Autumn Falls

by A. R. Kingston

  "Damn, birds." He muttered and sipped at his coffee. "I'm really starting to hate them."

  "You and me both."

  "So," he glanced over at her, "what's up with you sporting those dark half-moons under your eyes?"

  "Oh, so you've noticed." She tittered. "I thought I put on enough concealer to cover it up, but I guess not."

  "You resemble a drunken raccoon. Did you not sleep well?"

  "Nope, not at all."

  "For real? I slept like a baby. Want to tell me what's keeping you up?"

  "I got a phone call last night at three in the morning. I picked it up, but the person on the other end didn't answer. All I heard was heavy breathing."

  "And you think it's your ex?"

  "That's my fear." She glanced up at him. "What if he found me again? What if he comes after me?"

  "Then you give old Chuck a call in room one fifty, and he will come running to punch that bastard in the face."

  "Thanks." She glanced at her lap, giggling. "It sounds like we are becoming friends."

  "Well, yeah. Aren't partners supposed to be friends?"

  "I don't know. I wasn't allowed to have friends of any kind when I was with Bret, especially not the male variety. He always thought that every man out there was looking to fuck me. Hell, he freaked out when a cashier smiled at me and told me to have a good day. Claimed he was flirting with me, and that I was flirting back by smiling and saying thank you."

  "He sounds like some unstable asshole with serious mental issues."

  "No kidding. I still can't believe I put up with his shit for so long." Charlotte glanced down at her lap, playing with the paper cup. "But enough talking about me. I want to know your story."

  "What do you mean?"

  "Well, you know why I'm here, but how did you get on this island? Surely being a medic in Phoenix beats some Podunk New England town any day."

  "I suppose if I was any regular medic, then city life is where it's at. But when the call came, I was already looking for a place a bit slower, with fewer trauma calls and more taxiing old ladies to the hospital kind. In Phoenix, I was beginning to think like I wasn't going to cut it. I was starting to regret ever going into emergency medicine."

  "How come?"

  "You sure you want to know?"

  "I wouldn't have asked if I didn't."

  "Promise not to laugh at me if I tell you?"

  "Why would I?" Charlotte peered over at Charles, who was studying her carefully and fiddling with his thumbs. "All right, fine, if it makes you feel better, I promise not to laugh."

  "Okay then." Charles took a deep breath. "Here it goes. As you know, I've been an EMT since I was nineteen, much like you. I loved this job back then, constantly feeling like a god when I was able to pull people back from the brink. But three years later I was given a harsh dose of reality on how little control I actually had.

  "This happened a few months after I got my medic's license. Things were going great, and I loved the job, and the additional responsibility that came with it. Then, the call came in, one none of us want to hear. The radio chirped and the dispatcher in a grim voice told all units to respond to a mass casualty event. My partner and I didn't know what to expect, and nothing prepared me for what I saw when I got there. Come to find out an overturned eighteen-wheeler caused a sudden traffic back up near the train tracks. There were two cars on the tracks themselves, and due to some act of God, the lights on the crossing were not working that day. The train barreling down the tracks had no time to stop and hit the two cars almost full force, derailing, and taking out six more cars stuck in traffic.

  “There was debris everywhere—tires, glass, clothing, twisted hunks of metal—I couldn't make heads or tails of things. I heard shouting and glanced over to see a fireman wave us over a few feet down the tracks where the worst of the carnage was. We passed by what remained of a blue corvette, sitting on the tracks. It was a heap of scrap at that point—its roof flattened, the tires bent, and the hood ripped clean off and flung into the woods—there was a white tarp over the windshield, and I knew they didn't even try to cut the bodies out.

  "A few feet down the tracks, a green minivan lay on its crumpled side, cracked open like a tuna can by the jaws of life. I spotted an infant car seat in a ditch behind it and ran over to see if it was occupied. I lifted it up and my heart sank when I saw him, all broken and bruised, and only a few months old, but I came far too late to save him. Later, my partner told me the poor baby didn't stand a chance when the train hit, that he was dead on impact. But as I covered his little body, I couldn't help but blame myself for coming too late, and I felt sick to my stomach thinking of his last moments.

  “The rest of his family didn't fare better—the father's head got cut off by a piece of metal and the mother suffocated while waiting for help—but as the firemen finished cutting the roof off, they yelled for us to hurry as they had a live one. A small five-year-old girl got pinned in her seat, probably from not wearing her seat belt when the train hit, and was thus spared from the brunt of the impact. She had a broken leg, and a fractured skull, but we stabilized her and got her to a hospital before returning to the scene. We worked that disaster for eight hours. Sixty people died that day, fifteen of them on scene and the rest at the hospitals.

  "When I got home that night, all I wanted to do was forget, but the scene continued to haunt me. Every time I closed my eyes, all I could see was the twisted metal. I actually smelled the burning rubber intermixing with the metallic scent of blood and the pungent aroma of spilled fuel. When I tried to fall asleep, the screams and moans of the victims plagued me, and in my dream, that baby, with his cracked open skull, looked up at me and asked me why I couldn't save him. Night after night he continued to haunt my dreams, begging me to not let him go. After a week of sleepless nights, I could no longer handle it, I began to drink... a lot.

  “I know it was wrong, but I needed something to take the edge off, anything to get away from the nightmare. I never drank during my shift, but as soon as I got home, I buried my head in a bottle until I passed out. After a few months, I thought of calling it quits or finding a better job elsewhere. That's when I got the call. A job offer here, in a quiet island town where almost nothing ever goes wrong, and the calls are few and far between. I saw it as my opportunity to continue doing what I loved and get a break from the horrors eating away at me. So, here we are, stuck on this little cursed island, still dealing with death, but at least it's on a smaller scale."

  "I see, you had your burn out, I guess." Charlotte continued to gaze at the white and brown cup in her lap. "Do you still see that infant in your dreams?"

  "Occasionally he still visits me. It has gotten far less since I got here though, and he no longer blames me for his death. I know this sounds nuts, but it's almost like something about this place is taking away the guilt from me."

  "Maybe you are just coming to terms with what happened that day."

  "Maybe you’re right."

  "You still drink?"

  "Yes, but not to forget. I drink for fun now, and not to the point where I'm blackout drunk. I only have a drink or two and call it a night." Chuck stared across the lawn at the crows glaring at him from the shimmering black lump they formed on the sidewalk. "Does this change things between us? Or are you still fine with having a former drunkard as your partner?"

  “I don't think I could have asked for a better partner and friend, Chuck. We all have calls that haunt us, it's part of the job. To this day I still flinch when I get OD calls after failing to revive a fifteen-year-old who took too much heroin. Deep down we know we can't save everyone, but it doesn't stop us from hurting when we fail, we’re only human after all.”

  "That's true. And I bet as a mother calls concerning children are your worst nightmare."

  "They sure are. My heart aches every time a child gets injured or dies. It reminds me I can't protect my baby all the time, and definitely not forever. And every time I go home, I hold him tighter because I do
n't know what the next day will bring."

  Charlotte and Chuck continued to sit in silent reflection, watching the sun glisten on the window of the bakery. There was a quiet understanding amongst them, one which only comes from dealing with trauma on the scale on which they had. She still worried about being isolated on the island if Bret came looking for her, but Charlotte knew she found a reliable friend in Charles, and that he would not allow that monster to hurt her the way he previously had. Rising from the bench, she smiled and took his cup, walking over to the nearby trash bin to throw them out when the radio on her lapel chirped to life.

  "EMS thirty-six fifty-five, please respond to fourteen twenty-eight Meridian Ave for a potential suicide."

  "Dispatch, this is EMS thirty-six fifty-five," Charlotte exchanged glances with Chuck, "please confirm that you want us to respond to fourteen twenty-eight Meridian Ave for a suicide?"

  "Correct. According to the caller, a man appears to have shot himself... with a spear gun."

  "That is seriously messed up." She remarked to her partner before depressing the radio button again. "Ten-four, we are on our way."

  Rushing for the ambulance parked across the street, Charlotte hopped into the passenger seat as it was Chuck's turn to drive and tend to the patient. Knowing the man's story, she turned and asked him if he was all right to take this, to which he assured her he was. He turned on the lights and the sirens and their vehicle flickered to life, signaling for the cars and pedestrians to move out of their way. Looking out her window as they pulled out of their spot, she noted a peculiar calmness to the people. Back in Seattle, when people heard the wailing of the sirens, they glanced up, turned their heads and tried to discern where the vehicle was going, or what emergency was taking place. But not here. Here the people continued to sit around unfazed, eating their muffins and chatting amongst one another with blank faces, looking up only to smile at them and nod their heads. Kevin was right. There was something unusual going on in Autumn Falls, something that was out of this world.

  Chapter Seventeen

  “We'd stared into the face of Death, and Death blinked first. You'd think that would make us feel brave and invincible. It didn't.”—Rick Yancey, The 5th Wave

  C harles took a sharp corner onto Ocean Avenue heading for the fishing pier, and Charlotte noted something else that seemed unusual. The cars before them had parted like the red sea, which in itself wasn't strange, but the fact that they were all perfectly pulled over was. In the city it was not uncommon to see cars scattering in every direction as they approached, and some cars even disregarded that an ambulance was trying to make its way through. But not here, not in Autumn Falls. Here, the road cleared for them with precision, so they never had to slow down even once. Beside her, Chuck ignored the Utopian phenomenon outside and sat muttering as he took another sharp corner onto Meridian Avenue.

  "Come to Autumn Falls, they said. There are fewer calls here, they said." Charles grumbled under his breath. "What they apparently neglected to mention, is that all my calls would deal with crazy people and their self-inflicted injuries." He pulled over to a spot close to the docks. "I mean, who the hell shoots themselves with a goddamn spear gun?"

  Shrugging her shoulders, Charlotte grabbed her med bag and hopped out from the cab. Charles led the way to the docks, situated beside a red, weather-worn fishing warehouse covered in ivy. She studied the steel frames with the translucent squares of glass and counted the ones which had been punched out, thirteen in all. The entire space reeked of rotted fish. Above the windows, on the eve of a rusty red roof sat seven crows with their necks tucked into their feathers, looking over at the crowd of onlookers gathering around someone on the concrete dock.

  Pushing through the solid gaggle of people, they forced their way into an open area to assess the situation. Before them lay a man in a moth-eaten navy sweater and gray skull cap sprawled on the dock, his head resting in a congealing pool of blood. His face was streaked in deep burgundy, and an empty eye socket glanced up at the sky. Beside him lay a small arrow-shaped spear with a gelatinous, deformed eyeball attached to it. The optic never dangled from the meaty casing in tangled red threads, and a milky pupil glared out at the crowd.

  "That's just not right." Charles turned away from the body with his fist pressed over his lips.

  "You gonna be okay?" Charlotte patted him on the shoulder.

  "Yeah, just give me a minute."

  "Sure thing" She nodded. "Take your time. Hey," she turned and glanced about the crowed. "Who called this in?"

  "I did."

  A man with a bushy salt and pepper beard stepped forward. He was wearing a juniper Shetland sweater, and a charcoal-gray ensemble composed of waders, raincoat, and leather bucket cap. With a scowl on his face, he put his arms across his chest as he continued to chew on some tobacco. Behind him, a small group of anglers gathered, and Charlotte couldn't help but think that he looked like a demented Gordon Fisherman with a ruthless gang of thugs ready to wage war. Something about him made the hairs stand up on the back of her neck and her feet were urging her to retreat from him.

  "You want to tell us what happened here?"

  "He shot himself with a spear gun," the man spit out the green goop he was working on at her feet, "what it look like to you, kitten?"

  "No need to be so rude, sir." Charlotte stormed past him to the body. "I think we both know what I meant. Like what led up to him shooting himself. Did he say anything? Was he acting different today? Was he depressed over the last few days? Any changes in his life which might have caused him to take his own life?"

  "No different, no changes. Just took his life."

  "No one just up and takes their life like that. What did the man say before he did this?"

  "Ma'am," a younger man stepped forward despite the old salt trying to stop him, "old Frank here, he was saying something about how it's that time again. He wasn't making much sense with his babbling, and then he said he would not go out on her terms. He was not going to let her steal his essence. There was also some talk about how he'd rather the devil have his soul and that we'd all leave if we knew what was good for us. Then, he picked up that there gun, aimed it at his head, and fired."

  "I see..." Charlotte knelt by the man to check his pulse, but no sign of life were to be found. "Who ripped the spear from his head?"

  "Why, he did before he dropped where he is now. We haven't touched the body, just called it in to you guys."

  "All right, I've heard enough. Chuck, there is nothing we can do for him. Call it in to the hospital and then I will help you load him on the stretcher, and we'll transport him to the morgue."

  Nodding his head, Charles walked away to relay the information to the hospital staff who would enter the death in their logs and instruct them which cooler to put the body in when they got there. Normally, such jobs were reserved for the corner, but on a small island like this, a medical examiner with a van was a luxury. Instead, the transportation of bodies fell to the ambulance staff, and the autopsy was the job of a doctor at the hospital who also doubled as a pathologist.

  Dispersing the crowd, and instructing the fishermen to return to work, Charlotte covered the body up in a white sheet and waited for her partner to complete his call. Having finished his conversation with the examiner, Charles wheeled the stretcher over, and they lifted the dead man up, not bothering to strap him in. Charlotte leaned over to grab the spear with the eyeball on it and placed it next to the body. She would leave the gruesome task of sliding it off to someone else. Rolling the corpse over to the ambulance, they loaded him inside and shut the door. Grabbing the keys from Chuck, Charlotte got in the front of the cab and started it up, ready to make their five-minute journey to the hospital.

  Chapter Eighteen

  “Death was a living creature. Death was a man tormented by his past. Death was once a human.”—S.K.N. Hammerstone

  T hey drove in perfect silence, and the world outside appeared to be more somber as even the trees seemed to weep
. There were no words to describe what they both felt, nothing to express the horror and agony of something as tragic as a suicide. It wasn't her first, and it sure would not be her last, but Charlotte's heart bled for the anguish the man's family would feel once word got to them about his death. And it was during this solemn time of reflection which had come over the cab that a strange sound coming from the back caught their attention. The ambulance seemed to be alive with the commotion of rattling and banging coming from the cabin. Their patient was still alive in the back and in need of aid. Charlotte scanned her partner's ashen face, suspecting he thought the same thing, and swallowed the lump in her throat.

  "What the hell is that?"

  "I have no idea. But let me pull over so we can check. Perhaps he isn't as dead as we suspected."

  Wishing to avoid sitting in traffic, Charlotte had taken a shortcut. It was an overgrown dirt road which hadn't seen traffic in over half a century, and she was looking for a place to stop. Spotting a small dirt lot with a cracked, ivy-clad stucco building, and rusted gas pumps which served no customers since the fifties, she turned off and parked by the boarded-up garage bay. Above, faint ghosts of letters indicated this was once Gus' Grub &Gas. She had no clue who Gus was, or what happened to him, but something told her a dark fate had befallen him like so many others.