Finally there is Zone Six, which is pretty much just woods at the back edge of the property. There are paths there, but rather than the wide and relatively even routes you get on the walking trails, we are forced to use crooked, hard to see paths that were cut just wide enough to allow our ATVs through. They are serviceable, but between the uneven ground and hidden tree roots, they are risky at anything faster than a slow crawl.

Every hour we are responsible for patrolling one of the zones. Between travel and patrol time, this typically means we are patrolling for about thirty minutes out of every hour unless patrolling Zone Six, which typically takes almost the entire hour. We mix up the order in which the Zones are patrolled so as to not provide a predictable pattern for anyone trying to trespass, but all Zones are patrolled twice per shift regardless of order.

All in all, it hasn’t been a bad assignment. The most I’ve ever seen on a shift was a methhead pulling a knife on me when I found him squatting in one of the baby mansions in Zone Three. But I kept him back with my pepper spray and radioed the dispatcher at the main office. No big deal. Occasionally it’s just a group of dumb kids looking for a secluded place to get into some kind of trouble. But mostly it’s…quiet. Very quiet, and if I’m honest, more than a little creepy.

I’m not a scary kind of guy. I’ve seen a good bit over the years, and while I don’t claim to have ever been some kind of super cop or brave hero, I’ve never been cowardly or skittish either. But Whispering Oaks just has a strange feel to it. Maybe it’s all the empty houses and streets. Some nights, when I’m riding my four-wheeler around on patrol, I imagine myself in some kind of post-apocalyptic movie where everyone else is gone or hiding. I always hate it when I have the thought, because it is so easy to believe. The black windows staring out at me like dead eyes, the grown up lots filled with shadows…it’s far easier to start thinking I’m in a dead world than it is to stop.

That’s why I like the weekends. I get a partner to keep me company, and usually that partner is Oscar. Oscar had been with the company for nearly thirty years, and it showed. If he was in charge of deciding the company motto, I’m pretty sure we would soon have “Fuck it” painted on the sides of all our vehicles. That being said, he was a good guy. Just old and tired, and much more content to watch t.v. in the clubhouse and tell me stories than hump it around this expensive graveyard we were supposed to be guarding.