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Story Fragment - Vanishers
Apr. 5th, 2005 03:48 pmI open the front door of the Home Depot, but only a crack. It's been my home for two days and I haven't seen anybody the whole time, but that's no reason to get sloppy. The tip of the Mossberg leads the way out the door. The parking lot is huge and empty with no cover, so there's no need for range. I'm mostly just worried about some idiot pressed up against the wall where I can't see 'em.
There's nobody and nothing. Somewhere a dog barks. A fire has been burning for a week, unchecked, over on Bagby Street; the smoke is heavy today. The wind whips some newspaper up and plasters a page of want-ads against the storefront window. I suddenly realize: it's Thursday, last day of April. It's been an entire month of Vanishing.
On March 31, the Greater Houston area had a population of over three million people. By my math, we should be down to one hundred thousand and dropping.
Way to beat the odds, Vern.
*****************
I remember, at first we thought Charles Manson had escaped. Actually, at first *I* thought it was a sick April Fools joke. Ronnie and I had the graveyard precinct watch and the news hit CNN, maybe 2 or 3 in the morning, that Manson was missing from his cell.
"Niiiiice," I said, throwing a pencil at the microscopic TV. "Some producer's head is rolling tonight."
"Shaddap," grated Ronnie, turning up the volume. It was hard to hear anything in the station; for some reason everybody had decided to call the cops tonight, and every officer was yapping into his phone. Only us detectives were slacking off; we had been bashing our brains out on the Castaneda rape/murder and weren't getting anywhere.
It turned out he really was missing. A routine check of his holding unit had revealed he was gone. A massive manhunt was underway, but there weren't a lot of clues. He had left his clothes in a little heap under the covers of his cot, so somewhere a naked aging psychopath was on the loose. His cell and cellblock were still secure; but nothing was out of place. He had been locked in personally by his watch officer....
"Detective?" Lou was a pretty sober cop -- hard to rattle a veteran -- but he looked worried. He was clutching a stack of reports.
"We got something weird going on," he said, slapping his paperwork. "These are all missing persons reports. We're getting a lot of 'em."
"How many?"
Lou gestured around the station. "All of 'em."
Ronnie and I traded glances. There had to be fifteen cops all on the lines, taking missing persons reports -- all at the same time. What were the odds?
"What's up at emergency dispatch?" Ronnie asked.
"They're swamped," Lou replied. "They're bouncing everything here. I tried to call the captain but he didn't pick up."
"Page him?"
"Nothing."
"Shit."
"BREAKING NEWS," announced the CNN reporter breathlessly. "A tragic subway crash in Tokyo has claimed the lives of 94 commuters. Preliminary investigations reveal that the train's driver may not have been at the wheel at the time, and is wanted for questioning...."
There was a sudden screech of tires and a blare of horns. Out the window I could see a Camaro moving at high speed down Kirby, slowly drifting off the street and into our parking lot. The car glanced off a lamp post and continued rolling on towards us. I dove behind my desk, but there wasn't any need -- the bollards around the building stopped the car with an angry crunch and a tinkle of glass.
We all got up and peered through the window. The car's alarm was going off. There was nobody at the wheel.
I glanced up at the TV. CNN was scrolling a new graphic reading 'SENATOR MISSING'.
It was a long night.
*********************
I get my bike out of the Home Depot and pedal north, making for the Third Ward. It doesn't make sense to drive a truck any more; people can hear you coming a mile away, and most times you don't want company. Besides, some roads you can't even get through. I use a black Huffy mountain bike. It's rugged, quiet, and I can keep a pipe bomb in the water bottle holder. That's handy.
This part of the city is pretty quiet. The Pinks and the Dreadfuls are always fighting it out a half mile to the west, but nobody lives in this area but some Vietnamese enclaves. Their strategy is usually to sit tight and not shoot at you unless you shoot at them. Usually. Like I said, most of the time company is bad.
Over the course of that first day, 10% of humanity Vanished. They just, poof, disappeared. Nobody knows where they went, or how, or why. Gradually, over the course of the day they left behind their goods, their clothes, everything -- Vanishing without a trace, one at a time. The next day, another 10% disappeared. And the next, another. We've been shrinking ever since at the same damned rate.
In the first couple of weeks, while things were still holding together, people spent a lot of time trying to figure out what was going on. Was it the Rapture? No, it didn't seem to care what religion you were. Was it genetic, or environmental? Were there any common characteristics of the missing? Nope, nope, nope. Every day, one way or another, 10% of the remaining people were going to disappear, and you didn't know when it would be your turn, your clothes suddenly billowing to the floor as you cease to be inside them.
Houston did pretty well for itself, probably because the town is so spread out. New York was rioting by the third day; Chicago by the fourth. It took Houston a full seven days to break into full-on warfare. Some preacher out in Sugarland got the bright idea that if you killed a bunch of people, that day's 10% might get accounted for by the dead first -- so if you're really good at butchering, you could stave off the inevitable for a while. Nice idea, but the numbers didn't support it. Not that it mattered; at that point the lead was flying, and there are a lot of firearms in the Houston area.
I'm turning onto the Allen Parkway and biking along the bayou paths. Down by the water, a man in a buddhist robe is fishing. He waves. I don't wave back. Don't get friendly; everybody could be gone tomorrow. At first I made all the friends I could. They all Vanished.
I can't do that again. It hurts too much.
********************
I kick in the door at 1020 Hawthorne. It's dark inside and stinks of urine. Somebody shouts and bumps into something. I put on my low-lights and go in fast.
There's a man and a woman on a mattress on the floor. The woman is reaching for a fireaxe. I kick it away and light a flare, then show them the shotgun. They sit quietly, no bitching. The Vanished world can be brutal.
I pull out the picture of Carlos. "Seen this guy?"
They stare at the picture, then at me. "I ain't seen that guy," the man says. "Wassit to you?"
"Think harder," I suggest. "His name's Carlos Castaneda. He used to hang out here. Rich guy, very rich. Seen him?"
The man shakes his head very slowly, sure he's going to die no matter what happens. "We're not from around here," the woman whines. "We just found this house and come inside. We don't know no Carlos."
I leave them alone. It's the same story everywhere. All my witnesses are Vanished. All my co-workers are Vanished. Anybody who would give a rat's ass about a raped, murdered 14-year-old girl is Vanished. Anybody but me.
Sylvia Castaneda's not Vanished. She's still dead in a locker in the downtown morgue. I went to see her a week ago; she was keeping pretty cold even though the power's off. She keeps me going. The Vanished world has driven just about everybody crazy, but I'm keeping it together. Somebody did for Sylvia Castaneda, and I'm going to find out who. I'm thinking it's Carlos, but I don't know for sure. I need to know.
I bike back up the Parkway. The chatter of gunfire from the Montrose direction suggests the Pinks are making war again. I give them a wide berth.
I've exhausted my options. I'm out of leads in the city. Tomorrow I'm going to have to suck it up and go to Galveston. I hear some crazy guy's declared himself king down there. I hear they eat people. I don't care; Carlos had a boat in Galveston. Maybe I'll find him there.
Maybe I'll Vanish before I get there. Betcha I don't.
There's nobody and nothing. Somewhere a dog barks. A fire has been burning for a week, unchecked, over on Bagby Street; the smoke is heavy today. The wind whips some newspaper up and plasters a page of want-ads against the storefront window. I suddenly realize: it's Thursday, last day of April. It's been an entire month of Vanishing.
On March 31, the Greater Houston area had a population of over three million people. By my math, we should be down to one hundred thousand and dropping.
Way to beat the odds, Vern.
*****************
I remember, at first we thought Charles Manson had escaped. Actually, at first *I* thought it was a sick April Fools joke. Ronnie and I had the graveyard precinct watch and the news hit CNN, maybe 2 or 3 in the morning, that Manson was missing from his cell.
"Niiiiice," I said, throwing a pencil at the microscopic TV. "Some producer's head is rolling tonight."
"Shaddap," grated Ronnie, turning up the volume. It was hard to hear anything in the station; for some reason everybody had decided to call the cops tonight, and every officer was yapping into his phone. Only us detectives were slacking off; we had been bashing our brains out on the Castaneda rape/murder and weren't getting anywhere.
It turned out he really was missing. A routine check of his holding unit had revealed he was gone. A massive manhunt was underway, but there weren't a lot of clues. He had left his clothes in a little heap under the covers of his cot, so somewhere a naked aging psychopath was on the loose. His cell and cellblock were still secure; but nothing was out of place. He had been locked in personally by his watch officer....
"Detective?" Lou was a pretty sober cop -- hard to rattle a veteran -- but he looked worried. He was clutching a stack of reports.
"We got something weird going on," he said, slapping his paperwork. "These are all missing persons reports. We're getting a lot of 'em."
"How many?"
Lou gestured around the station. "All of 'em."
Ronnie and I traded glances. There had to be fifteen cops all on the lines, taking missing persons reports -- all at the same time. What were the odds?
"What's up at emergency dispatch?" Ronnie asked.
"They're swamped," Lou replied. "They're bouncing everything here. I tried to call the captain but he didn't pick up."
"Page him?"
"Nothing."
"Shit."
"BREAKING NEWS," announced the CNN reporter breathlessly. "A tragic subway crash in Tokyo has claimed the lives of 94 commuters. Preliminary investigations reveal that the train's driver may not have been at the wheel at the time, and is wanted for questioning...."
There was a sudden screech of tires and a blare of horns. Out the window I could see a Camaro moving at high speed down Kirby, slowly drifting off the street and into our parking lot. The car glanced off a lamp post and continued rolling on towards us. I dove behind my desk, but there wasn't any need -- the bollards around the building stopped the car with an angry crunch and a tinkle of glass.
We all got up and peered through the window. The car's alarm was going off. There was nobody at the wheel.
I glanced up at the TV. CNN was scrolling a new graphic reading 'SENATOR MISSING'.
It was a long night.
*********************
I get my bike out of the Home Depot and pedal north, making for the Third Ward. It doesn't make sense to drive a truck any more; people can hear you coming a mile away, and most times you don't want company. Besides, some roads you can't even get through. I use a black Huffy mountain bike. It's rugged, quiet, and I can keep a pipe bomb in the water bottle holder. That's handy.
This part of the city is pretty quiet. The Pinks and the Dreadfuls are always fighting it out a half mile to the west, but nobody lives in this area but some Vietnamese enclaves. Their strategy is usually to sit tight and not shoot at you unless you shoot at them. Usually. Like I said, most of the time company is bad.
Over the course of that first day, 10% of humanity Vanished. They just, poof, disappeared. Nobody knows where they went, or how, or why. Gradually, over the course of the day they left behind their goods, their clothes, everything -- Vanishing without a trace, one at a time. The next day, another 10% disappeared. And the next, another. We've been shrinking ever since at the same damned rate.
In the first couple of weeks, while things were still holding together, people spent a lot of time trying to figure out what was going on. Was it the Rapture? No, it didn't seem to care what religion you were. Was it genetic, or environmental? Were there any common characteristics of the missing? Nope, nope, nope. Every day, one way or another, 10% of the remaining people were going to disappear, and you didn't know when it would be your turn, your clothes suddenly billowing to the floor as you cease to be inside them.
Houston did pretty well for itself, probably because the town is so spread out. New York was rioting by the third day; Chicago by the fourth. It took Houston a full seven days to break into full-on warfare. Some preacher out in Sugarland got the bright idea that if you killed a bunch of people, that day's 10% might get accounted for by the dead first -- so if you're really good at butchering, you could stave off the inevitable for a while. Nice idea, but the numbers didn't support it. Not that it mattered; at that point the lead was flying, and there are a lot of firearms in the Houston area.
I'm turning onto the Allen Parkway and biking along the bayou paths. Down by the water, a man in a buddhist robe is fishing. He waves. I don't wave back. Don't get friendly; everybody could be gone tomorrow. At first I made all the friends I could. They all Vanished.
I can't do that again. It hurts too much.
********************
I kick in the door at 1020 Hawthorne. It's dark inside and stinks of urine. Somebody shouts and bumps into something. I put on my low-lights and go in fast.
There's a man and a woman on a mattress on the floor. The woman is reaching for a fireaxe. I kick it away and light a flare, then show them the shotgun. They sit quietly, no bitching. The Vanished world can be brutal.
I pull out the picture of Carlos. "Seen this guy?"
They stare at the picture, then at me. "I ain't seen that guy," the man says. "Wassit to you?"
"Think harder," I suggest. "His name's Carlos Castaneda. He used to hang out here. Rich guy, very rich. Seen him?"
The man shakes his head very slowly, sure he's going to die no matter what happens. "We're not from around here," the woman whines. "We just found this house and come inside. We don't know no Carlos."
I leave them alone. It's the same story everywhere. All my witnesses are Vanished. All my co-workers are Vanished. Anybody who would give a rat's ass about a raped, murdered 14-year-old girl is Vanished. Anybody but me.
Sylvia Castaneda's not Vanished. She's still dead in a locker in the downtown morgue. I went to see her a week ago; she was keeping pretty cold even though the power's off. She keeps me going. The Vanished world has driven just about everybody crazy, but I'm keeping it together. Somebody did for Sylvia Castaneda, and I'm going to find out who. I'm thinking it's Carlos, but I don't know for sure. I need to know.
I bike back up the Parkway. The chatter of gunfire from the Montrose direction suggests the Pinks are making war again. I give them a wide berth.
I've exhausted my options. I'm out of leads in the city. Tomorrow I'm going to have to suck it up and go to Galveston. I hear some crazy guy's declared himself king down there. I hear they eat people. I don't care; Carlos had a boat in Galveston. Maybe I'll find him there.
Maybe I'll Vanish before I get there. Betcha I don't.
