Super quick update! Thanks to station15 and Rolodexthoughts for reviewing! You guys are so awesome and I love you so much I wrote this evil cliffy...
Chapter 8:
Almost exactly six minutes later, Copter 12 lowered itself onto the landing pad at Rampart. The sky was getting progressively darker and the air heavier. The two paramedics, both laden with almost all of their gear, trotted under the spinning blades and started piling stuff into the back of the helicopter.
Johnny climbed in just behind Roy and slammed the door hard as the aircraft lifted up towards the darkening sky. Keith Crouse, a veteran flier, was alone at the controls. "How's it goin'?" Crouse called over the roar of the engine.
"Been busy!" John replied.
Crouse laughed hardily, "I'll bet! I've been back and forth for water so many times I feel like a yoyo!"
"Do you know anything about our rescue?" Roy asked when the pleasantries were through.
Crouse shrugged his broad shoulders, "Not much more than what dispatch told you. Seems that there was some sort of landslide out East Canyon Road. A couple a guys went over the embankment."
Roy and John exchanged a look. They had been out on their first call and missed the day's assignments, but both were sure that they'd heard that 51 was out on East Canyon.
"How much longer?" Roy said, looking between his watch and the sky.
"About four minutes," came the reply.
John craned his neck around his partner to look out the wide windshield of the helicopter, "It's looking like rain, huh?"
"Yeah, Weather Service says to expect thunderstorms this afternoon. It's only gonna get worse before it gets better."
"Just what we need, lightning to start up more fires," Johnny grumbled.
Crouse nodded, "You can say that again," he glanced down at the instrument control panel, "looks like we're almost there."
John and Roy moved over to the window, looking down to East Canyon Road. They could see three different fire trucks parked along the road as well as a tractor. The smoke was blowing in and obscuring almost everything else.
"I don't have enough visibility to land," Crouse said over his shoulder, "I'm gonna have to drop you and your gear up on the road by the trucks. It's the best I can do."
Roy checked to make sure everything was securely packed into the stokes while Johnny got the repelling gear ready before pulling open the side door. The stokes went down first, followed closely by Johnny.
Roy turned back to Keith Crouse, who had to shout over the increased volume of the wind and the engine, "The weather's lookin' worse. I'm gonna try to find somewhere to land for the time being. Just radio in and I'll do my best to get back to you!"
Outside, the sky was now an alarming shade of storm gray. Roy acknowledged Crouse with a curt nod before following his partner and the stokes all the way to the ground. By the time he got there, Johnny had tracked down their Captain and another firefighter Roy didn't recognize from behind.
The three were in deep conversation as Roy jogged over to join his partner who was listening to Captain Stanley, "-can't see a thing for all the smoke and haven't gotten any sort of response from either of them."
"What's going on?" Roy asked. On closer inspection, the second person was Rita Meadows, whose serious face was streaked with soot.
It was Johnny who answered, "Part of the hillside went over the cliff and took a couple guys with it 'bout twenty minutes ago. Haven't heard anything from then since."
"Two of ours," Captain Meadows piped up, "Liz Abel and Rich Cutler from Kings 123."
The mention of a familiar name made the situation so much worse, even if Abel wasn't part of Station 51. John and Roy were in motion, grabbing as much gear as they could carry with the two Captains grabbing the rest of it.
A few dozen yards in front of the trucks, the road simply disappeared at a sharp cliff. The men, and women, from trucks 15, 51, and 123 stood way back away from the edge, hoses at their feet.
"How 'bout everyone just moves back towards the trucks," Roy yelled to the group, "I don't like the idea of all that weight being anywhere near the edge." Just to reinforce his point, a chunk of earth slid out of sight just as a bolt of lightning flashed across the sky.
The group moved back towards the trucks at a quick pace with a dusty Julie Chrysler leading the pack, "Liz's down there," she said, stopping in front of the two paramedics, "I'll go down and-"
"You will not," Rita Meadow cut in, frowning. She pointed at Chrysler's dust-gray gear and the blood seeping out of the wrapped cut on her palm, "You almost went over with them as it is. You're gonna wait right here and let DeSoto and Gage go get Liz. The less weight going up and down the hill the better."
"But-"
Captain Meadows face shut Chrysler up fast. Julie nodded before moving next to the remaining members of her crew. Captain Stanley glanced around the group and cleared his throat; "There's an old fire road at the bottom of the canyon. Maybe we should send a truck down there and see if there's any way to get to them from that angle."
Captain Brian Sandors of Truck 123, a short, reticent man with more years of experience than both of the other Captains combined, stepped forward, "We'll head down there. Boys?" The men of 123 glanced over the cliff to where they knew their comrade lay but they followed their Captain to the truck anyway. Once they were gone, John turned back to Cap, "I think I should go down first, just to see what things look like. Then Roy can bring the down the gear with him."
Roy didn't like the idea of sending his partner down to the two firefighters when no one had a clear idea as to what things looked like down there, and he could tell that Cap didn't like it either. There was a rumble of thunder followed by a crack of lightning. "Last thing we want to do is get caught up in a slide, Cap," John continued, "it's gonna be bad enough as it is."
"We'll anchor you on the engine," Stanley agreed. The lanky Captain turned to tell Stoker to go and get the truck but Mike was already climbing into the driver's seat. Johnny checked his harness while Mike pulled the truck just a few dozen feet, careful considering the dangers of getting too close.
Once Johnny glanced over his harness one final time, he signaled to Roy and Chet who were manning his rope and cautiously approached the edge. There hadn't been any amount of significant rain in the area in months, and the road was powdery and dry. All the water from the firefighter's hoses had turned the land below the road into a mess. It had basically undermined the spot where the firefighters had been standing, and from the looks of it, things hadn't been overly stable beforehand.
Stepping over the edge sent a puff of dust and a rock tumbling over the edge. Slowly working his way down, Johnny called out, "Abel? Cutler?"
There was no answer, and Johnny grimly moved down the hill as fast as he dared.
After what seemed like ages, the paramedic managed to maneuver his way to the bottom of the hill. It seemed strangely silent down here, well below the rush of the water from the fire hoses and the road noise. Even the wind seemed quieter down here, just gently brushing past his face and drying the sweat there.
It was too quite down here, much too quiet. The calm before the storm. He tugged twice on his rope, signaling for more slack, before carefully moving deeper into the scene.
The dirt was dry and tiny dust particles still floated in the air, even half an hour after the slide. The hill had been pretty barren; most the debris consisted of dirt, a few scraggly bushes, and more dirt. A crack of thunder followed closely by the first drops of rain pushed John into action. Scanning the ground, a piece of black plastic caught his attention and he leapt towards it.
The helmet he dug out of the dirt read 123 KINGS COUNTY and Johnny swallowed the sick feeling and yelled up to his partner, "Gonna need a shovel and some help down here!"
Dropping to his knees, John began pulling the dirt back with his hands. He found a boot first, followed closely by the rest of Rich Cutler. The rain was really starting to fall by the time Johnny pulled the unconscious fireman from the dirt. Almost immediately, he began sputtering and coughing up mud and cursing a blue streak, "What the hell?!"
"Are you okay?" John said, still digging through the dirt.
"I feel like someone just beat me up side the head with a two-by-four," he cringed when he tried to stand, " and I think I sprained my ankle."
"Did you see what happened to Abel?" John asked.
"She was right next to me before-" Cutler looked at the huge slide of dirt as Roy, Chet, and Julie Chrysler reached the bottom of the hill, laden with shovels and medical gear. "Is she still in there?"
"That's the problem," John said, grabbing a shovel from Chrysler, "we don't know where she-"
BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!
The crack of thunder was so loud that the ground seemed to tremble below the four firefighter's feet. Cutler cursed again as a huge chunk of the road slid down the hill. The rain falling was so heavily that it was nearly impossible to see much of anything.
"We've got to find her," Chrysler yelled above the roar of the rain, "all this water is going to bring the whole hillside down on us!"
She tucked into the dirt, which was quickly turning into mud, and shoveling with maniac strength. Johnny was right beside her and Roy turned to talk to Cutler, "Are you okay?" he asked, repeating his partner's earlier question.
With a grimace, he nodded, pulling himself to his feet, "Yeah, I'm fine. We need to find-"
There was a thunderous roar from above the firefighters, cutting whatever Cutler had to say off. All heads turned towards the top of the hill, just as the first boulder bounced down the hill, right for the firefighters.
I am really a terrible person, aren't I?
~S