I knew the shot wouldn't kill the brawny sergeant. But I'd been duck hunting with my dad enough to know that the spread of the shell's pellets at this distance would be wide enough to pepper him from head to foot. The sergeant tried to pull himself to his feet. Already I could see that he was bleeding from his arms and his face.

I fired again. This time I hit one of the rangers side-on. A concentration of pellets ripped into his elbow. He cried out and clutched at his arm. Blood fell and splashed onto the pavement like spilled coffee.

I could see the wounded sergeant calling out to his men to fall back into the armored vehicles. A couple of rangers ran out into the road and dragged the fallen private, who looked like he'd lost consciousness. I didn't fire. The squad knew they'd been outmaneuvered. They couldn't stay in the street while I was in an upstairs window with plenty of ammunition. They all scrambled into the vehicle, then they sped away.

But I knew that many, many reinforcements were bound to arrive in minutes.

For now, though, the pharmacy was totally unguarded.

"Let's go," I said to Chris. "We have to hurry."

We raced downstairs and across the street. The electronic metal door that the Home Guard had installed at the pharmacy had a simple card scanner, just like an ATM machine. Chris slid in Jason's access card and jerked it out. The door instantly opened.

We rushed inside.

I drew my pistol.

I don't know what I expected to find, but the pharmacy looked basically like it had always looked before the quarantine. Tim Huckabee was even behind the counter, the only pharmacist I ever remembered working there. He had to be at least in his seventies. The only difference now was that now he was wearing a white Home Guard medical uniform a lot like Chris's.

He didn't even recognize me. But I doubt I would have recognized myself. I probably looked absolutely insane climbing up on top of the counter in scrubs and with bare, scratched feet, waving a pistol in his face.

I had no idea what I was doing. All I could think about was every bank robbery I'd ever seen in a movie. The robbers almost always jumped up on top of the counter and started screaming aggressive orders.

What else was I supposed to do?

"Antibiotics and TGV tests!" I screamed. "Where the hell are they?"

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