Take Back Denver Read Online Free Page B

hospital or a constantly-restocked pharmacy even a flu could turn deadly now.
    Carrie waited and watched, figuring that the boy couldn’t be left alone forever. Sooner or later someone would come to check on him, and she’d be able to speak with that person safely.
    She waited for half an hour. While standing up taller on the three branch to stretch her legs, she noticed that she could see the town’s southern roadblock from where she was perched. As she looked on, a woman walked up to the barricade carrying a basket. She pulled two items out of it and offered them to the teenagers on duty. They nodded appreciatively, and after a few more words of conversation, the woman passed the barricade and walked around the corner and up the dirt road Carrie was on.
    As the woman came nearer, Carrie got a better look at her. She was heavy-set and wore glasses, with dark hair pulled up in a bun and jeans. She looked friendly enough, although Carrie wouldn’t want to tangle with her if she got defensive of her boy inside. Carrie waited until the woman had gone inside the house, and then climbed down from the tree and walked to the front of the house.
    Sure enough, plastered across the front door was a large hand-written sign that said ‘Infectious Disease -- Do Not Enter’. A poor attempt at a biohazard symbol was drawn underneath that looked more like a squiggly skull, but was effective either way. Carrie waited by the mailbox.
    Fifteen minutes later the door opened and the woman came out, still carrying her now-empty basket. She shut and locked the door behind her, then came down the steps. When she saw Carrie, she slowed to a stand-still and her brow knitted in consternation.
    “ Hi,” Carrie said, trying her most winning smile. “How’s your patient?”
    “ You aren’t from around here,” the woman said with an edge in her voice. Her eyes flickered toward the entrance to the town.
    “ No, I’m not,” Carrie replied. “I actually hiked over from west of here. I just wanted to see how things are in Crested Butte, and feel out possibilities for trading or helping one another.”
    The woman pursed her lips. “Well, you can go talk to the sheriff. I wouldn’t know what to tell you.”
    “ I guess I didn’t like the look of those barricades you have up,” Carrie admitted.
    “ Those kids won’t shoot you, not if you don’t make trouble. Why don’t you come with me and I’ll introduce you to the sheriff?”
    “ Yeah, okay.” But Carrie didn’t want to be escorted into town just yet, where she’d probably have her gun confiscated at a minimum, and her freedom at worst. So she stalled. “What kind of sickness is it?” she asked, gesturing to the house.
    “ We think it’s tuberculosis,” the woman replied, glancing back at the front door and frowning. “Haven’t been able to get a doctor out here since everything went down. My husband went to Gunnison, but their pharmacy was empty and the little hospital down there wouldn’t do a thing.”
    “ I’m sorry to hear that,” Carrie said. “A doctor from Denver recently arrived at my place in the mountains. She’s a cardiologist, but she might be able to help.”
    That opened up the other woman. They spent the next forty-five minutes chatting furiously about the new post-grid “normal”, what they had and didn’t have in Crested Butte, and what was known about Gunnison and the other mountain communities in the region. By the time Carrie looked up at the lowering sun and realized she had to get going, she and “Tess” were good friends.
    “ I have to get hiking, or I’m going to get caught in the mountains in darkness,” she told Tess. “I promise you, though, I will be back within the next three days with my doctor friend.”
     
     
     
     
    Chapter 5  :  Taking a Prisoner
     
    After leaving Tess, Carrie ran back up the hill they way she had come. It was a hard hike, but she wanted to trace her own steps as much as she could to avoid getting lost.