| Mystery and Crime Fiction posted June 25, 2020 | Chapters: |
...16 17 -18- 19... 
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They get to the hospital, but they're not done yet.
A chapter in the book Looking for Orion - 2
Clear!
by DeboraDyess
| Background A fight for survival, a struggle for faith. |
Background
Brothers Jack and Cody go camping for the weekend. Cody stumbles onto a botched assassination attempt. He is injured, and Jack must get him out of the state park and to help. A struggle for survival, a battle for faith.
In previous chapters: When Cody McClellan's wife, Pam, is murdered in a robbery, it changes the family's lives forever. His mother moves in with him to help with his children. His brother, Jack, loses faith in God as he watches Cody grieve his loss.
Two years later, things are more normal. Jack decides it's time for him to take Cody on a weekend camping trip to 'relax and get away from it all'. At first, Cody refuses, but Jack insists, pointing out that Cody isn't trusting God to care for his kids if he won't leave them for a few days. The brothers arrive at the state park, hike to a campsite they used as kids and set up camp. Jack decides to nap; Cody opts for a hike. He stumbles into a botched assassination attempt and, while trying to get away, is shot. The intended victim runs and the hitmen chase him, leaving Cody for dead. Jack hears the shot and finds his brother, critically wounded, and they flee. They happen upon a father and son, who help them in their escape.
Ashton rose from where he'd ducked in the front passenger seat floorboard to stare behind them, his dark eyes wide with fear and amazement. "Man," he breathed.
"Are you okay, Son?" his dad cried from beside him. When Ashton didn't answer, he repeated the question, louder and more insistent. Reaching over, the big man grasped his boy's shoulder and shook.
Ashton nodded wordlessly first, then whispered, "Yeah, Dad," but never took his eyes off the road behind them. "Do you think they'll follow us?" he asked Jack.
"Not right away," Jack said, hoping he was right. "They were on foot." He lifted Cody's head into his lap, brushing hair from his face. "Cody? Hey, Code, wake up," he urged quietly. "Come on, Cody. Open your eyes for me!"
Cody lay totally limp in his arms. His breathing was shallow, his face white and cold. Jack touched his left hand; icy. He looked up and caught the driver's gaze in the rearview mirror. "He's in shock. We've got to get him there." His throat felt clamped shut, challenging every word. "As fast as we can."
"I'll get you there, mister," the man said, with more bravado than he could possibly feel after the events of the last few minutes. "Don't let the looks of this old hunk of junk fool you. Rebuilt the engine myself, didn't I, Ash. It's in top shape."
For some reason, Jack took assurance from the man's deep, gentle voice and calm manner. He took a deep breath, trying to shake off some of the apprehensions that gnawed at his heart.
"There's a blanket in the back," Ashton offered. The boy turned, got on his knees in the seat and carefully tried to lift Cody's feet onto the window sill, hoping, Jack assumed, to increase blood flow to the injured man's heart and lungs. He realized quickly that Cody's long body would never fit into the tight space and gave up. Jack reached over the seat, retrieved the Navajo-print blanket and covered him, rocking his brother gently. He stared into the muted browns and blues of the covers, tried to regulate his breathing, watching for any sign of movement in Cody's face.
"How close you think they are?" Ashton wondered, looking back again.
"God's closer," his father said, his bass voice filling the car. "He parted the sea to keep the Egyptians away from the Hebrews. I 'magine he can keep those guys away from us." He made eye contact with Jack through the rearview. "Joe," he said. "Joe Evans. But I figure we ought to be on first name basis if we're going through this together."
'Great,' Jack thought. 'All this happens, and I'm stuck with a preacher.' Maybe that would work out okay, too, he decided. Maybe this kind giant had a direct line to Heaven.
He suddenly remembered Cody's cell phone. They were out of the hills now, racing at neck-breaking speed toward town. He jerked the iPhone from the backpack and dialed 911.
"Where are you, sir," the dispatcher asked in a near-monotone after he relayed his story.
"On the farm to market road between Deer Creek and the highway. I don't know the number." Jack strained to remember the designation of the country road, frantic that the dispatcher wouldn't be able to find them if he couldn't come up with an exact answer. He looked up at his new-found hero, who glanced in the rearview again and shrugged.
"We're sending a car." The man paused. "Sir, are you aware that making a false report to 911 is a crime, punishable--"
"This is not a false report!" Jack bellowed into the phone.
Ashton Evans' eyes grew wide again and he glanced at his father.
Jack looked at them and then back to Cody. He lowered his voice, forcing himself to calm down.
"I'm Detective John Ryan McClellan. I go by Jack. My badge number is 118256. Check with the desk sergeant on duty. I took a day of vacation to camp with my brother."
"We're sending a car, sir," the dispatcher repeated, unconvinced. "Can you describe your vehicle?"
"An older brown Ford station wagon. I don't know the make or the model, but we're going about 90. He ought to be able to find us."
They sped on. Joe glanced at them often in the rearview mirror, looking on with incredibly calm, strong eyes, giving Jack his strength. He had been right about the car. It flew.
After a few quiet, tense minutes a state trooper's vehicle, lights flashing, pulled along side them. Jack watched the strobing light reflect off of the rearview mirror onto the darkness of his rescuers face, mesmerized. The trooper hit the horn and Jack looked over, the spell of the light broken. It was a trooper he knew, although he couldn't put a name with the man's face or remember why they knew each other. The trooper nodded at Jack as recognition crossed his face and spoke briefly into the handset of his radio.
"Detective McClellan," the dispatcher called from the cell phone in Jack's hand. Jack noticed that his tired, bored voice had been energized by the report from the trooper. "We have confirmation of the situation from the state police. Officers are en route to the park and we're also sending an escort for you. The emergency helicopter is already in route to another situation on the far side of the county. An EMT unit will meet you on the road. Please watch for him and pull over so that they can--"
"Escort's fine, but we're not pulling over," Jack interrupted.
"Sir, the EMT--"
"No." Jack looked into the rearview mirror, catching Joe Evans' charcoal eyes staring back at him. "If I let him go ..." Jack started. His voice trailed to nothing.
"If God wants him you can't hang on tight enough to keep him here, son," Evans said, "but if you want to take him all the way in we'll do it."
"We're not stopping," Jack told the man on the other end of the phone. "Get a trauma team ready. He's A negative, and he's lost a lot of blood. " He blinked, swallowing a hard knot of fear in his throat, and relayed what he knew about Cody's condition to the dispatcher, trusting the man to forward it to the hospital. 'If God wants him, you can't hold on tight enough to keep him here' echoed through his mind.
Two cars--one unmarked, the other a state trooper car--roared past them, lights and sirens on both screeching their approach and subsequent departure as they raced to the state park.
"Get them," Ashton said aloud.
As they neared the city another car, a city cop, pulled onto the road from the shoulder to escort them in. They sped through city streets, already beginning to crowd with early Friday traffic. A red Honda tried to cut between the police escort and the dusty old station wagon to catch an upcoming exit. Joe muttered, 'All the world is full of morons,' under his breath and hit the gas. The Honda fell back, the exit missed. Curious, craning faces of the drivers they raced past made Jack angry. Their lives were unaffected. Those drivers had no idea of what the morning had held for them. They were just a mild curiosity; something to discuss over dinner. 'Hey, Hon, see anything on the news about...'
They passed the exit to their part of the city. Jack strained his neck to watch it. Somewhere back there, Rachel would be laughing with one of her co-workers, sharing her plans for spoiling her grandchildren as she wandered to the car, her half-day over. The children would be glancing at the clocks on the walls of their classrooms, wishing for the long day to end so they could play their weekend away. Laine would be calmly coaxing her kindergarteners to recognize a word or a sequence of colors. When he could not see the exit anymore Jack turned back to face forward. Streets he knew like the back of his hand flew by so quickly that he lost track of where they were. Joe Evans kept his eyes on the road, following the police car like a pro.
The white brick structure of the hospital loomed in front of them, growing larger. Jack willed them to arrive faster; for the road between them to disappear and allow the car to suddenly be there, 'beam-me-up' style. Cars seemed to slow as they approached and Jack whispered, "Get out of the way," unaware that he had spoken the words until Ashton repeated them.
As they pulled into the emergency entrance, the car doors were pulled open and an army of hands reached in, pulling Cody from Jack's grasp. Jack stumbled from the car after them, his legs sore and numb. He realized that his blue jeans were wet and looked down at them as he walked. Bright red blood stained his pants. He fought the rise of panic, jogging after the gurney that carried Cody to help. A nurse fell into step beside him and a uniformed policeman, running from his car, joined them on Jack's other side.
"Jack, what the hell happened?"
Jack glanced at the man. Rudy Sotello.
With everything else that happened that morning, it didn't even strike Jack to consider it strange.
"Get my mom, Rudy," Jack ordered. "I don't want her to hear this over the radio."
"You got it."
"What time did this happen?" the nurse asked, pulling Jack's attention away from Rudy, away from the crowd of people wheeling Cody into an exam room.
"I don't know." He thought for a minute and shook his head. He tried to calculate the time from the 7:30 pick-up; breakfast, the drive out, hiking and setting up..."Maybe...10:00, 10:30. He looked at a clock as the sped beneath it. Nearly 2:15.
"Is he allergic to any medication?" The nurse fired the question at him as they rounded a corner to an exam room. The door closed between him and Cody.
"No. Wait ... yeah. Codeine, I think." Jack couldn't take his eyes off the door, couldn't look at the nurse. He wouldn't have been able to describe her to save his life. Or Cody's.
"Wait here. A doctor will be out as soon as we know anything." She disappeared into the room.
Jack followed her. He leaned against the wall just inside the door, trying to be out of the way as he watched them transfer Cody from the gurney to an exam bed.. The antiseptic smell of the room nauseated him. The back-and-forth of the people in the room was overwhelming.
"No pulse," a big male nurse announced.
"There was one when we took him out of the car," a woman answered.
"Well, not now."
Jack swallowed hard. He felt the room spin around him, felt everything fall, out of control.
A tall, elega-looking red head opened the flannel shirt and cut through the make-shift sling, moved the injured arm and began chest compressions. "Get the crash cart over here," she ordered. "Where's that A Neg? Kitman's going to want to cross match."
A small, dark-haired woman entered the room. People started shouting information, most of which Jack didn't understand. She issued orders with the command and tact of a Marine Corps sergeant. Organized chaos filled the room. "Do we have a name?" she asked.
"McClellan. Cody."
"Well, let's see what we can do for McClellan, Cody. Have you cross matched? Yeah? Good. I want two more units of A neg on the rapid infuser. Let's see if we can get him going again, shall we?"
The red headed nurse began to move. The doctor half-turned, calling over her shoulder, "Get Dr. Cox in here right now, please."
"We paged him the same time we paged you, but no answer."
"Well page him again," the petite doctor replied, "and have someone check the cafeteria. If he's stuffing his face again, I swear ..."
Rachel McClellan pushed through the doors as the doctor spoke. Jack caught her in his arms and pulled her into his chest, away from her youngest son. She fought, struggling to be beside her child. Finally, she buried her face in his shirt and threw her arms around him, hanging on with all her strength. "Oh, Jack," she cried, "what happened?"
Jack looked at the door for Rudy and realized he hadn't had time to get Rachel already. She'd heard about it on the radio, after all.
"Set 200. Stop CPR," the doctor said.
She held paddles against Cody's chest. "Clear!"
Brothers Jack and Cody go camping for the weekend. Cody stumbles onto a botched assassination attempt. He is injured, and Jack must get him out of the state park and to help. A struggle for survival, a battle for faith.
In previous chapters: When Cody McClellan's wife, Pam, is murdered in a robbery, it changes the family's lives forever. His mother moves in with him to help with his children. His brother, Jack, loses faith in God as he watches Cody grieve his loss.
Two years later, things are more normal. Jack decides it's time for him to take Cody on a weekend camping trip to 'relax and get away from it all'. At first, Cody refuses, but Jack insists, pointing out that Cody isn't trusting God to care for his kids if he won't leave them for a few days. The brothers arrive at the state park, hike to a campsite they used as kids and set up camp. Jack decides to nap; Cody opts for a hike. He stumbles into a botched assassination attempt and, while trying to get away, is shot. The intended victim runs and the hitmen chase him, leaving Cody for dead. Jack hears the shot and finds his brother, critically wounded, and they flee. They happen upon a father and son, who help them in their escape.
Ashton rose from where he'd ducked in the front passenger seat floorboard to stare behind them, his dark eyes wide with fear and amazement. "Man," he breathed.
"Are you okay, Son?" his dad cried from beside him. When Ashton didn't answer, he repeated the question, louder and more insistent. Reaching over, the big man grasped his boy's shoulder and shook.
Ashton nodded wordlessly first, then whispered, "Yeah, Dad," but never took his eyes off the road behind them. "Do you think they'll follow us?" he asked Jack.
"Not right away," Jack said, hoping he was right. "They were on foot." He lifted Cody's head into his lap, brushing hair from his face. "Cody? Hey, Code, wake up," he urged quietly. "Come on, Cody. Open your eyes for me!"
Cody lay totally limp in his arms. His breathing was shallow, his face white and cold. Jack touched his left hand; icy. He looked up and caught the driver's gaze in the rearview mirror. "He's in shock. We've got to get him there." His throat felt clamped shut, challenging every word. "As fast as we can."
"I'll get you there, mister," the man said, with more bravado than he could possibly feel after the events of the last few minutes. "Don't let the looks of this old hunk of junk fool you. Rebuilt the engine myself, didn't I, Ash. It's in top shape."
For some reason, Jack took assurance from the man's deep, gentle voice and calm manner. He took a deep breath, trying to shake off some of the apprehensions that gnawed at his heart.
"There's a blanket in the back," Ashton offered. The boy turned, got on his knees in the seat and carefully tried to lift Cody's feet onto the window sill, hoping, Jack assumed, to increase blood flow to the injured man's heart and lungs. He realized quickly that Cody's long body would never fit into the tight space and gave up. Jack reached over the seat, retrieved the Navajo-print blanket and covered him, rocking his brother gently. He stared into the muted browns and blues of the covers, tried to regulate his breathing, watching for any sign of movement in Cody's face.
"How close you think they are?" Ashton wondered, looking back again.
"God's closer," his father said, his bass voice filling the car. "He parted the sea to keep the Egyptians away from the Hebrews. I 'magine he can keep those guys away from us." He made eye contact with Jack through the rearview. "Joe," he said. "Joe Evans. But I figure we ought to be on first name basis if we're going through this together."
'Great,' Jack thought. 'All this happens, and I'm stuck with a preacher.' Maybe that would work out okay, too, he decided. Maybe this kind giant had a direct line to Heaven.
He suddenly remembered Cody's cell phone. They were out of the hills now, racing at neck-breaking speed toward town. He jerked the iPhone from the backpack and dialed 911.
"Where are you, sir," the dispatcher asked in a near-monotone after he relayed his story.
"On the farm to market road between Deer Creek and the highway. I don't know the number." Jack strained to remember the designation of the country road, frantic that the dispatcher wouldn't be able to find them if he couldn't come up with an exact answer. He looked up at his new-found hero, who glanced in the rearview again and shrugged.
"We're sending a car." The man paused. "Sir, are you aware that making a false report to 911 is a crime, punishable--"
"This is not a false report!" Jack bellowed into the phone.
Ashton Evans' eyes grew wide again and he glanced at his father.
Jack looked at them and then back to Cody. He lowered his voice, forcing himself to calm down.
"I'm Detective John Ryan McClellan. I go by Jack. My badge number is 118256. Check with the desk sergeant on duty. I took a day of vacation to camp with my brother."
"We're sending a car, sir," the dispatcher repeated, unconvinced. "Can you describe your vehicle?"
"An older brown Ford station wagon. I don't know the make or the model, but we're going about 90. He ought to be able to find us."
They sped on. Joe glanced at them often in the rearview mirror, looking on with incredibly calm, strong eyes, giving Jack his strength. He had been right about the car. It flew.
After a few quiet, tense minutes a state trooper's vehicle, lights flashing, pulled along side them. Jack watched the strobing light reflect off of the rearview mirror onto the darkness of his rescuers face, mesmerized. The trooper hit the horn and Jack looked over, the spell of the light broken. It was a trooper he knew, although he couldn't put a name with the man's face or remember why they knew each other. The trooper nodded at Jack as recognition crossed his face and spoke briefly into the handset of his radio.
"Detective McClellan," the dispatcher called from the cell phone in Jack's hand. Jack noticed that his tired, bored voice had been energized by the report from the trooper. "We have confirmation of the situation from the state police. Officers are en route to the park and we're also sending an escort for you. The emergency helicopter is already in route to another situation on the far side of the county. An EMT unit will meet you on the road. Please watch for him and pull over so that they can--"
"Escort's fine, but we're not pulling over," Jack interrupted.
"Sir, the EMT--"
"No." Jack looked into the rearview mirror, catching Joe Evans' charcoal eyes staring back at him. "If I let him go ..." Jack started. His voice trailed to nothing.
"If God wants him you can't hang on tight enough to keep him here, son," Evans said, "but if you want to take him all the way in we'll do it."
"We're not stopping," Jack told the man on the other end of the phone. "Get a trauma team ready. He's A negative, and he's lost a lot of blood. " He blinked, swallowing a hard knot of fear in his throat, and relayed what he knew about Cody's condition to the dispatcher, trusting the man to forward it to the hospital. 'If God wants him, you can't hold on tight enough to keep him here' echoed through his mind.
Two cars--one unmarked, the other a state trooper car--roared past them, lights and sirens on both screeching their approach and subsequent departure as they raced to the state park.
"Get them," Ashton said aloud.
As they neared the city another car, a city cop, pulled onto the road from the shoulder to escort them in. They sped through city streets, already beginning to crowd with early Friday traffic. A red Honda tried to cut between the police escort and the dusty old station wagon to catch an upcoming exit. Joe muttered, 'All the world is full of morons,' under his breath and hit the gas. The Honda fell back, the exit missed. Curious, craning faces of the drivers they raced past made Jack angry. Their lives were unaffected. Those drivers had no idea of what the morning had held for them. They were just a mild curiosity; something to discuss over dinner. 'Hey, Hon, see anything on the news about...'
They passed the exit to their part of the city. Jack strained his neck to watch it. Somewhere back there, Rachel would be laughing with one of her co-workers, sharing her plans for spoiling her grandchildren as she wandered to the car, her half-day over. The children would be glancing at the clocks on the walls of their classrooms, wishing for the long day to end so they could play their weekend away. Laine would be calmly coaxing her kindergarteners to recognize a word or a sequence of colors. When he could not see the exit anymore Jack turned back to face forward. Streets he knew like the back of his hand flew by so quickly that he lost track of where they were. Joe Evans kept his eyes on the road, following the police car like a pro.
The white brick structure of the hospital loomed in front of them, growing larger. Jack willed them to arrive faster; for the road between them to disappear and allow the car to suddenly be there, 'beam-me-up' style. Cars seemed to slow as they approached and Jack whispered, "Get out of the way," unaware that he had spoken the words until Ashton repeated them.
As they pulled into the emergency entrance, the car doors were pulled open and an army of hands reached in, pulling Cody from Jack's grasp. Jack stumbled from the car after them, his legs sore and numb. He realized that his blue jeans were wet and looked down at them as he walked. Bright red blood stained his pants. He fought the rise of panic, jogging after the gurney that carried Cody to help. A nurse fell into step beside him and a uniformed policeman, running from his car, joined them on Jack's other side.
"Jack, what the hell happened?"
Jack glanced at the man. Rudy Sotello.
With everything else that happened that morning, it didn't even strike Jack to consider it strange.
"Get my mom, Rudy," Jack ordered. "I don't want her to hear this over the radio."
"You got it."
"What time did this happen?" the nurse asked, pulling Jack's attention away from Rudy, away from the crowd of people wheeling Cody into an exam room.
"I don't know." He thought for a minute and shook his head. He tried to calculate the time from the 7:30 pick-up; breakfast, the drive out, hiking and setting up..."Maybe...10:00, 10:30. He looked at a clock as the sped beneath it. Nearly 2:15.
"Is he allergic to any medication?" The nurse fired the question at him as they rounded a corner to an exam room. The door closed between him and Cody.
"No. Wait ... yeah. Codeine, I think." Jack couldn't take his eyes off the door, couldn't look at the nurse. He wouldn't have been able to describe her to save his life. Or Cody's.
"Wait here. A doctor will be out as soon as we know anything." She disappeared into the room.
Jack followed her. He leaned against the wall just inside the door, trying to be out of the way as he watched them transfer Cody from the gurney to an exam bed.. The antiseptic smell of the room nauseated him. The back-and-forth of the people in the room was overwhelming.
"No pulse," a big male nurse announced.
"There was one when we took him out of the car," a woman answered.
"Well, not now."
Jack swallowed hard. He felt the room spin around him, felt everything fall, out of control.
A tall, elega-looking red head opened the flannel shirt and cut through the make-shift sling, moved the injured arm and began chest compressions. "Get the crash cart over here," she ordered. "Where's that A Neg? Kitman's going to want to cross match."
A small, dark-haired woman entered the room. People started shouting information, most of which Jack didn't understand. She issued orders with the command and tact of a Marine Corps sergeant. Organized chaos filled the room. "Do we have a name?" she asked.
"McClellan. Cody."
"Well, let's see what we can do for McClellan, Cody. Have you cross matched? Yeah? Good. I want two more units of A neg on the rapid infuser. Let's see if we can get him going again, shall we?"
The red headed nurse began to move. The doctor half-turned, calling over her shoulder, "Get Dr. Cox in here right now, please."
"We paged him the same time we paged you, but no answer."
"Well page him again," the petite doctor replied, "and have someone check the cafeteria. If he's stuffing his face again, I swear ..."
Rachel McClellan pushed through the doors as the doctor spoke. Jack caught her in his arms and pulled her into his chest, away from her youngest son. She fought, struggling to be beside her child. Finally, she buried her face in his shirt and threw her arms around him, hanging on with all her strength. "Oh, Jack," she cried, "what happened?"
Jack looked at the door for Rudy and realized he hadn't had time to get Rachel already. She'd heard about it on the radio, after all.
"Set 200. Stop CPR," the doctor said.
She held paddles against Cody's chest. "Clear!"
Okay, folks ... WE ARE OUT OF THE WOODS! Hope I didn't lose you in the trees, cause the action picks up again. Critique harshly, pointing out ALL the things you think don't work, not just SPAG. Thanks for reading, and if you made it this far, please let me know what you think!
You are much appreciated.
Debby
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