21:45 PM
Kenny filmed up, down, left and right at the sporadic gun-bursts. Luke stood with his microphone at the ready to address the camera. He motioned to Kenny to commence filming, when a hand grabbed his leg, making him jump out of his skin.
He looked down to see a Hobo had grabbed his ankle. “Get offa me, man.”
Kenny kicked out at the hobo for ruining the shot, “You drunken bum, Jesus. Can you believe that — begging during a riot?”
Luke pointed at the hobo. “What’s that on his face?” He pointed to the pus-filled black circles on his cheeks. He heard a commotion behind him and turned to see the police chopper flying in. He knew this could be a story. He concentrated and turned back to Kenny. “Ready?”
Kenny prepared to film when the Hobo screamed. Professional as ever, Kenny pivoted and trained his camera onto the god-awful sound the Hobo made. “What’s the matter with him, I thought he was dead?”
“His chest is moving,” Luke observed. “Oh, man! It’s a rat and it’s eating him.” He felt sick, and then it dawned on him. “This is fantastic.” Luke said knowing a macabre story would sell, when Kenny lowered the camera, “What’s wrong, man?”
Kenny smiled. “I’ve had an idea; why don’t you rescue him?”
“I ain’t touching that rancid piece of filth.”
“Think about it, imagine the headline: Brave hero reporter saves homeless veteran being eaten by rats.”
He smirked. “Let’s do it. Go on three… two—”
Luke rolled the Hobo over, and swiped out at the gnawing beast. The vicious looking rat stared at him for a moment as if it thought about attacking him, then scampered away. “That was disgusting.”
The Hobo tugged at Luke’s sleeve. “Help… me…,” he begged as blood wept from his eyes.
Luke slapped his hand away. The Hobo vomited and convulsed, gasping for life. “Man, did you see his eyes?”
“Sure did. I want some of that.” Kenny stood over the dying Hobo and filmed a close-up, “Never shot someone’s dying breath before.”
“You worry me,” Luke said.
The Miami-Dade Police Department’s Eurocopter AS350 hovered overhead. Kenny switched his attention to the chopper and filmed as it moved closer to the buildings.
Luke prepared himself, cleared his throat, and as Kenny lowered the camera to include him in a head shot said; “Three… two… one, once again a solitary police helicopter, the same old story of the police’s response to this poorly patrolled region; too little too late.”
Lieutenant Graves’s bullets hit their target and the police helicopter lurched over, recovered, when the engine spluttered, and the chopper went into a quick spin, rotated a semi-circle, the pilot corrected, when abruptly the helicopter dipped, went into a dive, floundered then jerked upward. It looked as if it should clear the building, when the engine coughed and the chopper wobbled onto its side, with smoke belching from the engine. The pilot struggled with the craft and turned tight circles fighting for control as the engine stalled and choked, then with a deafening roar it shot forward crashed into the second story where it burst into a ball of flames scattering debris into the night.
A piece of shrapnel shot through the air and ripped through Luke’s bicep in a plume of red mist, the impact of the force spun him into the ground. He glanced up at Kenny. “Tell me you got that?” he managed to gasp before passing out.
Kenny held his thumb up, grinned, and went to speak, when a rogue helicopter blade, turning end over end in the night sky, spinning at over three hundred revolutions per minute sliced him in two.
His eyes froze, and he stood motionless for a moment as blood trickled along the line of the wound, when ghoulishly his severed upper torso slid down to the dirt, his legs remained upright for a moment longer before they too toppled to the ground.
CHAPTER 3
21:50 PM
Doctor Sophie Garcia down-shifted a gear in her cherry-red jeep, glad she had the top down, feeling the welcoming breeze in her long dark, naturally curly hair. Her tires changing sound from the pavement to metal and back to pavement, as she crossed the cantilevered bridge from mainland Florida to the spit of land known as Sandbank Island that housed The Good Samaritan, the run-down hospital where she worked.
After graduation she’d had her pick of prestige hospitals, but instead chose research work in the field; mainly in Africa studying the unusual and exotic, not to mention the most dangerous virus’s that mother earth could produce, after which she returned to work in a less affluent district, finding satisfaction helping the hard-up and needy at the pay-as-you-go hospital.
Yet even this meager facility had been withdrawn, the hospital had fallen victim to the latest spending cuts and was scheduled to close the next day. This would be her last night. The hospital-board had deliberately run down the number of patients so she wasn’t anticipating a busy night.
She pulled into the three story hospital parking lot, entered the building, and was hit by the smell of the disinfectant as she slipped into her white coat. A Latino girl with a distinctive purple streak in her hair bustled past her and rushed to the reception, ignoring the line of other patients and blurted. “I need to see one Doctor. Help me, PLEASE. My baby — she is dying.”
The larger than life receptionist on the desk ruled her domain with a rod of iron. She looked over her spectacles at the young Latino. “Not here, honey. Not anymore.” She saw the girl’s confusion and tapped the sign affixed to the front of her desk. “Didn’t you read the sign?”
“I no read American too good,” she said, and then more urgently. “Please. My baby need help.”
The receptionist leaned over the counter and tapped the sign with her pencil for effect, and quoted. “The sign reads: Hospital closing. All walk-in patients to find the next nearest hospital.”
“I no understand? Why you no help?”
The receptionist spoke slowly. “This hospital is closing tonight due to the cut-backs. It’s been in the news for weeks.”
“¿No comprendo?”
The receptionist sighed again, losing her patience. “You need to go to a different hospital.”
“¿Habla usted espanol?”
“No I don’t. This is America and I speak American.”
Sophie intervened, “What’s the problem here?”
“This lady don’t speak American. I tried to explain—”
Sophie turned to the distressed Latino girl and addressed her in Spanish. She glared at the receptionist for her lack of compassion, and then quickly walked the Latino girl and her baby though the admissions door. One of her colleagues unwrapped the swaddling to reveal a dead African-American baby, as Sophie guided the mother to the waiting room, “It’s dead,” said her colleague. “Stone cold.”
“That’s curious,” said Sophie. “She acted like she expected her baby to be saved.”
“She’s been dead for hours.”
“OK, alert the coroner. We’ll need cause of death on this,” she peeled off her latex gloves. “I’ll go and speak to the mother.”
Sophie steeled herself; she hated this part of the job, all doctors did, informing the next-of-kin. It was especially difficult for Sophie; she felt such empathy with the bereaved, and found it doubly hard when it involved such a young person. The girl howled at the tragic news. A guttural wail, from deep in the pit of her stomach, that echoed around the empty hospital. It shook Sophie badly, but worse, much worse would follow.
The Latino girl not only lost her baby, but also had to go through the indignity of a formal interview with Police. Not that the hospital suspected any wrong doing on the mother’s part, more of a formality to cover themselves in a world where litigators lurked around every corner. The girl still had to go through the rigmarole of filling out reams of endless paperwork, made harder by her lack of spoken English and complete absence of any written. Above all else, and to start the ball rolling Sophie had to ask the Latino girl to give a visual identification of her child as part of the protocol.