Extreme Medical Services Box Set Vol 1 - 3

by Jamie Davis

  Dean pulled into the Station U parking lot a little before six PM for work and looked around for any suspicious black SUVs that might indicate Zach or his friends were following him. That had been how Zach had tracked him down before. He didn’t see any other cars around. Nothing but a beat up white Chevy van parked on the street alongside the building. He grabbed his gear and went inside the station. Brook and Tammy, the day shift paramedics, were there when he walked in. Brook, a tall, thin blonde woman in her mid-twenties, was working on one of the computer workstations at the U-shaped desk to the left. Tammy, a brown-haired mother of four in her later forties, was seated in one of the recliners reading a book.

  “Hi, guys!” Dean called as he came in. Brook looked up briefly and waved from where she was working on the computer. Tammy looked up from her book, smiling.

  “You’re in a good mood, Dean,” she said.

  “Yeah, I guess I am,” Dean said, setting his duffle bag down on the coffee table in front of the love seat.

  “It wouldn’t have anything to do with your new girlfriend would it?” she jabbed, smiling.

  “It might,” Dean said, “But I don’t kiss and tell.”

  “So there has been kissing?” Tammy asked. “Come on. Why do you and Brynne have to be so mysterious about your special friends? Some of us have rather mundane home lives. We need to live vicariously through you guys.”

  “What’s that about living vicariously?” Brynne asked as she came in from the parking lot.

  “Dean’s been kissing Ashley, but won’t tell us what it’s like to date a real angel,” Tammy said getting up from the recliner and stretching her arms out behind her. “I shouldn’t say it, but it’s been a quiet day, Brynne. In fact, we haven’t had much come in all week since that bad burn victim you had the other night. Bill and Lynne said the same thing about their night shift runs over the last few evenings.”

  “Ugh, Tammy,” Brynne said in an exasperated tone. “You know better than to use the ‘Q’ word.”

  “There’s no other word for it,” Tammy said, defending herself. “It’s like our patients are laying low and not calling us. Have you heard anything from James? I wondered if he knows if there’s anything going on.”

  “No, not that he’s mentioned to me,” Brynne said. “He’s been preoccupied by something else going on, but I’ll ask him. Maybe it’s just a natural lull in the action. There is nothing wrong with that.”

  “No, I guess not,” Tammy said. She grabbed her purse from the desk nearby and headed towards the door. “I need to get home. It’s parent-teacher conference night, and that always leads to some surprises. I’m meeting my husband at the school later, and I need to make sure the kids are settled and working on their homework before I head over there. See ya!”

  Brook grabbed her stuff and followed her partner out the door with a wave. “Yep, I’m out of here, too. Have a good night, guys.”

  Brynne walked over and put her purse in the top desk drawer, leaned over and logged-in to her workstation before she turned around with her hands on her hips, looking at Dean.

  “Well?”

  “Well, what?” Dean asked.

  “Well, tell me about Ashley,” she said. “You guys must’ve had a good breakfast date. She texted me for your address while you were off. I can only guess that meant she was planning on dropping by.”

  Dean felt his face flush and Brynne laughed.

  “I knew it!” she said. “Good for you, Dean. You need a good woman in your life to keep you straight.”

  “I’m not talking about this, Brynne,” Dean said. “I’m a gentleman. Ashley and I are getting along and are planning on seeing each other again. That’s all I’m going to say.”

  “Ok, fair’s fair, Dean,” she said. “I don’t share my private life with James with anyone either. I know that dating an Unusual comes with some secrets. Still, if you need to talk about it, I’m all ears.”

  “There is one thing I need to tell you, Brynne,” Dean started. He didn’t know how to broach the subject other than to jump right in. He crossed the room and sat in the desk chair opposite hers. “The other night, I know you saw your ex-partner Zach in the crowd. I overheard you talking to Chief Ari about it. I saw him, too.”

  “How do you even know what he looks like?” she asked. “He was long gone before you got here. That was the first I’d seen of him since he left.”

  “Zach contacted me and asked me to join him, to pass him information on our patients.” Brynne stiffened at this but didn’t say anything as he continued. “He’s mixed up in some group called “The Cause” that wants to expose the Unusuals in our community. He calls Unusuals monsters, and he wants them gone from Elk City.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me, or the Chief, or Mike at the Academy?” Brynne asked. “Zach’s bad news, Dean. He got really jealous of James and me. He thought our dating was an abomination. His words, not mine.”

  “I didn’t know what to do at first, and I was shocked by some, uh, aspects of your relationship with James. I didn’t know how I felt about that,” Dean said. “I should have said something. I know that now. Maybe that burn attack would never have happened. He all but admitted to me that he had something to do with it. He said it was because she was Wiccan. He claimed she was using her powers to take advantage of humans and steal money from them.”

  Brynne waited when he paused, searching for the words to explain what he needed to get off his chest.

  “Brynne,” Dean continued. “He came to my apartment a few nights back, after our last day shift, and threatened to expose me as part of their movement. He claimed that he had evidence that could tie me to him, and he wanted to me to keep working with him. I have tried to avoid him, but he was waiting in my apartment, when I got home from work.”

  “You should have called me, Dean, or called the police,” Brynne said.

  “I know, but I was too upset by all of it,” Dean said. “That’s when Ashley came to find me. She said she could tell I was in trouble. She was the one who urged me to talk to you. So, here I am. What do I do?”

  “I’ll report this to Chief Ari,” Brynne said. “Not to get you in trouble. He’s aware of The Cause. That’s the group that Zach is tied up with. They are determined to root out the Unusuals in our community and drive them from the area. I’ll tell him that Zach is trying to draw you in and that you reported it to me. That should clear your name. In the meantime, don’t have any contact with him and report to me if he tries to confront you again as he did at your apartment.”

  “I will,” Dean assured her. “I just don’t think that he’s done with me. I get the feeling that he’s got some way to use me in this situation. That he wants me to do something, to take some direct action against you and James and our patients.”

  “That may be true,” Brynne said. “You need to keep telling me what’s going on. Another thing, too. Don’t let him know about your relationship with Ashley. That could make her a target. I don’t know if he knows her identity as an Eldara, but he might. Tying her to you might give him leverage over you. We don’t want that.”

  “She says that I have a part to play in the situation with Zach and The Cause,” Dean said. “Ashley was sent here for a purpose, and now she thinks that I am tied in to that, somehow.”

  “Did she say what she knows?” Brynne asked.

  “No, she acted like she was discovering her role as things went along,” Dean said. “She just had a feeling.”

  “That sounds typical for the Eldara,” Brynne said with a snort. “They’re the Gods’ messengers, but deciphering the divine meaning of a message is tough even for them. At least, that’s what James has told me. They’re less messenger and more like a change-agent than anything else.”

  “That sounds right, based on what she was willing to share with me,” Dean confirmed. “Ok, so what next?”

  “Next, I contact the chief,” Brynne said. “Then we just do our jobs. I’m going to ask James about what Tammy said, about thin
gs being slow lately. Maybe he knows if there’s something going on that’s keeping the Unusuals from calling us. If there is something, he’ll tell me and maybe there is something we can do about it. For you, Dean, reach out to Mike Farver. He might have some insights on this. He was doing this before I was, and he might know more about the Eldara than I do. I shouldn’t talk to him directly. We have some history that is uncomfortable. Shoot him an email and see if he has time to meet up with you instead.”

  “I’ll do that,” Dean said. He was glad to have something to do and know that there was a plan in place to back him up. He turned around in the desk chair and tapped in his login information to the workstation in front of him. He clicked on his secure company email account and opened up a new email to Mike, his old Academy instructor. Mike was not just a knowledgeable instructor; Mike was a former Station U paramedic. He knew a lot about Unusuals and could offer some insights into his situation. Dean was clicking the send button on that email to Mike when the first call of the evening came in.

  The tones alerted on the speaker overhead in the squad room. “Rescue Box 734, pedestrian struck, in the vicinity of 1322 Hopewell Road.”

  The two paramedics jumped up as one and headed out, Dean following Brynne through the door to the ambulance bay. She walked to the driver’s side as usual, and Dean crossed around and climbed into the passenger seat. He reached up and keyed the garage door opener while his partner fired up the rig’s diesel engine. As they pulled out into the parking lot, Dean picked up the mic and put them on the street responding.

  “U-191 responding, Rescue Box 734.” He reached up to close the garage door and checked in the side view mirror to make sure it was coming back down as they drove away to the call. He then reached down and switched the radio over to the response channel and waited for the dispatcher to contact them with any additional information from the scene as they sped through the darkening streets and night fell on Elk City.

  Chapter 32

  The dispatchers didn’t have much additional information to offer on the patient as the two paramedics sped through the night in the ambulance. All the dispatcher had to say was that it was a female victim found on the side of the road after an apparent vehicular hit and run. The patient was alive but unresponsive. The dispatcher also reported that another, unidentified responder was already on the scene. That caused Dean to look over at Brynne with a confused look on his face. Who could that be? She just glanced his way with a raised eyebrow and kept driving.

  It took them seven minutes to get to the location, and as they pulled up on the scene, they saw other red flashing lights in the night. Dean was surprised to see they were coming from a beat-up, white Chevy van pulled off the side of the road. There was a little portable, suction-cup mounted, rotating flashing red light mounted to the roof out the driver’s side window. The curly cord stretched back inside, and Dean guessed it plugged into the old van’s 12-volt cigarette lighter plug. He’d seen such lights in catalogs used by local volunteers and security services.

  Dean and Brynne had gotten to know each other well enough to have a routine for their calls at this point. Dean jumped out of the passenger side on their arrival and pulled out the trauma and oxygen bags from their side compartment. He knew Brynne would climb in the back and grab the heart monitor/defibrillator. Because they were on the side of the road, he took a moment to don a reflective, fluorescent yellow vest too, before he proceeded to find their patient. He was not prepared for what he found as he rounded the parked white van.

  There, in the tall grass on the roadside, was the twisted body of a young female. She looked young, based on what he could see from the light of the van’s headlights. Bent over her, apparently treating her wounds, was a heavyset person wearing a light blue uniform-style shirt with no collar insignia or shoulder patches he could see. The person was wearing navy blue cargo pants similar to his own, and the pockets appeared to be bulging with first aid supplies like bandages and trauma shears. He approached and asked what was going on. The other responder turned and looked his way.

  “Oh, Dean, it’s you. Thank God!” Gibbie, a middle-aged vampire, said. Gibbie had been a frequent patient of theirs since Dean had started on the job at Station U. He was usually simultaneously frumpy and flamboyant. He was not, to Dean’s knowledge, an EMT, paramedic, or any other kind of first responder.

  “Gibbie,” Dean said. “What are you doing here?”

  “I’m trying to help this fairy girl, what does it look like I’m doing?” Gibbie said frantically. “She’s all busted up with a broken leg, and it looks like one of her wings is messed up although it’s hard to tell because she’s got it folded under her shirt.”

  “Okay, Gibbie,” Dean said, taking control of the scene, the way he’d been taught. “I’m here. Step back and let me have a look at her.”

  The vampire stood and stepped back as Brynne approached with the heart monitor. “Gibbie, what the hell are you doing here?” she asked. “And what are you wearing?”

  “I decided I could help you guys out, Brynne honey,” the frumpy vampire said. “I got myself a scanner and some equipment. This way I can lend you all a hand on your calls with Unusuals.”

  Brynne continued past the vampire wannabe to the patient. She was shaking her head. Dean started working on his patient assessing her injuries.

  “We’ll talk about this later, Gibbie,” Brynne said.

  A car sped by the scene, coming dangerously close to all of them on the side of the road. Dean looked at his partner. Even though they were wearing reflective vests, that car had come too close for comfort.

  “We need some traffic control, Brynne,” Dean said.

  She looked around and started to key the radio mic clipped to her uniform’s shoulder. Then she stopped and seemed to change her mind. She turned and looked at Gibbie where he stood next to his van.

  “Gibbie,” she called. “Did you, by chance, get any road flares when you were getting your van equipped?”

  “I sure did, Brynne,” he said, bouncing on the balls of his feet excitedly. “I have a whole case. I picked them up from online.”

  “Ok,” Brynne instructed. “Light some up and deploy three of them in intervals back to about 50 yards on either side of us in both directions. Then take a flashlight and flag down traffic coming this way to slow them up. Got it?”

  “Got it, Brynne!” Gibbie said, his voice rising to a squeak in excitement. “Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy.” He sped off and disappeared around the back of his beat-up van.

  Dean meanwhile finished his head to toe trauma assessment. He had a female in her late teens or early twenties. She was dressed in a summer dress and both her lower legs had open fractures, consistent with being struck by a car. Gibbie had apparently applied Quick-clot gauze to the open wounds to control the bleeding, and that had slowed the bleeding significantly from what had been happening before the dressings were applied, based on the amount of blood soaked into the ground around her.

  He rolled her gently towards him, supporting her head and neck with one hand, and checked her back. He found a crumpled pair of wings. She groaned in pain but didn’t wake up or speak. He contained his surprise when he saw the pair of wings. They emerged from between the girl’s shoulder blades above the sundress. They were multi-paneled like an insect’s folding wings. The left one was clearly broken based on the way it bent at the connection between the shoulder blades. There was no bleeding on the back, so that was a minor injury compared to the leg fractures and any internal injuries she had.

  “What have we got, Dean?” Brynne asked.

  “Female, I’d say she’s about 19 apparent age,” Dean started. “She’s responsive only to painful stimuli and has visible bilateral open tib/fib fractures, bleeding currently under control. She has a …” He paused for a moment, searching for a description. “She has an apparent left wing fracture at the base but no other injuries or visible bleeding. Based on the mechanism of injury, I suspect internal bleeding and a possible he
ad injury. We need to get her to the hospital.”

  As Brynne looked over his shoulder, she said, “Good job on the Quick-Clot gauze on the open wounds, Dean. That was fast.”

  “That wasn’t me, Brynne,” he said, hooking a thumb over his shoulder to where the vampire was waving his flashlight frantically and nearly jumping in front of cars to wave them aside. “Gibbie had that done before we got here.”

  Dean looked around and said, “I wonder who called us? I didn’t see any cars pulled over but Gibbie’s van. Maybe the people who hit her called and then left?”

  “Maybe,” Brynne said. She stood up and flicked on her flashlight, shining it into the woods and brush on the side of the road. She called out, “If you’re still here watching us, it’s okay. We’re going to help your friend. You can come out.”

  “Is it safe? I wasn’t sure when the vampire came,” said a tiny voice above them.

  Brynne took a step back and shined her light up in the tree branches overhanging the road. Dean looked up, too. Crouched on a branch about ten feet up was a small, shadowy form. Brynne’s light revealed a girl about the same age as the one he was treating.

  “It’s alright,” Brynne repeated. “You can come on down. It’s safe. The vampire’s with us. He’s helping.”

  The girl stepped off the branch into mid-air. Dean shouted and lurched to his feet to catch her. He stopped when he saw her wings unfold behind her, and she fluttered gracefully to the ground. She walked closer and knelt down beside her friend’s head, the wings folding out of sight against her back. Dean noticed that their delicate laciness blended in with the dress and looked like part of the dress’s ruffles when folded. He wasn’t sure he’d have known they were there if he hadn’t just seen them.