The Zone Read online

  “That sucks. Look, I’ll let you go; gimme a holler when it calms down and I’ll buy you dinner, catch up on the gossip.”

  “You know there’s plenty of that. See ya.”

  Call volume spiking wasn’t all that unusual-things always seemed to happen at the same time; it certainly explained why it took so long to call the ambo earlier. Must be a pretty significant statistical swell for the department to cancel vacations and loosen overtime, although Halloween was only three weeks away, and that always gave the numbers a spike.

  But I was uneasy. The incident in the briar was really odd; it wasn’t dogs, I had seen and shot a lot of sick or mean dogs, raccoons, opossums, you name it. I had even chased a feral iguana one time, and those bastards can move even though they only run on two legs. What I had heard was new to me, and there was more than one. Of course, it could have been a group of kids screwing with me, making strange noises and scurrying about. Not impossible. But I didn’t believe that.

  Probably I was just spending too much time alone, getting a bit goofy, imagining great and terrible mysteries with each shadow. Most likely-Occam’s Razor and all that.

  I dug around in the back room and found the scanner the dispatchers had given me as a retirement gift, a police-only model able to reach the high freqs we used now. It was still in the box. I unpacked it, studied the instructions, set it up. It didn’t take long for channels and codes to come back.

  After a half hour I went and found a pen and a pad of paper. Around midnight I finished the pizza.

  Friday I woke up at nine despite having gone to bed at two. The scanner was still chattering away, and after taking a piss and brushing my teeth I headed downstairs with the last juice box and pop tart. The pad was on the sofa, and I flipped through its pages while I ate. My last gig had been reviewing communications’ paperwork, which also involved listening to a lot of radio traffic to seek or confirm patterns. Boring work, but useful right now. You had to be a police officer to do it, someone who had supervised police officers.

  With only a pad I had had to work up a way to collate the data as it came in, but I had sorted it out. I had listened for about eight hours on a Thursday night, normally a fairly decent night as police activity in this town went. The bars usually had a college special to draw the kids on Thursdays, occasionally ladies’ nights, and activity would be fairly steady from 2000 to around 0100, when it would drop off sharply.

  Last night the pattern had been different; call volume was only up about half again as much, which goes to show that statistics are all too often just lies taken as truth. The numbers said the call volume was up, but not all that bad, but the reality was that the call volume was not too high because the line officers were ignoring routine calls in order to focus on priority calls, which meant the usual ash and trash calls which normally made up the largest portion of police business dropped off the screen without registering. Instead, last night was an unending series of fight, assault, and disturbance calls, nearly all being founded, that term meaning valid and true.

  There was a pattern of sorts-the disturbances were muggings and unprovoked attacks by strangers occurring in dispersed locations; it was impossible to bring police pressure to bear because things appeared to be completely random. From what I heard, there were at least three officer-involved shootings, all against drug-crazed individuals who ended up being shot multiple times before going down.

  Looking at it through my experience and training, a pattern was emerging, and obviously the brass saw it as well, which explained their precautions: a gang war was building, one of the old-style 80s bloodbaths. What we were seeing now was new recruits getting blooded in random assaults, earning their chops. Factions were prepping recruits and bolstering their forces before undertaking a serious realignment of the social order.

  While I was fairly exposed, residence-location-wise, I was not in much danger because my place is a fort, and I had no car to worry about nor a job to draw me away from safety. I was, however, low on food. A survey of the state of supplies established that I could survive a standoff measured in hours. I complied a detailed list of food and household goods and went to shower and change.

  There was a superstore eight blocks from my home, and I normally made do with a handy folding cart like the old ladies use, but this time I called for a cab to get me and my two shopping carts worth of goods. It was probably overdoing it, but what the hell, most of what I got was canned goods, so I would eat it eventually anyway.

  “Got family coming in?” the cabbie asked after we finished loading the stuff, a young guy with bad skin and a scraggly red beard.

  “Naw, I’m thinking the natives are restless, might be some rioting.” I fastened my seatbelt. “Figure I might end up stuck in my place for a few days.”

  “Could be right. There was a helluva fight across the access ring an hour ago, I drove past with a fare from the airport, then came back empty and took another look. Crowd was going at it, took about fifty cops to break it up, and they didn’t so much break it up as run one group off. Weird lookin’, like they was stoned, man.”

  By the time I had everything unpacked and stored, I figured I had enough food for a month, enough cleaning supplies for two months, enough toilet paper for six weeks, and three bottles of water. Twelve ounce bottles. There’s always something.

  Which reminded me, the propane tank on the grill was nearly empty, and if I was thinking about losing utilities I was going to be in the dark, because while I had expensive police-issue flashlights, they had built-in rechargeable batteries.

  On the other hand unpacking a full case of beef stew made me think I was definitely letting things become an obsession. How many impending ‘gang wars’ had we been alerted for during my career, and how many had actually panned out? Madhouse weeks were hardly unheard of, after all. I had had some excitement yesterday and it made me want to run around playing last survivor like the Charlton Heston movie. What I needed was a nap.

  The phone buzzing woke me; I had kept it close to hand for a change. It was nearly fifteen hundred, I noticed as I hit the button. It was Sergeant Mesa on the line, office of the staff commander for emergency planning; I had met him a couple times while out-processing for retirement. “Sorry to disturb you, Lieutenant, but the Chief wants to put our type II assets on alert.” He sounded stressed. “Are you going to be available this weekend?”

  I sat up on the sofa and scratched my head. “You mean for call up?”

  “Yes, sir, if needed. From twenty-one hundred tonight through twenty-one hundred Sunday night we need you to be by the phone and able to respond to Training in tactical uniform within an hour. Will you be available if needed?”

  “Sure.” What else would I be doing?

  “This is largely a test of our capabilities, however you should treat it as the real program.” He recited the words like a prayer.

  “I’ll be ready, feel free to call.”

  The department had two hundred reserve officers, unpaid but fully trained and licensed personnel that served sixteen hours a month, or when called out in case of disaster or emergency. Since 9/11 they had also set up a system wherein retired officers could be called back to active duty in emergency, serving in whatever capacity their physical abilities allowed. I was Category II, which meant limited physical duty; static guard post, barrier duty, traffic direction, stuff where the old & infirm retirees could free up able-bodied patrolmen. Retirees had never been called up to date. What the hell was going on? I turned on the scanner, but every channel had moved to encrypted.

  I climbed up onto my roof and took a look around; other than a couple big smoke pillars marking building fires, which was not unusual, the only thing I saw was a couple police choppers in the air, and a couple military birds as well. There were more sirens than would be usual for a Friday, but it was clearly a busy week and the weekend’s approach would simply ramp that up.

  For some reason I kept turning towards the scrubland where I heard the growl. The cabbi
e’s ‘big fight’ would have occurred just across the access ring from it. I thought about the absent vagrants, and mentally kicked myself for telling ghost stories.

  But I did use the block & tackle I had rigged to lower the grill’s gas cylinder into the alley so I could exchange it later.

  If I said the call didn’t make my heart sing I would be lying: I laid out a Tactical uniform, cleaned all my gear, polished already-shining boots, and in general fluttered around like a kid before Prom. To get to wear a real badge, even for a weekend, would be amazing. Even on a static post taking a certain amount of crap from snot-nosed rookie patrolmen. It would be like a visit home.

  The shrinks would probably tell me letting go was healthier, but screw them.

  Alan Hambone, owner and operator of Hambone’s Army Surplus and Amazing Gift Emporium, was a huge burly man running a bit toward fat as he ended his sixth decade on this planet. A retired USMC Sergeant Major, he ran a thriving business out of a decrepit sandstone warehouse that had been built before WW1 on a railroad spur, and whose claim to fame was that it had been used as a staging point for supplies sent to Black Jack Pershing when that worthy had been hunting banditos in Mexico. Pershing’s picture was one of two non-Marines in the photo collection that dominated the wall behind the cash register, the other being George S. Patton Jr, a staff officer of Pershing’s during the Mexico foray.

  The warehouse was a wonderland of genuine military surplus from a dozen nations, all manner of outdoorsy goods both new and used, plus ammunition, guns, archery supplies, knives by the score, and an arts, crafts, and jewelry section to entertain the wives and girlfriends.

  I was shocked to see the lot empty and Alan preparing to shut down the lights. “Alan! Hey, Alan! What’s up? Why are you closing?”

  He turned, quick on his feet for a big man, clad in a red tee shirt with USMC emblazoned across the XXXL front, jeans, and a faded Marine-issue camo battle dress blouse worn open. I jumped at the sight of his big paw wrapped around a M1911. “Hell, sorry, Martin. Getting a bit jumpy, I guess.” He stuffed the pistol into his waistband and shook my hand.

  “Why are you closing up early?”

  He jerked his chin towards a heavily loaded Ford Explorer I hadn’t noticed. “Gonna meet up with my son and his family and head for the tall timber. Got a cabin off a good piece, gonna lay low for a while.” He tapped his beak of a nose. “Got a bad smell. Drums in the jungle and all that. Gonna be trouble, and the eagle don’t shit for me to kill booga-boogas no more. Time to di-di-mau.”

  “What the hell is going on?” I shook my head. “The PD just called me to say that the wrecks and retirees are on alert for this weekend.”

  “You’re smart, you’ll tell them to stick it and head for cover.” He grinned. “Too dumb to do that, though, right? They said, ‘hey, want to take unnecessary risks for low pay’ and you said ‘where do I need to be’, right?”

  I shrugged. “There it is. I’m too old to change.”

  “I know. The Crotch calls, I’d go, too. Some people are just too dumb to live. You need something, I’ll sell it to you if you make it brisk.”

  “Sure.” I noticed he left the ‘Closed’ sign on and locked the door behind us. “You taking credit cards today?”

  “From you, yeah. What do you need?”

  “Candles, flashlights, stuff in case the utilities get cut off. I got food, and my place is like a bank vault, but every flashlight I’ve got is rechargeable.”

  “No problem.” He grabbed a cart. “Follow me. Twenty-five percent discount for a fellow fightin’ fool-there ain’t many of us left anymore.”

  We loaded up the cart with a couple Mag Lights, batteries, all the cylumes he had left, a propane lamp, his last six mini-cylinders of gas for the lamp, and some candles for good luck. “What about water and food?” Alan asked, rubbing his iron-gray burr haircut.

  “I hit the grocery, but I forgot bottled water, and I need some water cans so I can flush if the water is cut off. What’s going on, Alan?”

  “Me, I don’t know.” He lifted two groups of five tan plastic five gallon water cans bound together with strapping onto my cart and tossed in a couple bottles of purification tablets. “How about some MREs? Got two cases left, cut you a deal.”

  “Sure. Why are you so low?”

  “We ain’t the only ones getting the prickles, son. I’ve had a run on the useful stuff since Tuesday. Went cash only on Wednesday, and this morning I equipped a white collar type with everything from boots to cover and some hardware for three Rolexes. Some I sold to are fringe types, the kind who think the government will start shooting gun owners any day, but most were ex-military, kids not long back from goat-ville and retirees. What really put me on edge was these suit and tie types, young Republican Rotary Club Kiwanis; guys I sold guns to and then had to explain what ammunition to buy and how to load them. About twenty of those have passed through, and you know that I’m not the only guy selling guns in our armpit of a city. When you see bean counters getting panicky, that’s a bad sign. Plus it feels wrong, I dunno what to say, but if this was at night and ‘sixty-eight again, I would say we had sappers in the wire.”

  “Things are definitely screwy,” I agreed. “I don’t get the news.”

  “Huh.” Alan put a lot of meaning into a grunt. “Like those ignorant bastards would know a fact if it was chewing on ‘em. Word on the CB is that the CDC has teams out at three local hospitals, and the Net says that the race riot in LA isn’t a race riot.” He tapped the keys on a calculator. “I’ll cut out the sales tax; I figure this place won’t be standing when I get back, and I’m insured. When I opened up this morning ‘bout dawn there was four-five winos limping across my parking lot, looked like hell. They eyeballed me like I was made out of Thunderbird or crack or something until I showed ‘em the business end of an 870 I keep handy and they moved on. Acted like they were three-quarters in the bag and seriously pissed off at the same time. Decided right then it was time to take a vacation, but my kid had to get home from Houston, didn’t get in until noon.”

  “Hadn’t heard about LA. You got any ammo left?”

  “Some, no guns, though. Sold all I’m not taking with me.”

  “I’m OK on weapons. I could use ammunition and maybe some magazines.”

  I bought the last AK and AR-15 magazines he had, the thirty-rounders anyway, plus a couple Colt twenty round AR-15 magazines, three cases of 5.56mm, one case of 7.62x39mm, one case of 7.62 NATO, one case of .45 ACP hardball, six boxes of .45 hollow points, six boxes of .41 Magnum, a box of .38 hollow points, a box of .25 ACP hollow points, twelve boxes of 12 gauge buckshot, and two bricks of .22 Long Rifle. It left him with almost no ammunition in stock, but what the hell. If there was a run on gun purchases the price wouldn’t be this cheap for another year. It wasn’t like it could go bad, and discount he was giving me made it a sweet deal by any standard. I would shoot it up eventually.

  I sat atop the stacked cases while I waited for my cab, having specified a van; 7,400 rifle or handgun cartridges and three hundred shotgun rounds weren’t going to fit in the economy sized sedans they drive now. Alan locked up and left with an apology; he had no room to help me move my stuff even if he had the time. I didn’t mind, it was a nice night and I had no place to be and nothing special to do.

  At least until my phone rang. I wondered if I wasn’t getting my hopes up for nothing-the brass might just be running a drill. But like Alan said, this smelled wrong.

  The cab driver, a slender guy who looked Arabic but sounded like he was from the Bronx was freaked out by the ammunition, but an extra ten up front cured him. Another ten got him to help me lug it all inside my place. By the time I had moved it from inside the front door to the back room and organized it I was feeling pretty stupid again. Alan dealt with a lot of weirdoes and that sort of thing rubs off; years of police work had taught me that melodrama was a very strong and pointless motivator.

  Still, his story about the winos struck a nerve. How I coul
dn’t say exactly, but it made me uneasy. I wondered if I was missing something.

  Despite having a ton of food in the place I walked down to the corner and pulled two hundred bucks out of the ATM so I could order out. This had been the most expensive day since my divorce settlement, but I wasn’t in any financial danger, and a big chunk of it was household goods anyway. On the way back I stopped at the gas station and exchanged my propane cylinder for a full one. I thought about getting a second one, but shrugged it off-playing survivor had its limits.

  Today had been fun, but it was ten minutes after eighteen hundred and there had been no call to arms from the Department. Time to stop playing Mad Max and get back to the real world. I needed more outside contact, I decided. Next week I would arrange for one of those plastic mini-dish services, get a couple hundred channels so I could bitch with authority about how there was nothing to watch. It was time to get back in touch with what passed for American culture. The decision pleased me somehow-it represented progress, I suppose. Out there in the green briar I had felt…well, real, and that had been a good feeling.

  Maybe life wasn’t over for me after all.

  Chapter Three

  I dreamed about the guy next to the dumpster for some reason; it was pretty much as it had been in real life except he was looking at me and growling. And wearing a greeter’s smock from Target.

  Since the power and water were on I deduced that civilization had survived the night despite the fact that I had not been recalled to duty, so I had a long shower after the full range of exercises and three miles on the treadmill.

  A paper, I decided, since I couldn’t order satellite service until Monday; I hadn’t read a paper in weeks. Time to get back into the real world. I wore my gear vest but I left off the Diamondback; it was time to start cutting back to just one gun. Not all at once, but three would do for today. I felt oddly proud of the reduction in firepower.