It took Theo, Chuck, and Jonathan nearly twenty minutes of work and copious amounts of swearing before they managed to get the man, who’d begun to thrash and flail the moment the handcuffs were unlocked, out of the car and onto the backboard. By then, Theo felt like he’d been dunked into a pool of sweat, and his uniform shirt stuck grossly to his back. He was panting for air as he and Jonathan strapped the man down and restrained him with the Poseys before hauling the stretcher to the embankment.
“I’ve never in my life seen anything like this,” Jonathan said as he and Theo loaded the stretcher into the ambulance.
“Me either,” Theo admitted. He climbed into the back of the ambulance, and Jonathan joined him moments later. “Grab that pulse-ox and get a reading on his O2 and heart rates while I get the EKG going,” he instructed. “Then get me set up to start an IV.” He snagged the leads from the bag on the side of the monitor and began to attach them to the man’s chest. Jonathan slipped the sensor connected to the reader onto the man’s finger and turned it on.
“I don’t get how this man is still alive,” Jonathan said. The patient wriggled and thrashed as best as his strapped-down position would allow. “I’ve never seen someone with these kinds of injuries be so…active.” He looked at the pulse-ox’s display and frowned, switching it off and on and checking the cable running from the sensor to the device. “I’m not getting a reading on O2 or heart rate,” he said, switching the sensor to a different finger.
“Basics have been having problems with theirs,” Theo said. He wrapped the monitor’s blood pressure cuff around the man’s forearm, avoiding the wounds on his biceps. “Maybe they swapped their crappy one for ours when nobody was looking.”
“Maybe,” Jonathan said doubtfully. He tried the pulse-ox one more time while Theo leaned across the patient and flipped the EKG machine on. There was a pause as the machine powered on. Then the display lit up, and a straight line began to trail across the screen. He leaned closer to it, unsure if he was seeing correctly, and then sat back, utterly confused.
“Huh,” Theo said. He climbed to the other side of the truck and checked the machine over, then double-checked his placement of the leads. “Nothing here either. This isn’t right.”
“You’re telling me.” Jonathan pulled a bright-orange bag from a cabinet while Theo dug his stethoscope from his bag and plugged it into his ears. He leaned as close to the patient as he dared and pressed the cup to the man’s chest. He swallowed hard when he realized he was, in fact, hearing what he thought he was hearing. Or not hearing, in this particular case.
Jonathan was across from him; he’d pulled the monitor’s blood pressure cuff from the man’s forearm and replaced it with one from the orange bag, his own stethoscope in his ears as he inflated the cuff and then let the air out. His face took on a startled expression, and he looked up at Theo, his eyes wide. Theo was sure his own face mirrored Jonathan’s.
“I know,” Theo said. His voice was hoarse and scratchy, and he cleared his throat, trying to dislodge whatever was wedged in there. A sense of ominous doom settled over him. “He’s got the vitals of a dead man, but he’s kicking like he’s still alive.”
“What the hell do we do in a case like this?” Jonathan asked.
“I’m not sure,” Theo said. “They didn’t teach anything like this in paramedic school.” He looked at the backs of the man’s hands, snagging a tourniquet and wrapping it around his forearm to start an IV. After only moments, he said, “His veins are all collapsed. I can’t find a usable one.” He checked his watch and looked out the ambulance’s back doors where several first responders were watching as if they were putting on a stage show. He sighed. “Get in front and head for the nearest hospital. I’m going to splint his legs and arm and see what else I can do for him. I doubt it will be much.”
Jonathan stripped off his gloves, tossing them in the biohazard bin, then jumped from the back of the truck. Theo stared at the patient in front of him as Jonathan shut the back doors, wondering what the hell to do. He’d never seen anything like it. No breathing, no pulse, no blood pressure, nothing. By all logic, he should have been calling in the coroner for a dead body. However, the patient appeared to be still alive. Theo blew out a breath and, as the ambulance began rolling, stood, opened a cabinet, and pulled out trauma dressings, gauze, tape, and splints to shore up the damage he could do something about. It wasn’t far to the hospital, and after that, this strange man and his lack of vitals would be someone else’s problem.
“Hey, Jon, do me a favor and call ahead to the ER and let them know what we’ve got,” he called, intending to work his way from head to toe and catalogue all of the man’s injuries. The man glared at him, snapping his teeth again. Theo tried to shrug off the creepy feeling it gave him and took out his penlight to check the man’s pupils. Fixed and dilated, just like he’d figured they would be. The man’s corneas were even starting to cloud. Theo shuddered and reached for his stethoscope again.
“Shit! Theo, hold on!” Jonathan yelled from the cab. Theo grabbed the bar on the ceiling, gripping it tightly with one hand as the ambulance swerved sharply one way before weaving back the other direction. The top-heavy vehicle skidded and tilted. The last thing Theo heard before he fell across the patient’s legs and crashed into the IV cabinet was Jonathan crying out, “Oh my God!”
Theo’s head struck the metal bar next to the IV cabinet, and his world tumbled into blackness.
Chapter 5
The temperature outside was already cool and quickly dropping, but Gray paid it no mind. He led April into the parking lot, her hand in his, their fingers laced together.
“Did you have any particular place in mind you wanted to go?” he asked, hoping fervently that the several beers in his system wouldn’t interfere with his driving if she decided she wanted to go back to his place.
Theo would kill me if he knew I was thinking about driving after drinking, Gray thought, but he didn’t care. April was there, and he was drunk enough to do whatever she asked him to.
“Just the car is fine,” April said. Her heels clicked and ground on the parking lot’s gravel. Gray glanced down at them. They were tall red heels, strappy things like the ones he remembered her once referring to as her “fuck-me heels.” They made her bare legs look long and slender. “I just wanted a little privacy so we could talk without me having to yell over that damned music.”
Gray grinned and tightened his grip on her hand. “What were you doing in a country bar, anyway? You hate country.”
“If I recall your obsession with Nine Inch Nails correctly, so do you,” April said, eliciting a laugh from Gray.
“Hey, Jack likes it, and it’s the best place to go to play pool and drink,” he said. “I can deal with crappy music for a while if I get the benefits of hanging out with a good friend.” He stopped beside his car, a beat-up Chevy Cavalier that had been the only thing he could afford at the time, and fumbled his keys out of his pocket. “So where’d you want to go again?” he asked. There was no way she wanted to hang out in his dirty car, of all places. He slid the key into the door, nearly dropping the keys on the pavement in his drunken clumsiness.
“Right here is fine,” April assured him. Her hand grasped his jacket, and then she pulled him around and stretched up, pressing her mouth to his. He grunted faintly at her sudden attack, but once his brain caught up with her actions, he returned the kiss enthusiastically, wrapping his arms around her waist and pulling her tightly against him. Her lips were soft and tasted like watermelon lip gloss, and her waist felt tiny, almost fragile, in his hands. He smoothed his hands up her back to brush them over her thick hair, and she smiled against his lips.
“Could’ve warned me that that was what you had in mind,” Gray mumbled.
“Why would I want to do that?” April replied. Then she kissed him again, sliding her leg up Gray’s to rest her knee against the car behind him. He let go of her waist long enough to fumble for the door handle, and once he’d turned the key,
he eased April to the back door and tugged it open.
“Get in,” Gray said. He was surprised at how his voice sounded: low and husky, hoarse with tension and suspense.
April looked up at him, winked, and climbed inside. He climbed in behind her and pulled the door shut. Then he tugged her back into his arms and grinned. “So, where were we?”
April giggled and climbed into his lap, resting her knees on either side of his legs. The position made her dark skirt ride up her thighs and show several inches of her gorgeous legs. He leaned in to kiss her again, smoothing his palms up those legs. Her hands wiggled into his jacket, pushing it back off his shoulders and helping him shrug it off.
“Seems like you’ve got some really interesting things in mind,” he half-joked as he tossed the jacket into the front seat. He started in on the tiny buttons lining the front of April’s blouse.
“Only if you’ve got a—”
A thud against the outside of the car made Gray jump. April startled against him, and she looked at him with wide eyes. “What was that?”
“Nothing,” Gray said. “Probably some drunk guy falling against the car. Don’t worry about it.” He nipped at the side of her neck, unfastening another one of her buttons.
Another thud against the car. This time, it sounded like a fist slapping the fogging glass near Gray’s head. “Fuck,” Gray swore. Someone outside began hammering against the window, beating on it over and over.
“Maybe it’s your friend,” April said. Gray could hear a twinge of annoyance in her voice, a sentiment with which he could agree. “Maybe he thinks he’s being funny or something.”
Gray grimaced and reached for the door. “I swear to God, if it’s Jack trying to pull some stupid bullshit, I’m going to tear him a new one,” he said. He slid over the seat and unlocked the door, pushing it open and already speaking as he climbed out. “Jack, you are seriously the most immature—”
Gray only realized it wasn’t Jack outside the car when the tall, dark-haired man who was much larger than he grabbed him by the front of his shirt and slammed him against the car with enough force to knock the air from his lungs. Gray yelped, trying to break free. He swung a fist out and struck the side of the man’s face. However, the blow didn’t faze his attacker in the slightest.
The sound of a car door opening drew Gray’s attention for only the barest of seconds. Rather than turn to look, he swung another punch at the man still gripping his shirt.
“What the hell is going on?” April’s voice rang out behind him.
“April! Get back in the car!” Gray yelled. He hammered his fist into his attacker’s throat. It was a move Theo had taught him in middle school to use against the bullies who’d bothered him, and it should have put the man down, especially since Gray didn’t pull the punch. But the man wasn’t affected by anything Gray threw at him. If anything, the look in his eyes grew angrier, more hateful. That, more than the lack of affect Gray’s blows were having, told him there was something horribly wrong.
April let out an ungodly shriek just then, a sound of fear and pain personified. Gray’s stomach tightened, and he slammed his fists down on the man’s wrists. The move dislodged the grasping hands and Gray ran to help April, heedless of what he could be walking into. He circled the front of the car, his heart racing, and stopped short as he beheld the scene before him.
For the rest of his life, Gray would remember the events that unfolded beside his beat-up Cavalier that night as a series of snapshots, snippets of memory that flashed into his brain when he least expected it, taking his breath away and leaving him shaking. The sound of April’s screams as she fought off her own attacker; the man hanging onto April’s upper arms with a bruising grip so tight that his knuckles had blanched; the way the man’s face was buried against April’s neck, and the way he shook his head, like a dog worrying at a piece of meat on a bone; the sickening splatter of blood across the hood of the car as the man jerked his head back from April’s neck.
Gray froze, the horror rushing over him long enough for the sight to register. Then he leaped forward, colliding with April’s attacker. April slid to the ground in a heap, motionless. He tackled the man to the pavement and slammed his fist into his face. He jerked back when the man took a swipe at him, his fingers hooked like claws, as if he were trying to gouge them into Gray’s face. Someone grabbed Gray from behind, and he nearly fell forward onto the man underneath him as fingers dug into his shoulders. In a panic, Gray threw his arm out, trying to hit whoever was behind him, falling to the side against the car.
Shouts rang out behind him. Then Jack was beside him, swinging a pool cue like a baseball bat against the head of the man underneath him. Gray collapsed fully against the car, panting, as the bar’s bouncer pulled the first man who’d attacked Gray to the ground. In the frantic scramble to help April, Gray hadn’t realized how open he’d left himself for attack from behind. An odd shudder of fear ran through him and he wondered what would have happened if the first man had gotten his hands on Gray like the second one had April.
The thought of April slammed hard against Gray’s brain, spinning him back around, and he scrambled forward on his hands and knees to her side. Blood flowered freely from the wound in the side of her neck, spilling onto the pavement in a rapidly growing puddle and soaking into her red blouse. Gray pressed his hands to the wound and looked up at his friend. “Jack, help,” he begged.
Jack slammed the pool cue into the second man’s head again. Then he turned to Gray. “Jesus, what happened?” he asked. He knelt to scoop April into his arms while Gray kept both hands against the wound. Despite his efforts to staunch the bleeding, Gray could feel her blood pulsing out between his fingers with every heartbeat.
“I don’t know,” Gray said helplessly. He followed along with Jack as he hurried them back into the bar, through a small but growing crowd of bar-hoppers clustered at the door trying to see what was going on outside. “These two guys just came out of nowhere and attacked us. One of them bit April.”
“Bit?” Jack repeated incredulously. “Smitty!” he shouted. “Call 911! We need an ambulance ASAP!”
Smitty rushed for the phone, and Jack carried April to one of the unused pool tables, snagging a towel off a table and pushing it into Gray’s hands. “Tell me everything,” he said as Gray pressed the towel against April’s wound. “Don’t leave anything out.”
Chapter 6
Theo surfaced to consciousness slowly, feeling as if he were slogging through a viscous pool of molasses. Something sharp jabbed him between his shoulder blades, and he shifted, trying to remember where he was. His first instinct was that he was home in bed with Dillon. Then the truth of it came back to him. Ambulance. MVA. Dead patient who wasn’t actually dead. Crash.
Theo forced his eyes open and shifted again. Whatever was underneath him cracked under his weight. He shook his head, experimentally rolling it from side to side, trying to figure out if he was injured. After silently inventorying each bone in his body, Theo determined that the only ache was in his head, where he’d struck it during the crash. He raised his head a few inches off the surface beneath him—a cabinet, he realized, the one where the IV supplies were kept.
A nearby shuffling noise reached his ears. He froze, squinting in the darkened ambulance, but the noise didn’t come again. How long had they been like this? Theo didn’t remember it being so dark before the crash. And why had no one come for them yet? Jonathan had called them en route; had no one noticed they hadn’t shown up at the hospital?
Beyond the ambulance, Theo heard shouts and screams, tires swishing on the pavement as cars sped by, and the distinct noise of two cars colliding, the squeal of metal on metal.
Then he heard the gunshots.
Theo tensed, his ears straining to better make out the sound. The shots were sporadic, firing from somewhere uncomfortably close to the overturned ambulance. More screaming and shouting accompanied it, a good deal of it.
And there was something clawin
g at the leg of his uniform pants.
Theo swore and jerked his leg away. His right hand found the metal bar attached to one of the back doors, and he used it to pull himself to his feet, balancing with one foot on the side of the stretcher and the other on a cabinet door. “Jonathan?” he called out, hoping his partner was okay. When there was no immediate answer, he raised his voice. “Jonathan!”
A low groan from the front of the ambulance. “Right here,” Jonathan said. He sounded hoarse. “You okay? You hurt?”
“I’m fine,” Theo assured him. He gingerly touched the back of his head and felt a large bump on his skull. His fingertips came back stained with blood. “Hit my head. I think I’m okay, though.”
“And the patient?”
Theo fished his flashlight out of the pocket by his right knee and mashed the button on the bottom. The light flickered on, and he found himself face to face with the patient.
The man stood on his broken legs an arm’s length from Theo, his fingers reaching, grabbing for the front of Theo’s uniform shirt. He’d somehow managed to break free from the stretcher and backboard, though he still wore the c-collar that immobilized his neck. The man’s fingers curled into his shirt, and Theo gasped, dropping the flashlight, which tumbled down to roll somewhere below the stretcher.
“Back off!” Theo shouted. He put a hand to the man’s chest and pushed him firmly enough to show that he meant business. “I said back off!” he repeated when the man showed no signs of understanding. The man seized Theo’s shirt in both hands and jerked him toward him, his mouth opened, his bloodied teeth aiming for Theo’s throat. Theo noticed, in the flash of a single second, that the man had bitten through his own tongue, blood pouring from his mouth and down his chin.
Origins (The Becoming Book 6) Page 14