EMILY

“Never mind, Em. We don’t need you.”

Emily shifted control of the steering wheel to her left hand and reached to pick up the ambulance’s hand microphone with her right. She pressed the button on the side. “You don’t need me?”

“Affirmative.”

“The call was a major highway accident, Cory. They’re calling in three counties worth of first responders. How could you possibly not need me?”

“We’ve got it covered. You can turn around.”

Emily stared out the windshield. She was surrounded by dark desert, only broken by her headlights on the two-lane road. She pressed the mic button again. “The call noted a fatality.”

Cory was silent for several seconds, which told her all she needed to know. His tone was softer when he responded. “There was someone walking by the side of the road. He was hit by one of the cars, Em. We’re tending to the other injured parties, but he was pronounced dead here at the scene. I just don’t think it would be a good idea for you to be here right now.”

Emily slid the mic back into its spot and, despite all her resilience not to, gave the passenger seat a long look. It was empty. The same kind of empty it had been for the past two months. And though they would assign her a new permanent partner eventually, that seat would remain empty for her in a way no one else could really ever understand.

She’d wanted to be a paramedic for as far back and as she could remember. While all the other eight-year-olds were trying their best to be princesses or superheroes, Emily had always been fascinated with ambulances and the rescuers inside them. The ones first on the scene. The ones putting everything back together and making sure everything was right.

She’d been so obsessed as a kid that she’d forced her younger sister Shannon to play the injured party so Emily could practice her medic skills. After hundreds of make-believe injuries, Shannon finally wanted to switch roles. Much to Emily’s delight, Shannon found a love for the job as well.

Soon it wasn’t just make believe. Separated by only a year and a half, the two were best friends. College roommates. Same emergency services classes. They were eventually partnered on the same county ambulance and regularly shared the same shift. It was a dream come true.

Then came the day of the Highway 91 accident. The call came on June 19th at 8:38pm, to be exact. That part was etched in stone on the hallways of her heart. The rest floated back and forth between precise detail and blurry memories. The car by the side of the road. Shannon working with the male trapped in the driver’s seat. Emily noticing how close Shannon was to the road but not saying anything.

All it took was one driver not paying attention.

The ambulance veered off the road and pulled Emily back to the present. She jumped and steered back into her lane.

She picked up the mic again, the passenger seat obvious in her peripheral vision. “I can do my job, Cory.”

“I’m not saying you can’t. I just don’t want you working this one. You’re supposed to be back-up only right now anyway. You don’t even have a new partner yet. The county shouldn’t even be letting you out by yourself.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

Cory exhaled and it sounded like wind blowing against his mic. “It’s not supposed to mean anything, Em. I’m trying to help. We’ve got things covered here. Turn around. Go get something to eat or something.”

Cory was her superior, and proper protocol dictated that she give him some kind of response. She considered several responses, some involving words that would likely get her fired, but instead chose to hang the mic back up and not give him anything at all.

She stared out the windshield for several long moments.

“You good, Em?” Cory’s voice came back again, and this time it sounded like he actually was out in the wind. Working a scene that she was apparently not allowed to.

“I understand.” She replaced the mic and kept driving.

“Are you just gonna ignore me?” Cory asked.

Emily snatched the mic up again. “I answered you!”

Silence. Then static.

“Emily, are you there? Look, I wasn’t trying to–”

The static volume increased and cut him off. She winced and turned down the speaker. She couldn’t ever remember a time of getting interference on the ambulance radio. “Cory? … Hey! … You there?”

The only response was the incessant static. She flicked off the radio’s power switch.

She looked ahead for a place to pull over so she could work on the radio. A building up ahead glowed with soft light. She approached and pulled into the parking lot of a diner. The outside was unappealing, but the business appeared open. She put the ambulance in park, turned it off, and looked into the windows of the diner.

She paused. There, backlit by the diner’s interior lights, were two men. One sitting in a booth and one standing beside it. Both of them staring out at her. It was unnerving, mainly because they stared longer than she thought was normal for the kind of glance that happens through restaurant windows. She pushed the discomfort away and told herself she was just worked up. She was hungry and the food would settle her mind.

She left the ambulance and approached the diner. The contrast of lightened interior against darkened exterior allowed her the sight advantage. The place seemed mainly empty. Good. She could eat and calm down and be on her way.

A bell above the door announced her arrival.

***

DANIEL

I watched her approach while trying to make it look like I wasn’t watching her approach. Part of it was just assessing things, but part of it was more than just detached curiosity. She was tall for a woman and was dressed in uniform. Dark hair pulled back away from her face in a ponytail.

She entered the diner and looked around. She locked eyes with me. I offered an awkward smile. She did not return it and instead settled into a booth on the other side of the restaurant. As far from me as she could get.

Well then.

I was still reeling from the half-conversation I’d had with Marcus, trying to make sense of it. He hadn’t added anything else once the ambulance arrived. He’d moved back to his place at the bar before I could ask any more questions. And I’d been distracted by watching the driver. Now I watched as Marcus walked over to her table and introduced himself. She at least offered him a smile, but even that seemed uncomfortable. An awkward fistbump occurred between them. He sat down in the booth across from her, his voice low enough that I could not hear what he was saying. The paramedic looked confused. I knew that feeling.

“You’re really important to all this, Daniel.”

“This isn’t like the Hudson case.”

“When the time comes, follow your instincts.”

My instincts were telling me that something was wrong with this place, this night. And that something was even more wrong with Marcus. I watched the woman grow increasingly uncomfortable with Marcus’s presence and decided I’d seen enough. Time to intervene. I stood.

Before I could move, a set of headlights shone through the window as another car pulled into the parking lot.

***

THE ROBERTSONS

“Done!” Ten-year-old Jason leaned forward, straining against the seatbelt across his chest. He shoved the completed Rubik’s cube between his parents in the front seats. Mom took it from his hand and held it up for both parents to see. Every side was perfectly aligned and completed.

“Done?” Dad laughed. “I just gave you that ten minutes ago!”

Mom spun the cube. “I think we have a genius on our hands, Brett.”

Dad looked over his shoulder and changed lanes. “He gets that from you.”

“His intelligence?”

“His weird intelligence. All that creepy stuff he does. Solving a Rubik’s cube in ten minutes. I mean, what kind of kid does that?”

That comment made Jason feel funny. He wasn’t sure if Dad was paying him a compliment or not. Apparently mom felt the same. She just sighed and handed the cube back to him. Jason took the cube but, rather than say anything, just looked out the window. He shifted so he could see the moon. Silence settled into the car.

Dad must have felt it too. “It was a joke, you guys. My gosh. Stop taking everything so seriously.”

Mom turned to look out her own window. “Why can’t you ever just compliment him? Why does it always have to be backhanded? And how could you possibly come up with a way to insult us both in the same sentence?”

“Denise. Are you kidding me? I was cracking a joke. It’s not a big deal. I am proud of him. I just know I’ll never be able to keep up.”

“Are you guys gonna fight again?” Jason turned the Rubik’s cube in his hand, running his fingers over the smooth sides.

“No. We are not going to fight. Mom is just acting this way because she’s hungry.”

Jason watched as mom turned to dad, opened her mouth like she was going to say something, then just shook her head and went back to looking out the window.

Jason waited a few minutes, then slowly reached the cube back up through the empty space between his parents. “Mom, can you mix this up again for me?”

“You can mix it yourself, Jason.”

“I know, but then it’s too easy. It’s more challenging when you do it.”

Mom took the cube without saying anything and started turning the sides. The uncomfortable silence returned. Jason looked up again, searching, but couldn’t find the moon this time. Clouds had arrived to cover it.

“So,” Dad finally offered. “How do you do it, Jason? Is there a strategy? How do you solve that thing so quickly?”

“Solve for red.”

“What does that mean?”

“You have to pick a color to start with. I always solve for red.”

“Fascinating. Why red?”

Jason stared at the back of dad’s seat for a moment. Dad should know this. “Because red is my favorite color.”

It was the punctuation to the conversation and Jason knew they all felt it. Mom silently returned the cube, newly reset, but Jason didn’t feel like solving it again. He set it on the seat beside him.

Lightning struck. It was so close that the thunder arrived at the same time. Light flooded the car in a dazzling flash. Mom screamed. Dad said a bad word and jerked the steering wheel. Jason closed his eyes and covered his ears.

The storm started immediately. A torrential downpour out of nowhere. It was all at once, from nothing to everything in a matter of seconds.

“What is this?” Mom yelled over the roar of the rain.

“I have no idea!” Dad was leaning forward. “This is a desert! It never rains like this out here! Where did this even come from?”

Jason leaned up to look out the windshield. The wipers were on full blast. He could still only see a slice of the road every few seconds. He wondered if this was what being in a hurricane felt like. He grabbed his seatbelt with both hands and squeezed.

“You need to pull over, Brett. We can’t see anything.”

“I will. Give me a minute.”

“Just pull over now! We’ll wait it out.”

Dad pointed. “There’s a building up there! Let’s at least get to that. We’ll figure things out from there.”

The family’s car pulled into the parking lot. Jason couldn’t make out much through the thick of the storm. The rain rolling down his window distorted the view, but the place looked like a restaurant. Good. He was hungry.

Dad turned the car off and the family sat in the sound of the storm for a few minutes. Jason guessed they were waiting to see if things would calm down so they could go inside without getting completely drenched. He sat quietly in the backseat.

“Let’s just run for it,” Dad said. “I don’t think it’s going to lighten up any time soon.”

Mom bent down and searched for something in her floorboard and then looked back at Dad. “Do you have the umbrella?”

Dad glanced at Jason, then leaned around to look at the rest of the backseat. “I guess not. I probably took it in last week and forgot to bring it back out.”

“Why would you do that?”

“It wasn’t intentional, honey.” Dad turned back to Jason. “We’re gonna to run for it, buddy. Can you do that?”

“Yes, Dad.” He grabbed the Rubik’s cube and shoved it into his jacket pocket.

“Then let’s go!”

Jason opened his door and wanted to cover his ears again. The storm roared and swirled all around him. The rain blew in full sheets, soaking every part of him. Water ran into his eyes, making him have to squint to see Mom and Dad ahead of him. His legs were shorter, and he had to pick up the pace to reach them.

He arrived just as Dad was opening the door for him. Jason hurried into the diner and glanced around. Red and black were everywhere. A jukebox was up against one of the walls. The diner had one of those food bars he’d always wanted to sit at right by the kitchen. There were several people seated in various places, all staring at his family. Aware that he was dripping and making a puddle, Jason stood just inside the doorway. Dad and Mom were shaking off water and running fingers through their hair.

“Why are you guys all wet?” A man spoke. He was standing by one of the booths. Jason noticed a gun on the man’s hip.

Dad turned to the man. Made a weird look with this face. Pointed out the window in the diner door. “The storm.”

The man with the gun looked out the window beside him. “What storm?”

Jason turned. He moved over slightly so he could see out a window his height beside the door.

No rain. No wind. No lightning or thunder. Not even a trace of the storm. The moon was back in its rightful spot, unobscured by clouds. The night was as dry as the desert it was hiding.

© 2020 Andy Brodrick