Neighbors

by Paul Z. Ford

  “Cities?” the general asked firmly. The president stood slowly and silently, physically burdened by the difficult decision that exploded on screens around the room. “How many cities exactly? Out with it!” The aide cleared his throat gruffly before speaking the grim news.

  “Sixty.”

  Chapter 6

  Shaken

  The first person to react was the man Ash was helping. He slapped the side of the cash register hard enough for a loud chime to sound, as if the drawer were opening. The sharp noise shook Kahn back to reality. He looked back and forth around the store. All the customers had stopped to watch the television and were now coming back to reality. Two people pulled out their phones and there was a soft buzz of conversation among the groups.

  “C’mon man, ring me out quick. I have a feeling I’m gonna need this thing now,” the young man scolded Ash. Kahn looked at his brother-in-law and saw a neutral look of shock on his face. He grabbed the scanner and with a few beeps hit the UPC and serial number on the box.

  Kahn felt a bit like he was drugged. His thoughts drowned out the sounds of the customer impatiently requesting ammo for the gun he was buying, and then adding several more boxes to his order. Ash silently fulfilled the request as Kahn watched. He looked down at his hands and saw that he still had the remote control in his hand. He slowly lifted his head back to the broadcast and tried to catch what the anchor was discussing.

  “…receiving the images and video from the White House now. It seems we have also received a statement regarding some… uh… precautions they… uh… recommend to people in the affected areas. We should be flashing them on the screen now.

  “First, do not panic. They want to emphasize that there is no need to hoard food or water. Utilities are expected to continue without interruption. Second, if you live in the New York City area you are being asked to stay in place. Do not travel away from your homes until the authorities can be sure the… uh… infection is isolated. Lastly, the White House says that if you are not in the affected area, you should continue your routine as normal tomorrow. We have Dr. Stephen Morrow standing by to discuss the biological nature of this attack, and how it is spread.

  “We will be speaking about some of the images and video the White House has released.” A video began to play, showing a military helicopter landing on an empty lot with tall buildings on all sides. Several soldiers disembarked. They were wearing protective gas masks and armed with rifles. Their uniforms were blown around as the helicopter lifted back into the sky. That image was replaced with a still image of similar soldiers standing at a barricade in Times Square. The iconic lights and billboards were dark.

  “Dr. Morrow, are you there?”

  “Yes, Kathie, I am here. Thank you for having me,” a male voice answered. His name and position, Director - Office of Health and Science for New York University Langone Health, flashed on the bottom of the program. Several more images flashed through as a slideshow while they spoke. Kahn thought the images seemed sanitized. They didn’t show any victims or bodies. They all showed soldiers, armed and in position near roads or roadblocks.

  “Doctor, can you describe the nature of this biological agent used in the attack? I understand you have been given some information from the military medical authorities that are in Manhattan.”

  “Yes, first they share that this infection is not airborne, it is not waterborne, and it has been contained within the several areas where it began. I have been told that this… disease is highly communicable through direct contact of an infected person’s blood and a victim’s blood.”

  “Excuse me,” a woman hurriedly tapped Kahn on the shoulder. Her interruption brought him back into reality for the moment. He looked at her. She seemed shaken. “My husband asked me to buy some, um, forty-five hollow point?” Her voice fluctuated so her statement seemed like a question. Kahn nodded and walked behind the counter, setting the remote control down on top of the glass display. She clarified that she wanted five boxes as he removed them from the shelf and set them next to the register. He decided to mute the television and did so with the remote while he was conducting the transaction silently.

  When the woman left, Kahn realized he was alone in the shop. All the customers that were there watching the broadcast had left while he was distracted by the TV. He searched the rear of the store for his brother-in-law. As he entered the back room area, he saw the storage room door was propped open and the rear exit to the parking lot was brightly lighting the narrow hallway.

  “Ash?” He asked loudly toward the rear door. The silhouette of his brother-in-law appeared in the doorway. “What are you doing?”

  “I’m loading up the truck.” He brushed past his confused manager with an empty dolly and rolled it into the storage room. Kahn followed and witnessed the owner of the store stacking boxes that contained guns, ammunition, and other supplies from their inventory on the dolly.

  “Why? What do you need with all this?”

  “I don’t know. But I just don’t know what’s going to happen right now.” Before Kahn could argue, the front door chimed. Ash ignored it, leaning the dolly back and walking down the hallway toward the exit with the load. Kahn could see part of the store’s SUV, a white Ford Escape with the Boomstick logo on each side, through the open portal.

  Kahn walked into the recently empty store and found a man waiting impatiently at the counter. The door chimed again and Kahn watched a few more people walk in. Beyond the closing door he watched several more cars pulling into the small parking lot. Kahn addressed the first customer. He said he wanted to buy a gun and two more customers said they were there to purchase guns as well. Ash came into the store and joined Kahn’s chaotic attempts to manage half a dozen buyers at once.

  Over the next hour, the two men managed 25 buying groups of customers. Over half wanted to buy a new gun. Most didn’t care about make or model, they just wanted a 9mm pistol or a 12-gauge shotgun or a .45. Kahn managed the groups by ringing out ammunition and equipment sales while Ash took each person’s license and application information and entered them into the approval database for new gun purchases. The National Instant Background Check System made it easy for new buyers to gain approval to purchase weapons; there was no waiting period in Texas and applications typically came back quickly with an approval. Having a biological attack in New York was giving the store a record-breaking sales day. The news was quickly forgotten by the two men as their mild panic dissipated into excited professionalism.

  Then, as the fourteenth customer was ready to purchase, the computer system failed to load properly. Ash, confused, reloaded the program and painstakingly re-entered the customer’s information. This time the computer cursor spun and spun, thinking for an unusually long period.

  Call for Approval

  “Ash!” Kahn hollered from the other end of the counter. “The credit card machine just went offline.” There were about a dozen people in the small space. Most of them were waiting to be served in some way. Kahn’s statement caused a gentle roar of disapproval throughout the store. The door chimed. Kahn saw a man wearing an old Army-style jacket walk out the door quickly. He hadn’t seen that customer enter in the crowd and couldn’t quite tell but thought the man had something hidden in the front of his jacket. The man’s large frame lumbered out and the door shut behind him.

  Ash ignored Kahn’s cry for him and picked up the phone. He pressed the first speed dial on the landline and waited through several rings. Sometimes the system went down. If the rest of the country was anything like his store today the computer system may just be overloaded. The phone continued to ring.

  We’re sorry, the number you have dialed is not available. Please check the…

  Ash clicked the receiver with his finger and dialed again. After several rings, he got the same message. He hung up the landline and quickly dialed the number into his cell phone. This time he just got a grating buzzing noise. He hung that phone up and put it on the desk. As a last resort, he closed the
program and opened it again. Spin, spin, spin.

  It wouldn’t load. He spun the chair around and saw that Kahn was on the cordless phone attempting to get in touch with the credit card company for his issue. He hung up and locked eyes with Ash, shrugging in confused resignation. The customers at the counter were visibly irritated. Ash stood up with the paperwork in hand. He set it on the counter in front of the person he’d been helping.

  “Folks, I’m sorry but it seems our computer systems just went down. We can accept cash for purchases of anything that is not restricted by law,” Ash relayed with confidence. “That means we unfortunately cannot sell any more firearms until the system comes back up.” There was a groan from the crowd.

  “What the hell does that mean? When will that be?” a woman asked with a shriek.

  “You saw what happened in New York! I need to protect my family!”

  “We have to follow the federal and state guidelines for any firearms that we sell. I’m sorry but that means we can’t do anything until we can connect with the database,” Ash tried to explain to the increasingly frustrated customers.

  “You could do it if you wanted to!”

  “I hope you sleep good tonight, knowing my family is unprotected.”

  “I’m not buying anything from these people!”

  Ash and Kahn both continued to apologize to the waning crowd. Most had dropped what they had on the ground and left the store, complaining loudly. The man Ash was helping stormed away and slammed his way out of the small store. Most of the crowd had cleared out when they both snapped to look toward the sound of breaking glass. Both men came out from behind the counter to investigate the other end of the store, around the corner from a large rotating rack for accessories.

  A familiar, large-framed man was swinging a rifle still attached to a rack via cable lock into a small display case of high end electronic sights and scopes. This second and more powerful blow completely shattered the top of the display case and exploded the wooden stock of the rifle. Glass rained down onto the floor and into the case.

  “Hey! What the hell are you doing?” Kahn yelled. The man turned toward him, broken rifle still in hand. He swung it with an angry grunt toward Kahn’s body, jerking the rack to which it was still attached. He jumped back into his brother-in-law to avoid being hit. He recognized the man. This was the guy with the insulting comment from earlier, and was definitely the same guy Kahn saw shoplifting before the computers went down. The pair of gun shop employees stepped forward to rush the stranger.

  But before they could take the two or three steps to grab him, both men were greeted by a large revolver suddenly in the outsider’s right hand, drawn quickly from the open carry holster dangling from his side. He let the damaged rifle clatter to the ground and turned fully toward his targets. His crooked teeth showed through his lips and he made a sort of wheezy chuckle. He pulled the hammer back with his thumb and the weapon locked into place. Kahn could see the copper ends of the bullets loaded into the cylinder and slowly raised his hands up.

  “Take the money, just don’t shoot. Please don’t shoot.” Ash calmly and quietly spoke. This time the man barked out a short laugh.

  “I ain’t here to shoot you,” he spat at them, “I am here to take care of my own. Gotta have a plan when the shit hits the fan!” He said this last bit in a sing-song cadence that sounded like a motto. He switched the gun to his left hand and gathered a few boxes from the display case with his other and shoved them under his arms. He never broke his gaze from the two men. Fully loaded, he started sidestepping toward the exit door, gesturing them aside with the gun. His boots crunched on glass as he slid and stepped.

  “You two must have known when this happened you’d be overrun by Americans!” The man taunted in victory. “You pushed your luck coming to this country. You know the guys who did it, huh? You guys planning something? I ought to shoot you both ri…“ He cut himself short. His large frame had bumped its way into the rifle display case where he had stolen the glass-smashing weapon. The rack wobbled and he instinctively turned his head and flinched to catch it. The box from under his left arm fell as the revolver pointed slightly away from the two hostages.

  Kahn leapt forward in a football tackle toward the interloper’s midsection. His hit was solid and the bulky intruder grunted and stumbled back. His hindquarters struck a small stack of boxes and his left knee buckled. This caused him to hunch forward and crush Kahn toward the ground as he lost his footing. The revolver went off with an ear shattering explosion near Kahn’s shoulder. The sharp report stunned him senseless for a moment. He loosened his grip on the man and fell forward onto his knees. The man’s gut hung over his shoulder and head and was forcing him down to the glass-covered floor. He tried to look to the side for Ash or another customer that could help, but was imprisoned by the man’s jacket and oversized belly and could not struggle free.

  The man began to strike Kahn on the back of his neck and spine with the box in his left hand. The hard case protected an expensive flashlight and green dot scope set for a modular rifle. Each hard blow shocked Kahn, and it was all he could do to hold the man up. His weight was just too much and Kahn started to falter. The man was now purposefully using his bulk to keep Kahn physically suppressed and unable to effectively fight back. The hand with the revolver raised up high as he clicked the hammer back again with his thumb. The cylinder advanced and placed a fresh, live round into the chamber. The weapon lowered toward the back of Kahn’s trapped skull.

  POP!

  The quick, sharp discharge of the bullet shattered bone and painted blood up the wall and onto the ceiling.

  PART 2

  Chapter 7

  Work Ethic

  A soft knock sounded before the office door swung open.

  “Mr. Wither? You wanted me?” said the man entering. Quiet speakers from the television created muffled voices. The rattle of industrial equipment shook into the office as he entered and closed the door behind him.

  Llewelyn Wither peered over his reading glasses at his visitor. He took them off and set them on his neatly organized desk. Llewelyn beckoned the man to come over and sit down before refocusing his attention to the computer screen. He had the video monitors for the factory up and was watching the workers mixing raw material, baking, and packaging product. Most of the company’s business happened with the overnight and early morning crews and got shipped around the city starting at 3 AM. By mid-morning when Llewelyn arrived, the second shift was already changing over to the grocery products. But this morning crew was milling around more than usual, slowing their productivity.

  The chair squeaked as he sat in the old metal-and-leather chair in front of the desk. Llewelyn was the owner of Patriot Bakery, a facility that made a number of different baked goods for businesses around San Antonio and neighboring suburbs. As he watched the cameras he brushed back his thin, reddish-gray hair with one hand. He was in his sixties, but pushed the people who worked for him with a physical and mental dexterity that exceeded those half his age. He pursed his lips at the images flickering on the computer monitor, sniffing and brushing back his wave of hair every few seconds.

  The floor supervisor watched the TV behind Llewelyn’s shoulders and waited quietly to be addressed. The bulky old television had a small, blurry screen. It sat on the top of a metal filing cabinet with long drawers that lined the back wall of the office. Llewelyn suddenly spun in his chair and directed his attention to the screen. The two men watched the news analysts and experts talking about the Manhattan terrorist attack, how it might have happened, and what it meant for the future security of the country.

  “…borders made of Swiss cheese!” finished a representative from an organization opposing, among other things, the process for foreigners to enter the country. She was interrupted and the conversation turned into a shouting match of opinions as the host tried to bring order back to the program. Llewelyn leaned forward and hit the button, turning off the TV.

  “She’s right, we
don’t know who’s in the country. These terrorists have infiltrated our neighborhoods,” he spun back and looked at his subordinate. “You know I have an Iranian living across the street from me? Unbelievable.” Llewelyn shook his head.

  The supervisor cleared his throat. “Um… sir? The employees are scared. They…”

  “I keep my eye on that Iranian,” Llewelyn interrupted. “He has a wife that wears one of those head things, you know?” The man waved his hand around his head. “How do you wear one of those things in the United States of America? Hmm? That ain’t right. You know they don’t know anything about freedom. She never says anything to me either. Not allowed to talk I bet. Not allowed to talk to other men I bet. I tried being friendly, but they can tell I know all about their intentions here. I wonder where he was yesterday?” Llewelyn shook his head like he was exasperated.

  “Lew, I’m really sorry and all. I came up here because you paged me on the intercom. Do you need me to do something? The workers, they want to get home to their families.”

  Llewelyn stared at the man. His thoughts danced across his face, conflicted feelings morphing into expression. He knew what happened in New York, he heard the announcement on the TV and watched the man he felt ruined his country for eight years go on about radical Islamic terrorists. Of course, the man was too weak to say those words. But Llewelyn read between the lines, understanding that this attack was just like 9/11 all over again. The Muslims target New York because it is a symbol of liberalism and excess, godless and full of hubris. Everyone knew that.

  He knew because there was a TV in his office. He had very strict rules against having electronics on the factory floor. The rules were for their safety. He glanced at the clock on the wall, it was still an hour until the second shift lunch break. Anger crinkled his brow at the realization.