Thanks for the interest, I'll keep writing as long as your not getting bored with it... Enjoy! (Sorry about syntax and fragments etc. I need an editor bad! )

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Chapter 3

Just as Ned suspected there was a nasty fight brewing downstairs. Not wanting to chance to with the elevators he had opted to take the stairs to exit the apartment complex. He heard the stories about them plunging to the ground floor because of Y2K but he didnt believe it. He just didnt want to be seen by anybody as he left. When he was on his way out he stopped briefly one floor down from his place and peeked through the safety glass window in the door on the sixth level. There were maybe seven or eight guys in the hallway at the far end and two were in a scuffle. Not exactly your Friday night fight at Caesars Palace but after a long alcohol binge Ned was surprised to see them standing much less coordinated enough to throw punches. The others were standing around watching but definitely not trying to break it up. The dim glow of the emergency floodlights cast a pale glow on the combatants. Ned wanted to stay and watch for some reason, just to see who would win. Call it sick human nature.

Remembering how nervous he felt Ned turned away from the modern day gladiators and headed down the stairs. He passed a man going up and recognized him from work. There was an uncomfortable moment when Ned wasnt sure if he was going to acknowledge he knew the guy or just keep on going without saying anything. Life is funny that way. You work with someone for five years, in the same office, sharing the same desk sometimes. You get to know his family life and even share a few laughs. But you see the guy on the street and you have to decide whether or not your even going to talk to him. Feeling decidedly embarrassed about it he said hello.

Nick was a consultant for the company Ned worked for and somehow he managed to get a job in the software design department. Ned was pretty sure he and Alex went pretty far back so Nick was always a source of reliable information that came straight from the top. Things that you talk about around the coffee machine or water cooler. But never the kind of info you get from the official memos and e-mails. Nick was a bit overweight, he spoke too loudly, and he had an annoying habit of taking credit that wasnt his, but Ned thought that down deep he was a pretty nice guy. Alex and he apparently also went to college together and according to Nick he was incompetent as manager but a Grade A bullshitter. Ned had a feeling he said that because Nick himself was really not very good at any one thing. It was probably just jealousy talking.

They passed a few words and Ned remarked that it looked like Alex was right about Y2K. Nick looked like he had more than a few drinks and he managed to mumble that the power outage was a result from an underground water main break that shorted out some circuits, and not Y2K related. He added that last line with a snide chuckle. Ned said that it looked like there were no lights on at Turner Field either and that was easily two blocks away. There wasnt much hope to get any real information from Nick though. He was one toasted puppy. You could tell that he had been in a bar all night. His eyes were blood shit red and he stank of cigarettes, which he himself never touched. He departed Ned on the stairs with one final comment about how there was some asshole that took a shot at the Vice President for their company downstairs, and not to use the main doors unless he wanted to get interrogated.

Ned stood there for a moment, thinking about the way the little red specks of paint came flying off the ambulance when the bullets hit. And how the passenger had stumbled out the driver side, badly wounded. He guessed Nick wasnt around or at least coherent enough to know about that part of it. But Ned was intrigued. He personally knew Dan Carver, the VP of their firm. He also knew that Dan was a hell of a guy and there seemed to be no reason why anyone would want to shoot him or even shoot at him for that matter. He started down the stairs again and didnt look back to see Nick stumbling up the steps back to his apartment. Ned knew the right thing to do would be to go downstairs and report what he saw. And how he saw the armed shooter head towards Turner Field. But he was as nervous as a long tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs and he wasnt sure how smart it would be to go talk to the police with the Beretta in his front pocket. So he chose not to leave out the front doors. Going out the back way would be fine since the power was out and he could open the fire doors without setting off an alarm.

As he pushed his way out the building the cool January air hit him full in the face. The truth is Ned has been a serious agoraphobic since childbirth and he hated being anywhere that was larger than your average office cubicle. Something about the size and enormity of life made him sick to his stomach. It was like anti-claustrophobia the walls were comforting. It was the lack of walls that made him nervous. Especially being outdoors at night. The dark sky overhead was like a thick blanket of mud that threatened to choke the life out of him. He stood there in the doorway trying to hold back the panic that hits him every time he goes outside. The cool air was like a morgue to him. There was also the unmistakable odor of burnt out electrical wiring coming from somewhere. It was metallic and clung to the back of his throat. He couldnt see far because of the security fencing around the building but it didnt look like there were many lights on. In fact, the city, which was normally bathed in pseudo light, was now darker and grim then Ned could imagine. It was even quiet. Atlanta was full of sounds, even late at night. Cars, buses, airplanes, air conditioners, and other industrial sounds were all but nonexistent now. The only machine Ned could think about now that made noise was the helicopter he saw just a few minutes earlier. But even now that was gone. From somewhere he thought he could hear horns honking and cars revving their engines but it seemed like it was a thousand miles away. Not even happening at all.

He reached into his shirt pocket and puled out the fresh pack of Camels. He took one out and sparked it up, glad to be rid of that hideous metallic taste. The cigarette smoke was soothing, a perfect antidote for his agoraphobia. After just a few pulls he felt so much better. Then he realized he was just standing there with the door open so he stepped out and let it shut behind him. He could hear the melodic lapping of water from the pool to his left as the wind stirred up tiny waves on the surface. There were a couple of token trees in the small courtyard but they were clipped at a height of ten feet to ensure they wouldnt interfere with the power lines. They looked phonyand evil. They took on a menacing tone somehow. Like refugees from some mad scientist who spent his days down in the basement of his castle slapping mismatched limbs to trunks and bringing them to life with a sudden volt of energy. For the first time in ten years Ned actually thought that he might pass out. The overwhelming panic from seeing the ambulance get blown apart combined with his childhood fears of wide-open places was like a brick to the back of the head. He paced back and forth a little bit to try and get his senses back but it was no good. The pounding of his heart in his chest was like a jackhammer. He could hear it now, like a galloping Clydesdale running through his body. He pulled hard on his Camel and shut his eyes trying to block out the real world. Then the sounds from around him started getting clearer. He could hear people, and cars. It wasnt far away either. How he could have missed it before he wasnt sure. There were a hundred horns honking a futile song from the direction of Turner Field and at once Ned wondered if the traffic signals worked. More faintly he could hear the slow rhythmic beat of the chopper blades at low RPM. It was a distinct thump-thump-thump sound like the beating of a bass drum. The waves in the pool were so clear that he almost thought he was in there swimming around. He could hear folks yelling and cursing. As nauseous as the whole situation was making him, Ned still wanted to go and see what was going on, even though he was sure there was nothing he needed to see. Call it sick human nature.

Finished his smoke and smashed it under foot. He opened his eyes and looked up at the building where he had lived for ten years. It was dark, titanic, and unnaturally grim. The windows of each floor in the stairwell were lit up with that dim flood lighting. Seeing his home lit up that way was almost worse then if it had been completely dark. It was ghastly, and reminded him of the movie The Amityville Horror. He saw that when he was just a little boy and it scared him so bad he couldnt sleep for a week without having terrible nightmares. The windows of the apartment complex were like eyes of the undead. Not alive yet somehow animated with a grisly, yellow glow. He collected himself enough to walk and headed for the rear gate by the pool. The only way he could keep from losing control was by keeping his hands around his face and eyes, blocking out the side vision like the way they put blinders on a horse during a race to keep its attention focused on what is directly ahead. He reached the gate and slid his apartment key into the lock and twisted. He turned it right and left but the door wouldnt open. In his frustration Ned swore aloud and starting shaking the key in its hole with force. His nerves were almost depleted and he could almost feel the tight, icy grip of terror caress the back of his neck. Crying out loud like a puppy Ned started rocking the gate back and forth trying to force it open. He suddenly felt like he was being chased by someone something, and started pounding on the gate with all his might. Even though he felt foolish he was unable to gain control of his fear. He tried the key again and flipped it back and forth a few times. He finally realized that it had been left unlocked by some careless individual and he had just managed to lock it the first time. At last the lock popped open and the gate swung wide because Ned was pushing all his weight against it at that point. It slammed into the steel bars of the fence with a crash and Ned came stumbling out into the darkened street. Looking left and right he was unsure which way to go. He wasnt even quite sure why he was going much less where, but he knew he had to make a choice and get going somewhere before his nerves went totally kaput on him.

Figuring that if he went left he would wind up on Fulton Avenue, which was in the direction of Turner Field, Ned turned right and starting running up the street. He didnt have a car so even if he was calm enough to drive it was beside the point. By heading north like he was he knew that he was going in the direction of the Section 8 housing projects which was no place to be even when the power was on. But hi fear was ruling his actions now and all he knew was that he wanted to be away from the stadium and all those honking horns and screaming people. It was dark all around and by this point it was evident that the power was not only off on Neds block but the block across the street, and at least five in every direction. Streetlights were out, traffic signals didnt work, and neon signs that were normally lit up continuously were also lifeless.

He passed a couple walking down the opposite direction who were in no hurry. They were in their mid twenties but it was hard to tell because the only illumination was from the slice of moon that was shining in the sky. They did seem very calm and looked at Ned as he ran by as if he was crazy. The man was wearing a long trenchcoat and an old style Fedora hat that kind of made him look like Dick Tracy. It would have been comical, if Ned was in any mood to laugh, which he was far from. He didnt care how silly he looked though, with his hands up to the sides of his face, his backpack flying around on his shoulder as he picked up speed. All Ned knew was that he had never been more scared in all his life and there wasnt much he could do about it. The nonchalant couple had not just seen a Paramedic shot with an assault rifle through the side of his cab. They hadnt seen the choppers with the missile batteries on the sides of it heading downtown. They hadnt just seen a madman in black fatigues indiscriminately blasting away at people. To them this night was no less ordinary than any other night, except that it was the turn of the millenium and that the power had gone out shortly. As Ned rushed by in a flurry, he figured they were going to be wrong on both counts. It wouldnt be until a week later that he found out he was right.

The echoing sounds of his footsteps filled the empty street as he ran away from his worst fears. His shadow followed behind him like a panther chasing its prey through the dense underbrush of some foreign jungle.

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Downtown, at Turner Field, things had gone from bad to worse. When the chopper set down it had immediately be set upon by a group of black youths that were by far your average teenybopper with an attitude. These guys were a local gang and they were armed to the teeth. They didnt start shooting right away, but they did have their guns drawn and it was clear that they meant to take the chopper by force. One of the pilots had radioed the situation in and was powering back up to take off when a thirteen year old punk shot him in the head with a .357 magnum from almost point blank. The co-pilot was covered in blood from the pilots head wound when he drew his forty-five and returned fire. Luckily for the kid he was already making his way around the helicopter and was out of sight. The co-pilot squeezed off a few rounds aimed basically at nothing and tried to get the propellers back up to a suitable speed to take off but he too was unsuccessful. They gang swarmed over the outside like locusts, found the handle to the door and pulled it open. The co-pilot was quick enough to drop one kid with his sidearm but it was clear that was outnumbered and outgunned. They cut him out of his harness with a box cutter and dragged him out of the cockpit, tearing his Colt out of his hand and throwing him to the ground.

A few cops saw what was going on, but having already had their run in with these gangs, they were in no mood to aid the downed pilot. It was also evident that the gang was ready to open fire on anything with a uniform and there was still a crowd of innocent people scrambling for their cars just off in the other parking lots. It would have been a disaster to get them caught in crossfire. So the only thing they could do was stand by at a safe distance and watch the carnage. They beat the co-pilot until he was unable to fight and then another gang member shot him execution style in the back of the head.

One police officer, Sargent Mullins was on call to the stadium when the killing of the chopper pilots was underway. He could only wonder helplessly why they would build a stadium in the middle of gang land in the first place, much less hold a New Years Eve bash there. He had been on the force for twenty years and he had served much of that time in Atlanta in Section 5, which covered the stadium and surrounding area. It was truly hell there. Most business were fronts for drug operations and the drug lords were pushing out the other legitimate businesses. All except for the liquor stores, the gun shops and the convenience stores. Those obviously were critical to the natives and you could find the gangs hanging around them at any time of the day or night. Just being a proprietor of any of those stores meant you were in direct contact with the gangs.

As the mob of people finally got dispersed enough into the street it was obvious that there could be no order. At least tem thousand people had been in the stadium just twenty minutes before and now a great majority of them were outside trying to get to their cars and get away from the beginning of the riot. The luckier ones bashed through the police barriers and got to the interstate but the rest were caught in a massive snarl coming from all the parking lots. It was impossible to tell where one column started and another began. All one could see was that there were some very angry people and they wanted out.

A guy in a minivan rammed into the side of a Lexus and automatically they got out and started arguing over whose fault it was, leaving their vehicles where they were and jamming up hundreds of people behind them. This was the case a ten-fold as the traffic cops tried desperately to get people in a single file line, but the people were Hell bent on doing it their way. The shooter inside the stadium hadnt really done much damage except to the unlucky guy who stopped a slug with his neck and a few minor injuries but his legacy had lived on. The panic had set off some internal alarm in people and logic had just been tossed aside as uncaringly as McDonalds hamburger wrappers. It was impossible to gain a semblance of traffic flow even with the extra police around so they sat there and they stewed in their cars. Honking the horn and cussing like drunken sailors. All the police could do is stop people from running into each other and let the massive exodus of cars trickle out of the lots at a snails pace. When a few cars did manage to untangle themselves from the knot they just got into another mess a block down when they tried to get to I75. The traffic lights were all out and there was a four way intersection that one had to go through that had been backed up within ten minutes. It was, as they say, a catastrophe.

Realizing that there were fair pickings in the surrounding buildings the denizens of the metro area came out in droves. With the power shutting off in much of the city it was getting to be more than the emergency response units could handle. There were calls coming into 911 (where the system worked at all) with reports of break-ins and vandalism. What was worse, where people couldnt call 911 they would go directly to the precincts in person and report ongoing crimes. There was a queue coming out the doors is some places that were fifty and sixty people deep. All of this occurred in about an hours time. Besides the mess at Turner Field, there were three dozen other hot spots across the Atlanta area that were becoming dangerously close to exploding when they heard about what was happening at the stadium. In most places the power was on. Some places, like Stone Mountain Park had lost power but still had phones. In other locales there was a little of both, but nothing worked well. In the matter of three hours most people had already gone home to find sporadic brownouts combined with telephone service either disrupted entirely or getting service only on crackling, fuzzy lines that were usually busy. An increasing number of traffic signals were either out completely or blinking yellows which snarled traffic in a hundred places.

Most of the problems were contained in the metro area but like fingers stretching out in all directions there were strips of communities without power and telephone. Fear was running rampant and there were many groups of people gathering in suburban areas armed for the worst possible scenario. It had been a long three hours for everyone and there was no telling when the calamity was going to let up. Somewhere in the middle of the chaos Ned stood on the curb of a dark street, trembling & watching a gang of kids spray paint the side of a house in red words that stood two feet high. The statement was simple, scribbled in sick, apocalyptic graffiti on the wall

ALL DEAD HERE

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Thanks again everyone... look forward to another Chapter in the saga as soon as possible. :o) (And sorry again for any error in grammar and so forth, I'm still just an amateur writer... sorta, lol)

-- (Anonymous@the door mouse.com), June 25, 1999

Answers

" His eyes were blood shit red and he stank of cigarettes"

Aye carumba... I need a proofreader! Blood SHOT, Blood SHOT!

I'm so embarrassed

-- (Anonymous@the door mouse.com), June 25, 1999.

A,

No need for embarrassment here...we're all friends here right??? ;-)

Thank you for sharing your writing chapter by chapter. I'm sure many here await you next installment.

-- texan (bullseye@ranch.ccom), June 25, 1999.

I am still hooked , enjoyed the latest and looking forward to the twist and turns of Ned. I would not be surprised if the events at the stadium took place in any large city next New Years Eve. and I am staying home for sure.

-- I liked the story (Curious@about thestory.com), June 25, 1999.

PLEASE, PLEASE..... someone post the links to the beginning of the story. I am lost without the little "link" thingamabobs. Thanks

-- bulldog (sniffin@around.com), June 26, 1999.

Linkeroonies:

Chapter One

Chapter Two

-- (html@guy.com), June 26, 1999.

Anonymous....keep it up. Not bored at all. Looking forward to the next chapter. Thank you.

-- quietly (quietly@lurking.com), June 26, 1999.

WAs'nT NEd NAncY DreW's BOyfRIEnD???????

-- Dieter (questions@toask.com), June 26, 1999.

ah DieTeR...the love of my forum! What the hell are you doing reading Nancy Drew Mysteries? Come on....'fess up. Is DiETeR really Mrs. DeItER? Are we all jackals and never guessed? We don't care, we still love you and your highly academic posts..!!

Taz...who always gets a laff out of ol' DiETeR.

-- Taz (Tassie @aol.com), June 26, 1999.

Love your story Anon! Ned sounds much like a hundred other IT folks I've worked with. The realism of your story is both magnetic and frightening. Keep up the great work.

DieTER your slipping buddy, not up to your usuall creativity.

-- Mike_ (midwestmike_@hotmail.com), June 26, 1999.

Forgot to ask this, what happened to the story of Hellen and co.? Last I heard she shot the zealot (chapter 3?).

-- Mike_ (midwestmike_@hotmail.com), June 27, 1999.