CHAPTER EIGHTEEN | OLIVIA
The wail of the siren blaring overhead echoed through my eardrums as I swerved the ambulance along the empty roads of downtown Hartford, dodging puddles and flooded potholes.
Torrents of silver rain were pouring down on the windshield, and I had to sit on the edge of the driver’s seat and squint my eyes to see the road ahead of me.
Besides the storm, my first solo day out in the field had passed by without incident. I had spent most of the day loitering in parking lots, waiting for a call to come through the crackly ambulance radio.
When the last hour of my shift rolled around, I had been parked at a shopping center a few miles north of the city. I was just about to call it a day and drive back to headquarters… and that was when I heard the dispatcher’s voice break through the static of the radio.
“EMT needed on scene for possible Code One on Talcott Street. 24 is enroute.”
I had flicked on the sirens and hit the gas pedal before the operator even finished relaying the report.
Despite the storm, I had made it down I-91 in record time. When I saw city lights, I swerved off the highway and floored the gas to sail through a yellow traffic light as I sped towards downtown Hartford.
I eased up on the gas as I approached an intersection. I squinted through the windshield, trying to decipher the name printed on the street sign through the sheets of rain that were pelting the glass.
The windshield wipers flicked away a blanket of raindrops, and in a flash of clarity I was able to read the street sign. TALCOTT.
I slammed on the brakes and jerked the steering wheel, curling around the turn just in time.
Further down the road I could see pangs of red and white lights bouncing off of a bright red fire engine. I pressed down on the gas pedal and sped down the block.
I screeched to a stop alongside the fire engine, then I shifted the bus into park and flicked off the sirens. As I jumped out, I glanced up at the bright red fire engine parked next to me, and I saw ‘FIREHOUSE 56’ inscribed on the side of the truck.
I could see a group of firemen standing in a tight circle on the side of the road, and I ran towards them. The road was flooded from the storm, and the water sloshed around my non-slip boots and soaked through the hem of my black uniform pants.
As I got closer, one of the fireman saw me. He sprinted towards me, then he held up his hand to stop me from coming any closer and bellowed, “Stay back!”
“I’m a medic!” I yelled, glaring through the heavy rain.
He instantly dropped his hand and stepped aside, allowing me to pass.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
“One of the storm drains is blocked,” he grunted through the rain. Then he pointed towards a man huddled on the side of the road. “This guy thinks there might be someone trapped down there.”
“He thinks?” I shook my head in disbelief.
“He heard someone crying,” the fireman shrugged.
“But… how could someone even fit inside a storm drain in the first place?”
“He thinks it might be a kid. Maybe even a baby.”
My blood suddenly ran cold and a chill rattled down my spine as I thought about a child trapped inside the drain.
“They would drown…” I realized out loud.
“I know,” the fireman nodded grimly.
We reached the cluster of fireman, and they spread apart to make room for us. That’s when I glanced down and saw the storm drain in question.
It was flooded all right, but that wasn’t what caught my attention…
What caught my attention was the fireman sprawled chest-down on the pavement with his arm wedged through the metal grate of the storm drain.
“Duke!” I gasped before I could stop myself. I bit my lip, but it was too late. He heard me, and his head shot up from the ground.
I felt a jolt of a different kind of adrenaline spike into my bloodstream as the heat from his warm eyes burned straight into me.
“Do you feel anything?” one of the firemen asked, and Duke snapped back to attention.
“Not yet,” he said. I could see his arm stretched through the grate, moving around inside the drain.
I didn’t know much about the perils of storm drains, but if Stephen King’s ‘It’ had taught me anything, it was that you should avoid putting your arms inside the grate at all costs.
I gulped anxiously as I watched Duke stretch his arm deeper into the drain. His face wrinkled and his chin brushed the pavement, and then…
“I got something!”
Immediately one of the other crew members was down on his knees by Duke’s side.
“What is it? What do you feel?”
“I think it’s… hair,” Duke’s face went pale white.
There was a high-pitched cry from inside the drain, and I felt my stomach fill with dread.
Fuck. No.
Duke winced as he dug his arm deeper into the drain. Then his pained facial expression twisted into a look of confusion.
“What the…”
He slowly extracted his arm from the storm drain, and when his hand slipped back up through the grate, everyone crowded around to see what he had ‘rescued.’
It was something brown and matted and filthy, and at first I thought it might have just been a wadded up paper bag that had found its way into the drain. But then I saw the brown clump wiggle in Duke’s hand, and the tiny creature released another high-pitched squeal.
“It’s… a puppy?” Duke held up the wiggling furball for everyone to see, then he passed it up to me.
I took the creature gently into my hands, and a pair of black marble eyes immediately blinked up at me. His fur was matted and filthy and he had a round pink stomach that felt hot and clammy. I could feel a tiny heart beat thumping steadfastly through his fragile ribs.
As an EMT, this was definitely beyond the scope of my training… but some instinct kicked in, and I nestled the puppy close to my chest.
“There might be more,” Duke said grimly, watching as I cradled the puppy close to my chest. “There might be an entire litter down there…”
Then, without waiting for confirmation from the crew, Duke slammed his stomach back down onto the pavement and reached his arm back into the drain.