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to check if they had been zombies or victims of zombies. The unmoving dead no longer mattered. As Reed had said, the store had been looted of most food items, narcotics, medical supplies, and oddly enough, cosmetics. The odor of rotten food spilled from open cooler doors. The stringent smell of vinegar rose from a broken case of soured apple juice. As he walked deeper into the store, glass from broken bottles of wine and liquor crunched beneath the sole of his boots. The corpse of a young man lay on the floor between aisles. He had been dead many weeks. His decaying body had almost mummified in the dry heat. From his withered arm protruded a hypodermic syringe.
    “Poor bastard couldn’t even wait to get home before shooting up,” Reed observed.
    “Small loss,” Jake replied, stepping over the body, instantly dismissing it. He had witnessed many similar scenes as a deputy. To him, drugs were a pipeline to death, and dead junkies didn’t bother him. He had become apathetic to people willing to commit slow suicide. It was their families he felt sorry for, not the junkies.
    In the pharmacy section, the shelves been thoroughly ransacked, especially of aspirin, cough syrup, and disinfectants. Some bottles had been deliberately broken in anger, spilling their contents across the floor. Tablets were crushed to a fine powder by the tread of many feet. Reed searched through a pile of rubble and grabbed three boxes of inhalers that looters had missed and stuffed them into a bag he carried. Jake located a large bottle of Torsemide, but only two bottles of Actos, enough for sixty days.
    “I can’t find the Millipred,” Reed mumbled, as he tossed aside boxes in his search.
    J ake scraped up a large handful of aspirin that had spilled from a broken bottle and shoved them into his pocket. “Try the customer Will Call,” he suggested, as he picked up a box of bandages and antiseptic ointment.
    Heeding his advice, Reed checked the packages that had been waiting for customers who would never pick them up. “Yes!” he cried in triumph, holding aloft two vials of Millipred. He read from the package label. “Thank you Mr. Dexter Ellis for your generous donation to the Alton Reed Medical Fund.”
    At the sound of broken glass crunching, Jake motioned Reed to silence. Laying his supplies on the counter, he edged toward the noise. He had taken only two steps toward the customer counter, when a zombie thrust its head through the glass, smashing it. Broken shards stuck in the creature’s head, as well as Jake’s arm. He leaped backwards to avoid the zombie’s clutching hands. He plucked the glass from his arm and wiped the blood on his pants. Reed dropped his load of supplies and pointed his rifle at the creature. Fearing the noise would attract more zombies, Jake cautioned him with a wave of his hand to wait.
    This zombie was no Shambler. It was a Runner, fresh from a kill, eager for more flesh. Barely dried blood coated its mouth and upper torso. It tilted its head to one side and sniffed the air, keening at the smell of Jake’s blood. He had left his knife in the jeep. Keeping his body away from the zombie’s flailing arms, he picked up a long sliver of broken glass, and wrapped one end in a white pharmacist’s smock hanging on a hook. Leaping forward quickly, he jabbed the glass into the back of the creature’s neck between the third and fourth vertebrae and twisted until the shard snapped in his hands. The zombie groaned and died, the glass severing its spinal column.
    “That was close,” Reed said.
    Jake took a deep breath and nodded. “Too damn close. It’s time to leave.” He tossed the bloody smock on the floor and took a closer look at the zombie, a middle-aged male whose clothing was surprisingly clean except for the fresh blood stains. He had turned only recently and fed even more recently. “There’s bound to be more around.”  
    Reed pointed to Jake’s arm. “You had better see to that.”
    Jake glanced at