The Long Dark by B.J. Farmer (reading women .TXT) 📕

as I fell back hard into old habits. There was a reason William and I became such good friends: we were both addicts.

After a few days, Tish’s hands and face had gotten much better. The only indication of frostbite that remained was the pink skin that covered a good portion of the affected areas. Her feet, though. They were a different story. Her big toes were black, and several of her other toes didn’t look much better. Even with as hateful and angry as she had been with me, it was painful watching someone essentially give up on living.

Looking back now, it’s ironic that I felt that way about Tish. Introspection was not a particularly strong point of mine during those days.

I used my terrible relationship with Tish to escape responsibilities. I mean, I didn’t want to upset the patient and make things worse for her, especially since she seemed to be teetering on having a breakdown. On some intellectual level, Aadesh agreed it might be better for me to stay away from her. Still, he also knew that I was quickly reaching the summit of what would be a fast, downhill decline. He also knew that if I wasn’t helping with Tish, that meant he would have to take care of everything. He didn’t have the energy to fight me over it. That left all the time in the world to indulge myself in an almost never-ending supply of drugs that Barrow offered.

There was plenty of booze in Barrow, but I chose prescription drugs over drink. And why not, there was an endless supply of medications available in the deserted drug stores and hospital. There was morphine, OxyContin, Adderall, and, well, just about anything else you could imagine, and I did imagine. Did more than imagine, in fact. Best of all, it was all free and without legal consequences. It was an addict’s paradise. To most people, the end of the world sucked, but I was uncommitted in that regard.

My drug use got so bad I spent hours and hours at a time passed out or near comatose in my makeshift bedroom. When Aadesh forced me out of the room long enough to show me the secret passage in Miley’s office, I was so high I could barely keep my eyes open, much less pay attention to or care about what he talked about. The only thing that half-assed got my attention was Miley having turned his garage into one big EMP-proof Faraday Cage.

It seemed to me there were two likely reasons Miley had taken the precautions he had. He knew what was going to happen, which seemed unlikely. Or that he was just a paranoid rich guy who had too much free time on his hands to dream up ways the world could kill him off before he got to spend his money. In reality, I barely cared at that point. I remember Aadesh showing me assorted bits of working electronics he had found. The entire time the only thing I could think about was did I have enough morphine to last until the next supply run. The fear of sobering up was almost as scary as the Sniffers. Shit like Faraday Cages and working electronics barely showed up on my radar of things I cared about.

Then Aadesh decided he thought I needed to stop taking drugs. Since I wasn’t leaving my room by that point, I relied on him making the supply runs. He began bringing me less and less of what I asked for, using the excuse that the supply was running out, which I knew was complete bullshit. As one might expect, that caused a great deal of tension between us. On more than one occasion, we got into shouting matches. To his credit, he always deescalated our fights, which meant he ended finding a way to get me what I needed. Our arguments were one of the few things that seemed to make Tish happy. I hated her by that point.

During the rare times when I was sober enough to communicate, Aadesh would try to tell me things he had and hadn’t gleaned from talking to Tish. He told me he had real concerns about her. He couldn’t understand why she refused to talk about any of the period after leaving the Patch. Not only would she refuse to talk about it, but she would also get super angry with him when he asked. All of that was part of another world that I wasn’t much interested in anymore. I had moved on.

Then the day of reckoning came. Aadesh cut me off completely. He let me know in no uncertain terms he wouldn’t be making any more drug runs for me. That I would either clean up and get sober and take part in trying to survive in the new world, or I would continue taking drugs and flounder in it. I went crazy. I threatened to kick his ass, amongst other things, but fortunately, I hadn’t quite sunk low enough to beat up the dude who was keeping me alive. I took a bunch of sleeping pills, thinking that somehow when I woke up, things would be better… or something like that.

By the third day, the withdrawals were so bad I had to do something. I would get dressed and prepare to leave, but when the willpower wasn’t there, I’d take more sleeping pills. I did that several more times before I ran out. I was finally forced with having to leave the safety of Miley’s cocoon. With untied boots and one glove, I ran out the door, so I wouldn’t have time to think about my decision. I was in the van and speeding towards Samuel Simmonds Hospital before I felt the dread of exposing myself to reality.

I couldn’t even wait until I was back at Miley’s office. I sat in the middle of the dark emergency room with a lone lamp and a pile of drugs. At first, I was just