by Jamie Davis
“I’m coming, just let me wrap up,” Gibbie said from inside.
Dean headed back to the ambulance, opened the back doors and barely had a chance to step aside when a silver reflective shape zoomed past him into the back of the ambulance. He laughed even though he was startled and shut the door. He walked back over and shut the gate before climbing back in the passenger side of the ambulance. The paramedic looked down the passage to the back of the unit to see the vampire sitting there, wearing his improvised first responder uniform shirt and pants.
“Thank you so much, Dean and Brynne,” the chastened vampire said.
Brynne spoke up first, glancing over her shoulder at the vampire in the back as she drove back around to the front of the homes. “Gibbie, we need to talk about this. What was the first thing we talked to you about in your CERT training?”
“Scene safety,” The vampire said quietly.
“That includes situational awareness,” Brynne said. “Like knowing when the sun is starting to come up. How many hundreds of years have you been a vampire? Isn’t that Vampire 101?”
“I thought you older vampires were able to withstand some sunlight for a short period of time?” Dean asked.
“That might be true for those as old as James,” Gibbie said. “I’m only a few hundred years old, and I’d have been a flaming mess by the time I had gotten to the van.”
“Well that’s good information to know,” Dean said. He thought Gibbie was a flaming mess most of the time.
“Gibbie,” Brynne said. “What did we say to you about freelancing like this? You can’t just be out trolling for emergencies to take on.”
“I’m allowed to be out driving around if I want. I just got out to patrol on foot and enjoy the night air,” Gibbie said defensively. “I have some training, and I would not do anything that I didn’t know how to do. I know the most important thing to do is to call 911 and get you guys on the way. But I also know that in the mean time, I could be making a difference with a patient, if only keeping them calm and telling you what’s going on when you get there.”
“That might be true,” Dean said. “But if you’re going to do this, you need to make sure you are back in your van and safe before sunrise.” He looked outside as Brynne pulled the ambulance up next to the driver’s door of Gibbie’s van. “We’re here. Your van’s out the side door of the ambulance.”
“Thank you again for rescuing me,” Gibbie said. “I promise. I’ll be more careful next time.”
Dean heard the side door on the ambulance open and close and saw a flash of silver as Gibbie dashed into his van, closing the door, hiding behind the tinted windows. Dean waved as Brynne pulled away.
“Get on the radio and put us back in service, Dean,” Brynne said. “We’ve done our extra good deed for the day.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
The next few days were routine. There were the normal sick calls and a few minor injuries, but no further attacks from the Cause. That was a relief to the paramedics of Station U. Dean and Brynne moved to night shift for the weekend and they prepared for the increased activity in the Unusual community that always brought. And then they sat and waited as all EMS crews did. The police detail at the station had been pulled after a few days, but everyone was still on edge. Brynne had said that James was spending most of his time, as leader of the Unusuals in the Elk City region, tending to the concerns from his community about the human attacks on them. Some wanted to move away. Others wanted to take some sort of action to protect themselves and their loved-ones. It was four hours into the shift on Friday night when the first call came over the speakers in the squad room.
“Medical Box 843, Ambulance One-Nine-One respond for an animal bite, 1259 Hopewell Road,” said the voice over the radio.
Dean jumped up from the couch where he was sitting watching TV, and followed Brynne out the squad room doors into the ambulance bay. He climbed into the passenger seat and called into HQ over the radio to put them responding. As they sped off through the night, Dean looked over at Brynne.
“Animal Bite?” He asked. “What do you think? Maybe a Lycan attack?”
“Possibly,” She said, concentrating on the road ahead in the darkness. “Do me a favor. Text James and tell him that we have a possible Lycan bite. Give him the location. He’ll know what to do.” She gave him the number as he pulled out his phone.
Dean sent the text message and James responded almost immediately. “I’ve been monitoring the scanner. Rudy will meet you there,” the Vampire texted in reply. Rudy was James’ second in command and, as leader of the area werewolf pack, he would be able to handle any rogue Lycans in the area, if that was what this was.
They continued on the road to the call leading to a suburban residential district that was bounded by a large patch of woods on one side of the road and homes on the other. There was a crowd of ten to fifteen people on the lawn of the home at the specified address as the ambulance pulled up. Dean jumped down, looking around carefully. If there was a rogue Lycan around, he didn’t want to get surprised by anything. He grabbed the trauma bag from the compartment and started across the lawn to the group of people huddled around a teenaged boy of about sixteen or seventeen sitting on the grass. He was holding his arm left arm in his lap. It had a very savage bite that had torn skin and muscle open to the bone on that forearm.
“Excuse me, folks,” Dean said. “Let me through.” He pushed his way through the group of mostly teenagers and knelt down next to his patient. The bleeding was bad, but the bite must’ve missed the arteries in the arm because there was no spurting blood. He quickly pulled out an absorbent gauze pad and handed it to the boy. “Here, press this on the wound. Tell me what happened.”
“I was just hanging out with my buds here on the lawn. Then this wild dog came out of the woods across the road and just attacked me. Then it took off and ran back into the woods. It was weird.”
“You weren’t just minding your business,” an angry voice came from across the yard. Dean looked up and saw a group of girls huddled around another figure on the grass there. Was there another patient?
“Brynne,” he called to his partner walking over from the ambulance with some more gear. He pointed to the other group he hadn’t seen at first. “There’s another victim.”
“She’s not a victim,” The boy in front of him said with a laugh. “That’s just Leeann. She is just upset because we were talking to her. She doesn’t like it when we talk to her.”
Dean finished assessing the bite. It was serious but isolated to the forearm. The absorbent trauma pad he had applied was impregnated with a rapid clotting formula, and the bleeding stopped almost instantly. He wrapped the pad in place with a roll of gauze.
“Stay here while I go check on the girl,” Dean said. “I’ll be right back.”
“Don’t worry about her,” The boy who was bitten said.
“Yeah, she’s just strange. You know, weird, and begging for attention like she always does,” Said one of his friends standing around in the group.
“Well, I need to check on her. You’re fine for now. Sit still. I’ll be back in a minute.” Dean got up and started across the yard to where Brynne was kneeling next to a girl of thirteen or fourteen, seated on the ground sobbing with a few other girls sitting next to her. They had their arms around her. Brynne was talking to her, asking questions.
“What happened, sweetie? Are you hurt?” Brynne asked. She held the back of her hand out in front of the girl’s face, and Dean realized she was revealing the normally invisible tattoo that only creatures with exceptional vision in the ultraviolet spectrum could see. He had an ink stamp of the same emblem that he applied regularly to do the same thing. The girls all stopped their talking for a moment staring at the back of Brynne’s hand and then up at her face. They looked over to Dean as he approached, and he held his right hand up to his chest, exposing the back of his hand to them as well.
One of the older girls leaned in and whispered, “Bobby and his frie
nds are always giving Leeann a hard time when she walks home from her babysitting job up the street. This time, they got in her way and wouldn’t let her walk by on the sidewalk. She was crying, and when one of the boys, Jeremy, grabbed for her arm, she screamed. That was when the …” She paused and looked around to make sure no one else was nearby but their group. “… That was when the wolf came out of the woods and bit Jeremy. He bit him until he let go of her,” She whispered.
“And all of you are her …?” Brynne asked looking around at the group of girls.
“We’re her half-sisters,” The oldest girl said. “We’re the Dryads of these woods. Her father and our mother live in a home back the lane across the street.”
“Do you know the Lycan who attacked the boy,” Dean asked quietly.
“He lives in a shack back in the woods,” Another of the sisters said. “Mom and Dad say he’s just a hermit, and he has never bothered anyone before.”
“And I’ll make sure that he doesn’t do something like this again,” a voice suddenly said behind Dean. He spun around in alarm. The paramedic swore because he had just looked behind him, and no one had been there. Now he saw a tall man with broad shoulders, his scowling, bearded face lit by the porch lights of the house nearby. The girls saw him and all bowed briefly with a nod of their heads.
“Rudy,” Brynne said. “Did you hear?”
“Yes, Brynne,” The tall man said. Dean realized this must be Rudy, the werewolf and second in charge of the Elk City Unusuals. “I know the man they speak of. He is a gentle one, and I cannot believe he would have taken any action unless the girl was in some sort of danger. But he cannot go around biting anyone. Especially not right now. Have you administered wolfsbane to the boy?”
“Not yet,” Dean said. “I wanted to get the full story first.”
Rudy growled. “Please make sure you do so. I do not want such impulsive and rude scum like that boy in my pack.”
“I’ll get to it right away,” Dean said. “Brynne, can you give me an idea of the dose? It’s not exactly in the protocols.”
“I’ll come with you and help you out,” his partner said, rising from where she knelt among the group of girls. “Leeann, I will be right back. You stay here with your friends.”
The two paramedics went back to the ambulance and opened the contingency kit. It was a black Pelican case stored in its compartment with various antidotes and protections from Unusuals for the paramedics and their patients. Dean knew that he had received a series of vaccinations when he started the academy that covered the various blood borne pathogens he was likely to encounter on his job. That included protections against vampire and werewolf bites. Of course, they didn’t call the vaccine that. It had been hidden in the fine print of his vaccine series as “other vaccines as determined by the Elk City Fire Department.” Brynne pointed to a vial nestled in one of the foam cutouts in the container. Dean looked at it and saw it was Wolfsbane Extract for IV/IM use.
“Start an IV so it’ll get into his system faster,” Brynne instructed. “That will be quicker than a shot in the arm. The dose is five milligrams. That is just five milliliters since the concentration is fifty milligrams in fifty milliliters.”
“I don’t like that kid,” Dean said. “He doesn’t think he did anything wrong when he accosted that girl with his friends.”
“We don’t get paid to like them, Dean,” Brynne admonished him. “We just get paid to treat them.”
“Yeah, I know,” Dean replied. “I hope he’s afraid of needles, though.”
Dean took the vial from the case and closed the contingency kit. He walked back over to the where the boy, Bobby, and his friends sat or stood on the lawn. Brynne headed back over to the girls. Rudy was nowhere in sight.
“Bobby,” Dean said as he walked up to the group of boys. “I’m going to have to give you some fluids and some medicine to help with your injury. Your friends can stay with you for now, but I need them to back up a bit.”
The teenagers stepped away from Dean’s path as he approached and knelt down in the grass next to his bags and his patient. He opened up a bag of IV fluid, inserted the IV tubing and primed the fluid down to the end of the tube. Then he got out his supplies and handed his small pocket flashlight to one of the boy’s friends.
“Hold that and shine it on his arm while I do this,” Dean said. The other boy nodded as he took the light from the paramedic. He turned back to Bobby. “Don’t move.”
“Okay, Bobby,” Dean said. “You’re going to feel a pinch.” He picked up the IV needle and inserted it into a vein in his uninjured arm. He attached the tubing and made sure the fluid flowed freely before he drew up the Wolfsbane extract in a syringe and administered five milliliters of the preventative medicine into the IV tubing, flushing it through with the fluid from the bag above it.
“What’s that?” Bobby asked in a smart-assed tone. “You have to tell me what you’re doing. You can’t just give me medicine without telling me what it is!”
Dean was liking this kid less and less. “You got bit by a wild animal. You could get very sick from that bite, so I’m giving you something to combat the germs you might have gotten from the bite. They’ll probably give you more at the hospital when you get there.”
“So it’s some sort of antibiotic?” One of the boys asked.
“Yep,” Dean said. “Something like that.” It wasn’t technically a lie even though the preventative treatment was more like a vaccine from a plant extract than a traditional antibiotic. He cleaned up his mess, so he didn’t leave trash from his EMS kit on the lawn and repacked his bags. He looked over at his patient.
“Do you think you can walk to the ambulance?” Dean asked.
“The damned dog bit my arm, not my legs,” The boy snapped at him.
“Okay, then,” Dean said evenly, not reacting to the kid’s temper. “Let’s walk over there and we’ll get you situated in the ambulance. We need to take you to the hospital and get that arm looked at. At the very least, you’re going to need some stitches.” He stood and waited for Bobby to stand, too. Then the two of them walked to the waiting ambulance. Dean watched the boy carefully, not wanting him to fall if he suddenly started to faint from loss of blood or the adrenaline draining from his system as the night’s events calmed down. Brynne came over and grabbed the gear bags from Dean as he climbed up behind his patient. She closed the door behind him.
Once inside, Dean had Bobby sit on the stretcher, and he buckled him in place using the stretcher straps. He hung the IV back from one of the fold-down ceiling hooks. Then he sat down in the chair at the head of the stretcher and picked up the iPad mounted there to enter information into his patient report. It would automatically send the information to the computer system for the department, and he’d be able to finish it back at the station.
He heard Brynne climb in up front and then felt the ambulance start to move on the way to the hospital. He hooked up the blood pressure cuff to his patient’s good arm and pressed the button on the monitor to automatically take the vital signs from that device. As it pumped up, he briefly counted the boy’s respirations and noted that value. Bobby was lucky that it was just his arm that was injured. The doctors would probably be able to stitch things together again and with some physical therapy, he’d be back to being his normal jerky self in no time. It was a shame there was no cure for that.
Dean thought about Rudy and his response to the situation. If the Unusuals were starting to be proactive with any perceived attacks on their kind, it could turn into a bloodbath, especially if the vampires and werewolves decided to start taking direct action. The werewolves were rumored to be more hot-headed, but the vampires were the true apex predators in the Unusual population. If they started trying to hunt down members of the Cause to take retribution, it could be bad. The police and City Hall would not be able to ignore such attacks on humans.
Maybe that was what the Cause was trying to get to happen, he thought, some sort of race war. If the human gov
ernment had to take some sort of action, it would drive the Unusuals underground or risk exposing them all to the human community. They’d be forced to move away or be discovered living among the general population. Dean pondered this all the way to the hospital, interspersed with answering the questions from his patient about where they were and how close they were to the hospital. Brynne would have some things to say when he told her about his thoughts on the escalating situation. She could warn James, if he hadn’t thought of it already.
He felt the ambulance turn up and onto the ramp for the hospital. He disconnected Bobby from the equipment and patient monitor while Brynne backed them in and was ready to help the boy up and walk him into the hospital. Dean wondered if there would be more werewolf bites to be dealt with in the near future as they walked the boy inside to get his arm tended to.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
When Dean and Brynne returned to the station from dropping Bobby off at the hospital that night, they were greeted by James and Rudy in the parking lot. The two Unusual leaders were leaning against James’ silver Lexus parked between Brynne’s Nissan hatchback and Dean’s pickup. Brynne backed the ambulance into the ambulance bay with Dean’s assistance and then she went to let the two men into the squad room, leaving Dean to restock the gear. He didn’t have much to grab since the supplies he used were relatively easy to carry. He strolled into the squad room to hear James talking to Brynne and Rudy.
“… I know there needs to be some restraint, but we can’t go around completely defenseless either.” The vampire leader said.
“James,” Brynne explained. “This incident tonight had nothing to do with the Cause and their vendetta against you all. This was just some teenage boys acting like jerks. It was wrong and definitely assault, mind you, but it wasn’t a terrorist incident.” They all nodded to Dean when he entered the room from the ambulance bay and kept talking.