“Jesus,” Emilio said sharply, all but leaping forward. “Didn’t you guys check his vitals?”
“Of course we did!” Schultz scrambled to her feet. “Do you think we would’ve left him like this if we hadn’t?”
Emilio ripped off the hazmat glove on his right hand, revealing the rubber examination glove beneath. He pressed two fingers against Kerrick’s carotid.
“Yeah, pulse is still there. Okay…” He sprinted to the ambulance, threw the door open and announced sharply, “The driver’s still alive.”
“You’re kidding.”
“Brody, get an O-mask on him right now.”
“You got it.”
Schultz had gathered the rest of her team by the time Brody returned; all four officers were looking distinctly uneasy. No doubt worried about their asses if the patient doesn’t make it, Emilio thought with no small measure of disgust.
“We have to get this tree off,” he said, patting the trunk. Its solid and unmoving presence was intimidating, so much so that he instantly regretted the bold confidence of his statement.
“How do you suggest we do that?” Schultz said. “It has to weigh several thousand pounds.”
“Okay, then we cut him out. You’ve got the reciprocating saw, don’t you?”
“Yes — it’s in the trunk of the squad car,” Schultz told him.
“Please get it.”
“’Kay.”
She hurried toward one of the blue-and-whites parked in a nearby driveway, engine idling and lights swirling. Meanwhile, Brody arrived with the oxygen mask. Emilio took it from him, wiggled into the backseat, and reached forward to gingerly fit it over Kerrick’s face.
As he got back out, Schultz appeared with the saw in hand.
“The front door,” Emilio said. “That’s the only way.”
“I know. Stand back, please.”
The saw roared to life, and Schultz applied it to the area where the interior hinges would be if the vehicle were intact. She struggled to make accurate, strategic cuts through the mess of crumpled metal.
Unable to stand by and do nothing, Emilio returned to the backseat and monitored Kerrick’s pulse, which was faint but steady. He had seen others survive accidents like this, and much worse. The question always arose in his mind—How on earth is it possible? A guy who eats right and exercises every day drops dead while spooning a wedge from his breakfast grapefruit while a guy in his Honda gets crushed by an oak tree and lives to tell about it.
“Got it!” Schultz yelled, jumping back as the crumpled panel fell to the ground with a clatter. One of her subordinates pulled it out of the way, then Brody moved in with the gurney.
Emilio worked the manual controls on Kerrick’s seat — grateful to find that they were still functional — and managed to lower him about two inches. The injured man groaned as the pressure of the caved-in roof was relieved. They slid him out a little at a time, carefully, guiding him and supporting his neck, lower back, and legs. When it was time to lift him, Emilio had to lean against the door frame for leverage.
Once Kerrick was on the gurney and rolling toward the ambulance, barely shielded from the storm by a flapping tarp held by two police officers, Emilio set his fingers to his former teacher’s neck again. Not only was his pulse stronger, but his chest was rising and falling in rhythm.
“As soon as we get him in the back,” Emilio said to his partner, “start wiping him down. And do it gently.”
“Okay.”
They opened the doors, inserted the patient with excruciating delicacy, then Brody jumped in beside him. Emilio shut the doors, slapped them once to confirm that they were sealed tight, and hustled back to the cab. Schultz waved and yelled a barely audible, “Hey, good work!” Emilio responded with a thumbs up and hopped into the driver’s seat.
No one noticed the rip at the back of his hazmat suit.
Sarah sat in front of her computer, repeatedly cycling three different browser windows so she could follow three different weather reports. She hoped one of them would offer a ray of hope, but no such luck — the cold front would continue rolling down from Canada for an indeterminate amount of time, with sustained gusts in the Silver Lake area. Aside from the toxic particles that were being liberally distributed throughout the region, she also had to contend with a mounting damage report that was depressing enough without taking the radiation into account. Three older homes had collapsed, one had exploded due to a pierced gas line, and the roof of the Sunoco station had been torn away like tinfoil. Eight phone poles had fallen, two traffic lights had detached from their suspension wires and crashed to the pavement, and one of the railroad gates was lying across the tracks on Nixon Boulevard, its bell clanging away crazily. As if the weather gods wanted to further add a theatrical touch, lightning bolts continued to snap down all over the place.
One of Silver Lake’s two school buses — the newer one, naturally — was now lying on its side in a parking lot. Four automobiles had been abandoned in flooded roadways, their occupants nowhere in sight. Albert Kerrick’s outdated ride was not the only victim of a falling tree; four others now shared that distinction.
What weighed most on Sarah’s conscience was, of course, the human cost. Helicopter search and rescue had spotted the bodies of two elderly residents of the colloquially dubbed “Atlantis” region, floating down the river. Four people had suffered fatal cardiac arrests, and one man had been electrocuted in his basement trying to get to the fuse box just as the rising water reached the live outlets.
There were 137 cases of radiation illness. Walt Kramer, a veteran officer and longtime friend, had dropped off a spare dosimeter so Sarah could monitor the levels in the building. At her last check, fifteen minutes ago, it had read nearly twice what it had been two hours earlier. The demon was finding a way inside regardless of their makeshift efforts to keep it at bay, and that meant they’d have to abandon ship sooner rather than later.
Sarah realized it would be dark in a few hours. That’s just wonderful. This was the very thought marching cheerfully through her mind when the call came; a call that she absolutely had to take but would’ve given a gallon of blood to ignore.
She jumped when the phone rang. The sound seemed louder than usual. In fact, it seemed as if her whole world was jingling and vibrating. She was expecting the call, but somehow that made it worse.
She lifted the receiver.
“Sarah Redmond.”
“This is General Conover.”
She expected the voice to fulfill the stereotype — rough and leathery, as if the man had been smoking cheroots and drinking whiskey since he was six and gargled with battery acid every day. Instead, Conover’s tone was strong and clear. Even through the phone’s tiny speaker, it had a powerful sobriety to it.
“Hello, General. I—”
“This is just a courtesy call, Ms. Redmond, to let you know that I am going to be talking to Harlan Phillips in a moment.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I have to get this evac moving, and I don’t have time for an acting mayor. I need the real one.”
In spite of her immediate dislike of the man, spurred by his dismissal of her as if she hadn’t been dealing with the situation since before the explosion, Sarah understood why he had risen to a position of responsibility. Everything that made him the proverbial force to be reckoned with was present — the sharp tone, the efficient use of language, and the effortless way he made you feel like the smartest thing you could do was obey his every command.