by Jamie Davis
He watched as Brook and Tammy moved from patient to patient there on the tarp. Then he looked into the nearby fire scene. He knew where he was needed.
“I’m going to head in closer and see if I can round up any others who can get out to you. There might be others who need care but can’t move, too,” he said. “Gibbie has more supplies if you need them, over in the back of the van. We loaded up from the stash at the Nightwing building.”
Dean turned and started walking carefully towards the burning buildings. The heat coming off of them was intense. He didn’t have any kind of protective gear so he couldn’t enter any of the smoldering ruins, but he could look for survivors who might have made it out. As he was walking through the edge of the scene, he encountered August Beche and his wife, Helena. They were standing there, looking at the fire with tears in their eyes. He laid a hand on August’s shoulder as he passed. Their eyes met, but Dean had no words to counter the sorrow and fury he saw there. He gave a grim smile and continued his search.
He was picking his way past one smoldering building when a groan to his left drew his attention. He trained his flashlight on the area and saw a blackened hand reach out from what he thought was a pile of rubbish. Dean rushed over, picking his way around the smoldering patches of grass. He carefully pulled a blackened blanket from the lump on the ground and saw a figure curled in a fetal position. It was a fairy woman; he could tell because of the wings that were wrapped around her. The male fairies didn’t have wings. There were bad burns all over, and the wings were blackened and charred even through the blanket. She must have used it to shield herself from the flames while escaping the home.
“My name is Dean,” he said, kneeling next to the woman on the ground. “I’m a paramedic, and I’m going to try and help you.” He wasn’t sure there was much he could do. The burns were extensive, and he surprised she was alive at all.
“Paramedic Dean Flynn,” the gravelly voice rasped. “It fits that it is you who found us. Little Flynn will be glad that you are here to save her since I will not be able to be with her much longer.”
“Nura?” Dean asked. He knew this woman. It was the fairy woman whose child he had helped deliver. It was the first baby he had delivered, and it had been a fairy girl. It was one of the proudest moments so far in his short paramedic career. The family had named her Flynn after him and declared that she would grow up to be a paramedic like him. He looked around. Where was the baby? She would be about three months old by now, not old enough to crawl away yet. He gently reached out and rolled the charred figure onto her back. The wings crumbled away where they were wrapped around her abdomen, exposing the baby she held there. The child wasn’t moving.
Dean reached out and checked the infant’s pulse along the upper arm. There was a pulse, but it was too slow, and the baby didn’t appear to be breathing. He carefully picked the fairy infant up, wary of the wings on her back and leaned forward. He tilted the head back slightly to open the airway and covered her mouth and nose with his mouth, blowing life-giving air into the infant’s lungs, one puff at a time. He continued for a few minutes and felt the infant stir in his grasp. He checked the pulse, and it was stronger and faster now. His intervention had done the trick.
“I brought her back, Nura,” Dean said. There was no answer, and he looked over at the mother lying on the ground next to him. She was staring vacantly at the dark, cloudy sky overhead. She didn’t blink. Shifting the baby in his grasp, he reached over and checked the mother for a carotid pulse on her neck. He detected nothing. Sighing, he gently slid the eyelids closed and stood with the baby. Flynn started to cry a little. Dean’s experience with babies was limited, but he knew he needed to get her somewhere warm and dry.
He started back out of the charred trailer park towards the staging area in the parking lot. The movement seemed to help soothe the baby. He checked her over while he picked his way around the charred obstacles in his way. She might have some minor, first-degree burns, but her mother had done a good job of protecting her from the heat. Aside from some smoke inhalation injury that would be expected in a fire, she appeared to be fine. Holding her close, he reached the parking lot and the area where Tammy and Brook were tending to the injured.
Brynne had shown up and brought two other Station U paramedics, Bill and Lynne with her. Chief Ari, the director of EMS for the fire department was there as well. He was arguing with the deputy fire chief, probably about the decision to turn around the responding ambulances earlier. Their shouts were audible to anyone within fifty feet of them. It didn’t seem as if the EMS chief was getting anywhere with his points. As Dean walked up to the others, he saw Chief Ari storm off, back to his SUV.
Dean looked around, trying to see where he could put the infant, or with whom. Bill noticed his arrival first, the grizzled old paramedic chuckled and gestured in his direction with a bloody gloved hand.
“Look what the cat dragged in,” Bill said. “I knew you wouldn’t be able to stay away from the action for long, bud. Where’d you get the baby? Is she okay?”
Brynne looked over and noticed him. She came over after finishing taping off the end of a bandage wrapped to a woman’s arm. She held out her hands to Dean, and he handed her the baby.
“It’s baby Flynn, Brynne,” Dean said. “Her mom didn’t make it, but she was able to get the baby out alive. I had to ventilate her a little bit, but otherwise, she seems alright despite the fire and smoke inhalation.”
“Let’s check her oxygen levels and get her some supplemental oxygen anyway,” Brynne said. “She probably inhaled a lot of carbon monoxide and other chemicals in the blaze. Better to be safe and err on the side of caution until we can get her to the hospital for some lab work. You did good, Dean.”
It felt good to be working alongside all of his Station U colleagues again. This was where he belonged. All he had to do was beat the murder charge, and he could return to his job taking care of his special patients.
“Anything else on what happened?” Dean asked.
Tammy looked up from where she was taking a set of vital signs. “It seems several SUVs pulled up, and men dressed in black exited the vehicles. They were carrying bottles and started running down between the trailers, lighting the cloth wicks in the Molotov cocktails and tossing them into windows and doors before racing back to their vehicles and leaving. Most people were caught unawares, and you know how these trailers are. There’s often only one main doorway out. I’m sure a lot of residents were trapped inside unless they could climb out a window. Who knows how many are dead here in the remains of the trailers.”
“I heard Chief Ari yelling. Are we getting any more ambulances to transport the injured to the hospital?” Dean asked.
“I don’t know,” Brynne said. “Deputy Chief Compton refused to call the Red Cross either. They would be useful to help get shelter for the displaced survivors here. He claimed it was to protect their secret, but I don’t think that’s it.”
“I don’t think so either, based on my earlier run in with him,” Dean agreed. “Brynne, he might be the leak at headquarters. I think he’s the one slipping The Cause their information on our emergency calls from 911 dispatch.”
“That would make sense,” Brynne said. “He has all the access he’d need to get that job done and shut us down with the attacks.” She started back towards the other patients with the baby. “Come on. Let’s get these folks sorted out. We need to decide who has to go to the hospital and who can be treated here.”
Dean followed her into the group of injured fairy folk. He stopped at the first one he came to and started his follow-up assessment, glancing at the triage tag Brook or Tammy put on him earlier. Triage tags had different color strips on them to allow follow-up responders to identify the level of injury quickly for the patients. It gave him the information he needed with its color-coded stripe and the boxes checked off. Dean settled into the familiar patterns of assessment and documentation as he moved from patient to patient. Even with six Station U par
amedics on the scene, this was going to take a while.
18
The six paramedics, working together, were able to get through the sorting of the remaining patients in about ten minutes. So far, they had ten that needed to go to the hospital in the first load, most of them for severe burns. The challenge was they only had two ambulances and the hospital was 20 minutes away. It would take them hours to ferry all of them there taking them two at a time. Brynne made an executive decision. She said that since this was a major mass casualty incident, normal transport rules didn’t really apply. They could take multiple patients per ambulance and perhaps do it all in two trips. Since he was still suspended, Dean was not eligible to ride the ambulance to the hospital so Tammy and Brook would take one, with Brynne and Bill taking the other. Dean and Lynne would stay behind and tend to the patients remaining at the scene until more help could be rounded up for them.
Right before they loaded up the first round of patients, Dean’s phone chirped in his pocket, and he checked the screen. It was Ashley. He swiped to answer and heard her voice on the other end.
“Dean, what’s going on?” she asked. “We have extra staff here expecting a ton of patients, but no one has arrived yet. Are there no survivors?”
“There are survivors, Ash,” Dean said. “The first round of patients are inbound now. You should be getting a call on the med radio soon with a heads-up on what is coming. We had a run in with a chief officer who didn’t want to waste ambulances on the freaks living here.” He heard her gasp of shock over the phone line. Dean filled her in on his suspicions about Deputy Chief Compton.
“Are you safe?” Ashley asked after hearing his report.
“I am,” Dean reassured her. “It has been touch and go, and we have several severely burned patients here. We figured out how to get the ten most seriously injured and some of the walking wounded loaded up and get them there in two round trips with the ambulances we have.”
“Alright, I’ll tell the team assembled here,” Ashley said. “Be careful. This could be the beginning of a whole shift in what The Cause is doing. This was a pretty large-scale attack and is very different from what they’ve done in the past with just one-on-one attacks for the most part. It could mean they are ready to act against you and the other paramedics directly.”
“I will be careful and keep my eyes open. I’ve got to get back to work. I’ll see you later.” Dean ended the call and looked around as the two ambulances pulled away. They were able to get three injured patients on each ambulance with one paramedic in the back and also putting one of the less severely injured patients in the front passenger seat with the driver. They should be able to get the moderately and severely injured patients into the hospital in two trips as planned. The remaining patients were bumps, bruises, and minor burns. He figured he and Lynne could help them. His CERT team members were there as well, and they were bringing in residents who had fled to the woods surrounding the trailer park during the attack. There were a few minor injuries there too, but the CERT trained folks were tending to their wounds pretty well.
He looked over at the command vehicle with its back lift gate up. The Chief was standing there overseeing the mopping up operations for the firefighters. The fires had died down as they consumed the fuel that made up the wooden trailers. There were some minor patches of flames here and there, but the firefighters in a brush truck could be seen working their way around the perimeter of the trailer park, dowsing areas of flames in the grass and brush as they found them. Some of the responding fire companies were already packing up their hoses and cleaning their gear in preparation to head back to their stations. It wouldn’t be long now until they were left alone with this group of displaced patients and residents - people without homes and nowhere else to go.
Dean was starting to bend his mind around ways to get the remaining people here some shelter arrangements when two dark SUVs pulled into the lot. It was still dark out, and the windows were heavily tinted so Dean couldn’t immediately see who was in the cars in the blinding headlights. He saw backlit figures exit the two vehicles and come towards him and the rest of the team. It wouldn’t be The Cause returning, would it? He was about to assume a defensive stance when he realized it was James and others from his organization in the city. Celeste was there, as was Rudy. The four other large individuals who exited from the second vehicle were probably pack members there to act as security for their leaders. That group spread out and stood guard. Dean sighed in relief.
He walked over and shook James’ hand as the vampire leader approached. James was looking around in the darkness, taking in the smoldering ruins beyond where Dean stood. Dean had to remember that it was as bright as daylight for James’ enhanced vision, and he could see things the paramedic could not. James stood there and took it all in for a moment then looked at Dean.
“Is it as bad as it looks?” James asked.
Dean nodded. He took a moment and filled him in on their transportation plans for the patients, as well as his concerns for the remaining residents and survivors. James listened and nodded as Dean went down the list of needs. He gestured to Celeste, who was standing nearby, tapping notes into her tablet computer.
“Did you get all of that, Celeste?” James asked. She nodded and the vampire lord of Elk City turned back to Dean. “You all did a good job here, Dean. I think Celeste and I can find places to relocate the survivors in the short term until they can rebuild. Do we know how many perished in the fires?”
Dean shook his head. He looked back at the former trailer park and thought of Nura. How many others like her were lying around and in the remains of the mobile homes? He wasn’t sure they’d ever recover all the bodies or identify them all.
“All we know, James, is that we’ve swept the area several times at this point for survivors, or for those who just ran away from the flames,” Dean said. “There might be a few more we haven’t found, but we can’t be sure. My CERT team can all see pretty well in the dark, and they said they can’t find anyone else. There are about five more severely injured and another four or five who need treatment. They’ll be taken to the hospital when the ambulances return from their initial runs. In the meantime, the rest will all need a place to stay for the rest of tonight and beyond. I estimate that it’s about sixty or seventy people. Where will you put them?”
“There are some motels on the edge of town owned by Unusuals,” James said. “I’ve already been in contact with them, and they have plenty of room open to take the residents in. It will be a little tight for everyone concerned, but it will have to do until they get their homes built again.”
“Who will pay for that?” Dean asked. “These people had little or nothing to begin with.”
“I will,” James said. “I own the land on which the mobile homes rested. It will fall to me to do something with this space now that the existing Barrens is no more. Perhaps I’ll build some affordable housing apartments here to replace the way they lived before. They don’t need trailers and caravans anymore. It is about time they shifted from their ties to the nomadic past. None of them have moved their trailers in years. It’s time they recognize that they’ve put down roots here in this community.”
James looked around at the expectant faces of the displaced residents around him and back to Dean. “Is August Beche or his wife here?”
Dean looked around, too, then shook his head. “I ran into them earlier. They were in shock from the events of the night. They didn’t come out when I told them to leave. I don’t know where they are now.”
A woman lying on the ground nearby spoke up. “August and Helena ran back in many times to help others escape the fire. They pulled me out of the back window of my home and carried me here. I have not seen them in some time.”
“Thank you, madame,” James said. “We will look for them and lend them aid if it is possible.”
Dean leaned in a little closer and lowered his voice. “If that is what they were doing, it may be likely that they were overcome
by the smoke or heat and did not survive.”
“I know, Dean,” James said. “But we will look for them or their bodies anyway. It is the least I can do since I could not prevent this tragedy from happening to them.”
Dean went back to tending to the gathered patients and survivors. While he was working, Gibbie and the rest of the CERT team came over together. They had been working hard, and it showed in the smudges of ash and soot on their faces and clothes. Gibbie seemed alright, but Wim, Dora, Kristof, and especially Marian all looked wide-eyed and a bit traumatized. It was likely that all four of them had seen their first dead bodies this night. Dean finished what he was doing and walked over to where the small group of civilian responders stood, a little apart from the assembled patients.
“How are you all?” Dean asked. The exhaustion showed even more, close up.
“We’ve scoured the woods all the way around the perimeter three times,” Gibbie said. “We found people the first two times, but there was no one left to rescue by the time we made the third circuit.”
“At least no one left alive,” Marian muttered half under her breath. Dean heard her comment and knew that his guess about what they may have seen was correct. They needed to talk this out and get their feelings to the surface.
“Look,” Dean said, his voice lowered to a near whisper so only the CERT team could hear him. “I know that this was a tough one for you guys. We are almost done here, and we’ll be getting wrapped up to leave soon. Head over to the van and gather our gear, then take a break. There’s some water bottles in the back of the van. Drink something and take a load off. I’ll be over as soon as the ambulances return from their run to the hospital and load up the next group for transport. Okay?”
He met each of their eyes and registered their nods of agreement before he let them go. This was his team, and it was his job to help them through these difficult responses and traumatic experiences. He and Brynne had taught them back in their CERT training that sometimes patients died no matter what you did. But that was a dry lecture on managing stress and difficult situations taught in a classroom setting. This was something else. It was real, and he knew the smells, sights, and sounds of the things they encountered this evening would stick with them all. The smells especially were even more pervasive than the visual images burned into their memories. At least, that was the way it was for him in situations like this. He’d have to spend some downtime tonight de-stressing them. It was important to encourage them to talk about what they experienced this evening. He hoped he could draw them out and get them to talk about it. For now, all he could do was wait until it was time to pack up and leave.