A Collection

Lights flashing. Sirens blaring. No one watches as the ambulance pulls away from the scene. I turn my head briefly to see the cops still roping off the area. A strangled groan draws my attention back to the patient in the back of my ambulance. Looking down at the blood soaked clothes of the man on the stretcher, I sigh. Another person getting shot, just a typical night in Gary. Pulling out my trusty scissors I cut the shirt and pants off the bullet hole ridden body. My partner, Courtney, grimaces a bit at the damage done. Stop the bleeding. That was the priority, then we can tend to the rest of the body. I grit my teeth and begin work on plugging the dirty bloody holes in the man’s chest.

“Court. We have two clear through in chest. Lung sounds?” I ask as I try and tape the plastic that would act as a flutter valve on the open wound in the lung.

“Not good, left is week, get that plastic on there Evea.”

“Fuck,” I mumble in response as the bloody skin prevents the tape from sticking to the body.

“Evea,” Court said in a warning. She eyed my work as she plugged the last of the not as serious gunshot wounds

“Can’t get this tape down Court. Help me out will ya?”

“Sure thing,” She grumbled back as she held the tape down for me as I cleaned and dried the area around the wound. We had him propped up slightly so that he blood would flow down and not spurt all over his chest and ourselves, although that wasn’t saying to much. My safety glasses were already filthy as I smeared some more blood on them trying to see better. Finally able to tape down the stupid plastic Court takes over on the wound and I move down to the man’s lower body. I already noted one particular wound from my head to toe inspection that I wanted to check out.

“Shitten balls, Court! We got another problem. Did you even fucking notice this wound was an artery?!” I almost shouted at her in frustration. The plug that Court placed in the man’s leg busted and another round of blood splattered on my pants and boots. Hanging my head a bit more in frustration, I watch as the once pink and warm human turn a grey color as his body slowly went cold.

With my already bloody gloves and arms, I stuck my fingers in the gunshot plugged wound in attempt to find the source of all the blood. And a possibility of slowing the bleeding. A cold breeze whipped through the back of the rig and my blood turned to ice. Daring to look over my shoulder I felt a stab of fear and comfort hit me. Before I could even open my mouth to speak the driver took a sharp turn onto a pothole sending Courtney flying back into the bench seats. I found myself clinging to the monkey bars with my feet slipping on the blood soaked floor.

“You,” I growled out to a young man sitting comfortably in the captain’s chair facing me. He had his hands behind his head watching me. He had a dark grey snapback on with the atari logo prominently displayed, and he tugged at the sleeve of his black hoodie, grinning like a cheshire cat.

“Hello darkness my old friend,” he cheekily sang out and continued to hum.

“Fuck off,” I responded turning my head back to my patient in an attempt to ignore him.

“I am hurt. I came all this way just to see you and that is the hello I get? A fuck off? How rude,” He scoffed.

“It is a shame that the one person in this world I really like is you.” I grumbled rolling my eyes at the man.

“Evea! I don’t know what you are doing but get your head out of the clouds and fix that mess you created. “ Courtney shouted, bringing me back to the present. Just another realization that she could not see the man that had decided to move next to me.

“Right on, sorry Court”

Reaching back behind me I find department issued tourniquet. Taking my hand out of the wound I quickly wrap the cloth around the man’s leg, a standard two inches above the wound and tied it off. Using the little built in sick I start to tighten the bandage.

“I have to admit. Red looks good on you,” He said with a cold chuckle.

I grimaced. I hated red, it reminded me of fire. And a fire is where I met Him. The one standing next to me. A hazy memory now but I still remember his cold hand in my own young one. I shiver at the memory and break out of my thoughts as Courtney started speaking to me again about the patient.With a sigh I nod at her requests and shiver again as ice continued to run through my blood. A numbing sensation started in my shoulder and quickly spread down my arm. I glanced over my shoulder to see that young man lean on me.

“What now?” I ask quickly looking away.

“Oh nothing just thinking about that new teaser trailer for Star Wars.” He said nonchalantly.

“Oh no you don’t. You do not get to pull that one again. It was a fucking great trailer, and I am stoked.” I contradicted forcefully.

“Oh yes I do. It made no sense. They should just go back and make movies about the EU not some stupid plot like they got going now.” He argued.

“Well in case you forgot dumbass. They threw out the EU. So deal with it. As long there ain’t some shitty romance in the next movie it will be great. “

“Its Disney! Of course there will be a romantic interest!”

I grumbled, tightening the tourniquet as far as it would go “Court, tourney at 15:32.”

“Wilco,” She responded uncapping the sharpie in her pocket and drawing the numerals on the man’s forehead

“Court will you give the hospital out eta?” I ask her as I move back to re plugging the leg wound.

“You do a good job although maybe you could not make all of your cloths red? How about black? Then the blood wouldn’t show through?” The man said leaning over my shoulder to look at the blood covered floor.

“Take it up with the government. This is our uniform. I ain’t going to complain. In anycase why are you here?” I ask again.

“I was here for him obviously. But look at that he is all pink and warm. Well kinda. But more pink than before. Oh well I got distracted a bit by Star Wars.” He said poking the patient a bit.

I rolled my eyes “Ok whatever.” I said

“Star Wars. Totally worth it though,” He responded.

“We shall see.”

Pulling up at the ER entrance, we came to a soft halt. Courtney quickly jumped out the back as we pulled in and I snuck around to the back pushing the gurney out of the ambulance. The nurses were already waiting outside to help the transition go smoother. Jumping out after the cot I turn to look at the man who sat back on the captain’s chair. How did I end up loving Death itself? I raised my eyebrow.

“So, when will I see you next?” I asked meeting his gaze.

He chuckled and faded from sight, “Soon enough.”