White Cloud: a Surreal Psychological Thriller by Joy Slaughter

Author:Joy Slaughter
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Joy Slaughter

11

Ella leaned on the front of the ambulance and stared across the wet parking lot. Soap bubbles from the morning truck wash filled the gutters and glittered, iridescent, in the early sun. She had slept on it. Twice, for good measure, because she had tossed and turned the first night and maybe it didn’t take because she still thought it was a good thing. She could help people. She could be Someone. The corner of her mouth lifted. She craved the tones. She was ready to see what she was capable of.

John closed the station door behind him and lit a cigarette.

Tones dropped. “Med 2, be en route to 78 Pineville, 78 Pineville. This will be the Green Meadow Cemetery. Unconscious male.”

“Fuck,” John said, putting out his cigarette. “Wanted that smoke.”

They hit the sirens and drove to the cemetery. Ella rubbed her lips together, eager to arrive, ready to get her hands on the patient. This was her time, and she would finally show everyone what she could do.

John put the ambulance in park, and she leaped from the cab.

“Let’s go!” she said, grabbing the jump bag.

Ella strode toward a woman in shorts, t-shirt, and sweatband, who was wringing her hands next to a still figure on the ground. John followed behind.

“What’s the problem?” Ella asked.

“This kid here!” the jogger cried. “He won’t wake up. I didn’t want to do CPR. I don’t even know him!”

The young man lay curled next to a tombstone. Simon Radzeski, Sr. 1970 - 2020. Faithful husband. Loving father. Host to dead addict. The young man seemed to be in his early twenties, but his emaciated form made any determination of an exact age impossible. His closed eyes sunk into purple depressions. His bones jutted from his ripped clothes. An empty syringe lay beside him.

“You did your best,” Ella said, patting the woman’s arm. The jogger smiled, widely, happily. “Thank you for coming!” She moved back out of the way.

John knelt by the man and looked for signs of life. “No pulse. Start compressions.”

Ella reached to the man’s neck and paused.

“Ella! Get going!”

She ignored him and watched the pink line move. “I feel a pulse. Get the oxygen and hand me the Narcan.”

John’s lips parted. He sat back on his heels with his head tipped to the side and stared at her, dumbfounded.

“You heard me,” she said. “Hand it over.”

He dug in his bag for the Narcan nasal syringe and placed it in her outstretched palm. He slid the jump bag closer and assembled the oxygen.

Ella held the syringe to the man’s nose but only pretended to push it. She placed her hands on his face and studied his closed eyes, wondering whether it was the chill of death’s abatement she felt or only the coldness of wet cement as her hands pressed into the Avenue of the Stars. His color improved. And then his eyes blinked open, and he groaned into consciousness.

“Oh!” the jogger cried. “He’s alive!”

John placed the mask on the man’s face and reached for equipment to measure oxygen levels.

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