Antibiotics, Then Home

New chapter is live.

Settle in, take your time, and let's see what waits in the dark 🖤

✦

"I'll take you to camp," Merle said. He let out a low, ugly laugh. "Hope that Black son of a bitch is ready to bleed."

Evan walked ahead of him and listened without reacting.

That was Merle Dixon.

One second from being eaten alive, the next ready to grab a weapon and start a fight.

A hard man. A dangerous one.

His way of doing things was extreme, but in the world they now lived in, that came with its own kind of value.

Whatever it was in their blood or their upbringing, the Dixon brothers seemed built for the end of the world.

The older brother was vicious.

The younger one was something else entirely.

As they left the mall, Evan grabbed a city map.

"I do want to go to your camp," he said, unfolding it. "But I have something to handle first."

He glanced at the countdown in the corner of his vision.

It was closing in on one hour.

If he did not move fast, there would be no future to talk about.

"You gonna use that big hammer to cave in some dumb bastard's skull?" Merle asked with a grin.

His eyes kept sliding to the Horse-Bone Sledgehammer on Evan's back.

"Actually, yes." Evan tapped the map, his finger landing on the Atlanta nursing home. "I want to trade some of these guns for something. I need your help."

The words had barely left his mouth before Merle started digging through the weapons bag.

Click.

He chambered a round in the sniper rifle and looked up with a bloodthirsty smile.

"What the hell are we waiting for?"

Ten minutes later, the countdown had officially dropped below an hour.

Evan and Merle approached the Atlanta nursing home carefully.

"Follow my lead," Evan said. "If talking fails, take out the leader and pull back. You only get revenge if you're alive to take it."

He kept his voice low and precise. The last thing he needed was Merle charging out with a rifle and getting torn apart by return fire.

"I got it," Merle said, digging a finger into his ear. "You always this chatty, or did the Boy Scouts make you troop leader?"

Evan suspected Merle would have snapped if anyone else had lectured him like that.

"Good. I'll knock."

With the Horse-Bone Sledgehammer on his back and the gun bag, now down to roughly a third of its original contents, in one hand, Evan walked to the broken front gate of the nursing home.

"One more step and we shoot!"

The warning came when he was about fifteen feet out.

Evan looked up.

A round-faced man appeared above the gate. A dark gun barrel aimed down at him.

Evan tossed the gun bag forward and smiled up at them.

"Is that how you treat guests? I need to see G."

G. Guillermo.

Before the outbreak, he had worked as the nursing home's custodian. After everything fell apart, he had stayed behind to protect the elderly residents inside.

The man above did not lower his weapon. He only glanced at the bag, then disappeared.

Less than two minutes later, the nursing home's gate opened.

Six or seven people came out in a tight group. The first three carried firearms.

The man in front had close-cropped hair and a silver pistol in his hand.

Guillermo.

He stopped in front of Evan, nudged the gun bag with his foot, and looked at the pistols and ammunition inside before raising his eyes again.

"I don't remember inviting you," he said, head tilted slightly. "And you're... military?"

"Relax. It's a simple trade." Evan raised his hands to show he was not holding a weapon. "I need antibiotics. Even a small amount is fine. You can take all the guns and ammo."

"The Army's still out there?" Guillermo lifted the pistol slightly toward Evan's combat uniform. "Then why aren't you out there fighting?"

The uniform made everyone ask the same question.

"Sorry," he said evenly. "The Army is almost gone. I'm here on my own."

Guillermo stared at him.

"And why should I give you medicine? Why not just take the guns?"

The six people behind him laughed.

The sound scraped across Evan's nerves.

Maybe it was his imagination, but he thought he caught a glint off a scope nearby. If Guillermo kept pushing, Merle was going to stop waiting.

"Because," Evan said, his smile thinning, "my partner has a sniper rifle aimed at you right now."

Guillermo's smile vanished.

"Don't move. One step back, and... bang."

As Evan smiled, theirs vanished.

The group went still, eyes sweeping the surrounding buildings.

The nursing home group was not weak, not exactly. But aside from the few guns they had, most of their people were armed with melee weapons. That was why they needed firearms so badly.

Guillermo's mouth tightened.

He looked at the gun bag, then back at Evan.

"What are you waiting for?" Evan asked. "I give you what you need. You give me what I need. Like I said at the start, it's a simple trade."

His eyes stayed on Guillermo.

"There are still elderly residents inside, aren't there?"

Guillermo swallowed.

At that moment, Evan's combat uniform carried authority, but not the reassuring kind.

Here, it looked like a threat.

"Wait here."

Guillermo holstered his pistol and glared at Evan. Then he turned, scanned the area again, found nothing, and settled for glaring at the invisible sniper before bending to pick up the bag.

He withdrew behind the gate.

Five minutes passed.

Evan watched the capsule countdown tick lower and lower. Restlessness crawled under his skin.

Then Guillermo came back out with a small translucent plastic bag.

"Three boxes of antibiotics." He took a breath and met Evan's eyes. There was a plea buried under the hardness. "I hope you don't come near this place again."

'They're all soft underneath the spikes.'

Evan let out a quiet breath.

"Deal."

He took the antibiotics and walked away without looking back.

He could feel their eyes on him as he left.

'Just ordinary people forcing themselves to look dangerous. Not good people, not rotten to the bone either. The kind who have the hardest time surviving a world like this.'

He could not help them.

Not now.

Too many of the elderly could not travel, and the Quarry Camp might not agree to take them in. Rick might not agree either.

Especially not after finding his own family.

Evan pushed the thought aside and walked back toward Merle.

Merle had the sniper rifle resting across the back of his neck and gave a low whistle.

"You got balls. Walking up to a whole crew alone? More than I can say for most of the cowards back at camp."

Approval was obvious in his voice.

Evan suspected Merle had already decided they were on the same side.

Evan opened one box of antibiotics and swallowed two pills dry.

[System Notification]

[Antibiotics consumed.]

[Antibiotics are taking effect.]

The capsule icon in the lower-left corner of his vision turned green. A new countdown appeared beside it, only thirty minutes this time.

That was how long the medicine would take to work.

Evan released the breath he had been holding.

So real-world medicine worked.

Under Merle's puzzled stare, Evan pointed at the bloodstain near his side.

"Looks like it was just a scratch after all. Come on. Take me to that camp you mentioned."

He looked toward the fading sunlight.

"We should go home."

Merle fell in beside him as they walked into the evening.

✦

✦

✦

Want to keep going?

You can read ahead on my Patreon, with early access, previews, and extra story updates 🔑

https://www.patreon.com/c/EliasVane