“I’m gonna hold you to that.”
Lane grinned. “I know you will.”
“I ordered your usual. Is that good?”
She hesitated. Her usual was a burger and fries—neither of which sounded appealing. But the earnestness in his gaze melted her.
“My usual is great.”
“I’m beginning to think you’ve been abducted by aliens and in your place is a body double who isn’t very good at emulating you.”
Lane laughed, stirring another pack of sugar into her coffee. “I wouldn’t be a very complicated human to emulate. Also, that’s twice you’ve brought up aliens today. I’m starting to get concerned.”
Jerome’s phone chimed, and he swiped to open the message. His face puckered. “The kid didn’t make it.”
Lane jerked, sloshing coffee over the edge of her mug. “Shit. Seriously?”
“Yeah. They just lost him. Nick texted.”
Tears blurred her vision, her thoughts turning to the young mother. She would be inconsolable.
If the tables were turned, Lane would have been, too.
Before they could delve too deep into that topic, the server swept up to the table with two plates. She deposited Lane’s burger on the tabletop in front of her, winked at Jerome as she dropped his chicken in place, and then swept away again.
“She likes you,” Lane teased, hoping to lighten the suddenly dreary mood.
“I’m taken.” His eyes lingered too long on hers.
Heat flooded her cheeks and she broke eye contact to dress her burger. Surprisingly, the scent of meat and hot pickles didn’t send her running for the bathroom. Her stomach rumbled—the first indication she’d had of hunger all day.
For a while, neither spoke as they ate. Being a servant to the radio meant lunches didn’t always get finished. In their line of work, they learned early to eat fast lest you not eat at all. Jerome made quick work of his fried chicken, and Lane surprised herself by finishing her burger entirely.
Lane was picking at the last of her fries when a clap of thunder shook the restaurant so hard that all conversation ceased. She turned her gaze on the street outside the foggy windows. A handful of pedestrians dashed towards their destinations as the rain came—just a sprinkle now, but the thunder indicated more was on its way.
Their next call came in on the tail end of a second rumble of thunder. Jerome answered dispatch, and Lane dropped a twenty on the table, then they both rushed for the truck.
The rain was chilly—colder than it should have been for a hot summer day. She shivered as the engine rolled over and AC blasted.
“Damn that’s a cold rain for July,” Lane remarked as she cut the air conditioning.
“Refreshing, though.”
“I’ll give you that.” Lane scrolled through the run notes. “Forty-five-year-old male. Collapsed while trimming trees in his backyard. Not breathing, not responsive. Wife is performing CPR.”
Her partner glanced at the GPS. “Two minutes out.”
“Make it one.”
The address led them to a small shotgun-style house behind the university. Most low-income neighborhoods suffered aesthetically in the downtown area, but this one didn’t—bolstered by the proximity to campus and the population of professors and students occupying the area. They’d responded to a few alcohol-poisoned co-eds in this neighborhood, but rarely something life threatening.
A petite blonde in a pantsuit knelt in the grass, her hands pumping rhythmically on her husband’s chest.
Lane molded her face into passive empathy, but inside, she imagined Jerome under her hands and not breathing. Would her schooling have held up in the face of that?
“We’ll take it from here,” Jerome assured the woman as he fell to his knees beside her.
As Lane set to work with her partner, she asked the woman, “Does he have a history of heart problems?”
“No, not that I’m aware of.” The woman looked shell-shocked, her gaze firm on her husband as if she could will him to breathe.
“What happened?”
“He was on the ladder, trimming some of those low hanging branches.” She pointed a crimson fingernail at an old evergreen. A pile of dead branches lay beneath a sturdy ladder still upright among the branches.
“Did he fall far?”
“No, he was only on the second rung. He kinda collapsed against it and slid to the ground. He was unconscious before he landed.”
Jerome kept up compressions as Lane guided the stretcher to the ambulance. She stowed the man and her partner in the back of the truck, then turned back to the shell-shocked wife.
“Are you riding with us?”
She shook her head. “My daughter is inside. We’ll be right behind you.”
Lane took Jerome’s seat, adjusting it to her shorter height, and turned on the lights and sirens. She didn’t feel good about this ride, or that man’s chances. He wasn’t responding under Jerome’s capable compressions. The longer he went without oxygen, the more likely he wouldn’t come back.
On the other hand, maybe it wasn’t just this ride and that man. Ever since her mother’s cryptic phone call, Lane had sensed something off about the day. Which made her feel incredibly nuts—as batty as her fortune-teller mother.
But her father—now retired and sunning it up with a new wife in Daytona—had been a career cop. She remembered him telling her early and often to trust her gut. No matter what she did or where she went, to listen to the feelings that came not from her heart, but her solar plexus.
Her gut told her that something was very, very wrong.
1:38pm
Lane slammed her door and slouched petulantly in her seat. “I feel like the grim reaper today.”
“Three dead in a row is harsh,” Jerome agreed as the engine rolled over.
He’d adopted his usual nonchalance. She knew losing patients hurt him the same as it hurt her, but he had a malleability she didn’t—a tendency to bounce back quickly, as if a man hadn’t just died under his hands, as if the muscles in his arms weren’t still screaming from how hard he’d tried to save him.
“Can we swing by the post office?” Lane asked. “I need to drop a check in the mail for Lacey.”
“She like school?”
“Yeah, she does. It helps she picked a good one. But it’s a small town. She can’t find a decent job to support herself.”
“So you support her, huh?”
“She needs me. It’s what big sisters do. Especially big sisters who are old enough to have helped raise her. And Mom helps with her Tarot reading money.”
The rain picked up as they crossed downtown traffic toward the nearest post office. The truck’s wipers squeaked against the windshield, fighting a losing battle against the deluge.
“This weather is weird,” Lane broke the silence.
“It’s not like we don’t get weird weather shifts around here.”
“I know. I just . . .” She trailed off. Something had been hanging over her all day. The multiple strange deaths, her mother’s cryptic call, her gut feeling. She wasn’t one to worry overmuch about “signs” or “feelings” but when they flash neon, one can’t help but see them.
Jerome glanced at her. “Just what? Are you okay? You’ve been freaking me out today with the stomach stuff.”
“I told you, I ate something that disagreed with me. It’s just indigestion.”
“That’s not what you’re talking about. What’s really wrong?”
“Can’t you feel it?”
He shrugged, turning his mahogany gaze back to the road and the driving rain. “I don’t know. I guess.”
“At the risk of sounding like my mother, I’m a little freaked out by the energy in the air.”
“It’s the weather. You know how barometric pressure affects the body. You’re just feeling the effects of this unexpected shift.”
“Yeah. That must be it,” Lane agreed, though she didn’t actually believe him.
The parking lot of the post
office was empty—odd for the time of day, but maybe not odd considering the city was under forty-days-and-forty-nights’ worth of rain. Jerome slid into the lane for the mailbox going the wrong way so she could lean out the window and toss her letter into the box. She rolled down the window and reached for the metal door.
Lane gasped, jerking her arm back into the ambulance. Where raindrops had splattered her forearm, red welts raised on her skin. The sensation of being hit by the rain reminded her of the hot splatter of grease coming from a frying pan.
“What happened?” Jerome asked, looking up from his phone.
“The rain burned me.”
“Burned you?” He reached across the center console and grabbed her arm, turning the pale fleshy underside upright. Small red dots blossomed on her skin, growing visibly larger around drops of water.
He cranked his own window down and stuck a hand into the rain, hissing as the liquid splashed his skin. “Roll up your window,” he barked, doing the same.
“It’s like that news report this morning. In China.” Lane held her arm in her hand, watching as the red splashes bloomed larger. She dug in the medical bag at her feet for wipes to clean off her skin.
Jerome reached for his phone. “I’m calling Dedmon.”
The call with their supervisor was brief, but from Jerome’s side of things, it seemed grave. When he finally hung up, he stared out the windshield at the pouring rain. “Dedmon said to expect calls. It’s all over the area.”
Lane lifted her arm—the red had spread in a blotchy, hive-like reaction across her forearm. “I hope people get inside. Quick.”
Dispatch keyed up, the operator sounding flustered—and maybe a little frightened. “Uh, radio to Unit 320.”
Jerome kept his wide gaze on Lane as he replied, “320. Go.”
“Unit 320 respond to a report of multiple burn injuries at 387 S 4th St.”
The bad feeling got worse. Lane picked up her phone to warn her mom and sister, while Jerome put the truck in gear.
And still, the rain poured down.
Lane found out quickly just how many people could fit in the back of an ambulance.
One call led to a second, which led to a third. And every run in between found them scooping stranded citizens off the sidewalk, where they were hiding under awnings and in doorways.
Louisville had a low tolerance for heavy rainfall. Flooding was an ever-present problem, especially downtown along the river. This storm was proving no different. The gutters overflowed, carrying detritus into the roadways, flooding low spots, and making certain streets completely impassable.
The ambulance, to its credit, seemed immune to the acid rain.
“We’re lucky to be in here and not out there,” Lane remarked as she administered to some of the newest passengers. “This thing was made to be bulletproof. Guess that also means acid-proof.”
“What do you think this is?” a young girl asked. She couldn’t have been more than eighteen in her skin-tight jeans and crop top. Red splotches covered every inch of her bare skin.
Lane swallowed, handing a tube of burn ointment to the girl. “I’m not sure. But I am sure our government will find out and fix it.”
She left the gently chatting group and knelt in the doorway between the front seat and the bay. “Any news?”
“It’s getting worse,” Jerome murmured over his shoulder. “I just talked to Dedmon. They’re getting DOAs in the eighth right now.”
“Jesus. From the rain? Or from something else?”
“The rain. It’s stronger or something, I don’t know. Dedmon doesn’t know. What we do know is we need to brace ourselves, because it’s going to get worse here, too.”
“Shit.” Lane rocked back on her heels, gripping the back of his seat for balance as the ambulance raced towards the hospital. “What are our instructions at this point?”
“Do what we can, but don’t sacrifice ourselves.”
“That’s not how this works. We have an oath to uphold.”
“Lane,” Jerome said gravely. He never used her first name, so the word seemed foreign from his lips. “This isn’t a riot on West Broadway. This is something entirely different and unpredictable. The rain is literally killing people.”
A gasp sounded from the back of the truck. His voice had gotten too loud. Lane pursed her lips, itching to smack the back of his head for freaking out the civilians.
“Everything is fine,” Lane assured the small ocean of frightened faces behind her. “You’ll be safe at the hospital.”
“Will we though?” an older gentleman remarked, tucking his arm around his female companion.
Lane didn’t know what to say.
4:42pm
With a newly empty truck, they headed back into the chaos that had become downtown Louisville.
“Look at these idiots still trying to walk on the sidewalks. What the hell are they doing?” Lane pointed at a few stragglers covered in head to toe plastic, large umbrellas over their heads. “They’re going to get burned by backsplash.”
Jerome cracked his window enough to yell, “Hey! Get the hell off the street. It’s dangerous!”
“They’re probably headed to work. You know how this city is. Even if you’re dying, you’re expected to come into work or be fired.” Lane’s phone beeped—a text message from her mother. “The national guard has been mobilized.”
“For acid rain?” Jerome scoffed. “I know it’s bad, but everyone just needs to stay inside. We can’t fight Mother Nature.”
“Maybe they think it’s some kind of chemical warfare,” Lane mused. “A biological attack by an enemy.”
“It’s aliens!” Jerome winked.
“Shut up, you fool. Now’s not the time for your tinfoil-hat theories.” She stared at the text message for a beat longer. “We can’t fight Mother Nature. Is that what you said?”
Jerome raised an eyebrow. “Yeah. I was being facetious.”
“Yeah, but . . . The guy in the park this morning who died in the dirt. The kid with dirt and sand under his fingernails, having some kind of allergic reaction. The otherwise healthy middle-aged man who dropped dead under his evergreen tree . . .”
Jerome gripped the steering wheel so tight his knuckles turned pale. “When you put it that way, it’s suspect, isn’t it?”
Lane didn’t respond. She couldn’t find the words. If it wasn’t chemical warfare or a biological attack from a human source . . . She didn’t want to think what that would mean.
As Jerome rolled to a stop at a red light, dispatch keyed up and called for them. Lane reached for the mic. “320, go ahead.”
“320, we have a woman down at 919 S 3rd Street. Neighbor states she looked out her window to see the woman next door laying in her garden.”
Lane let her head fall in her hands and hit the button to reply. “Copy us en route.”
“I don’t have a good feeling about it. Whatever it is.” Jerome flipped on the blinker and pulled a U-turn, pointing them in the direction of the run.
919 S 3rd was a quaint Victorian that had been painstakingly restored. It was a minority in this area—not the house itself, but the attention to detail and the obvious loving hand that had kept it beautiful while houses around it fell apart.
Jerome leapt the curb, putting the ambulance as close to the house as possible. In the pouring rain, Lane spotted a dark bundle lying motionless on the grass.
“What do we do?” Jerome asked, real fear creeping into his tone. “We can’t go out there. That woman is probably already dead.”
“But she might not be. I’m not taking the chance.” Lane unbuckled her seatbelt and stood, crab-walking through the door into the back of the truck.
“What are you doing?” Jerome said, his tone sterner than usual. “You can’t go out there.”
Lane snapped her hands into latex gloves. “I can, and I will. I’m not going to let her die there if I can help it.”
“It’s her dumbass fault for being outside in the first place
. It’s not like this rain hasn’t been news for hours now.”
“We don’t know how or why she was outside. Stop victim blaming.” She tugged a poncho over her uniform, then reached for a shock blanket. The aluminum blankets were used for patients who had experienced severe trauma and needed warmth. Lane ventured to guess the material might prove effective against the rain, too.
“You’re going to get burned.”
“Maybe. I’ll be careful.” Lane shoved the back door open. Before she could overthink it and convince herself not to, she leapt onto the sidewalk.
She clutched the blanket tightly around her head and focused her gaze on the ground as she sprinted towards the wet lump in the yard. The blanket and poncho didn’t let her down—besides a few stray splashes up her pant legs, she felt nothing but the dull thud of drops on the material protecting her. Score one for creative problem-solving.
She reached the woman and opened the blanket, offering as much protection as possible as she leaned over her.
The woman was burned. Badly. Her skin glowed red and raw, her face barely human under the peeling skin and inflammation. But that wasn’t even the worst part.
She was pregnant.
A massive mound jutted from beneath her black t-shirt—she looked damn near full term.
Lane shoved away her emotions, pressed two fingers to the woman’s neck, and found a thready heartbeat.
Lane gritted her teeth. Rain continued to batter the woman’s extremities, and Lane could feel the burn from her boots being soaked. She didn’t have a lot of options to get the woman to safety without hurting herself.
She draped the blanket over her own head and then gripped the woman under the arms. She couldn’t safely pick her up without exposing herself completely to the rain. Lane figured a little burn on her already burned arms, and a little asphalt burn on the back of the victim’s legs, was a small price to pay to give her a chance at survival.
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