swore it would stand its ground against an angry mob when SHtF came. The cities had seen the worst, predictably, but eventually it had made its way into the suburbs and small towns, too.
This place was no exception. The automatic doors at the front of the Walgreens were busted and hung open uselessly, and a wind-worn banner clung to the storefront painted in bold letters with, "TAKE ONLY WHAT YOU NEED- PEOPLE ARE DYING!" Inside wasn't much better. Most of the shelves had been knocked over in either the rush to grab anything useful or in the months since, and the ones standing had been picked pretty clean. What was left was almost entirely junk nobody could be bothered with; discounted summer crap and As Seen on TV stuff like that Slap Chop contraption with the goofy commercial Skyler wished she'd never seen, because now she was stuck picking through the mess with it playing in her head on a loop.
"You're gonna love my nuts. You're gonna love my nuts," she mumbled to herself absently, shifting broken displays aside with her boot.
If the universe decided to let something go right for once, there might be something useful buried where no one else had seen it. Some more alcohol for wound wash would be nice. Or some ibuprofen to help with her poor, bruised boob.
What did catch her eye was a glimpse of green plastic. Upon retrieving it from the debris, it turned out to be a kiddie thermometer with a cartoon frog on top. She turned it around in her hands, investigating, before shifting her attention to Adrian, who had stationed himself atop a remaining shelf and sat staring intently at the entrance.
This was probably her curiosity getting the better of her, but she punched through the cardboard and removed the instruction leaflet, squinting in the dim light to scan over it. Not exactly engaging reading material, but she skimmed until she found the section on "When to Call a Doctor". Over 103 F, accompanied by severe headache, stiffness, persistent vomiting, sensitivity to light, mental confusion. Well, shit. That was at least a couple of checkmarks. After frowning to herself for a bit, she patted her thigh and waved towards herself.
"Yo, Adrian. Come here a minute."
He tilted his head at her, then hopped to the floor in a manner nearly identical to a cat. Man, it was still hard to mesh the way he seemed to go from dangerously close to normal one minute to like some kind of animal the next. He stopped a short distance from her, and she put on her best serious face.
"Good. Now, I need you to listen to me. You got that?"
His furrowed expression had some promise, which was a start.
"Yes?" she nodded, then shook her head, "No?"
Hesitatingly he shook his head, which wasn't unexpected. She guessed listening and understanding weren't the same thing, but she'd take it. Honestly the fact she was getting any sort of direct response was impressive in itself.
"You know what, good enough. It is very important," she started, placing her hands on his right arm to tuck it up against his body and slipping the frog thermometer up by his armpit, "That you hold totally still. Liiike this."
He huffed perplexedly and reached to check out the foreign object, but she stopped him with a hand on either shoulder, feigning alarm.
"Uh uh uh! Careful! Just- Yeah, there you go."
The urgency did the trick and Adrian's body stiffened up, his eyes flickering from side to side. Poor kid. Skyler kind of felt like it was an asshole move purposely freaking out someone who spent at minimum a noticeable chunk of their time hallucinating, but she didn't really have any better ideas. Funny how lately she just kept on running into scenarios where she was being haunted by how useful it would have been to have someone experienced like oh, she didn't know, her sister around.
Before she could spend much time contemplating how Lauren would have been dealing with this situation, she took notice of something weird. Specifically, a dim light through one of the windows that, once she watched it, she realized was flicking on and off in short bursts. What in the hell? Oh! Shit, that was code, wasn't it?
Her observation was interrupted by five rapid beeps off to her side. Adrian growled at the sound and before Skyler could stop it, the thermometer had been sent flying. "Shit-" Fortunately she did manage to rescue it before it was subsequently stomped on. She took a moment to read the display of "105.7" and inhale deeply. She was going to deal with one thing at a time here.
"Give me a sec," she muttered, brushing past towards the door. Once she'd leaned out, she followed the distant flashlight beam to an indistinct speck of a figure on a rooftop. The figure appeared to wave, then resumed the flashing. Dot/dash/dot. Dot/dash. Dash/dot/dot. Dot/dot. Dash/dash/dash. Fuck, what was it, a-d-i-o, radio, radio! With that, the other survivor retreated down a roof hatch and vanished. She ducked back in to be out of the open before she got out her comm and started browsing frequencies, skipping over Midway's broadcast, until she found a familiar young woman's voice.
"-Esting, testing. Hello hello? Mmm whatcha say, mmm that you only meant well, well of course-"
"...Hello?"
"Ah! There you are! Guess who finally hit the dead guy lottery and found batteries? It's, uh, me. In case that wasn't clear."
"Uh, hey. Cat. You decide to evac after all?" She had to break briefly to move the radio away from Adrian's swatting, who as per his usual was aggravated hearing unfamiliar voices. "I know, I know. There's people inside my radio you've gotta kill." She spread her arms in the best attempt she could think of to display that she was not in fact hiding any incredibly small person.
"Nah, just keeping an eye out for you. Oh- crap, I promise that wasn't meant to be a bad joke. Sorry. Anyways! How've you been holding up, tough girl?"
"Still mostly in one piece. I, uh. Got punched in the tit," she offered, unable to help chuckling a little as she did so.
"Oh, what? How did that happen?"
"More or less said 'what are you gonna do, punch me in the tit?'."
"Now, wait a second here. We're not talking about your buddy over there, are we?"
"Yeah we are!" Skyler enthused, flashing him a grin that seemed to catch him off guard. "Honestly? Never been prouder of the kid."
"That's crazy. You're crazy," Cat laughed back. A pause. "So, about why I signalled you, though."
"Yeah, what's up?"
"Mmm. So," she audibly popped her lips, "You didn't leave the city alone."
"No, I've had Adrian with me this whole time."
"Cool, cool. That's not what I meant. Now, there's no reason to panic or anything yet. I'm sure you can handle yourself. But, sometime around sunup I spotted movement in your direction, crossing over the river. I am pretty sure you've got that bunch of leapers tailing you."
"What the fuck?!" Skyler exclaimed, evoking a hiss from Adrian and dropping the froggy thermometer in the process. So much for pleasant conversation. "They crossed the fucking... Why would they go clear out of their turf to go after me in particular?!"
"Oh you don't know Nicole," Cat stated matter-of-factly, "She's got it out hardcore for anything she sees as a threat. Trust me."
She- Nicole? Skyler shook her head, trying to follow all of this. "You mean the boss Hunter? You got some kind of history?"
"Oh, no. Well. Not like a 'history' history. We both had lab with Lawson on Wednesdays. Asked her to lunch once, but she's straight. All she's interested in is dancing and politics anyways. And her boyfriend's running club, I guess. Funny we've got a lot more in common these days." She cleared her throat. "To clarify, I'm not in some weird feud with her because she turned me down. I'm a murderer, not a creep."
"God I wish you would explain what you meant by that."
"Are you going to tell me you're not?"
Something lingered in that last question; an unsettling amount of challenge. Skyler stared hard at the radio and said nothing at all.
"Listen though. I can set up a dead drop by the Dunkin by the end of today. I've got some extra batteries so we can keep in contact, I can let you know if I see anything. Couple of other things too. Sound good?"
She took a deep, grounding breath and nodded to herself. "Yeah. Appreciate it. Thanks for the tipoff."
"Do not mention it. You know how to get in touch. Have fun!"
With that done with, Skyler let out a long groan and sagged back to sit on the ground against the Redbox inside the entrance, putting her head down on her knees.
"No one ever calls me with good news."
Something amazing had happened over the past day, and it changed everything. This was what was going to make things make sense. It had come some time after their mock fight, in the time that Adrian had been left thinking about the strange companionship he'd developed with her. Since he'd begun to question whether her intentions were harmful, it had all been so confusing. As time had gone on, the conflict between how nice it was not being utterly alone with nothing but the bloodlust for comfort and the ceaseless, pounding ache to drown himself in carnage felt like it would tear his brain into shrieking pieces. But it was going to be okay, because he'd figured it out.
She must actually be Other, after all.
Of course some things didn't fit; there was her smell, for one thing. The odd, clear look in her eye. And some of the ways she behaved were very much Clean One. But people weren't always what they looked like, right? He had parts that didn't match most other men, he knew. Maybe it was like that? No Clean One would have spared his life, much less done anything to help him afterwards. No Clean One would have shown him kindness.
She was Sister, so… so he didn't have to kill her. That had to be it. He reached inside his top and rubbed the trinket she had given him.
After her box of voices had fallen silent, she'd grown restless and seemingly paranoid. Listening to it always seemed to put her in a foul mood, which was understandable. Hearing it made him feel that way too. She made one more circuit of the building before heading back outside, checking in a full circle around them. It was safe to head out, but the frown didn't leave her face.
Things were going to be alright, though. This place was quieter than where they'd come from, less signs of Others in competition for food and space. If they could find somewhere more sheltered, it would be a good spot to settle down. That would be good; he would like it if she fought with him again. Maybe they could share some more food. And he didn't have to think about sinking his claws into her flesh and ripping apart the tendons because she was Sister.
They travelled in the open for a bit, as she pointedly avoided the shadows in the narrow passages branching off to the sides, which told him that she was expecting an ambush. But from what? There was nothing obviously dangerous that he could hear or smell… at least downwind of them. His nose wrinkled. She might be right about something going on, and if she was, then whatever was out there was clever enough not to give away that it was nearby. Smart; it was never a bad thing to be cautious. He would make sure to stay alert, too.
Eventually a small, inconspicuous building wedged between two others apparently passed her inspection and she fussed with the entrance until it swung open. Inside led down a short distance into a snug, comfortably dark space scattered here and there with strange, glistening objects and hung with soft things of various colors. Not a bad choice. It was too fragrant with lingering, unrecognizable scents that were inevitably going to give him a splitting headache, but the only way for intruders to see in was through a couple of narrow openings and the other smells might be enough to cover up hers. For that, he could tolerate it.
As he did when he was trying to avoid the attention of Others, he knelt close to the ground to destroy the evidence of their footsteps in the white cold for a short distance around, to at least briefly throw anything that might follow them. His Sister who he wasn't going to picture opening up and spilling out the lurid splash and sweet, coppery tang of innards-
Don't, don't-
She- she bobbed her head in affirmation and entered first. Waiting for him to join her. Adrian clenched his fingers tighter around his trinket and stood staring at his breath rising and disappearing into thin wisps in the air until she called his name from inside.
Everything was going to be okay.
Please let that be true.
Having to sit around and worry blew. Skyler liked situations that she could resolve by saying "Fuck it, I'm just going for it", which had not been the case practically since her current predicament had started. Now she felt like she had a shit list a mile long, and the best call she'd been able to make was to lay low until Cat presumably made good on her word and they could make a Dunkin run, hopefully without being intercepted by Miss Pink- or, Nicole, she guessed, and her Leaper buddies.
In the absence of any threat to take care of in the new-agey parlor or, hell, much else to make her feel like she was being productive, she'd pilfered one of the dusty horoscope pamphlets from up front and sat herself with her feet up on a low table. Not that she believed these things; not even Lauren had, allegedly, which hadn't stopped her from reading them on the regular.
"This week holds potential for both great stress and sowing seeds for the future, Pisces," she read with a flourish towards Adrian, who was presently pacing restlessly and pausing only occasionally to cast her an unreadable look in return. "While transformative Uranus ignites upheaval and possible strife in your daily routine, Pluto urges you towards introspection, for better or for worse. Expect to find yourself examining your own emotions with an even keener lens than usual. How you will meet these challenges will be determined by you. Don't be surprised if you find your social sphere expanding, either."
In the silence that obviously followed, she reclined back into the sofa hard enough for it to squeak, crunching the paper up in her hand.
"Be real with me, kid. Are you dying on me? After everything? Would you even know it?"
Adrian came to a stop, then simply sat down on the floor where he stood and tugged his hood down lower over his face.
"Shit."
The old sage and oils were starting to get oppressive. She could just imagine an invisible clock ticking away. Never in a million years did she think she'd be this concerned about exactly how immediately terminal turbo-rabies was.
Tick. Tick. Tick.
Skyler held down the transmit button on her radio without sitting up. "Cat."
Some sounds of a scuffle emanated a moment later, followed by a casual, "Speaking!"
"I'm gonna be unreachable for a little bit. Let you know when I'm back."
"Gotcha." A noise that was almost certainly a death rattle of undetermined origin was audible in the background. "Giving you a thumbs-up from over here. Talk to you soon!"
She hesitated on the frequency anyways, well aware that speaking wasn't one of her strong suits. Unfortunately though, between her and Adrian she was the only one who even could, so that left her. She held down transmit.
"Hey. Four Dog? Me again. Hi."
"Hey! Just the girl I was hoping to hear from. How're you doing tonight, sister?"
"Oh yeah. Fine. I'm fine."
"Uh oh."
"Can I ask you something? Kind of health-related?"
A few seconds later he responded, bewildered, "I mean. Sure? I can't tell you I'll have an answer. I am, uh. A DJ, not a doctor."
"So, you know those little warnings that come on the inside of thermometers? And they tell you to go to the doctor if you get over 103 or something? Do you know how serious that is? Is it one of those things where it's like, oh you might have 'broken something, you should probably go to the doctor'? Or 'you should be in the hospital now?'"
Four Dog took a long, heavy breath. "Alright, out of character for a second, oh my god everything you ever say to me is so concerning. You know that, right? We're not going to deal with half of that right now. For starters though, you've got to start asking some serious questions about whether that dude with you knows he's immune. But, uh. I'm really not the one to ask about this. Listen, I'm gonna put you on with one of my DnD buddies, or- Medical, I mean. Cool?"
"Sounds good."
"Just give me a while."
Tick. Tick. Tick.
Skyler drummed her fingers on the table in front of her. "Don't you hate being on hold?" she grumbled. Adrian didn't look at her.
Somewhere around twenty minutes passed during which she lazily etched patterns into the table with her knife. After the wait, an unfamiliar man's voice crackled in.
"Um. Hi?" Somehow the tone didn't quite inspire the confidence she'd hoped for when she'd heard she was being put through to medical.
"Hey. Who's this?"
"This is Josh- Dr. Langford," he sheepishly corrected himself. The flustered man on the other end coughed uncomfortably. "Anyways. Four Dog said you were having an emergency or something?"
"Emergency," she brushed off, but couldn't help frowning. "Maybe."
"Okay, so someone you're with is running a fever. Do you mind if I ask them a few questions?"
There was problem number one. Skyler hissed in through her teeth, peeking over at Adrian.
"He... doesn't talk," was what came out, failing to dig up a lame excuse.
There was a long silence from the doctor on the comm. Eventually, Dr. Langford came back with, "You mean like he's unresponsive, or…?"
"Just. Hasn't since I met up with him," she replied honestly.
"...Okay," Dr. Langford sighed, exhaustion tangible even in voice only. "So, like. I can tell you the fever itself probably isn't going to do much, but it can be a symptom of… you know. Some scary stuff."
"Yeah. I know."
"Not necessarily… that. There's some things to look out for in this time frame though."
"Are you our expert or something?"
"Yes. Actually. I am now."
"Now?"
"...Uh-huh!"
The strain behind the affirmation was telling.
"Uh. Damn. Sorry? What happened there?"
"Sooo. Until a month ago our go-to was Dr. Carlton, right? Real great guy. Respected virologist. Funny though! Turns out that doesn't mean you're immune. Went through the whole 'At least I'll further our knowledge' deal. Noble as hell. And then he uh. Died anyways."
"Oh."
"I was his intern. I started my graduation capstone back in August." All of the energy drained out of this poor guy's voice before he finished.
This proved to be a pretty effective conversation killer for a little bit. Skyler twisted her knife deeper into the wood, then lowered her voice as though it mattered whether the only other inhabitant of the room heard her.
"So, if it is… that. What am I expecting? I've never seen the whole thing end to end."
"So first thing you should check for are any bite wounds. Usually as far as contact goes it's only a bite that'll transmit it, it's concentrated in the saliva. Unless there's been contact with one of the weird ones. The ones that have stuff coming out of them are sort of disease bombs. Don't freak out right away if it doesn't look too irritated, either; it's not 100% transmissible. Did you get all that?"
"Mhmm. I'll take a look when I get a chance."
"Okay. Just… quick if you can. The closer it is to the head or spine, the less time you might have to work with. After that is when the flu symptoms start coming in. Fatigue, headache, nausea, fever, stuff like that. Around then is when most people start acting kind of erratic. Smaller things like increased anxiety, irritability, struggling with decision-making. The light and sound sensitivity is coming in, that's another sign of the brain swelling. Any of that sounding right?"
"I-I don't know. How about after that?"
"You sure you want to hear the whole thing? It's… pretty rough."
She cupped her chin in her hand with an elbow down, wondering the same. Did it change anything?
"...Yeah. I think I should."
"Well. Alright then. After that is when you're not mistaking it anymore. By then you're getting into irrational aggression and delusional thinking. Lots of disorientation and confusion about day and location. Sometimes you're hallucinating by then, sometimes it's a little later, tends to start out with simple ones and progress into the complex audiovisual ones. Mileage kind of varies with the mental side. Usually more of a gradual slide, rarely a nosedive.
"Physically, things are ramping up and a lot of the time the first thing you notice is that eye membrane developing. Senses are changing, complaints about the appetite are getting more frequent. By that point your hypothalamus is pretty busted which has your emotional responses all over the place and trashes your temperature regulation. Everyone gets the muscular aches, but if they're paired with anything like darkening around the nail beds, loosening teeth, extreme bloating… that picture, it's gone from serious to serious.
"Not long after that, you're basically nonfunctional. On those charts where a ten is "I can't think of anything but how much pain I am in", you've hit the ten. If you're responsive at all, you're unable to recognize loved ones, answer simple questions about yourself, all that. If you're really lucky you get a seizure or two thrown in there for good measure."
"Christ."
"Yep. Nearly everyone is attacking anyone uninfected the second they manage to drag themselves back up on their feet, if they didn't die. The special ones take a while longer because the physical end is so extensive. All in all can be anywhere from a few days to… an hour or so. Again, not… not trying to freak you out."
Skyler's mouth felt dry. It didn't occur to her to reply for a bit, too preoccupied on Adrian's back and the faint jingle she'd begun to associate with his stress level climbing.
"Shit, kid, you really don't catch a break, do you?" she mouthed in awe before returning to the conversation, "Nah. Don't worry about it. Listen though, I'm wondering. So I know a lot of people die before they turn. But do they… you know… die afterward? Like, do you have an expiration date from there?"
"That's hard to say. See, most of the time with stuff in this neighborhood, what gets you eventually is when paralysis sets in and the lungs stop working-"
She physically jerked, momentarily taken up by an alarmed compulsion to see if he was in fact suffocating on the floor. The sudden motion in turn startled Adrian enough that he sprang out of his seated position and into an attacking crouch, looking ready to rip the first thing that got near him a new one, only to shake himself off twitchily and back off to retreat behind the counter in back as Dr. Langford finished,
"And they do get some of the facial paralysis and motor issues, but it doesn't really seem to progress further than that? At least in the few months since everything went down. Plenty of them don't make it very long, but I wouldn't count on the world being saved because they all just dropped dead anytime soon."
Okay, so maybe not suffocating on the floor, anyways. That was news, although it felt weird to call it good news. She must have stayed shut up for a little too long, because Dr. Langford followed up with,
"Everything okay over there?"
"Probably! I'll radio back if anything comes up. I've gotta go to Dunkin. Thanks."
"Y-you're welcome?"
"Later."
She switched over the frequency before anything else could be said, totally not putting off an explanation that she was a few months too late to check whether this kid was going to turn. Which was definitely something that was going to have to be dealt with, and hell now all she'd managed to do was lessen some of the concern that he was going to keel over and replace it with the reminder that she had about a week maximum to either show up with a fucking Hunter of all things or… not.
Okay.
This was going to be fine.
She was handling this.
Skyler pushed to her feet, grabbing one of the beaded pillows off the sofa. She shuffled towards the restroom, passing Adrian's hiding spot where he was tensely alternating between rubbing at his face and arms as she did so.
"Be right back," she sighed, then closed the door behind herself, took a deep breath, and stuffed her face deep into the pillow to let out a good, solid, ten second-long yell.
A/N: Look at me go! Another update within a pretty reasonable time span? I'm doing my best to keep this up! I've found myself in more of a groove than I have been in a long time. I try to keep this note brief, but I would like to ask a question to anyone who's been keeping up. As you might know I started writing this back in 2016 (disregarding its original version) and reading back, I'm sort of questioning now how respectful it was that way back in chapter 3 I included Adrian's birth name. I'd mentioned it to give a little picture of what life events he'd been going through prior to being infected, but could probably rework it without much trouble. Feedback is always open!