To Protect & Serve (27 page)

Two more pieces and the blackened peeling remains of the fire suit emerged to reveal Dustin lying face down like all the horrible outlines they draw around murder victims. Frantically Jeff reached for the shoulders and rolled the body over and off of the heap underneath that only then he realized was the woman. His senses reeled to the edge of overwhelm. The mask on Dustin’s face was askew, exposing the skin beneath, and making him appear like some crumpled robot destined for the recycling heap.

“Just a second I’ve got to get some help,” Jeff told his friend, and he jumped up and ran to the door. “I’ve got a downed firefighter and a victim here! I need help! Hey! Somebody! I need help!”

A figure and then another ran up as the beginning of the beeping started in Jeff’s ear
s. Step-for-step they followed him into the apartment, where one of the men picked up the woman and started out. Jeff grabbed Dustin’s shoulders and arched them up enough for the other firefighter to get an arm under them. The beeping was now coming from all directions at once drowned out only by the pounding of Jeff’s heart. “Let’s get him out.”

The big black boots dragged the ground as they angled around the flames. The head, limp and lifeless, bobbed with each labored step. The screaming of Dustin’s PASS and Jeff’s own dwindling tank of air was making Jeff’s head swim. When they got to the exit, they met up with a knot of men coming fresh from replenishing their tanks. Jeff’s steps had begun to sway under the emotional and physical strain so that the only thing keeping him standing was sheer determination.

“We need help over here!” the man on Dustin’s left yelled at the men.

Only when his replacement edged him out of the way did Jeff realize who it was.

“Get yourself down,” Gabe yelled at him. “We’ll get him.”

No nightmare had ever seemed so surreal. No moment so bizarre. On feet that he couldn’t figure out how they were moving, Jeff descended through the smoke, following something that he vaguely remembered he was supposed to. The beeping in his ears was an all-out scream now, and still one foot followed the other down. “Please, God. Let him be okay.” They were the only thoughts getting through the haze.

Finally they broke through to the base of the cloud of smoke, and immediately they met up with a cluster of firefighters preparing to go up.

“We need help!” he heard someone yell. “He needs air, and this one’s bad.”

The mask jerked off Jeff’s face, and air like none he had ever tasted slid into his lungs.

“Man, you should’ve quit while you were ahead,” the figure said, kneeling next to him although Jeff didn’t fully understand the comment. His gaze, now clearer from the oxygen, slipped forward as the two figures and the seared black plastic rounded the bottom corner and disappeared from sight.

“No! Wait!” he felt himself yell. Instead he choked on the air those words would’ve taken to utter. It didn’t matter. They had Dustin, and he had to get down there. Pulling himself up from the floor where he had somehow fallen, he forced strength into his legs and started descending even as his makeshift nurse reached for him.

“Hey! Where’re you going?”

With barely a wave backward, he pushed through the men on the landing and around the corner. Down. Down. Going faster with each passing step until he wouldn’t have been at all surprised to find himself in China at the end of that staircase. However, their task had slowed his quarry, and just as they pushed out of the front doors of the building, he caught them.

A swell of people engulfed them as Jeff pushed his feet through them. The two men on either side of the dragging boots were practically on the curb before they stopped and lowered their fallen comrade to the ground.

“Medic!” Gabe yelled, ripping the mask from Dustin’s face. “We need a medic!”

“Dustin!” Jeff’s heart carried him right to his friend’s side where he grabbed Dustin's hand as all medical training
he'd had failed him. “Dustin! Man, don’t leave me! Come on! Don’t leave me!”

He heard the feet on the concrete behind him, but the sound didn’t register as he looked into the eyes that were no longer open. “Dustin, man! Can you hear me? Come on! Fight! You’ve gotta fight!”

On the other side a paramedic appeared, kneeling, checking. “He’s breathing. Get a stretcher.”

“There isn’t one,” someone behind Jeff said.

“Then find one!” the first paramedic yelled. “Sir, you’re going to have to give us some room. Sir!”

But nothing was making any sense anymore. Only those closed eyes, and memories he couldn’t fully remember.

“Jeff.” A hand cupped over his shoulder. “Jeff, they need to work.”

It made sense that he should stand. The only problem was he couldn’t. He simply couldn’t back up and leave his friend. “Dustin, man! Please say something! Come on! Please!”

“Jeff!” Fingers on both sides of him pulled him backward. “Jeff, come on. Let them work.”

As he was pulled
away, he felt Dustin’s hand drop from his to the hard concrete, and his whole being screamed in a gut-wrenching howl. “No! Dustin!” He fought them off, trying to get back to that hand. “No! Please! Let me go! He needs me!”

“Hey!” the paramedic standing only inches from Jeff’s struggling frame said, and only then did Jeff recognize him. A.J. “Listen
to me. We’ll take care of him. We’ll do everything we can, but you’ve
got
to back off.”

An entire conversation, quick but spirit
-squelching passed between them, and then Jeff nodded.

“I promise we’ll do everything we can,” A.J. said, gazing right through Jeff. “I promise.”

One set of hands dropped from him as Jeff watched A.J. turn and kneel over the charred heap on the sidewalk.

“It’s going to be okay,” Gabe said slowly.

Dry tears slid down Jeff’s face. He could feel them although no one else could see them. They felt like they had been there forever. The haze slid over him as he reached up to his cheek to wipe them away.

“Good, Lord, what did you do to your hands?” Gabe asked in shock.

Jeff could see nothing. Nothing was making any sense.

“Hey! Could I get an EMT over here?” Gabe yelled, dragging Jeff from the spot and over to an ambulance. “We’ve got a burn!”

“What’s the problem?” a young lady asked, jumping from the back of one ambulance. Gabe turned Jeff’s hands over. The EMT recoiled. “Jeez. Don’t you know those gloves aren’t foolproof? Here, let me get the stuff.”

Gently Gabe sat Jeff down on the ambulance bumper, clearly afraid his friend might end up on the asphalt if he didn’t. “God, man, don’t you know when to quit?”

“I think we’re going to have to cut the gloves off,” the EMT said, jumping out and landing right at Jeff’s side. “I’ll patch you up as best I can, but I think you need to go the hospital to get these taken care of.”

“The ambulance?” Gabe asked.

She shook her head as she pulled out a monstrous pair of scissors. “Badly injured only.”

“Could he ride up front with someone going?”

“If you can talk them into it,” she said with a shrug.

“Hang on. Okay?” Gabe said, clapping a hand on Jeff’s shoulder. “I’ll get you a ride.”

The wailing barely registered above Jeff’s head as the ambulance swung around first one corner and then another. At least it felt like swinging to his perilous hold on reality. Every turn sent his shoulder crashing into the door, but it wasn’t the recklessness of the driver so much as the weakness in his body that was betraying his balance. What little strength was left, he was fighting to will through the metal partition and into the back. Dustin needed the strength far more than he did. With that thought, others he didn't want to think flooded over him, and he squeezed his eyes shut to block them out.

Finally they screeched to a stop under the emergency room canopy, and the driver jumped out. Even the pain didn’t make it all the way through his swirling thoughts as Jeff reached down, popped the door handle, and all-but fell out of the cab. Like a drunk on Saturday night, his steps threaded around the front of the vehicle to the other side where blinding light cut right through his brain.

Six green-clad medical personnel already surrounded the single white gurney indented with two solid black boots, and in seconds they had slipped through the sliding
glass doors. He wanted to follow them, but his spirit was the only thing still moving.

“He’s as okay as he can be right now,” A.J. said, striding up to Jeff from the back of the ambulance. “And he’s in good hands. Come on, let’s get you taken care of.”

When the phone by her bed rang, Lisa rolled over and squinted at the clock. 4:22. Gingerly she sat up and scratched the side of her head. She cleared her throat and retrieved the receiver. “Hello?”

“Lisa?”

“Yeah?”

“This is A.J. A.J. Knight.”

The name sounded familiar. Where had she heard that name again?

“Listen, I thought you should know, Jeff’s in the emergency room.”

Sleep’s shackles shattered as her whole body wrenched up off the pillows. “What?”

“I don’t have time to go into the details, but he’s at Ben Taub General. Tell them you’re family. They’ll let you back. Sorry, I’ve got to go, but Lisa?”

“Yeah.”

“Come, okay? He needs somebody.”

The middle of her hurt like it had never hurt before. Somewhere in the middle of the phone call her heart had stopped and with it her breathing. “Please, please, please, God, please, let him be all right.”

When the white Cavalier rounded the last corner, even that prayer stopped. She counted four ambulances all with their lights on lined
up next to the curb, and she knew it was bad. No, it was really bad. Really, really bad. Those words put wind under her feet as she jumped from the car and raced through the doors to the information desk.

“May I help you?” the receptionist asked.

“Yes, there was a firefighter brought in earlier. I’m his…” She looked down at her naked hand and carefully slid it under her other arm. “…fiancée.”

“Name?”

“Umm, Jeff. Jeff Taylor.”

A pause as the computer worked on locating him. “Yes, he’s in emergency. Bay 14.”

“And emergency is?”

“Through these doors and to the right.”

“Thank you,” Lisa said, fighting for breath as her steps picked up speed. The rubber of her tennis shoes thumped against the hard floor. At the doors she pushed through them with one hand and entered a world of smattered commands and frightened weeping. Forcing resolve into the void in her heart, she half-walked, half-ran all the way to the sign reading: “Admissions.”

Chaos. People, carts, medical equipment everywhere, and voices raking right over the top of them. She considered stopping to ask for directions, but there wasn’t an unoccupied hospital employee anywhere. Instead she turned her steps to the curtains on the side that read: “1,” “2,” “3” above them. Never before would she have been so bold, but there was no thinking involved in this decision.

At 14 she took one breath and pulled the curtain back slightly. Just enough to look inside, and her soul shifted beneath her. In the next heartbeat she was in the cubicle and at his side as he lay on the bed, gaze melded to the ceiling. On soft feet, she stepped over to the bed, aware that he hadn’t seen her although he was clearly awake. One gentle hand reached over and brushed the hair from across the grime-stained forehead. “Jeff?”

Uncomprehendingly he looked at her and blinked. “Lisa?”

“Yeah,” she said, trying desperately to squelch the tears.

His chest heaved as anguish filled his face. “Lisa?”

“I’m here.”

He reached for her seemingly oblivious to the blood-red bandages covering both his hands. Her mind pushed that away from her. He was alive—all else they could handle.

She held him, fighting to breathe through the horror crowding her heart.

“I don’t think Dustin made it,” he said, and her mind collapsed around the statement.

“What?” She pulled back from him. “Dustin? But…”

“They called in all units,” Jeff said as he released her and lay back into the plastic pillow. “We were trying to get some people out…”

“Shh!” she said, realizing that if he freaked out, she might not be able to calm him back down. “Shhh! Just relax. I’ll go ask. Okay?”

His eyes dipped back into the haze as he nodded and slipped further into the pillow. The gaze drifted back up to the ceiling as her spirit fell within her. Struggling to stay stoic in the face of an incomprehensible situation, she stepped out of the bay, sniffed once, and squared her shoulders for the admissions desk. “Yes, I need to know the status of a firefighter. Dustin Knox.”

“I’m sorry, Ma’am, I can’t…”

“Don’t tell me you can’t,” she said as emotions crashed onto her from every side. “He and his wife are close personal friends of ours, and if he’s here and as bad as my fiancé thinks he is, then his wife needs to be notified.”

The young man sighed. “What’s your fiancé’s name?”

“Jeff Taylor,” she said, doing that hide-the-left-hand maneuver again. “He’s in Bay 14. Burned hands.” Charred seemed to be a better word, but her heart couldn’t take being that honest.

“And the other name?”

“Dustin Knox.”

Her breath snagged at the top of her throat just below the prayers for Eve, for Dustin, for all of them.

A pause, and then: “According to my records, Mr. Knox is in CCU. The critical care burn unit on the sixth floor, but he’s not allowed any visitors at this time.”

“O…” The syllable stopped as her world reeled on the news. “Okay. Thanks.”

He nodded as her grief and shock reflected in his eyes. Carefully she turned back. She wished she knew more, and yet one part of her was glad she didn’t. At the curtain she stopped and called for God Himself to help her with her next task. Quietly she slipped back into the cubicle and over to the bed. That never-blinking stare unnerved her to the very core. She couldn’t lie so her hand, that bare-naked left one, slipped up to his arm as the tears stung her skull. “He’s in CCU. They didn’t know anymore.”

For one moment Jeff’s gaze turned to hers, which he searched to the depths of. Then he nodded, turned his head, and regained his silent conversation with the ceiling. She had never felt more helpless in all of her life.

“Umm, do you have… I mean do you know Eve’s number? I think we should call her,” she finally said.

His gaze snapped downward to the sheet at his leg, and she wished there was a way around asking.

“I didn’t have the new one memorized yet.”
His voice sounded weaker with every word.

“Is it at your apartment?”

The nod wasn’t even really there. “My keys are in my locker at the station. It’s number 24 on the bottom. The book’s in my top drawer next to the sink.”

She didn’t want to leave him—not like this, but want and need were two very different things. Slowly his gaze slid down from the ceiling and landed on hers. “I’ll be all right. Eve needs to know.”

Emotion took over then as she leaned down to him and pulled the warmth of his kiss into her. Fighting the grief, she pulled away from him, and his gaze narrowed on hers seriously. “Drive careful. Okay?”

Never had she taken an admonition more to heart. He couldn’t afford to lose someone else tonight. Rational gained the upper hand as the white Cavalier banked into the station parking lot. She had a job to do, and she was going to do it. Her friends were counting on her whether any of them knew it or not. With long strides she entered the vacant fire station.

“Visitor!” she called, presumably for the benefit of the spiders in the corners because no one else heard it. “Lockers.” Steeling her nerve, she walked down the hallway to the door beyond the break room where she knocked solidly. Nothing. Carefully she opened the door. “Knock. Knock.” Still nothing. She stepped into the room, past the benches, to the lockers. “24. 24.”

When she found it, her shaking fingers touched the cold metal and slid it upward. His locker. Somehow she never thought she would see it. Staring into it, she couldn’t help but feel his spirit wrap around her. Pushing the thought of Eve down, she grabbed the keys off the top shelf and then caught sight of the cross. In a split-second it was in her hand, and she was off to the next step in this nightmare of a plan.

It was like the world had forgotten him. Jeff could hear it—over the curtain, under the curtain, all around him. He could hear the pleas for help, the cries of pain, the ache of humanity just beyond that thin veil, and for all his heart, he wished that he would never again have to rejoin it.

Lisa placed the first call from his apartment and was surprised to only get the answering machine. She left a vague message saying she would try back again. That wasn’t the kind of news one delivers via answering machines. The second call she placed from the pay phone in the hospital lobby. In the rush to get to him, she had forgotten her cell phone. This time when she got the answering machine, she wondered if Eve was already here. Maybe someone had already gotten in touch with her. That thought lifted the pallor around her heart.

Willing her steps to be steady beneath her, Lisa walked down the hallway, through the doors, past the admissions desk, and right to Bay 14. When she peeked into the curtain, her heart fell. He hadn’t moved during the last hour—not a single inch.

“I got you something,” she said, approaching the bed slowly as the tiny bag of clothes she had procured from his place banged on her leg.

Vacantly he looked at her, and with a soft, hopeful smile, she held up the gold chain and cross, letting it dangle at the bottom of her fingertips. In the next instant grief flooded across his features as he looked first at it, then at her.

“You want me to put it on you?” she asked, and the imperceptible nod was unnecessary.

Except to con a pitcher of water from a nurse once, Lisa left his side only to place her every-fifteen-minutes phone call. By the time morning washed across a sky they couldn’t see, Bay 14 had become their temporary home. She did everything she knew to do to make him more comfortable, which wasn’t difficult. He was hazed out, barely acknowledging that the rest of the planet even existed. At seven-fifty she looked at her watch. Presumably they would get to him eventually, but his injuries didn’t make it as high on the scale of life or death as too many of the other emergency room occupants had that night. Worse, even on a good night, she had heard of eight to ten-hour horror-story waits. It wasn’t difficult to see they were a mere three hours into theirs.

Sunday morning. The first one that she had really thought about church in years. Now, her mind wondered: if she had just gone the week before, would it have made any difference? Would Jeff not be lying here? Would Dustin be at home enjoying the breakfast Eve had waiting? Slowly Lisa shook her head. She didn’t understand
any of this, and something told her she never would.

There was a bed shortage in the area hospitals. The scene the night before told Jeff that much. So after the doctor appeared sometime around eleven, did what he could with the blistering skin that covered Jeff’s palms, and then asked if he wouldn’t be more comfortable at home, Jeff understood enough to say of course he would. Really it didn’t matter, he wasn’t leaving anyway.

With slow movements, he slipped out of the ash-covered shirt he had spent the night in, laid it on the bed, and picked up the one Lisa had put across the chair for him before she had quietly slipped out. A sleeve at a time he worked the fabric over the bandages and onto his body. The fact that he couldn’t have worked the buttons if he tried never occurred to him until the blue plaid was draped across his shoulders. Overwhelming helplessness in the face of all he had been through washed over him when he tried to take hold of the first button and his knees went weak beneath him.

“All better?” her voice asked at the curtain, and he looked up as pain slashed through him.

“I can’t get this thing buttoned,” he said, and the words broke with the weight of the unshed tears.