by A. American
John took pity on the kid and got his attention.
“Hey… kid!” he said in a low voice.
The young man turned to look at John who still sat on the sidewalk.
“No one gave you permission to talk!” He stammered back, the military rifle still butt down on the ground, its barrel pointing up at his chin as it leaned on his leg.
“No offense, but you need to be more careful where you point your rifle.”
“What the hell are you talking about? I can point it wherever I want.”
“I mean,” John softly replied in his most gentle and non-threatening tone. “Don’t let your C.O. see you with your rifle like that. You’re lasing yourself.”
“What do you mean?” The kid asked. John’s ‘concerned parent’ voice, the one he used to diffuse situations on the street, seemed to disarm the young man.
“You know,” John replied. “Lasing. Pointing the barrel at something you don’t want to kill or break.”
The kid gave him a perplexed look, so John continued. My God, John thought, how deep in the hole did DHS have to go to get this kid?
“You know,” John replied. “In your firearm training. Never point the barrel of the gun at friends. It’s one of the four rules of firearm safety.”
The kid still looked lost, so John finally laid it out for him.
“Kid,” he stated in his ‘stern father’ voice. “Look down at your rifle. Where the hell is the barrel pointing?”
The young DHS agent looked down at his firearm and stared directly into the loaded chamber of his own battle rifle.
“HOLY SHIT!” he cried and brought the firearm back to his ‘low ready’ position. Barrel pointing slightly down and slightly away from John.
“That’s what I’m talking about,” John said in his ‘concerned’ voice. “I just didn’t want anything to happen to you.”
The young man was momentarily embarrassed, a red flush rising in his cheeks. Cripes, John thought, is this kid cherry or what?
“Don’t worry about it, kid. This world is upside down. It’s easy to lose track of your training when all hell breaks loose. In a bit, it’ll come back. Always does as long as your sergeants keep track of you.”
The young man shuffled his feet, failing to make eye contact with John. It was an awkward moment that seemed to last for minutes. In reality, some few seconds later, another bus pulled in front of the building, disgorging a number workers and DHS agents.
“John?” Drosky heard from the sidewalk to his right. John looked over and saw one of the OPD dispatchers where she had stopped on the walkway. Tanya Culverson was known for her cool demeanor under pressure. All the officers recognized her when her voice came over the radio. She rarely sent the police into a situation without thoroughly wringing every last bit of information from the caller. It was a difficult and delicate job. She needed to balance the urgency of the call with the need for vital information. Information that could help the officers catch the bad guys, and most importantly, keep the OPD officers alive. John was glad she had made it.
“What the hell is going on here?” she stated to the DHS agent. “That man is OPD, and a hell of an officer. Just what’s going on here?”
The young agent didn’t know what to do. He was in a horrible spot with several OPD employees who were already cleared and back working in the building, standing behind Tanya lending their support.
Before things got any further out of hand, John shouted over them.
“HEY, ENOUGH! The kid’s doing his job. They’re following protocol.”
“Well let me tell you…” Tanya shot back. “Their protocol sucks. I’ve been here from the beginning and they are doing things that just don’t make sense. And they sure as hell aren’t letting OPD make any decisions.”
“I’m fine and he’s doing what he is supposed to do.” John replied in his ‘I appreciate it’ voice. “Now really. I’ve been out in the shit for six days. A few minutes sitting in the morning sun won’t hurt me. I’ll see you all inside and we can catch up.”
“I’ll be waiting!” Tanya shot back, giving the young man a glare that could have killed. “Look me up in transportation and relocation”
“What? Transportation and relocation of who?”
“That, Officer John Drosky, is the 64 dollar question. We’ll talk, honey! Oh yeah, we are going to do a lot of talking!” And with that, the group moved on to the entrance.
“Thanks guys!” John shouted at them, receiving a wave from two of the members as they disappeared into the glass front doors.
“Thanks, man.” The young agent said.
“Hey, you got a tough job here. Just stay frosty. You can’t let your guard down when you’re on the front line.”
A few minutes later, the older agent returned and the two led John to the lobby. Multiple desks had been set up, and signs lorded over different areas. “Relocation Services,” “Transportation,” “Intra-agency Coordination,” “Re-Education Services” and other monikers. John did a double take on the last one. Re-education, he said to himself. What the hell is that?
They led him to the chief of police’s office, where a new group of employees were stationed. Gone were the old workers, replaced by DHS employees. The Chief’s name was still mounted over the door, but a paper banner had been taped over it. It read: DIRECTOR OF DHS SERVICES.
They entered the room and John, hands still zip-tied behind his back, was led to one of twenty or so modules where a severe and rough-looking woman of indeterminate age stared back at him. The two agents spoke in hushed whispers to her while John stood ramrod straight, ten feet back, staring at the divider wall above the seated woman’s head. She wore no uniform, but commanded the two agents to cut his tie and dismissed them from her presence like a drill sergeant crushing the spirit out of a new recruit.
She looked at the paperwork in front of her, taking her time while John maintained his stance. After a bit, she put the folder down and addressed the OPD officer.
“John Drosky,” she started. “I’m surprised it took you so long to report!” Her tone of voice left no doubt that she wasn’t happy with the delay in getting back after six days of absence.
“May I speak freely,” John asked. He had decided that it was best to placate the new bosses. Act like the loyal Marine he once was (and always would be), and give these people some respect for responding so quickly to the emergency. The organization he saw here after only six days was next to miraculous given the federal government and its past history of cluelessness and ineffective execution of even the most basic functions. What John saw was a well-oiled emergency response. It was surprising and welcome.
“Go on,” the woman simply replied.
John went on to describe his final call and the discovery of the bodies. The loss of power and his five days of trying to organize the people of the neighborhood. He concluded with his walk back and his surprise at the level of response.
“If I may say so,” John concluded. “I am surprised with the federal response I’ve seen here. Very impressive. I hope I can help out.”
The woman seemed to soften a bit with his last statement. Her eyes, ice cold the entire time, warmed slightly and she began to tap her pencil on the closed Manilla folder which held the summary of John’s life. Everything from his grade school transcript (how in the heck did they get those) to his last field reports were in the paperwork. He was stunned to see such a massive amount of data on him already collected. More data that the OPD had in his personal file. It was remarkable.
“Both of my agents reported that you were co-operative and even helpful in diffusing a situation outside,” she stated.
She then continued. “I see you have no political party affiliation, is that true?”
“True Ma’am.”
“You don
’t like the politicians, Officer Drosky?” She said with a bit of sarcasm.
“I just don’t pay attention to politics, Ma’am. I don’t find it interesting or relevant to my day to day life.” He replied, somewhat perplexed. Why is that important? He asked himself.
“I see that you don’t own any personal firearms, is that correct?” She continued.
“No, Ma’am. My duty weapon is more than sufficient for my job.” He once again replied. “And may I ask, why is that important?” John asked in his ‘innocent’ voice.
Her eyes flared with the questioning, but softened when she saw John’s easy-going demeanor.
“Just taking inventory, Officer. Trying to keep the public safe.”
John waited stoically for her to continue. She re-opened his voluminous folder and scanned several more pages. Multiple colored tabs were used to divide what looked to be an over two inch thick dossier. Finally, she closed the folder once again and addressed the OPD officer.
“I see that you were a Marine, Officer Drosky.”
“We like to consider ourselves Marines for life, Ma’am. But yes, I was a Marine.”
“And as a Marine, your job was?”
“To follow orders, Ma’am.”
That seemed to please her. The woman set the folder aside and produced two envelopes. She set aside the dark blue envelope and gave John a white one.
“Officer Drosky, Thank you for your patience. Please go to your right, through the glass door marked intake 1. Take that hallway and follow the instructions you will find in the envelope I gave you. Go, and welcome back.”
John nodded to the woman and gathered his backpack. His weapons were never returned to him, but he was sure that was going to be corrected once he was settled in.
As John walked away and around to the right, he found two doors against the far wall. The first one was marked Intake 2 and the one just passed it marked Intake 1. As he walked in front of the first door, Intake 2, he bumped into a Sheriff’s deputy he had interacted with during his time on the force. He couldn’t quite remember the deputy’s name, but the large and surly man was grumbling under his breath as he pushed by John and went through the Intake 2 portal. John noticed that he carried a blue envelop with him. Curious, John thought. There’s a lot that doesn’t make sense here.
Then Officer Drosky exited through the Intake 1 door, pushing aside his doubts in the hopes of taking care of some of his more basic needs like a hot shower and a good meal. His stomach rumbled when he smelled bacon cooking somewhere down the hall. It had been a long five days and John was sure things could only get better with the level of organization he saw in front of him. Food and a hot shower! Those were his primary concerns right now… along with the over two million other souls in the Orlando metropolitan area.
Chapter 17
Day 6
Charlie
Kirkman Specialty Clinic
Dr. Kramer removed the two corpses, putting them with the third one on the side of the building. Janice mopped up the blood and everyone took turns in the hot shower. We were all preparing to leave and hot water might not be available for a while. The patients were given first dibs in the doctor’s private lavatory. All five were elderly and seemed to take forever in the bathroom.
Dr. K ramen had decided to drive the five patients and Peg to their homes, then make his way back to his family farm in Monteverde. Janice and Garrett and I were going to walk to DeLand.
“That’s a heck of a walk,” Garrett said, as they loaded up the additional supplies from the dumpster into the captured Chevy.
The stash of medications had been somewhat of a surprise. Of course, the narcotics were the first thing the crooks had taken. But most pharmacies only keep a day or two of any medication on hand for sale. The drugs the punks had been searching for just aren’t kept in high volume. It wasn’t just for security’s sake, but rather a financial decision. Just-in-time inventories had revolutionized profits in almost every industry in America. Daily deliveries kept overhead cost low and short term profits high. Unfortunately for the newly collapsed American people, that meant just a two or three day supply of food was on-hand when the lights went out. It was day six and people were already hungry.
But what pleased Dr. Kramer was the other medications he found. The criminals had actually taken all the drugs in the pharmacy, not just “the party drugs” and Dr. Kramer planned to use those to help his community. Heart and blood pressure meds were in the trunk, along with antibiotics and even prescriptions strength NSAIDs like Motrin and Aleve. The whole pharmacy was in there! Combined with Dr. Kramer’s stash of samples, he would be able to help a lot of people for a very long time.
Garrett was stuck with a pillow case for a knap sack, lacking a backpack to carry his walking supplies. Janice lightheartedly needled him about looking like a little boy running away from home, with his pillow case tied to an unused I.V. pole. The poor kid (actually, we found out during our conversations that he was almost 22) was crestfallen. But Janice felt guilty after that and did her best to prop up his self-esteem with some reminders of how he had saved us all the prior evening. Young men, even the brave ones, can have an awfully fragile ego!
Dr. Kramer heard the kerfuffle about the knap sack and appeared with a pair of jeans.
“Whose jeans are those?” I asked.
“Donated,” he replied and nodded toward the side staff entrance. That’s where he took the bodies of the three thugs.
He got some string that he called paracord, and tied off the bottom of the pant legs, sealing them shut. He left two long loose ends on each tied off leg and then brought each of them up to the waist band and tied each end of the leg onto one of the belt loops. When he held it up, he had created a homemade backpack. The two pant legs were now shoulder straps, and the waist opening was the mouth of the pack.
“Don’t worry,” the doctor said. “He isn’t going to need this anymore.”
Garrett gave him a disgusted look.
“And yes I smelled them first. I think they’re newly stolen. There’s no smell to them!”
We all chuckled a little too morbidly. It was disturbing.
We loaded up what we now called the “denim backpack” with Garrett’s supplies and Dr. Kramer used more para-cord to fasten together some of the belt loops from front loop to back loop, effectively sealing off most of the top. He made an “X” between four of the loops in the middle of the pack, two in the front of the pants and two in the back. He then tied the two loose ends together with a shoe tie so Garrett could easily open and close his makeshift rucksack, making it quite effective.
“Take this,” Dr. Kramer said. “This is a spare belt. You can use it as a chest strap to cinch the leg straps together in the front. It’ll keep the sack riding high on your back and a lot more comfortable.”
Janice smirked.
“What’s so funny?” Dr. Kramer asked.
Janice began to giggle, then snort as she fought to hold in her laughter. Finally, she blurted it out.
“I never thought I’d hear you worried about another man’s sack riding high and comfortable!”
We all just looked at her, stunned. And as one, including Dr. Kramer, we had the best laugh I could remember in a very long time. It seemed to last forever, and was the greatest medicine I could have ever been given. All of a sudden, our situation didn’t seem so bad. It was, pardon the pun, just what the doctor ordered.
Dr. Kramer brought me, Janice and Garrett into his private office while the patients gathered their belongings and took them to the car outside.
“Well,” he said. “I guess this is it! I wish I could say it’s been a pleasure, but I can say I am proud of the way you three handled yourselves. You were the perfect end of the world companions!”
We all giggled and got down to a more serious discussion
. The doctor opened his desk drawer and withdrew the three handguns we inherited when our invaders were killed the prior evening.
“Do any of you have firearm training?” He asked.
“I do,” I replied. “My dad took me to the range a number of times. But I haven’t shot a gun in a few years.”
He grabbed a black pistol and unloaded it by racking the slide back, ejecting the bullet in the chamber, locking it in place and ejecting the magazine. He handed me the handgun.
“It’s a Hi-Point 9 mm.” He stated. “It’s heavy and has a stiff trigger. But it’s reliable and won’t let you down. It holds 8 bullets in the magazine and one in the chamber.”
I hefted the firearm and disengaged the slide lock, which was the same button as the safety. Interesting. The slide snapped forward and I held the heavy handgun up in front of me, lining up this sights on the “staff only” sign attached to his bathroom door.
I grabbed the magazine and put it back in the pistol, racked the slide which put a bullet in the chamber and ejected the magazine once again. I put the previously ejected bullet back in the magazine and replaced it in the pistol.
“This will do!” I said. “It’s heavy, but I like the feel of it. Like my dad used to say, more mass, less recoil.”
“Well,” Dr. Kramer said. “That’s a great idea when you’re at the range. But you have a lot of miles to cover and that gun is nearly two pounds. Can you do it?”
“I’m a Gator, Dr. Kramer!” I said, reminding him of my collegiate days. “I can do anything!”
“Oh please!” Janice shot back. “If you ever do one of those God awful Gator chomps with your arms, I promise I will snap you in half!”
“Roll Tide!” I replied with a grin.
“OK. OK. That’s quite enough,” the doctor said with a grin. “How about you, Janice? Do you know how to handle a firearm?”
“Sorry, Dr. Kramer. In my family, the boys did the hunting and the women did the cooking. I suppose I could use one if I had to, but I would prefer to let someone else do that.”