Chapter 12
Morning arrived, light leaking over the desert like it didn’t want to touch the ground.
Rosewood felt hungover, staggering and brittle, awake but dazed.
The fires on the ridge had died down to smoldering lines of smoke, but the town itself was coming apart in smaller, quieter ways.
Mary Anne walked down Main Street with her sleeves rolled up, her clinic bag slung over her shoulder.
The air smelled like dust and rot. Trash bins had turned sour overnight—milk curdled, and meat spoiled.
Without refrigeration, everything was racing the sun.
People were already outside, restless and pale. A woman waved a hand fan made of cardboard, complaining about the heat. A group of men argued near the market doors, voices sharp in the still air. No one shouted early in Rosewood—not before coffee—but order was gone.
Mary Anne kept walking. The market’s glass doors stood propped open, the smell of spoiled produce spilling onto the street.
Inside, the shelves were half empty. The store’s owner, Tom Hill, stood behind the counter, sweat streaking his face.
He was counting what was left—mostly canned goods, dry cereal, and a few bags of rice.
“I need first aid supplies,” Mary Anne said.
Tom didn’t look up. “Already gave the sheriff half my stock yesterday. Gauze, alcohol, and bandages. That’s all there was.”
“Do you have salt?”
He pointed at a lower shelf. “Two boxes left. Take one.”
She crouched, grabbed it, and nodded her thanks. Behind her, someone shouted. Two men were fighting near the door, one clutching a crate of apples gone soft. The other grabbed his arm. The crate fell, fruit bursting across the tile.
“Stop it,” Tom shouted. “You’re tearing the place apart.”
Neither man stopped.
Mary Anne stepped between them, hands raised. “Enough. There’s plenty for today,” she said. “You start fighting now, you’ll burn through what’s left before noon.”
The taller man spat on the floor. “Tell him that.”
The other glared. “He was taking from my cart.”
“Your cart’s community property now,” Mary Anne said. “Everything is. That’s how we survive this.”
It wasn’t the law, but it was what she had. The men backed off reluctantly, muttering. Tom rubbed his forehead. Mary Anne glanced outside. People were forming a line that wasn’t really a line, just bodies drifting closer, waiting for someone to say the rules out loud.
“Keep the doors open. Fresh air will help with the smell… And keep a bucket of water by the entrance. If it comes to a fight, you’ll need it.”
Tom gave a hollow laugh. “Christ. You sound like you’ve done this before.”
By noon, the heat turned brutal. Flies swarmed anything that resembled food. Arguments over water and bread, and a rumor that someone behind the feed store was hoarding canned beans, filled the air.
Sheriff Hale appeared near the courthouse, his hat pulled low, eyes shadowed.
He was flanked by three men carrying rifles slung across their backs, old hunting pieces that might as well have been badges now.
He saw Mary Anne crossing the square and raised a hand. “Doc, have you seen the storehouse?”
“Not yet. What’s going on?”
“People are claiming someone broke in overnight. Took maybe twenty cans. Or maybe they’re lying. No one knows.”
She wiped sweat from her forehead. “You’re guarding it?”
“Until we figure out who’s stirring this mess.”
“Rumors are faster than truth.”
“Yeah. Right now, truth’s slower than I am.”
“Stay calm. The town’s looking to you.”
He gave a humorless smile. “God help them.”
She moved on, cutting down the narrow alley behind the market. The shade there was a small mercy, cool air sliding against her skin. Her clinic bag felt heavier with every step. She stopped at a porch where two teenagers sat with their hands wrapped in bloodstained rags.
“What happened?” she asked.
“Glass. Someone threw a bottle. I was just standing there.”
“You’ll need stitches, but you’ll live.”
“Guess I’m lucky.”
“Luck’s running short,” she said quietly.
By the time she finished bandaging the boys, her shirt was soaked through. The salt she’d taken from the market rattled softly in her bag. She moved toward the next house.
Inside, a woman was sitting at her kitchen table, head in her hands. A loaf of bread sat between her and a neighbor. “He says I stole it,” the woman said without looking up.
The neighbor stood rigid. “It was mine. Bought it two days ago.”
“Split it,” she said. “You want to survive this? Then start acting like it.”
By late afternoon, the streets shimmered with heat.
Every window was open, every door half-closed.
A line of people waited outside the town hall well, buckets and jugs in hand.
The pump wheezed, water dribbling into a tin basin.
Mary Anne passed them, catching fragments of conversation, fear wrapped in gossip.
She reached the clinic just as a small crowd surged past, heading toward the square.
Someone yelled about the hardware store and looters.
The store’s front window was shattered, glass glittering across the pavement.
Shelves were overturned, tools scattered like bones.
Two men wrestled near the door, grunting, dust rising around them.
Sheriff Hale shouted, pushing through the crowd.
His rifle was raised but not aimed. No one moved.
One man grabbed a hammer from the floor and raised it.
Hale fired once into the air. The crack of the gunshot tore through the street, echoing off every wall.
Silence followed. Hale lowered the weapon slowly, and his hands shook. “Everyone, go home.”
For a long moment, no one did. Then, one by one, they scattered, muttering, staring at him like he’d broken something sacred.
Mary Anne stepped forward, scanning the faces.
A man near the doorway clutched his arm, blood trickling through his fingers.
He let her take his arm. A jagged cut ran from wrist to elbow, glittering with slivers.
She worked quickly, plucking the fragments with tweezers from her kit.
Hale stood a few feet away, staring at his rifle. The tremor in his hands hadn’t stopped.
“You okay?” she asked without looking up.
“First time I’ve fired in ten years. Didn’t even hit anything.”
“Good. Means you were still trying to protect people.”
“It’s starting, isn’t it? People turning.”
“They’re scared. Fear makes people stupid. Just hold the line as long as you can.”
The sheriff nodded faintly. When she was done, she told the injured man to rest inside. Then she turned toward the fading sky. The sun was dropping fast, sinking into a haze of brown smoke. The silence after the gunshot felt heavier than before.
Children huddled on porches. Mothers whispered in low voices.
Mary Anne walked back toward the clinic, each step echoing against the dead air.
The main street was deserted, with only drifting dust and the occasional creak of metal as the wind shifted signs on their hinges.
At the clinic door, she hesitated. The sky was almost black, with no stars visible through the haze.
Inside, the candlelight flickered against the hallway walls, throwing shadows that stretched and bent.
The smell of wax and alcohol lingered. Her hands trembled as she set down her bag.
She leaned against the wall, pressing her palms to her eyes.
The sound of the child’s crying carried through the open window, soft and endless.
Outside, the wind shifted again, brushing dust across the windows.
It sounded like footsteps, or whispers, or the memory of both.
Mary Anne picked up the candle, walked to the window, and peered out.
The street below was empty. The wind moved trash along the gutter, a soft scraping that made the shadows twitch.
When she turned back, the hallway seemed longer than before, the light trembling over plaster and tile.
She could hear the faint creak of the roof settling, the distant murmur of people trying to sleep in a town that didn’t know how anymore.
She sat on the floor, candle beside her, back to the wall.
The flame bent and straightened with every breath of air.
She thought of the clinic, the faces she’d bandaged, Hale’s shaking hands, and the sound of the shot.
It felt like something fragile had cracked, not shattered, but fractured deep enough that no one would ever be able to mend it. She watched the wax pool harden again, her mind circling the same thought over and over. How many more nights could they survive?