“Damn,” whispered Justin.
Drifts growled, “She sounds like a fucking bitch to me.”
“She wasn’t known for her charm, no,” Ramirez agreed. “But I understand how she had gotten there.” He pointed ahead. “We have someone ahead?”
Drifts followed where he pointed. “Looks like we got another fucking waver. Can’t any of these assholes let us get out of our fucking rig in peace?” He parked Triple-Three next to a heavy-duty pickup truck. The waver was an attractive woman who came rushing into the wash of their siren lights. Drifts perked up. “Maybe I spoke too soon.”
“Dibs!” Justin called from the cabin door.
Drifts turned. “You can’t call dibs until you graduate, dipshit.”
“Says who?” Justin countered.
“Me. That’s who. Now shut the fuck up and get our bags.”
“I thought you wanted me to get my cherry popped?”
“Ha! I knew you were still a fucking virgin!”
Justin tried to backpedal. “That’s not what I meant!”
Ramirez sighed. “Guys, I think she can hear you.”
They both turned to see the young woman staring at the three of them wide-eyed.
“Oh shit!” Drifts stammered. “Sorry, Leo.”
“It’s fine. Go get the cot and I’ll talk to her.”
Ramirez stepped out. “Hello. Did you call for an ambulance?”
She nodded looking past him at the younger men. “Did someone in there scream about being an effing virgin?”
Ramirez suppressed a grimace. “Yes. I’m sorry about that. My compatriots try to get such comments out of the way before we help our patients. It’s kind of their odd way to maintain our professionalism.”
“So you guys were blowing off steam?” she asked.
“Something like that.”
She smiled suddenly. “Daddy said that he blew off steam like that when he used to scavenge during the outbreak.” Her face suddenly crumpled and she burst into tears.
Ramirez pulled her to him and she collapsed into his chest sobbing. He was patting her back gently as Drifts came around the ambulance with the cot and Justin in tow.
The EMT paused and mouthed,
‘What the fuck is this?’
Ramirez shook his head. He then gently took her shoulder and pushed her back. “Ma’am, could you please tell us what’s going on? I’m assuming you called about your father?”
She nodded. “I’m sorry about that, it is just so hard to see him . . .” She took a deep breath. “I’m rambling, I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay. Just take your time and tell us.”
She wiped her eyes. “It’s my daddy. He’s been under hospice care for several months, now. Tonight he’s finally taken a turn for the worse.” Another sob escaped her. She took another second to compose herself. “We called Maggie, our hospice nurse, but she says she’s a couple hours out. Apparently there was a really bad accident on King Highway, and she’s stuck in traffic.”
“I understand. Could you please take us to your father?”
“Follow me.”
“I’m Leo. This is my partner, Sam, and our paramedic student, Justin. And your name is . . .”
“Oh. Excuse my manners. My name is Elyse.”
“Elyse, is there anyone with him right now?” the older medic asked.
“Yes, my brothers, sisters, and mother are with him.”
“Is anyone armed?”
She looked at him sharply. “Yes. My brother is?”
“I don’t mean to be indelicate.”
She smiled at him sadly. “You just want everyone to be safe. Thank you.”
As she opened the heavy front doors and led them inside Drifts stared up at the vaulted ceilings. “This place is bigger than my entire apartment building.”
The room was decorated with practical survival gear hung up on the walls or displayed behind glass cases like great works of art.
“You have quite a collection of gear,” said Ramirez.
“You noticed that?”
“It’s a little hard to miss,” Drifts muttered to Justin. “It’s like a museum to the outbreak.”
“I thought about donating it to one someday.” She smiled back at Sam, who had the common decency to blush. “Daddy has always had a fondness for these things. Each one has a story. He said he used most of them during the outbreak.”
“Really?” asked Ramirez.
“Yes.” She touched a common wheelbarrow like it was invaluable family heirloom. “Take this, for instance. It’s just a wheelbarrow, but Daddy told us about the time he broke his leg on his last scavenger run, and his friends carried him out in this wheelbarrow when they had a horde of zombies on their tails.”
“Wow,” said Justin.
She smiled at him. Then her smile faltered. She pointed at a door. “He’s right through here.”
She showed them into a large bedroom. At the center of the room in a king-sized bed, a pale man lay wheezing. He was surrounded by over a dozen people, whom they assumed were his close family and friends. Ramirez immediately approached a younger man who resembled the frail man in the bed. The medic placed his hand on the younger man’s shoulder and held out his hand.
“We can handle it from here,” he said gently. “You don’t need that anymore.”
The young man looked down at the shotgun in his white-knuckled grip. He slowly unclenched his hands and handed the weapon to Ramirez. Ramirez in turn carefully passed it to his partner.
As the man’s hands released the tension, his face crumpled in relief and anguish.
“Thank you,” he whispered.
They could hear the rhythmic thunk of shells as Drifts pumped the shotgun dry in the hallway. Moments later, he stepped back in and caught Ramirez’s eye. He patted his pocket, rattling the shells.
Ramirez stepped around the family, up to the man on the bed. His chest moved in sporadic rasps and his skin was sallow. The veteran medic did not need to feel his patient’s thready radial pulse to know he didn’t have long. He looked to the older woman who was holding the patient’s hand on the other side of the bed. “What has he been fighting?”
“Liver cancer.”
“Does he have any advanced directives?”
“We just want him to go as peacefully as possibly, but he has insisted on numerous occasions that he wants to be drilled immediately. He doesn’t want to turn.”
Ramirez inclined his head. “Very well.” He looked at the man’s face and then his eyes bulged as recognition bloomed in his mind. “This is Carson Espinoza.”
Drifts did a double take. “What? No way!”
The family looked between the pair of them. Elyse was the first to ask. “You know of our father?”
Drifts shook his head. “A little, but not really. I only know what Leo has told me.”
“My family benefitted from one of safe houses that Mr. Espinoza founded during the outbreak.” Ramirez explained. “It’s because of him that we’re alive today. I went on to be a scavenger for Tango Company.”
The family all stared at Ramirez with open shock. Drifts looked around confused, “Um Leo, what’s going on?”
“We’ve heard stories. Daddy used to go out with the scavengers occasionally. But he said the Sierra, Tango, and Union companies did the most dangerous work. They went deep into infested territory looking for survivors and supplies. They had the highest mortality-loss ratio of all the volunteers. Daddy always held them in the highest regard, but it was so rare to meet one these days. He always looked for them at the Survival Festivals.”
“I don’t go to those,” Ramirez said simply. “It reminds me too much of those who didn’t make it.”
“You . . . have the burden.” They all looked down. The frail man had opened his eyes. He locked onto Ramirez’s and nodded in a kind of understanding. Ramirez nodded back.
“Thank you,” The old man rasped. “I was afraid . . . that I might pass and my . . . boy would . . . have to . . .” He weakly held out his hand and the son who had held the shotgun took it. He immediately fell to his knees weeping. Mr. Espinoza patted his son’s head. “The price is high . . . too high for some to pay. But not . . . for ones . . . like us.”
Ramirez looked at him. “Mr. Espinoza, you have paid the price so that many could live.”
“It wasn’t enough,” Mr. Espinoza wheezed.
“It never is.”
Espinoza smiled Ramirez and nodded. He looked past him and pointed. “This one . . . hasn’t paid the price yet.”
Ramirez followed the old man’s gaze to Justin. Justin looked between the two older men, clearly uncomfortable with their combined scrutiny.
Ramirez answered the unspoken inquiry. “He doesn’t know if he can yet.”
Without flinching, Mr. Espinoza looked at Justin. “You are unsure, but . . . you can handle it.” His faded eyes grew fierce from ages past. “Honor me. When my . . . light fades. Relieve me . . . of unholy life. I . . . don’t want to be . . . a danger to my . . . family. Be strong. Take away my burden.”
Justin held his eyes for a silent moment. Then at last he nodded.
Espinoza smiled and slumped back onto his pillow.
“Is there anything that we can do to help you feel more comfortable?” Ramirez asked.
Espinoza shook his head, clearly spent. “No. My pain . . . will soon be . . . a memory.”
Ramirez nodded.
Moments after they placed Mr. Espinoza on the monitor, they stepped back allowing family space to press in. They hugged, patted, and kissed him all in turn. Espinoza murmured words of love and affirmation to each, every breath costing him more and more vitality.
Elyse approached the crew wiping tears out of her eyes. “Thank you so much.”
“We are here to help,” Ramirez told her.
“I know. I’m just grateful that you’re here. My brother, John,” indicating the big man sobbing on the floor, “would have done it but only, because it had to be done. In many ways, he’s like my father. He loves his family above all things. But Daddy was right. It would have cost him a part of his soul that makes him beautiful. He’s an artist and nurturer at heart, not a warrior. If forced to, he would fight, but it would leave him changed.”
“What about you?” Ramirez asked.
“If it were anyone else, I could have probably done it, but not Daddy. Daddy once spoke about the time that he had to put down his brother. He said he almost died because he couldn’t do it. Mom said he was never the same after. He was still kind, but much harder.”
Ramirez nodded. “I understand.”
She looked at him intently. “You actually do, don’t you?”
Their eyes lingered, then Ramirez broke the silence. “You don’t have to worry about any of these things anymore. We are here. Go be with your father. We will stand by.”
Ramirez touched her on the shoulder. Elyse clutched his fingers for a moment before letting go. She then walked over and joined her family in a hymn that they were singing together around the bed. Mr. Espinoza lay there listening with his eyes closed and a small content smile on his face. He tried to cross himself but he found his arms were too heavy. John took his father’s hand and assisted him with the gesture. He stroked his father’s face. Mr. Espinoza smiled up at him and mouthed the words he no longer had the wind for: “You’re a good son.”
John’s face threatened to crumple to tears, but he stoically held them back and smiled. “You’re a great dad,” he said.
Ramirez looked over at Justin, who was staring at the monitor. The beats of his heart were coming more and more sporadically, and Mr. Espinoza’s pallor became grayer. He said in an undertone to his student, “It won’t be much longer.”
Justin croaked softly, “I know.”
“Are you up for this?”
Justin shook his head. “I don’t know. What do you think?”
“I agree with Mr. Espinoza. I think you can handle the burden. It’s just deciding whether you want to. There isn’t any disputing that pulling the trigger of the hot-drill is always hard, but pulling it the first time is the hardest.”
Suddenly the monitor’s alarm blared. The crew’s eyes focused on their patient. Espinoza’s body shivered and he exhaled one last rattling breath. Ramirez looked down at the monitor’s screen and took note of the chaotic chop of the quivering heart it registered.
The family in turn looked from their beloved patriarch, to the screaming monitor, to Ramirez as he approached the bed. He pressed the silence button on the monitor then set the timer on his watch. He then took them all in with his gaze. “He’s dead.”
Drifts appeared beside him. They had both experienced instances when the family would suddenly change their minds and the situation would quickly deteriorate before the paramedics eyes. You could never truly tell how the death of a loved one would affect a person until they were in the throes of their grief.
Before they could garner any momentum for good or for ill, Ramirez let the gravity of his presence draw them in. “I would like for everyone to please step outside the room for a few minutes, while we perform our duty for your father and husband. The only reason I ask, is that I don’t want to taint your memories of your time with him.”
The family remained statuesque for several moments until John, with open tears flowing down his cheeks, took his mother’s hand. “Come on, Momma. Let’s go outside while these men help Daddy with his final wish.”