#joseph.1

So he’d pulled into the only fucking autoshop in town and hoped that Joseph Maddox wasn’t gonna try and stiff him or something. Not that they had any sort of history, but he’d watched his dad haggle. He knew shit.

“Hey, anyone here?” He asked, peaking his head into what looked like the office.

Fear made people stupid. Maggie had always known this. It was one of the fundamental truths she had learned in boot camp. In order to lead in times of crisis, one had to be able to put the fear aside and look at the situation with clear eyes and a level head. Even when it felt impossible. Especially when it felt impossible.

She had been at the CVS to get the sort of essentials you couldn’t find at Beanstalks-- tampons, deodorant, cotton swaps-- when the raids had begun. Fear made people stupid. People in Grimmbrook had every right to feel afraid. When the displays guarding razors, alcohol, and other controlled substances started breaking and people started grabbing things, Maggie could almost understand it. Until some poor teenager got pushed over, tripping and stumbling backwards into a pile of glass shards. 

The years as a field medic kicked in immediately. While the raiders ignored her and the kid in favor of the shelves, her eyes snagged on someone else crouching behind a shelf with wide panic in their eyes. 

“Hey.” She said, looking the panicked man directly in the eyes and using her best mediator-nurse voice. “I need your help, right now, or this kid’s going to bleed out on the floor. The mist settles back down in ten minutes, and while we’re safe to stay here, there’s no time to call an ambulance. So you need to help me, okay?”