[Sitting opposite the camera is a man in a beige police uniform, gray-haired and gray-mustachioed, looking awfully worried and tired all at once. He keeps shifting back and forth in his seat like he can't get comfortable, alternating between looking to his side and then back at the camera.
Finally, he speaks. With a thick Minnesotan accent:] Hiya. Wasn't quite sure how to work this thing, but — here I am. The name's Bill Oswalt —
[A pause, brief and barely there.]
Uh, Chief Bill Oswalt. Bill'll do just fine, though, seein' as I don't have jurisdiction in these parts. [Wherever "these parts" are, he thinks.] I'm from Minnesota, in case that wasn't obvious.
[He chuckles, albeit halfheartedly. C'mon, it was a joke. Some humor to lighten things up. Yeah.]
So... anyway, uh, I was wonderin' about the current state of law enforcement here, since it looks like I might need to keep myself busy for a while, and helpin' enforce the law is what I'm best at. So just — just lemme know. Thanks.
Sample Entry Two:
Bill's had nightmares like this before. He'd wake up in the middle of the night, turn over to wrap his arms around his wife, and mumble the details to her: "It was the darndest thing, Sal..."
But the town he'd dreamed of never looked quite this bad. He'd dream of Bemidji, just empty and a little old-looking. It was more upsetting than anything, something that made him sad — not scared. His blood never ran cold the way it is now, and his heart certainly never tried clawing its way into his throat. Those dreams were so benign he'd even hesitate to label them true nightmares, but Sally had insisted that that's what they were.
He wonders what Sally would think about this.
For a few moments, he just stands there, stiff. He knows his training taught him otherwise: you should anticipate. Be alert. Be vigilant. Move. What he does instead is survey his surroundings as much as his eyes will allow while he tries to remember how to use his limbs, and that's when he sees the billboard there on the periphery of his vision. He finally moves then, turning to read the text, and it leaves him grabbing in a panic for his gun while simultaneously trying to radio one of his colleagues.
But his radio is dead, and he can't still his hands long enough to actually get the weapon out of its holster.
Something tells him that what he just read is a load of baloney. Gas masks don't really inspire a sense of safety — if anything, he'd almost guess that the people who lived here once upon a time might not have believed what that billboard said, either. Maybe they didn't get the masks in time.
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