Chapter Text
The digital clock inside the ambulance reads: '00:09'. From the top of a clunky radio, pinpricks of green light wink in and out of existence. It's a slow night for emergency calls. The choir of electronics hum in tandem with the rumbling of an idling engine. A white noise lullaby. Tank full with fresh diesel, the truck purrs, satiated for the remainder of the shift.
The interstate's 24-hour rest lot exists as a temporary sanctuary against the incoming northern storm. The paramedics, cradled inside, are rocked into a listless state as the frigid winds push and pull. You recenter your focus when obnoxious crinkling starts up from the driver's side.
Morris chomps down on his burger, grease dribbling out from between his teeth and onto his facial hair below as he chews. You get a clear view of several more mouthfuls of fatty meat. He pauses to rearrange the patties in hand, nearly unhinging his jaw to fit his next bite.
Before he even finishes swallowing, he begins, "Yeahh. So right now, I have 4 different girls. I used to have 6, but they've been wicked busy. Work and smuck." He leans forward to loudly slurp at his soda. "I only date super successful women, ya' know? One's a lawyer, another a CEO. Of course, I met all of 'em online. That's why none of 'em are local."
"Mmmm." You hum noncommittally, peeling the protective wrapping off your own sandwich. The foil burns against your chapped, frozen hands, and your pulse leaps and bounds against the supple skin of your neck as the smell hits you with all the rushing force of a flash flood. The grease and cheese ooze from between the buns like a clotting wound. Queasiness simmers into your stomach lining, threatening to punch further up into your throat. Somewhere, behind your curtain of Burger-Time hyperfocus, Morris continues to ramble on to himself. You sink your blunt teeth into the delectable pretzel bun. Drool corrodes into the bread and lights your tongue with flavors.
It's the first thing you've eaten in the past 16 hours. You want to cry, but instead you painfully swallow down a solid chunk, forgetting to chew in the moment. A strong chug of water helps chase the remaining nausea and discomfort deep into the pit of your belly. With the last crumbs of your willpower, you force yourself to eat at a safe pace.
As if to alienate himself from you further, your coworker buzzes your attention back to him by boorishly announcing, "I'm thinking of starting my own dating coach program. As a side gig. Working on a book about it right now."
Incoherently, you mumble around another massive mouthful. Like talons digging into prey, your rugged nails sink into the remaining wrapping, unceremoniously skinning the material from the body of your warm prize. The greasy trash bounces down onto the front of your jacket before landing with a wet splat! into your lap. With the vigor of an emaciated animal, the meal is reduced to nothing. The only remaining evidence of a midnight lunch is a smear of watery ketchup on your chest and thighs.
You have to stop yourself from licking the escaped condiment off your jacket. God only knows how much urine, feces, and blood get on your uniform on a daily basis. With no napkins in sight, you jab a thumb into the stain to try and wipe the worst of it away, but it only cements the ruddy sauce further into the material.
Guess it's laundry day tomorrow.
Your next victim? The fries. Soft, soggy, and cold. Merely a vessel for salt, milkshake, and more ketchup. The diner's kitchen crew were generous, yet again, with the servings. It's enough to clog a weak man's arteries, but it never feels enough for your nightly appetites. In an attempt to savor your food a bit longer, your molars slowly enclose around a fry, delighting in the fatty satisfaction of deep fried carbohydrates.
Chew.
Chew.
Swallow.
Morris jabbers into his tray of nuggets, inhaling them with voracious speed. Between his thoughtless words, deep-fried crumbs jump around like fleas on the thick hair of his handlebar mustache.
"I can't believe you're not dating anyone right now." He grunts between massive, messy mouthfuls. "You're still, like, in your prime. You gotta hurry up, or you're gonna run out of time if you ever wanna start a family."
"We've been over this, dude." You begin with a long-suffering sigh, left hand slowly stalking towards the tray of fries nestled in his lap. "I'm not interested in dating. And I definitely won't be having kids."
Your attempted, subtle food theft is foiled by a firm karate chop.
"What if you change your mind though?" He asks, holding your wrist in a tight grip before you can fully lunge for a second attempt.
"Ha! Never happening. I'm happy enough with my plants and fish. Plus, kids? In this economy? On our shitty paychecks?"
"True." He swipes up the final bits of his food with his other hand, jamming them past his teeth and directly down his gullet.
You look on with starving, British orphan-style misery.
"Don't give me those puppy dog eyes." Morris snarls. "I told you if you wanted some you should have ordered it."
"I thought the double combo would be enough for me." You whimper pathetically, curling in on yourself. With clenched fists, your flexible efforts do nothing to soothe or muffle your audibly protesting stomach.
With a dead-eyed stare, the mustached paramedic scrutinizes your anguished theatrics. Something growls over the background hum of the ambulance, and a whine leaves your empty throat. Slowly, telegraphing his movements as if you were a wild beast, your partner reaches into one of his many pockets. The awful gurgling ceases the moment he pulls out a powderized packet of flavorless saltine crackers from the hospital. With a sympathetic tilt of his head, he extends his limb in your direction.
You accept the holy offering with ravenous glee.
"I'm just bringing it up because you're more popular than you think. You could have anyone you want, and you're wasting it by being a total loser and a loner. Like, during that other call, the ER nurse was practically throwing herself at you. She always ignores me when I'm talking to her. But? For you? She was practically asking for your hand in marriage." Morris complains.
"All she did was give me her pen."
"That's it though!" Your coworker cries out. "You know how nurses are. They never share their pens. Plus, she even said you could keep it! That's the exchanging of vows to us healthcare workers!"
"It is a nice gel pen. But come on, dude. She was just being professional. You need to stop reading every kind interaction as flirting."
"Nah. Nah. She totally had the hots for you." He leers. "Next time you see her, you have to let her know how good the…… 'pen- is'."
"..."
"..."
"..."
crinkle. crinkle.
Looking down at your salt-dusted boots, your right eye begins to twitch violently. crinkle. With every chilled inhale, icy agitation simmers higher and higher up your esophagus. Your roughed up, numb fingers fumble with the plastic wrapping of the crackers, frustration mounting with every rapid second of failure. crinkle. Something acrid and corrupting bubbles at the opening of your throat. crinkle. Something metallic and unpleasant dribbles across your tongue.
crinkle. crinkle.
crinkle. crinkle.
crinkle. crink—!
R I P
Chew.
Chew.
Chew.
The repressed flavor stews in your clenched jaw like cabin fever.
Chew.
Sharp and curved. Sensitive and irritable.
Chew.
A burning, restless sensation of Nothing.
Swallow.
The saltines tasted like nothing.
Despite the large meal reclining in the swell of your belly, you're still suffering. There's this itch that has been haunting you for weeks now. A tickling burn. A visceral tremble. It keeps creeping up to the surface of your awareness more and more frequently. As if a razor-legged centipede is skittering down the column of your spine. The pin-prickling agony runs deep through your nerves, and every pulse of your pittering heart sizzles this discomfort further into the grooves of your joints. It shoots through your fingertips, out your nails, and down your front teeth. It eats away at your fragile, insomniac sanity, strand by small strand, particle by small particle, flake by small flake.
This stupid conversation isn't helping.
This is a 24-hour shift, thanks to your night relief calling out. You've been trapped with this narrow-minded man for 16 of those hours. You can't stand this guy. The palms of your hands firmly press against your eye sockets. It calms the twitching a little.
Slowly, turning to Morris, you bare your blunt, human canines in a poor facsimile of a smile. The truck's radio lights shiver still for a beat, and your coworker's unkempt facial hair tugs down with his reciprocating frown.
"Maybe…" Your teeth gnash together between huffed words. "More people would be professional to you… if you didn't behave like a damn middle schooler. It's just obnoxious with kids, but it's creepy coming from a random, middle-aged guy."
"Hey, man. Fuck you. It's not being a creep. This is how you pick up bitches." Without looking, he whips out his phone to shove it in your face. On the cracked, grimy screen is a photo of an official looking, wax-stamped, piece of cardstock. "I'm literally certified. There's courses and everything."
"Oh my god." The last of your voice leaves you as an exasperated whisper. Your eyelids flutter closed, and you brace yourself by clutching the sides of your head in a vice grip.
Hereeee it comes.
You've misstepped in this minefield of bad topics before, fumbling down this conversational path more times than anyone's ever wanted. Morris finds every chance he can get to brag about his toxic, masculine techniques. This is why you can't stand working with him.
You stomach twists with incredulous nausea, and you're helpless to do anything except look on and suffer as your fellow paramedic flexes before saying, completely serious, "I'm an Alpha-male, and, you know, as an Alpha-male, I have to assert dominance in all my conversations. It's the best way to hook a chick in any setting. Like the pursuit of prey. The grind never stops. I'm always on the hunt." He pauses for a moment to distractedly pick at a strand of meat stuck between his teeth. "Plus, it helps keep beta guys in line. This is just who I am. I can't control my nature. I see a hot girl; I flirt. The ladies love it. We all know it."
You pause, cracking open one eye and turning to him slowly. Illuminated by the sole lamppost standing vigil at the edge of the parking lot, you look the man up and down. A whip of wind aggressively jostles the ambulance, serving as a violent reminder of the harsh winter weather. Lights around the truck and outside sputter with the movement.
For a brief moment in time, the two humans are shrouded in total darkness. Your heartbeat quickens with your rising blood pressure, and your pupils dilate painfully to better make out the shadowed outline of your stupid coworker.
One of these days, I'm actually gonna kill this guy.
Your right eye begins to twitch once again.
The clock now reads '00:21'. Greasy paper bags toast on top of hot dashboard vents. The whole truck smells of American cheddar and red meat. Sweaty condensation beads upon the outside of the ambulance while snow flurries melt against warm windows.
Morris has begun watching short videos on his phone at maximum volume. The concept of headphones seems to be completely foreign to him. Perfecting the art of feigned indifference, the side of your pounding head meets the cool glass of the passenger side with a soft thunk. With the same mindlessness of cattle out to graze, your vision unfocuses while you gaze out into the dark, winter night.
Crack!
The sound of a large energy drink. The fifth one of the day. You're absurdly beyond the recommended amount of caffeine. You believe in your liver and kidneys. Don't listen to your protesting heart. You'll survive. Maybe. If exhaustion doesn't get to you first. All it would take is one, slow blink, and you could fall asleep forever.
It's not unusual for either of you to work 24 or 48 hours straight. Unfortunately, it comes with the territory of working for a rural emergency service. There's only about 8 people on the region's rotating medical staff. Your department is desperate for fresh blood.
Tasked with navigating the rough, winding roads of the mountainside, your ambulance covers over 20 miles worth of farm, woods, and quarry. Nearly an hour away, the nearest emergency room rests at the base of the mountain, straddling county lines to serve both you and the valley below. In the best weather conditions, it takes an average of 25 minutes from the time of the initial call to even make patient contact. With a foot of snow on the ground, and more on the way, current arrival estimates don't look so good. If a patient isn't dead by the time they find cellular service to dial 9-1-1, more often than not, they will be by the time you arrive on scene.
White powder collects on the windshield, slowly shielding the crew from the fluorescent glow of the lot's lamp. It's freezing outside. Despite your thermal underlayers, your toes burn within your work boots. Even with the knobs cranked as far as they can go, the truck's heater only manages to sputter out lukewarm air.
Like a demanding child tugging on skin and hair, relentless in their want for answers to any and all of their questions, that damned itch continues to claw at your fraying nerves.
You can't stop trembling. Your pulse sings loudly in the flesh of your throat. As you gaze out at nothing, your vision blurs, blending the midnight scenery into a dark smear. Something crackles in your ear when your molars grind against one another. Every muscle in your body seizes and twists, locking you in a tight fetal position. The flesh of your face sags with the weight of weariness, and your lungs squeeze to unleash an empty sigh.
You think…
Maybe…
Just maybe…
You may have had a bit too much caffeine.
Blinking hard to chase the incoming headache from your unfocused sight, a new kind of darkness threatens to overtake you. The instinct to panic bucks like a feral horse, but before the tingling, claustrophobic sensation can suffocate your awareness, the whirling storm and humming electronics begin to croon softly. The worldly noise blends into a loving song, soothing your body back into a hypnotic state. One by one, your fingers uncurl, leaving behind shadowy crescents in the soft of your palm. Minutes go by with not a single thought passing through your brain. Pressing tightly against the door, you turtle deep into your jacket.
Thank god you have tomorrow off.
Suddenly, snapped like a rubber band, your body jolts into alertness before you realize why. Your heart pounds rapidly in your ears while you scan for the source. The truck angrily cries out again in a shrill tone.
Click. Static. Pause.
You and Morris sit up stiff, perked like predators catching wind of fresh prey. Both sets of eyes train in on the radio, as if it might jump and run away. The tone sounds for a third time.
Click. Static. Pause. Static. Click!
A soft, automated, feminine voice begins. "Engine 1. Ambulance 2." She repeats the message several more times. Robotic, monotonous, and soothing. A sharp contrast to the alarm moments before. A balm to your startled, Pavlovian response. "Engine 1. Ambulance 2."
That's your truck! This is a call for you! Straining to pay full attention, the whole of your skull rattles and rings with surging adrenaline. Both paramedics, without looking away from the dashboard, fumble for their respective devices. Morris pulls up Maps on his phone while you crack open the brick of a laptop.
"Engine 1. Ambulance 2."
Click! Static. Pause. Click!
Thick and husky with the regional accent, a recording of your dispatcher's voice plays at triple the previous volume. "Respond to the Johnson 'n Son's: Concrete 'n Quarry at 37 Elk Ave for an unknown, possible trauma. Police will meet on scene."
The laptop fans whirr with the strength of a plane taking off. Your thighs burn from the struggling tech. The call loads onto your screen with a cheery chime, and you both glance over the written details.
"Dispatch #1157 @ 01:03
37 ELK AVE: JOHNSON N SONS CONCRETE N QUARRY.
UNKNOWN TRAUMA.
DETAILS: Bystander called in to report a loud noise and yelling heard from the quarry when driving by. Bystander unavailable to remain on scene for EMS and Fire.
NOTE: History of prior multiple Domestic Dispute, Noise Complaints, and Medical Response to address in the past year
NOTE: Homeowner has firearms on premise. Do not approach the scene until cleared by Police."
Morris blows out a soft whistle while you knock your head back against your seat with a groan. Awesome. It's one of your frequent fliers. You don't think you have the energy to handle this household tonight.
"Fuckkkkk dude. I hate going to this place. It's a total junk heap." You sigh.
"At least, it's a trauma this time and not just a noise complaint." Morris replies.
"How do we know for sure? Look at the call, man. Probably just some random driver phoning it in. For all we know it could just be the father watching movies too loudly again."
"Ha! It's almost impressive how they keep getting noise complaints despite their nearest neighbor being a mile away."
"I'm still convinced it's the girlfriend quietly calling again to snitch. Probably the case again this time 'round too."
"Nah. Nah. It can't be the girlfriend. After that last call, when she got her face broken in, she skipped town. Pretty sure she got a restraining order against the son in the end."
"Eh? Good for her."
You both pause as the Fire Department acknowledges the call. Morris pulls the radio off its overhead mount to do the same. After dispatch recognizes your response, you sit in silence, neither moving just yet.
The engine expands with a tik, tik, tik, fighting off the frigid snow. Calming down from your adrenaline response, you're gut-punched with triple the previous fatigue. Your right eye feels like it's going to tremble out of its socket.
Morris takes a long look at you, rubbing his grubby hands through his handlebar mustache. "I'll tech this call for you, if you give me one of your energy drinks."
"All yours, buddy" You immediately reply, grabbing one of your many cans and tossing it to him.
Hopping out of the truck, you both stumble around in the snow and slush to exchange seats. Once clipped in, Morris clicks the emergency lights on, and you pop an earbud into one ear.
Heavy metal blasts while you focus on the task at hand. Driving without getting anyone killed. Sliding out of the lot, the engine whines for mercy. Musical screaming and guitar riffs sing in tandem with the exaggerated thunk, thunk of the shoddy wipers. Less like driving, more like sledding, you barrel down the icy road towards your destination.
You almost miss the turn after being flashbanged by Morris taking a quick selfie. You'd shoot him a glare, but it's taking all your weary concentration just to stay in your lane. The ambulance slides to a stop in the middle of the road. To your left, a large, faded banner hangs over the entrance, announcing the family owned business.
The front landscape is filled with rusted junk cars. Towering piles of dirt and sand, blanketed white with the snowfall, loom from the back. Squat in the middle is a decrepit barn with a tarped roof and a rundown trailer home.
Sheriff Richard and Engine 1 are already on the scene, lighting up the night in red and blue. You slow to a slippery stop behind the firetruck. With a flick of the switchboard, your side beams turn on.
A ray of blinding light reveals a clutter of Christmas decorations, toilets, battered household appliances, and a sizable colony of rats. In slow unison, every rodent swivels their muzzle towards your direction.
You blink. They blink.
A piercing shriek sounds from nearby, scattering the rodents. You watch on indifferently as Sheriff Richard leaps to an impressive height. Stumbling backwards, he lands onto an icy patch. For almost a full minute, the cop flounders for balance, fearfully looking back at the critters all the while. He fails in his struggle, instead diving face first into the ground. Not a moment later, the officer is up, scrambling to his vehicle with a bleeding nose. Ripping open his car door, the man vaults inside.
Taking a moment, your head rests on the steering wheel, knuckles paling under your tight grip. Bumping your brow against the hard surface, you curse and pray for the remnants of your willpower.
This is not going to be an easy call is it?
"Empathy. Empathy. Empathy." You whisper in a chant, thunk, thunk, thunk-ing your head with each repeat. It's a traditional ritual to help you do your best for your patients. Especially at two in the morning. Especially when you're running on only 1 meal and enough caffeine to kill a whale. Your jaw twitches. Gnashing your molars, your hands move to press against your eyeballs to try and soothe your pounding headache. Your teeth sink into the flesh of your cheek. You feel empty and nauseous. "Empathy. Empathy. Empathy."
With a final, exaggerated huff, you bodily swing out of the truck, grabbing the First-In trauma bag. Morris meets you at the back with the plastic longboard. One of the firefighters, Bob, is already there, helping pull out the stretcher.
"Don't bother with it." Morris says, waving Bob away. "Place is a hoarder's house. We've been here before. It won't fit past the doorway."
"Any idea where the patient is?" You question while you snap on a pair of gloves.
"Nope." replies Bob with a pop.
"Awesome."
Smiling through gritted teeth, you lumber towards the Sheriff's car with the elegance of a zombie while the rats skitter and dart around the sprawling junk. Just as you raise your hand to knock, the tinted window rolls down.
"Eugh! I hate this." Sheriff Richard snarls through a disgusted sneer. "Whatever. Place is clear for all I care. I'm not gonna look for that guy with those things scurrying about." He jerks his vehicle on, forcing you to take a quick step back. "Fuckkkk that. I'm going back home. Try not to need me."
The squad car's tires spin uselessly for a moment before the cop punches the gas, peeling out of the yard and down the road. Slowly, the cloudy smog dissipates, leaving you, arm still raised, alone in the chilly yard.
"Did he just fucking leave!?" You hear Jayden, the firetruck's engineer, scream. You take that as your cue to head back to the ambulance.
"Is it just you two tonight?" Morris asks when you sluggishly join up with the others.
"Yep. Just Jayden and I." Bob replies. "Bet all the other volunteers are snoozin'."
"God, I wish that was me right now." You groan.
"Let's just hurry this up." Jayden huffs, stomping through the mess and towards the house.
Once everyone is armed with a double layer of gloves, respiratory masks, and a miscellaneous piece of thin metal picked up from the front yard, one of the firefighters pries open the front door.
Even with the layers of Personal Protective Equipment, all your senses are assaulted by the stench of years worth of festering garbage. It's impossible to see more than a few feet into the entrance way. Bob shines his flashlight into the house, sending the rats scurrying in a panicked frenzy. They clamor over the top of feces-covered newspaper and trash to escape from sight. Morris turns to you, and a without word, you both honor the time old tradition of rock-paper-scissors.
Rock. Rock. Rock.
You lose.
Rock has failed you once again.
A single, tentative step is taken past the entrance. Fingers gripping the doorway for stability, you sink about 2 inches down into the rotting rubble. You're going to throw up in your mask. You're going to throw up. You—
"E.M.S.!!! DID ANYONE CALL FOR MEDICAL?!" Morris yells from behind. Someone reaches a hand over your shoulder to stabilize you. You swing your flashlight to and fro, but there is nobody home, not that you can see much of anyone or anything beyond the tunnel of rubbish.
It's not a big house by any means, but the hall feels miles long as you slowly make your way forward. Each trudging step crunch, crunch, crunch-es through the foul refuse as if it were the soft snow outside.
You turn down the hall, and into, what you presume to be, the bedroom. Likely the cleanest spot in the whole place, one bare, stained mattress lays directly in the center. A collection of discarded Mountain Dew bottles litter the floor. Some are empty. Some are unopened. Some are filled with what is most certainly piss. Your boot accidentally sends one sliding into the box spring. The half full bottle bounces off the side of the bed and boomerangs back to you. Stopping it with your foot before any of the sloshing liquid can escape, you quietly observe the dark, almost orange liquid begin to glow a faint pink.
Ewww. You don't want to know what kind of chemical substances this guy was indulging in to have his urine glow. An animalistic part inside of you screams DANGER. Run away!! Pressure rises around your supple skull like an incoming hurricane. You can't quite rip your eyes away from the glimmering bottle. The hum that lingers in the stagnant air grows louder with every silent second.
The caffeine and adrenaline induced anxiety is cut through, like butter, when your shoulder radio spits static. You press a button and ask them to repeat their message, but the static continues. The steady, soft crackling by your collarbone masks the oppressive buzzing that seeps into your gross subconsciousness.
Your patient isn't here.
Turning around, you carefully make your way back out of the house.
"Do you know what was said over the air?" You ask as soon as you and Morris reconvene at the ambulance. Peeling off your gloves and scrubbing down with a bottle of sanitizer, you're not going to feel truly clean until you can boil yourself alive in a shower.
"No idea. Though, I wouldn't put it past the owner to have some new, stupid frequency jammer thing. Always was a conspiracy nutcase."
"Ughhhh. Is the truck's radio working at least? Can we try to play it back? I'm hoping it's dispatch clearing us from this place, or the Sheriff."
"We can only hope. Let me go check." huffs Morris, climbing back into the front.
Kicking the gravel and snow around with your boot, you sniffle. The cold helps keeps you stiff and awake, like a puppet with wire strings. Just a few more hours. This will hopefully be your last call. Then you can bathe. You can sleep. You can eat.
"Hey guys! We found your body! Radios don't seem to work for us." Jayden cheerfully declares, jogging up from around the back of the house.
"Yeah, we're trying to see if we can hear it better in the truck." Morris replies. "Was that you guys trying to hail?"
"Yeah. That was us." grumbles Bob, bumbling towards the group.
"Wait. Hang on. Body?" You question.
"Yup!" Jayden gleefully responds. "100% Body. D.O.A.! And a pretty impressive 'Dead On Arrival' at that. Offed in wicked-witch fashion."
"Show me." You demand, ready to get this over with.
Retreating back over the newly made tracks, you and Morris are led through the maze of rusted cars. Finally, on the outskirts of the heap, you see it.
Fuck.
They're right.
That's a dead guy, or from what you can see, half of one.
Where the sand, loam, and minerals blend at the bases of their pile, like a modern alter, a square slab of cement sits, solely illuminated by industrial spotlight LEDs. On its solid surface rests a run-down car, sporting a distinct pair of legs sticking out from underneath. Shielded slightly from the falling snow and wind, the limbs are framed by a concerningly large pool of blood. Bright red on white.
Morris whistles. "Damn. Bet the blocks he was using gave out… and crunch!" He smacks his fist into the palm of his other hand for effect.
"You weren't kidding when you made the Oz reference. Geez." You tut.
"Egh, these are worse than refusals. Now we have to call in the coroner at this time of night with this weather." Morris complains.
"Oh my god and that's supposed to be Sheriff Richard tonight. We're fucked. No way he's coming back. I bet he even silenced his radio." You begin to sob, throwing your hands in the air with frustration. "We're going to be stuck waiting here until the morning guys clocks in and drive here. Ughhh!!!" You want to scream. You want to sleep. You want to go home.
"Ha! If you peel those shoes off" Bob laughs and points at the bloody footwear. "And click them together three times, maybe you can."
"The situation doesn't make a lot of sense though." Jayden interrupts. "Why would he be working on a car, at night, in the middle of a snow storm?"
"Buddy. Two words. Meth. Engineering. Trust me, I've seen crazier set ups, in crazier weather. Meth's a hell of a drug." Morris shrugs.
"Guys. Screw this weather. I'm freezing my balls off." Bob shivers. "Let's take the firetruck back to base. I'm sure you beautiful, medical folk can keep the frozen corpse warm for us. We don't all have to hang 'round waiting for the sheriff 'til dawn."
"Yeah, yeah. You boys can head back." Morris groans reluctantly, cracking his back before turning towards you. "Rock, paper, scissors over who calls this in from the comfort of the ambulance? And who has to take pictures of the scene and pack up the bags?"
Rock. Rock. Rock.
Lose. Lose. Lose.
Damn it. Rock has failed you again.
"I guess the chill can help keep me awake." You mumble in self-consolation while your fellow paramedic stomps off.
Bending down to grab your bag, your eyes are drawn to the vivid blood that seems to endlessly seep from the concrete to ooze into the snow. There's a glimmer to the ruddy red, likely from the flurries. You use your phone to snap a few pictures from the front and side angles for record keeping. The blood is coagulated and thick. It brings to mind ketchup. You nervously lick your lips. Ketchup. Your stomach does a funny little flop. Ketchup. Your gaze travels further to the victim's legs. Not Ketchup.
Purple and shiny. Swollen and plump. Skin pulled taut over plump flesh, frozen with a layer of winter sheen. Crush injuries are never pretty. Crush injuries are very fatal. You've seen this before. This isn't your first trauma rodeo. And yet.
Ketchup.
Maybe you're getting a bit of exhaustion hysteria. Maybe you're still starving. Thinking back to those studies that talk about how cadavers and surgery can make doctors hungry, you go to shoulder the bag and jump when you feel something slimy graze your wrist. Looking down, a red smear had transferred from your jacket to your arm. It's difficult to not laugh and burst into tears. It's ketchup.
That's it. You're done. Time to head back to the truck.
The shadows are long and overcast from the angle of the lighting. The wind whispers in your burning ears. The snow muffles your footsteps. It's not as quiet as one would expect a thick snow storm to be. There's something a touch off. You're probably finally losing it. Man, you need a good rest.
The chill seeps into your extremities and shakes up your bones. One unlucky step in the creeping darkness has you falling sideways into a large bank of snow. Heart racing, you hold as still as prey. You can't tell if you're shivering with cold or over-stimulated with caffeine. Your body lays there until the drums cease their pounding in your ears.
Fatigue washes over you with a comforting heaviness. Snowflakes melt against your burning cheeks and cling to your lashes. As you contemplate your snowy bed, the hum creeps into your consciousness once again. It's like an urban noise. One of electronics, powerlines, and digital billboards. Unrecognizable source. You sit up, hunched, and glance towards the spotlights. It doesn't feel as if it's coming from them. It feels cloying. As if it's rising from the ground to mingle with the air.
The buzzing tickles up the back of your neck, and you hold your breath. Twitch. Flinch. An instinctive, knee-jerk, wrongness fills your very soul. You shudder a couple of times in the snow before bolting up and dashing towards the cemetery of cars and other machine junk. The ambulance lays waiting on the other side. Carefully this time, you power-shuffle-run past rusted engines and gutted interiors.
By the time you reach the doors of the vehicle, your fingers and toes have become completely numb. Every blink of your eyelids sting as the ice sticks to your face. You rip open the side door, throw the bag, slam it closed, and return to your beloved passenger seat in one single breath. Morris is sprawled in the driver's side, playing on his phone. As you press into your seat, happy to be out of the elements, he lazily looks over at you.
"Had to call the Medical Director. Police aren't answering." He holds up several pink sheets of paper. "We have to chill in the truck on scene unless another call pops up. We also have to place these notices for bystanders around the property."
You respond with a noise like a wounded animal.
"I know." He snorts. "How about this, you go take a nap for an hour and half in the back, and then I will. The police will definitely send someone down when the morning crew clocks in around 8am. If not, we will hunt them for sport."
With great reluctance, you pull the paper from his hands, slinking pathetically from your seat back out into the cold. Hands in pockets, you trudge back up the lawn towards the front door of the trailer. You can make out tiny rodent paw markings in the snow. The colony, itself, is nowhere in sight, but you swear you can feel them. Somewhere several Somethings are watching you.
Once that job's done, you're quick to return to the ambulance. Carefully, you lay your aching body down on the stretcher. Posed like a corpse at an open casket funeral, you throw a clean, white cloth over your face to try and get some rest. The passenger door opens and closes, and Morris begins to play a rhythm game semi-quietly on his phone. Your world darkens as you close your eyes, but that clawing, hungry feeling continues to gnaw at your nervous system. The truck attempts to hum you another lullaby of rumbles and purrs, but it feels off tune to the ever-present electronic whir that hangs over this property. You toss and turn, but real sleep evades you. When your body jolts, twitches, and jerks for the millionth time in a span of 20 minutes, you decide to call it quits.
"Yo. Can't sleep. Can you pass me my scarf and gloves from my bag? I'm going to snoop around the property. Maybe learn some culinary techniques from the rats." You say after rapping against the tiny window divider separating the back patient compartment from the front seats.
Your coworker passes back your winter gear and solemnly nods. "Go for it. Got your radio on you? I'm gonna take a nap then if you're cool with that?"
With an affirming grunt, you slide open the side door and shimmy on out, boots landing with a wet squelch into the dirty slush. Without looking up from his phone, Morris blindly hands over a large flashlight, and you're off in the direction of the mineral piles behind the house. With no goal other than to kill Time, you trudge through the graveyard of rust. Shining your battery-powered torch into the cars, your brain tries to remember if you're up to date on your tetanus shot. There's a metallic smell to the air that burns through your nostrils and clogs your lungs. The cold sears it further inside of your mouth with every breath. You attempt to protect yourself by pulling your scarf tighter around your neck. It's not very effective.
Moving beyond the cars, you're back to where the body lays. You don't spare it more than a glance. Further back, through the piles, you swear you see something move down in the deep, sloping quarry.
Maybe you can find a bear or this guy's meth lab. Curious, you slink past the scene of the accident and towards the base of one of the spotlights. As you approach closer, you notice a large amount of tire tracks in the snow. Many of them lead to and from a hidden, muddy road access point and path down to the quarry. The property's business does not seem to be making enough money to warrant this much vehicle traffic. Maybe you really did find a drug ring? Wouldn't be the first time.
Creeping closer, you make the professional judgment to turn your lights off and quiet your radio so as to not calling attention to yourself. Nearing the edge of the hole, your eyes struggle to make anything out in the darkness. Your pupils dilate wide to adjust in the pitch black, but every time you attempt to focus on Something, your vision blurs hard as if there is a veil over the entire landscape. The persistent electric strumming feels stronger from within the quarry. Your body sweats through your layers despite the freezing temperatures.
Feeling a bit perturbed, and not in the mood to get off-ed by a booby trap, you turn around. With a click, your flashlight shines across your previous path. Humming softly to yourself to keep awake, your naive, mortal form is unaware of the company trailing after you.
As you pass the corpse and the car, you don't notice the surrounding area darken with titanic, looming shadows.
You don't notice the vermin scurry in a panic to burrow and hide.
You don't acknowledge the audible noise of something very large walking in your direction.
You don't even register Morris, as he stands outside smoking a cigarette only to suddenly scramble backwards. Pressing his back against the side of the ambulance, the cigarette falls from his lips in shock, forgotten in the snow.
No. You march on in blissful ignorance. A singular goal in mind: To be warm. Opening the door, you peel off your damp scarf and begin slowly folding it. With the finality of a good door slam!, a harsh sigh escapes your lips. Taking a moment to drag your hand down your tired face, you turn to regard Morris.
"Huh? Dude, what's wrong?" You ask, watching as he sinks further in on himself to try and appear smaller.
Morris blubbers something, raising his finger to point at you. His face flushes, and his teeth are set in a nervous grimace. You glance down and notice the red condiment still on your jacket.
"Don't worry! It's just ketchup." You reassure him to no avail. "I didn't go rolling around in the blood over there or anything."
He shakes his head fast and hard, enough to make you dizzy, jabbing with more aggression to a space behind you. Slowly, you turn. You're fully expecting an R.O.U.S. (Rodent of Unusual Size) to be the source of fear. Richard and Morris both have a fear of rats and mice. However, your imagination is blown out of the water by what you do see.
Regal and colossal. Shiny and polished. An angel of metal and modernity overshadows the both of you. Bright red eyes pierce through you, and it feels as if it's reading your very soul. Conflicted between weeping and groveling, your exhausted mouth, instead, spits out praise in the form of prayer.
"You're beautiful." You supplicate, stunned in place. Your eyes burn with tears as you strain to absorb every detail in front of you. The red and blue of your emergency lights fit perfectly with the glossy paint job on the winged goliath.
Your gorgeous, iron giant seems taken aback, but they quickly recover into a snooty, presumptuous pose.
"Why thank you!" The plated angel speaks with a tinny, attractive voice that makes you swoon. "At least some of you little fleshlings have taste."
It's absurd. The absurdity calms you. Maybe, if you weren't running on empty, you'd have a proper reaction. Maybe, when you get home, you'll have a proper breakdown. Honestly, you felt more fear and dread earlier, knowing you had to step into the disaster of a hoarding house. This feels a bit like a Walrus vs. Fairy conundrum. A big rat or bear would've been odd and rare, but more realistic. More plausible. You weren't quite expecting such a fantastical being.
It's 3, almost 4 in the morning. You're exhausted to an unhealthy and concerning degree. This might as well be happening to you. Guess we're going to be dealing with giant robots now. Nothing to do other than roll with the supernatural punches.
You glance at Morris. He's going to need a minute, but, for now, you muster your best healthcare smile, reminisce on your favorite psych calls, and grit your teeth.
Empathy. Empathy. Empathy.
"Hi there! We're paramedics with the county emergency medical service. Is there anything we can help you with?" This is just another person. This is another person. Nevermind how tall they are. Don't think about the guns on their arms. This is just another person. A surprise robot. A metallic angel. Just your average frontline healthcare Tuesday.
You try to make professional eye contact, but their red stare sears into the back of your retina until it's all you can do to blink away an after image. Ketchup. Your tired and wired brain spits out while blinded. Hehehehe. Red like ketchup. You can feel your grin split into something more unhinged. This might as well be happening to you. You double check that Morris can in fact see this, to ensure you're not hallucinating. You feel your mental screws rapidly loosen and rattle inside your mush skull. As you smile tighter, your lip splits, blood welling up into the cold air. Licking the coppery liquid brings a sense of grounding and calm. This might as well be happening to you.
The large being doesn't answer you right away. Instead, they somehow straighten up taller, glancing off to the side. You wait as patiently as a lamb to the slaughter and watch Morris try to compose himself to the best of his ability. This might as well be happening to you. You're leading this call now. Both of you nervously eye the impressive weaponry attached to the metal man.
As if sensing your fears and worries, the two paramedics watch in horrified awe as one of his hands warps and twists into a blaster of some form. That can not be good. The scene is NOT safe. You rack your brain back to all your de-escalation training, but nothing really prepares you for Sudden-Giant-Robot-With-Gun. You might be royally screwed. You might be dying tonight. With a food stain on your jacket at that. How embarrassing.