The Illuminated
Chapter I
Adam Ward was fucking exhausted.
He willed his body to sit up for the third call of the night, groggily reaching to the ground for his shirt, his room bathed by the invasive red glow of the station’s dispatch lights. His shorts and socks now on, Adam felt the familiar ache in his belly, the dread of waking up in a body that clung to desperately needed sleep.
“Engine 7, Medic 7, Tower 8, District 2 – Motor Vehicle Collision with Extrication. 5787 w Simms Boulevard.” The robotic voice spelled out a second time.
Jesus. Okay. Here we go. Adam thought, his mind still battling the fog of getting dragged out of bed yet again. Night calls were always a challenge – having to fully wake up and be on your A game while the rest of the city slumbered away.
Please get picked up, please get picked up, Adam prayed as he shuffled out in his slides towards the apparatus bay. Of course there would be no closer rigs to relieve them from this call at 3 a.m., but it was always worth throwing that out to the powers that be.
Eh, at least it’s something good, Adam thought, recalling the number of fire apparatus attached to the call.
As the pass-through door slammed open, the cool lights of the bay flicked on, revealing the fire engine and an ambulance. Adam stepped into his bunkerpants and boots, staged for a quick wardrobe change, and trudged into the passenger seat of the ambulance.
The worn vinyl of the driver seat creaked as the new guy happily hopped into the ambulance. “Oooo how about this!” Eddie said, grinning from ear to ear. “An extrication? I haven’t been on one of these yet!” Adam rolled his eyes, placed their unit ‘En Route’ and started reading the call notes as the apparatus bay doors opened.
“Yikes. Alright Ed, law is on scene, 2 vehicle accident. One vehicle rolled multiple times, at least one party ejected, at least one party trapped, multiple fatalities.” Adam read out loud. He glanced over to watch Eddie’s smile drop, replaced by wide eyes and an unsure line for a mouth.
911 calls were always a grab bag. You never knew what you were going to get. Most of the time, you’re responding to the real high octane stuff, like picking grandma up off the floor or helping Old Ben fish his remote out from underneath his couch. Other times, the job will put its hand on the back of your head and shove your face into the harsh consequences of living.
Death. Carnage. Chaos. The stuff everyone else gets to pretend isn’t there.
The medic fell in step behind the fire engine, both carving their way through the dark night with the harsh cadence of the mesmerizing red and blue emergency lights. It was quiet in the ambulance. Adam knew Eddie’s mind was racing at a thousand miles per hour. He remembered that feeling – the sick anticipation of the unknown. Your mental picture of the scene-to-come was as good as the dispatch notes you were reading, which varied wildly depending on the information the call taker was being given.
While Eddie’s mind was busy creating images of a scene he had never seen, Adam focused on the mad dash to come. Company 7 would be first on scene, which meant triage would fall on him – a quick dose of playing God. He would have to decide who got treated first, who waited for the next ambulance, and who waited for the coroner.
Adam anxiously waited for the new company officer on the engine to request additional medic units from dispatch. Annoyed, Adam reached for the radio, stopping short as he heard the crackle of Engine 7 queuing up their mic,
“Dispatch, Engine 7.”
“Engine 7” dispatch responded.
“Let’s attach an additional medic unit to this call please”
“Engine 7 copy an additional medic unit responding emergent, 0346”
Adam chuckled to himself. One medic? That’s it? Okay two packed cars puts us at 8, one ejected, at least two others dead.. Adam queued up the mic,
“Dispatch Medic 7, let’s attach two additional medics and one additional engine emergent please.”
“Dispatch copies two additional medics and one engine, emergent, 0347”.
3:47… I should be able to squeeze out at least another hour or so of sleep when we get back, Adam thought as they rounded the bend, the grisly scene finally revealing itself.
A lone shoe, the first sign of what was coming, sat upright and untouched on the cool night’s pavement. One of the vehicles sat off to the side of an empty intersection, the driver’s side of the front end smashed beyond recognition, metal smoking and fluids leaking onto the ground. The passenger side looked far more survivable, but the broken windshield made any quick approaching assessment impossible.
It took Adam a second to locate the second vehicle, which had flipped down a small embankment behind the first vehicle. A body lay facedown on the pavement about 30 yards to the right of the embankment. A snow white sock contrasted the black suit pants and the motionless body that accompanied it.
The brief silence that sat over the accident was pierced by a blood-curdling scream coming from beyond the embankment. This seemed to set the scene back in motion for Adam; Noting the engine crew running over to the smashed vehicle on the road, he looked over to Eddie and shouted. “Grab the stretcher, some irons, and a backboard. I’ll meet you at the rollover.”
Adam made a pass by the prone body on the pavement. The gore spoke volumes – this poor kid was dead the second he hit the ground. Adam passed a dirtied and torn white carnation as he approached the roll over. An early 2000s Jeep Grand Cherokee sat partially wrapped around a large tree – its roof smashed in, glass and random objects strewn about, forming a makeshift red carpet path towards the carnage.
The screaming continued. As Adam approached the vehicle, there was sudden movement from the driver’s side, where the door hung lazily on by the hinges. The door creaked open a couple of feet and a body spilled out, landing on hands and knees. A boy of no more than 16 began wheezing and gasping for air. Adam looked back to see Eddie running haphazardly with the stretcher, eyes like saucers and mouth agape.
“Eddie, help me with..” The ear piercing scream stopped Adam short, he looked back and swore he saw a black figure standing by the back seat door of the Jeep. The image vanished before Adam could process it, his adrenaline now fueling his action. He ran past the kid wheezing on the ground and ducked his head inside the driver side door of the jeep.
Instinctively, Adam recoiled from the sight, in the back seat a limp body slumped over a teenage girl of similar age, brain matter and blood staining the bright yellow dress of the screaming girl. Adam tried to regain composure as he spoke, “Hey.. HEY! We’re going to get you out of here, okay? Are you hurt?” A sob of despair unlike anything he had ever heard came from the girl, who did not have any obvious injuries that Adam could see.
Adam pulled out from the wreckage. “Eddie, we have a conscious trapped and a black tag in here. We’re going to treat this guy as a red and…” Adam cut off as he saw the Tower 8 crew approaching.
“HEY! We have a girl trapped in here, you’ll need to cut the roof to clear space to get her out” Adam yelled. His confirmation was a thumbs up as members of the extrication group ran back to grab their hydraulic cutting and spreading tools. Adam popped his head back in the door, “We’re going to get you out, okay?”
Fucking hell, this one’s going to stick.
Adam knelt next to Eddie and the boy on the ground, whose breathing continued to deteriorate. “Adam, I’m not getting much out of him, he..”
“Let’s get him on the pram and get moving.” Adam threw the axe, halligan and backboard on the ground, making space. He wheeled back and helped Eddie lift the boy onto the stretcher. The poor kid was a mess – tears streaked down the white powder left on his cheeks from the airbag deployment. His shirt was torn open and angry red bruising had already begun blossoming on his chest.
“Hey, you with me?” Adam asked as they wheeled the stretcher towards their ambulance. Adam glanced to the other vehicle, where Engine 7, along with one of the other ambulances, were pulling a patient out on a backboard.
“I…I…I can’t…breathe” the boy wheezed, face twisted in agony.
Adam tore open the remainder of the boy’s dress shirt, revealing a thin piece of metal trim deeply embedded in the right side of his chest. Fuck.
“Ed, I think he’s got a tension pneumo. Have you ever darted someone?”
“No, does he… no, no I haven’t” Ed’s eyes wildly looked the kid over.
As they reached the back of the ambulance, doors wide open, sterile white light pouring into the night, Adam passed the stretcher off to Ed, “I’m going to grab some hands, get him in there and have the decompression needle ready.”
Adam glanced over as Engine 4 was pulling up on scene, “HEY! I need a driver!” Adam shouted as the doors swung open. The back seat firefighter jumped down and ran over.
“What’s up Adam?”
“Got a bad one dude. We’re going to decompress him, emergent to St. Michaels please.”
Adam hopped into the back of the ambulance and slammed the doors. It’s freezing in here.
Eddie was standing hunched over the kid, the red cap of the large decompression needle showing in his hand.
“It’s going to be okay, we’re going to get you over to the hospital and..” Eddie trailed off, looking at Adam. “Okay let’s do it”.
The ambulance began rolling forward as Eddie ripped the cap off the needle, his hands were shaking, and twice he looked to Adam for reassurance.
“You’ve got your landmark, go.” Adam said, pointing three ribs down from the kids’ collar bone.
“Just above that rib.”
Eddie held the needle like a pencil and lowered towards the chest. “Okay man little poke..” He hesitated, pulling back, looking back to Adam a third time.
“Jesus Ed give me the fucking thing. Start an IV.” Adam grabbed the large bore needle out of Ed’s hands, held it like a dart, and quickly advanced it into the kid’s chest.
Feeling the resistance of the third rib, he rolled the needle up and over the bone, finding the chest cavity. Air gushed from the catheter, and near instant relief came to all three parties as the kid was able to take a full breath.
* * *
The harsh smell of cavicide hung heavily in the ambulance bay as Adam exited the ER. Medic 4 was cleaning the back of their ambulance, the culprits of the overpowering smell. Eddie was standing at the back of the Medic, talking with the other two inside the box. It appeared Engine 4 had already picked up their firefighter and left.
“I don’t know man, that guy was fucked up. I’d be shocked if he made it.” A familiar voice said.
“I’m surprised Cam made it after he saw that spooky black ghost of his.” Eddie said with a laugh. The comment made Adam briefly pause, before continuing on, ripping off his gloves and approaching the back of the other ambulance.
“Sup boys.” Adam greeted.
“Hey dude. Nasty call, eh? We didn’t get a look at your guys’ crash, but Eddie was telling us it was gnarly.” Cam, one of the Medic 4 paramedics, said.
“Well, it’s also his first, so a high bar has been set.” Erik, Cam’s partner, mused as he wiped away the final remnants of blood on the ambulance floor.
Adam wasn’t in the mood for the typical post-call debrief the medics so often took part in. He carried with him a heaviness after this call, one that he rarely felt.
“Come on Eddie, let’s hit it. See ya guys.” Adam grumbled as he walked back to Medic 7. He glanced into the back of the ambulance, the stretcher sitting quietly in the dark, the bright white bed sheets tightly tucked, not a trace of the carnage that existed minutes before.
Adam and Eddie drove in silence.
Adam’s fingers clicked away at the toughbook keyboard, typing his report. He briefly had to relive the event for the sake of documentation, before locking away this call for good – stuffing it down with all the others.
Adam glanced up as they drove through the intersection where the crash took place. The red and blue lights from the cop cars still illuminated the darkness – yellow tape cordoning off the area.
Adam glanced at Eddie, who kept side eyeing the scene as they passed by.
Every time Eddie drives through this intersection, a piece of him will relive that scene. Adam reflected.
The memories of the calls themselves were blunted with time, but the emotional gravity was added to the Vault. That’s the name Adam gave to the seemingly endless pit of locked away memories and emotions, the area he wouldn’t dare trod, lest he ever be confronted by the dark beasts that lived there.
As the ambulance pulled up onto the fire station pad, Adam paused as he opened the door.
“Hey, you okay Ed?”
Eddie, who was quietly staring off into the distance, shook his head and put on his big toothy smile, “I’m great dude. Thanks for asking. You good?”
“Yeah, just checking”. Adam got out to back the ambulance into the bay.
* * *
Adam lay in bed, the sights and sounds of the evening playing on repeat in his mind.
The face of the girl haunted him.
The sound of the boy struggling for breath played on a loop.
Deep breath.
Four seconds in
1…
2…
3…
4…
Hold…
Four seconds out
1…
2…
3…
4…
Adam forced his eyes shut, the images of the night blending with prior calls.
Prior faces.
Those he’s helped, those he’s lost, those he had forgotten about.
Adam knew he wouldn’t be able to sleep, but he would lay here all the same, trying to ignore the memories he didn’t dare acknowledge. Eyes closed, mind forever racing, Adam was unaware of the black shadow of a figure that hovered above him in his room that night.
Kyle Adams Writes | The Illuminated 