Emergencies...
"Oh my God." Shelly said, as she came up, Kim right behind her.
"Shelly, you and Ron help the kids." Kim said, "I'll get the driver."
"But-" Ron said, Kim cut him off.
"There's no time Ron. The driver had a heart attack—look!" And Ron saw the blue lips of the bus driver, slumped against the steering column. He wasn't breathing. "You two get the kids—now!".
Ron paused, looked at Kim's grimly set lips, and nodded.
This isn't her Kimness talking. We really don't have time.
"Shelly, C'mon." Ron said. Kim was right. If the kids were trapped, or needed medical attention… And in any case, Kim couldn't go into the twisted wreckage back in the bus—if her legs gave out there, she'd be a bigger problem than the kids. At least up front…
Kim ignored Ron and Shelly as she looked at the driver. Technically, you shouldn't move someone…but right now, he wasn't breathing and he needed to be given CPR, and you couldn't do that on a burning bus or on someone slumped over a wheel. Possible paralysis vs. Burning alive or dying from a heart attack? Motion to move carried, two to one. Kim ran up, ignoring the sounds from the back of the bus, where Ron and Shelly were. The smell of gas was in the air, and she knew that the moment it caught fire it'd engulf the bus in seconds. She reached down and grabbed him, opening the side doors as far as they would go, and winced at his weight.
Ron was back in the bus, looking at the kids. Kid with broken arm, check, kid with bloody face from where she'd smacked into the seat check.
"Can you walk?" Ron asked, and there were some nods. "Good, go out the door and sit on the side of the building—don't go anywhere else. The police are coming." One sniffling girl looked up and recognized him.
"You're Kim's friend."
"Sure am."
"Is everything going to be ok?"
"Sure is."
"OK." She said, and headed out of the bus. Shelly watched them go.
Kim and Ron—names to conjure victory with. Even battered and nearly broken, they had the power to banish fear.
Now they were left with five children. Two with broken legs, two unconscious but breathing, and one tangled up in the twisted wreckage of a chair that had come loose, but hadn't crushed anyone, thank god.
"Damn." Ron breathed. "Of all the times not to have mission gear—the laser would have come in real handy right about now." Shelly was bending over one of the children with the broken leg.
"HURTS!" The girl screamed, tears falling down her face, "I WANT MOMMY!" Another screamed.
"I know." Shelly said, as she checked the child for bleeding even as Ron checked to make certain the unconscious ones and the trapped child were breathing. "Mommy's coming, and everything is going to be ok."
Unless the bus catches fire.
Kim was struggling, lifting the man up and out. She could already smell smoke and there was no time to wait for the police, even as sirens from a dozen different directions started approaching. Her legs burned with the stress.
How can I do this? I'm not even… I'm a half cripple myself.
Stop whining. You're here. Ron and Shelly have to save the kids. You'll do it.
I will?
Because you have to. Because there is nobody else to help. That's what you wanted to do, isn't it? Help people? Nobody said it would only be when you were ready.
The driver was heavy, the kids were screaming, and her legs..
Oh God no. Don't give out. Not here, not now, not when so much depends…
It was like walking with ground glass in her bones. She felt herself slip, start to fall. Kim bit her lip and gasped. The pain… They were at the door, but they couldn't just stop that close. There was the sidewalk, where the kids were huddled. Where the hell were other bystanders? There had to be some other people who could help… Her legs started to give, and Kim bit her lip. Another step. Oh God. Not going to make it. I'm going to fall here, and I'll block the door…
NO. No! You will NOT fail me right now. Kim commanded her legs to move, setting her will against the blazing agony that shot up them, the weakness thatthreatened to betray her. The agony redoubled, until Kim wondered if somehow burning gas had coated her legs and she hadn't noticed, but she pulled the driver the last few feet to safety. By the end, she was crawling, dragging him with her, but she made it to a safe distance, and started immediately checking him.
Lips blue, no breathing.
In a Hollywood movie, Ron could have slung the kids over his back and ran out with them—right before the bus exploded.
Except Hollywood movies never bothered to talk to doctors about what could happen if you tried to move someone with internal injuries, or worse, spinal injuries. Dr. Possible had. The kids who were unconscious, or showing signs of pain couldn't just be moved like that. Not unless he wanted to risk paralyzing them.
But burning alive was never fun either, and right now the one trapped child couldn't be moved at all. The bars had curled around her waist holding her tight and her hysterical sobbing was infecting the other kids, even more than they had been.
If worst came to worst, they could run the four free kids out, praying that they wouldn't permanently injure them…
Dammit, where was the help?
Kim started breathing for the driver. Her legs didn't work at all, after what she'd demanded of them. She had to depend on Ron and Shelly.
"Kim?" A voice came. Kim didn't stop breathing for the driver, but she recognized that voice. Bonnie. Bonnie and Brick and some others.
"Here." Bonnie said, moving down beside Kim, and started compressing the drivers chest. Barkin had said that no football player or cheerleader who turned out to have an undiagnosed heart condition was going to die on his watch—so every football player and cheerleader had to be CPR certified as a condition of their membership.
Brick wasn't waiting, as he ran for the bus. Zita and Monique followed him.
What is it about all our friends. Kim wondered. They always run to the sound of the guns.
"He's still not breathing." Kim said, pausing, and going back to her work.
"I can't feel a pulse." Bonnie said, "Don't die on me—I'm going out with Brick later tonight and that would put a real damper on it." She muttered to the unconscious driver.
"Hey Stoppable." Brick said, coming in, followed by Zita and Monique. "What do you need?"
"A miracle." Ron said, and shook his head. "Lots of possible back and neck injuries, Brick." Brick nodded. He wasn't the brightest bulb, he'd be the first to acknowledge, but anyone in sports understood what that meant.
"Hang on." He said and quickly moved outside as Monique and Zita came forward. Shelly had managed, partially to calm the two children with injured legs down.
"I don't think they've been hurt anywhere else." She said, "Monique, you and Zita need to get them off the bus. Now." Then, to the children.
"This is going to hurt, ok? But can you help us, right?" The two nodded, and Shelly realized that shock was probably setting in. Brick came back…with part of a bench, the two heavy wooden planks light in his hands. Evidently, he'd simply ripped them off the bolts that normally held the wood onto the bench.
"I tried to open the back doors, but no way man, they're messed up-- But we can use these to get the kids out. "
"Right on." Ron said, as the five quickly put the two children with the broken legs onto the planks and Brick and Ron, Zita and Monique carried them out. Shelly remained behind, holding the hand of the trapped girl.
"We should have taken the others first." She breathed.
"No." Ron said, "I hope the fire fighters will get here first—they can open up the side of the bus, and they know better than us, how to move them without hurting them." None of them pointed out the obvious—unconscious was far more serious in reality than it was in the movies.
Then there was a hollow "whumpf" as the gasoline caught fire, and suddenly the bus was partly engulfed in flames. The four came charging back up.
"No time to wait." Ron gritted. "get the other two off, We'll get the last one out." Brick nodded and Monique and zita put one of the unconscious children on a plank while Brick easily managed the other by himself. They headed up the increasingly smoke choked bus.
"Shelly." Ron said, "You have to…"
"No." Shelly said, turning pale, "I can't, I'm not her."
"The power is still there." Ron pointed out, "That's why you didn't' turn to goo when the juvinator was used." He looked back, "The firefighters won't be here in time." The child had gone beyond screaming and was clinging to Shelly, burying her face in the teen's blouse, trying to make the world go away, her whimpers barely audible.
"But…no…" Ron looked at her, saw naked terror in her eyes which had nothing to do with the flames.
"Shelly, if you don't, the kid will die, you'll die, I'll die!" He said, "There's no other way!"
No, I can't, I'm not her. I don't WANT to be her.
They'll die. They'll burn. Can you live—or die, with that?
Then, with a roar and sudden blast of heat, the flames were licking inside the bus compartment.
And Shelly felt agony bloom in her hands.
Outside, Brick charged forward, and Zita and Monique grabbed him.
"Let go!" he shouted, "They're still in there!" Monique was pale but didn't let go, looking at the one formerly clear way in, wreathed in flame. Then, there was an explosion that caused the teens to jump, the kids to scream and the onlookers to gasp as the side of the bus seemed to come apart, the fires almost seeming to be sucked away, as three figures leaped out and over them. Ron was holding the girl in his arms, and quickly lay her down away from the bus, as the first firetruck rounded the corner.
Ron blinked. It had only been… he looked at his watch. Less than five minutes. He'd never get used to how slow things seemed to go when there was trouble.
"Got them out…" he breathed, "Got everyone out…Oh God." As usual, the reaction that he normally covered in clowning came on, but he guessed that after Shego and everything, he wasn't as good at it anymore, as he found himself sitting on the ground, breathing fast. Bonnie and Kim were still working on the bus driver, Kim's legs sprawled out behind her like dead things. Ron got up unsteadily and walked over as the first paramedics showed up and took over, displacing Bonnie and Kim without apology, as they set up the link with the hospital and laid out the tools of their trade. Now there were others, bystanders police, the firefighters dousing the bus or attending to the kids.
"Hey…where's Shelly?" Zita asked. Ron blinked, looked up and down the street.
Just in time to catch a last glimpse of Shelly, burned hands held against her body, vanishing around the corner, crying.
TBC.