Chapter 18
Midtown police officer, Oswald Jones, wasn't much of a gambler. Therefore, he didn't appreciate it when life slapped his world around like the tumblers in a slot machine.
"Stop playing around and help me with this," Officer Jones demanded as he slung a large cardboard box onto the nearest unmanned detective's desk.
Dusty mechanical parts bubbled out of the top of the box and onto the desk, spilling case files and paperclips across the coffee stained linoleum. Photographs of blood sullied floors and chalk lines fluttered gracefully to the floor. Pulling on the same string of curses and oaths, fellow police officer, Leonard McKowski, shoved aside a similar stack of R rated clutter to access the various antenna, radios, and switchboards that served as the police station's central internal communication hub.
"I can barely help myself," Officer McKowski replied as he dawned a headset that fit unevenly over his ears. "Jenny left the radio to help Central dispatch and I don't know what the hell I'm doing." A short stint as a repairman and suddenly he was an electrician. Just looking at the hotwired mess was enough to go cross-eyed.
Back in the bull pen, Officer Jones corralled a heap of barcoded hand-me-downs on top of some pending warrants. Maybe the oversized glow in the dark buttons on the handheld radios would simplify the task of finding the criminals underneath. One radio, still nacreous from its trip to the future, fell over and knocked several others to the floor. The brittle plastic achieved its dream of becoming a 200 piece puzzle in a matter of seconds. Another radio, the size of a man's foot, shattered under the pressure of Jones' clenched fist. He threw the tiddlywinks clinging to his palm back into the box and subsequently hit himself with the recoil.
Sky rocking from disgruntled to hostile, the officer skirted the edges of a municipal postal rampage. "This equipment is prehistoric!" Jones yelled. "How the hell do they expect us to use it? We're not trained to handle the apocalypse."
"What did you expect, a trial run with the seven deadly plagues?" McKowski chuckled to himself, partially out of hysteria. He plugged a connection into the wrong port and earned a sparking bite on his hand. The overhead emergency lights dimmed with the sudden power flux.
"Careful Cowski," Jones barked, eyes grazing the ceiling. "We've only got one generator left. If this one blows, we'll all be working in the red light district."
"Easy for you to say," McKowski chirped back. "None of this stuff is labeled. It's like playing pickup sticks with live wire." He flipped a switch, despite much groaning of the machines, and restored power to the landlines. Only three telephones survived the nuclear sized EMP that knocked out nearly all of the communication towers in Midtown. All of which started ringing at once to make up for lost time when they were reconnected.
Straddled between them, Officer Jones flinched and put his hands to his ears. "Arceus above. Turn it off Cowski!"
"I'm trying, I'm trying! But they're hard wired into the original system," McKowski explained. "If I shut them down, the radio goes with it." And a dozen officers would be stranded in the middle of a crisis. Not even Jones' temper could refute that point, but that didn't mean he couldn't gripe and moan about it anyway.
"I can't think with all of this noise," he complained. His fellow officers would've said he didn't think at all considering the label on the side of the second box he picked up read "Out of Service." But desperate times called for unreasonable measures. Jones lifted the box and the bottom fell out, vomiting circuit boards and cooper innards across the floor.
"To muck with this garbage!" Jones snarled as he threw the box against the desk. He kicked through the fabricated refuse to stand in line of sight of the dispatch desk. Maybe if his partner saw the struggle beyond the wall of glowing dots, he'd sympathize a little more. "We can't run the whole precinct by ourselves."
"They need everybody they can spare in the city," McKowski reminded with prompt dismissal. "Haven't you seen the news? It looks like a war zone out there. The power plant's raging out of control."
"That's why we need to be out there, not stuck in here tinkering with broken toys!" Jones threw his arm in the direction of the front entrance. A wall of dirty scratched safety glass separated their bleak reality from his glorious ambitions. "We're missing all of the action!"
"Leave your post and Lipton will nail your ass to the floor," McKowski warned, not bothering to lift his eyes from the wavelengths bouncing in front of him. He adjusted a wire and voices crackled through the radio. Pokemon be praised.
"Lipton can kiss my feebas," Jones continued, slanting his eyes with discontent, yet making no move for the door.
McKowski touched his headset and lifted his eyebrows as if turning an antenna for a better signal. "At least Lipton gives us orders and isn't afraid to get his hands dirty," he absently continued. "He's probably out in the thick of it now, screaming flamethrowers at ever badge and civilian he can lay his eyes on. Not like that coward Blanchard who tucked tail into some urgent city council meeting and hasn't been heard from since."
Officer Jones continued to stare at the door with the hopes that a competent commanding officer would ride in on the back of an arcanine and lead them all to the promotions they deserved. Answering the summons, a round waisted officer strolled in from the hallway with a soda bottle in one hand and a dirty napkin in the other. Jones would have crushed another radio in his fist had he been holding one. "And where the hell have you been?" he barked.
Officer Cody Miller raised a choice finger at the accusatory glare circumventing his previous whereabouts. "Earn a few more stripes, then you can question me all you want," he spat just as quickly.
"Quiet!" McKowski suddenly yelled from within his statically charged burrow. "I think something's coming through!" He stared off into the wall, hand outstretched to a dial. It popped, flickering the lights again. All three officers jumped and McKowski tore off his headset.
"Son of a signal beam!" he winced. "I finally get through to someone and it sounds like an electabuzz orgy over there."
Having no desire to participate in such audible excursions, Officer Jones plowed his way through the bull pen back to the storage room. He made sure to shank Miller in the gut when he passed. "Make yourself useful and pick up the phone or something. I think your fat ass is capable of handling that."
Taking the hit with elastic ease, Miller tossed his greasy napkin in Jones' cardboard box and took a swig of his overtime elixir. Working a double late at night wasn't ideal, but with Jones in the back and McKowski at the radio, someone needed to watch the front desk, especially when it was empty. Two rows of plastic subway style chairs remained unoccupied on the other side of the glass in the public waiting area next to the front entrance.
The station was far enough away from the power plant that citizens weren't banging on the doors for sanctuary. Common grievances were already addressed during the day and the usual rabble didn't have to make their rounds when there was so much chaos to capitalize on in the city. It wouldn't be long until the slighted and entitled swarmed the gates, demanding restitution for the wrongs done to them, but until then, Miller planned to sit on his fat ass and settle in for the night.
With the city on fire and every available cop running overtime, answering the phone was the least of his concerns. Even on a normal day, phone calls took more effort than they were worth. Wrong numbers were just as frequent as cuss outs and there was always someone with a hot tip that would lead to the city's next big conspiracy theory. That last one might have earned some merit given Reynold's latest temper tantrum, but the precinct didn't have the patience or the people to deal with whiney complainers too scared to leave their sofas.
In a way, the explosion was the best thing that could've happened to their careers. No one would dare question a cop in the midst of rampaging anarchy. And if they did, lawless tyranny was the best excuse to throw the rule book out of the window. Order must be restored for the sake of civilization. No matter the cost. It only helped that they were in the business of protecting and saving lives. All sins would be forgiven this night and all nights to come for every first responder who could claim they were on duty when Reynolds rose from the dead. They would be heroes, even those like Miller who didn't have to lift a finger higher than his soda bottle. The only thing standing between him, an awards ceremony, and endless favors was the ring of the entryway bell. It jingled with the appearance of a visitor.
In response, the light above the door flickered. Fuzzy black and white security footage captured an apparition as it took shape underneath the shivering light. Rainwater dripped from the bottom of a blue trench coat and formed a puddle on the curling linoleum beneath it. Each inky drop quieted the ringing of the telephone and the buzzing of the fluorescent bulbs until there was nothing left but the soft sound of a pair of military combat boots wading through the spreading water.
Officer Miller didn't bother to look up when the bell rang. He already knew what type of visitor had walked through the door by the odor wafting toward the window. Musty ripe trash can couldn't be washed away in the rain no matter how hard it fell. Miller slammed his soda bottle loudly on the desk. He wasn't in the mood to scrape homeless spit wads out from underneath the plastic gumball colored chairs. Nor were the chairs prepared for such an assault. They shrank away from the visitor whose black arching shoulders filled the aisle with its passing.
One by one, the overhead lights dimmed trying to illuminate the figure as it approached. They frantically splashed light down its back, but the crevices of its jacket were too sturdy to break. The folds sharply tossed dark shapes across the visitor's body. They flipped from left to right in time with the slow calculated swagger of his gait. Step. Pause. Step.
The visitor eased to a stop in front of the greeting window. He spoke no introduction. Made no demand. No nothing. There was only another flicker of the lights. Unable to postpone the interaction any longer, Miller tossed up his eyes. The heavy lines of a tactical jacket, unbuttoned and dusted with combat, caught his gaze with a knife's edge, lifting his chin as if drawn across his throat.
The visitor was bigger than Miller expected. Rain doused his jacket, darkening his already saturated shadow. Not that the added weight meant anything to a man who looked like he could bench press twice his own body weight. The visitor kept his head down, revealing nothing underneath the bill of a blue baseball cap other than the stubble scarred chin of a seasoned ring fighter. A primordial hormone stiffened Miller's muscles in a reflex response. He froze and refused to blink. Years of sitting at the desk mindlessly addressing fruitless complaints were all that kept him from turning to stone completely.
"Can I help you?" Miller asked, sincerely hoping that he couldn't.
A small amused smile flicked across the visitor's face, much like a cat's tail right before it pounced. "I want to talk to Baby," the visitor said.
The tension in Miller's face dropped faster than the ends of his frown. Baby was no doubt some moniker for a gangster down in holding. Grunts and their nicknames. They had no shame. This rabble was no better than the rest. He merely took Miller by surprise because of the hour. There was nothing to be so scared of.
"I want to talk to Baby," the visitor repeated.
A swelling vein warmed the chill tickling the back of Miller's neck. This street rattata had some nerve making demands during a disaster like a lawyer in a cheap suit. "There aren't any babies here," Miller explained with a loose hold on his disgust. "It's a police station, not a hospital, so visiting hours have been suspended. Indefinitely."
Miller plopped down in his chair and spun away to address some imaginary paperwork. The blue ink from his pen bled through the pages, but he didn't stop. It was important to sustain the illusion that there were more important things to do than entertain a lonely grunt. Psychic attacks usually discouraged simple minded individuals, but the shadow across the desk continued the haunt the glass, chilling the air between them with the silence.
"Go home and come back tomorrow," Miller prompted. "Your buddy can wait until then." His breath began to frost with the words. "I said get lost," he clarified, willing his temper to warm his hands so that he could continue the lengthening scribble.
"I said I want to talk to Baby," the visitor persisted.
Miller slammed his pen onto the desk. The shock helped him feel his fingers. "Look. Nobody's getting in or out tonight so just go home. We've got bigger problems than you friend right now."
"You might be right about that."
The overhead lights flickered again, this time, much more heavily, drenching the room in darkness for a few seconds. The entry bell dinged again, but Miller didn't notice. He looked up at the ceiling, cursing the station's antiquity with the same ferocity as his fellow officer in the stockroom. Not one to miss a change in tone, Officer McKowski pulled off his headset and rose from his chair at the radio station.
"Jones? Miller? You alright out there?" he called.
"Stay in your hole, Cowski," Miller snapped back. "I can handle one pussy footed asshole." He flicked his disdain back onto the visitor, daring him to challenge the remark.
One of the lights in the lobby didn't recover from the power flux and hid a corner of the waiting area. It cast an even darker shadow upon the visitor, deepening his jacket from blue to black. The visitor leaned in a little closer and waved at McKowski to do the same. It was a gamble to indulge a snarky grunt in a battle of pride, but Miller was willing to take the chance and risk a little dignity. This was his house after all. His home territory. When Miller came close to the glass, the visitor lifted his head and revealed a pair of Persian perfect eyes, narrow and gleaming like a reaper's prized scythe.
"You afraid of the dark?" he asked.
Before Miller could reply, the shadows hiding in the corner suddenly launched across the lobby and into the glass, blowing out the overhead lights with a shriek and a shower of sparks.
Jones said it himself. It was the apocalypse, and none of them were trained to handle the devil.