As Tom got up from his seat, Bob turned around and pushed him back. “No you don't. We can't get involved. We're only observers. If we start participating, it won't be real, won't be what's really happening.”
While Bob was talking, Janet looked at the man covered with blood and saw him holding a small hand, which was reaching out from the passenger side of what used to be his family's car. With the little strength he had left, the man was kicking the smashed, jammed passenger door, all the time screaming for someone to help him.
“There is someone trapped in that car!” Janet yelled. “There's at least one child in there. We've got to help that man!”
“No! You can't! Whatever happens, we can't get involved!” Bob ordered, holding Tom back with his right hand and grabbing Janet's arm.
Tom swore at Bob and shoved him up against the dashboard. Then, almost pushing Janet out ahead of him, he leaped from the van, followed immediately by Connie.
“Don't go over there!” the three of them heard, as they ran toward the car. “Bill, they're ruining this whole thing.” Bill Shaw had unlatched his own door, but now he rocked back into his seat. “Mark, can you zoom in on the bleeding man next to the small car? Tell Blevins to say that some motorists are helping an injured man with his family trapped in a car, in a pool of gasoline. Hurry, it may blow up any second.”
When they arrived at the car, Janet was horrified to see the small boy—he could only have been five or six—leaning up against the inside of the smashed door, unbelief in his eyes, blood on his face, and his lower body hidden under the crushed dashboard. It had been pushed in and down on him by the force of the collision with the truck cab, as the car had careened all the way around and then been sandwiched between the two vehicles.
He was crying and reaching out to his father, who was trying to pull him free, but without success. “Please help me,” his father gasped to Janet and Tom. She could see that he was in terrible pain, with blood almost covering his upper body from the gash in his head. And all of them could smell the gasoline.
Janet, Tom, Connie, and the boy's father all pulled on the crushed door, but it would not budge. The whole car had been smashed to two thirds its normal size. Just then the driver of the truck, who must have been in shock, stumbled and fell from the cab next to them, and started toward the back of his rig.
“What are we going to do?” Janet yelled to Tom, who began circling the car, looking for some alternative.
“Daddy…Daddy…” the boy moaned and looked up at his father, who was now weeping and looking for more help.
One of the two police officers ran by, and Janet almost tackled him. “There's a little boy trapped in this car! It may catch on fire any second!”
“I've called for all the help in the area. The fire trucks have tools that can cut him free. Right now we've got at least ten people back there in terrible shape. Come on, I'll give you the fire extinguisher out of our patrol car, while I get the first aid kit.”
Janet ran with him to the patrol car, and she suddenly noticed the remote camera on the roof, swiveling and focusing on her. She glanced over at the van and saw Bob and Bill sitting in their front-row seats, feeding the station via Bob's mike. They've probably interrupted our regular show and have actually gone live with this one, she thought.
Running back to the car with the small extinguisher cradled in her arms like a baby, she saw that the father had slipped to his knees by the car door and was now simply holding his boy's hand and sobbing. As she stopped and took it all in, she found herself praying to a God whom only days before she had told Susan probably didn't exist. “Please, God, spare this little boy. Please don't let there be a fire…Please protect his father. And please help all these other people.” As she opened her eyes, she was looking right at the remote camera, which was focused on her. “Please, God, not on television…” she added.
The distant sirens meant that help might come at last, but neither the boy nor the father might live long enough. The father had collapsed next to the car, and Tom had ripped off his shirt and was using it to press against the deep head wound. “Please, God, please,” she prayed, clutching the fire extinguisher more tightly. She could see the red lights of fire engines coming the wrong way down the empty interstate, when from the south she suddenly heard the steady beat of a helicopter.
The chopper came low overhead, and she could read the TV5 logo on its side, even against the glare of its spotlight. It circled once and then began to land, only about fifty yards north of them. Janet would never know whether the explosion was connected to the helicopter's arrival and the resulting wind and blowing debris, but suddenly the back of the car was engulfed in flames. There were screams all around, and the boy began to cry. His father tried to get up, but fell down, and someone started dragging him away to safety.
Janet awoke from her trance, put the fire extinguisher on the pavement, pulled the pin, and walked quickly over to the boy. As the flames advanced from the back of the car, she used the extinguisher to beat them back. But the fire was very hot, and she sensed that her extinguisher would ultimately be no match for it. She looked down at the boy, who stared up at her in wide-eyed horror, screaming. Tears filled her eyes, as she realized she was going to lose him to the flames. Just then Tom arrived, took the extinguisher, pushed her back, and used the last third of it on the advancing fire.
The flames were reaching the front seats, and many of those standing nearby began to turn away from the awful scene. Janet held her hands to her head and screamed a long No!, tears streaming down her face.
Then two fire fighters from the first truck, led by Connie, ran up with large portable extinguishers and leveled them at the flames, beating them down. Thirty seconds later, two more men arrived with a high pressure hose from the truck itself and put the fire out.
More emergency vehicles were arriving, and one of the men on the hose yelled that they would start cutting the boy out immediately. Janet ran over to the father, who was still alive, as the men with the cutting tool were pointed toward the car by the police officer, who was still using his portable radio. Out of the corner of her eye she saw a reporter with a camera crew run by, on the way from the helicopter to the wrecked cars and the injured victims.
Connie and Tom joined Janet by the father. The three of them from the station hugged and cried. Janet shook all over and suddenly felt very weak and nauseated. She staggered to the grass strip by the edge of the road, dropped to her knees, and threw up, still crying. As she calmed down a little and looked around, she found Connie in the same position, and Tom lying on his back next to them, his arms over his face. Tom said hoarsely, “I hope they caught us throwing up, live and in color.”
The ride back to the studio, an hour later, began in icy silence. Janet was still shaking from the adrenaline coursing through her system. Bob and Bill would not look directly at the three of them in the back of the van.
Finally Bob broke the silence. “Look, I'm sorry for trying to hold you back. That was stupid. You did a courageous thing in helping to rescue that boy. I've never been in exactly that situation before. You were obviously right and I was wrong.”
“Apology accepted,” Tom said quietly.
“And,” Bill added, “we got some great shots of what you were doing. They'll look terrific in our public service segments, and the promotions for ‘911 Live’ will now have a really local flair!”
“You mean you're still going to broadcast ‘911 Live’ after seeing what happened tonight?” Connie asked in disbelief. “What if those firefighters hadn't arrived and that little boy had burned up, right on the camera?!?”
“Well, he didn't, and if the fire had gotten any closer, we would have cut away,” said Bob, obviously pleased with all that had happened.
“Any closer? Any closer?” Janet trembled as she spoke, her voice rising. “How close do you want? Besides his crushed lower body, he has second-degree burns on his head, back, and hands. And his father may die before the night is over.
How can you imagine putting that in families’ living rooms at 7:30 on Friday nights?”
“Janet, you're just upset from being so close to it,” Bill consoled her. “No one knew you were going to wind up on the fire brigade. When you see it on the monitor, like we did, you'll understand how great it is. Our audience will love it.”
“Yeah, I noticed how you watched it all from the safety of the van,” was Janet's last comment to Bill, which foreclosed further discussion.
When they arrived at the television station it was after eleven, but the twenty or so staff on hand greeted them as they walked through the back door with cheers and champagne. Mark Pugh was grinning from ear to ear as he and Bob hugged. “Wasn't that fantastic? Better than I could have ever hoped for,” beamed Mark. “We have a few bugs to work out, but for the most part, all of the systems worked perfectly.”
Several of her coworkers congratulated Janet on her heroism, but she was not in the mood to be a hero. She wondered about the little boy and his father. She wanted to call Richard and then go to the hospital to check on them.
But before she could collect her things, the back studio in which they were standing was darkened, and the monitors brought up the crash scene again for all of them to relive the night's events. Janet looked up into her own grief-stricken face, looking around desperately for help, as the flames came toward the boy. Only now Tom's Promotion Assistant had already superimposed their TV5 logo and the “911 Live” promotion, and a voice was recommending the show to their entire viewing audience! She suddenly realized that she was going to be used to promote the show she found so offensive.
Janet again felt nauseated and broke away from the other station personnel. As she made her way to the restroom, her coworkers patted her on the back and congratulated her. She spent ten minutes in the restroom, throwing up and crying. Finally she managed enough control to wipe her eyes and to look at herself in the mirror. What a fright! She smiled for the first time in hours. “I guess I really wouldn't have done too well as a fire fighter,” she laughed to herself. “But I've got to get to the hospital. I'll call Richard from my car.”
Leaving the restroom, she walked down the hall and past the employee break room. She glanced in through the window in the door and saw Tom, Connie, and two other men and a woman sitting around the table inside. She opened the door and walked in, realizing too late that they had their heads bowed in prayer. Embarrassed, pulled toward them, uncomfortable with praying out loud to a nebulous God, she nevertheless listened for a moment. They prayed for the people in the wreck and for the leadership of the network and of the station. She realized that they were actually praying to God to bind Satan and his work at their station! As if Satan were real, and right there at the station! With that unusual new thought etched in her mind, she slipped out to find her street clothes and to head for the hospital.
Kromor, the dark lord of the station, and his horde of demons were hosting Lord Vidor of Network, along with all the demons who had come in from New York for the test run. Lord Vidor, only a lowly lesser demon thirty years ago, was now one of Satan's most powerful captains, because of the unprecedented human destruction he had caused in such a short time. Together, all of these hateful furies were celebrating simultaneously with the “911 Live” crew in the back studio, and they never noticed the concentrated prayers coming from the break room.
9
THURSDAY, JULY 20 – The families on Devon Drive had moved smoothly into summer vacation routine. Susan picked up the job she had started the previous summer at the frozen yogurt shop, working part time four out of seven days each week. The family had celebrated her seventeenth birthday a little early, on the weekend when they joined the Bryants at their mountain home.
That weekend had been intense in one sense, but the Sullivans had each found some much needed rest. Janet had slept in the car driving up, since she did not arrive home from the hospital until after one. It had taken much of that day to explain all that had happened, first to Richard, then to the children, then to the Bryants. It seemed so incongruous to be sitting in a rocking chair on the Bryants’ long porch, looking across miles of mountain valleys, and describing the frightening events of only a few hours before. The father had survived the night, as had the boy. Janet had met the young wife outside the intensive care unit, and she called several times that weekend to confirm their progress.
Susan and Amy had their own major event to review together, but of course they were not talking about it. Amy was glad that Mrs. Sullivan's experience kept everyone's attention. She discovered a remarkable result from the abortion—she actually felt much better. Although she deferred Tommy's challenge to play tennis, claiming cramps, the truth was that the instant removal of the symptoms of pregnancy, primarily her nausea and fatigue, gave her a real lift. In the short run it seemed to confirm that she had done the right thing.
And Tommy had enjoyed a slow weekend, despite his complaints about being locked up with two girls. His father and Tom Bryant made sure that he at least benefitted from plenty of exercise, including tennis and jogging.
But that had all been six weeks ago, and Tommy now spent much of each day mowing the lawns in the neighborhood with Brent, and several nights a week hanging out with the same group of older boys who had befriended the two of them in May. Sometimes they watched videos, other times they just “hung out.” Each set of parents typically thought that their boy was at the home of the other, or at the park, and so far the ruse had worked.
Amy had arranged to babysit for a steady group of young children for the summer, giving their mothers a morning or an afternoon off. She went on one date with Billy as school had ended, but any chance of a relationship between them had died. Perhaps each reminded the other of what had almost happened, and the memory was just too intense to survive a routine of occasional dates. At any rate, as Billy had said goodnight that one evening, they had both sensed that it was their last date.
Susan and Drew, on the other hand, were becoming more and more attached. Drew had a summer job at the local soft drink bottling plant. Sometimes he worked the fill line, and sometimes he assisted on the delivery trucks. The work was exhausting, with long hours, often lasting into the evening, but the pay, especially the overtime, was great. Susan really liked Drew and actually felt in those early weeks of the summer that she might for the first time in her life be falling in love. As far as she could tell, Drew felt the same.
Bobbie and Thomas also saw a lot of each other, and their relationship also deepened as the summer allowed them to spend more time together. Bobbie was working at a camp for disadvantaged inner-city young people, which was both exhausting and exhilarating. Thomas worked as a cashier at the neighborhood hardware store. They enjoyed many evenings together, sometimes on double dates with friends. Each of them used humor—and on one particularly tough night, prayer—to keep their very natural desires for each other in check.
On that Thursday afternoon in mid-July, Janet joined Connie Wright and Tom Spence at the same restaurant where she and Tom had shared lunch three months before. After their intense experience on the night of the test run, they had not really spoken much about “911 Live.” The three of them and the prayer partners of that evening had spearheaded a fund drive to help the injured father and son, William and Eddie Barnes, along with all of the other victims of the crash. The network had even contributed. The boy was still in the pediatric hospital, but the father was scheduled to begin work again next week. There was hope that neither of them would suffer permanent physical damage, if the skin grafts took, and the boy learned to walk again despite his damaged nerves.
“So, what's happening with ‘911 Live,’ Janet?” Tom asked as they finished ordering.
“As incredible as it seems to the three of us, I believe Network is going ahead with the show, and still at 7:30 on Fridays. I received a promotion package just yesterday, and as you can imagine, the video shorts contain several shots of us in action.”
“Can you see wh
ere this is leading, Janet?” Connie now asked. “Do you remember studying about the end of the age in Rome? How the emperors invented more and more live spectacles, each one more bizarre than the last, as their empire fell apart because there were no moral values left in people? Well, ‘911 Live’ is easily comparable to a live Roman spectacle, and when the 911 Channel starts next year, people will be able to watch death, destruction, and debauchery twenty-four hours a day, right from their living rooms.”
“I wouldn't have believed it—or I guess I wouldn't have thought about it—except for your bringing it to me, and for our experience that night. It would have sailed right past me, along with all the other new shows. But what can anyone do about it? I mean, this is the national network we're talking about.”
“You know Janet, Connie and I have been talking since that night, and praying. It occurs to us that Bill Shaw never really intended to keep an open mind, as he told us. He never actually considered stopping this show. He just hoped that we would change and go along with the decision he had already made. If we had liked what we saw that night, then Bill could keep his show, his good relationship with Network, and some of his more experienced employees. We haven't told him this yet—we wanted to talk to you first and see if you will join us—but his plan is not going to work. He's going to lose at least five of us, if he goes ahead with the show. Janet, what about you?”
Just then their orders arrived, so Janet took that extra moment to look around, as if she could find help in the restaurant, and to collect her thoughts.
“I, uh, remember you talking about that when we started, but I didn't know if you still intended to go through with it. When would you resign?”
“Since the show starts in September, we will resign about two weeks before the first episode. If we did it now, it would be lost in the summer doldrums, when no one is focusing on the fall season. If we wait too long, there will be no time for a reaction. We know that it's a long shot, but we're praying that in the midst of all the build-up to the new shows, maybe our action will be taken as ‘news’ and will actually be picked up and have some effect,” explained Tom. “At first we were incensed that we were personally identifiable in the promotion videos. But then we thought how powerful it would be if all three of the station personnel in the promotions resigned simultaneously because of this show! What do you think?”
On the Edge Page 18
