"Only In the Movies"
Chapter Two
Kelly heard Gage calling for him, and then a loud 'ba-ang!'
Chet went racing up the stairs and into the library.
Gage was nowhere in sight.
"Hey, John! C'mon, man! Quit the clowning! Cap' just ain't gonna see the humor in this!" Kelly annoyedly added.
"Ga-age? " Kelly nervously called out, following a thorough reconnoiter of the room. "I know you're in here. I've been watching the door, and I would've seen you leave..." his words trailed off and a tingle went up his spine. "GAGE! GET OUT HERE! RIGHT NOW!" he demanded.
But his only answer was dead silence.
Chet shivered, and not from the cold. "...Plea-ease?" he tacked on rather pitifully.
John Gage gradually came to at the bottom of the steep, hidden stairway. The groggy rescuer groaned and rolled onto his stomach. When he opened his eyes, he couldn't see a thing. Either it was pitch black…or he was totally blind. He picked his aching, spinning head up off the floor and shook it in an attempt to clear some of the cobwebs, and put a stop to the loud, high-pitched 'ringing' in his ears. The only thing the shaking accomplished however, was to increase his discomfort—tenfold!
Somehow, the paramedic managed to make it up onto his hands and knees. He spotted a thin strip of light and slowly crawled over to it.
Gage reached up, groping in the darkness for a doorknob.
There wasn't one.
So, he leaned against the hard surface, for support, and attempted to stand. The surface may have been hard, but it certainly wasn't solid. It gave way and the whoozy fireman went sprawling out of the concealed room and onto the polished marble tiles of the mansion's entrance hall.
The paramedic emitted several more moans and groans and slowly and painfully began picking himself up off of the cold, stone floor.
John just stood there in the entryway, swaying. He was too dazed, disoriented and dizzy, to do anything else. The fireman shut his squinting eyes and placed his hands over his ears in another attempt to block out the painfully loud, and incredibly annoying, high-pitched 'ringing'.
Kelly backed out of the library and started heading for the stairs. He stopped dead in his tracks and his mouth dropped open. There, in the middle of the mansion's entrance hall, stood his no-longer-missing amigo. "Hey! How'd you do that?" he wondered, and raced down the steps to stand face to face with his finally found friend. "Will yah quit the clowning, already?" Chet pleaded, as the paramedic completely ignored him.
Gage staggered back a few feet before finally regaining his balance. He opened his eyes, saw Kelly standing there, and quietly inquired, "What's that noise?"
Chet listened, carefully. All his straining ears could detect was the loud, steady ticking of the hall clock. He stared at Gage's bare head and empty hands for a few miffed moments and then threw his arms up in complete exasperation. "That does it!" he declared and began heading for the front door. "I'm out a' here! I ain't getting the Cap' mad at me!"
Gage turned and watched in confusion as his obviously angry associate suddenly went stomping off. "What's the matter?" he wondered in a whisper. A sudden wave of nausea came over him. He grabbed his churning guts and immediately dropped to his knees.
"Man, if I were you, I'd find my helmet real quick!" Chet chastised. He grabbed a hold of the front door's knob and glanced back over his shoulder. "Before Cap' comes bargin'—" he saw something glistening on the back of his now kneeling comrade's hanging head. "Whoa-oah! You're not clowning!" he quickly realized and went rushing back up to his collapsed companion. "That's real blood!" He grabbed Gage by the arms and slowly straightened him up. "What happened?"
John tried blinking his blurred vision into focus. He saw Kelly's lips moving, but couldn't hear a word he was saying...on account of that dang incessant 'ringing'! "Can you stop that noise?" he requested. Another wave of nausea washed over him. He shut his eyes tightly and lowered his throbbing head. "Please...stop that noise," he pleaded rather desperately.
"Man! You must a' really got your bell rung!" Kelly concluded.
Gage ignored him and started struggling back up onto his unsteady feet.
Chet draped the dazed paramedic's left arm around his neck, wrapped his own right arm around the whoozy man's waist, and began heading for the exit.
Mike and Marco watched their very vexed Commander climb stiffly down from Big Red and then start heading for the mansion's front door with long, deliberate strides.
The Captain crossed the porch and pushed the not completely closed portal open. "GAGE! KELLY! OUT HERE! NO-OW! THAT'S AN ORDER!"
"Cap'!" an extremely relieved Chet Kelly exclaimed. "Johnny's hurt!"
Stanley rushed into the entrance hall to lend Kelly a hand with his burden. "Hurt? What do yah mean 'hurt'? How does someone get hurt retrieving a helmet?"
"I don't know," an equally perplexed Kelly replied. "He hit the back of his head somehow!"
"What do yah mean 'somehow'?" his furious Commander further demanded. "Didn't you see what happened? You were supposed to be with him!"
They carted their cargo over to a bench in the hall, and sat him down.
Stanley stooped in front of the injured fireman and steadied him. "What happened?"
No reply.
"It's no use, Cap', " Kelly determined. "His ears must still be ringing, or something. I don't think he can hear us."
Hank slipped his hand-held from his coat pocket and thumbed it. "HT 51 to Engine 51..."
"Engine 51...Go ahead, Cap..."
"Mike, Marco, bring me a backboard, a c-collar, the spare O2 and the trauma box!" the Captain requested.
"Right away, Cap!"
Hank exhaled a weary sigh and handed his HT to Kelly. "Call it in!" he ordered and immediately began making a mental checklist of everything he had ever learned about treating victims of head trauma. 'Keep movement to a minimum...apply cervical collar...maintain an airway...administer oxygen to minimize brain swelling...monitor circulation...check for cerebrospinal fluid...dress the wound without disturbing the underlying tissue...examine the patient for any other injuries.' Station 51's Captain exhaled another exasperated sigh. Then he pulled Gage's assessment kit from the paramedic's right coat pocket, and began his initial patient survey.
Roy was standing in the corridor in front of the Nurses' Station at Rampart General's Emergency Receiving, patiently waiting for his partner to pick him up.
The door to the doctors' lounge suddenly flew open and the ambulance attendants he'd just rode in with came hurrying out into the hall.
The driver spotted DeSoto and waved him over. "You ain't gonna believe this," he predicted as the paramedic came trotting up, "but we just got called back to that creepy old house!"
"You can't be serious!" Roy exclaimed, fulfilling the attendant's prediction.
The ambulance driver nodded. "You wanna ride back with us?"
"I'm still waiting for my partner," Roy replied, and pointed to his stack of equipment cases.
"You'll have a lot shorter wait if you come with us, " the other attendant assured him. "Our patient is your partner!"
DeSoto gulped, in both shock and disbelief. Then he ran over, gathered up his medical gear and went racing towards the ER's exit.
The paramedic beat the attendants to their ambulance.
"Where did you find him?" a flustered Hank Stanley inquired, when he finally finished administering his first-aid, and immobilizing their…victim.
"He was standing right there," Chet replied and pointed to the middle of the entrance hall.
During the course of Gage's medical exam, Hank had discovered a mass of bruises. "He must've slipped and fallen down the stairs," he quickly concluded.
Kelly shook his helmeted head. "I don't think so, Cap'. The last time I saw him, he went into that library...where we found that lady with the big bump on the back of her head...the next time I saw him, he was standing right there...with a big, bloody bump on the back of his head. I heard this real loud 'ba-ang— "
"—Why?" the Captain suddenly demanded, and stood there, staring up at the entrance hall's incredibly high ceiling. "Why can't two grown men rescue one helmet—without one of them nearly being killed?"
His questions went unanswered.
Hank's gaze returned to the young man they had just buckled down to the backboard.
The dressing on John's scalp wound had become saturated with blood, and his unequal pupils were no longer visible.
Stanley dropped to a knee beside their dozing trauma patient and gave his left shoulder a gentle shaking. "Jo-ohn? Wake up, pal! C'mon! You can't go to sleep right now!"
John tried to toss his heavily bandaged head, but couldn't. "Knock it off! Will yah?" he requested, his aggravated voice muffled by his oxygen mask.
Hank frowned, as his young fireman friend refused to open his eyes. "GAGE!" he shouted, and shook their unresponsive victim even harder.
"Leave me alone!" their now agitated patient pleaded of the person that kept interrupting his sleep, and started struggling against his restraints. "Leave me alone! LEAVE ME ALO—!" the paramedic's mouth stopped moving and his completely immobilized body suddenly went completely limp.
Stanley grabbed Gage's left wrist and immediately felt for a pulse. Fortunately, his probing fingers found one. Hank exhaled a silent sigh of relief. He released the paramedic's forearm and flicked the penlight back in his pried open eyes. "What am I gonna do with you, pal?" he quietly inquired of his unconscious crewman. "I swear, if I ever find out that you got hurt goofing off, I-I'll...." he let his threat just hang there in the air.
The sound of an approaching siren grew louder and louder and finally stopped.
Seconds later, Roy DeSoto came running into the entrance hall. He dropped himself, and his paramedic equipment, onto the hall floor and gave his partner a quick, but thorough, once over. "How long has he been unconscious?"
"He passed out about a minute or so ago," Stanley solemnly replied, and handed the vertical paramedic his medical notes.
Seeing that the patient was already packaged and ready to transport, DeSoto told the two white-coated men who had accompanied him, "Let's go! I'll call it in on the way!"
The attendants nodded. They transferred John Gage's backboard from the hall bench to their stretcher, strapped it securely into place, and then started towing their patient out to their waiting ambulance.
Roy watched the pair wheel his partner away and then turned to his Captain. "What the hell happened?"
"That's what I'd like to know!" Stanley smartly replied "And that's what I intend to find out! Chet take the Squad! Mike, Marco, I want this place turned inside out!"
"Aye, aye, Cap!" Kelly readily acknowledged. He snatched up the trauma box and gladly followed DeSoto out of the creepy 'place'.
"He hit the back of the head somehow," Kelly informed Gage's still completely-in-the-dark friend. "It was bleeding pretty heavily. He's gonna need some stitches. Claims he can't remember what happened. Says he can't hear anything because there's this loud 'ringing' in his ears..."
DeSoto gave his moustached informant a grateful nod and then climbed up into the back of the ambulance with the Bio-phone and their drug box.
Kelly closed the vehicle's back doors, rapped an 'all clear' and then watched it pull away. He gave the creepy-crawly dark dwelling a good-riddance glare. Then he shuddered and started heading for the Squad.
Chet was really relieved to be leaving that 'way weird' 'banging' abode behind him.
"What are we looking for?" Mike wondered, as the three remaining firemen began searching the library on the mansion's second-floor.
"His helmet," Hank replied, and appeared puzzled, as the object of their search was not immediately visible. "It has to be in here somewhere! He didn't have it with him when Chet found him."
Stoker stopped, right in mid-search, and stood there, with his hands resting upon his hips. "Cap', everything about this rescue has been really strange."
"Yeah, Cap'," Lopez agreed. "Perhaps we should call the police?"
"I intend to," Stanley told him. "Maybe they can track down Mr. Bentley. Someone needs to inform him of his wife's whereabouts."
"No, Cap," Marco corrected. "I meant, that the police should probably come here."
Hank saw his engineer nodding in agreement, and jokingly inquired, "Why? You think somebody hit him over the back of the head and stole his helmet?" The Captain saw the looks on the faces of his crew and realized that was exactly what the two men were thinking. "That's ridiculous!"
"First, the rescue doesn't match the call..." Marco immediately reminded the skeptic. "Then Johnny gets 'mysteriously' hurt..."
"Someone had to call the fire department," Stoker stubbornly insisted. "I think there's somebody hiding in this house!"
This time, Lopez nodded his support of the engineer's notion.
"C'mon!" Hank urged. "There's got to be an explanation to all this 'strange' business. When we find the helmet, I'm sure we'll find the explanation—a reasonable explanation," their still skeptical Captain added, suppressing a smile all the while.
An hour later, the three searchers finished their thorough, and exhausting, exploration of the enormous mansion, and regrouped in the entrance hall—empty-handed!
Stoker sank wearily down onto the wooden bench. "Well, Cap', are you convinced now?"
Stanley sighed and tried rubbing some of the stiffness from the muscles in the back of his neck. "I'm convinced we're wasting our time here. C'mon! Let's get back to the Station. I wanna call the hospital."
Lopez looked tremendously disappointed. "You're not going to call the police?"
"And tell them what?" Hank wondered. "Hello, I'd like to report a missing helmet? I don't think that would go over too big."
"Maybe not, " Mike admitted. "But what about attempted murder?"
Stanley stared at his engineer in complete and utter amazement. "And I thought Gage had a vivid imagination! C'mon! Let's go get some sleep! It'll give your imagination a chance to rest…after running wild like that."
But the engineer remained undeterred. "Aren't you curious?"
Their Captain exhaled a sigh of complete exhaustion. "Mike, right now, I'm more tired than curious. We can look for answers again in the morning...later this morning," he wearily tacked on, on his way to the exit.
Fifteen minutes later, Station 51's Commander-In-Chief found himself on the phone in the rec' room. "Uh-huh...I see...Uh-huh," he paused to pass DeSoto's report on to his skeleton engine crew. "He came to on the way in. No skull fractures. No brain hemorrhaging. No broken bones. Just a mild concussion, a dozen stitches and a bunch a' bruises."
Stoker and Lopez exhaled sighs of relief.
The Captain uncovered the phone's mouthpiece. "Already did! A replacement should be arriving any minute now. Right! Thanks, Roy!" Hank concluded his conversation and returned the phone's handset to its cradle. "Thank God!" he exclaimed and began heading for his bunk. "Lights out in two minutes, gentlemen!" he warned.
Mike flicked off the rec' room's lights and then he and Marco followed their leader over to the dorm.
TBC