The edge of the lake was as far as she could get, as physics took over and she could drag his dead weight no further in the shallow water. Nancy sat down, exhausted and rested Kyle’s head in her lap. She turned his body onto his side and she began to sob. Nancy shivered, but this time it was not out of panic. She knew that the ice-cold water was likely causing the onset of hypothermia. Nancy shrugged out of her dressing gown and discarded it. She took his wrist and felt for a pulse, but her fingers were so numb, she could not feel anything.
With one last final effort, Nancy stood and dragged Kyle inch by inch onto the beach. She collapsed and crawled to the side of him and rested her head on his bare chest. She lifted her head; having detected what she was sure was a faint heartbeat. She put an ear to his nose and detected warm short breaths. Nancy scrambled to her knees and after turning him on his side into the recovery position, she felt in his jeans pocket for his cell phone. She knew it was a long shot and the phone would probably not work, but doing nothing was not an option. Nancy pulled out the contents from his pocket, and then realized the cell phone was still in the SUV. A small gift box caught her attention and she opened it.
‘An engagement ring?’ She glanced up at the heavens. ‘Dear God, if you have any mercy, let him live.’ She looked down at Kyle. ‘Hang on, Babe. If this is for me and you can hear me, the answer is yes... I will.’
Tears streamed down her cheeks as she closed the box and tucked it back in his pocket. She glanced out over the lake, toward the stag. His entourage of females was huddled around him. He flicked his head to look up at the night sky. Nancy followed his vision and craned her neck, at the same time wondering how they were going to make it to safety from the middle of nowhere in the Pine Mountains.
Nancy’s dream flashed through her mind, with the words of warning from David. If only I’d heeded his words. Nancy let out a primeval scream as if onlys scrambled her mind, when she heard a loud rumbling in the distance.
Chapter 37
Flashing coloured lights appeared above the hill on the far side of the lake. Even at that distance, she could hear the unmistakable sound of rotor blades whooshing, which told her what she saw was other than an alien invasion. It was hard to discern how many helicopters there were. Through tear-blurred eyes, she estimated possibly three or more. They were hardly likely to be on a pleasure flight, they had to be search and rescue, or at least that is what she hoped.
With the flashlight still in the backpack at the bottom of the lake, all she could do was pray they had heat-imaging cameras. At a higher altitude, more lights appeared from the same direction, but the objects were moving faster and overtook the choppers. Two objects moving at speed, she could now see were aircraft, silhouetted against the sky. The air tankers swooped over her position, low and fast and for an instant, she felt as though she could almost reach out and touch them. Her head vibrated with an explosion of noise from the engines and her neck twisted to follow the flight path behind her.
First one and then the other released a cloud that she assumed was water. The noise was deafening as they found their target, with a mixture of thuds and hissing as the streams hit the terrain, followed by a dense plume of vapour.
Hang in there, Kyle.
She turned to see a lightshow over the lake as the helicopters skimmed the surface of the lake and headed for her position. Two of them peeled off left and right. The central chopper shone its searchlight directly into her eyes. Temporarily blinded, and with a newfound surge of energy, she waved her arms in the air.
The whole scene resembled a war zone as she glanced right and then left as teams of fire fighters poured from the choppers as if they were Special Forces arriving for a mission. The central chopper was now above and to the left of her position. The combination of the thunder engines and the rotor blades cutting through the air, took her sense of hearing to the limit of endurance. The downdraft whipped up dirt and grit from the shale and pebbles, biting into her skin. Nancy hunched over Kyle and put her hands over her ears in an attempt to afford them both some protection.
Something covered her body and she opened her eyes to a paramedic holding her shoulders. He leaned with his face close to her and she felt the warmth of his breath on her ear. Nancy gripped the aluminium foil blanket that he had thrown over her.
‘Are you in any pain? Do you have any injuries?’
She could just make out what he had asked and tried to answer, but the only response that escaped her lips were her teeth chattering. She shook her head. He gripped her shoulders and lifted her to her feet and then into his arms. Another paramedic knelt at Kyle’s side, checking his pulse. She wanted to scream out for them to let her stay with Kyle, but even if she could have screamed, it was too late, as he bundled her into the chopper. He set her down on a chair and fastened the safety belt.
‘I’m going back to help my partner.’
The pilot turned to her.
‘You’ll be fine, lady. We’ll have you both at the hospital in no time.’
Nancy could not even raise a smile, before he turned back to face his instrument panel. Nancy buried her head in the blanket and breathed heavily, to speed up gaining body warmth. Her fingers were still numb and she could not feel her toes. She heard shouting and peeked from under the cover of the blanket. The pilot jumped from his seat and helped the paramedics lift and drag Kyle into the chopper on a stretcher, until he was safely onboard. They had Kyle’s neck in a brace. One of them checked his blood pressure and pulse. The other paramedic slipped a mask over Kyle’s face, turned the regulator on a gas cylinder and then turned his attention to Nancy. The engine speeded up and they lifted off the shore. As the chopper rose, it banked and turned left. Out of the window, she could see another chopper dropping a Bambi bucket into the lake to fill it with water. The paramedic shouted at her.
‘How are you?’
‘Fr… freezing. How’s…K… Kyle?’
‘He’s unconscious, but stable.’ His partner finished with the pressure equipment and passed it over. ‘I’m just going to check your vital signs.’
Nancy nodded and poked an arm out if the blanket, keen to save her modesty. He put the wrap around her arm and began pumping the attached plastic ball, until she felt the wrap become taut on her arm, then he released the pressure.
‘How is it?’ Nancy asked.
‘What you’d expect… high.’ He placed a thermometer under her arm, followed by probing her ear with another instrument. ‘The body’s natural reaction to fight hypothermia is to speed up the heartbeat to warm your organs, which is the opposite of how it fights the onset. That’s why you experience numbness in your extremities when it first kicks in. Your arm is lacerated, but I don’t want to dress it, it looks like you have some glass in there.’
He shone a light in both eyes and then removed the thermometer and made notes. Nancy gave him both her and Kyle’s details, which he added to his notes.
‘Both detectives, we are honoured. Lucky we spotted you,’ he said. ‘Good job you had the sense and the strength to wave your arms. It was hard to make you out with all the critters on the shoreline.’
‘Critters? There was stag and some deer, but that’s all I saw.’
‘Hell, you were surrounded. The heat imaging camera wouldn’t pick up the snakes though, no body heat.’
She was not sure what the psychology was behind what he said. Meant to lift her spirits, his words had no effect. He made his way to sit next to the pilot. Nancy watched him put on headphones and read aloud from his notes. She assumed he was radioing ahead to the hospital. Intently, she listened to what he had to say about Kyle.
‘Second one has head injuries, and a suspected broken rib. He’s suffering hypothermia and unconscious. Vital signs are stable with a temperature of eighty-seven degrees and rising. He’s responded to the thermal blanket, we just need to get him out of his wet jeans to help things along. ETA fifteen minutes.’
Nancy emptied her mind of all thoughts and stared at Kyle’s
monitor. She listened to the reassuring beeps coming from the speaker. Kyle looked at peace. Wires led from the monitor and disappeared under the thermal blanket. Nancy watched as the paramedic cut away his jeans and emptied the contents of his pockets into a plastic bag. Sealing the bag, she thought, was as if her future was on hold in some kind of limbo, but as long as she could hear that beep, she knew there was hope.
The helicopter banked mid-flight. It was a welcome relief to see the lights of LA, but more especially, the letter ‘H’ for the helipad, marked out on the roof of the hospital. A jolt and the chopper landed. A sense of urgency speeded up all sense of time. A glance at Kyle showed her his ashen face and blue lips, before they bundled her out of her chair and onto a waiting gurney. A voice called out, barely audible over the sound of the engine winding down.
‘His body is ninety-one degrees and rising, but his circulation and temperature is still low at the extremities.’
A lump caught in her throat at her enforced separation, but she knew he was in safe hands and in the realms of fate.
Her toes were still numb, but her fingers started having a pins and needles sensation. The gurney rumbled over the asphalt, and with a bump, they entered an elevator. Whoever was guiding the gurney did not utter a word. The silence gave her some relief. She had more on her mind than engaging in small talk. Her eyes closed, in the hope that blanking out her surroundings would somehow speed up the journey. The events of the evening rolled through her mind as if she was watching a horror movie. Above all, the ghostly face of Kyle as she left the helicopter, dominated her minds-eye. Nancy began to sob. A hand touched her shoulder and she heard a soothing male voice.
‘There, there, you’ll be fine and the doctor will fix you up in no time.’
She heard a ping, followed by the elevator doors sliding open and they were on the move. Her eyes opened. Through the blur of moist eyes, she watched the fluorescents as they sped by above her, until they came to an abrupt halt.
‘Where do you want her?’
‘In this cubicle, here,’ said a female voice.
Nancy lifted her head to see the nurse drawing the curtain. A foul odour reminded her of the smell of Kyle’s fishing equipment.
‘The smell!’
The nurse came up beside her, reading her notes on a clipboard.
‘Don’t worry; we’ll clean you up as soon as you’ve been checked. At least it shows your senses are returning. How are we feeling?’
We? I’m feeling crap, I don’t know about you.
‘Fine, I think, it’s just my feet that are feeling numb. Could you massage them?’
‘It’s not recommended. Nature will take its course. The feeling will soon return.’
‘My left arm has started to sting.’
‘Let’s take a look.’
The nurse parted the thermal blanket and she winced.
‘We need to clean up that arm. If you’re starting to feel pain, it’s a good sign that your circulation is returning to normal. The feet are always last.’
The nurse re-checked all her vital signs.
‘Your body temperature is almost normal.’ She twitched her nose. ‘Once we’ve cleaned up that arm of yours, I think a shower will be in order, but first let’s get you out of that wet underwear and into a dry gown.’
The nurse wrote up her notes and scurried out of the cubicle. Nancy heard the nurse call out.
‘She’s in here, Doctor.’
The curtains swept aside and in walked the doctor. There was no greeting, he simply picked up the clipboard and studied the notes. The nurse entered, holding a gown over her arm. They both stared at her as if they were inspecting a specimen in the lab and discussed her as if she were not there. It all seemed so matter of fact. The nurse opened Nancy’s blanket and the doctor placed the probe of his stethoscope on various parts of her chest.
‘Clean up her arm and check for any embedded glass. Shower her and then get her onto an observation ward.’
‘Doctor, how’s my partner?’
‘Just worry about yourself. We're taking care of him... trust me. Try and rest when the nurse gets you onto a ward.’
‘But how is he?’
‘Responding. We have him down at X-ray.’
He handed the clipboard to the nurse, hurried through the curtains and out of the cubicle.
‘Busy night,’ said the nurse. ‘Try not to worry.’
Try not to worry! No clothes… no money… no phone. I stink to high hell, and besides the doctor treating him, I have a boyfriend whose life is in the hands of God.
Chapter 38
Nancy cast a blurry stare around the ward. Light from a window stung her eyes. The first thing she could remember was lying on the hospital bed after the nurse had helped her shower, and then she had bandaged her arm. She recalled the nurse leaving her, saying that she would call back with news of Kyle. However, what she could not recall was the nurse returning with news, before she must have succumbed to exhaustion and fallen asleep. Her vision grew accustomed to the light. The ward clock on the wall told her it was nine-fourteen. She raised her head. A different nurse was holding a clipboard and talking with a patient on the bed opposite. A picture of Kyle hanging onto life and laying on the stretcher in the helicopter, circled in her mind. Using her elbows for leverage, Nancy sat up, her vision still blurred, with her head throbbing and her body aching. Nancy called out.
‘Nurse?’
‘Be with you in a minute, Miss Roberts.’
Nancy bit her lip as the minute turned to four minutes. The nurse hung the clipboard on the bottom of the patient’s bed and walked over to the foot of Nancy’s bed.
‘What can I do for you?’ The nurse picked her notes from the bottom of the bed.
‘I need to find out how my partner is doing? He came here in the helicopter with me last night. Kyle... Kyle Claymore. The last I heard he was down at X-ray.’
‘He’s not on this ward. I’ll check with admissions after I’ve checked your pulse.’
‘My pulse can wait. Please.’ Her eyes moistened and she gripped the bedcover with both hands.
‘Okay, just try and relax, or by the look of you, your pulse rate will hit the ceiling.’
The nurse walked away and through the ward swing doors. Nancy kept her gaze firmly planted on the ward doors. It was now nine-twenty five and yet it was as though the nurse had been away for hours. Finally, the ward doors opened and the nurse approached her at the side of the bed.
‘He’s conscious and responding. His mother is with him now. She’s left a message with the ward sister that she has your house and car keys with her.’
‘Can I see him?’
‘Not yet, the doctor will be on the ward at ten o’ clock. Looking at your notes, I think he’ll discharge you.’
‘Clothes! I don’t have any clothes, or money. I don’t even have a cell phone.’
‘Is there someone I can call? You have your dad down as next of kin, but there’s a note saying, ‘No contact.’’
Nancy thought for a second, but there was no ‘plan B.’
‘Yes, please phone Dad. Tell him my predicament.’
In the circumstances, Nancy was just relieved that she had left the keys for her car with Kyle’s mom. The nurse took her pulse, noted it, and placed the clipboard back at the bottom of the bed, before moving onto the next patient.
With the time at nine fifty-five, the nurse returned and drew the curtains around her bed.
‘The doctor is delayed, but you have a visitor.’
‘My dad?’
‘No, it’s someone from the fire department. Your dad says he will get here as soon as he can.’
The curtain parted and in walked Rob, the LA fire department’s chief investigator.
‘What are you doing here?’
‘The forestry fire department asked me to come along to ask some questions. I used to work for them many years ago. It saves them a journey.’
‘Of course.’
�
�Anyway, the main thing is how are you doing?’
‘I’m fine. I’m just worried about Kyle. Have you interviewed him?’
‘Not yet. The doctor was with him when I tried to see him.’
He sat on the chair at the side of the bed and placed a large brown envelope on the bedside stand.
‘Tell me what happened from the first time you were alerted to the fire.’
Nancy relayed all that she could recall and he took notes.
‘That’s one hell of an experience. What was the weather like? Did you notice anything unusual?’
‘Yeah, it was snowing. Only it was snowing ash.’ Nancy laughed, more out of nervousness at having to recall the nightmare. ‘The temperature was high during the day and there was only a gentle breeze. As soon as night fell, the temperature dropped.’
‘Was there any wind, or a breeze, when you first saw the fire?’
‘That was the strange thing about the whole event. The flames on the slope down to the creek travelled fast in our direction, but there again, when I drove over the top of the hill, behind the cabin and down to the lake, the fire was spreading in the opposite direction toward us. But where we stood at the cabin, it was like how I imagined it would be in the eye of a storm. I didn’t feel much of a breeze.’
‘So are you saying it felt like you were in the middle of a tornado?’
‘I wouldn’t know. I mean, I know we have them, but not like in other states.’
He reached for the brown envelopes and took out some photographs.
‘These were taken on the night of the fire. I printed them off on my computer, but I’m running out of ink so they’re a little blurred.’
He handed the first one to her. All she could see was a black background with a light coloured circular band in the middle. He passed the rest to her one at a time. On each photo, the band of light widened until on the last photograph, it resembled the sun.
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