Pavement Spatula

The para­medics called the orange back­board they used to scrape up my broth­er their “pave­ment spat­u­la.” I heard the fat one say that, as he hitched black car­go pants up to where his stom­ach hung free from his polo. That’s what stuck with me from the day my broth­er, Simon, had been thrown through the wind­shield of our family’s Sub­ur­ban. I don’t remem­ber what I had seen when I inched out onto the shoul­der to make sense of the shred­ded form on the road – thank God for small­er favors. Instead, I remem­ber a fat man, his hairy stom­ach, and his pave­ment spatula.

At twen­ty-one, I’ve earned my EMT license and am onboard at Bak­er Val­ley Ambu­lance out of Brad­ford, Ver­mont. Frankly they’ll take any­one with a pulse up here, just to dri­ve the para­medics around. For $18.13 an hour, I’m hap­py to oblige. It’s enough to move out of Mom’s place and its cat piss must. 

Mom had been wary around my deci­sion to enroll in an EMT pro­gram around shifts at Green Moun­tain Rehab, where I’d worked the kitchens (i.e., the microwaves). 

“Derek, does this have some­thing to do with Simon?” she had asked, her voice pinched. I told her no, and at the time I think I believed that.

Dad hadn’t asked me a thing about it. He didn’t talk about Simon. Ever. He had been behind the wheel when the SUV had slid off I‑93 and into the front end of a guardrail.

#

On one of my first ride­a­longs on the ambu­lance, we’re dis­patched to a self-inflict­ed GSW, appar­ent suicide.

“You can sit this one out,” says Marge, my para­medic pre­cep­tor, as we pull up on scene.

I shake my head. “I’ll be alright.” 

It’s dif­fer­ent than the movies. It’s dif­fi­cult to find the entry wound – Marge needs to push aside the woman’s heavy breasts to expose a red dot hard­ly big­ger than a dime. 

I had been unsure of what to expect, espe­cial­ly after what Mom had said, wor­ried that my mind would dredge up some­thing long buried. But I don’t feel much of any­thing, to be hon­est. There seems some kind of glaze between me and tragedy ahead. My brain refutes the real­i­ty of my patient, sees the splotchy moles on her chin not as the prod­uct of a life­time shun­ning SPF, but sim­ply as tex­ture. I push myself to inter­nal­ize that some­one had once been in this body, but the idea beads up on the out­side of my brain, water on wax.

I quick­ly built a base of high acu­ity calls: an over­dose I’d got­ten to Nar­can, some guy who’d lac­er­at­ed his arm on a met­al grinder, a stroke vic­tim, who’d been col­lapsed in his back­yard for God-knew-how-long, who’d soiled his jeans and vom­it­ed on the front of his sweater.

But none of those calls had seemed real in the moment. My body had act­ed, my mind had worked to prob­lem solve, but I had watched from a distance. 

#

The weird shit starts in Jan­u­ary, about four months into my employment.

A 911 med­ical call brings Marge and me to 215 Old Post Road, Orford NH for Mr. Peter­son, a fre­quent fli­er with Bak­er Val­ley Ambu­lance. Mr. Peter­son has Stage IV lung can­cer that’s turned him into a skele­ton of a man, hol­low eyes, grey skin, arms so thin I use the pedi­atric blood pres­sure cuff to get an accu­rate read­ing. He’s one foot in the grave already, and today, he’s cough­ing up blood.

“I couldn’t sleep last night,” says Mr. Peter­son, en route to the hos­pi­tal. Marge is let­ting me do patient care.

“Not like I can do any­thing for him,” she had shrugged, rip­ping a man­go-scent­ed hit off her vape.

I hook Mr. Peter­son up to a nasal can­nu­la at 4L and take a quick 12-Lead before we head out, just to do my due dili­gence. Now there’s noth­ing left to do but dri­ve the thir­ty min­utes to the Dart­mouth-Hitch­cock ED.

“The cough­ing kept you up?” I click open my pen and scrawl a note in the ‘His­to­ry’ sec­tion of the drop-sheet.

“The cough­ing too I s’pose,” says Mr. Peter­son. As if to demon­strate, he hacks into his hand­ker­chief. It’s hard to tell if he brought up any blood, the cloth is already smeared. “Most­ly it was the bells.”

“Bells?” I ask. 215 Old Post Road is way back on some chewed up dirt roads. There isn’t any near­by church, or real­ly a near­by any­thing as far as I know. 

“They were in my head,” he says. “I was a fire­fight­er. Forty-two years, down in Brad­ford. When one of ours pass­es, they ring the bells all day long. Last night I heard ‘em going and going.” He fix­es me with a resigned stare. “They were chim­ing for me.”

I would lat­er find out Mr. Peter­son had torn his esoph­a­gus. It was seri­ous enough that he need­ed a sur­gi­cal repair, but there was some com­pli­ca­tion – a thrown clot or some­thing – and Mr. Peter­son nev­er woke up.

After the end of my shift on the day Mr. Peter­son dies, I dri­ve over to the fire­house. The bells are ring­ing a steady dirge – clang, clang, clang.

That night, I can’t sleep. That’s unusu­al for me – I’m the kind of guy that runs a chron­ic sleep debt, no mat­ter how many hours I get. When my head hits the pil­low, I’m out. Tonight, I roll from side to side. I hear those bells clang­ing their somber song, wedged in my mind like a stub­born pebble.

#

Ear­ly in my ori­en­ta­tion at Bak­er Val­ley Ambu­lance, Marge warned me that every­body gets that First Call, and it’s nev­er pretty. 

The tone for mine drops at 2:47 in the morn­ing. It’s an Advanced Life Sup­port call, eigh­teen-year-old male, sus­pect­ed OD. Ripped halfway from a REM cycle, one boot on before I real­ize I still need my pants, I pause to pay atten­tion to dis­patch. Fire is already on scene, CPR in progress.

The ALS truck is stuck down in ED pur­ga­to­ry, wait­ing to drop off their sta­ble A‑fib patient. Myself and my sim­i­lar­ly wet-behind-the-ears part­ner, Cheyenne are both measly EMT-Basics, run­ning a Basic Life Sup­port truck. I sign on over the radio. Cheyenne dri­ves, lights and sirens. We aren’t entire­ly sure where we’re going.

This call is different. 

The details are jar­ring, sharp, my mind thrown and rat­tled every time I spot some­thing new. Col­li­sion.

The dad’s out­side, yelling, and hurl­ing clay tur­tles from the gar­den against the garage door. The dri­ve­way is lit­tered with ceram­ic debris, the garage door hard­ly dent­ed. Futile.  The mom’s on the upstairs land­ing, clutch­ing the rail­ing and scream­ing word­less anguish that echoes off the dry­wall. She screams the whole time. I’ll still hear it, long after we clear the scene. Days after.

I’m scram­bling to get our mon­i­tor hooked up to Fire’s pads – my hands shake so bad I strug­gle to hit the big pow­er but­ton. Once it’s on, I keep push­ing the wrong arrows to nav­i­gate. My atten­tion isn’t fixed to my patient like it usu­al­ly is. A good por­tion is lis­ten­ing to that woman scream. She’s get­ting hoarse, but still loud as all hell. I wor­ry she’ll tear something. 

The kid’s in asys­tole. His lips are pur­ple, his cheeks a waxy yel­low, his eyes glazed and pin­point. Fire had giv­en Nar­can, but no one has start­ed bag­ging. I go to the air­way as Cheyenne takes over com­pres­sions, and the patient’s mouth is filled with blood. I start suc­tion­ing – some of my autopi­lot is back – but the blood doesn’t drain and then it’s spilling all over the patient, his face and into his nos­trils and down his neck and onto the floor and on my knees. It doesn’t mat­ter how much I suc­tion, the mouth keeps fill­ing with blood.

It’s bright red, foamy. Hot. The car­pet is thick with it, my knees are pressed into a pool. I hear heav­ier thuds in the dis­tance – dad has found some­thing heav­ier to throw.

The ALS truck gets here. They leave me on suc­tion and mask seal with Fire work­ing the bag, as Marge sets up for an ETT intu­ba­tion. More Nar­can. Mel, an A‑EMT on the pri­ma­ry shift with Marge, is down at the patient’s knee get­ting an IO to push epi. Marge gets the tube and wave­form on the cap with it. Suc­tion, suc­tion, suc­tion. I have to stop every 15 sec­onds, pro­to­col, and any ground I gain is lost. There’s blood on my face now, in my hair.

 More epi, and after two more asys­tole read­ings, brady PEA, then final­ly v‑fib. Shock, epi, shock, epi. 

Nor­mal­ly, I study every­thing Marge does, to pre-empt her needs on future calls. I usu­al­ly stash a few ques­tions. But today it’s all back­ground noise, with the scream­ing and thud­ding. I keep look­ing down at the kid, so impos­si­bly life­less. Blood he should have wiped away oozes into his open eye. There’s noth­ing in this body any­more, noth­ing to pilot even its most basic func­tions, noth­ing to even close its eyes. I keep suc­tion­ing. I want so des­per­ate­ly to be any­where but here.

 Mutu­al aid comes on scene from Hanover, and now we’re shoul­der­ing him down the stairs, push­ing past his mom who grabs at my shirt and pants, try­ing for a hand­hold, scream­ing in my ear.

On route, I suc­tion away over 500 ccs of blood. So much god­damn blood. 

In the trau­ma room, the ED docs throw some cock­tail of meds at the kid, shock him a few more times and final­ly get ROSC. Last I heard, the kid’s basi­cal­ly brain­dead, hooked up to just about every damn piece of equip­ment the ICU has.

My shift ends at 7am. I go home and take an hour-long show­er where I scrub not just my hair, but every inch of my skin until it starts to hurt. I cry in there, some­thing I had not expect­ed when I first got in, but some­thing I don’t both­er try­ing to restrain. 

#

After long night shifts, I like to treat myself to a nap, and usu­al­ly that nap car­ries me all the way until the next day. But again, I’m wide awake and star­ing at the ceiling.

I find myself work­ing through the nasty calls. It starts with the kid from last night and his foam­ing, unre­lent­ing blood, but then it works back­ward, deep­er. Dig­ging.

Old calls come back, and with them bub­ble up details I don’t even remem­ber pro­cess­ing. The suicide’s son col­lapsed in the couch across from her, stam­mer­ing over and over about how he always keeps his firearm locked up. The one time he for­gets. The one time. The Adele album play­ing off the overdose’s phone, muf­fled from the show­er steam that had con­densed on the speak­er. The stroke reach­ing out and find­ing my hand, squeez­ing. He was still in there, trapped in direc­tion­less terror.

It dawns on me that I’m not in con­trol. These are parts of my mind, I real­ize, that I do not vis­it, dare not tread across, like ear­ly-win­ter lake ice. Yet here I am, step­ping out and test­ing my weight. Some­one else, some­thing else, is exam­in­ing my mem­o­ries, turn­ing over rocks and look­ing for grubs.

A thought flash­es quick­ly, one that is not mine. The rest of my brain ris­es against it, like an immune response, and tears it apart. Too slow. It hadn’t been words, it hadn’t been human. It was vis­cer­al, heavy in my guts: patient desire, hunger for some­thing it hadn’t yet found. Sali­va­tion.

I’m left think­ing about mounds of spi­der eggs. Of nest­ing.

#

“You look like dogshit,” says Marge as I come in the door. She’s sprawled on the couch, some news pro­gram mut­ed on the TV. Marge is work­ing a 48, and this is the start of the sec­ond 24-hour leg. 

“Feel like it.” My eyes are puffy and bagged, and my skin is a clam­my grey. 

“Big night? I hate hang­over shifts.” Marge grins and fans open a magazine.

I pause on my way to the kitchen. I don’t know how to describe what last night was like, but I don’t want to call it ‘big.’

“Wasn’t drink­ing,” I final­ly say. “Just up late.” I pour myself a cup of cof­fee from the pot.

“Well, to reit­er­ate, you look like shit,” Marge says. “Go grab a nap before a tone – ”

buu­u­u­u­uh­WEEEE beepbeepbeepbeepbeeepbeep

She gets to her feet with a sigh. “You bet­ter not fall asleep behind the wheel.”

I don’t, though my dri­ving is subpar.

“You know if you’re still drunk in the morn­ing, it’s bet­ter to call out sick,” says Marge, in a haze of sour water­mel­on vapor. 

It’s a sim­ple call – chest pain in a 52-year-old-male. I screw up the lead place­ment for the EKG and can’t get a man­u­al blood pres­sure reading.

In my head, I swear I hear bells ringing.

Marge pokes her head up into the cock­pit after I clear the scene over the radio. It’s a BLS call – the EKG is nor­mal and his blood pres­sure is fine. On a bet­ter day we wouldn’t have had to trans­port at all, but the patient had request­ed to go to the ED. Marge had vol­un­teered to tech the call. She doesn’t need to say it out loud – with what­ev­er is going on with me today, I’m not get­ting any­where near her patient. 

“Just don’t kill us kid, alright?”

“Yes, Mom.” At least I have some sense of humor still.

My least favorite part of the whole job is dri­ving the rig. I don’t real­ly like dri­ving peri­od, not even my twice-owned Corol­la – and I don’t appre­ci­ate how our truck is twice as wide and half as respon­sive, wheels touch­ing both edges of the lane. This was all to say – I don’t dri­ve quick­ly, espe­cial­ly not today. 

“Some of us have plans tonight!” Marge calls. It’s as if she has a speedome­ter embed­ded in her brain. 

Today, with my hal­lu­cino­genic dose of insom­nia, I’m dri­ving even slow­er than usu­al. My mind drifts, slips, to warmer, sum­mer days. Me and Simon, swim­ming in the river. 

Then I feel some­thing lurch, through the gaps in my sleep-starved brain, toward some­thing I didn’t know I was guard­ing. It dug in, hard, hun­dreds of sharp pricks drew the entire­ty of my atten­tion, focused it on what this thing had found.

Simon.

Brake lights cut away my brother’s face – I’m fly­ing up on some dinky sedan put­ter­ing away in the right lane. I lunge for the brakes – too sharp, a thump, Marge against the padded medic seat.

“Pre­cious car­go!” Marge yells.

“Sor­ry,” I mur­mur back. I rub my eyes, shake my head, maneu­ver around the sedan.

I can’t set­tle it. It’s latched on, a tick embed­ded down to its neck, engorged. It’s a dull ache that demands my atten­tion, as my mind runs in cir­cles try­ing to pull it out. 

I’m chas­ing after Simon and his friends, I want to hang out with them, but they’re too fast, and they lose me in the trails behind the park. I can hear Simon laugh­ing some­where. I walk back home and trash his room. 

It’s the rum­ble strip, not brake lights, that jolts me away this time. The ambu­lance has slid out from its lane, the dull guardrail ahead. I could’ve drift­ed back onto the road had I react­ed then. But for a moment, I’m not behind the wheel of the emer­gency vehi­cle, but in the back­seat of a Sub­ur­ban, glanc­ing up over my Game­boy because I feel us slid­ing. The guardrail speeds toward me, loom­ing. My mind widens to com­pre­hend the force of the incom­ing collision…

 I flail – tear myself from the mem­o­ry like a mouse stuck in a glue trap might tear its own leg off. I yank the wheel, my foot pounds the brake. The ambu­lance swerves from its col­li­sion course, wheels whistling on the pave­ment. Marge is thrown against the cab­i­net, hard. A latch springs open and I hear gauze and tub­ing and what­ev­er else spill out.

“Derek!”

#

I earn myself a week’s sus­pen­sion, Marge sees to it that I’m pun­ished. She’s loy­al to her part­ners, until they put her patients in dan­ger. I respect the hell out of her for that.

“Take the slap on the wrist, and shape up,” Marge says, grip­ping my shoul­der as we leave Boss Man’s office. “This is real stuff. If you’re going to be here, be here, yeah?”

#

I still can’t sleep, and now I’m los­ing track of time.

My days blur into streaks of grey. I’m on my couch, in my bed, walk­ing along Bradford’s main drag in the pitch dark. I won­der if these are dreams. I read the Wikipedia entry for Schizophrenia. 

The suck­ling keeps my brain on though it des­per­ate­ly wants to turn off, an insis­tent pain that won’t let me rest. It holds me in hell, in those qui­et days and years after the crash, after the funeral. 

Dad turns to the liquor store. He hides it for a while, bury­ing his emp­ty fifths deep in the trash and lat­er, the base­ment crawl­space when there are enough to fill the bin. Even­tu­al­ly, he stops car­ing enough to hide it. Mom returns to cig­a­rettes – she had quit before her preg­nan­cies – and does puz­zles out on the porch, even in the win­ter when it’s cold enough to freeze your snot. Smok­ing inside is a line she won’t cross. They’ll split a few years lat­er. It’ll help Mom, a little. 

That thing is swollen, puffed up and envelop­ing the whole mem­o­ry. Still it feeds, greedy, tear­ing.

I’m in the Suburban.

Here, it goes on for­ev­er. The guardrail looms, the antic­i­pa­tion of col­li­sion is thick in my throat. Hor­rif­ic inevitabil­i­ty. I’m frozen, every mus­cle fiber already tensed. And the real­iza­tion, the one that had only blinked on the day, is now brand­ed to my frontal lobe. There is nowhere else to look.

Simon is in eighth grade, rebel­lion in full swing.

“Seat­belts are for pussies,” he boasts, chin raised. 

Mom makes him put it on when we first all load up, but once she turns back around in the pas­sen­ger seat, Simon slow­ly undoes the latch, qui­et­ly, so she doesn’t hear. I watch him. Simon winks. I keep my mouth shut. 

Every­thing else in my brain is shut down, the emer­gency stores are bar­ren. I’m stuck here, stuck squirm­ing away from this throb­bing agony in my head, stuck in my nightmare. 

No, not stuck. Held. This thing likes it bet­ter when I watch.

#

Something’s burn­ing.

I don’t remem­ber get­ting out of the Sub­ur­ban, but here I am stand­ing next to it. The front of the car is gone into a crum­pled mess of met­al and plas­tic where it’s impos­si­ble to tell what’s vehi­cle and what’s guardrail. It’s smok­ing, hiss­ing, red flu­id spray­ing out onto the snow, like the car is bleed­ing. The wind­shield is limp, fold­ed, webbed into hun­dreds of geo­met­ric sub­sec­tions. It’s punched open near the mid­dle, a flap of glass yawns out into the tan­gle of debris.

I’ll lat­er spend a large stretch of time in the PICU, recov­er­ing from a frac­tured lum­bar spine, lac­er­at­ed spleen and liv­er, and the sub­se­quent surg­eries I’ll need to get every­thing patched up. I don’t feel any­thing now though, there’s a numb­ness over me. A glaze. I step toward the car, glass break­ing under my toes. I see my par­ents through the hole in the wind­shield, unre­spon­sive on the airbags. Mom is smeared red. 

And then my eyes set­tle on Simon’s seat. Emp­ty. I know then what’s hap­pened, I put it togeth­er in an instant, but I swat it away on impulse. I’m wrong. I must be wrong.

There’s some­thing in the right-hand lane, still and bent and bro­ken. I inch toward it. There’s a streak lead­ing to the shape, dark in the harsh light, like ink. 

I step out closer.

This is where the mem­o­ry ends.

There are pieces miss­ing. It’s hard to fig­ure out what, but I know there isn’t enough there for a whole body.

I don’t remem­ber any­thing more. I’m lucky for that.

One of Simon’s legs is kinked at an odd angle, like the kick­stand on his bike.

Christ, this is where the mem­o­ry ends!

Simon is face-up. Prob­a­bly. I think I can see the nose. Most of the skin has been shorn off on the asphalt. 

I pull away, as hard as I can. Some part of my mind has wrapped around this thing that has buried itself in the hor­rors of my brother’s corpse, and it tears free. Rip­ping. Smashed spi­der eggs. A swarm explodes over my brain in a cacoph­o­ny of stim­uli – sobs and screams and blood and bone and bells. My body, wher­ev­er that is, man­ages a fee­ble yelp and I’m swal­lowed in black.

#

I come to and my head is qui­et, for the first time since I’d heard those damn bells. I’m in my bed, in a pud­dle of stale sweat. I’m starv­ing. I have to piss. 

Then my front door opens – the rust­ed hinge I’d been mean­ing to WD40 for about three months now whines. 

“Derek!”

My blood runs cold. I know that voice. It’s one I haven’t heard since a ill-fat­ed fam­i­ly snow­shoe out­ing. I try to sit up, to turn to face him, but I’m locked to my bed. Paralyzed.

Foot­steps, loud­er. Uneven, gait­ed, drag­ging. Leg like a kick­stand.  The knob on the bed­room door rat­tles, the door slides for­ward over the car­pet­ing. When they slid the spat­u­la beneath him, his upper back and neck had slunk like a wet noo­dle, mov­ing not as one but as some pul­ver­ized gel. I imag­ine my broth­er walk­ing toward me now, head lolling on a struc­ture­less frame. Shuf­fling. I try to close my eyes but they’re fixed open, up to the ceiling.

“Derek,” he calls again, soft­er this time, in that pinched pubes­cent voice. He pads across the room, soft­ly now. No! I want to shout. No, no, NO! but my vocal cords are stone. I don’t want to know. I don’t want to see. I want Simon’s body to stay buried deep in the cob­webbed crawl­space of my mem­o­ry, under­neath mounds of oth­er for­got­ten junk. Why had I kept it at all?

“Derek,” Simon says again, this time right beside my ear. I can feel warm breath on my cheek. My heart pounds in my neck, my breaths come in ragged clutch­es. I want to twist away, to squirm back­wards against the wall, to buy myself every cen­time­ter I can, but I’m stuck. Not just here, in my bed­room – I’m kneel­ing out on the highway. 

“You know it’s not me, Derek,” it says, hard­ly above a whis­per. “You know it’s not Simon.”

I croak out what was meant to be a scream. I thrash against my paral­y­sis, but the best I can do is twitch my fingers.

“You know it’s not Simon, Derek.” Loud­er this time.

Sweat breaks out over my brow. A drop runs into my open eye, sting­ing, blur­ring his vision. I should wipe it away.

“You know it’s not me, Derek. You know it’s not Simon!” The voice builds to a yell. I can’t pull my head away from it.

“I’M NOT SIMON, DEREK! YOU KNOW IT’S NOT ME!” 

My ears ring from the sud­den bellow. 

“I’M NOT SIMON! SIMON IS DEAD! YOU KNOW, YOU WERE THERE! YOU WERE THERE, DEREK! YOU SAW THEM SCRAPE HIM UP!”

My throat tight­ens into a straw I can hard­ly breathe through. Not-Simon’s voice drops low again. “Do you want to see? Do you want to know what he looked like?” It paus­es, breath­ing into my ear. I can smell the burn­ing, the blood. I want to shake my head. I want to scream. “I don’t need to show you though, do I? You remem­ber, Derek. You were there. You saw.” 

I had seen, and now I remember.

Simon is splayed out on the road. Bits that had once been an arm are splat­tered on the high­way like clumps of Jell‑O. His neck is bent like a crin­kle straw, kinked and bulging at new joints. His face, stripped of skin and frac­tured in a thou­sand places, crum­pled like a red napkin. 

My eyes lock side­ways, press­ing hard against the ends of their sock­ets, set not on the peel­ing wall beside me, but on the twitch­ing some­where in the mess of gore, a mus­cle still fir­ing, a neu­ron crack­ing off a few more puls­es. Some part of Simon still in there, trapped.

My vision greys. My mus­cles stiff­ened and my jaw peels open.

Seizure.

It moves. It oozes through my ear, pool­ing down through my sinus­es like sludge. It gath­ers at the base of my throat, bub­bling like a brew­ing potion. 

Is this a god­damn stroke?

Why can I still think? Why can I still feel?

The sludge slides up my throat, as if grav­i­ty has been switched. My jaw forces open wider, my neck and cheek mus­cles strained. God, they feel like they’re rip­ping. My vision dark­ens even deep­er, a sta­t­ic falling over his room.

It emerges. 

Legs bloom from between my lips, bend and plant them­selves on the taut skin of my face. Thin, hairy, insect legs, with lit­tle barbs that draw drib­bles of blood from where they land. Ten of them, no, a hun­dred. More and more pop free as I watch. They push and push and my head is shoved into my pil­low, and then its body is slid­ing free. It’s warm and wet with some­thing thick, like con­gealed blood, and it has short and spiky hairs that scratch up my gums. It twists and wrig­gles to get free of my teeth, and then it’s out.

My arm invol­un­tar­i­ly pounds the side of my bed, my jaw aches against its mechan­i­cal restraints, my eyes shake and blur. It turns, its legs tap­ping in long waves like a cen­tipede, and it comes toward me.

Uncon­scious­ness seizes me, final­ly, but not before I catch a glimpse. It has plat­ing along its back, up to its head where the last piece curves over like a samurai’s hel­met. Thorny anten­nae uncurl from the shad­ows beneath its face­plate, taper­ing on and on to impos­si­bly long points, twitch­ing toward my face. 

My vision is fad­ing, so I can’t be sure, but the anten­nae look blurred, as if rip­pled in shad­ows. As if they’re cov­ered in a swarm of tiny, black mites. 

It’s Hanover, not Bak­er Val­ley Ambu­lance, that responds to the motor vehi­cle ver­sus pedes­tri­an call off the I‑89 over­pass toward Enfield, but word reach­es the sta­tion regard­less. It was griz­zly, Marge hears, the kid threw him­self in the path of an 18-wheel­er, and got scram­bled pret­ty good. It was an obvi­ous DOA. 

One of the para­medics had need­ed to jog back to the rig, in search of an orange backboard.