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Nicola drew her wool sweater around her shoulders a little closer about herself as night fell. There wasn't another set of headlights anywhere on the mountain above them that she could see. "Do you think they've already evacuated the valley's highway because of the warning? I'm not seeing anybody out there." "Check with the sheriff. He said Doctor Frick's got a CB radio in his car that can link with the weather station." Roy replied, handing Ms. Sommers the police HT he had used earlier to talk to Lopez and the Doc. Nicola palmed the radio, and hailed. "Sheriff, got your ears on?" ##Yep. As if I'd EVER not have them tuned in, little lady.## he answered back from the red station wagon behind Nate's car. Despite some stress, his voice still sounded cheerful to Nicola over the walkie talkie. "How're the roads on the broadcast radio, Bittner? The way ahead looks deserted to us on the higher grades." she asked. ##They are. Just got word from Mable. No driving is advised. People who were stuck in town are taking shelter at the hospital to wait it out.## "So they know we're coming?" Nicola asked double checking. ##Absolutely. The fire department's waiting on the outskirts, set for an intercept. They'll be the manpower we'll need to switch out our patient transport vehicles. I've ordered both ambulances to report, too.## "Ok, Nicola out." and she released the talk button. She tapped Nate on the shoulder across the driver's seat. He turned his head. "Just us out here. You won't have to worry about people coming down the mountain at us, Nate. Blaine's just confirmed it." "Great. Clear sailing. Did you hear that, son?" he said. "Mmmm.." Aaron mumbled sleepily. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- The river between the mountain and the town was an angry morass of brown and froth. It lapped at the foot of the bridge span hungrily as it spun shattered debris and trees against the girders. Nate Johnson slowed his acceleration and flashed his lights so the two cars behind him would know to do the same. "No police barricades yet. Good, we can go across." "Nate, wait. I don't think I've ever seen the river this high before. Something's not right." Nicola said. Roy looked up from where he was holding the sleeping Aaron in concern. He drew up a hand and rubbed out a steamy place on the window to look out. "Do you see cracks on the bridge asphalt?" he asked Sommers. "No.. it's ...call it intuition guys. I don't care. I think the flooding's higher out there than it looks." "Let's take a vote.." Nate said. "Radio the others." Soon, everyone knew about Nicola's misgivings. But then Mary said. "Please, Darren can't wait. He needs rest somewhere warm and safe. This car's no place for a newborn. I say we go on and into town. The sooner the better." ##All right, Mary, if it's what you want." said Sheriff Bittner over the radio. #Nate, you heard the lady. Vamanos.## The three cars travelled cautiously onto the small steel and concrete bridge stretching across the valley. Just beyond, they could see town. The first car got to the other side. There, the banks were already overflowing the wetlands at the bridge's foot. To Johnson, the sheeting water just looked like a thin veneer over the road. He inched forward. Suddenly Nate's car dropped into the swift water over the road. It was far deeper than he realized and the Porsche began to slide sidewise off the highway with the flood water up to the bottom of the car doors. Mary began to scream. "No!" yelled Doc Frick, who floored the gas on the heavier station wagon. His momentum missed connecting with the Porsche in an attempt to push the lighter car to high ground, and he overshot Nate, screeching across the wet exposed road just beyond. The doc and sheriff leaped out of the red car to run to the edge of the water where Nate's car was floating away. "Nate! Roll down your windows. Before you sink!" |
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Johnny gunned his gas pedal, to reach the safety of the far bank like Frick had done. But the country bridge's concrete bed suddenly dropped on its cables, its suspended road way tilting sharply when an unseen submerged house hit it with its full water logged weight. The force jolted Johnny's land rover over the edge and into the river's depths. Soon, the sheriff and the doctor, were alone by the red wagon, perched precariously on the drowning highway partially swallowed by the raging river, screaming the names they knew at the night, listening for a reply. There was none returned except the full throated roar of the flood as it destroyed the river bridge. ---------------------------------------------------------------- ************************************************************* From : Cory Anda <andacory@hotmail.com> Sent : Thursday, July 1, 2004 12:39 AM Subject : Separation Johnny felt the land rover shift under his hands. "We're going over! Watch o--" But then the white truck was plummeting down like a stone underneath the wild night river's surface. Cap gasped when the car landed on its side on the river's bottom. His ears hurt from the water pressure but he could still see lightning reflecting from the sky down to them. "Everyone all right?!" he coughed, feeling in the pitch blackness for movement in the seats around him. "Tell me you're all still conscious.. Hey..sound off!" he shouted over the hiss of water seeping in gushes from the window cracks into the cab of the rover. "Yeah.." "oh my g--" "What happened?" "*sputter choke* Still here." "The bridge gave way and we fell in. " Cap said, spitting mud and water out of his mouth. "Gage? You ok?" "uh,, yeah.. I'm not pinned." "Good cause we're gonna get out of here. Now. Before we get hung up on any debris on the bottom. Stoker. Grab that tire iron. Take a window out. My side's turned up. Feel it?" Hank strained as he cut himself lose from his seatbelt with a pocket knife. "Yeah.." coughed the engineer. "How far's the surface?" "Not too far. I'm seeing a glow from the lightning." Kelly was terrified, "Not....ready..." he cried softly. "I ...can't breathe.." Marco grabbed him by the shoulders and hauled him into his arms. "You're fine. You aren't hurt. I already checked ya. We'll go up together." "No.. please just wait. I ...can't. I don't think I can do this." Chet gasped, hanging on tight to Lopez's arms from where he lay across the car seat. Water rained down on his face, blinding him. "Ok.. ok.." Cap said, floating nearer the top end of the rover's cab as the water grew deeper around them. "We got rope in here?" "Yeah. " Lopez said.. "I'll go get it." and he dove underneath the black water to the back of the rover in the storage area. He shot back to the top with a coiled length. Gage snatched Chet's head and pulled him onto his shoulder, floating both their faces in the remaining air space above them. "Chet. Start to hyperventilate yourself.. You're gonna need to because you're getting yourself worked up." "What? *gasp* Of course I'm getting worked up! We're about to drown in a raging river who knows how deep and--" "No one's gonna drown cause we're gonna tie ourselves together." Cap thundered. "Marco, here. Get him secured and Gage too. I already got myself anchored in a hitch. Set? Ok, Mike, pop it open. On the count of three." "Too soon.. I'm not--!" Chet sputtered, tight in Johnny's grip. "One.." Hank nodded grimly to Stoker. "Cap.. don't .. I--" Chet pleaded. "Two..." "....can't catch my breath. I'll suck down water for sure and die.. I just need a little more t--" Kelly begged. "THREE!" Cap shouted. Stoker swung at the window above them with all of his strength. " AghhhhHHHHHH!" Kelly screamed as the river flooded in. The five hapless firemen were swept out of the under water land rover and carried downstream inside the twisting river's under tow. Swimming blindly, Cap felt a yank on his rope as they were all tugged and tumbled in the current. A hidden tree limb smashed into his ribs and he lost most of his air. Desperation made him kick frantically in the direction that his escaping bubbles were now travelling in the water. Up. |
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Hank's head broke the surface into a storming, fast moving h*ll. The pine forest rushed by as the river carried the firemen swiftly in its grip. Near them, the great bulk of the sunken house that had ruined the bridge, paced them at their same drifting velocity. He moved away from the house, worried about getting himself and his men crushed against it when it finally ground to a halt on a shallow bottom. One by one, the other heads of his men shot to the surface, and he heard them begin to gasp as they struggled to replenish precious air back into their burning lungs. "All here?" Hank asked. Gage shouted. "Cap! Chet's out cold." "Did he get nailed by something on the way up?" Hank said as all of them linked arms, passing the limp Kelly into the center of their floating circle so they could keep his mouth and nose up into the air more easily. "I don't think so, nothing got me." Johnny said. "Maybe he just fainted. He was pretty scared down there." "So were we all. Keep tabs on his breathing. The rest of us'll kick for shore. Gather the rope's ends back up. I don't want us to get dragged back under on a snag." Johnny shook extra water out of his hair. "Ok, Stoker,.. open his shirt. I wanna keep tabs on him by feel. Marco, make sure he isn't bleeding anywhere." "Right." they answered. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Nate was horribly frightened. "Freeze. Everybody don't move!" he panicked as the vibrating lurch of his tires dragging sideways ended. In a blur, he saw the red station wagon and Doctor Frick and the Sheriff recede into the distance as his car was gripped by the flood. "Get the baby out! Aaron?!" Mr. Johnson reached for his son as water spilled violently into the car. Roy hefted the infant over his head, wrapping Darren up in the plastic covering that had been over the drawer. "Mary.. get out the window. I've got him. Nicola?!" The Porsche slammed into a tree trunk and hung there, canted sharply up stream. Roy got out and found the water was to his waist. He held Darren in his arms and Mary waded out, terrified but watching DeSoto holding the baby. A shout from the shore showed Doctor Frick and Sheriff Bittner flinging a rope in their direction. Roy grasped it and handed it to Mary. "Go. I'll hand him off..." he ordered, fighting to stay on his feet in the swift water. Mary went and Roy tossed Darren over his head to land safely in Bittners wide arms. The baby squealed in fright but soon calmed down as he was taken up by his mother's soothing hands. Roy waded back out to the car where he could see a partially submerged Nate shoving his son out the driver's window. Of Nicola, there was no sign. "She still in there?" "I ...I...I don't know.." sputtered Nate Johnson. "I think she got out." Roy made a grab for Aaron's arms and snatched the boy up to the shore. "Take him." DeSoto told Bittner. " I gotta get--" |
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Then the Porsche suddenly rolled out of sight, carrying a screaming Mr. Johnson and an invisible Ms. Sommers with it. "Nate! Nicola!" The power of the current startled him. DeSoto dove back into the swollen river, tying the sheriff's rope around his waist. He ducked under the waves, holding his breath, and felt the car slip over a muddy bar and away from him downstream. At the same time, a shard of bridge material shot by and sliced his safety rope in two with knifelike precision. Roy disappeared. Sheriff Bittner and Doctor Frick ran down the shoreline, tracing where they could see the tumbling silver Porsche log rolling in the rapids, calling out to them frantically. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Nicola Sommers coughed and roused. She was on her back, at the very edge of the raging river. She barely remembered pulling Nate Johnson free of the car before it sank into the depths. Dimly, she remembered that she had heard a loud sound on shore after she had dragged a limp Mr. Johnson onto the bank. It had been a dry rasping buzz that made her recoil in fright. Soon after, something unseen in the darkness had struck her left hand sharply. |
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Groggily peering down, Nicola saw only a small smear of blood there. The slight wound she found burned only faintly, but her heart was pounding. ::Where is he?:: Sommers wondered, dizzy, about Nate. She winced, when a lump the size of a grape on her temple, argued with her louder than her throbbing hand. ::And what's that awful smell?:: she thought, shaking her head to come more fully awake. With her eyes, muzzy and unfocused, she realized that she was just below the water treatment plant. It was still completely storm unscathed and the raw sewage stench coming from the reservoir pools swirling at the top of the hill was as strong as ever. Nicola gagged. Sneezing, she flipped over onto her hands and knees to clear her mouth out of foul tasting mud. Her right hand bumped into Nate Johnson's waist. He was lying motionless and blue next to her under a knot of severed electrical wire. "Oh, G*d." she cried and scrambled for his head. "Mr. Johnson?!" He didn't react to a firm chest rub so she leaned down and listened over his cobalt lips, opening his airway carefully. ::Hypothermia?:: No sounds of active breathing rewarded her. "It's worse than that? Nate. Don't do this." she mumbled to herself. Nicola gave him two breaths of air mouth to mouth and then she dug a set of fingers into his neck. She verbally snapped, angry, but also half fearful. "Nate. Cut it out and breathe. You gotta live for your son. No way am I gonna let you stay and almost drown like this." Seconds later, she confirmed that Mr. Johnson's heart had stopped. "Nate! You're out of the water!" she shouted "Come on. Snap out of it." and she began to administer CPR after freeing him from his mud smeared shirt. After the next set of breaths, Nicola shouted for help into the dripping, still functioning HT dangling around her wrist. "Sheriff?! Doc?! Nate's down! No pulse. I'm just south of the bridge junction about... two hundred yards. Right below Pig's Eye Plant. He either drown or a power line got him." ##Any sign of Roy DeSoto?## Nicola shifted around, searching, as she continued her efforts. "No. None... I haven't seen him since the bridge fell." Nicola gasped as she continued to maintain Nate. "Hurry. I don't think I can keep this up much longer. I've hit my head among other things." ##We'll be right there!## the sheriff promised. ##The wagon's intact..## Nicola counted off a minute, two minutes, then five as the world narrowed down into a tight focus until it was just the lifeless man lying underneath her palms. "Nate.. Come back." she gasped. "You picked a stupid place to die in. The air's foul. Dead fish everywhere. This whole beach's a complete sh*thole. Disgusting! Pick it up, d*mmit!" she gagged, still working hard on keeping her compressions effective. |
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Doctor Frick and the Sheriff came running down the hill, skidding and grimacing at the smell of the treatment plant, laden with all the medical gear they could carry. "Down here! He's gonna need an esophageal. He's getting tight with inhalations." Frick and Bittner soon took over for Nicola who gratefully staggered a short distance away, finally allowing herself to get sick onto the flood soft mud as she let her roiling stomach take over. Then she folded into a heap, falling unconscious. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Roy DeSoto sped through the darkness in the river, his strength waning. His outdoor clothes constantly caught on trees and debris floating around him. So he shed all of them down to his bare skin, including his shoes, saving only his orange rain jacket for some protection when he finally got to shore. Ten minutes and many bruises later, a struggling plow horse nearby in the water got his attention and he grabbed its mane, letting the exhausted but placid animal swim him to what appeared to be a boat landing mooring site. Shuddering off its excess water and mud, the big brown horse fled, leaving Roy to stagger on his own out of the water. A renewed roar behind him made Roy run faster away from the flooding river as the bridge and the house that had pulverised it made the flood surge even higher up the mountain slopes. |
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He fled with icy rising water lapping at both of his bare heels. Minutes later, after a period of unthinking panic, DeSoto realized that he was in town, inside a city park. A sign was posted declaring a roadside shelter a few hundred yards away. Groaning, Roy limped slowly in that direction, wondering whether or not his coworkers and the other Santa Rosa folks, had survived. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Doc Frick worked on reviving Nate with his defibrillator while Bittner gathered up Nicola into his arms to figure out what was wrong with her. "Doc, she doesn't look so good." "How so?" Frick said, giving Nate another jolt from the defibrillator. The second time rewarded him with a viable rhythm. "Gotcha." He smiled when Mr. Johnson also began to breathe through his EOA. "Blaine, set her down over here before you strain yourself into another angina attack." Bittner shrugged and set her down, placing her head into his lap. "She's ok vitals wise. Just not awake." he puzzled. "I'll take a look at her as soon as I take a set of vitals on him. Why don't you get on the horn and tell those ambulance boys to meet us here at the plant?" Frick suggested. "Good idea, doc." and Blaine dug the walkie talkie out of his pocket to hail them. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The gang had freed themselves from the flood. They were walking down the rainy highway towards the direction of the bridge crossing they had been swept away from almost fifteen minutes ago. Chet had recovered fully from his misadventure and was gabbing as fast as he usually did to the other four firemen with him. "So the Porsche took a dive, too?" Kelly wanted to know. "Oh man. If they went as deep as we did, they're goners for sure. I didn't see any tire iron in the back of Mr. Johnson's car when we were loading it earlier." The unwelcome speculation grated on Johnny. "Chet. Thank you for bringing up such an unpleasant thought. My partner was in that car." Kelly immediately amended. "Oh, but I have every faith in the world that DeSoto bailed all of them out. He's a big guy, Johnny. One of the biggest. I don't see a flimsy car window standing in the way of--" Marco Lopez interrupted him. "I keep thinking about the baby." That made Chet and the others go silent. Cap filled the pause with a quiet bit of wisdom. "Let's just cross that bridge when we come to it.." "We did.." Chet said furlatively. He wasn't trying to be funny. "And look where it got us? Roy's missing along with Nicola, Mary, Nate, Aaron and the baby. I just hate to think of what might've happened to all of them, not just little Darren." Hank studied the road and just listened to the sound of all their soggy footfalls as their water logged shoes paced the pavement as they walked. "Ok, let's talk about something positive, all right? What's something that we've never talked about before, huh?" "Gee, I don't know, Cap." Gage said quietly, trying to smile for everyone's benefit. "Being together so long, there really isn't anything we haven't covered." "Yeah, Johnny's right." Mike Stoker said. "Ditto." nodded Marco. Hank was firm and insistent and he sighed. "We've got at least ten minutes walking until we get to where we lost the others. And I'd do anything to pass the time more quickly. Don't you? Come on, gang. We can think of something new. I know.. why don't we talk about....." --------------------------------------------------------------- |
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**************************************************** Date: Thu, 1 Jul 2004 10:25:59 +0100 (BST) From: "Katherine Bird" <kathbird01@yahoo.co.uk> Subject: Fish Out of Water.. "..the fact that we're gonna find Roy before dawn.." said Chet with sudden finality and conviction. Hank blinked, actually pausing in his tracks. "Oh, ..uh, yeah. That's a positive statement." "And it's new." Marco agreed. Johnny Gage rubbed his nose. "Scared me for a minute, Chet. For a second there, I thought we were going to have to fess up to each other about how we all became firemen." and he grinned a cock eyed grin. "Now why would I do a dumb thing like that Johnny? Knowing why you do what you do for a living is sort of personal, isn't it? I'd never violate that sacred trust." Kelly nodded solemnly. Gage stopped Chet with a finger. "Now wait a minute. You mean all those years of..of..of baiting me with practical jokes as the Phantom and all that other stuff weren't abuses of the trust between friends?" he emphasized throwing fingers back and forth from himself to Chet in a gesture to clarify his point. Kelly mulled it over, wiping mud off an elbow. "No.." he said mildly. "Come on, the big guy's waiting." he said and he led the way ahead of the gang along the road leading back the way they had come. "Every second we delay is a second longer not knowing what's happened to him. Get the lead out!" he boomed over the thunder sizzling around them and he swept an arm forward to rally the rest of them. "This coming from a man who was a snivelling nervous wreck half an hour ago." Mike marvelled. "That's because forty feet of muddy river water isn't flowing over his head right at the particular moment." Gage said wryly to Cap, shrugging. Johnny began to whistle as he nonchalantly followed after Kelly. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Doctor Frick was satisfied with Nate Johnson's progress out of near death. He heard only residual rales in the man's chest. "Most of the water's already absorbed Blaine. I won't need albuterol." "How's his heart? Wasn't he down a long time?" Bittner wanted to know. "We won't know that until we run his lab tests at the hospital when we get there. Now.. let's see how Nicola's doing..." he said, reaching to do a head to toe survey on her. "Ho! Doc! I'm all right." shouted DeSoto, jumping out of a tan police car. He was wearing dry clothes, jeans and a gray button down shirt. "I got a ride back from the highway patrolman coming to barricade off the bridge causeway. Only I told him the causeway was already gone." Roy grinned. Then his smile immediately fell away when he saw Nate intubated and Nicola deeply unconscious. "What's their story?" he said snatching up a pen light to check out Sommers when the Doc pointed to her first. "Nate was nearly drown. Nicola found him in full arrest and kept him going until Blaine and I arrived with the defibrillator. Now, she's just collapsed after getting sick." "Not surprising with that around.." Roy said, throwing a head toss towards the treatment plant. "Gotta love that country air.." he quipped. "Speaking of a hospital. The ambulance crew following us encountered Mary and Darren and Aaron. They're already on their way into town. They'll be back for all of us.." "That's a relief. I haven't checked Nicola over yet beyond the primary." Frick told him. "Could you finish up?" "Sure will." Roy said, grabbing shears out of a bag. The CHiP was speaking to Blaine a short distance away about the ETA of the two ambulances Roy had promised them. "Can I help?" said another voice. It was Johnny. "My are you a sight for sore eyes." Gage sighed in relief when he got close enough to see who clustered on the beach. He crouched right away and began to cut away Nicola's sleeves and pants legs next to Roy. "Two are faster." Roy smiled. "Her story's a mystery. Doc here says she was lively enough to perform some CPR on Nate over there but then blacked out soon afterwards. Doc said that she became extremely nauseated fairly quickly." he told Gage. "Not the air?" he said wrinkling his dirty nose. "Nope. It's something else.." Frick said. "Bad smells don't make people faint." "But bad sights do." Cap said as the rest of them caught up with Johnny from the road. Kelly cleared his throat nervously. "Aww, Cap. Do you have to tell him?" "Fraid I do, Chet. Syncope's nothing to shake a stick at, especially when one was under water doing it." Hank said. "Chet fainted?" Roy frowned. "Yeah." Marco said. "For a whole six or seven minutes. We had to swim him ashore." "Chet, is your chest clear? How's your head?" DeSoto asked rapidly. "Yes and fine. Concentrate on Nicola and Nate buddy boy. I'm far from being a casualty." Kelly said no nonsense, setting some O2 over Sommers face from the doctor's satchel. "Hang on a minute Chet, I have to check something." DeSoto said. He crouched over Nicola and peeled back her lips to find cyanosis and a growing ecchymosis building along her gums inside of her mouth. Johnny saw it, too, holding the young woman's mask. "A toxic exposure of some kind?" |
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"Who knows in that water.." Marco said. "The water treatment plant's perfectly fine, Marco, or it wouldn't still be in operation." Chet told him. "Gotta be something else." "Bingo.. " said Johnny. "Doc, take a look at this." and he shivered. "Thought I smelled one on her." "Smelled what Gage?" Mike Stoker asked, kneeling by Nate's head to monitor him. "Snake. Looks like a bite on her left hand. And it's bleeding freely." "Into a vein.." Frick said, taking a look. "Most likely a rattler. We've got a ton in the river bottoms. The flood must've washed one out from under the bank hollows." Frick noticed Johnny's complexion. "You ok?" "Yeah, I'm fine. I...just have a bad history with snakes. That's all. It was a rattler that nearly kept me from reaching my twenty eighth birthday." Frick nodded. "Constricting band. And lower her arm below her heart. Start an I.V. Ringers on her and run it wide open. Her vital signs are shocky and her rate's well into the AV tach range." Roy said. "Got it here. Want me to lance this and apply suction?" he said, indicating the snake bite on the woman's hand. "Nah, it's too late at this stage of the game. She was exerting herself and anything the venom's gonna do, it's already well on the way to doing it." Frick sighed. "I'll be sure to get ten to twenty vials of antivenin set once we get into the ER." "What kinds of tests do you want?" Johnny said holding Nicola's head back so her harsh breathing came more easily. "I can tell them once we get there to free you up." "Oh, the same as what your city docs usually order. A CBC, PT, a PTT, electrolytes, glucose, and a renal function study series." he said. "Don't forget to mark my skin at the leading edge of the bite with a pen every 15 to 30 to find coagulopathy and progressing edema.." mumbled the woozy girl on the ground. Gage smiled. "Welcome back." he said releasing her head. "Now don't make me have to tell you to keep still or to keep this oxygen on your face." He held her down when she remembered Mr. Johnson. "Nate?!" Nicola shouted, her memory returning. "Nate's fine. He's got a pulse and he's breathing on his own." Nicola fixed Roy and Johnny with a stare. "Now why do I have to keep from moving? I didn't hurt myself." "No, but a certain scaley one did Ms. Sommers. A snake got your hand." Nicola let her head clunk back onto the ground. "Oh, so that's what it was.. a diamondback." "You certain of that?" Dr. Frick said, drawing a red top from Nicola's arm when he started to hear the sound of sirens growing in the distance. "I'm more than sure. I heard the d*mned rattling before a tree limb landed on my head." she said empathetically. Then she winced when Roy applied a tourniquet to her forearm above the bite. "How's Mary and Darren?" "Safe. Most likely in a warm hospital bed as we speak." Blaine said, turning from the CHiP officer he had been speaking to about everyone's adventure in the flood. "Boy that sounds good." Sommers sighed, falling asleep. "I think I'll doze and make it happen faster." "Roll over on your side, Nicola. In case you get an upset stomach again." Frick told her. Nicola was beyond hearing already, so Gage and Roy gently turned her underneath the blankets that the highway patrol officer had given them. "She goes first. Nate's stable." Frick told the paramedics. Johnny and Roy nodded. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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--------------------------------------------------------------------------------- It was four days later and it was nearly the end of the gang's luckless vacation week. "Boys, " said Blaine over chili at Rosie's. "Let me make it up to you. There ain't no finer fishing guide here than Ms Sommers." he professed. Nicola cradled her arm in its sling, blushing."Well, what else have I got to do but fish in the summer time. It's not like I'm busy in school or anything then." she admitted. "I'd be happy to take you out on the lake. I know where all the holes are. Like lake trout?" she said leaning into Cap. Hank swallowed dryly. "Uh, maybe that's a question for my men, Ms. Sommers. They're the ones who think they can eat em.." Nicola redirected her eyes at the gang. "Oh, I like them just fine, maam." said Marco. "Sure do.." said Chet. "When I can catch em.'' Johnny chuckled honestly. "Only when my wife fixes em up." Roy admitted. "Or when I do..." Stoker followed up on the cooking comment. "How do you boys prepare them?" asked Doctor Frick. "You haven't lived until you've slathered them in Pabst batter and have them deep fried on a griddle over a camp fire. Maybe we can do that tonight at the campsite." |
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"Sure.. It'll take at least until morning for the rental car company to run another truck out to us to haul the camper back to L.A. on Saturday." Hank accepted for his men. "Great. It can be a beach party." "Just as long as I don't have to get wet or anything like that to attend." Kelly goggled distastefully. "Not unless you want to." Nicola soothed. "Or unless the boat tips over again, dumping us in like it did last time." complained Lopez. "You guys tipped over that night?" Gage said, smiling like a hawk over a rabbit. "Yeah, off the point. Guess we must have been out of eye range." Marco detailed. "Kelly, no wonder you were so cagey when you guys raced up the beach to help us with Stoker's outhouse fire. You had just had another water scare. Explains why you overreacted today in the river." "Not very d*mned funny Gage." Chet said with only half heat. "Ask anyone here. I didn't overreact at all." "Oh yeah? Then why were you the only one who checked out getting free of my rover?" Johnny challenged. "I.......I... had trouble breathing, that's all. Stoker wailed out that window faster than I could get ready for it." Chet said defensively. "You were breathing fine when we all hauled you up to the top.." Stoker chipped in. "You didn't sound like any dypsnea case I've ever heard. He had smooth pipes, Gage. Real smooth. The whole time." "Thanks for sticking up for me, Stoker. I'll remember that the next time you draw chrome detail before a monthly inspection." Chet gestured pointedly. Soon, the gang was debating semantics with each other at the top of their lungs, gleefully and deadly passionate, while a contented Hank watched on. Dr. Frick reached over and shook Cap and Roy's hand. "Looks like you've been thoroughly initiated by Santa Rosa County now. You've been baptized in our waters." "Some more than others.." quipped Nicola, making a face as she remembered the Pig's Eye plant. "Well, be that as it may. I'm sure glad we stopped by." Hank admitted. "You were just what these city fireboys ordered." FIN Episode Eleven, Shadows Of The Past, Season Two |
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