Alas, Babylon (Harper Perennial Olive Edition) by Pat Frank
Author:Pat Frank [Frank, Pat]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: Harper Perennial
Published: 2013-06-04T00:00:00+00:00
Randy drove on to the Medical Arts Building. Here, he had expected to find activity. He found none, but he did see Dan Gunnâs car in the parking lot.
There were reddish brown stains on the sidewalk and the green concrete steps. The glass in the front door was shattered and the door itself swung open. The waiting room was ominously empty. There was no one at the reception desk. Randy possessed a country dwellerâs keen sense of smell. Now he smelled many alarming odorsâdisinfectant, ether, spilled drugs, spilled blood, stale urine. He called, âDan! Hey, Dan!â
âIâm back here. Whoâs that?â Danâs voice emerged muffled after echoing through a corridor.
âItâs meâRandy.â
âCome on back. Iâm in my office.â
In the corridorâs gloom Randy stumbled over a pair of feet, and he stepped back, shivering. A body lay athwart the doorway of the examination room, legs in the corridor, torso in the room, face up, arms outstretched. The face was half blown away, but when put together with the uniform, it was recognizable as Cappy Foracre, Fort Reposeâs Chief of Police.
Randy hurried on. A fireproof door hung crazily from one hinge. It had been axed open. Behind the door was the laboratory and drug storage. The smell of chemicals that came from the laboratory was choking and overpowering. Within, Randy glimpsed a hillock of smashed jars and bottles. The clinic had been wrecked, insanely and deliberately.
He was relieved to find Dan Gunn standing in his office. Danâs face was more deeply shadowed with fatigue and a two-day growth of beard, his shirt was torn, and he looked dirty, but he apparently was unhurt. Two medical bags were open on his desk. He was examining and sorting vials and bottles. Randy said, âWhat happened?â
âA carload of addictsâhopheadsâcame through last night. About three this morning, rather. Jim Bloomfield was here, sleeping on the couch in his office. Weâd split up the duty. He took one night, I took the next. You see, with no phones people donât know what else to do except rush to the clinic in an emergency. Anyway, the addictsâthere were six of them, all armedâcame in and woke Jim up. They wanted a fix. Poor old Jim was something of a puritan. If heâd given them a fix he mightâve got rid of them.â
Dan picked up a hypodermic syringe and slowly squeezed the plunger with his tremendous fingers. âIâd have given âem a fix all rightâthree grains of morphine and that wouldâve finished them.â Dan dropped the syringe into one of the bags and shook his head. âThat probably wouldnât have been smart either. Three grains would kill a normal man but it wouldnât faze an addict. Anyway, Jim told them to go to hell. They beat him up They emptied these bags and found what they were after. That wasnât enough. They took the fire ax and broke into the lab and drug storage. They cleaned us out of narcoticsâeverything, not only morphine but all the barbiturates and sodium amytal and pentothal and stimulants like benzedrine and dexedrine.
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