The Girl in Red

“What everybody got wasn’t responding to Robitussin anyway,” Adam said.

There wasn’t much to say to that, so they all just peered around again.

“What is it we’re supposed to be looking for here, Red?” Dad asked. “Amoxicillin?”

“Yes, and any other kind of antibiotics you can find,” she said. “They won’t be up here with the over-the-counter things. They’ll be in the back where the pharmacist was. But keep your eyes peeled, because it looks like someone made a mess of this store for no damned reason and they might have tossed the good stuff up here.”

“I thought the good stuff was something that made you feel good,” Adam said. “Like opium.”

Red was so intent on checking labels that she didn’t rise to the bait. “Nope. The good stuff is a Z-Pak. They’re like the superheroes of antibiotics. It’s what they give you when you’ve got pneumonia, or when you’ve got strep throat or something that won’t go away with just amoxicillin. But any kind of antibiotics would be good, if we can find them.”

“I didn’t know you knew so much about medication, Delia,” Mama said.

“She’s paranoid about infections,” Adam said. “Of course she knows how to treat them.”

Red picked up a tube of hydrocortisone cream that caught her eye and stuffed it in her pack. It might come in handy. She also grabbed some ibuprofen and a jar of Vicks VapoRub. If she got a regular old cold (not the virus that was killing everybody), the menthol smell always made her feel better, even though she knew that it was all in her head. She associated it with childhood and snuggly sheets and chicken noodle soup and even as an adult when she got a cold she’d rub her chest with Vicks.

Everyone else had moved into the back pharmacy area— Behind the Counter, as Red thought of it. It was a land of mystical geography, normally navigated only by those who knew just what all those multisyllabic words on the jars meant and how they interacted with one another.

“Hey, I found some!” Adam said excitedly, his voice muffled as he bent over to pick something up. He held up a bottle. “Amoxicillin.”

“I think most pharmacies group their medications by type, so look around and see if there is anything else,” Red said, slowly making her way to the back area.

It wasn’t as easy for her to just step on the piles of medicine boxes like everyone else. She always had to be careful of her balance, so she kicked the detritus out of her way as she went, clearing a path until she reached Adam.

Their parents wandered away to another side of the store. She saw them in the mirror that ran all around the ceiling perimeter. They were looking at (and apparently debating the merits of) a mangled display of gel insoles for shoes. It wasn’t a bad idea, really, since Mama wasn’t much of a walker, but it probably wouldn’t matter anyway. Because Mama was going to get sick. Red’s mind turned away from that thought, put it in a closet and shut the door.

Red carefully went to one knee and rummaged in the piles of medicine. “More amoxicillin,” she said. “And . . . yes! Azithromycin.”

“Is that your superhero drug?” Adam said. “When are you getting your medical degree, by the way?”

“Maybe if you cracked a book open at college now and then you might learn some things besides how to do keg stands,” Red said.

“Only white guys do keg stands,” Adam scoffed. “I am a connoisseur of craft beer.”

“You’re half white,” Red said.

Adam glared at her. “Okay, only all-white guys trying to prove something about their masculinity to other all-white guys do keg stands. Better?”

“I think that’s one of the most perceptive things I’ve ever heard you say. Of course, there is the problem of antibiotic resistance,” Red said, frowning at the boxes.

She was the kind of person who actually read the fact sheets that the WHO put on their website. She’d lost about half a day once scrolling through all of them. “It’s possible these won’t do a thing. And I do wish I knew more about how long you’re supposed to take them, depending on your condition. I know that a lot of times people feel better right away but they’re supposed to keep taking medicine a few days longer to make sure everything bad is snuffed out.”

“So we won’t be saved by antibiotics? Make up your mind, Red,” Adam said.

“Just take these,” Red said, handing him several boxes. Better safe, she supposed. If one of them contracted an antibiotic-resistant strain of strep or pneumonia, there wasn’t a lot you could do about that anyhow. Red was sure that doctors in hospitals would know what to do about it, but there would be no hospital staff handy. She put a half-dozen boxes in her bag, along with three bottles of amoxicillin.