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| Page Eighteen |
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Chet smirked, "Hey Cap, all the sudden you're a haunted house secret passageway expert on top of being a fire department captain?" Stanley shot a look at Kelly. "Not even pretending, Kelly. Just guessing here. I'm remembering the weird hidden revolving stone door we found in that winery basement fire last month. Remember that fire? Well I had a chance to talk with the restaurant designer we rescued all about it while I bandaged up burns he got on his hands trying to save that hundred year old Cabernet Sauvignon wine bottle." "Oh yeah. What a tragedy! A two thousand dollar bottle of bino. Poof. Up in smoke." Marco said. Mike said. "I remember him, a real character. Didn't know whether I was talking to Frank Lloyd Wright or Stephen King." Craig Brice interrupted them. "Ah, gentleman. We can talk about all this fascinating gothic architecture and about the old wine later, hmm? We're here on a rescue call. I suggest we stick to the matters at hand. Our victim is expecting us to save him with all due haste." Chet sniped back, "Yeah? Well Cap flapping his gums, Brice, is to make sure we don't end up dead before we can even get to the guy. Patience. Strange thing with you saying that, Brice, you usually know paramedic protocol better than any of us. Remember rule number one? 'First, secure the scene?' " Craig didn't take offense. "Indeed. Proceed all. I'll get the gear set up." He laid out an EKG monitor onto the rug, quickly followed by the defibrillator case. Cap said, "Ok, Marco, get that crow bar set. Mike get ready to jam your roof axe into the hinge axel that'll expose itself once the bookshelf swings open. That should hold things long enough for us to get Bentley out of there." Roy pulled the pseudobook lever. |
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There was a groan of stone and a loud bang which Chet recognized. "This is the right way.. I remember that sound!" He barely waited for Marco and Stoker to wedge axe and crow bar into the brick wall gears before plunging into the darkness of the stair well. Sure enough, his flashlight beam caught a dim figure at the bottom of the landing. The gang all shoved into the narrow passageway. Roy was quickly down the rock stairway, with all the others close on his heels. "Hey sir..! Can you hear me?" Kelly butted in front of him and reached for the figure's neck. A large spider jumped out from around the man's hairline in a defensive leap, guarding its territory. "Ahhh!!" Chet leaped backwards with a shout, crashing into Roy, Stoker and Cap behind him, and all four fell onto their butts on the stone steps. "Kelly do you mind?" Cap said. "Sorry Cap. I.. guess I'm more than a little jumpy." Roy was already at their victim's side, aiming a flashlight towards his face. "Hey Cap, look at this. It's a wax work figure." All four guys crowded around Roy and looked. "A fake body." Cap sighed. "I should have known. This house IS a working creepshow." Chet had already overcome his fright. "Man, Johnny's gonna be bummed he took a fall over a dummy." and the guys laughed. Then a low moan attracted their attention. Every one of them shot their flashlight beams into the cobwebby room beyond the stair's landing. Shushes abounded as everyone strained to hear more. Cap held up a glove for silence and he shouted. "Norman Bentley! Shout if you can hear us!" They were met with an eerie quiet. "Ok, gang. Spread out. Search pattern. And stay within eyesight at all times. This place is a deathtrap to the uninitiated." "Seems like even the caretakers were under informed." Brice shouted from where he was listening to the gang at the top of the stairs, still waiting in the library with an open comm to Rampart. "Unlucky them." Lopez groaned. At the back of the room, another figure startled them, a huge looming, silver form standing in their light beams. "Well, I'll be d*mned." Kelly whispered. "There IS an iron maiden in the basement." Cap and Roy shot him a dirty look. Another trickling moan met their ears, weaker than the last, followed by an echo which sounded like hollow metal pinging. They all paused in their tracks trying to pin down a place that would cause a moan to sound like that. "Maybe Norman found the Maiden, too." Lopez said fearfully. "It's the only hollow thing down here." "Come on!" Kelly agreed. All the firemen hastened to open the heavy wrought iron case. While they shouted for Norman to answer them, the faint, low moaning stopped. It was almost a full two minutes more before the firemen figured out the tricky old device's release latches and freed their victim. Out tumbled an older man bonelessly, comatose and dusky blue. "Mr. Bentley?" Roy said, catching him. They set him on the stone floor and DeSoto quickly grabbed his head and listened carefully over his nose and mouth after tipping his chin back. "Move it guys. He's quit breathing.." Roy said and he firmly began mouth to mouth. Mike Stoker began opening the man's shirt hastily for CPR. |
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Chet rushed to the foot of the stairs and shouted. "Hey Brice! Toss down the resuscitator. On the double!" Craig did so, and Kelly caught the case as deftly as a basketball. He rushed back and together, Mike and Chet got the unit turned on. They both swiftly fitted the tubing and the moulded face piece into place. Roy tilted back Norman's head further on his next breath, until a better airway was secured. Then he set the demand valve mask Kelly handed him over the suffocated man's face, and sent a set of rapid ventilations of pure O2 deep into Norman's chest with the thumb trigger. Roy's free fingers found a beat just under the man's jawline. He waved Mike off from his hands-on-waiting for-word-to-go CPR position. "Stoker, it's ok. He's still got a pulse.." he told him. "It's weak, but there." All the gang sighed and relaxed just a bit. After only a minute more supported O2, the very lucky Norman roused and began coughing. He weakily shoved the ventilation mask away with a confused mumble. Cap attempted to get the groggy man's attention. "Mr. Bentley? It's ok. We're with the L.A. County Fire Department, we got a call from your wife that you were lost down here. How are you feeling?" Norman's eyes blearily made out Roy and all the gang's faces. "Oh my, never.. shoulda gone exploring..Ohhh.. That d*mned thing trapped me..." he said with a grimace towards the Iron Maiden that had entombed him for a day. "How did you ever get in there?" Cap wanted to know. Kelly helped the man sit against the Maiden to ease his breathing a little more, at Roy's unspoken nod to do so. "Oh, I've got a headache that won't quit.." Norman groaned and gratefully took the mask Roy still held against his nose and mouth. He inhaled in a few more shots of oxygen, then blinked his eyes as clarity came slowly back. It arrived along with a healthy sense of self consciousness the more Norman thought about where he was and what had happened to him. Finally, he sighed, answering the tall fire department captain. "I....wanted to know what it was like being inside one of them. Stupid really. Didn't know there was no handle on the inside." Chet sighed. "No kidding.. Didn't think a torturing device would have one." Marco smacked Chet on the arm to keep him quiet. Cap sighed, rubbing his sleep mussed hair and said, "Well live and learn from this, Norman. Looks like no lasting harm done. But sir, I'm afraid we've got some off news about your wife. She .. well,...panicked a bit when she didn't hear you answer her calling your name and slipped a bit, upstairs." "Is Maggie ok?" Norman gasped. "Is she here? Oh my goodness.." "She's fine, sir. Relax. She's just getting an ice pack for her head at Rampart Emergency, most likely, and a few precautionary X-rays. We'll be bringing you to where she is in a few minutes." Cap said. "Oh, bother.. Glad she's all right. Thank you boys, for looking out for her," he sighed, "and me for that matter.." and took another pull off the mask, saying more. "Margaret doesn't have the same sense of adventure I do about her brother's house. Me, I'm like a kid turned loose in a candy store.." and he started laughing to the point of coughing. "Easy.." Roy said, "Just keep using this oxygen here. I'm afraid you're still as gray as she is...." he quipped, patting the Iron Maiden next to them. That only brought more laughter from Norman and he rapidly improved colorwise soon there after. Chet and Cap had already ruled out the need for a stokes. Roy agreed with them and he finished putting away the positive pressure valve, trading it for a cannula. "Feel well enough to stand, Norman? " Roy asked him. "We've got another paramedic with all of our equipment up the stairs here. If you'd let us, we'd like to check ya out to make sure you didn't come to any permanent harm." Roy asked him. "You're so nice, all of you men. And for coming all the way over here just to get me out of my bind." he said. "Yes. I do believe I can. " and he let himself be raised and supported between Stoker and Marco until he regained shaky feet. "Say fellas, when you were searching for me, did you spot Reggie's wetbar? I'm awful thirsty from being cramped in there all night. A brandy would really hit the spot right about now..." "Amen to that sir." Chet nodded animatedly. Cap glared at Kelly. "Just go get the gear, Kelly. We're going upstairs." |
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Roy quickly diverted Mr. Bentley from the jibbing Captain Stanley to Chet Kelly exchange. "Let's just start with a glass of water from the kitchen, all right? " Roy told him with a grin. "And maybe we'll be asked to get an IV or two going a bit later.." he said thoughtfully. "An IV? What's that? Anything like a V-O?" Mr. Bentley asked with an innocent curiosity. "I know about those, Margaret says Reginald likes to drink them while he bakes things in the kitchen." Roy grinned and then began explaining in detail about what would go on with Norman and his prehospital care and about what the doctor on the other end of the biophone would probably order, as they all slowly made their way up the slate gray stones, step by step. On the way, and last in line, Chet snatched up Gage's helmet after making very sure no new spiders were calling it home. He was still unnerved by the bug he had seen and Norman's close call, but his sense of humor was still completely intact. So was his keen entrepreneurial instinct that always seemed to pop up after a crisis. "Say, Mr. Bentley. Did you know you could probably make a fortune opening up this place to school kids around Halloween time? You three might make even more money then, in one month, than you do right now giving the studios kids THEIR tours, all year. Reggie would still be able to hand out his gingerbread cookies anytime he feels like it. And I'm sure the guys here with me would love to help out this fall in costumes or something, too." Marco and Mike began to shake their heads vehemently out of Norman's eyeshot but stopped immediately when the old man noticed them doing something beyond helping him climb steps. Chet got braver as the gem of his idea, blossomed in the wake of his spider fright. "Yeah, now that I think about it, my Cap would make a GREAT Frankenstein." "Really?" Norman chirped up, fiddling with the cannula that had been set around his face as he let his rescuers sit him into a leather library recliner by a roaring fireplace that had somehow, mysteriously, lit itself. Chet said sotto voce. "Oh yeah, sir. I know because he's a regular holy terror whenever he goes without sleep or when any station wide inspection date rolls around." Kelly never saw the boot Cap connected with his rear, sending him out the library door in an unsubtle hint to tell the ambulance attendants where to rendevous with them all. ----------------------------------------------------- |
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A week later, the gang sat around the kitchen table eating lunch, without much gusto. Even Mike looked quieter than usual. Marco finally piped up, breaking the soft sounds that all their forks were making as they each half heartedly played with their food. "Man, I'm really going to miss the little guy." "Yeah. And we just got the paint to dry on old Henry's dog house too." Mike Stoker agreed. Stoker and Lopez both let out matching sighs. Captain Stanley narrowed his eyes at his men from around his chilidog as he bit into it. He chewed loudly and without apology. "Come off it you two. You saw the way Reggie, Maggie and Norman's eyes lit up when they saw Chester Bartholomew run up to them when they came here to give us all gingerbread cookies to thank us for all we've done. It was like twenty years of loneliness just rolled right off their shoulders. What else could I have done?" Chet groused. "You couldn't've found them another puppy?" "As if I could've right at that moment, Kelly. Hush, and eat your food before it gets cold." Another two minutes of no one chewing, stretched intolerably. Cap cleared his throat and addressed his depressed crew, "Now, Come on gang. We just all have to get used to having a station without a mascot again. Won't be hard. Not at all. I mean we..we..we managed to survive after Henry left. Right?" Everyone grudgingly agreed, until a voice rang out. "Barely. We didn't sleep for a week. Remember?" Chet insisted morosely. "I don't know about you, Cap. But I missed him terribly. All but broke my heart. Sort of like ..." and he lowered his voice.." the way.. I feel...." and he took a bite of biscuit to hide what he was feeling."....right ...now..about Chester." Captain Stanley shifted in his chair uncomfortably. "Yeah, well, Kelly. uh... I know it's tough. It's rough on all of us.. But, consider our giving Chester away a good deed and let's leave it at that." |
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Click the Defibrillator to Goto Page Nineteen :) |
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