Charlie

“Excuse me?” a voice called out from behind me, causing my blood to run cold. No one was supposed to be here. I had made sure to check the entire building when I had arrived and locked the doors behind me. 

Well, I’m pretty sure I locked them behind me, the automatic doors were a bit confusing and I had never tried to lock one before. 

Turning around I was relieved to see that the speaker was at least still on the other side of the counter from me. 

The guy looked to be around my age, or maybe a bit older, with short blonde hair and the bluest eyes I had ever seen. He was built like a retired football player though didn’t have that air around him that accompanied guys who preferred to address people with dude or bro. Of course, my brain immediately started complaining about the fact that the first time a hot guy would talk to me would be during the apocalypse. 

“I was hoping to pick up my prescription,” he said after a minute of us just staring at one another. 

“Excuse me?” I parroted automatically completely caught off guard. Who went to pick up their prescription at this time? Also, who in their right mind looked at me and thought I could be a pharmacist. 

“My prescription? It’s under Aiden Rivers” the blonde replied.

I couldn’t tell from the expression on his stupidly perfect face if he was up to something nefarious or just dumb. From where I was standing I couldn’t see the guy's hands which added to the fact that I had no way of knowing if he had come in alone more or less forced me into playing along with whatever was going on. 

Taking side steps so that I could keep an eye on him I made it over to the wall that held all the prescriptions separated by large plastic pieces with letters on them. Managing to find the correct spot on the wall was a little tricky since I tried to never let my gaze move away from the blonde for more than a second at a time. 

The blonde guy smiled at me from where he was standing one of his arms lifting slowly causing my heart rate to speed up to the point that I could hear the blood pumping through my ears. His hand continued up to simply push a lock of his blonde hair back up off of his forehead. 

While it was looking more likely that the man on the other side of the counter was simply an idiot I didn’t feel like risking anything. I began pulling the plastic bags off of the wall and bringing them up into my field of vision so that I could check the name without having to turn away from him. This of course looked about as odd as showing up to a pharmacy during the literal end times was so.

After what seemed like checking a hundred bags I came across one marked with the name Aiden Rivers, knowing that he had at least been telling the truth about this part made me relax fractionally. 

I took a small step forward before tossing the bag toward him. Sports had never really been my thing, honestly, all forms of physical activity were beyond me with my scrawny build. As evidence of this, the bag flew out of my hand before swiftly diving downward and smacking onto the ground on my side of the counter. 

The dumb perfect guy looked from me towards where his prescription fell in bewilderment while I stood there hoping that his accomplice would come along and just put me out of my misery already. 

No one came though, it was still just the two of us standing in an empty pharmacy at the end of the world. 

The guy leaned forward both of his hands coming up to rest on the counter as he arched his neck looking down at the floor on my side of the counter. His stupid blonde hair fell forward again swishing gently with his movements. 

Of course, this would be the point in my life where I would start to develop a type. 

“Sorry” I supplied stupidly before inching my way forward. Once I was just barely close enough I knelt down and picked up the bag by the nearest corner before straightening up and throwing it onto the counter in front of who I assumed was Aiden Rivers. 

“Oh thanks” he replied his left hand going for something behind his back.

“What are you doing?!” I squeaked out my voice cracking as it rose.

Aiden looked at me confused as he pulled his hand back holding a batter brown leather wallet. “For the copay,” he said lifting the wallet a bit higher up as if I was the stupid one. 

It felt like my brain was trying to process everything all at once but still somehow not able to understand anything. It was obvious to me then that Aiden was in fact very dumb. That or he had somehow managed to sleep through the shit show the last week had turned into. 

“You know I’m not a pharmacist, right?” I asked him. 

Aiden’s eyebrows furrowed in confusion as he looked from me to his prescription a few times as if the scene wasn’t computing for him. Definitely extremely dumb. 

“Then why are you in the pharmacy?” 

“Was looking for anything useful” 

“Your stealing?” he questioned his expression remaining confused while taking on a tinge of concern. 

“Dude” I began cringing a little bit, I never said dude to people. “It isn’t really stealing anymore since you know the whole world is kind of done” 

Aiden’s eyes shot back up to meet mine a deep sadness welling up making me feel bad. Maybe he really did have no clue what was going on and here I was ruining his blissful ignorance. 

“The airport” he started his words carefully picked as he tried to mount a protest against my statement. 

“Turned into a complete blood bath” came my reply. “So many infected people all together was not a smart idea” 

“But the government they-”

“Are probably all dead as well” I cut in deciding that rip the bandaid off. “Surprised you didn’t see the press conference where the president had his neck snapped by his wife before she could be taken out by the secret service.” 

While the news was still functioning the reports of who the acting president was rolled in almost hourly. At this point, I’m pretty sure that whoever was alive and uninfected in the white house was the president by default. Not that there was anything left to govern over anymore. 

Aiden looked down at the prescription that was still sitting on the counter and we both stood there as the music from overhead filled the silence. 

“What do we do then?” he asked eventually his voice low and rough. His blonde hair had fallen forward enough to hide his eyes but I was pretty sure that they were filling up with tears if he wasn’t crying already. 

His question went unanswered as I continued to stand there watching him. I would have answered him if there was any response but really there was nothing to do. Having watched the news constantly after this violent new mutation had emerged I had seen firsthand how hopeless and grim the world had become. No one had any answers as to why this was happening or how and it was unlikely to matter now that everything was speeding towards the end times. 

Aiden lifted his head his blue eyes shades darker and filled with the tears I had expected. The fact that he was not full-on crying already was pretty impressive, I couldn’t even count the number of times I had cried recently. 

Something in his eyes though made me regret pulling the bandaid off the way I had. The sadness there was at least partly my fault, I might not be responsible for a virus causing people to turn into homicidal rampaging monsters but I was the one that exposed reality to him. 

“We survive” I replied, my brain not even fully processing what my mouth was saying until it was already out there. The faint sad smile my words pulled from Aiden was worth the obvious lie.