Brrrrrr
Brrrrrrrrr
Brrrrr
The all too familiar sound of the wheels drifting onto the gouged asphalt specifically designed to wake dozing drivers shot my falling eyelids straight back up. In a haze, I stopped the rig’s flirting with flying into a ditch and righted us on the desolate back country road.
“You thinkin about taking us off-roading on our way to the ER, Martin?” quipped Steve from the back of the rig attending to his now even more agitated patient.
I gave him a half-hearted wave through the window joining the two compartments of our unit before fumbling for that can of energy drink I had stashed somewhere in the cab. Not being able to find it only compounded my frustration with Steve ignoring the only rule I had for him when working as my partner.
No fucking jokes on a 72-hour shift.
“Where the fuck are you?” I groaned as I clumsily sifted through the trash that told the story of the last nearly 48 hours of this rig being my home.
I gave up the search as my second home, and our destination, pulled into view. Twin Trees Memorial. Less a hospital and more a methadone clinic. Not much else besides the pains of needing a dose could get the good folks of this backwater town to seek out a doctor.
“I’m home,” I muttered as I backed the rig into my favorite parking spot under the broken floodlight. It was the best place to catch some sleep while telling dispatch we had to clean the rig before the next run.
I popped the door and eased myself out of the driver’s seat before taking the step down to the damp concrete. Despite my deliberate attempt to ease myself out, my knee still screamed from the light impact of my boots meeting the ground. A nice little souvenir I get to keep after I retire from my career of picking up limp junkies from their piles of vomit. If I ever get to retire.
Speaking of junkies. I could hear our passenger arguing with Steve over why he didn’t get a dose of fentanyl on this ride for the “worst itch of my life.”
“Man aren’t you guys ‘spose to help people when they need it mo-,“ the sentence died in Jeff’s throat as I threw open the back of the rig and stared into the sunken pits where his eyes resided.
I had bounced his scrawny ass off a wall a month ago after I caught him snooping around our station. Probably looking for a way to score a quick hit from the rig’s med box. The bruise it left matched the dark bags under his eyes. It pains me to remember that the bags under my eyes are much the same.
“Ah fuck not this motherfucker,” moaned Jeff. I had recognized his address when we got the call, so I didn’t even bother to step out of the rig when we arrived. I got some small joy from being able to surprise Jeff as his chauffeur for the night.
“We’ve arrived fuckface!” I retorted back.
Steve gave me a disapproving look for my language before continuing what he was saying before I opened the door.
“I’m sorry sir, but I have to follow the protocols for the use of narcotics when I’m treating my patients,” Steve said with an apologetic tone that the scumbag didn’t deserve.
“Yea whatever man just bring me inside!” Jeff cried back. I’m sure that “itch” had rudely reminded him of why he was here.
Steve and I obliged the request as we rolled the gurney inside through the creaking automatic sliding doors that led into the ER. I parked the gurney against the wall as Steve went to find the head nurse to turn care of Jeff over to. AKA my favorite part of the job: making these people not our problem anymore.
I leaned my back against the wall and tilted my head back as the all-too-familiar chemical smell of the hospital and the beeping of patient monitors tried to entice me back to sleep. I faintly heard Steve giving a textbook-perfect handover report to the charge nurse about Jeff’s itch.
Steve was still far too green despite being a medic for three years now. Everything had to be textbook. No paperwork would be left undone. No patient request was too asinine. No vile insult or fist hurled his way was too much for him to not return it with a smile and his best customer service voice. He wouldn’t make it in this career.
“Bed 6, Martin!” chirped Steve, wresting me from my mental fog.
After a couple more snarky remarks from Jeff, we were free of him as he rolled onto the hospital bed from our gurney. And he was free to start demanding fentanyl from the nurse who drew the short straw tonight.
After a quick stop at the vending machine to catch up with my dear friend caffeine, we were back to the rig. My lips had barely met the edge of the can when Steve began his routine of thinking out loud about the woes of our patrons.
“That’s probably the tenth time I’ve had to pick Jeff up,” remarked Steve as he looked sideways over to where I sat on the rear bumper of the rig, “we really should start having addiction treatment pamphlets to hand out for cases like these.”
“If they can’t shoot it up or snort it, these people aren’t going to want anything you’re offering,” I retorted as I finally introduced the can to my lips.
“Well, we have to do something that’s not just… this,” he sounded exasperated as he gestured back towards the ER.
“Look at that, you’re actually starting to sound like me finally,” I pointed out with just a small amount of my relishing in this development betrayed in my voice.
Realizing this, Steve straightened his posture and took a deep breath of 3 a.m. night air, an air that has a hard-to-describe weight to it. We both knew it well.
“Let’s call up dispatch and let them know we’re clear for the next one,” sighed Steve.
“No, absolutely not,” I choked out halfway through a sip, “we’re going down for an hour cleaning, when was the last time we slept?”
Steve looked like he was about to disagree, but before he could the radio crackled to life giving us both the answer to this dilemma.
“Unit 652, Unit 652 priority 3 traffic”
Steve skipped over to the passenger side door with an eagerness that irked me to no end. Just when I thought I had gotten the Boy Scout to see things my way.
“Unit 652 copies, go ahead with your traffic,” Steve had regained his usual chipper attitude and was chomping at the bit to go save the world.
“Unit 652, you have priority 3 traffic, sick person, 52-year-old male, 841 Cypress Road, how copy?”
“Unit 652 copies, en route now,” Steve replaced the mic in its holder, “time to go, Martin!”
My knee screamed in protest as I rose from the bumper. I started gathering my words to chew out Steve for not putting us out of service for this call when a thought struck me.
“Where the fuck is Cypress Road?”
After a 20-minute expletive-filled drive, expletives provided by me, we reached the outskirts of town, and the answer to my question. A bullet-riddled and rusted sign marked our arrival at Cypress Road. I had nearly blown right past the sign as it barely peaked out from the overgrown grass that surrounded it and the entire side of the road.
“You ever respond out here?” Steve asked as he put down the county map that led us to the lonely strip of dirt that snaked its way out of sight into the trees.
I looked past Steve out the passenger seat window up into the trees before answering, not even a single porch light peered back through the web of branches.
“No, never. Haven’t even heard of this place.”
“Let’s get on scene before dispatch cites us for a late arrival,” Steve muttered as he neatly folded the map back up.
“The Boy Scout doesn’t want a demerit, huh?” I chided back as I coaxed the rig down a soft decline onto the dirt of Cypress Road proper. I stopped caring about the metrics of our calls when the company wouldn’t replace our rig, which had become the second oldest thing at this company. Holding the title of “oldest at the company” was my distinct pleasure and simultaneous shame.
Steve ignored my dig at him as he shifted in his seat and tried to catch a peak beyond the trees that bordered the gentle left turn I was easing the rig into. While I would’ve normally followed my philosophy of “getting to the call sooner equals ending the call sooner.” I didn’t trust the combination of soggy dirt road and bald tires to not send the back end sliding into the even soggier forest surrounding us.
It was another five minutes of gentle winding back and forth through this seemingly forgotten patch of forest before something other than the green and brown of the trees came into view. Tucked away on the left side of the road by about 100 feet were the burnt remnants of a trailer and an old Ford pickup with a sunset orange paint job. Only the 4 cinder blocks where its tires once were kept it from meeting the ground.
The mailbox standing watch at the edge of the road informed us that this was 821 Cypress Road. 841 was still further ahead, but still nowhere in sight. As I turned my attention back to the road to continue our search, the radio came to life with a sharp hiss.
“Unit 652, Unit 652 what is your lo- “
The radio traffic died out with a loud crackle as abruptly as it had started. Steve picked up the mic and responded back, “Dispatch, this is 652, can you repeat your traffic?”
Silence.
Steve quickly resorted to “old faithful” and gave the radio transceiver a healthy thump with the palm of his hand. “Dispatch, do you copy?” Steve enunciated into the mic.
Silence.
Before Steve could abuse the transceiver further, 841 Cypress Road made its presence known. The road ended abruptly and directly ahead of us was a monument to stagnation. 841 was simply another trailer, but it had succumbed to rust instead of flames as its neighbor had. What was probably the stark white of its metal walls had decayed into a sickly yellow. Pock-marked with holes of rust, its face told the story of the apathy that consumed this forgotten road.
Steve gave dispatch one more attempt before dropping the mic back into its holster, “Dispatch, this is Unit 652, in the blind, arrived on scene.”
I cranked the wheel hard to the left as I prepared to back the rig up to the trailer. As I watched our approach to the trailer through our rearview camera, something like an itch compelled me to look out the windshield. I couldn’t see 841’s neighbor anywhere. We had only made it maybe another 200 feet passed it when we arrived at our destination. Still, that charred husk and the crippled pick-up were nowhere to be seen.
The rig jolted sharply before I had much time to ponder what I was, or wasn’t, seeing ahead of me.
“Oh, motherf-,” I hissed while gently feathering the throttle to get our rear right wheel out of the pothole it now spun fruitlessly in.
Steve, now seeing our predicament, cautioned me, “Easy man, easy.”
Before I could tell him to shut it, I hit the sweet spot and freed our wheel from the pothole. Not wanting to risk discovering another pothole, I decided that 50 feet from the trailer was close enough and threw the shifter into park.
Me and Steve shared a silent glance for a moment. I’m sure, “Let’s get this over with” went through both of our heads. With that, we both turned toward our doors, opened them, and stepped out into a gentle, silent breeze. I left the keys in the ignition and kept the engine running. It was a habit I developed from one too many times having to escape from a junkie patient that wanted to give me some new holes with a kitchen knife.
Steve made it to the back of the ambulance first and popped open just one of the rear doors to grab our go-bag. He had already closed the door and extended his arm to me to grab the bag by the time I reached the back. I accepted the hefty bag and lifted the strap onto my shoulder.
We exchanged no words as we made our way toward that shadow of a home. The crunching of our boots on the dirt and the rocks on this excuse for a driveway took the place of any conversation. No, the night had too much tension for a chat, but the cause of this tension was alluding me. It wasn’t until we had made it about halfway to the trailer, and far enough away from the rig’s engine, that the realization hit me.
Total silence. If it weren’t for the foreign sounds of our boots on the ground and the hum of the rig, there would be complete silence covering everything. My newfound cognizance of this fact lifted the hairs on the back of my neck. Still, we continued our march steeped in a tension that was rudely broken as we passed a long-dead pine tree.
A low growl pierced the silence from our left, at the base of the tree. This sent both of us scrambling a few steps to our right and lodged my heart in my throat. I locked my eyes onto the void of darkness that was the base of the tree, hidden from the dim red lights of the rig. I didn’t dare look away and neither did Steve as I heard him blindly fumble with the Velcro strap that held his flashlight in his pant pocket.
Click
Staring back at us, curled in a ball, was what was once an imposing Pitbull. However, now I could count the ribs protruding through its flea-riddled fur. What caught my eye next was the choke-chain collar the dog wore around its neck and the chain connecting it to a tie rod hammered into that pine tree. The dog made no attempt to even rise to its feet. That growl was probably the best it could muster to scare off the two strangers now staring him down. I’m sure it hadn’t had a bite to eat in weeks.
“Remind me to call animal control on this asshole,” I muttered, venom creeping into my voice. I couldn’t stomach the mistreatment of animals. I was already picturing my pup at home in this condition.
Steve didn’t respond, he had turned his attention, and his flashlight, to the trailer. My eyes followed the path he traced from the ground up the side of the trailer. On the ground, specks of glass reflected light back at us. About 5 feet up was the window that the glass once belonged to.
From the outside, it was like peering into the void of space. An inky black was all that was revealed of the inside of the trailer. I had almost looked away toward the door a couple of yards to the right when I noticed the holes that decorated the top left corner of the window. At first, they didn’t seem any different from the rust holes that had colonized the trailer’s ugly face. Then it clicked.
Their perfect roundness and lack of rust. These details coalesced into a ball of lead in my stomach. An instinct, one that you only acquire after years of this job, was clawing at the base of my skull. One word echoed in my mind. Wrong. This is wrong.
Before I could voice my rising concern to Steve, I heard a heavy click and creak as he swung the door open and placed one boot on the rusted steps of the trailer. The Boy Scout hadn’t even knocked first, still too eager to go save the world as always.
“Hey wait, kid!” I spat out as I rushed to catch up with him, pulling out my own flashlight as well. I didn’t have to tolerate the searing pain in my knee for long as I half-jogged to reach Steve who had now disappeared into the shadow of the doorway. I almost immediately ran into Steve’s back as I took my plunge into that trailer.
“Did you not hear me, kid?” I angrily whispered at the back of his head. That ball of lead in my stomach had started to strangle my vocal cords, making my voice hoarse.
“Fuck man,” Steve shakily muttered while staring at the scene illuminated by his flashlight.
My anger at the kid quickly faded as my eyes locked onto the couch and the man reclined on it as if we had just intruded on his afternoon nap. In his gray, swollen hands he clutched a shotgun. Its butt pressed into the stained couch while the end of its barrel plunged into the ground beef that was once his face. His memories painted the wall and ceiling above him.
It took a moment for the stagnant air in this tomb to assault our senses. That familiar sickly-sweet odor forced its way into my throat. Steve suddenly hunched over barely suppressing his retching that contorted his back. I had my own struggles as I forced back the bile that threatened to drench Steve.
After a few nauseating moments, we had both regained our composure and tried our best to become medical professionals again. Noticing Steve’s continued unease, I tried my best to break the tension. He hadn’t stumbled upon nearly as many bodies as I have.
“Guess animal control is gonna need a Ouija board to interview this guy,” I choked out past the now-falling bile.
“… yea, guess so,” Steve said, his voice barely a whisper.
I knew a task was what he needed to get his composure back, “Hey, wanna try radioing dispatch to get the Sherrif out here?”
“Yea, yea I’ll call them up,” Steve mumbled as he turned away from the trailer’s tenant to walk past me and toward the kitchen table that stood at the nose of the trailer.
Satisfied with the distraction I afforded to Steve; I turned my attention to our “patient.” The blue jeans he wore were now stained with patches of a deep brownish red. He had been dead long enough to start to putrefy and leak rancid fluids into his clothes and surroundings. The dirty wifebeater he wore told the same story. The only other effect he had on his person was the dog tags glinting back at me. I carefully turned the tags to face me so I could read their pressed metal.
Marshall, Alan
“Hey, we got a name for our guy here, Alan Marshall,” I informed Steve as he fumbled with the mobile radio that was acting up as well. He gave me a quick nod, still facing away from Alan.
Not wanting to find any more surprises for us, I decided to investigate the bedroom that waited at the end of a short hallway with its door hanging agape. With only a couple of strides, I made it into the bedroom, passing what I assumed was the closed door to the bathroom.
Shining my flashlight around the room, I found nothing particularly surprising. The cramped room barely fit the bare, piss-stained mattress directly ahead of me. Surrounding it were countless cans of beer and malt liquor. All were uniformly drained of their contents. The picture of Alan’s life was becoming more and more clear to me. I returned my attention to the mattress and caught a glimpse of something peeking out from where the mattress met the wall.
Lined up neatly between the mattress and cigarette-stained wall was a collection of purses and handbags. Even from where I stood at the foot of the mattress, I could tell this collection had escaped the ravages of Alan’s filth. They were all pristine. I was leaning forward to get a better look at this strange assortment when a sound broke out from behind me sending me straight into standing at attention.
Ring Ring Ring… Ring Ring Ring…
I pivoted and almost immediately spotted the source of the sound that had caught my breath in my throat. A faint blue light pulsed in rhythm with the tones at the swollen feet of Alan. In a few short steps toward the light, I could see the light and tones were coming from a cheap flip phone. The screen spelled out “Emergency Services” as it scrolled across the display.
“Hey Steve, look who’s finally calli-,” the words died in my throat as I noticed the change that had taken place in Alan’s lap. Where the shotgun once rested, was now our radio sitting between Alan’s legs.
Fighting against the tension that gripped every fiber of my being, I directed my gaze, and flashlight, to the end of the trailer. Steve was still there facing away from me, but the shotgun was gripped tightly in his left hand facing down towards the floor. Every muscle in his body seemed to be contracting against each other. His right arm was contorted up and backward as if he were trying to reach for something on an invisible shelf behind him. I was about to approach him to help when I noticed his head. The position of his head to be precise.
It was contorted at an impossible angle. It was as if someone had wrapped a chain around his forehead and yanked it backward with all their might. He was almost able to look directly back at me like some fucked-up owl. The ridges of his eyebrows were the only thing keeping me from making eye contact with him. A barely audible trickle of fluid brought my attention to the floor again. A puddle of urine was beginning to form around his left boot.
“Steve?” I expelled between shuddering breaths. I hadn’t noticed how hard I was now breathing.
Nothing. The silence outside had invaded the trailer. The only thing that held back this oppressive force were the breaths from my burning lungs. It was hard to tell due to my ragged breaths, but I don’t think he was even breathing.
Gathering my courage, I took a single tentative step toward my partner. As soon as my boot landed on the stained carpet, Steve moved with inhuman speed. His head snapped forward with a sickening crunch as his left arm swung the shotgun upward and his right hand braced the barrel under his chin. Before the scream could leave my throat, he squeezed the trigger and pelted the ceiling with a hail of bone and viscera.
Ears ringing, I watched as his body fell backward. The scooped-out stump that was his head met the ground first with a wet thump and the piece of meat that was once the tip of his tongue bounced across the floor, landing neatly at my feet.
An icy numbness washed over me while my stomach churned. Not a word could escape my mouth as a vice gripped my throat. However, the feeling that raged inside me strongest was that same instinct I had since we approached this trailer. It compelled me to bring my flashlight up toward the nose of the trailer again. I slowly guided the circle of light over my partner’s limp body. Once I had reached his feet my arm halted abruptly. I could see something now. Something that had been there directly ahead of Steve, but blocked from view when he was standing a moment ago.
Two dirty, gray feet with blackened toes were peaking out from a stained and moth-eaten white dress. Mostly hidden, but still discernible, were the torn remnants of duct tape that appeared to have once bound these ankles. As I soaked in these details, I finally noticed the detail that sucked the breath out of my chest. These feet floated roughly 5 inches off the ground.
My mind churned with fear to the point that I couldn’t grasp a single coherent thought. My base instincts took hold and commanded me to do the only thing I possibly could. I stepped back with the trepidation of a man on wafer-thin ice, praying that this step wouldn’t plunge me into the depths.
My eyes stayed locked on the bottom of that dress as I moved and I saw that its wearer moved towards me the same distane that I thought I had gained away from it. I hazarded another step backward, now beginning to enter the hallway of the trailer again. That thing moved toward me once again. This sick dance we were locked into twisted my stomach and threatened to finally release that bile from my throat.
I took another step back, this time reaching back with my left hand to find the doorknob of the bathroom. Nothing. The dress moved closer. Another step. It moved closer. A final step and my hand reached the doorknob which I twisted with desperate strength. The door flew open easily and I threw myself in without daring to look away from that nightmare before I was inside.
I slammed the door closed with my whole body. I practically fell backward against the wall facing the sink and slumped down into a crouch. The fear had sapped the strength from my legs. Before I could ponder what I was to do now, I felt what seemed at first to be leaves falling onto my head and around me. The sudden sensation sent me scrambling across the ground deeper into the bathroom towards the shower.
“Fuck!” I screamed with what felt like the first breath I’d taken in years. I shined my light onto what had fallen over me. Little black squares with white borders surrounding them. All identical in shape and size. I looked upward and saw the shelf mounted to the wall that I must’ve shaken those squares down from when I slumped against the wall.
I crawled closer to inspect the squares. They were Polaroids. I grabbed one to inspect it, shining my light on it. A gasp slipped my lips when the picture’s content became clear.
The picture was taken standing away from a sunset orange pickup truck. The subject of the photo was sprawled across its backseat. A young girl with blonde hair and a white dress. Her mouth, wrists, and ankles were bound in duct tape. Mascara bled from her eyes that shined with an indescribable pleading for help.
My hand faltered and the Polaroid slipped out of my grasp. I grabbed another. And another. And another. Unspeakable things were documented by the photographer. One featured another man; one I didn’t recognize. He was holding the girl up by her hair. As if he were commemorating catching a prize bass. Disgust and anger danced around each other in my chest. The final picture I dared to look at showed the girl in her white dress dumped face down in a shallow dirt hole. Bruised. Broken. Violated.
I slumped against that wall again. Tears were welling in my eyes from the depravity I had stumbled upon. When I had the strength to stand, I grabbed the counter and forced myself up, trying my best to ignore the protests of my knee. I looked towards the mirror in the dim light provided by my downward-facing flashlight and was confused by what I saw. Numerous dark shapes and lines obfuscated my reflection. I brought my light up to illuminate the mirror and reveal the writing that covered its surface.
Don’t look at her Don’t look at her Don’t look at her Don’t look at her DON’T LOOK AT HER
They varied in size and legibility, but the dozens of inscriptions all shared two things. Their message. And being written in long-dried blood. I looked towards the door. Nothing was trying the lock nor thrusting its claws through the cheap wood.
“I’m not going to die here,” I whispered to my reflection looking back at me.
I placed my hand on the doorknob and locked my gaze and light on the ground in front of me. With a twist that felt like it lasted eons, I finally swung the door open. Nothing happened. My throat wasn’t ripped out and my heart was still beating in my chest. I slowly stepped out and turned left toward the living room, toward escape. Only to find those rotten feet floating directly ahead of mine.
My breath grew rapid then halted when the stench from the girl in the white dress enveloped me. My eyes watered, but I didn’t dare avert them from where they gazed. I prepared myself for the step that would send my body colliding with hers. I moved my foot forward and with a barely stifled scream the rest of me followed. But I didn’t collide with anything. She had moved back. I was still practically face-to-face with her, but she had moved.
Over the course of the next 5 minutes, we repeated the same dance of a step forward and an eternity of me attempting to catch my breath and ready myself for the next. I almost lost it when we finally reached Steve. My knees nearly collapsed as I slowly stepped over his arm. I couldn’t avoid stepping in the blood that had soaked the carpet around him. With two more steps, we were at the door that led to my freedom. I cautiously rotated counterclockwise to angle myself to walk backward out of the trailer. She moved in concert with me. As I placed my foot outside of the trailer, a leathered hand with blackened fingers shot out and grasped my wrist. The black nails sunk into my flesh, and I involuntarily dropped the flashlight.
STAY
The hollowed and withered voice beckoned to me. My eyes still locked on the ground; I struggled in her grasp. With a final desperate wrenching of my arm, my wrist came free. Deep, burning lacerations wrapped around my wrist, but I paid them no mind. I was out.
Still, I continued to walk backward while my eyes burned a hole into the ground. But she didn’t follow. She stayed hovering at the doorway and soon vanished from my field of vision. With the light of my ambulance at my back guiding me, I continued my march towards escape. A whimper coming from my left at the bottom of the dead pine tree halted me. The dog.
With several side steps, I made it to the dog. I gambled being bitten and fumbled around for the collar. I found the clasp and opened it. The dog moved with a surprising amount of speed, for its condition, into the woods to my left without a sound besides paws scrambling over twigs and dirt. With a few more steps, I also realized my freedom. I closed my eyes when my hand met the handle of the door. With a deep breath, I threw the door open, turned, and jumped into the seat.
I cautiously opened my eyes and looked around the rig. There was only me. I threw the rig into drive and raced away from that forsaken place. I nearly careened off Cypress Lane several times, but it didn’t matter. Distance was the only thing that mattered.
I don’t remember the drive. Or reaching the station. Or all my coworkers asking where Steve was. Everything has been foggy since that night. The police asked me if I was on something when they questioned me about the bodies found in that trailer the next morning. My answers weren’t good enough for them. I spent the next night in county lockup. Even that far away from Cypress Lane, I found it hard to look at anything other than the floor.
I was met with a surprise the next morning. They had worked overtime combing the trailer for evidence due to the strange nature of the crime. The lack of my fingerprints on the gun and the angle at which Steve fired it cleared me of most suspicion. Still, I know they’re keeping a close eye on me. That doesn’t matter much to me now.
I’m dealing with a problem at home now. It’s hard to get back to a semblance of a normal life after what I saw. It’s not just about trying to feel normal again. It’s difficult to get about my daily life and chores and taking care of my pup while I keep my gaze pointed at the ground. That dirty white dress hovers in front of me all throughout my house. She talks more now too.
HOME