Adrian came to. He recognized the old man staring with wild eyes into his face but the room he was in wasn’t familiar. Between the blinding pain in his leg and the temporary location amnesia, he could barely remember his own name. What was beginning to get familiar were the eye floaters that swam in his eyes. His body tremored and felt icy-hot.

“Low blood sugar, or something..” he mumbled. The old man gave an inquisitive look, moved his lips and made noise, but Adrian was already fading out again.

---

Fire brought him back to consciousness this time. Adrian tried to scream but had something hard in his mouth, pulled back to make him grimace. It had been tied with something behind his head to keep it in place. That was all he could register before most of his sense turned to black. Vision was blank, he felt nothing but fire and a thin picking sensation in his hip. He would be screaming in his agony if it wasn’t for the gag in his mouth, and with the pain he was obligated to bite down on it. Whatever it was cracked in his mouth after some time and strain, and then Adrian once more faded out.

---

The old man was somber in his sobriety, now that the party had ended. Like only trauma can, shooting this young whippersnapper cleared his head. Still too drunk, he had located the med kit and managed to staunch the blood flow. And oh deary lord could this boy bleed. Kenny had shot him in the ass, very close to the hip bone. It was meant to be a scare tactic to get the boy out of here, but his aim misaligned when the boy-- Adrian, he said he was, broke free of the knot his hands were bound in. Quite a surprise. Kenny moved an armload of bloody rags and towels away and threw them into the embers of a dying fire. He looked over at the kid. Sleeping. Probably won’t wake up until tomorrow.

It had been at least three hours since they were introduced to each other, and over the time spent and as the clouds darkened, Kenny couldn’t quite say he came to like this guy. But he did the kid wrong, and had the talents and provided tools to make it right. He took a victory swig of the vodka that had been used for sterilization earlier.

“Ya damn fool… made me use half my stash.” he said dryly. He chuckled while taking another swig. Suddenly remembering, he hopped up and went over to Adrian. He put his hands behind his head and untied his makeshift bit: about half of a broomstick he had broken over his knee, and then tied tightly around his head. As he was untying, he noticed the flow of blood turn the tightened skin from white into a flushed pink. The rope he had used left imprints on the man’s scalp. He checked the wound, the one he had cauterized with his wood whittling knife after setting it in his inside campfire of mismatched odds and ends; it was comprised of alcohol soaked rags, pieces of cardboard from discarded items that had already been scavenged, and a couple more broom sticks he had cracked over his knee. Kenny wasn’t strong, nor young, but he wasn’t weak.

Kenny went to put Adrian’s medkit back in his duffel bag. A looter? Murderer? Sure. But no thief. He had honor, and the poor folks he went and offed that were hiding out in this store put a tainted taste on his mouth that only beer was washing away right now. They were still out…

Hang on, what in the blazes is this? Kenny went up to Adrian’s duffel bags, his backpack, and his sheath. All of which he had disrobed from Adrian when he had tied him up like a hog. Kenny picked up the sheath and took out the cane that he himself made ten years ago. He noted with nostalgia the supreme condition of the hickory wood, the dried blood on the bullfrog with its throat extended. This was one of his most favorite pieces he had crafted. And he did so as an anniversary gift for… Evan Croteau? Was that who? It’s been a decade and one extremely long eight months… but yes. This was Evan Croteau’s fortieth wedding anniversary present. He had given his wife Ellen an adorable handmade wooden charm bracelet with three trinkets to put on it: a horse, a hot air balloon, and a crescent moon. Kenny was close friends with the Croteau’s and made her gift a craft that symbolized their honeymoon vacation.

He was getting distracted. He shook his head when Adrian moaned just loud enough to be heard. Kenny did a shoulder check, but he was still out for the count. He turned back and rotated the cane until he found it. His initials. K.S. Wells. Kenneth Stanley Wells.

How in the dickens did this child, this barely-a-man, get this cane that he had made for his friend? A grim feeling washed over him as he thought of the possibility that Adrian killed the Croteau’s. Those poor, sweet people. Killed them and then raided their small house they could barely afford in their retirement. Air puffed out of his nostrils in an angry fashion as he again noted the blood that was caked onto the bullfrog. He glared at Adrian, the man whose life he had just put in danger and then saved, and now thought about ending. Evan had been Kenny’s childhood friend and if this asshole had killed him…

But what Adrian had said earlier popped back into Kenny’s mind. The kid was basically begging me, begging me! A frail man at the age of sixty-seven, he was begging me to let him go. He did come with his hands raised when he could have came in swingin’...

Now Kenny felt confused. He wasn’t a jury or a judge, and these violent ways were foreign and discomposing on his mind. Kenny wasn’t even that heavy a drinker until yesterday morn’ where he found a sweet love for the taste of its relief. The vodka burbled uncontrollably in his gut, and with it his temper faded. Kenny didn’t think of himself as a bad guy. When he had gotten here… that poor family. But he was so hungry, and they had jumped him when he had helped himself inside their store. He repressed the memory and took a long draught from the bottle. There was maybe two finger’s left.

Now that his head was more clouded, he could think. Most of his thoughts were muddled now and he could control the flow of them. He decided that, no, Adrian wouldn’t have killed the Croteau’s. He thought it more likely that Evan and Ellen had driven their car to the docks and taken their boat to their parent’s summer cottage that they had inherited. He was happy at the thought of them getting away and surviving.

Kenny looked at Adrian one more time, and sighed. He had done all he could for the kid. The wound was sealed, the bullet was gone. He checked the bleeding again and saw that Adrian would have to change it when he woke up. But Kenny wouldn’t be here, he couldn’t look at him with all that had passed between them. However interconnected and whatever the score between them was, Kenny just wanted to forget. He finished the vodka, set the bottle down on the ground and found a notepad and a pen in his own supplies. He wrote a note and left both in Adrian’s eyesight. He packed his own gear, put Adrian’s water by him and set down a pack of beef jerky from his own wares, and left through the gaping bucktooth grin of Reggie’s.

---

Adrian awoke as sunlight dawned on him. Sunlight? What time is it? He opened his eyes and once again couldn’t locate his surroundings. Where the hell am I? He thought. It registered when he saw the cash registers. Reggie’s. He was at Reggie’s, on the ground for some reason. He made to get up.

A blistering ripple shook through his hip and his leg spasmed violently. He cursed, bit his lip hard enough to draw blood, and pounded the ground with his fist, hoping to gain tension relief but finding none. What the fuck was that? It feels like I got shot… and it dawned on him. He fell back down but didn’t pass out. Refreshed eyes, crusted with sleep, opened and looked down at his legs. His pants were undone but pulled up to his waist. Tentatively, he pulled them down to inspect the wound. He saw a square bandage that he thought might have came from his own medical kit. The patch had a blood stain soaked into it, and as he inspected it the splotch only grew bigger.

Inspecting the area by turning his head in a circle, he came to several conclusions at once: The old man was gone, Adrian’s stuff hadn’t been stolen, and he was now inside of Reggie’s. That last realization should have came back with the flood of memory that happened when his gunshot reminded him of itself. To blame a spotty memory on the past day or two isn’t stretching reality that thin at all. There was a counter a couple of feet behind him, so he crawled as slowly as he could without moving his left flank so that he was laying his back and right hip against it peacefully. Heavy eyelids closed and then opened, for the first time in a long time Adrian didn’t feel tired. He didn’t feel rested; hunger and thirst were becoming mortal enemies, but he didn’t feel tired and Adrian was in a mind to count his small blessings. Like the continuation of his life.

His stomach twirled with a potent brew of confusion and guilt. He had truly come close to dying. For whatever reason, that old man refused to be pacified and he had shot Adrian right in his left ass cheek. Now that he had come so close to death’s door, he didn’t know if he really did want to die. He wasn’t sure if a guilty conscience ridden waking life was a bad idea, anymore. The blackness, the pain. The burning sensation… Adrian never wanted to experience anything like it again. He had thought the twisting knife that Douglas had stabbed him with when he blocked out Adrian from his life was suffering that he’d never wish on anyone else, but now, at least temporarily, it paled in comparison. He grimaced as he shifted his weight to reach passed the bottle of water (his lips were cracked, throat was as dry as a riverbed, but he had not had anything other than stale granola for forty-eight hours. Hunger won out), grabbed the bag of jerky and opened its vacuum sealed packaging.

The jerky was more chewy than it would be if Adrian had found it fresh on a shelf. He couldn’t even bring himself to check the expiry date. Didn’t beef jerky last nearly forever, anyway? He gulped down half the pack before his jaw grew too tired to chew. He stretched again for the water and let out a bark of pain as has bandage peeled off, the wound opening slightly. He drank greedily and then (while trying to find some privacy) re-cleaned and awkwardly bandaged himself with what he could find in the medical kit. He didn’t have much for the cleaning process besides water and an ointment specifically meant for cuts, but it would have to do. How in the hell am I alive? Why did that old man patch me up? Adrian had assumed it was the crazy old man, although he had no idea why. The last time he remembered talking to him, Adrian was pleading.

The note that the old man had wrote flashed back into Adrian’s mind. It was the first thing he saw when he awoke, but with the disorientation he had thought of it as random garbage. He turned to it and pulled the notepad to himself, beginning to learn how to twist and bend without aggravating his wound. A hard task to accomplish. Adrian read the note while steadily gulping down water, the writing was the scrawl of someone with great penmanship who had obviously not picked up a writing utensil in quite sometime. Through squinted eyes, Adrian could make out the note in its entirety:

Adrian,

I won’t apologize for what I did. I shot you in your leg, and I also performed a surgery that likely as not saved your darn life. The bullet I used, I tossed. Didn’t think you’d want it as a memento, anyway.

As you laid there bleeding out, realization dawned on me. I’m no killer, I’m just an old hardened fool. The family I killed to claim this store will haunt my every dream for the rest of my life. That isn’t to say that I didn’t think about taking that cane you stole from Evan Croteau and battering your damned brains out.

Adrian blinked as he read the name of Evan Croteau. That was a zinger he never predicted. He eagerly read on:

But however you came by that is none of my business. I’m a sinner too, man. Maybe you offed the Croteau’s and maybe you never. But for those of us with heavy hearts, we walk harder. This is why I’ll leave you where you lie. I’ve righted my wrong with you and my hands are clean. Now you will have to stay here and die, or walk your guilty path.

P.S. As a word of advice don’t go into the office in the back, Reggie and his family were holed up in there and that’s where I left them.

Even though he was wrong in the specifics, how eerily close this old man came to predicting Adrian’s past life filled him with a nervous energy. Slowly, Adrian got to his feet by using no strength at all on his left side and instead grabbing his- Evan Croteau’s- cane for support. He was upright now and could see out of the paneless window. Dawn was quickly turning into morning, and with some quick math Adrian discovered with a shock that he had been asleep for approximately sixteen hours. If not, one or two more. Personal record, he thought, chuckled, grimaced and then clutched at his leg. It was an odd turn of events that now his stomach and mind were well and healthy (strictly meaning he had eaten and slept), but now his body was running on fumes. He tested out walking. It was a pitiful thing and after eight excruciating steps, relying heavily on the cane (that was still matted with Kevin’s blood that he had forgotten to clean off), he had made it a measly five feet. Getting home is going to be a fucking treat.

And before that… shouldn’t he loot? It was the thing that he originally came here to do. He looked longingly down at his legs, and then surveyed the shelves. He saw a dozen or fifteen right in front of him. All but the back three were empty from what he could see, and the closest two that were stocked were not heavily stocked. Adrian guessed that the “always stocked shelves” guarantee didn’t extend into the apocalypse.

It took Adrian ten minutes to gather a duffel bag (the one without the rip) and set it on his right shoulder in a way that cradled the bag on his side firmly and had the opening unzipped and propped wide open. He’d have to ditch the other duffel bag, and maybe the backpack too. He had put the sheath back on but was depending on the cane heavily. Adrian perused the aisles at the front with observant eyes. The shelves that were too tall, he leaned on the lower part and banged around the top with his cane until he decided it was empty. A box of crackers fell down from one shelf that had not only expired, but evidently been chewed by mice. Crumbs and rat shit fell out of a hole in the corner. Adrian discarded the box and moved to the aisles closer to the middle of the store.

It was starting to seem like the looting was only done in the front of the store, and as the looters progressed further into the store they were pushed back somehow. Blood splattered a few of the shelves and items on them. A few cleaning supplies. Toilet paper, he managed to stuff two four-packs next to the medical kit in the duffel bag without using up much room. He hadn’t had toilet paper in two months, even though he had used it sparingly before then.

There was a couple packages of paper towels, rubber gloves, dish soap, hand soap, and a lot of dishwasher tabs. A lot of worthless junk. Antiques. He scanned the rest of the aisle quickly and noted nothing, so he moved further back in the store.

These aisles were nearly a fifth full, a vast improvement. More importantly, he had found canned food. Like a child in a candy store, but with the limp and walking speed of an elderly man, he hobbled down the aisle. Soup from a tin can had never had such an appetizing look. He picked up a cream of asparagus and could tell the cans were fine and the food inside was edible. Not wanting a lot of weight in this one bag, he stuffed in the can of cream of asparagus, two chicken noodle and three vegetable. He hefted the bag and decided that there was still an ample amount of room and he didn’t think it was weighing that heavy yet.

Reggie’s was much better described as a mega-convenience store than a grocery store. It sported dozens of aisles but only stocked dry goods. The aisles were aligned like library shelves. The front of the store, upon shoulder-check inspection, consisted of the main door frame and two large rectangular window frames, one to either side. Adrian squinted and saw that the right window frame still had a gnarly piece of glass jutting out in its corner. He went back to inspecting the aisles.

There were ramen noodles, two packages and both were shrimp flavored. He gave an appreciative head bob and tucked them away. Other secret treasures, the rest being cooking and baking supplies he really didn’t need, were canned beans and fish, three boxes of penne, and a box of wafer cookies that he had optimistic thoughts about.

The very last aisles shelves were full on the back side, and empty on the front. Unlike the orderly-but-not-neat placement that the items on the other shelves had been in, remaining roughly where some young grocery clerk had probably placed them, these were grouped in near obvious categories. Some shelves were even dislodged and propped against the wall in order to make more room for some of the bulkier cargo. Adrian saw groups of canned food, junk food, canned fruit and tomatoes, dried meat, a large area for water in bottles and jugs in which there were only two jugs and fourteen bottles. On pegs nearby the water there were several canteens, and on further inspection they turned out to be empty. There was gasoline (only two jerry cans, Adrian nudged them with his good leg and found that they were full), a section for alcohol that only had a twenty-four pack of beer. There were grocery bins of clothes, each of the three shelves apparently for a different sized human. The top belonged to a man, the middle a woman or rather big teenage girl, and the bottom was clearly for a little girl of maybe five or seven. At the end of each shelf was a box of laundry detergent powder resting in a washtub. Near this was a small stash of cleaning supplies: hand sanitizer, three bars of soap, bathroom and kitchen tile cleaner, stainless steel polish and dish detergent. Adrian scooped in the remaining bars of soap (he hadn’t seen soap of any kind in seven months; the only baths he had had were bird baths) and the hand sanitizer before scanning the rest of the shelves. There was nothing of value, in fact it all looked like boxes of… personal effects from home.

He decided against his previous decision, went over to the boxes and began rifling through them. He saw old family photo books with a patch stitched on that read out “HERNANDEZ”, family photos in frames that confirmed his earlier suspicion: a father, a mother and a little girl of about five or seven. They looked like an honest, hard-working and happy bunch. The father had crow’s feet, the mother’s hair was graying but the little girl wore a grin that only children can wear. He noted how her smile also was missing its buckteeth, like the appearance of the storefront.

Adrian set the photo down as he put the connection together between the old man’s note and the situation that was set up on this back shelf. He saw, just to the right of these boxes of family-goods, an open door where a light was flickering. On the window that was opened outwards, he could see the word “OFFICE” written backwards on the side not facing him. The goods he had looted in his duffel bag now felt twice as heavy, guilt adding more weight.

Slowly, Adrian walked to the office door and opened it, the hinges creaked loudly. An irrepressible odor overcame him, the smell of rotting meat and the copper of blood. It was mixed in with something faint but memorable… he recognized it. The sterile aroma of piss. The jerky in Adrian’s stomach began to spin and swirl in the water he had also drank. He fought to keep it all down, knowing how important every bit of sustenance he could get was. The nausea passed, and Adrian walked into the office after pulling his shirt up over his nose.

He instantly regretted it. Adrian vomited (after reflexively hauling his shirt off his mouth) with a bit of propulsion that was mustered up by the mixed feeling of sudden alarm and disgust. Whole pieces of meat scratched his throat as he yacked, and the stomach acid burned it further. He fumbled for his water, but he had left it back where he had gotten shot. Vomit residue was on his lips, with a trembling hand he wiped it.

After stabilizing himself, he looked up again. There sat, in crumpled and depressed forms, the family he had just seen in photographs, and the one that the old man had referenced to. Adrian thought he might cry, but in truth the feelings he had expected never even came after the initial outburst. He felt pity, but not desperation or disbelief. He felt angry, but not infuriated. Most of all, he was sick by the smell that still was threatening to tempt another round of meat-and-spew-stew. He cleared his throat and then winced at the sting.

The father, not obviously but Adrian assumed, was Reggie Hernandez, the original store owner. A Latino man who had strong muscles, jawline and eyes. They stared back in horror below a red hole in the left of his forehead. Blood had dripped and then dried considerably. He didn’t know the name of the wife or daughter, but as his eyes drifted over them the images started to blur. His eyes watered, he tried not to let his mind have the recognition of all that he was seeing. He turned away from the massacred family.

No, this isn’t right, Adrian thought. Although he played the coward for the better part of a year, Adrian knew that that wasn’t who he was. Adrian Shepherd was not a man who would turn his back on someone in need of assistance. He turned back around and set to work.

He laid the family out as delicately as his leg would allow him. Their hands were been folded on their chests and their eyelids were close. Adrian had found towels to wrap around their foreheads, where the fatal wounds were. The process was lit by the last bit of light from a formerly huge candle in a jar. They looked peaceful.

There might be something to say, he thought, but he was never very fond of goodbyes. Instead he solemnly bowed his head and closed his eyes. He didn’t know the family, but if he had been here a couple of days earlier what would they have done? It was evident they weren’t allowing people to take their food, and it must of took the ending of all of their lives in order for the old man to get his harvest of beer and chips. The senile fuck had felt regret, and was clearly someone to feel some remorse as Adrian was alive and hadn’t bled out on a dirty floor on the other side of the country from his home. After a moment, Adrian turned from the family. He was getting accustomed to the smell, but not the sight of them. Not the feeling he got from being in the same room.

Across, on the opposite wall, there was a rickety old table. The sputtering candle that Adrian was only now taking a close look at was illuminating a dozen or so styrofoam cups that held dirt. Each cup had greenage sprouting with tiny nubs of orange peeking out, and Adrian could easily identify them as carrots that were on the verge of being ready to pick. Not quite ready, but they were edible. He pulled one eagerly and brought it to his mouth. It was a babyish looking thing, but bright orange and fresh. He stopped hesitantly and cast a look over his shoulder.

He envisioned the little girl eagerly watering her vegetables everyday, wanting only to contribute to the family’s survival. The father probably looked on with sad pride, the mother offering comforting words of approval. In Adrian’s convoluted story, he also saw the carrot garden as a way that the girl might have kept her sanity. Having a chore, a project to focus on might keep her mind away from her dead friends, relatives, teachers…

Adrian put the carrot back in the dirt. He looked at the sack of stolen goods he had just acquired, and then cast another longing look at the Hernandez family. How far am I willing to go here?

Can I honestly take these goods? Well, in truth, these are groceries. Reggie might have owned the store once upon a time, but those days were gone, he thought. They aren’t his personal belongings, even if he had a right to the ownership of them. Also… if I don’t take these things, some other crazy man will. This isn’t an Egyptian tomb, the Hernandez family doesn’t need to be buried with their treasures…

In the end Adrian was able to convince himself of the honor that existed in plucking items from the dead. With his duffel bag three-quarters full, he scanned the room to decide which items of the grocery horde he would take. An easel, a child’s easel, was propped against the wall. It wasn’t a suitable work prop for Adrian when he stood, but if he sat down to paint…

The material was cheap plastic, and its weight was like air. He hooked it through the straps of the duffel bag, where it poked his armpit slightly when he walked. Then he slowly made his way back out and decided on what was worth taking back home. The water bottles were too low to grab while standing, so Adrian sat and packed six in the bag to take up half of the remaining space. He slung two canteens around his neck after filling them, they swished and clattered a great deal, then filled the remaining space with dried meat and one tin of canned fruit. With awkward finality he zipped the bag close and found its weight to be a hindrance, but a bearable one. Maybe with an ample amount of breaks for his banged up leg, he could make it back to the Croteau’s by high noon. Maybe.