I see the bad moon arising, I see trouble on the way
I see earthquakes and lightnin’, I see bad times today
~
Don’t go around tonight,
Well, it’s bound to take your life,
There’s a bad moon on the rise.
~
"Bad Moon Rising"
Something told him to just stay in bed.
His alarm told him otherwise.
He should have listened to the something.
* * * * * * * *
“All right, men. Let’s get this mess cleaned up.”
A grim-faced Hank Stanley stood in the middle of the front yard with his hands on his hips. Beneath his feet, the once perfectly manicured lawn was now more dirt than grass. The miniature white picket fence bordering the flower beds was all but destroyed. Prized rose bushes lay crushed and broken, their thorny defenses no match for the thick soles of the firefighters’ shoes, or the heavy canvas hose that lay everywhere. Trampled purple and yellow pansies would never turn their shy, delicate faces to the sun again.
Not that it mattered any more.
His eyes scanned the gutted ruins that had been someone’s home less than an hour ago. All that remained of what had been a nice house in a nice neighborhood was a blackened, smoldering skeleton of its former self. Only the brick chimney remained intact, standing like a lone tombstone in a desolate graveyard. Fueled by gasoline, the fire had raged fast and furious. Had anyone been home at the time, the odds of their survival would have been slim. Or none.
All these years on the job, and still some things never ceased to amaze him. People who were careless were one thing, but people who set fires on purpose were in a league all their own.
That there was a bizarre twist to this one was an understatement.
It wasn’t arson made to look like an accident in the hope of collecting insurance money. It wasn’t about personal retribution against the owners, nor a case of racial or religious hatred. In fact, there were none of the more “usual” motivations to be found, but they didn’t have to wait long for an explanation. The man who started the fire had stayed to watch and revel in his handiwork. Clad in old, dirty clothes, with long, stringy hair hanging to his shoulders, he introduced himself as Gideon. He calmly explained to the firefighters that he’d seen alien demons in the windows, and fire was the only thing that would destroy them.
He had done what he had been told to do.
He burned the house and killed them.
It was his job here on earth.
Under other circumstances, someone might have eventually found some sick humor in the situation, except there was nothing remotely funny about the man. They’d all seen their share of “crazy” people before, but he didn’t quite fit the typical mold. Eerily tranquil behavior and languid body movements were in sharp contrast to the rabid look in his dark, deep-set eyes. Hauntingly black, they blazed with a piercing intensity that raised goose bumps on the arms of veteran firefighters and street-toughened law enforcement officers alike.
Heedless of the sheriff’s deputies that flanked him, Gideon zealously studied the firefighters as they went about their work. He could sense the presence of one among them. His eyes moved rapidly from man to man, seeking the one for whom he had a message.
It didn’t take long to single him out.
Malevolent eyes followed every move as John Gage exited what was left of the structure, and pulled off his air mask, shrugging the heavy tank from his shoulders. Gage almost had his turnout coat off when he felt it -- something so powerful, he virtually staggered on his feet.
He was being watched.
By someone.
By some thing.
Slowly turning around when his name was called, Johnny’s eyes locked with those of a man possessed. By what, heaven, or more likely… hell… only knew. He could have sworn he saw the faintest trace of a sinister smile lift the corners of the man’s lips, and his eyes grow brighter, as though in recognition of who he was. Momentarily transfixed, Johnny’s skin literally began to crawl, and an involuntary shiver coursed through him.
He’d seen those eyes before.
Not the face.
Just the eyes.
Unaware of the dramatic effect he was having on Gage, the deputies escorted their suspect over to the squad, wanting the paramedics to check him out before they took him in for questioning. While Roy got the drug box from the squad, Johnny collected himself and took out his penlight, trying hard to ignore the revulsion that was turning his stomach inside out. No one noticed the slight shake of Johnny’s hands as he began a cursory check for possible injuries, or evidence of drug use.
Gideon leaned close, and whispered something at length to him under his breath.
Gage paled. Visibly shaken, he backed away. His mouth went dry. His stomach cramped. Beads of perspiration broke out across his forehead. He thought for sure he was going to lose his breakfast. Johnny turned and made his way to the front of the squad, put his hand on the hood, steadying himself, swallowing hard to keep the contents of his stomach in place.
With a worried glance in his partner's direction, DeSoto quickly stepped in to complete the exam. He found nothing physically wrong.
The man never once took his eyes off Johnny.
Eager to be on his way, one of the deputies hastily signed the release form when Roy deemed a trip to the emergency room unnecessary. A padded cell… a thickly padded cell… at the County Jail was Gideon’s likely destination. The sooner, the better, for all concerned.
The black-and-whites drove away, but the ominous effect of his presence still lingered in the late-autumn air like a bad omen.
Johnny won the battle with his stomach. The battle to erase the whispered words from his mind would be waged the rest of the day.
At least… until darkness fell, and the moon rose in the sky.
Overseeing the mop-up effort, Hank Stanley had observed some of what transpired from a distance. He took a deep breath and wiped his brow, thinking this was a lousy way to begin a shift. His attention drifted back to his paramedics. Though they were out of earshot, he could tell they were arguing. Figuring DeSoto must have won this round, he watched Roy carefully examine the palm of Johnny’s grudgingly extended right hand, then reach for something in the drug box. It occurred to Stanley that Gage must have taken his glove off at some point while searching the house.
Normally his helmet, now his gloves?
Relieved to have something else to think about, the captain decided to have a little talk with John when they got back to the station -- a friendly reminder about the benefits of keeping personal protective equipment securely in place at all times, under all circumstances. He didn’t think now would be a good time to mention it. Gage still looked rattled by whatever it was the man had said to him.
Hank Stanley got busy and forgot about that talk.
He should have remembered.
It might have made a difference.
But, then again, maybe not.
* * * * * * * *
Roy backed the squad into the bay and turned off the ignition. For a change, he’d done all the talking on the way back to the station, after a detour to Rampart for supplies. Roy wasn’t sure Johnny had paid attention to a word he’d said. He’d stared out the window and offered a few mumbled uh-huhs, and a shake or two of the head, but nothing more.
Concerned about this morning’s strange turn of events, Roy watched closely as Johnny concentrated on jotting down the last of the details of the run in the notebook. Even though he denied his hand hurt, Roy noticed that Johnny held the pen awkwardly as he wrote.
Oblivious to Roy’s scrutiny, Johnny slumped back in the seat when he finished, and stared blindly at the words he’d written on the paper.
“Johnny, are you all right?”
“What?” There was a blank look on his face until he finally caught up to the conversation again. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m fine,” he answered automatically, tiredly rubbing his left eye with the heel of his hand.
“Late night?” Roy asked.
“What?”
“I asked if you had a late night. Johnny, are you sure you’re all right?”
“Yeah. I’m....” Johnny caught himself, and frowned, irritated by the repeated interrogation he’d been subjected to over the last thirty minutes. “Why do you keep asking me that?”
“Because even before the run, you hardly said more than ten words all morning, which, by the way, included telling me to mind my own business when I asked what you did on your days off.”
“Well…, Stoker doesn’t say much and I… I don’t hear you askin’ him if he’s all right all the time. There’s nothin’ wrong, okay? Just… quit asking, will you? And, what I do on my own time is no concern of yours.”
This wasn’t their usual relaxed banter, or their average argument. Johnny was tense, edgy, his mood growing darker by the minute.
Something was definitely wrong.
Roy refrained from belaboring the point. “Okay, I won’t ask again.” He lightly drummed his fingers on the steering wheel, waiting a few seconds for Johnny to calm down.
“You gonna tell me what that guy said to you?”
Johnny’s irritation turned to unbridled anger, catching Roy completely off-guard.
“I already told you. It was nothin’. Nothin’. The guy was… he was nuts. Just leave it at that, Roy. Just… just leave me alone.”
Johnny shoved the door open and got out. He thought twice about slamming it before deciding against it, wondering for a moment why he even considered it. Door slamming was not his usual style. He headed for the sanctuary of the locker room to cool down in private.
With a little roll of the eyes and a very frustrated sigh, Roy got out of the squad, too. He needed a cup of strong coffee. Maybe two cups. Maybe even without sugar.
“Hey, Roy.” Chet glanced up from the couch, newspaper in hand. “Where’s Gage?”
Marco had just finished washing the cups they’d left sitting on the table when the tones had sounded at the start of the shift, and handed him one. Roy shrugged in response while he poured the freshly made coffee.
“I don’t know. I guess he went to the locker room. He… he’s still pretty upset. Johnny doesn’t seem to want to admit it, but that guy really got to him. I mean, really got to him.” Roy pulled up chair and sat down at the table, puzzling over Johnny’s uncharacteristic black mood. “What I don’t understand is why. We’ve dealt with people like that before, and it’s never seemed to bother him.”
“Yeah, well, you have to admit that guy was downright creepy, Roy. More than most. I was watchin’ him while we were cleaning up. Did you see the way he was starin’ at Gage? I thought his eyes were gonna burn a hole right through him.” Even now, Chet felt a cold prickle on the back of his neck. “Man, he was a freak. I’m with you, though. I’m really surprised Johnny let him get under his skin like that.”
“You know, Roy,” Marco added, “John was already acting kind of strange when he got here this morning.”
“I don’t think I’d call it strange,” Roy responded in Johnny’s defense, in spite of the fact he’d almost had his head bitten off in private several times since then. “He was just… kind of… quiet.”
“And you don’t consider that strange?” Chet countered.
Any further conversation died on their lips when Johnny came into the room. There was an instant iciness in the air, as he brushed past Roy on his way to the coffee pot on the stove. Johnny took the cup Marco handed him and filled it to the rim, then almost dropped it when he wrapped his right hand around the hot surface of the mug.
Roy bit back the urge to ask Johnny if he was all right. Chet had no such compunction.
“What’d you do to your hand, Gage?”
“He....” Roy’s answer on Johnny’s behalf was swiftly cut short by a razor-sharp glare. Roy was at a complete loss to understand what he’d done to make him so mad.
“Nothin’.” Johnny sat down at the table, glaring once again at Roy’s oh, really? look. “Just a little burn is all. I hardly even know it’s there.”
“Uh-huh. I can tell,” Chet murmured. Having no intention of getting in the middle of whatever was going on between the two, he knew enough to drop the subject. Rustling through the newspapers on the couch, he found the section he wanted, and held it in the air. “You guys know there’s a perfectly logical explanation for what happened this morning, right?”
Whether they liked it or not, he captured their attention.
“And what would that be, Chet?” Johnny asked suspiciously, unable to resist being drawn in.
“Well, according to the paper, there’s gonna be a full moon tonight -- there’s a whole article here about it. You know… about how it always seems to bring all the weirdos out of the woodwork. So, I figure that guy… he just got an early start is all.”
If only it had been that simple.
“Chet, you know that’s just a myth,” Roy said dismissively.
Roy tended to put his faith in facts. Being one of the least superstitious around the station, he nonetheless had to admit to himself they had seen some odd things during full moons. But, the last thing he thought Johnny needed today was something else to obsess about, so he tried his best to discourage Chet from getting carried away.
“They’ve done studies that show there’s no relationship between a full moon and an increase in strange behavior. Statistics....”
“Wait a minute, Roy,” Chet cut in, feeling like Roy’s attitude was a little patronizing. “Now, we all know how Gage here feels about wasting money on studies, and in this case, I happen to agree with him. We don’t need studies to tell us that every time there’s a full moon, we get twice as many runs as usual. We don’t need studies to tell us that more of those runs are for drunks and drug overdoses, and for fights and suicide attempts, than normal.”
“He’s right, you know,” Marco chimed in, “I’ll bet that we get called out for at least one of each of those things tonight. You wait and see.”
Surprisingly, Johnny didn’t join in the conversation. If anything, he looked more upset than before.
Unfortunately, Chet didn’t notice.
“What do you think, John? You wanna bet as soon as the moon shows its face tonight, we’ll get toned out for something totally off-the-wall?”
Roy thought Johnny looked like he’d just had the wind knocked out of him. He was trying to hide it, but he was definitely struggling to breathe for the second time today. Roy made up his mind to find out what that man had said to him, even if he had to pry it out of Johnny when they were alone.
They all froze for a second when the tones went off.
“Station 51. Truck 127. Woman on electrical tower. Meet the Sheriff’s at the intersection of Wilmington and Dominguez. They request you approach without sirens. Intersection Wilmington and Dominguez. Time out 10:37.”
“I guess we aren’t gonna have to wait for it to show its face this time around,” muttered Chet, as he hurriedly got up to go. “Must be a bad moon on the rise.”
He didn’t know how right he was.
Before the shift was over, they would all be believers.
Even Roy.
* * * * * * * *
High tension wires hummed overhead, strung between imposing metal towers that loomed nearly 150 feet high. From a distance, they looked like giant versions of something built with an erector set; up close, they were intimidating, menacing, dangerous.
The Sheriff’s had already contacted the electric company to shut down the power as a precautionary move, even though the woman was standing well below the lines. They’d found a purse in the lone car parked there, and identified her from her driver’s license as Sarah Porter, age thirty-two, height five-feet, three-inches, weight one-hundred-fifteen pounds.
There was nothing to indicate why she’d ended up here.
Maybe… maybe they’d never know.
Notified by the dispatcher that Truck 127 had been delayed en route, Stanley made the decision not to wait for it to arrive. He told DeSoto and Gage to get their gear.
She had climbed over halfway up one of the towers and was perched unsteadily in the middle of a crossbar where the tower began to narrow. Her hands gripped the X-patterned supports just above her head, and every now and then, she leaned forward, but didn’t let go. They hoped her indecision meant she really didn’t want to jump, but Stanley reminded the paramedics to approach her with extreme caution.
Sometimes people like that made for the most dangerous rescues.
This was one of those cases where the two of them usually knew what they were going to do without spoken communication. Who did what at this point was totally at their discretion, but given the gravity of the situation, Stanley wanted to be sure he was clear on how they intended to handle it. The first to reach a suicidal person was potentially faced with making split-second decisions -- decisions that could mean the difference between life and death for the victim -- and for the rescuer.
“Which one of you is going first?” Captain Stanley watched both men look up, then look at each other. The uncustomary vacillation on Gage’s face took him by surprise, and gave him cause for concern.
“I will,” Roy answered quickly, noticing it too.
“No. No, I’ll go.” Johnny said firmly. He clipped an extra safety belt to his, then pulled on his gloves and slung a coil of rope over his shoulder. “You went first last time,” he said with a thin smile, knowing very well they didn’t keep track. “Besides, from the look of it, I… I think we need to get up there in a hurry, and I’m a… a better climber than you are.”
Roy didn’t argue the fact, but it made him uncomfortable to have seen indecision… uncertainty… fear… flicker in Johnny’s eyes, if only for an instant. Roy was certain it wasn’t about the height -- that didn’t ordinarily bother Johnny. He saw things as being a long way up, while Roy was the one who saw things as a long way down.
Whatever it had been, it was gone now.
Hank Stanley shielded his eyes from the sun as he looked up again, then leveled his gaze on Gage. “Just not too much of a hurry this time, pal. I don’t want to be scraping you up off the ground if you slip again.”
Johnny started to say something in return, but kept it to himself. Warning bells were sounding in the back of his head, but he stubbornly pushed them aside and began the climb.
Thinking he must have been mistaken in what he saw, Roy set aside his own concerns and followed.
The pale, raven-haired woman stood rigidly in place as they drew closer. She was staring intently at the ground, her mind trapped in her own troubled world, unaware of their approach. Johnny got a faint acknowledgment when he stopped his ascent for a minute, and began talking to her.
“Ma’am?” Her head came up slightly, and he knew she’d finally realized he was just below her. “Everything’s gonna be okay. We’ll get you down from there. I just need you to stay real still. I’m gonna move a little closer to you now, okay?”
Her eyes closed as though relieved by the sound of his reassuring voice.
“My name’s Johnny. Are you Sarah?” She didn’t answer, but didn’t move either, so he cautiously scaled the last few yards, keeping up a quietly repetitive dialog. “We’re gonna get you off of here in just a minute. Everything’s gonna be fine.” Johnny pulled himself up and stood to the left of her, hanging onto the supports with both hands, not wanting to make any false moves. “My partner will be up in a minute, too. Sarah? Sarah, can you look at me? No. Don’t look down any more, just look at me.”
She was speechless, her eyes wide with fear when she did as he asked. He thought that was a good sign. Lack of fear would have been a sure signal she didn’t care. Johnny didn’t relax -- one didn’t do that this far off the ground, especially not being tied off -- but it may have been just enough for him to let his guard down.
Roy climbed up and stood on a connecting crossbeam to her right and unshouldered his coil of rope. Wanting to avoid sudden movements in front of her, Johnny stood still and kept Sarah occupied with his one-sided conversation, while Roy tossed the end of his rope to loop it over the crossbar above them. Johnny reached for the end, then Roy let the rest of the length fall to the ground, where Chet grabbed hold to anchor the line.
Johnny slowly slid his own rope off over his head, and carefully passed it to Roy behind her back. “She seems to be okay, Roy. I… uh… I think I can handle taking her down by myself.”
“All right,” Roy agreed. “I’ll wait till you’re on the ground, then I’ll rappel down on the same line.”
Johnny secured the rope, and wound it around his belt clip several times. He unhooked the second belt and held it out for her to see. “Sarah, you see this? I’m gonna slip it around your waist and make sure it’s good and tight. Okay? Then I’ll clip your belt to mine, and we’ll be on our way down. We’ll take our time and everything will be all right. With this rope here, there’s no way we can fall. It’s real simple. I do this all the time. All you have to do is hold on to me. We’re gonna be just fine.”
With one hand hanging onto the supports, Roy helped hold her steady with his other, while Johnny wrapped the belt around her. There were no protests, but it took some more persuading that he wouldn’t let her fall before she finally let go of the supports and stiffly put her arms around his neck. Making sure she was ready before his feet left the crossbar, Johnny told her one more time to hold on tight.
He was sure she’d nodded in understanding.
It happened so fast, there was nothing anyone could do, except watch.
And, pray.
The sudden downward motion triggered an intense panic attack. Sarah came out of her near trance-like state, and began kicking her legs and pulled her arms away from Johnny’s neck, struggling wildly to get away from him. Her knee came up sharply and nailed him in the groin. Between her flailing at him, and seeing stars from the sudden rush of pain that left him gasping for air, Johnny’s left hand lost its hold on the rope. Having been distracted by a deputy’s question, Chet wasn’t prepared either, and the line jerked free from his grasp.
Unable to reclaim his hold with his guide hand, Johnny couldn’t keep himself upright, and they did a midair somersault, then bounced and swung like a yo-yo on the end of a string. It was all he could do to keep his grip on the rope with his right hand.
If he let go, it would be all over.
With her screaming hysterically in his ear, and his own body screaming in pain, Johnny focused every ounce of concentration he could muster into the effort to hang on, as the rope slipped through his brake hand. He ignored the fiery feeling that seared across his palm.
He had worse problems to deal with.
There was too much happening, too fast.
Even if he had seen it coming, he would have been helpless to stop it.
They slammed into the metal leg of the tower. Sarah instantly stopped struggling and dangled limply from his safety belt. Not for the first time, Johnny’s helmet tumbled to the ground, where Chet, now aided by Marco, rushed to pull the rope taut to keep them from hitting the tower again. Stunned by the blow, Johnny’s right hand loosened its grip, and they began to slip.
“Johnny!” Roy shouted from above, barely keeping the panic from his voice. “Hang on!”
Roy’s urgent warning cut through the daze that was dulling his reactions. Johnny’s left hand somehow found the rope again, and his right hand tried to tighten its hold, but they slipped another 15 feet before he was able to bring them to a stop.
Down below, Hank Stanley had visions of his comment coming true, and whipped the HT from his pocket, switching to Frequency 2. “Truck 127. Engine 51. What’s your ETA our location?”
“Engine 51. Our ETA is approximately… 3 minutes.”
Jamming the antenna down, Stanley angrily mumbled to no one in particular, “Hell, they could be dead in three minutes.”
With his grip momentarily secure on the rope, but breathing hard from the exertion and newfound pain shooting through his hand, Johnny briefly looked up when Roy called to him. Blood covered his forehead and dripped in his eyes.
“Roy, I… I can’t… I can’t see.” He was blinking, trying to clear his eyes, without success, as blood continued to flow from the cut just below his hairline. “My hand… I don’t… I can’t....”
They were suspended almost 70 feet off the ground. Sarah’s dead weight was draining what little strength he had left. Even with the men anchoring his line below, there was no way Johnny could continue to rappel down blindly on his own, assuming he could hold onto the rope the rest of the way.
Roy was already moving. “Johnny, hang on. I’m on my way down to you. It’ll just take a minute.”
Wasting no further words or time, Roy readied the other rope and secured it to his belt. He pushed off, covering the thirty-five foot distance in a matter of seconds. With a quick look at Johnny, Roy stopped his descent where Sarah’s unmoving form hung just below him. Holding tightly to his own rope with his left hand, Roy quickly felt for her carotid artery.
Johnny was wheezing, still struggling to catch his breath. “Is she…?”
“She’s alive,” Roy quickly assured him. “Johnny, we need to get you both on the ground right away. I don’t see the ladder truck here yet, and I can’t help you, or I might get the lines tangled up. If I… if I shadow you down, you think you can make it?”
Johnny wiped his bloody forehead across the sleeve of his upraised arm, and squeezed his eyes shut.
He had no options.
There was no other way down.
Except to fall.
“How far, Roy?”
“Looks to be about seventy, seventy-five feet at the most. I’ll talk you down the whole way. Marco and Chet have your line -- they can help, but you’re gonna have to do most of the work yourself. How bad’s the hand?”
“It… it’ll be all right. It’s gonna have to be, or....”
“Yeah.” Roy wasn’t going discuss the possibility. “You ready?”
“Yeah.” Johnny’s voice wavered for a moment. “R..Roy…?”
“Save it for later,” Roy said with far more calm than he felt. “Let’s get you down from here.”
Still blinded by the blood in his eyes, Johnny drew a deep breath, and called upon his final reserve of adrenaline. He carefully loosened his hold with his right hand. Years of training and experience took over, and he concentrated on Roy’s instructions as they began to lower themselves to safety.
While Captain Stanley anchored Roy’s line, Mike Stoker had the deputies and the ambulance attendants help him get things ready. Blankets were laid out, the drug and trauma boxes opened up. He contacted Rampart on the biophone, filled them in, and had them stand by. Truck 127 rolled up, but things were already in motion, and they, too, stood ready in case something went wrong.
Their descent was steady, although Roy had to caution Johnny twice to slow down. Roy counted off the distance left to go every ten feet. As soon as they were close, Roy lowered himself to the ground first, and quickly dispensed with his safety belt, helmet, and gloves.
Before their feet even touched the ground, Hank Stanley reached for Gage to guide him the rest of the way. Roy and Marco held Sarah, while Chet unclipped her belt before he reached to help Stanley remove Johnny’s safety belt.
Johnny stood unsteadily, but held them off for a moment. It hit him then, a delayed reaction when the adrenaline evaporated. Fear so real, it had a taste all its own. The color drained from his face, and when his knees buckled, they were there to catch him.
“Take it easy, there, John.” Stanley said quietly. “Chet and I’ve got you. Put your arms over our shoulders and we’ll help you over to the squad.”
Johnny was grateful for the necessary assistance, but what should have been a sense of relief was being overridden by frustration and anger. He blamed himself, believing it was his lack of concentration that caused the near-fatal accident. He’d allowed other things to prey on his mind. It wasn’t that he could have just killed himself, he could have killed Sarah Porter too.
He didn’t stop to think why she was there to begin with.
Stanley and Kelly slowly walked him to the squad and eased him down gently on the back bumper. The captain left to get a couple of 4X4s to stop the bleeding, and some saline to irrigate his eyes.
Still hurting from her knee connecting with his groin, and the impact with the tower, Johnny doubled over, holding his right hand protectively, as a multitude of muted expletives found their way through tightly clenched teeth.
To say that Johnny was pissed was putting it mildly.
Chet grabbed Johnny’s wrists to stop him when he tried to rub his eyes, knowing it would only irritate them more. Not expecting Johnny’s infuriated reaction, he let go and stepped aside before he could be pushed aside. Even though Chet understood the stress he was under, he was still upset by Johnny’s aggressive behavior.
“Damn it, Gage, I was just trying to help.... I’m....”
“I don’t want your help, Chet. Just… back off.”
Stanley overheard the brief, but heated exchange. It was one of a number of things to be dealt with later, when cooler heads prevailed. He glanced sympathetically at Chet, and when he put his own hand on Johnny’s shoulder, it, too, was roughly shrugged off.
“Settle down, John,” he calmly admonished. “I need you to sit up, and tilt your head back so we can get you taken care of.”
Johnny remained tense and guarded, but leaned his aching head back against the squad. The captain placed the 4X4 firmly over the laceration, then lifted Johnny’s hand and put it there to hold the dressing in place, noticing the painful grimace when he did that.
“Here… you hold this, pal. Chet and I are going to wash your eyes out. You should be seeing better in a minute.”
When they were done, Chet handed Johnny some more 4X4s to wipe the saline and blood off his face, then with Stanley’s okay, left to help Marco collect the ropes. Having overheard everything, Roy came to see how things were going. Lifting the 4X4, he took a look. The cut was long, but not too deep, and the bleeding had slowed.
Johnny looked up at him, finally able to see again, although his eyes still stung. “How… how is she, Roy?”
“She’s awake now. The good news is, she doesn’t seem to be hurt. It looked to me like you took the brunt of the impact with your shoulder when you hit the tower. I think maybe she just fainted, although she does have a small bump on the back of her head. Dr. Brackett wants to take a look at her before she… before they send her upstairs.”
“That’s good. That’s good.” Johnny took a deep breath, willing himself to relax. “I’m glad.”
“Yeah, me too,” Roy agreed, as he took another 4X4 from Stanley to replace the first one. “Let me check you out here and see how you’re doin’, then we’ll get going.”
Johnny tried to remove the glove from his right hand, but immediately decided to leave it alone. Rope burn, on top of the earlier burn, had formed a quarter-sized blister in the middle of his palm. It had been ripped open, and skin was sticking to the inside of the glove. They soaked it with saline, wrapped it with kerlex, and soaked it some more. The glove would wait for a nurse to cut it off once they got to the hospital.
That only added to his increasing sense of responsibility for the whole incident. Johnny argued against Roy riding in the ambulance with them, insisting he could handle things on the short, non-code trip to Rampart. The last time he said he could handle Sarah Porter alone almost cost him his life, but neither one brought that up. Johnny was upset enough as it was, and didn’t seem to want Roy around to remind him of that.
Since an IV hadn’t been ordered for Sarah, Roy hesitantly agreed to follow in the squad. As far as he could tell, Johnny’s physical injuries weren’t serious enough for a hospital stay, but whether he’d be able to remain on duty was questionable, and Roy told Stanley as much. He stopped short of saying anything about his concern over Johnny’s frame of mind, although he knew that Captain Stanley was well aware something was going on.
Watching the ambulance and the squad pull away, Hank Stanley was silently thankful he wasn’t watching the coroner’s wagon leave the scene. It had come that close. He couldn’t decide if he wanted to reprimand Gage for not keeping his gloves on this morning, or recommend him for a citation for what he’d just done. Maybe he’d do both, maybe neither.
Stoker handed Johnny’s helmet to his weary captain, who looked at it and sighed deeply. The four firemen quietly climbed aboard the engine for the trip back to the station.
It was only noon.
It had already been a long shift.
And, moonrise was still six hours away.
* * * * * * * *
Dixie smoothed the stray hairs from her forehead as she took her seat at the nurse’s station. “Thanks for the help, Roy. For a minute there, I thought that guy was planning to take a swing at me.”
Roy smiled that shy smile of his. “I think he’s lucky he didn’t.”
“You know, I think you’re right.” Dixie smiled, too, when she thought about it. Underneath the ladylike exterior lay a tough woman who knew how to handle herself when she needed to. Her limits had already been tested more than once today.
She took a good look at Roy as he leaned back against the counter. “You guys are having a rough day already.” Not a question, it was a simple observation of fact.
“Yeah, you could say that.” He looked in the direction of the treatment room across the hall. “Some of us a lot rougher than others. He’s been in there a long time. You think he’s okay?”
“Dr. Early should be done soon. We’ll go see how he’s doing then.” Dixie was always touched by the depth of concern these two men showed for each other. “At least Johnny was walking and talking when he came in. That’s something, isn’t it?”
“Yeah. It’s just that… for a second…, I could tell Johnny didn’t want to climb that tower. It was almost like… like he was expecting something to go wrong.”
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t know, Dix. Johnny had something on his mind when he got to work this morning, and ever since our encounter with the… uh… the alien slayer… he’s been…. I don’t know. Sort of....”
“Sort of... spooked?” She finished his thought.
Roy didn’t especially care for the term, but couldn’t think of a better one to describe the way Johnny had been acting off-and-on all morning.
“That’s only part of it. He’s been in the worst mood I’ve ever seen him in, and I… I have no idea what’s wrong. Maybe it’s a good thing he isn’t talking to me. He can hardly say two words without getting mad.”
“Well, Roy, if I know Johnny, he won’t stay that way for long. I’m sure he’ll get over it and once he does start talking, you probably won’t get a moment’s peace the rest of the day.”
For once, Roy kind of hoped that was true.
Joe Early opened the door to the treatment room and poked his head out. “There you are, Roy. John’s about ready to go. You want to join us for a minute?”
Roy pushed away from the counter and crossed the hallway. Dixie tagged along just to make sure for herself that Johnny was all right. Her own concern ran pretty deep.
He was sitting on the exam table, a small bandage on his forehead, his hand wrapped in gauze. A used ice-pack lay on the table next to him. Johnny’s eyes still looked a bit irritated, but in general, he seemed to be in a lot less pain, and a little better spirits than the last time Roy had seen him.
Roy knew that sometimes talking with Joe Early helped put things in perspective. He hoped maybe now he could get Johnny to tell him what Gideon had said that had him so upset this morning, why he’d hesitated before climbing the tower to rescue Sarah Porter, and why he was being so downright testy with everyone.
“How is he, Doc?”
“All things considered, not too bad, Roy. I didn’t find any signs of a concussion, or any kind of permanent damage to his… uh… vital organs. I put a few stitches in his forehead, and cleaned up that hand a bit. It wasn’t as bad as we originally thought, but with all those sensitive nerve-endings rubbed raw, it’s bound to be sore for a while. I think he should be good as new in a few days, though.”
Johnny hated it when people talked about him like he wasn’t even there. “I’m gettin’ tired of telling you I’m fine, Roy. Let’s get back to work.” His tone let it be known he was getting aggravated all over again.
Roy gave Dixie a ‘see I told you’ glance, then looked at Dr. Early with the unasked question in his eyes.
“I think he can handle it, Roy. As long he doesn’t have to hang onto any ropes for a while.” Joe Early handed Johnny his shirt, who couldn’t hide the muffled groan when he raised his shoulder to slip it on.
“Doc, in our line of work, you never know when you might need to do that. I think we’ll let Captain Stanley decide if he wants to call in a replacement or not. We have a lot of hours left in this shift.”
Roy avoided looking at Johnny when he said that, but he knew he’d succeeded in making him mad for the fourth time in the last five hours.
That was just the way the day was going.
“Johnny, you might want to consider going home,” Dixie teased lightly, thinking she was going to ease the discord between the two. “There’s gonna be a full moon tonight, and it’s Friday. It’s twice as bad when it occurs on a weekend night, you know.”
She didn’t expect the reaction she got. Johnny blanched, and Roy looked perturbed.
“Look guys, I.....”
“It’s okay, Dix,” Roy assured her. “We’ve… uh… had this conversation once already today. I was kinda hopin’ it wouldn’t come up again. You see, Chet seems to think that it brings out all the… the… weirdos in the world at the same time.”
“And you don’t agree?” she asked curiously.
“Well, not exactly. I mean, we see a lot of weird things when there isn’t much of moon. I don’t see why people think a full moon has anything to do with anything.”
Roy kept a discreet eye on Johnny. He seemed uncomfortable with the topic again, but at least this time, he briefly joined the discussion.
“What… what do you think, Doc?” Johnny asked, while he finished buttoning his shirt. He noticed the sleeve was stained with blood from where he’d wiped his forehead across it.
It wasn’t a pleasant reminder that he’d almost lost his life.
It wasn’t a pleasant reminder that he’d known he was going to.
Dr. Early removed his glasses, and scratched the back of his head, failing to notice Johnny was no longer listening. “I tend to agree with Roy. Stories about the moon’s influence on people have been around for thousands of years, yet there’s nothing that scientifically proves it does anything other than rotate around the earth and shine some light that isn’t even its own. They say even its gravitational pull is overrated.”
“Why, Joe Early, I’m surprised.” Dixie raised her eyebrow. “You’ve worked in the emergency room for enough years to know that we see more than our share of kooks on a full moon.”
He laughed lightly. “Dix, like Roy said, we see our share of ‘kooks’ every day of the month. We simply seem to notice it more when we think there’s a reason to. We continue to attribute unusual behavior to the moon because that’s what people have done for centuries. You see, humans are pattern-seeking animals, and we… we go out of our way sometimes to come up with logical reasons for things that we imagine to be out-of-the-ordinary.”
“You mean, blaming it on a full moon is a rational explanation for irrational behavior?” Roy wasn’t sure he followed that line of thinking. “I’m not sure I understand that.”
Dr. Early gently clapped a hand on Johnny’s back. “Frankly, Roy, I’m not sure I do either. I just read all that in a psychology magazine not too long ago. It sounded good at the time. What do you think, John?”
They’d lost him quite a ways back.
Roy could tell he was thinking about this morning.
He was going to get the truth out of Johnny if it killed him.
Surely, it wouldn’t come to that.
* * * * * * * *
“Johnny....”
Johnny had the mic in his hand, ready to report them available and returning to quarters. With an exasperated sigh, he dropped his hand in his lap and looked at Roy.
“No, Roy, I’m not all right. I’m not fine. I’m not okay. My hand hurts, my head hurts, my shoulder hurts, my eyes hurt, my....” Johnny paused just long enough to make sure Roy wasn’t enjoying this. “Don’t even ask where else I hurt. Yes, I’m in a bad mood, and, no, I didn’t sleep well last night, or the night before. I came this close to buyin’ it a little while ago, and I’ve just about had it with… with… crazy people, and I’m tired of hearing about… about full moons and what they make people do. There. Now you know. Did… did I forget anything? Is there anything else you wanna know? If there is, just ask it now, and get it over with.”
“Yeah." Roy smiled, "There is one thing.”
"Yeah?" Johnny frowned. “What’s that?”
“You hungry?”
As much as Johnny wanted to stay mad at Roy, he couldn’t. As much as he didn’t want to laugh, he had to. It felt good to vent a little. It felt good to laugh a little. He was finally beginning to believe he was overreacting to the whole day.
Maybe it was time to lose the attitude and lighten up.
“I’m starved.”
“Thought you might be. Let’s go see what Marco made for lunch.”
They didn’t quite make it to the station.
“Squad 51. Stand by for response.”
Simultaneous sighs sounded in perfect harmony.
“Squad 51. Woman needs assistance. 500 Mockingbird Lane. Cross street Northview Drive. 500 Mockingbird Lane. Time out 13:13.”
“Squad 51.” Johnny closed his eyes.
Mockingbird Lane? 1313? Was this someone’s idea of a bad joke?
“Roy, just wake me up when this day’s over, okay?”
If I live through it, that is.
Trouble was, he wasn’t kidding.
“Squad 51. Correction on address. 500 Meadowlark Lane. 500 Meadowlark Lane. Cross street Northview Drive.”
“Squad 51, ten-four on the address.” Johnny responded, with a slow shake of his head.
Johnny slipped his jacket on to cover up the blood stain before crossing the yard to join Roy. They were met on the front steps of the old house by a sprightly, white-haired woman who didn’t look a day over ninety. Brushing off their introductions, she peered between them and took a long look at the squad.
“Awfully small fire engine, isn’t it sonny?” She poked at Johnny’s arm when she spoke.
He tried to hide his amusement. “No, ma’am. I mean, yes ma’am. You see, that’s not a fire engine. It’s a rescue squad. We’re paramedics.”
“Oh, dear, that won’t do. I told that nice young man on the phone that I needed firemen to come help me.”
“Ma’am, we are firemen,” Roy patiently explained. “What exactly is it you need help with?”
“If you’re firemen, where’s that big red truck you drive? You know, the one with all the hoses and ladders? That’s what you need. A ladder. I don’t see a ladder on that itty-bitty truck of yours. Why, how can you fight fires with that thing? I don’t see any hoses either.” She looked from one to the other with mounting suspicion. “I thought you said you were firemen. Why, I....”
“Ma’am… ma’am…?” Johnny stopped her, his impatience evident. “Trust me, we are firemen. Why… why did you call the fire department?” Something told him he already knew. Something told him they should leave now before anything went wrong.
That something was doing a lot of talking to him today.
He hadn’t listened yet.
“Oh, it’s that silly cat of mine. Snuck out of the house when I wasn’t looking and climbed up the tree in the back yard again. I’ve tried everything to get him to come down, but he won’t listen to me. That’s why I called the fire department. To bring one of those big ladders and get him down for me.”
“Ma’am, we don’t....”
“Johnny.” Roy interrupted him. “We’re here now. Maybe we could take a look, huh? What could it hurt?”
“I’ll tell you what it could hurt. With my luck today, it’ll be a black cat, and....”
“Oh, how did you know?” she asked in delight. “He’s such a little devil, that one. That’s why I named him Lucifer.”
Johnny groaned and Roy laughed.
He shouldn’t have been so quick to laugh.
“What do you think?” Roy asked, as they stood beneath the tall silver maple tree and looked up through the leaves. The cat was laying on a branch, feet tucked under, tail wrapped around its body. He looked quite content to be where he was.
“Must be… twenty-five feet up there, Roy. Even if you stood near the top of that extension ladder, you still couldn’t reach. It’s only a sixteen-footer. Any other time, I’d go up and then climb the tree the rest of the way, but....” Johnny held up his bandaged hand.
Roy was beginning to regret his helpfulness. “Did you see anything else in the garage we could use? Some kind of pole or something? Something with a hook on it? Looks like the cat’s wearing a collar.”
“If the engine were here, we could use a pike pole. You know, I think I did see somethin’ in there we could use.” Johnny disappeared into the garage again, and returned a minute later with a long-handled tree pruner.
“Oh, my, what are you going to use that for?” Mrs. Johnson gasped when she thought of her poor little kitty being clubbed by that thing.
“It’s okay, Mrs. Johnson,” Roy calmly told her. “If the cat… if Lucifer… doesn’t want to come willingly, I’ll just slip the hook on the side of this into his collar and sort of… uh… encourage him to come peacefully.”
“You won’t hurt him, will you?”
“No ma’am. He won’t hurt him.” Johnny smiled at Roy. “If anyone can get the cat to come down out of the tree, I’m sure my partner here can do it.”
“You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?”
“After the day I’ve had already, I… I kinda think I deserve to, don’t you? You know, we’d better not let Cap find out about this, or he’ll have our hides.”
“I won’t tell, if you won’t.” Roy was glad this call had taken Johnny’s mind off his troubles for the time being. He tested the ladder again. It seemed sturdy enough. He just didn’t like the idea of being on top of a ladder in a tree with a cat that didn’t look like it had any intention of coming down.
At least it wasn’t as dangerous as the tower they were on earlier, and the feline wasn’t suicidal.
Murderous, maybe.
But, not suicidal.
He wasn’t more than a few rungs up the ladder when the cat stood up and yowled rather loudly. It sounded more like an intruder warning than a friendly greeting, but Roy kept going.
After all, it was just a nine-month old kitten, and he… well, he was a fireman.
By the time Roy reached the top, the cat had its back arched and claws dug into the tree branch, poised to take off one way or the other. It was just out of reach. He slowly raised the pruning tool, trying to talk gently to the cat -- which was now hissing contemptuously at the foreign object headed its way.
A sudden blur of black fur flew at him. Claws dug painfully into his left shoulder. Roy started to lose his balance. The little devil began biting and clawing its way across the back of his neck and shoulders. Roy held onto the ladder with his left hand to keep from falling. The pole handle slipped from his right hand, and not thinking twice about it, he grabbed for the cat to get it off his back.
On the ground, Johnny was doing his best to hold the ladder still as he watched Roy struggle. He saw him release the pruning tool, which flipped in the air, and realized he had about three seconds to make a decision. He either let go of the ladder and moved, letting Roy take his chances…, or he stayed where he was, holding the ladder steady, while the sharp end of the tool headed straight for the top of his head.
Best friend’s life? Split skull?
He really wished he’d put his helmet on.
It plowed into the ground about six inches from his right foot.
Miracles do happen.
Johnny wasn’t sure if he’d stayed put because there hadn’t been time to make a decision, or if the training drilled into firefighters -- never to let go of a ladder -- prevailed over the instinct for self-preservation, or if he really was that magnanimous. Today was not the day he wanted to test whether he’d truly lay down his life for his partner.
He wasn’t a goddamned cat.
He didn’t have nine lives.
If he’d had his way, neither would this cat.
So much for lightening up.
* * * * * * * *
“I didn’t expect you back so soon.”
“Dix, I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Why, Roy, you sound like Johnny. Where is he anyway?”
“He says he’s not getting out of the squad until we get back to the station. I think he thinks there’s a conspiracy against him… you know, something or someone’s out to get him. To be honest with you, after all that’s happened today, I can’t say that I blame him.”
Dixie finished cleaning up the scratches, and administered the booster shot. Roy didn’t mind needles as much as Johnny did, but it stung sharply for a minute. In a way, Roy was thankful it wasn’t Johnny sitting here again. Cat scratches and a tetanus shot -- not to mention almost falling again -- might have pushed him over the edge he seemed to be standing on. After the pole incident, Johnny hadn’t spoken to him, other than to sullenly refuse to get out of the squad.
They were getting ready to leave the room, when they heard the commotion in the hallway. Roy opened the door just in time for them to see an orderly chasing after a scrawny, half-naked man, who was yelling at the orderly to stay away from him, threatening to bite him and turn him into a werewolf. Security guards managed to halt the fleeing patient, who then went quietly as though nothing had happened.
Dixie closed her eyes and drew a long breath before she looked at Roy. “If I only had a dollar for every time I’ve heard that one. So, you don’t think there’s anything to the full moon theory, huh?”
“But, Dix. The moon isn’t even out yet.”
“Oh, that doesn’t matter. Just knowing it’s coming seems to set people off early anymore. Based on what we’ve already put up with today, I’d better make sure we’re well stocked with supplies. Once the moon does come up, I have a feeling all hell is going to break loose.”
It was a good thing Johnny wasn’t there to hear that.
He might have gone home and gotten back in bed and pulled the covers over his head.
Come to think of it, that wouldn’t have been a bad idea.
* * * * * * * *
The engine was out on a run when they got back to the station. They warmed up the leftover enchiladas, and sat down to eat in uncomfortable silence. In spite of his earlier claim of starvation status, Johnny picked at his food, then finally dropped the fork and pushed the plate away.
“I thought you were hungry?”
“Not used to eating left-handed. Besides, I… I sorta lost my appetite somewhere along the line.”
Roy put his fork down, too, ready to talk. “Johnny, are you… are you gonna tell me what this is all about?”
Even before he’d gotten into work, Johnny had talked himself into believing that Roy’s pragmatic take on things wouldn’t let him understand. Comments Roy had made today solidified that belief. He had been angry and frustrated because he wanted to talk to his best friend, and couldn’t. There were times when Roy didn't even want to try to see things Johnny's way. Maybe he was being unfair, but Johnny didn’t think Roy would take him, and what was bothering him, seriously. He didn't want to hear anything about confirming Roy's belief in his basic insanity.
This wasn't a joke.
But now, too many things had happened today -- coincidence or otherwise -- to ignore it any longer.
Before he could begin, the engine backed into the bay. Johnny had no intention of talking in front of Chet, or the others, so he got up and gathered their dishes and took them to the sink.
Marco and Chet were carrying on a running conversation as they came into the rec room. “What did I tell you, Marco? Weirdos comin’ out of the woodwork already.” Chet stopped short, and clammed up when he saw Gage. They had some unfinished business between them. Captain Stanley had initiated a private conversation with Kelly earlier, but in spite of his captain’s reassurances, Chet still didn’t feel any better about having let go of that rope, or for having lost his temper at the wrong time.
Disappointed because of the interruption as Johnny was about to open up, Roy was still curious to know about the engine’s run.
“What happened this time?”
Marco shook his head as he sat down at the table. “You’re not gonna believe this. We got called out to assist 99s with a traffic accident on the 710 northbound. Two cars had collided headfirst into each other, and both drivers were trapped behind their wheels.”
“Wait a minute,” Roy said, trying to visualize the accident. “They collided headfirst? You said the traffic was northbound.”
“The traffic was going north. All except this one guy. He was going the wrong way on the freeway. Apparently he’d managed to go almost a mile with people getting out of his way before someone ran out of luck.”
“The wrong way?” Roy was picturing freeway on-ramps and all the signs that indicated to someone they were headed the wrong direction. “It’s not impossible, but it’s kind of hard to do that, unless you do it on purpose. Was anybody hurt?”
“Not too bad. It could have been a lot worse. You wanna know what the guy said when the cops asked him why he didn’t pull over to the shoulder as soon as he realized he was going against traffic?” Marco had been standing there at the time, and still couldn’t believe it. “He said he thought he was the only one going the right way, and everyone else was going the wrong way.”
“Drunk?” Roy surmised.
“As a skunk,” Marco confirmed.
Marco was just about to ask Johnny how he was feeling, then comment on the scratches on Roy’s arm and hand, when Stoker came into the room. “John, Roy. Cap wants to see you in his office right away.”
Roy and Johnny exchanged one of those ‘I think we’re in trouble’ kind of glances, and left the others in the room wondering what was going on.
“Come on in, gentlemen. Have a seat.” Johnny would have preferred to stand, but got the impression he’d better sit. Captain Stanley wasn’t smiling.
“I just… uh… got off the phone with one Mrs. Lulubelle Johnson,” he started. “Sounded like a nice old lady. She wanted to let me know what a wonderful thing the two of you did for her. And her cat. She also told me she thought I should get the two of you a real fire engine instead of that toy thing you drive around in. And then she said she hoped you were all right, being that both of you were almost killed. I believe that’s the way she put it, anyway. Either one of you care to tell me what that was all about?”
Johnny’s chaste look was intended to remind Roy that rescuing the cat was all his idea, and it was all his to explain.
“I’m listening,” Stanley said, then took note of the scratches on Roy’s arm and hand for the first time. “No, wait. Let me guess. You climbed up a household ladder to get a cat out of a tree without your turnout coat or gloves on. I don’t suppose your helmets were on your heads, either?”
“No, Cap, you see… we… I… I didn’t think it was going to be a big deal. We were there, and she was worried about her cat, and we… I thought we could sort of help her out.” Roy knew he was sounding an awful lot like Johnny, who was sitting quietly, enjoying not being on the hot seat for the moment.
“I see.” Stanley paused, looking sternly at Roy. “When was the last time you saw a cat skeleton in a tree? They can get down just as easily as they can get up. You know that. Now tell me, just how is it that you were almost killed?” At first Stanley thought the old woman had been exaggerating, but he could see by the guilty look that passed between the two men, she’d been right.
Roy carefully went over the details, taking the blame, and apologized as much to Johnny as he did to Captain Stanley. Not one to rub salt in wounds, Stanley decided to let them off the hook with a firm, but gentle, reproach. One look at both of them said they’d already been through the wringer today, and he assumed he wouldn’t have to remind them that firemen did not rescue cats from trees, nor would he have to discuss proper use of personal protective gear again.
That being handled, he moved on to the next subject.
“John, how’s the hand?”
“It’s… it’s a little sore, Cap, but not bad enough to keep me off the job. The only problem I might have is if I… I have to hold onto a rope, but I can handle everything else.”
Johnny didn’t want to go home, even though both his common sense, and his sixth sense, were telling him he should.
He still wasn’t listening.
He was determined not to let mind games rule his life.
Or cause his death.
Captain Stanley thought it over again before making his decision whether to let Gage stay at work, or send him home. His first instinct had been to send him home, but now he reconsidered.
“Not knowing how bad your injuries were, I made some calls while the two of you were at the hospital. I was told there wasn’t anyone readily available to come in and sub for you if you couldn’t finish your shift. We could do a force call, and take the squad out of service until someone gets here, but I kind of hate to do that… that is, if you really think you’re up to staying.”
“I’ll be fine, Cap,” Johnny said. “I… I’ll let you know if I don’t think I can handle something because of my hand, though. I might not be so lucky… the… the third… time around.”
Johnny stumbled over those last words. … three times….
“I’m not so sure luck has anything to do with it, John.” Stanley’s admiration was genuine. “That was nothing but skill and determination that kept you alive this morning. I don’t know that I could have held onto that rope under those circumstances, injured hand or not. It took a lot of guts to do what you did.”
“Thanks, Cap,” Johnny said quietly. As far as he was concerned, it was nothing to boast about. He’d much rather forget it even happened.
Each man replayed the harrowing incident in his mind one more time. Hank Stanley finally broached the topic that had concerned him since that response.
“I have to ask, John. What was going through your mind before you climbed up that tower? There was something. I saw it, and so did Roy. I almost stopped you from going then, and I don’t think I need to tell you I’m sorry I didn’t.”
Stanley and Roy waited while Johnny twisted in his chair, wrestling to find a way to describe it, without sounding crazy himself. “Man, I don’t know. The more I think about it, the… the dumber it starts to sound.”
“Look, Johnny. It can’t be that dumb. It’s been bothering you all day.” Roy urged him to spill it. “Why don’t you just tell us? Maybe there’s something we can do to help.”
Johnny got up, and went over to the window to look out. There wasn’t much to see on that side of the station, but he didn’t feel so closed in by the walls of the small office while standing there. He put his hands in his pockets and kept his back to them, staring out the window.
The room was still. It was apparent Johnny was having a hard time, and they waited patiently. It took so long, it almost startled them when he began to talk.
“Either of you ever wake up one morning, and… and just know something bad was gonna happen if you got out of bed?”
Unseen by Gage, Stanley and DeSoto traded looks that almost said, "Is that all this is about?"
“I think everybody’s had an experience like that at one time or another,” Stanley answered. “There’s that feeling you get that something’s going to go wrong, or you hear a voice whisper in your ear, or you hear warning bells. None of those things are uncommon. People say things like that all the time.”
Roy had heard plenty of stories like that when he was in the Army -- men who often faced danger routinely professed to have more precognitive experiences than most -- or so they claimed, after-the-fact. To him, it was similar to what Dr. Early was trying to explain about people seeking reasons for bad things that happen. Rather than admitting it was simply fate, or their own mishandling of the situation, they put the blame on some mysterious premonition that couldn’t be explained.
“Johnny, I can see where that could be kind of unsettling, but… did you ever stop to think maybe it’s a case of a self-fulfilling prophecy?”
“I know what you’re sayin’, Roy.” Johnny’s voice was suddenly laced with indignation as he turned around to face them. He didn’t like Roy’s implication. “Like Murphy’s Law, right? If you think something can go wrong, it will go wrong. Then, you never know. Would it have gone wrong anyway, or… or did just thinking about it make it happen?”
“Yeah, something like that. It’s possible, you know. The mind is a funny thing. Maybe you were subconsciously thinking about it, and....”
“No, Roy. At first, I thought that was it. But, I’ve gone over it a hundred times since then. I… I didn’t make a mistake on that tower,” Johnny said adamantly. “I’ll admit it crossed my mind before we started up. But… but, I put it aside and I did my job. Everything I did was by the book.“
Johnny was pacing the room now. Seeing the look of skepticism on Roy’s face triggered yet another heated argument. “Okay, okay. Maybe… maybe I should have realized the potential for a problem. But.... You were there, Roy. You thought the situation was under control, too. If I’m missin’ something here, then you tell me what I did wrong,” he said hotly.
“I didn’t say you did anything wrong,” Roy shot back. “I was just trying to say that… that maybe you were distracted, and you didn’t even know it. If you had told me earlier what was bothering you, I wouldn’t have let you take her down by yourself.”
“You.... You wouldn’t have let me?”
“That’s not what I meant....”
“John. Roy. Just simmer down, both of you.” Stanley stepped in, trying to cool things down before they got out of hand. “It was a judgment call, and it went the wrong way. It happens sometimes. But, John, I get the feeling -- no pun intended here -- that there’s something more behind this.”
Johnny took a minute to get his temper under control. His pride had been severely wounded, courtesy of his partner and best friend, and it was hard to admit that maybe Roy had a point.
“Sorry,” he finally mumbled to Roy, calmer now, though some of the hurt still showed in his eyes. “You’re right, Cap. It was more than a… a feeling I had when I woke up. It’s something that I knew. And, I probably should have said something. It’s… kinda hard to explain, and I thought you’d think it would sound… dumb.” Even though he was addressing Captain Stanley, Johnny was looking straight at Roy.
“John, you should know I have a lot more respect for you than that. You should have come to me. Roy’s right. It’s not dumb if it bothers you. It’s certainly not dumb if it gets in the way of doing your job. I can’t say that I’ve ever experienced a feeling quite that strongly before,” Stanley admitted, “but I know of people who say it’s happened to them.”
“Johnny, I’m sorry, too,” Roy apologized, “I didn’t mean it to sound that way. I just… I don’t understand what’s going on with you today.”
Roy got one of those feelings just then.
The kind that sends a chill right through you.
Like someone just walked on your grave.
The room was still again, and when he said it, calmly, quietly, it stole their breath, just as it had stolen his when he woke up this morning.
“I… I’m going to die today.”
He crossed the room and sat back down, feeling better he’d told someone. Their shaken expressions didn’t give him much hope they’d be able to help, though.
Roy was the first to recover. “Are you telling us you believe that?” Roy asked incredulously. Even for Johnny, he thought this was pretty far out in left field. “You don’t… you can’t possibly believe that.”
That set Johnny off again. “Why can’t I, Roy? Just because you don’t believe in things like that? Maybe I do and maybe I don’t, but all day it’s been like I… I’ve seen things before, but I don’t know where. It’s not the first time I’ve ever experienced a sense of déjà vu, but, man, this is way beyond that. Man, I knew you wouldn’t understand.”
“Hold it, you two.” Stanley sat back in his chair and tried to rationally sort things out, partly to keep the two of them from going at it again, and partly to see if he couldn’t help Johnny understand what Roy was trying to tell him. He sided with Roy’s point of view on this one, but wanted to be as diplomatic as possible.
“You know, John, as a group, we firefighters tend to be a bit more superstitious than most. I personally believe that some people do have a heightened sixth sense, and I believe some people really do have premonitions. Now, I’m not saying that I believe in fortune tellers and mind-readers, mind you, but we can’t deny that the mind is a powerful thing. In this case, though, I think maybe Roy’s right… maybe you’re reading more into this than you should.”
“Johnny, you said you woke up knowing something bad was going to happen, and that you feel like you’ve seen things today that you’ve seen before.” Roy was searching for that logical answer to an illogical situation. “You think maybe you had a dream, and that’s where this is coming from?”
“I don’t know. I…I really don’t remember, Roy. I just know that when I looked at that tower, I felt like I’d been on it before. And fallen from it. And, this morning, when I saw....” Johnny stopped short, not sure he wanted to continue any more.
Stanley suddenly sat forward in his chair, remembering how upset Johnny had been at the scene of the fire. “This has something to do with that Gideon fellow, doesn’t it?”
Roy had been waiting for this all day, and jumped at the opportunity to ask again. “Johnny, what did he say to you?”
Johnny felt like they were ganging up on him, and finally gave in.
“All right, all right I’ll tell you. It… It wasn’t what he said. Not at first, anyway. It was just being near him, his staring at me, like he knew me and knew some… some secret about me. I can’t explain it, but it’s like… like he… I… I don’t know how to describe it.” Johnny ran his unbandaged hand through his hair, and shifted nervously in his chair again.
“It’s all right. Go on, John,” Stanley encouraged.
“It… it was nonsense. It…. He… he was crazy. He said he knew I was really one of the aliens from the house… that I hadn’t died in the fire, and that I’d taken over the body of the fireman to escape.” Johnny paused and checked to see if it looked like they thought he was the crazy one, but their faces showed only concern, so he went on. “Then he said that he knew what I knew, and hoped I was prepared to die… that he saw death on my face, and it was going to visit me three times today. He said… he said I… I wouldn’t to live to see another full moon in the sky. I know you think it’s stupid, but for a minute, I believed him.”
“Johnny, the man was insane.” Roy quickly contended. “It was just the raving of a lunatic.”
“I know that, Roy.” Johnny’s frustration was growing again. Roy didn’t seem to get the point. “But… why do you suppose he picked me? There were at least twenty other people there -- firefighters, sheriffs, bystanders. Out of all those people there, how did he know… how did he know what I was thinking? You’re the rational thinker here, Roy. You explain it to me, ‘cause I sure don’t get it.”
Stanley offered his opinion first, trying to play peacemaker. “I’ve read different things that say people with mental illnesses sometimes have certain latent… talents, so to speak. Some of these people have been known to have very strong clairvoyant tendencies. Maybe somehow he was able to pick up on what was on your mind, John, and knew you were vulnerable to suggestion. Then, in his own twisted way, he used that for his own purpose. Whatever that may be.”
Johnny and Roy both gave their captain a strange look.
“I know I said I don’t believe in mind readers,” he defended himself, “not those phonies you see at carnivals, but there are people who might have that ability… to a degree. What I don’t believe… is that they can predict what’s going to happen in reality. It’s just a mind game to them, John. A sick game, played by a sick mind. I think you need to try to let it go.”
“I guess… you’re right,” Johnny conceded slowly, through trying to make them understand how real he was convinced the warning was.
“Well, at least they got the guy locked up. Hopefully, they threw away the key.” Stanley shook his head, remembering how uncomfortable he’d felt around the man. “All the same, are you sure you wouldn’t rather go home than be here at work, thinking about this? I wouldn’t say no, if you wanted to. As a matter of fact, I think it might be a good idea. We can get someone in here by eight, if not sooner.”
“No, Cap. I suppose you’re both right. I guess I’m letting my… uh… my imagination get the better of me. Even if you’re wrong.... It’s one of those things… if it’s gonna happen, it’s gonna happen. Fate, right, Roy?” They missed the trace of sarcasm. “I… I think I’ll stay here and take my chances.”
It was at that moment they thought they knew why Johnny didn’t want to go home.
When darkness fell, and the moon rose in the sky, he didn’t want to be alone.
But, there was one other thing Gideon had said that he didn’t tell them.
And, that… that may have been a mistake.
