Natasha turned toward the closed bedroom door, and as John reached in vain to stop her, the door opened and big Mike stepped into the living room. His giant body was covered only by a bath towel which he had wrapped around his waist. He moved into the room, stopping Natasha in her tracks and even eliciting a slight gasp and a step back as his large frame moved toward them.
“Heard some yellin’!” He said. “Everything OK?”
Natasha turned back to John, confusion painted on her face, her assumptions shattered as the big man entered the room.
“I… uh,” She stammered.
“Yeah!” John said, glad that Mike had diffused the situation. “This is Mike Jones,” John continued. “He’s a friend.”
“A friend?” Natasha asked. “Like, what kind of friend?”
Mike let out a huge laughing roar, his belly shaking as he put his hand over his tummy.
“I told you!” He started. “I ain’t calling you honey!”
John stood there finding it hard not to bust out in a belly laugh himself. He took Natasha by the arm and gently pulled her to the small kitchen chair. He sat her down and took a seat next to her as Mike returned to the bedroom.
“Not that kind of ‘friend’” John said.
Mike, obviously still listening from the other room, popped his head out of the door and looked at the two at the table.
“He’s a pretty boy, and all. But I don’t play for that team!” He joked and shut the door.
“I knew Mike from OPD.” John started. “He’s bunked in a hell hole apartment without water or lights.”
John pointed to the couch. “That’s my bed until his place gets some power and water.”
Natasha’s face relaxed as he talked. But suddenly, her demeanor darkened and she pointed at John.
“Then what was up at the Fairgrounds? Wasn’t that you there?”
John didn’t have a backup story for their little rescue mission, so he told Natasha the truth, at least enough of it to mollify her without giving up Charlie and her group.
“Yeah, that was me!” He admitted.
Natasha’s face darkened again but John quickly continued.
“She’s not for me.” He started, then suddenly realizing that his choice of words wasn’t too skilled, he continued.
“No, not that. I don’t mean that she wasn’t for me, or anyone else. She’s the girlfriend of a friend. A guy who isn’t in the camp with her and doesn’t want to be.”
“I don’t understand.” Natasha said.
“Don’t you know that once someone checks into these camps, they can’t leave? At least of their own volition.”
Natasha sat there stunned. Obviously, she hadn’t been filled in on that little detail.
“I had no idea,” she finally admitted. Recovering her composure, she tried to justify her work and beliefs.
“But why would they want to leave?” She asked with an attitude to her voice that questioned the sanity of anyone that didn’t want to be safe in the camps.
“Well,” John started. “Let me fill you in on some of the things going on in our camp.” John said.
Then he described the conditions of the facility, the sexual harassment and the uncertainties of the residents’ futures.
Finally, after reminding her that most families were being torn apart as they segregated the sexes and their children, allowing for minimal visitations between them all, Natasha began to understand.
“Oh John!” She started. “I had no idea.”
“None of us did, even though all of the signs were there.” John replied. “Why would we think differently? We’ve spent our lives protecting others, and we assume that everyone else wants the same thing we do.”
“But why is the government doing this?” She asked, pain beginning to creep into her voice.
John thought for a moment. He had always struggled with the problem of power and control. As a cop, he recognized that his power carried a lot of responsibility. What is it that Peter Parker’s uncle said in that first Spiderman movie? With great power comes great responsibility.
Unfortunately, too many wanted or needed the power, and then cast aside the obligations that go with it. But in this case, John doubted that the government had abdicated its responsibility. There were a ton of resources appearing out of thin air and the “recovery” was too organized to dismiss the idea that the government didn’t care.
When it all came down to it, the basic problem was that too many in control felt that only they knew how to fix things. It was a narcissistic and fool-hardy attitude that always ended in failure. The problem was that those that wielded the power considered themselves infallible. They were blind to their own shortcomings and were incapable of change. It was their way only; and if their strategies weren’t effective, then obviously it just needed more time and money to allow their solutions to work.
“They are doing these things because they think that their way is right, and that the ends justify the means. If that involves lying, hiring thugs or forcing people to do stuff against their own will, then that is valid. In the long run, it’s the results that matter.”
Natasha sat in silence. Finally, the bedroom door opened and Mike joined them.
“Mike, this is Natasha.” John said.
“Pleasure, ma’am.” Mike replied. “Glad you two quit yellin’ at each other.”
“I am too,” Natasha replied. “And I’m sorry, John. I didn’t have a right to barge in on you like that.”
“No problem,” John said. “But I guess you slipped a bit there.”
“How so?” She replied with some confusion.
“You said last night that your woman’s intuition could tell what kind of guy I was.”
“Well now,” she started. “I guess I was right about you after all. You are one of the good guys.”
“Then why the drama?” John replied, egging her on.
“Because,” she said as she moved closely to him. “I knew you were good; and when I heard about the girl at the Fairgrounds, I thought you had tricked me!”
She reached up and wrapped her arms around his neck and drew him down.
“And, I’m never wrong!” She whispered as she deeply kissed him.
She released him after a few moments, turned and left the two men in stunned silence.
“That was hot and all,” Mike started. “But I got to tell you. That was just messed up on so many levels.”
The big guy shook his head and turned to go to bed. John, for his part, stood where she had left him, his head twirling with emotions.
“Be careful of that one,” the young agent said to John. “She’s psycho!”
“No,” John replied. “She’s just a woman.”
“Tell me you didn’t just say that!” Mike chuckled.
“I’ll never admit to it,” John jokingly responded.
“Hmmph,” Mike grunted, shook his head and shut the bedroom door.
After turning off the lights, John lay down on the couch, his head awash with the day’s events. Finally, after a fitful few minutes, the physical and mental exhaustion of the day took hold and he drifted into a deep sleep. Even the rumbling of the bedroom doorframe from Mike’s loud snoring didn’t wake him as he dreamt once again of a corpse and its ominous foretelling of their future.
Chapter 13
He will win who knows when to fight and when not to fight
— Sun Tzu
I know that things will work out in the end. John said, before he left earlier this evening, that no battle plan ever survived first contact and that we shouldn’t despair. Because after all our planning and good efforts, everything we had expected to do this night was in the toilet.
I’m now sitting in the apartment building, it’s my turn to tak
e watch, and it has left me with too much time to think. Janice and Garrett reclining nearby on the couch of our 2nd floor sanctuary, the two of them have drifted off to sleep.
It’s after midnight, and I can hear the quiet snores from Jorge coming from the bedroom down the hall. Originally, Jorge and Maria were going to leave after dark and head through southeast Orlando, following his journey that brought him into town the other night. They figured that if they retraced his steps, they would be outside the city’s sprawling neighborhoods in a slow and careful two-night trip. Then, once past the urban clutter and pushing hard both day and night, they could make it the last 40 miles and get to the ranch south and east of St. Cloud as quickly as possible. The huge spread was the largest cattle ranch east of the Mississippi. It was so large, in fact, that it stretched across Orange, Osceola, and Brevard counties, from the Atlantic Ocean to the middle of the state.
He and Maria have decided to stay with us another day or two to rethink strategy. John promised to get more information on the government’s new plans for the city; and until we got a grasp on our potential obstacles, it was too dangerous to go wandering about. If there was one thing that we were certain of, it was that DHS lacked resources outside the city. So it was assumed that if we could move away from the highly populated areas around downtown, once outside the city proper, we could avoid the government agents and then just worry about normal looters, rapists and murderers. At least they didn’t have military grade weapons and a highly coordinated army behind them.
“Just fantastic!” I thought to myself. Catching a break in today’s world means only fighting through thugs and gangbangers, and not an adversarial government agency.
I got up to do my patrol of the building. John had made it clear that we were to set our patrol schedule at random times to prevent someone from timing an attack based on a set schedule. It wasn’t so much for the DHS guys that we did this, but we had to recognize that we weren’t the only refugees trying to survive in the city. Many eyes were out there, and ignoring this fact could be fatal to us all.
We planned the timing and route of our patrol in the building before we all retired for the night. Each evening, another unique patrol pattern would be planned and implemented. Tonight, I was on watch from midnight until three. Garrett would take the three to six shift, leaving Janice, Jorge and Maria time to recover, and in the case of the happy couple, time to reconnect. Janice still wasn’t up to the task of being in a responsible position or for us to be able to trust her judgement. Who knows how long her PTSD would last; but until I was sure that she was competent, I wasn’t going to put my life in her hands just yet. She could spend her nights sleeping and I would patrol until I felt she was ready. Of course, Garrett was all for this, protecting her had become his life’s work.
On the fourth floor, I could just make out “the Tower” thrusting up over the tops of the adjacent building. The light pollution it gave off was amazing, and was a reminder of the electric footprint that the city had emitted just a few weeks ago. When I went to the opposite side of our building, I could look up into the night sky and see the faint haze of the Milky Way. Normally, I would have to move almost 50 miles out from the city to have the unpolluted view I was enjoying through the east-facing windows.
Shaking myself out of my stupor, I scanned the streets and other buildings, looking for signs of human life. Once, I thought I could see a dim light in a window to the east, over near Lake Eola. But that soon disappeared, leaving me unsure whether I was having hopeful illusions, or that there were others hiding out in the city just like us.
Moving to the lower floors, I saw mostly the same bleak picture. Darkened streets, deathly silence and an unshakable pallor of lifelessness were the common sights and feelings I witnessed and felt.
Just over 45 minutes later, I initiated my second patrol, this time in reverse order. The lower floors were clear, including the basement (my least favorite part of any patrol). But when I got back up to the east-facing windows on the top floor, I indeed confirmed that a faint light was present in a window in one of the high-rises to the east. It was a dim glow that lasted over two minutes before someone extinguished it. I got out my notebook and catalogued its presence, making a precise log of which window and the appropriate building it emanated from.
“Well, fellow denizen of the City Beautiful,” I said out loud. “Friend or foe?”
I would let John know about this sighting, and maybe he could investigate. But that was for tomorrow night; and right now, I needed to concentrate on the job at hand. Keep searching for threats and anything unusual that could affect us.
I patted my Hi-Point handgun which was strapped around my waist. John had been kind enough to bring a universal holster that evening that could be attached to my belt. I was adjusting to the reality that I was always going to be armed, at least until sanity returned to the world. But wearing the heavy semi-automatic pistol constantly made my right hip hurt. And even then, I vowed to myself, when this is all over, I am going to get my concealed carry permit and always be armed.
As a group, we decided to hold here for at least a few more days and nights. John was pretty sure that the inspections we saw were a one and done event, given that no other buildings were being inspected like the three apartments we were a part of. He was going to check with Beth, who had her ear to the ground at DHS headquarters; and unless we heard otherwise, we should be safe. As a precaution, we would be making some hiding spots in the basement if someone approached again.
Scanning the street to the north, a sudden movement caught my eye. Squinting into the darkness, the moon, a thin crescent just a day into its new phase, I could see little detail. I focused my eyesight to the right of the movement, using my peripheral vision to scan the area, and noticed a number of bodies running down the street.
I gasped as the figures began to coalesce, finally recognizing a pack of dogs running down the road. I quickly realized that they were chasing something. The animals appeared and disappeared as they came closer, their pack temporarily hidden by adjacent buildings. Eventually, they hit the side street that ran next to our building and they turned east away from me, the seven or eight animals in hot pursuit of something I could just make out. It was a large cat or raccoon.
I smiled at the sight, until I realized that these animals were desperate for food. They were starting to run in packs; and how many of these packs were out there was anyone’s guess.
This was disconcerting, to say the least. Now, not only did we have to deal with DHS, gangs and other unsavory types, we now had to deal with packs of dogs. I wrote down in the notebook that we needed to come up with a way to protect ourselves from these animals, grateful that the Central Florida Zoo was all the way up in Sanford. Who knows how they are doing, but the thought of the zoo’s big cats being released into the Florida swamps sent shivers down my spine. Even though the zoo didn’t keep any lions or tigers, they had their share of predatory cats. I know for a fact that they keep a clouded leopard on display, as well as traditional leopards, some cougars and cheetahs. Come to think of it, Disney’s Animal Kingdom was just down the road as well.
If we don’t get our act together, I jokingly thought, we’ll have a regular African Serengeti out there. Won’t be too much fun with a cheetah or leopard stalking us.
The rest of my shift was uneventful with no further sightings of man, beast or far-off lights in the night. Having noticed the light in the other tower, it was obvious that light discipline was critical, and that one misstep or moment of carelessness could cost us all our lives.
More and more, it was evident that surviving in this new society drained a person physically, mentally and especially emotionally. There was never a time you weren’t on guard, planning your next three steps and alternatives to those steps based on what life presented you. The days of zoning out, of living life on autopilot were gone.
As Garret
t struggled to extricate himself from Janice’s embrace without disturbing her slumber, I sadly thought of the things I missed the most. It wasn’t the food, the parties, the job or even my family. It was the loss of innocence, my mindless life that seemed to just happen without any effort. Don’t get me wrong, I worked hard at my job and earned every penny I made. But the effortlessness of life beyond the daily stresses of work was no more. Jump into the car and hit the local Publix, throw on my workout clothes and take a stress-releasing run, pick up some gas on the way to a friend’s house to watch the latest Netflix release or even to stop at Starbucks and have a skinny Café Latte… all gone!
Garrett finally looked capable of staying awake after a shot of warm energy drink and a quick brushing of his teeth. I took him into one of the other apartments and let him know about the light I saw, as well as the dog pack running down Magnolia Avenue. We quickly reviewed his patrol pattern and I stressed the need for good light discipline. By the time I had finished, he seemed alert and ready for his assignment.
I found my way into the guest bedroom, Jorge and Maria having taken the king-sized bed in the master, and lay back. I don’t think I remember my head hitting the pillow before I was out.
When I awoke, the sun was well into the morning sky. I stretched and did my morning business before joining the others in our communal apartment.
When I arrived in our kitchen, several boxes of Pop Tarts were sitting on the counter, with the rest of our supplies packed properly in our bug-out bag. I was pleased that they were taking the threat of a sudden inspection seriously. Looking at the rooms we were occupying, I could tell that we could be packed and out the door in under a minute. Beds were left bare, each of us using a blanket or throw from our basement stash. No crumbs were found; and if we threw our food supplies into its bag and grabbed our blankets, we would leave no trace behind.
Charlie's Requiem: Democide Page 16
