NaNoWriMo chapter two, now with a title and everything!
This previously untitled project is now known as Hemophiliac. Can't guarantee how long this one is gonna be, guys. I fucked my hand up pretty good today and typing is going to be... interesting.
So where was I? Oh yeah, I had gotten trundled into the ambulance and I was watching my old life disappear as we pulled out.
What's that? Well Jesus I'm getting to it. You fuckers need to learn some patience, this isn't exactly the most fun story I've ever told.
"Melodramatic?" Well fuck you too, asshole. You drag me down here, stick a microphone in my face --
Okay. Okay. Yeah, well you'd be pretty goddamn riled up too if you were black-bagged and forced into Hanibal Lecter's basement. And seriously, where's the coffee you promised me? I've been up for like a week straight. You want me drooling all over this table?
You said that like three hours ago. Yet here I am, still without any fucking coffee. Isn't there a Dunkin Donuts down the road from Area 51 or wherever the hell I am?
Fine. Fine. But there better be some coffee by the time I'm done with this next part. And real sugar too, dammit, none of that NutriSweet bullshit. You think I need cancer on top of all this shit? It's bad enough you assholes won't give me the pack of smokes I asked for.
Okay. Now what was I saying? There I was, shivering like I had just taken the coldest shower of my life, covered in dried blood and huddling under a hospital blanket as the ambulance pulled out of my driveway. The paramedic driving leaned back to talk to the one who was sitting with me. "Listen, I'm gonna have to get on the 309 for a few miles. It's the fastest way to Wilkes-Barre General."
He nodded. "Should be fine. They know we're coming?"
"Yeah, called it in before we left."
"All right. I'll start taking vitals." He hunkered down next to me. "Hey, miss?" His voice was soft. "I'm gonna need to check your pulse and take your blood pressure. Can I have your personal info?"
I just kind of blinked at him. "Uh. Erin. Erin Forsythe." I gave him my date-of-birth and address; he wrote it down on a clipboard.
"All right Miss Forsythe, you just sit tight." He set the clipboard down and reached over my head. I must have cringed because pulled his hand back. "Just getting some gloves," he said. I nodded, and he reached back up, pulling a pair of blue latex gloves from the cabinet built into the side of the ambulance. He slipped them on; the elastic snapped.
I have to be honest - at that point I was so numb that I zoned out pretty badly while he was taking my pulse. He pressed a stethoscope to my back and I breathed deep - it's amazing how your body just takes over when your mind checks out, isn't it? Finally he pulled out the blood pressure cuff. I numbly held my left arm out. The blanket slid off my shoulder and pooled around my hips.
"Dammit." I felt the ambulance begin to slow. The driver called back again. "Sorry guys, the 309's backed up. Morning rush traffic."
"That's all right, Miss Forsythe seems okay. Right?" The other paramedic smiled at me, two parts professional courtesy and one part genuine compassion.
Smile back idiot, that's what you're supposed to do in situations like this
I offered him a weak smile in return. He pulled the BP cuff apart, the Velcro making its obscene sound. It reminded me of peeling my t-shirt off earlier.
"Okay, let me set this on you." The paramedic reached down to wrap the open cuff around my upper arm. I looked away, out the rear window of the ambulance.
My eyes went wide. A massive Ford F350 switched lanes to ours and began barreling towards us. The ambulance was inching forward, boxed in to the front and sides. There was nowhere for us to go.
He's not slowing down, oh shit oh shit
I let out an inarticulate cry. You know that stupid Dane Cook bit where he goes on about watching someone get hit by a car and he can't think of anything to say to warn the guy, so he just gives a concerned moan? Yeah, it was kind of like that.
Don't look at me that way. One of my exes loved Dane Cook.
So anyway, here I am just sort of moaning and pointing like a movie zombie while that giant F350 comes careening towards the back of the ambulance. The paramedic turns his head, sees what's happening, and shouts, "watch out!" He pushes me down on the gurney and covers me with his body.
You know the weird thing about this whole thing? My memory of what came next is a little blurry. The ambulance jerked like it had been kicked like a mule, there's a terrible noise of shattering glass and body panels, screeching tires, car horns. I know I'm screaming, getting tossed around the back of the ambulance, and all I can really remember from the moment is the smell of the paramedic's deodorant while he's pressed up to me.
The world stops spinning finally. I'm blinking at sudden bright mid-morning sunlight thanks to the paper-thin side panels of the ambulance getting sheared off in the accident. The paramedic on top of me isn't moving, and he's too heavy for me to dislodge myself, so I just start screaming again.
I do a lot of screaming in this story. You would too if you had gone through the same shit.
So I'm screaming, pinned by what I can only hope is an unconscious medic and not a dead fucking body, unable to unbuckle the straps on the gurney holding me down. The smell of blood and gasoline is burning my nose, right behind the smell of my paramedic's Right Guard. My heart is racing, pulse pounding in my ears, and I give as hard a heave as I can, sliding the paramedic off me. He tumbles to the floor and I release my belt with shaking hands.
Please be okay, oh god
I look over my shoulder to the front of the ambulance. The force of the impact from behind turned the cabin into an accordion, sending the engine compartment into the front seat. What used to be the driver was pinned by a steering column that was about three feet closer than it should have been. He wasn't moving. It was probably a blessing.
Looking down, the paramedic who had shielded me hadn't fared much better. He was bleeding heavily from a head wound, and his leg was bent at the kind of angle you only see in Tom and Jerry cartoons. Beyond him, the remnants of the back doors of the ambulance were cantilevered in. I could see the partially-mangled F350's front grill past the gap between the ruined doors.
The Ford was still running. Its front windshield, which had been tinted black, was a spiderweb of hairline cracks. Whoever was behind the wheel shifted the pickup truck into reverse and backed up at speed, stopping abruptly.
What the fuck?
The F350 gunned its big turbo diesel V8.
Oh god is he coming BACK?
Medical supplies and shattered safety glass littered the floor of the ambulance. I scrambled down off the gurney, picking my way through the wreckage to the back doors. I pushed on them but they were jammed going in the wrong direction.
The Ford's tires squealed as acrid white smoke billowed around it. The pickup leapt forward.
Gotta get the fuck outta here NOW
I gave up pulling on the doors and tried to squeeze my way out of the exposed hole that had been ripped in the side panel. I had wriggled halfway out when the fabric of my hospital gown caught on a piece of bent body panel, trapping me inside.
The sound of the pickup truck's engine grew. Turning my head, my vision tunneled down to the front grille of the monster truck barreling towards me. There was no way out. I was going to die.
What? Well obviously I didn't fucking die, you shithead. Jesus who asks that? Did your parents have any children that lived?
Wha- okay. Okay, I'm sorry. I'm just stressed out about this whole thing. Can I have my fucking coffee already? Yes. Ye- yes, I'll continue.
So I'm watching my life flash in front of my eyes as whatever crazy, murderous shithead is racing towards me in his death machine. In a flash I thought about that stranger in my house earlier that morning. That feeling of primal anger flooded me again, like when I screamed at him to get out.
That's when things got really goddamn weird.
I felt the entire ambulance begin to hum, like just this low-level vibration throughout the ruined chassis. My stomach lurched and the hairs on the back of my neck stood up. An unpleasant slithering sound, like silk being pulled across an open wound, filled my head. My vision blurred and I felt something... pulling at me.
The truck smashed into the back of the ambulance. The doors exploded inward off their hinges as the front grille of the Ford ripped through them. I closed my eyes and threw my hands up to protect my face, waiting for the inevitable.
It never came.
I squeezed one eye open. Not inches from my face was the front headlight of the Ford. It was completely shattered, pressed into a shape like it had run into a curved convex wall. It was also covered in blood. I looked around - there was more blood everywhere in a circular swathe in front of me in a sloppy line. It led back to the paramedic behind me, like someone had dipped a giant paintbrush into his bloody clothes.
What the FUCK
My head was reeling. The stink of hot pennies burned my nostrils. I called out, hoarsely at first, then again, stronger, pleading for help. I began to hear shouts of alarm, sirens in the distance.
The new impact - or whatever had happened - had blasted an even bigger hole in the side panel I had been trying to worm my way out of earlier. Crying, I scrabbled free from the wreck; bystanders began to pull from the other side, helping free me from what I had thought was going to be my grave.
"Hey, lady, are you all right?"
"Jesus, did you see that, the guy didn't stop!"
"What the fuck happened, are the cops coming?"
I sat down heavily on the asphalt as an ever-growing group of motorists began swarming around me. The damage from the outside looked even more bizarre. The front of the pickup truck had been smashed into an almost smooth, uniform curve, like it had run into a giant, unbreakable ball. The back of the ambulance was the opposite, convex where the Ford was concave.
It was all too much for me. I looked down at myself, covered in a now-filthy and tattered hospital gown, stained with the blood of the paramedic who saved my life, and just stared.