through the trees. When I got to the edge of the field, what I saw was chaos. There was a huge crowd of maybe two hundred people in front of the store. Citizens were shoving and pushing each other and fights were breaking out. People were begging the managers to let them in so that they could get food for their families. The store managers were only letting a few in at a time, but only if they had cash.
How management was tallying up the price of the goods, and what people got, I wasn’t sure. As people came out of the store with a few bags of supplies, they were attacked by others in the crowd and their supplies were stolen. Then the inevitable happened. I heard gunshots. Who fired I couldn’t say, but the crowd scattered and people began to run. As the crown parted, the area where the shots came from, I could see the body of a young woman with blond hair on the ground rolling around in obvious pain. Pandemonium broke out, and people started to force their way into the store, rushing past the managers and other store employees. Fights broke out all through the crowd with everybody trying to take whatever they could in an attempt to sustain themselves for a little longer. I didn’t want to be a part of any of this. I backed into the tree line and made my way back to the apartment.
As I walked into the apartment I was greeted, as usual, by Fred. She was purring, and rubbing up against my legs. She had no idea what was going on. Ignorance is bliss. I was hungry, so I cooked up a scrambled eggs and bacon mountain house meal using the propane and camp stove combination. Breakfast for dinner was one of my favorite things. It wasn’t too bad considering it was cooked in a bag with hot water.
It was the end of week two, and as I sat in my chair, I started to ponder my next move. The electricity didn’t seem to be coming back on. There was no difference in the functionality of any of my electronic items, and things were starting to heat up around the neighborhood. I had already seen somebody get shot. People were starting to steal from each other, and arguments were breaking out amongst neighbors. Soon, my safety was going to be harder to ensure. As I thought about my options, I soon fell asleep, listening to the little internal motor of the furball beside me.
I jumped awake. I didn’t know what time it was, but it was getting dark out. I could hear arguing just outside my door. I grabbed my 1911 from the end table beside me and moved to the door. As I looked through the peephole, I could see my neighbor, a fifty-year-old black male who I knew worked for a construction company before this event. He lived across the courtyard from me. We spoke several times a week, but I didn’t know his name. He was a small-statured, quiet guy who worked hard and never bothered anybody. Now he was in an argument with a guy I didn’t know. The second guy was also a black male, about 185 pounds and he was irate. He also had a bat. All of a sudden, the second guy swung his bat striking my neighbor in the shoulder. As the thug swung the bat a second time, I threw open my door.
Several thoughts were running through my head. You need to ignore this and let it play out. Don’t get involved. The world is different now. But I’m not like that. I’m a cop. It was ingrained in my DNA to confront aggression and to protect those that can’t. Batboy swung a third time, knocking my neighbor to the ground.
“Drop the fuckin’ bat!” I yelled. My front sight aimed center mass.
“What? You gonna shoot me? I don’t think you got the balls…cracker!” You could see the contempt in his eyes.
“That’s not something I think you should bet on,” I said as I stared at him. He lifted the bat up and started to walk toward me, rage and anger in his eyes. He kept repeating over and over.
“You ain’t got the balls, cracker.”
“You ain’t got the balls, cracker.”
Each time he said it, I ordered him to drop the bat, but he kept walking toward me. He was about four feet from me when he raised the bat to swing it at me. I pressed the trigger four times, ba-bang, ba-bang. Two double taps, center mass. Batboy stumbled back and landed against a wall. Blood immediately started to drain from the holes in his chest and shirt. He had a look of bewilderment on his face, like he couldn’t believe that I had just shot him. He had been warned. He slid to the ground, dead.
I changed out the partial magazine for a full one, placing the half-used mag in my pocket. I scanned the area for any more threats. Once I was sure there were no more, I walked over to where my neighbor was lying on the patio in front of his door. I wish I could have remembered my neighbor’s name, but for the life of me, I couldn’t remember what it was. I looked him over and saw some blood on his head.
“Brother, are you okay?” I asked. He grumbled a little, rubbing his head and shoulder.
“He got me good a couple of times, but I don’t think anything is too serious.” He looked over at the body lying beside his apartment door. “Man, if it wasn’t for you, that could be me lying there with a bashed-in skull. Thanks, man.” He reached out his hand to shake mine. I extended the courtesy and holstered my 1911.
“Brother, things are getting bad here.” In my world, bat boy was just another casualty caused by the event and society’s decline into primitive behavior. I knew an attack on me, in my apartment, was not far off. I made the decision at that moment that I needed to leave. I knew this decision had been coming but had hoped to avoid it. Bunkering in is fine if you’re in a rural area that is easier to defend, but living in a metropolitan community opens you up to the possibility of attack. I decided that humping my way back home to Pennsylvania and the friends I had back there was my best alternative.
“Listen, brother, I’m getting out of here. I’ll be gone by tomorrow morning. I’ve got extra food and water in my apartment that you can have. Once I’m gone, it’s yours.” I reached out my hand to shake his again. “Be safe,” I said as I helped him up and headed to my apartment to prepare to go.
3
Once I decided to leave, I had a very difficult decision to make and a more difficult thing to do. I couldn’t take Freddy with me. I was heading to Indiana Pennsylvania which was approximately 240 miles from Laurel, Maryland. Taking a sixteen-year-old cat in my rucksack was an unrealistic thing to even consider. I couldn’t leave her in the apartment. If I did, she would suffer a slow painful death from starvation and dehydration. She didn’t deserve to go out like that. I had her declawed when she was a kitten, so leaving her free to roam would have been a death sentence for her as she had no way to defend herself. She had been an indoor cat her whole life, so even if she had her claws, she would not have known what to do to survive. I truly believe animals have the same feelings that we have. I found Fred when she was weeks old. I am all that she has ever known. She would have missed me, and that’s the cruelest thing that I could have done to her. The decision needed to be made. Putting her down was the best, most humane thing to do for her.
I went into my bedroom where I had a small .22-caliber subsonic pistol. It was a single shot and, with the subsonic ammo, made virtually no sound. It wasn’t good for much except plinking. I decided that I would wait until she was asleep and do it while she was sleeping. She had been having problems with her hearing and was missing a lot of things lately. There were times when I came home from work, turned off my alarm system, unlocked the door, walked in, and started to put my bags down before she heard me and realized that I was home. I knew that I could do it without her even knowing what was coming.
I decided to take the time to get my gear ready. I pulled my ruck and my High-Speed Gear battle belt from the closet. As soon as I put my ruck on the floor, was normal for Fred, she had to get involved and see what was going on. She had her nose buried in each of the compartments and sniffed each of the items I took out to check as if to say, “What are you doin’, Dad? Come on, let me see what you got in there.” I teared up as I watched her play. I couldn’t believe I had to do what I was going to do. For me, it was like euthanizing my
