"Godzilla and The Smog Monster"
Chapter Thirteen
Carl Iverson was faced with a bit of a quandary. He needed to ditch a body. But, in order to do that, he would have to get out of a burning building—crawling with firemen—unseen. He stared down at the fireman lying lifeless at his feet for a few moments…and then smiled. Ye-es! He would simply 'blend in', and thus blend out!
It was an interesting thing about a uniform. The fact that a man wasn't wearing one didn't necessarily mean he wasn't a fireman…and the fact that he was wearing one didn't necessarily mean that he was one, either.
Brice jogged out of the burning building…down the dark sidewalk…and up to their squad. He saw that Gage was nowheres near the vehicle and smiled, an incredibly smug smile—of victory! He jerked his driver's door open and leaned into the truck, to snatch up its dash-mounted radio's mic'. "Squad 16 to HT 16…" he gloated—er, called, a bit breathlessly.
No response.
Craig's triumphant smile slowly began to fade. "Squad 16 to HT 16. Ga-age? Do you copy?"
Still no response.
The fireman frowned outright. He returned the radio's mic' to its clip and went running up to his Captain.
"Excuse me, Sir, but have you seen Gage lately?"
Mason turned away from the Battalion Chief he'd been talking to, and gave Brice an annoyed glare. "He's supposed to be with you!" He noticed that the paramedic appeared genuinely concerned and suddenly felt a bit concerned himself. "Why-y?"
"I can't seem to contact him."
"Maybe his HT's batteries are dead?"
"I double-checked them when I came on duty."
The Captain's concern level upped a notch or two. Brice was nothing, if not thorough. "Give 'im a few more minutes. Maybe Gage is just a slow sweeper?"
Brice gazed glumly up at the multi-storied building. "He also happens to be a rotten egg."
The Captain and the Chief exchanged amused glances and then returned to their conversation.
Iverson didn't make it very far carrying a hundred and sixty pounds of dead weight across his left shoulder—and another forty or so pounds of air tank and harness on his aching back. The out of breath—and out of condition—criminal paused in the building's stairwell, to lighten his load.
Brice made several more unsuccessful attempts to reach his partner via the radio. Then he replaced his SCBA's air bottle and went running back up to his Captain, who was currently speaking to one of his engine crew.
"Sir? Request permission to search Gage's half of the building."
Mason nodded his consent. "Take Hill, here, with you!"
Craig wasn't exactly thrilled with his Captain's order, but he didn't protest it.
The two men replaced their facemasks and then began heading for the building's front entrance.
Iverson exited the back of the building—undetected—and then headed off down the dark, dank alley, in the direction of his car.
To avoid detection, Iverson had left his stolen vehicle parked a few blocks away. The now gasping from exertion—er, over-exertion man cursed his decision to do so and decided to ditch the body right there, in the alley. He flicked the fireman's flashlight on and started searching for an adequate disposal site.
Somebody had recently purchased a clothes dryer. He propped the dead guy up against a brick wall and covered him with the appliance's crushed cardboard carton. The criminal smiled again. It was both a holiday—and a weekend. It would undoubtedly be days before the body would be discovered. The no longer weighed down felon heaved an audible sigh of relief, and then quickly fled the scene.
Brice and Hill were following a trail of chalk X's down the building's second-floor hallway.
They came upon a bucket, and a door without an X.
Brice tried the knob.
The office was locked.
Craig turned to his companion. "I'll get the door. You get the alarms."
Hill nodded and reached for the empty bucket.
Brice turned back to the X-less door. "Fire Department!" he shouted, over the annoying whining of the smoke alarm above their heads. "Anybody in there?"
No one answered.
Craig stepped back, and was about to kick the door in, when he happened to glance down at the floor.
There was a trail of little crimson splotches leading up to, or away from, the door.
The fireman's already elevated heart rate increased. He gave the office's locked door a very forceful kick.
Wood splintered and the portal went flying open.
"Never mind the alarms," Brice told his fellow fireman. "Just follow me." That said, he flicked his flashlight on and disappeared into the darkened office.
Hill stepped down from the bucket and obediently followed the paramedic into the room.
Curtis saw that Craig was running the beam of his light along the floor. "What are we doing?"
"We are following a trail of blood," the paramedic replied, rather matter-of-factly.
Hill swallowed hard. "I had to ask."
Brice followed the blood trail up to another closed door, to an inner office. He gripped the knob, but hesitated to try it. "Fire Department!" he called out and finally turned the knob. The door clicked open.
Nothing happened.
So Craig pushed the portal all the way open and shone his light into the smaller, darkened room.
The first thing its beam revealed, was that the crimson trail stopped—er, rather started at a bright red pool on the office's tiled floor, near the doorway.
"Sweep the room," Brice suggested, as he stooped to examine the crimson trail's source. He ran a finger through the little red pool. It smeared. The fireman's knotted stomach turned.
"Nothing!" Curtis announced, upon the completion of his search. "Or, should I say, no one."
"Someone was here just recently," Craig solemnly announced. "And, whoever it was…is hurt…" his words trailed off. Suddenly, he spotted a piece of unbroken white chalk lying on the floor. He turned and made a mad dash out the door.
Hill caught up to Brice in the hallway and the two men headed for the far stairwell, tracking the trail of little crimson splotches.
John Gage's traumatized brain gradually began to process information again. That information brought back awareness, of both himself and his surroundings.
He seemed to be sitting on—and up against—an extremely cold, damp surface…in total darkness…with a debilitating headache. He grimaced and groaned aloud. His head hurt soooo unbelievably ba-ad. It felt like it was being crushed in a vice.
Something warm was draining down the back of his throat. The sensation made him wanna gag. He grimaced again and attempted to swallow. The distinctive taste of blood caused him to gag even more, and the fireman suddenly found himself engulfed in a tidal wave of nausea. He leaned forward and to one side, and proceeded to empty his churning stomach of three slices of pizza, two large glasses of milk…and a cup of coffee.
That little upchuck episode left him trembling, from both pain and exertion. On top of the gripping agony of his vice-like headache, the sudden movement had produced an intense, searing pain—like he'd been eating ice cream too fast, or something.
To top off his miseries, the smell of fresh vomit was threatening to unsettle his still tumultuous tummy again. He tried to move away from the offensive odor, but something was blocking his way—a box of some kind. He shoved the cardboard aside and attempted, once again, to move away from the sickening smell.
He spotted a dim, blurry patch of light and started crawling towards it on his knees and forearms. He didn't have the strength to make it up onto his hands.
Somehow, the fireman mustered the where-with-all to make it a few yards toward that fuzzy, dim light, before collapsing, face first, onto the cold, dank pavement.
TBC
Author's note:
The debilitating, vice-like headache John is currently experiencing is an orthostatic headache. An orthostatic headache is caused by cerebrospinal fluid hypovolemia. In other words, his cranium is leaking—and thus losing—cerebrospinal fluid.
This loss of 'cushioning' 'intercranial pressure balancing' cerebrospinal fluid causes the brain to descend when the person is sitting or standing erect. This 'brain drop' puts traction on the brain's pain-sensitive anchoring structures…which results in an unbelievably PAINFUL orthostatic headache.