Dispatch #2 The Box

Notice: Contains Harsh Language and Disturbing Imagery

Out of his sleep, Steve heard the tone. His mind was only three-fourths unconscious like it always was when he was on duty. The low, impersonal, digital tone was so conditioned into his brain that it woke him up before the handheld radio by his bed began ringing. In night mode, the device listened to the digital sounds that came across the airwaves and rang like a phone to wake the crew up if their specific unit was toned out. It was an unnecessary system for him. Steve was already awake as the radio rang and lit up in the dark bedroom. He quickly tapped the PTT button to shut it up and pulled the blankets off of himself. He rubbed his groggy eyes as the dispatcher’s voice came through the speaker.  

“Medic 32, 3 - 2, respond to a protocol 16 on 912 Koh Lane. A 16 at 9 - 1- 2 Koh Lane. Time out: 1:12.”  

The radio chirped to signal the message was done. Steve slid out of bed and started pulling his pants. They had barely gotten back into bed after running a nursing home call earlier that night. Now they had a sixteen. Sixteen meant “Sick_Person” in the official call report but everyone knew it actually meant “Complete_Bullshit_Waste_of_Time.” Steve was less upset that they were running this call on no sleep than he was about having to wake up Rudy. He pushed the door to his station bedroom open as he pulled his boots on and headed for the bay.  

“Rudy. Wake up.” He said to the closed door in the dark hallway. He had no interest in opening that door. He hoped that Rudy would just sleep through the tones. Then they wouldn’t have to run this call and he wouldn’t have to see Rudy until shift change. There was a loud bang from inside the other room and muffled cursing. No such luck. Steve keyed the mic on his radio as he walked out to the ambulance. “3-2 received.”  

Once in the driver's seat, Steve tapped the screen to accept the call. As he pulled on his uniform shirt, he noticed the navigation software was glitching constantly as though it couldn’t connect the two dots that stood for the ambulance and caller’s location. He tried to refresh, but nothing changed. As he heard the loud footsteps of Rudy approaching, Steve flipped over to the call notes.  

CALLER STATES FEELS SICK. HAS NOT EATEN OVER SEVERAL DAYS.  

Steve had just finished reading the notes as Rudy got in the cab. Steve already knew what he was going to say as he grabbed the screen and stared at it with blurry eyes.  

“The fucking bitch. Giving me a fucking crackhead.” To Rudy, every dispatcher was personally out to ruin his life. He wasn’t completely wrong. Rudy was a firm believer in his constitutional right to tell everybody how much of a fucking idiot they were when they pissed him off. As a result, his attitude and opinions towards dispatchers had made it across the airwaves. Now, his unit always seemed to get the most and worst calls on shift. Rudy's devout zeal in informing everyone of their stupidity often came at a cost; one Steve was tired of paying by association. There was nothing to be done but get through the shift and hope this guy never picked up overtime at Steve’s station again.   

They drove through the night without lights and sirens. There was no need to rush. The city was asleep for the most part. A few cars and pedestrians crossed paths with them. It was a rougher side of town but not nearly as bad as people made it out to be. There were wilder districts that ran a lot more than 32 did. Still, urban decay showed. Potholes littered the pavement; the buildings were rundown; Steven glanced up at an apartment beside the road that a 16-year-old OD’ed in; a street corner where the local dealer had been shot up. You saw places differently with this job.   

The mapping software said they were getting close but seemed unable to tell where the call was. Steve had been at this station for a while now and never heard of Koh Lane. He kept flicking the refresh while trying to read street signs.   

“The fuck is wrong with you?” Rudy asked groggily. In his mind, Steve’s one job was to drive him to and from his calls, and he was currently failing in this simple task.   

Steve tried to ignore his medic’s ire and keyed the unit’s radio instead.  

“3-2 dispatch, we’re having nav problems. Do you have a solid address on your end?” Rudy snorted and shook his head in the passenger seat.  

The dispatcher’s voice came back with a surly tone, “3-2, I’m showing you right on top of it. Turn left.”  

Steve turned his head and hit the brakes. Rudy spewed blasphemies as the sudden stop jerked him forward. There, directly perpendicular to them was the opening to an alleyway. Steve blinked; certain he was hallucinating. He had driven down this stretch of road a hundred times before and never seen that alleyway. It was nestled between two crumbling buildings. A long stretch of cracked asphalt that disappeared into shadow. It had to be the sleep deprivation, Steve thought. He leaned over to check the navigator.  

“The hell are you looking at? Get us in there!” Rudy was in no mood to be understanding. He rarely was. Steve stiffened at the order bellowed at him. The ambulance was too far forward for them to make the turn into the alleyway. Steve glanced at the backup camera at the empty street behind them and put it into reverse.   

“Oh my--” Rudy exclaimed as the shirl beeping of the backup alarm began. He rubbed his eyeballs and muttered “Fucking retard” under his breath.   

As Steve shifted into drive again and slowly pulled into the alleyway. The buildings were so tight that the bulky ambulance only had inches of clearance on either side. Steve couldn’t believe this cramped back street even got a name. It was tight in every sense. There were no gaps in the dilapidated walls that hemmed them in. No doors, only an occasional small window high on each side. Steve hoped this alley would spill out onto another road. The idea of trying to reverse back down the way they came only added to his anxiety.   

Up ahead, a slumped bundle of fabrics watched them approach. The vague outline of a human silhouette against the wall had to be their patient. Steve didn’t think he could get this giant box on wheels past it without running it over. Instead, he pulled the front of the ambulance alongside the figure on the ground.   

“Maybe he’ll walk to the side door,” Steve said to Rudy as he rolled down the passenger side window. The air that drifted in carried a scent of decay, the acrid tang of old garbage and mildew. Steve was used to way worse smells in this job. It wasn’t that. There was an unsettling sensation that washed over him. There was something about the smell that pricked the hairs on the back of Steve’s neck. A thing deeper than his cognitive mind told him something was wrong.   

Rudy leaned out the window to address the huddled figure below. “Hey, can you walk?” Steve couldn’t see the shabby head shake back and forth. “Come on, I know you can walk.” Rudy coaxed. “I can’t get the stretcher to you. You gotta walk.” The head shook again. “Fuckin-” Rudy muttered as he swung his door open, nearly hitting the figure on the ground. Steve took Rudy’s stepping out of the cab as a signal he was to grab the monitor from the back and come around. He keyed the radio as he slid out of his seat.  

“3-2 on scene.” As his boots hit the cracked asphalt, Steve felt a chill shoot up his spine. It was a warm summer night, but it was as though he had jumped out of his seat into an icy river. Something was wrong. He didn’t know what, but something was wrong. He twisted the knob on his handheld radio to turn it on, walked around to the back of the box, and hopped in to grab the monitor. Steve pulled the heavy gray device off its stand and opened the side door. He had to squeeze to get through the space between the ambulance’s side and the wall. Something brushed off the crumbling masonry onto Steve's cheek. It was wet, warm, slimy. He rubbed it off onto his shoulder and put the monitor down next to the raggy bundle that Rudy was trying to talk into signing a no-transport waiver.   

“Come on, you look fine,” Rudy said to the wretched embodiment of neglect slouched against a wall.  

“P...p...please.” The voice was horse and croaky. Thin, skeletal fingers reached out from the folds of blankets. Rudy pulled his head back as the hand extended. He let loose an exasperated sigh of defeat, realizing there was no way he could get out of this call.   

“Alright, what’s wrong?” He had dropped the last remaining pleasantness from his tone.  

“S...s....sooo..” The voice rasped.   

 Steve knelt next to the huddled figure as he slipped on his gloves. “Let me see your arm,” he said as he gently pulled the outstretched limb to the side and began hooking it up. The smell hit him again as he got close. Decay, rottenness, Steve longed for the Vapo rub sitting in the ambulance they used to block out such odors. Again, a chill prickled his skin. He shoved aside the uneasiness and focused on his job. Let’s see, he thought, running through the steps subconsciously in his head. The first thing he noticed was the arm’s color. It was grey, ashen, splotchy, and railthin. It was hard to imagine it belonged to a living person. Nevertheless, he slipped the pulse ox on like he was trained to do. The red laser pierced through the nearly transparent skin underneath the fingernail. Steve waited a second for the monitor to register the vital signs.  

HR: 330  

Oxygen %: 44  

What? Steve looked at the ragged head of his patient. The face was so covered in dirty cloth that only fragments of the eyes and mouth peeked out. The eyes were sunken and blood-shot. The lips looked thin and pale. The hidden face stared back at him and tried to speak.  

“Sss...s...” He was still alive in there. But Steve didn’t know for how long. He checked the monitor again.  

HR: 43  

Oxygen %: 100  

The company they worked for was too cheap to buy up-to-date equipment. The machine had to be screwing up.   

“Come on,” Rudy said impatiently. They needed baseline vitals if he was going to have to write a report. Steve used his gloved hand to find the radial artery and feel for a pulse. At first, he couldn’t find it, then he felt a thin, thready beat almost two seconds apart.   

“We gotta take him,” Steve said.  

“Bullshit.” Rudy shot back.   

Steve looked into the obscured face. “Sir, can you hear me?” He said. Rudy scoffed indignantly before getting up to lean against the ambulance’s hood. Steve watched as the crack-like blood vessels in the eyes spun; spun like a pinwheel around the pupil. The pulse underneath his fingers sped up. It went from nothing to lighting fast within seconds. The faint beat turned into a mighty drum that was going so fast and so strong the whole arm started to vibrate. Steve lost his grip and recoiled backward. His hand instinctually went to his radio. The hair on the back of his neck was straight up. Steve felt like his heart was coming up his throat.   

“What’s your problem?” Rudy barked. “Get me a blood pressure!” Steve’s thumb hovered over the recessed orange button on his radio. Hit it, and a silent distress signal went out. Hit it… and then what? Explain that he got freaked out by some homeless junkie? He’d be laughed at for years. Say that he “felt unsafe?” Unsafe. That word alone was a sign of weakness. It might get him pulled from the medic program that was coming up. He needed that program. He needed out of shifts where he got stuck with assholes like Rudy. He needed the pay bump. Slowly, unwillingly, Steve pulled his hand away and scooched towards the figure.   

Not interested in reaching over for the other arm, Steve strapped the cuff onto the same limb as the pulse ox. He hit the button on the monitor without taking his eyes off the shrouded face. The faint whirring of the cuff blowing up was the only sound in the foul air. The thin lips parted into a grimace as a hiss came from them.  

“Ss..Soooo…huuuunnnn…” The teeth behind the lips were pitch black. The irises couldn’t decide on a color to be, shifting from green to brown to blue. The bloodshot streaks danced in the eyes as the arm shot back into the midst of the rags. The hose that connected the blood pressure cuff to the monitor went taught. The whole machine suddenly was yanked off the ground and disappeared into the figure as well.   

“Oh shi—” Was all Rudy got as a hand shot out from the folds and grabbed him by the throat. He made one last gurgle before his trachea crunched shut. Steve saw an arm-like limb of three bones strung together underneath a wiry skin sheath. Rudy was pulled across the pavement and into the rags just like the monitor, vanishing into the body. 

Steve was sprinting down the alley as fast as his legs could carry him. He grabbed the mic clipped to his shirt, pressed the button, and screamed,   

“Code zero zero! Zero zero! Help me! God! help me!” He didn’t dare look over his shoulder. He just ran. He saw what had to be the end of the alleyway. He ran faster. Behind him was a low, guttural sound.  

No, it wasn’t behind him.   

It was all around him.  

Every decaying wall. Every crack in the asphalt. The stench-filled air. All of it was crying, roaring out.  

“Ssssooooo….Huuunnngggryyyy….”  

In pure horror, Steve watched as the mouth of the alleyway closed. The crumbling walls, broken pavement, and starless sky all came together to close off his escape. He watched as the alleyway began to bend and constrict, losing all appearance of solid geometry. The space itself bubbled into impossible shapes. Steve felt the ground slip away from his feet. He was sliding. Falling. The decaying stretch became acidic and overpowered him. The once asphalt street was now a giant esophagus that he was sliding into. A black void reached out below him.  

“So….Huuunnngggryyyy….” It was the last thing he heard.