Gray (Book 3) by Lou Cadle Page A

an unbroken bottle of lidocaine, the name etched into the glass, which was better than gold. The horrible image she’d been holding at the back of her mind of trying to remove an appendix without any anesthetic faded. This wasn’t general anesthesia, but it was something. Maybe enough to keep a surgery patient from lurching while she had a knife moving in his abdomen.
    Another glass bottle held bright blue chunks, the size of rock salt. The label was intact but scorched, and as she turned it this way and that, she could make out small print: CuSO4. “Copper sulf…” she said, and thought it through, deciding on “…sulfate. I’m not sure what it’s for. Funguses, maybe?”
    Martin said, “Sure, farm animals get fungal infections, like on their hooves.”
    “We’ll take it, then.” She hoped it wouldn’t do anyone any harm if she tried to use it to treat athlete’s foot or a similar condition. She racked her brain, trying to remember from high school chemistry what other uses there might be for it, but she drew a blank. “It sure looks like it could dye something nicely.” It was as bright a color as she’d seen in months.
    Kathy said, “We’re not at that point of recovery, I’m afraid. What we manufacture doesn’t get decorated. And we don’t make all that much. Not enough raw materials.”
    Martin said, “The optimists will like it. Make them think of a time when they can dye fabric or wool again.”
    Benjamin said, “You’re not one of the optimists, I take it?”
    “We seem to be losing ground so far. I’m hopeful most days—but I admit there’s no real reason to be.”
    “Food is becoming our real problem,” said Kathy. “We’re in strict rationing, and we haven’t seen any game in months now.”
    “I haven’t, either,” said Benjamin. “Remember the rabbit stew, Coral?” He sighed with the memory.
    She nodded but kept her focus on the supplies. A brown glass bottle had a label with the word “injection” still readable, and underneath that, “for,” but the rest of the label had flaked off. Coral unscrewed the cap and sniffed cautiously. “Gah,” she said, recapping it. “That has to be vitamins of some sort. You can smell the B’s.” They had a distinctive odor, rich and yeasty.
    “I guess that’s useful,” said Kathy. “Or will be, as our food supply dwindles.”
    Not really. No vitamin solution could replace calories. “I’d have no idea how much to inject.” Vitamin B deficiency—what were the signs of that? She couldn’t recall. It wasn’t scurvy or rickets—those were C and D deficiencies. She wondered if the solution was edible. One drop in everyone’s food? If she were going to experiment with such things, it should be on herself first. It wasn’t fair to ask others to be her guinea pigs.
    The impossibility of faking the doctor role momentarily overwhelmed her. What the hell was she doing here, trying to pretend to be something she was not?
    The vitamins had started her thinking of food again. She said, “If you’re running out of food, how can you feed the two of us?”
    “It’s not that bad yet. We’ll find a way,” said Kathy, her tone soothing. “For my part, it’s worth giving up a plate of food every month to have medical care for all of us.”
    “How many of you are there?” asked Coral.
    Martin said, “We’d rather not say—not yet. Not until you meet with our leader.”
    “Okay,” said Coral. “I understand. But tell me if I’m taking too much or not enough here, would you?”
    Kathy said, “It’s not too much, I assure you. Nothing would be too much.”
    So there were a number of them. More than the cult. Harder to get away from. A hundred? A thousand? How the hell could you manage to feed a thousand people for over six months? You couldn’t. This was a world in which a small band—or two people—had a better chance of surviving than a large group.
    A plastic crate that had been fused to the concrete held more glass