 |
 |
|
 |
|
|
| PAGE FORTY THREE |
|
He wanted solitude. But Chet Kelly wasn't about to let his running escape succeed. He gingerly peeked around the skewed door's window and knocked, still outside the lab. |
|
Jamie MacPherson and Steve Taylor were oblivious, deep in their work, and neither heard the two men enter in, nor talk. Johnny Gage didn't even look up. "Leave me alone, Kelly. I'm busy.." Chet's face split into an angry frown and he marched right on in, his earlier respectful shyness evaporating. "Busy doing what, Johnny? Feeling sorry for yourself? That rod didn't skewer you anywhere near your head, so stop acting like one has. Man, even you've told me a million times never to talk negative around unconscious victims, so why'd do it in front of Marco?" "Chet, you don't know what you're talking about so why don't you just shut--" Johnny said sarcastically. "Now wait just a doggoned minute here. A lot of people around this station are expecting the core crew to hold it all together man. Haven't you realized what's been going and evolving among us for the past three years? The station can't work without you paramedics being strong in situations, so just what are we supposed to do when you aren't?" Chet didn't wait for Gage to reply. "The answer is, you don't fall into that trap in the first place." Johnny didn't reply to Chet at all. He just continued to play with the toy ball one of the kids had left behind on a dinner plate and tried to ignore Kelly to the best of his abilities. Kelly went on, "Man, don't you know anything?" Gage didn't rise to Kelly's bait. Chet was undaunted. "Ok. All right.. You don't have to say anything but you're gonna listen to me. ..I'm gonna let you in on a little secret Gage, a big one. One that I've never ever told anyone.." Johnny just tilted his head, not liking his lecture at all and he avoided all eye contact with Chester B. "I look up to you paramedics more than you can ever possibly know, Gage." That made Gage glance up in surprise. "It's true..." Chet said insistently. "I've even dreamed of one of these times going into the paramedic program so I can make a difference out there, too, man. Like you and Roy do..." "Come off it, Chet. This is just some dumb speech you're giving me to cheer--" "No, listen. I'm very serious.." Chet said slowly, without blinking, eye to eye with him. Johnny was amazed that Chet's stare didn't waver nor show any hint of untruth, his mouth flopped open. Chet didn't give him time to speak. "I- I've been watching how you guys work for years, and it just sickened me when you folded like a stack of cards just now, with Marco..on professionalism." Chet had been spinning a coffee spoon around aimlessly and it spun off the table top to land on the linoleum with a loud crash.. Bonnie, near a seated place by the two bats' confinement, barked, sounding as if she thought someone was at the side station door. Her mistake made both Johnny and Chet break out of their mutual funks and the ironic humor of Bonnie's innocent reaction, made the two firemen, finally, laugh hard together, each breaking up into paroxyms of uncontrollable mirth. Johnny spoke, when he recovered use of his stomach muscles again. "B-Bet you won't last a week in the paramedic program.." Chet spat on his hand. "Shake on it.. A month's dish detail.." Johnny grinned a cockeyed smile and spat likewise in jest and they sealed their bet. Then Johnny's face turned cat with the canary and he said, "Better count on buying the rubber gloves, Chet. Cause you just lost that bet. Brice is teaching all the principle courses this year, in the signup program and he's known for a heavy work load, hard on study.." "He is??" Chet cried out, complaining. "Aww, man..." "Whaa..." Johnny said, spreading his hands wide. "Afraid of a little obstacle?" "Brice isn't a tiny obstacle Johnny, and you know it.. The whole station does.!" "Shhh.." Gage jabbed teasely. "He can hear you..." he said, mocking the very reason Chet came in to dress down Johnny to begin with. Then he sheepishly admitted. "Thanks for yelling at me about Marco. I was outta line talking like that. It's just so,....d*mned frustrating seeing him dying in pieces.." Amazingly, one of the microscope lit backs turned around on a swiveled chair. It was Jamie. "No one's dying around here gentlemen, at least, among the humans anyway..." and her eyes made Chet and Johnny notice the cage holding the wounded bat. Its head was slowing sinking into the clear impossibly limp rictor of lifelessness. And even Bonnie knew it, she whined and scampered away from the cage in fear at the new lack of warm scent rising up. It was then Kelly and Gage noticed that Jamie's face was glinting with wetness in the dim lighting. |
|
Both firemen rose to be by her instantly. "What is it?" Johnny asked. "Are you ok, Dr. MacPherson?" Chet asked too. "Don't be upset the bat died. W-We still have the one.. Won't she be enough?" "I'm fine.." Jamie sobbed. "I always cry on occasions like this..." and her tears turned to a small smile of tired triumph and she held up a small pressure syringe of spun lactate proteins. Her grin brightened hopeful, by leaps. "We did it..!! Mr. Gage, Quickly. Go give this to one of the other paramedics for Marco. It'll take two hands to inject the serum into his endotrach tube." Chet and Johnny nearly leaped across the lab table to grab the tiny vile of hope. They both stopped on a dime when their jostling almost upset the grip Jamie had on it. Johnny and Chet both broke into a "no, after you" routine,...until .. Dr. Taylor sighed and flipped a coin into the air.., "Heads for the curly haired fireman, Tails for you.." Heads won. Chet held the tiny syringe cupped in his hands as if it were a fragile egg and he hastened, with care, back out to the others. His body was careful, but his voice was not.. "Hey Marcoo!! Hang in there pal... Guess what we got done cooking here....!!!!" Both firemen's shadows in the gloom, eagerly left the room. Jamie's head sank onto the countertop where she and Steve had been working, and just sobbed. Dr. Steven Taylor smiled and handed her a kleenix from his pocket. "Knew you were going to do that again. D*mnest thing I ever saw. Tears of happiness, heh. Who'd figure..?" ---------------------------------------------- Roy sat over Marco's bed, trembling. In his fingers, lay the precious serum shot. |
| ||||
|
| ||||
| ||||
| ||||
 | ||||
|
|