by Jamie Davis
“Zach,” Dean said carefully. “I don’t know what your run in was or how it changed your outlook on the job. Frankly, I don’t want to know. What did you call me here for? It wasn’t to reveal that you know all about me because that’s just creepy, and doesn’t really make me want to stay and talk with you, let alone share a meal with you.”
“I called you here, Dean, to try and save you.” Zach said. “You can’t know the danger you’re in. Brynne is completely blind to it because James has her wrapped around his vampiric little finger. She can’t see the risks when they’re right in bed next to her. But you, Dean, are in a position to do some good and maybe save Brynne in the process. I tried, and she completely rejected what I was trying to do. I knew I had to get out when James threatened me if I kept trying to get between him and Brynne. So I resigned and left Elk City EMS to work alongside some people who are trying to do some good and not covering up the mess these monsters are making in our society. Something has to be done. In order to do what we need to do, we need someone on the inside who can help us expose the creatures among us. People have a right to know who their neighbors and co-workers really are, don’t you think?”
Dean was dumbfounded. When he thought about meeting his predecessor at Station U, this was not what he had expected to hear. This was the most paranoid rant he’d ever heard. His own interactions with his patients didn’t leave him feeling this negative. For the most part, they seemed to be normal people with some unusual abilities. They were the creatures made out to be monsters in legends and horror movies, but aside from a single run in with one misguided individual, they had treated him with respect. Clearly, Zach didn’t see it that way, and he suspected that it was knowledge of his interaction with Lydia the siren that made this guy think he would be of like mind. What was he supposed to do about it?
Zach answered his question without hearing. “Dean, I know this is a lot to take in. I was overwhelmed when I was first contacted and asked to help build a safer society. It didn’t make sense to me in the beginning either, but over time I began to see things their way. I think you might, too.”
“I don’t know, Zach,” Dean started. “I don’t think I’m the right person to have this conversation with. Perhaps you should contact someone with a little more authority than I have about this.”
“I don’t expect you to make up your mind right now,” Zach said. “I just want you to keep your eyes open and see what’s really going on in this community. Later, you might feel different. Will you do that?”
“Uh, I guess so,” Dean said. He was uncomfortable and wanted to get out of this awkward conversation.
“I have one more favor to ask,” Zach said. “I’d like to ask that you don’t tell Brynne, or anyone else, that you talked with me, at least for a little while. She and I didn’t part on good terms, and she might think less of you if she knew you and I met.”
Dean thought for a moment. It wouldn’t hurt to keep this meeting to himself for a little bit. At least he could wait until he found out what the end game was. “I guess I can agree to that, at least for a short time,” Dean said. “I don’t think about Unusuals the same way you do, but I’ll keep my eyes open.”
“That’s all I’m asking,” Zach said with a grin, leaning back in the seat. He looked up, and Dean saw the waitress arriving with their food. She set the plate with two slices of pizza down in front of Dean along with a soda in a hard plastic cup. She slid the plate with Zach’s cheeseburger and fries in front of him and set his coke down on the table.
“Can I get you anything else?” she asked.
“I think we’re good,” Zach said. “We’ll call you if we need anything.”
The two paramedics watched her walk away and began to eat. Dean thought as he chewed. This was all very strange and smacked of something more sinister, but Zach had made it seem almost reasonable. All they wanted him to do was to keep his eyes open to abuses of the system by his patients. He had seen one such situation with the girl in cardiac arrest after a botched attempt to turn her into a vampire. He had also been directly affected by Lydia the siren when she tried to charm him.
Zach didn’t bring anything else up about Unusuals, steering the conversation around to Dean’s time in the academy paramedic program. He asked about instructors who were still there teaching and what Dean thought of them. Dean answered but was focused on Zach’s earlier statements. He wasn’t comfortable with the extreme position Zach seemed to have. If he hadn’t had the experiences he had over the past few weeks, it was likely he would have disregarded him completely. Dean would keep quiet about it, at least for a little while. He needed time to make more sense of it. Was he being recruited for some “anti-Unusual” movement?
They finished their meals quickly. Paramedics rarely ate slowly, a side effect of always being called away to respond during meals. In this case Dean just wanted to leave. Dean put a ten-dollar bill down on the table to cover his part of the meal. Zach put two fives down and they headed toward the door.
“Dean,” Zach began as they stood on the sidewalk in front of the restaurant. “Thank you for keeping my confidence on this. Think about what you’re doing and when you’re ready, give me a call. You have my phone number. You can call me if you want and we can meet again. Otherwise, just keep your eyes open. I think in time you’ll see what is going on under the surface. I’ll be in touch.”
“Okay, Zach,” Dean said. “I don’t think like you do on this subject, but I’ll keep our little meeting to myself for a little while. Fair enough?”
“Fair enough,” Zach said.
They shook hands and headed off to their vehicles. Dean sat down in his pickup truck and couldn’t shake the feeling that he’d done something wrong. He probably should tell Brynne about this meeting but he’d promised to be silent for a short while, and he didn’t see any harm in that. What could possibly happen in the next few days?
When Dean entered the squad room for his next shift twenty minutes early, he saw Brook and Tammy, who looked up from the chairs where they sat in front of the TV.
“Hey, Probie,” Tammy said.
“What brings you into work early?” Brook asked.
“I was out and about and decided that it didn’t make sense to go all the way home first,” Dean answered. “Anyway, I wanted to talk with you two about something. If that’s okay?”
“Sure, Dean,” Tammy said. “What’s on your mind?”
“I had a run in with James. I wanted to see if you two had any insights about how to best deal with him. Can I take him at his word?”
Brook shared a conspiratorial glance with Tammy, then Tammy nodded. Brook turned back to look at Dean. “Don’t you think you should check in with Brynne about this? She’s your field training officer after all.”
“I can’t talk to her about this,” Dean said. “She may be my FTO, but she’s also his girlfriend. That may cloud her judgment about him. The fact is, James talked to me one-on-one after a call that raised some questions, and I began to have my own questions about the work we’re doing. Frankly, he scared the crap out of me.”
Tammy chuckled, “He has that effect on people, that’s for sure. What did he say to you?”
“He didn’t threaten me or anything if that’s what you mean,” Dean said. “He basically told me that I should wait until I understood the Unusuals’ culture and way of handling things before I took any action regarding what I saw on that call. He also told me to deal directly with him if I had a problem and he would explain things to me.” Dean glanced up from looking at the floor. “He also said he meant me no harm.”
Dean looked at them, but they just stared back at him, allowing him to continue. “The thing is, I get the sense that he’s pretty old fashioned about how he deals with things. He’s like the Baron of Elk City or something, which means that he’s still living in the type of feudal culture that he used to live in hundreds of years ago. Is he a nice guy who deals with things in a reasonable fashion, or is he some feudal overlo
rd who does whatever he wants because no one can stop him?”
The women shared a glance as if to decide who should answer. “That’s a loaded question,” Brook said. “It has two parts. I’ll address the last question first. James is in charge of the Unusual population in and around Elk City. He’s the final answer for anything that needs to get done, and they will listen if he gives an order, so, in that sense, he’s a feudal overlord. But, he is ultimately a man of his word. If he says he means you no harm, he means it. If he says you can come to him if you have any problems with any of your patients, believe him. He’ll deal with it. That might be because you’re Brynne’s partner, or it might be because you represent an important resource for his subjects. Does that make sense?”
“I guess so,” Dean said. “So he can do anything he wants, but he’s an honorable man, er, vampire.”
“Exactly,” Tammy said. “The other thing to remember is that while the Unusual population has to listen to him, we have our own hierarchy and leadership. We don’t have to listen to him at all, and he and his kind depend on our leaders to take care of them and keep their secret so they can go on living among us. It’s a two-way street.”
“So you don’t think that it’s weird that the bogeymen of our childhoods live side by side among us?” Dean asked.
“No,” Tammy chuckled. “Not anymore. I sure thought it was weird in the beginning, though. When I first got this assignment, I was completely weirded out by some of the things I saw - things I just take in stride now.”
“Me, too,” Brook said. “I used to get nightmares from some of the patients we ran into. Not because of anything they did to me or anyone else, but just because of who they were. I ended up getting some counseling about it and realized that they were just people. They have families and businesses and jobs, and just want to go about their lives without anyone messing with them. They pay taxes, too, which is why Doc Spirelli organized the first Station U unit here. They had the right to have access to emergency care like anyone else, and so the EMS-U system came into being here in Elk City.”
“So you haven’t seen any of them abuse their powers or take advantage of normal humans?” Dean asked.
“Nothing more serious than what happened with you and the siren, Lydia,” Brook said. “She is really sorry, by the way. She did what she did out of fear and misunderstanding rather than any sort of malice. She moved here from down south where the population is not as progressive as we are here in the more urban areas of the country.”
Dean thought on that in light of what Zach had talked with him about earlier. It didn’t really match up with what the ex-paramedic said. It did, however, match up with what he had seen with his own two eyes. The patients were all genuinely thankful for the care they rendered. So what was it that Zach had against Unusuals? Were his concerns of imminent danger really valid? His attention was pulled to the door when Brynne entered.
“Hey Dean, hi ladies!” Brynne said in a cheerful voice.
“Hi Brynne,” Tammy said. “Why so chipper? Did you get a good day’s sleep or something?
“I’ll bet it was more like ‘or something,’” Brook interjected. “Just look at the grin on her face.” The day shift paramedics burst into laughter at the blush that crept up Brynne’s face. They laughed even harder when they saw Dean’s look of discomfort.
“Sorry, Dean,” Tammy said. “Girl talk should be meant for girls’ ears only.”
“Yeah,” Brook said. “Don’t write us up for hostile work environment.”
“I think I’ll go and get an early start on the bag checks in the ambulance,” Dean said. “I’ll leave you ladies to your private talk.”
He crossed the room to the ambulance bay door and left them to their conversation. The diversion was actually good. He didn’t want to talk with Brynne right now because he still needed to wrap his head around everything he had learned today. He climbed into the ambulance and began to go through the bags with the iPad checklist.
Dean was almost done with his checklists when he heard the door to the squad room open. A few moments later, Brynne showed up outside the open rear doors of the ambulance. “Sorry about the direction the conversation took back there, Dean. Sometimes girls will be girls.”
“I’m a big boy, Brynne. I can handle it.” Dean said with a smile. “I really did want to get a head start on the inventory.”
“Are you almost done?” Brynne asked. “What can I help with?”
“I’ve only got the trauma bag to go through and I’m finished. Maybe you could check out the Med Dispenser and see if we need to order anything from the hospital.”
“Sounds like a plan,” Brynne said. “I’ll get right on it. Then we can make a pick up later when we’re out of the station.”
The beginning of shift chores went quickly, and they were soon back in the squad room. Brynne was checking through the shift email that went out to each crew alerting them of news, training opportunities and medication changes, and Dean was reading a book on Egyptian mythology. He heard her sigh as she stared at the screen.
“What’s up?” Dean asked, looking up from his book.
“Have you checked your email from headquarters?” Brynne asked.
“No,” Dean said, “Is there something important?”
“There’s a warning from headquarters to us from the police investigation division that there have been unprovoked attacks on members of the Unusual population. They’re urging us to be very careful approaching scenes where an assault might have occurred because of reprisals against us for rendering aid.”
“Why would someone do something like that?” Dean asked.
“There are groups out there who are afraid of the unknown, Dean,” Brynne said. “While most normal people live blissfully unaware that the Unusuals live among us, there are a few who know the truth. Among them are some who think that we’re letting monsters live among us who will eventually do us harm.”
“Have you ever met someone like that?” Dean asked. “Are we in danger just because we provide emergency aid to them?” How we are to protect ourselves?”
“Your predecessor, Zach, had doubts about what we do, Dean,” Brynne said. “He was never comfortable caring for our group of patients. Eventually he decided he wouldn’t do it anymore. One day he refused to care for a vampire patient who had a drug problem. He would feed on junkies until he overdosed. Zach said that we should let him die because he was a danger to the human addicts he fed on. It didn’t matter if the relationship was consensual, Zach thought it was unnatural. Let’s face it, Unusuals behaviors are unnatural by human standards. That was the final straw from headquarters’ standpoint. You can’t just refuse to treat a patient you don’t like whether they’re a different breed, race, or because they smell bad. That’s abandonment, and it violated his license.”
Dean was suddenly uncomfortable. His earlier conversation with Zach sent a chill down his spine. He agreed with some of the points that Zach had made. Did that put him at risk for losing his job? He liked the work, but he had some reservations about the way the Unusuals lived and the powers they wielded. Was having that conversation with Zach justification for firing him?
“You alright, Dean?” Brynne asked. “You zoned out.”
“It’s just that I’d never thought about it that way.” Dean responded. “It seems a stupid reason to lose your job.” He paused as a thought occurred to him. “Um, do you think Zach’s mixed up in these attacks on the Unusuals?”
“No,” Brynne said. “I just don’t think he was up for this kind of work. Some people aren’t. I don’t think he’d actually hurt anyone. But, there are people out there who do horrible things based on misguided beliefs. We should make sure we’re prepared for something unusual on our calls.”
“Isn’t that the very nature of what we do here at Station U?” Dean said with a smile.
Brynne laughed. “Yeah, I guess it is. Still it doesn’t hurt to be cautious. Remember to keep your eyes open.”
; They both jumped up as the tones sounded over the squad room speakers. “Medical Box 231, burn victim, 3521 Martin Highway.” Dean grabbed the dispatch paper as it came off the printer and headed out to the ambulance bay. Brynne jumped up into the driver’s seat and started up the diesel engine as Dean headed around to the passenger side.
He climbed in and put them responding, and then switched the radio channel over to the appropriate med channel to get the additional information. The dispatcher came on almost instantly. “U-191, respond for a thirty-four-year-old female victim of an assault. Severe burns reported by bystanders. Fire and police also en route. Use caution as you approach.”
“Received, respond with caution.” Dean hung up the mic on the dash. “What do you think we’re getting into here?”
“I don’t know,” Brynne said. “You know where the fire extinguisher is in case the assailant is still around and decides to set fire to anything else, right?” Dean nodded. “Hopefully the police get there before we do and can lock down the scene.”
It took them 10 minutes to get to the location of the call. The fire engine and police cars lit up the scene with their lights. Brynne pulled up near the fire engine but parked in such a way that she could still pull out without backing up when they had to leave. There were two firefighter EMTs next to the engine’s cab and one of them stood up as they arrived to wave them over. Dean grabbed the med bag and oxygen airway bag from the compartment on his side while Brynne walked around and climbed in the back to get the heart monitor and the trauma bag.
Dean headed over to where the two firefighters were and saw a what he thought was a pile of black rags on the ground. Then it moved, and he saw cracked red and raw skin underneath the charred clothing. Damn, this was bad. He caught a whiff of the sickly sweet smell of burned flesh, and his stomach churned. They already had a non-rebreather mask on her hooked up to their portable oxygen tank from the fire engine’s first responder kit.
