Extreme Medical Services: Medical Care On The Fringes Of Humanity (9 page)

   
Freddy picked up one square baking pan with what looked like fresh brownies in it. One corner piece had been removed. “See,” he said. “I just had one.”

   
“Freddy,” Brynne said putting her hand gently on the guy’s shoulder. “I know you used to be a pretty good chef, but you’re dead now. You can’t do all the things you used to do no matter how much you want to. I’m not always going to be this close to come bail you out.”

   
“I know. I’ll try,” Freddie said with a sigh. “I just wish I had more opportunities to cook again.”

   
“We’ve all told you that you’re welcome to come by the station any time and cook a meal for us,” Brynne offered.
 

   
Dean turned to look at her and stared at his partner, dumbstruck.

   
“What?” she asked, looking back at him. “Don’t knock it until you’ve tried it, Dean. Freddy here was once one of the best chefs in the country. Why, if he were still alive and cooking today, he’d have a cooking show on the Food Channel for sure.”

   
“Really?” Freddy asked. “You think so?

   
“Absolutely!” Brynne answered. “Why don’t you plan to come over tomorrow evening in time for shift change. We are still on days and I know that Brook and Tammy, who are both coming on tomorrow night, would love a home cooked meal after they missed the last feast you cooked for us.”

   
“I would love to.” Freddy choked out. “Thank you. I’ll stop by tonight after dark and leave a shopping list for you. Just a list of some of the things to pick up. I’m going to make something special for you, Brynne. It’s going to knock your socks off!”

   
“I can’t wait,” Brynne said. “In the meantime, no more brownies! Okay?”

   
“Okay,” he answered, walking them to the door. “Thank you again. Both of you.”

   
The paramedics stepped carefully down the rickety, cinderblock steps and headed back to the ambulance. Brynne walked around to the driver’s side while Dean went over to the side compartments to replace the oxygen bag and portable suction. He turned and climbed into the passenger seat. They were just about to pull away when the screen door slammed open and Freddy shuffled out holding up a zipper baggie of brownies as he came up to the passenger side of the ambulance. Dean put down the window.

   
“I thought you’d appreciate these since I can’t.” Freddie croaked, handing the baggie through the window to Dean. “Thank you for coming and helping me out again. I’ll see you both tomorrow night.” He stepped back and let the ambulance pull away, waving goodbye.

   
Dean leaned out the window. “Thank you,” he called, then sat back, closing the window again. He was just about to shove one of the brownies into his mouth when Brynne reached over and batted it out of his hand.
 

   
“What do you think you’re doing?” she asked. “Are you crazy? Don’t eat that!”

   
“But the way you were talking back there ….” he said, suddenly confused. “All that ‘you are a great chef, Freddy’ and ‘can not wait to have you cook us dinner, Freddy.’ I assumed they must be pretty good.”

   
“Did you see that kitchen?” She asked. “He always offers us snacks when we come help him out. That doesn’t mean it’s a good idea to eat them.” She shook her head. “You’re a pretty good medic for the most part, Dean, but I keep forgetting that you’re still a newbie at this. It is one thing to have Freddy come over and cook for us in our kitchen with some supervision to make sure he doesn’t lose something into the sauce. It is quite something else to have something a zombie made in that disgusting excuse for a kitchen.” She glanced over at him. “I thought you would have had more sense than that.”

   
Dean grinned. “I guess it was pretty stupid. But in my defense, you had me completely flipped out and turned around when you offered to have him come cook for us.”

   
“Oh, you just wait and see, newbie,” Brynne said. “You just wait and see. He’s going to come and cook the kind of meal that a guy on a paramedic’s salary can rarely afford. The last time he came over and cooked he made us fresh tortellini with a homemade marinara sauce that I still have dreams about.”

   
“What happened to him anyway?” Dean asked. “I assume he’s a zombie or undead.”

   
“Zombie’s right,” Brynne answered. “It’s a sad story. He was dating a girl who was dabbling in some dark magic when he decided to cheat on her. She created a zombie potion of some sort and then tricked him into drinking it. Then she shot him five times in the chest after informing him that he would come back as a member of the undead. She ended up going to prison for the rest of her life and he ended up in that trailer for the rest of his unlife.”

   
“But it looks like he’s slowly disintegrating,” Dean said.

   
“Yes, that’s true, unfortunately,” Brynne said. “He’ll slowly rot away and eventually die, or whatever it is that zombies do since he’s already dead. Our job is to help occasionally reattach things to him that fall off and keep him from ending his existence early by choking on the food he can no longer eat.” She pulled up next to a dumpster in the industrial park next to their building. “Toss that baggie in there and then we’ll park and go inside to finish our lunch.”

   
Dean tossed the baggie of brownies into the open dumpster. He again got the impression he was never going to figure out all the nuances of this job or get used to the surprises it held in store. Maybe he hoped it never did.

———

   
On the way back to the station, Brynne drove by the hospital to pick up some supplies for the station. They went into the supply closet where Brynne loaded Dean up with an armload of gauze and other assorted first aid items. As he was standing there, he heard a melodious voice behind him.

   
“Brynne, are you going to introduce me to your new partner? I heard you had a new probie to break in.”

   
Dean turned around and saw the girl from the convenience store, the one who had seen the stamp on his hand the week before. She was dressed in light blue scrubs, and her badge read Ashley Moore, RN, BSN.

   
Brynne laughed aloud. “Ashley, you have no idea! Dean, this is Ashely Moore, one of the charge nurses here in the ER. Ashley, meet Dean Flynn, our newest initiate into our little world.”

   
“Welcome to the club, Dean,” The nurse said with a smile. “I think we’ve run into each other before. You were getting donuts, I think.”

   
“Uh, right. Um, yeah, they were donuts.” Dean stammered as he tried to free one hand to hold out and shake her hand.
 

   
“Hey, probie,” Brynne said with a chuckle. “Don’t drop anything. Just say hello.”

   
Ashley laughed along with Brynne. “Don’t mind me. I was just checking to make sure you guys found everything you needed. Was there anything that you couldn’t find, Brynne?”

   
“Nope, I got everything on my list.”

   
“Alright. “Well, it’s nice to meet you, Dean. Tell Brynne to bring a patient by once in a while and not to be such strangers.” The young ER nurse turned and walked back around to the nurses station.

   
Brynne snapped her fingers.

   
“Dean. Yo, Dean. Wake up and pay attention to what you’re doing.”

   
“Oh, sorry Brynne. I had just run into her before, off duty, and hadn’t expected to see her again here of all places.”

   
“Well, you’ll see her again. She’s here all the time.” Brynne said. “Come on, let’s get this stuff out to the ambulance and get back to the station.”

   
As they walked out through the automatic sliding doors to the ambulance bay outside, Dean stole a look over his shoulder and caught Ashley glancing in his direction. She smiled and turned back to her work.

   
The meal that Freddy made for the four paramedics the next night in their station’s tiny kitchen was truly amazing considering what the dead chef had to work with. Station U’s third shift team of Brook Barnes and Tammy Haines entered to the smells of fresh pork chops with cornbread and herb stuffing. There also real potatoes au gratin, not the boxed crap, and green beans topped with a honey glaze and toasted, slivered almonds.

   
The paramedics sat down to eat while the chef watched. A crooked smile was the best he could do to express his pleasure. It was easily one of the best meals Dean had ever eaten. It was almost sacrilege that they ate such a fantastic meal on styrofoam plates with plastic forks and knives. The pork was so tender that it hardly took any effort to cut and the sauce, with a slight hint of apricot, literally topped it all off perfectly. Satiated, Dean slid back in his seat at the small table and shook his head in disbelief. After seeing the kitchen disaster in Freddy’s home yesterday, he found it hard to believe that the same cook could turn out something so refined.
 

   
He raised his can of soda to Freddy. “My compliments to the chef.”

   
“Here, here!” his co-workers replied in unison. A gap-toothed smile grew on Freddy’s mottled face.
 

   
“I appreciate the opportunity to cook for you guys once in a while,” Freddy said in a raspy voice. “You make me feel almost alive again.”

   
“The pleasure is all ours,” Brook said. “I can barely boil water safely so having an occasional restaurant quality meal here at work is a big bonus.”

   
There was a sound of a car horn from outside and Brynne checked her watch. “That must be James,” she said, standing and grabbing her purse. “Time to go.” She looked over at Brook and Tammy. “We bought the ingredients, you clean up and give Freddy a ride back to his trailer?”

   
“Sure, although we might just have to make a run to the store and see what he can come up with for dessert,” Tammy laughed.

   
“Just make sure it’s not leftover brownies,” Brynne said.
 

   
Brook smiled. “Oh, we heard. We’ll all avoid the brownies. Although, we heard that the newbie here almost ate one.”

   
“Hey,” Dean said with mock indignation. “It was an honest mistake.”

   
The horn sounded from outside, longer this time. “Uh, I really gotta go,” Brynne said rushing for the door. Brook and Tammy exchanged a glance.
 

   
“Bye, Brynne,” Tammy said. “Say hello to James for us. Tell him we’ll come looking for you if you’re late tomorrow morning.”

   
Brynne waved them off, then left. Dean turned and looked around. “I can give Freddy a lift home,” he offered. “It’s sort of on my way.”

   
“That would be great, Dean,” Brook said. “We’ve got quite a bit of clean up to do and we should do it now in case we get busy with calls tonight. Thanks.”

   
“Ok then, Freddy,” Dean said. “You’re coming with me.”

   
The deceased chef shuffled toward the door. “Thank you for the opportunity to get into a real kitchen again,” he said. “It was a pleasure.”

   
Dean strode across the parking lot outside their nondescript station and clicked the unlock switch on his remote key. The pickup truck’s lights blinked once. He walked to the driver’s side and waited as Freddy slowly walked over.

   
“Uh, Dean?” Freddy asked. “You’re going to have to open this door for me. My fingers are too brittle to operate the handle without snapping off.”

   
“Oh, right!” Dean said, jogging around the front of the truck. “Here you go, sir!” He opened the door with a grand gesture.

   
“Thank you,” the zombie murmured as he slid into the passenger seat.

   
Dean returned to the driver’s side, started the pickup and pulled out onto the road through the industrial park. It was already getting dark as they pulled onto Route 40. It was silent for the first five minutes or so as they drove.

   
“You know,” Freddy started. “You’re not the only one worried about Brynne and James. A lot of us are more than a little worried about them.”

   
Dean glanced over at his passenger. “That came out of the blue. What do you mean?”

   
“I mean that James is really old school. He considers himself better than the rest of us. And I don’t think he thinks of most humans as anything more than a snack. He says he’s turned over a new leaf in the last hundred years, but most of us don’t think he’s caught up with current reality. He’s still stuck in the time of feudal overlords and serfs.”

   
“What does that mean?” Dean said. “Do you think he’s hurting her?”

   
“I’m not sure,” Freddy said with a creaky shrug. “I used to think she could handle herself, but sometimes I wonder. I said the same thing to her old partner Zach. He said he was going to look into it but then he left town suddenly. I was surprised because he seemed pretty sure that something strange was going on with the two of them. I got the impression he was going try to do something about it.”

   
“I’ve never heard about her old partner at all,” Dean said. “I just assumed he’d been reassigned.”

   
“Not that I know of,” Freddy said. “From what I heard he just didn’t show up for work one day and then they got an email from him that he had to leave and take care of family out of town. When they went to check on him, his apartment was cleaned out. His super said that a moving truck had come and cleaned the apartment out at night. There was an envelope with enough cash inside so that the rent was paid through the end of the lease and the keys were left on the counter inside.”