SURVIVORS OF THE DEAD: FROM THE ASHES (3 page)

Harry watched the door to the apartment close and heard the chain being removed. When the door opened again
, sure enough he was greeted by Mr. PITA.

“Look,” he began, “we have been trying to call you for hours! We don’t have electricity, the
phone went out a little while ago, and can you please do something about that smell!”

Mr. PITA
had begun his rant before taking in Harry’s general condition. Not to mention the handgun that he held. Like a light bulb being switched on, Mr. PITA did a quick head-to-toe inspection of Harry and paled quickly.

“Umm, yeah, why do you have a gun, Mr
. Lancaster?”

“Listen slick, if you aren’t up on current events here
, the world is in a shitload of trouble right now!” Harry said with obvious sarcasm. “I don’t give a damn about your electricity or anything else involving you two right now! If you value your lives, you will close and lock that door, stay quiet, and wait for me to finish securing this building! Lock your door and do not open it for any reason until I let you know it’s okay to come out! Do you understand that or do I need to draw you a fucking picture with bright colors to maintain your attention?”

Mr. PITA slammed the door in Harry’s face. Harry hear
d the deadbolt being thrown and the chain put back into place. He waited a few moments but there was only dead silence from the other side of the door.

“Hmm, maybe I won’t have to break out the crayons after all
,” Harry said to himself as he turned and headed toward the stairs leading to the roof – the last area of the building he needed to secure.

Thankfully
, Harry did not discover any further surprises in the open common areas of the building. He had no idea how Edna or Katy had gotten out of their apartments, but he had found both of their doors locked. He decided that whatever was affecting people, causing them to turn into these monsters, probably had not turned the old ladies until they had made it to the lobby. He began to wonder just how long it did take that change to occur. The GNN information didn’t really discuss that much. Regardless, and to his immense relief, at least he knew his building was now free of those things.

As he was descending the
last set of stairs toward the first floor, he suddenly heard screams coming from the direction of the lobby. Jumping three stairs at a time, he descended until he reached the first floor landing. With Glock in hand, for the second time that morning he rounded the corner into the lobby, this time expecting the worse. What he saw was the front door of the building standing wide open. He knew it had been closed the first time he’d seen it, so with some alarm he rushed up to the door with the intention of closing and locking it. He immediately witnessed a horde of zombies encircling the two idiots whom he’d found alive in Apartment 67 only a short time ago. The fools had obviously decided to make a run for it, but had only made it as far as the curb before being engulfed by a mass of what had once been their neighbors and possibly friends. Miss Brat was screaming, while Mr. PITA was trying to fight his way out of the mass, but both were all too quickly overpowered and ripped to shreds. Their screams were abruptly cut off as if someone had flipped a switch. Harry watched the massacre for only a moment before slamming and locking the heavy oak door.

He had told them he would be back
, to stay inside and not come out until he told them it was okay. Although they had the deer-in-the-headlights expression when he’d said those words, he’d thought they would listen. The immense guilt that suddenly washed over Harry was almost too much to bear. Not only for the two people he’d watched die, but for the others he had killed. “I’m getting too old for this shit,” he said as he slowly walked down the hall toward his apartment.

4

Through the haze of his emotional rollercoaster he knew he was in shock, and just wanted to crawl into bed, pulling the covers over his head, and let the world self-destruct on its own accord. Walking into his apartment he once again closed and locked the door. Making his way into the bedroom, he placed the Glock and extra mags on the desk, got into bed, and fell into a heavy, dreamless sleep. Outside the now empty apartment building, the City of San Francisco did, in fact, continue to self-destruct.

After
a twenty-five-year career in law enforcement, Harry had made the decision to retire, taking his pension along with a decent investment portfolio, and had planned to enjoy a less stress-infused life. He had never married, had no kids, and had only just reconnected with a family he’d had little contact with over the years. That had been the most life-altering event he had ever experienced. He had not spent money frivolously, nor on many material items other than what he needed to live comfortably, so he’d invested and those investments had been doing rather well. Still young enough to start another career before “permanent retirement”, his strategy had been to start a security firm with two other retirees who were close friends, specializing in low threat dignitary and celebrity protection. Nothing had been set in stone, but that was the direction they had been leaning.

Harry
had worked a radio car his entire career, never seeking promotions. He had truly enjoyed street level policing, and the community interaction that came with it; he didn’t want to sit behind a desk dealing with the political bullshit that rank frequently required. He was a no-nonsense cop who didn’t take shit; his was one of the first cars en route if back up was needed, yet he was even tempered, had a reassuring and calming demeanor, and always had a soft stuffed animal in the car trunk for a kid.

He was r
espected by the rank and file because they knew he could be counted on to have their backs. His outspoken bluntness however, generally pertaining to bullshit, didn’t endear him to certain elements of the command staff, but even those he pissed off at times grudgingly respected Officer Harold Lancaster. At some point he had even earned the handle “Dirty Harry” when a couple of his buddies had conveniently let it be known that his favorite movies were Clint Eastwood’s
Dirty Harry
series; all five of them.

Harry never really got that though
. He didn’t think he was anything like Harry Callahan
.
Yeah, okay, so he did happen to own a Smith and Wesson Model 29, with an 8 & 3/8” barrel chambered in .44 mag, with accompanying speed loaders, but he hadn’t carried a wheel gun since the mid-1980’s. Which had been a Colt Python .357 in those days. Now, with bad guys having access to automatic assault weapons, cops carried autoloaders. However, he had made an impression on the target range with that .44 many times, usually putting six out of six in the center consistently.

Nor had he once, in his entire career, run through the streets of San Francisco, jumping over cars
, shooting “punks” one-handed with that cannon. He didn’t consider having his wrist broken the most practical way in which to end a pursuit, with all the reports that had to be written, while delivering iconic catchphrases such as “
this is a .44 Magnum, the most powerful handgun in the world, and would blow your head clean off; you’ve got to ask yourself one question: "Do I feel lucky? Well do ya, punk?”

A
fter some good-natured ribbing and friendly pressure from colleagues he had worked with over the years and who had been promoted up through the ranks, he finally relented and accepted an FTO position the last few years before retirement. Being able to work the day shift, after fifteen years fluctuating between graveyard and swing, was one of the carrots that led him to finally promote up at least one small rung. As a Field Training Officer he was able to pass along experiences and real world techniques to the young men and women just starting their own careers – experiences that the academy could never hope to teach.

T
he “Dirty Harry” handle, and highly overstated reputation, had followed him to day watch. He had overheard rookies several times saying things like, “I heard Lancaster is kind of scary but a great FTO, and they say he gets all the most exciting calls! I really hope I get assigned to ‘Dirty Harry’.” Usually a couple of his buddies were in the vicinity, turning shades of purple to keep from laughing theirs asses off, while looking everywhere but in his direction.

“Yeah, they had nothing to do with this shit
,” Harry always said, chuckling. But that was great because if the rookies respected him, or even feared him a bit, they would listen to what he had to say, and hopefully the experience they gained from his critiques would help them throughout their careers.

He remembered
his own FTOs that first year, and how vital that portion of the training had been in developing his own career. As a rookie, which seemed like a hundred years ago, he’d trained with some of the most dedicated and qualified police officers he’d ever met. That was why, in part, he had enjoyed such a long, successful career and had developed into a decent cop himself.
I hope to God some of those young men and women I helped train survived this zombie thing
, Harry had thought sadly several times over the past few hours.

All retirement plans
went in the toilet with the 2008 financial downturn when Harold Lancaster lost his entire investment portfolio. Like millions across the nation, he found himself scrambling to make decisions pertaining to his future. With only his retirement pension to live on, and Social Security still too far down the road to even consider, his plans were completely and totally fucked. His two buddies who were to partner with him also lost everything they had.

The
apartment building Harry had lived at for the past several years was quiet with a fairly good group of tenants, and was located in Nob Hill, one of the most desirable areas in the City. He had gotten to know the owners of the property fairly well, so when the previous building manager retired, Harry was approached to take the job.

“A
ll you have to do is collect rents, call a plumber when needed, and rent vacant units when they come up,” the owners had said during an impromptu hallway meeting.

“
I’ve handled domestic violence calls, rapes, robberies, and shootings for years, how hard could it be! This’ll be a piece a cake,” Harry had concluded after that conversation.

With the allure of a
free apartment and utilities, he’d accepted the position. It would be an easy way to eliminate one major expense from his tight monthly budget. It rapidly became apparent that the role of resident manager was anything but
a piece of cake
. The plumber could not be reached most times, tenants paid their rent late for all manner of reasons, and renting overpriced apartments, in one of the most expensive cities on the west coast, was like selling used cars at times.

Just
eight months after taking the manager position, the owners had sold the building to an investor group, who could have cared less what happened, as long as the apartments were rented for the highest price possible. “We’ll get back to you,” was the general reply for anything else. Pest control was a foreign concept completely, and “Yeah, just send us an email and we’ll look into that,” quickly became their response for maintenance issues. Referencing back to his
outspoken bluntness generally pertaining to bullshit,
it was clear Harry’s bullshit limit was close to being achieved with these folks.

5

Along with his quickly growing angst with property management, and his retirement plans no longer conceivable, Harry came to the realization that he missed his former
stress-infused life
more than he had expected, which led him back to the department as a Level 1 Reserve Officer. A Reserve Officer is an unpaid POST,
Police Officer Standards and Training
, certified peace officer, who must maintain the same stringent POST standards and training as regular full-time sworn cops.

Reserve Officers
have full police powers while on duty and in uniform, and must volunteer at least sixteen hours of their time per month, although they usually put in many more hours than the minimum. They patrol in vehicles, on bikes, on foot, and in some cases on marine craft. Most recently they were deployed to assist in all of the Occupy demonstrations in the Financial District.

Although a bit long in the tooth
to become a Reserve at his age, Harry had ultimately been accepted after demonstrating he was still in great physical condition, passing the oral interviews along with the updated background investigations, and completing a recertification POST program.

It also did not hurt that
Harry still knew many of the department command staff, including the chief, but those relationships only gained him a foot in the door. He still had to prove he could do the job, and would have had it no other way. This was not like becoming a security guard at the San Francisco Centre keeping homeless out of Bloomingdales or looking for a lost kid.

He
remembered feeling his
long-toothed
age with all the young men and women enrolled in the POST program he had attended to obtain his recertification, but there had been an immense sense of relief that none of those young folks knew anything about
Dirty Harry Lancaster.
He had
specifically approached the POST instructors, who would have known he was a retired cop, to request that they not refer to his former career.