by Jamie Davis
“Okay,” Dean said. “I’ll be careful out there. I’m not going to stop, though. It felt good to be out helping people again, and the patients are glad they have someone to call for help. We’ve got to keep pushing forward.”
“We will, but it will be for nothing if anything happens to you, so be careful.”
“I will, I promise,” Dean said.
Ashley came over and gave him another kiss before heading for the door. “I’ll see you later when you stop by for the meds.”
Dean watched her leave, then turned back to get ready for the night with Gibbie and Marian. He was excited by the news from Ashley, that what they were doing had shifted her premonitions back on track. It meant that this was the right thing to do to fight The Cause. It helped that it felt like the right thing to do anyway, just helping people. He headed to the shower and thought about what else he could do to get under Artur’s skin while he was out serving the community tonight.
Chapter 66
That night Dean and the crew went out and rode around for several hours without any calls for help. It gave them all a chance to get to know each other better and for Dean to work through some procedural things for them to keep track of that would have normally been taught in the academy. They worked out that Dean would always grab the med bag while Gibbie got the monitor and their teenaged helper, when she was able to come out with them, grabbed the trauma bag with the bandages and dressings.
He was reviewing the extra gear in the trauma bag when the first call came in. Dean glanced at his watch. It was near midnight. Dora had taken the dispatch phone this evening while her sister answered calls from their emergency callers. Dora told them they were getting called for a traumatic amputation at the city park on Broadway. The Broadway Park was about thirty acres of open parkland that included baseball and soccer fields, as well as playgrounds and a community pond. When they pulled into the parking lot, a figure shielded its eyes from their headlights while waving to them. Dean got out and approached the figure, realizing he knew who the person was when he got there.
“Freddy?” Dean asked. “What the heck are you doing here this evening? Is everything alright?” Freddy, the Zombie chef for Station U’s paramedics, stood there, shielding his eyes from the van’s headlights.
“Hi, Dean. I am fine. I’m here for my weekly meet up with the other zombies of Elk City. It’s our full contact Ultimate Frisbee night.”
Dean knew he must have looked ridiculous when he did the double take and just stared at Freddy. There was a zombie Ultimate Frisbee league, and this was the first he heard about it? He was still looking at Freddy when something flew in and thumped him the chest. Dean bent down and picked up a Frisbee, then dropped it like it was a hot rock when he realized it was smeared with blood. He hastily reached into his pockets and fished out a pair of exam gloves, pulling them on. Gibbie and Marian were walking up to join him in front of the parked van.
“Glove up, guys. This one is going to get a little messy,” Dean cautioned.
Freddy bent down to pick up the Frisbee and carried it with them as he led the trio of responders out onto a dark field. Dean and Gibbie turned on their flashlights and trained them on the path in front of them. It wasn’t hard to keep up. Freddy didn’t move very fast. Dean picked up a step and caught up with their leader.
“What happened? Why are we here?” Dean asked. “Dora said something on the phone about a traumatic amputation.”
“We play here once a month or so, at night so people can’t see who we are. To anybody walking by on the path, we are just guys playing Frisbee in the dark. Sometimes it gets a little rough. A few of the guys are pretty competitive by nature. Anyway, tonight, when two of the guys were reaching for the same Frisbee, they grabbed, held on, and then pushed off of each other with the other arm. One came away with both the Frisbee and the other guy’s arm. It’s happened before, so nobody was too concerned, but Dirk is all about keeping his parts together. He just wouldn’t wait for the end of the night to get his arm reattached.”
“Seriously,” Dean said, chuckling a little. “Good thing you guys can’t feel it when stuff falls off. That would nearly kill anyone else, Unusual or human. So, where’s the patient?”
“Just over here. By that tree up ahead.”
At this point, as his eyes adjusted to the darkness, Dean could see people stumbling around in the field nearby. Clearly the game went on despite the injury. He looked ahead and could now make out two figures, sitting by the tree Freddy pointed out. He played the flashlight on them as he approached. Both of them had the mottled skin and dry, musty smell that indicated zombie. One was cursing a blue streak while the other patted him on the shoulder with one hand. He was holding a detached arm in the other. They both looked into the light, squinting. Dean came up and handed his light to Freddy.
“I’m Dean Flynn. I’m a paramedic. I think one of you is in need of some help?”
“Well I’m glad someone is here to help,” said the figure missing an arm. “All Ricky here can do is apologize and whine about how sorry he is.”
“Well, I’m here now, so let us see what we can do,” Dean said. “What’s your name?”
“I’m Dirk, and I used to be the best player here. Now I’ll be forever known as the armless wonder.”
“Look,” said Ricky, “I said I was sorry. You could have let go of the Frisbee. I got there first. But you decided to fight me for it and hold on until your arm came off.”
It looked like the two of them were ramping up to another argument. Dean held up a hand to calm the two of them down. “Okay, okay guys. That’s enough. Dirk, let me take a look at that shoulder and arm. Sometimes, with zombies, we can reattach things that fall off.”
“I certainly hope so,” Dirk said. “I’ve got to have a chance to show Ricky up before the night is over.
Dean moved around them and crouched down next to Dirk to look at the stump of his arm where it came off at the shoulder. He could see that it was cleanly off at the joint. That should help. If it hadn’t been too long, in theory, he could reattach the arm, and the zombie tissue would reconnect over time, making it usable again. The outer wound around the skin would not heal, though. That meant it would always be prone to dropping off unless he could come up with some way to hold it there. Tucking his flashlight under one arm, he turned to Ricky and held out his hands for the detached limb. When Ricky handed it to him, he was surprised by how heavy it was. He turned it and looked at it, trying to realign it in his mind. Dean tried to think of a way to hold the heavy limb in place. Medical adhesive tape would not be strong enough to hold it for long, especially when Dirk started moving it as the tissues reconnected.
“What are you thinking, Dean?” Gibbie asked. “Can we help?”
“I need to come up with some way to reattach this arm sort of permanently or it will detach itself randomly and not stay in place. If we don’t figure it out, we’ll just end up having to keep coming back here once a month and putting it back on.”
“Wait here,” Gibbie said. “I think I have something that will work.” The frumpy, middle-aged vampire turned and headed back to the parking lot while Dean and Marian waited with their patient. Dean looked back to the parking lot where the van was parked under a street light and watched as Gibbie retrieved something out of the back of the van and came jogging back over to them. Dean handed his flashlight to Marian and took the small, plastic tackle box Gibbie handed to him.
“What is it?” Dean asked, flipping open the latches.
“It’s my sewing kit,” Gibbie said.
Dean stopped and stared at his friend, then flipped open the lid and looked inside. He wasn’t much with a needle and thread, and this definitely was outside his scope of practice as a paramedic. Still, it sort of made sense.
Gibbie leaned over, shining his flashlight into the box. “I thought we could use a curved upholstery needle and some upholstery thread. That’s pretty tough stuff.” He reached past Dean and selected a large spool of
thread. It did seem more substantial than the other thread selections. Dean took the spool and unwound about a foot of the thread and tried to break it by pulling with both hands. He could not pull the upholstery thread apart. In fact, it cut into his fingers and hurt him without even stretching. This might work out after all.
“Find that curved needle, Gibbie and thread this on it,” Dean said handing him back the spool of tough nylon thread. He turned back to his patient. This was going to be tricky. He had never sutured a patient before and especially not all the way around an entire arm. It was going to be all about getting the positioning right before he started.
“Marian, come over to this side and hold the flashlight so I can see the wound in Dirk’s shoulder,” Dean instructed his teenaged aide. “Keep the light aimed so there aren’t any shadows while I’m working.”
“Got it, boss. This is awesome. Wait until I tell my friends at school about this,” she said, bouncing on the balls of her feet with excitement.
“No, Marian. You are not going to tell anyone. You will not talk about this with anyone but me and Gibbie,” Dean said, stopping his consideration of the patient to look up at her from where he crouched. “That’s one of our first rules, right? Keep the patient’s private stuff, private.”
She nodded and seemed to deflate a little bit. Dean noticed and added with a smile, “It is pretty awesomely cool, though. I agree.” He turned back to his patient. “Dirk, I will need you to sit very still. I don’t think this will hurt very much, but it might get uncomfortable sitting still while I finish up.”
“I’m not doing anything else,” Dirk replied. “Do your worst. And by that I mean do your very best, please.”
“This is new to me but I plan on putting my best effort forward,” Dean said. “Okay, let’s get started.” He held out a gloved hand, and Gibbie handed him the curved needle with the upholstery thread ready to go. “Gibbie and Ricky, hold the arm out straight from the shoulder so I can work all the way around it. Try to move it as little as possible.” He leaned forward and decided to work on the underside first to practice his stitches where no one would see it. Hopefully, they would get better as he worked around to the top. He reached over and started inserting the needle through the skin on the underside of the arm and then hooked the needle around through the skin of Dirk’s armpit, pulling the thread through. Gibbie had tied a knot at the end of the thread, and it pulled to a stop at the skin of the arm. One stitch was done, and about a hundred more to go. This was going to take a while.
Dean took his time, and it did, indeed, take about a half hour to work his way carefully around the whole arm. When he was finished, he took the flashlight from Marian and leaned in to inspect his work. It didn’t look half bad, considering his lack of experience. He handed the light back and looked up at the aide.
“Marian, get a triangular bandage out of the trauma bag. We need to fashion a sling for Dirk. It will support the arm, and hopefully, things will start reconnecting inside.” He was not an expert on the animated dead, but it was supposed to work that way once things were reattached. He waited while she dug in the bag and then came up with a plastic-wrapped cloth triangular bandage. He took it out of the packaging and folded it, tying a loose knot with the two long ends. He had Gibbie bend the arm at the elbow and slowly bring it down to Dirk’s side, watching the stitching on the top of the arm as the skin stretched and pulled when he manipulated the arm. It looked like everything was holding together. He slid the forearm through the sling and then had Dirk duck his head as he passed the knotted loop over his head. Dean leaned back and checked his work.
“Dirk, try and wiggle your fingers,” Dean said.
They all looked at the hand at the end of the previously detached arm. Slowly, the fingers started moving. Dirk tapped each of his fingers against his thumb, one at a time. He looked up at Dean with a big toothy grin.
“You did it,” Dirk exclaimed.
“I’m glad it worked as planned,” Dean admitted. “You will need to take it easy until the connection is stronger. All that is holding that arm on right now is the stitching, so be careful with it going forward. I would not try to play any contact sports with it until a few days have passed. Based on you moving your fingers, though, I think that you are on the mend.”
Dean stood up and looked around in the darkness. He could hear the game still going on out there, though he couldn’t see a thing. Dean was pleased with himself and the CERT team. He had pulled this one off, all on his own, without Brynne looking over his shoulder, giving him her advice on what to do based on her experience with Unusuals. It felt good to be able to come up with unconventional solutions on his own in these types of strange situations. He looked around at Marian and Gibbie as they cleaned up their mess and packed up their bags.
“Gibbie,” Dean said. “Excellent job. Thinking of using that upholstery thread and the needle was ingenious. You, too, Marian. You held that light steady the whole time. I couldn’t have done this without you, either.” He saw them both grin ear to ear in appreciation of his praise. He knew it was important to share the credit with his team at times like this. It helped build their bond and improved everyone’s ability to improvise and think on their feet when they knew their hard work was appreciated.
They carried the gear back to Gibbie’s van, and they were all feeling great. Gibbie climbed into the driver’s seat with Dean on the passenger side next to him. Marian assumed her usual position dead center of the seat behind them. They drove off into the night to seek out their next patient in need.
Chapter 67
The rest of the week went quickly for Dean and the rest of the CERT team response crew. The word was getting out to their prospective patients that there was another resource to call for emergency medical assistance in the Unusual community. Dean could sense the relief among his patients and their families when he talked with them about their problems. He did what he could to help each of them, but was frustrated because most did not want to go to the hospital for fear it would draw The Cause’s attention to them or their families. He would need to come up with another solution that could bring more definitive care to them in their homes. He was only a single paramedic, and could only do so much for these people with his limited resources.
He was not able to even do lab tests like he had done before on the Station U ambulance. They had not been able to get him an iStat portable hand analyzer. There were no extra ones lying around. They were a new tool and were pretty expensive. He mentioned it, though, to Celeste on one of the meetings with her that week. The vampire assistant pulled out a tablet computer and looked something up, telling him she would see what she could do.
Ashley was trying to put together a group of nurses who were aware of the Unusual community and were willing to do some volunteer work on the side. She hoped they might go out and do home visits on the numerous chronically ill patients to try and take care of problems before they became emergencies. It was hard because of the volunteer nature of the work, and the fact that almost all of them were pulling extra shifts in the ER due to a shortage of qualified nursing staff. She promised him she would put something together, though it might take some time to get organized.
In the meantime, Dean and Gibbie and Marian were getting a real sense of teamwork going. He learned what he could rely on each of them to do on arrival at the scene, and they both asked good questions after each call to try to improve their efforts. He couldn’t ask for a better sense of professionalism from any paid EMS provider, and these were volunteers. Each response improved on their teamwork and patient care and Dean was pleased with the progress his team was making.
It was all going so well that Dean and the others started worrying about what The Cause was going to do in response. They had to know what the CERT team members were doing, even if they didn’t know everyone involved. In fact, Dean himself was the only one that Artur and the rest of The Cause knew about. That wouldn’t last, of course. The lack of a response from their oppon
ents put Dean on edge. He and Ashley, along with James and Brynne sat down over dinner to discuss it and the possibilities for protecting the team when a problem did arise. Dean didn’t want anyone getting injured or attacked because of his rebelliousness; especially a teenage girl.
“I get the sense that Artur is getting more and more frustrated as time goes on,” James said, sipping from his usual mug of warmed blood. “He is supposed to be here on a business trip to expand some new business plans in the Elk City area. That means he is forced to meet with me to go over the supposed business ventures he is proposing. I must say that it is kind of fun to watch him fume as I expound on the way you have circumvented the attacks on our population.”
“Do you think that is wise?” Ashley asked. “I mean, we know it is him at the heart of all of this now. He too, must know that we are aware of his involvement. Is it prudent to push him to further action?”
“Ashley, you know the political machinations of our people as well as I do,” James replied. “He would never tip his hand openly to me, even though he knows I know that it’s him behind all of this. We each must let it play out to the end. Artur sees himself and me as the chess masters, moving our pawns and other pieces around the board. It wouldn’t be proper to take direct action.”
“Oh, great,” Dean said between mouthfuls of dinner. “I’m now a pawn to be moved about in this deadly game you and Artur are playing. Jeez, James, I’m feeling kind of used here.”
“There is a difference, Dean,” James said. “That is how he sees you. I see you as a valuable colleague and teammate. Artur has no such loyalty to his supporters and followers. If this fails to work out for him as planned, he will just leave. He has no connection that we can tie to this so he will walk away and let his peons take the fall for his ambition.”