“Fucker tricked me. Saw him on the monitor at the front gate, called it in and then wanted to catch him. By the time I got there, he had already slipped into the garden. One of those damn kids left the patio door unlocked. When I got to the stairs to the basement, I heard the screams. I’m sorry man!”
At least I knew why he showed up just seconds after Campbell did. I stayed on my back, eyes pressed shut against the pain Michael’s hands caused while I continuously cursed him for it, when I unexpectedly heard a clinical female voice.
“What have we here?”
I opened my eyes and, to my greatest relief, saw four paramedics drop their bags to the ground. One of them, the woman who had talked, was kneeling next to Campbell.
“Punched his throat and probably broke a rib.” I managed to inform her, which she acknowledged with a simple grunt herself.
“He’ll be fine! This one’s in worse shape.” Michael told them in a demanding tone, which did not help me calm down in the slightest.
The paramedic made a gesture for Michael to take his hands off my shoulder and make room for them, but then pressed a gauze pad onto it instead after she had cut open my shirt. Her partner repeated the procedure with my pants, and suddenly everything happened quite fast.
They loaded Campbell and me onto stretchers to carry us out of the house, loaded us into the waiting ambulances, and off we went to my first ambulance ride I was awake for. My concern grew significantly when I heard them making calls through their own radios that spoke about GSWs, while attaching various things to my body and strapping an oxygen mask to my face.
It didn’t help that Micheal stayed back at the house to wait for Bill and assist the police. As much as I tried to act tough, at that moment I wouldn’t have minded to have someone I knew by my side. Though, the female paramedic seemed to notice and graciously held my hand during the ride, which I admit was nice. Maybe she was just taking my pulse, but I enjoyed it anyway.
After arriving in the ER, I was rolled into the Trauma Bay and given the once-over by a doctor and multiple nurses.
“Can you tell me your name?” the doctor asked loudly as he leaned over me and looked into my eyes like he was searching for something.
“Timothy Brown.”
“Very good, Timothy. You seem to have been shot.” he said, as they unburdened me of my remaining clothes.
“Thought it was a BB-Gun.” I groaned back.
“BB-Gun?”
“Was too quiet. No bang.” The pain of their rough treatment made it hard to talk.
“Probably a small caliber then.” he mused, more to the nurses than me. “There is no exit wound on the leg or shoulder, meaning we’re gonna have to go lookin’ for those bullets. Shoulder looks like it was hit by shrapnel, though. The bullet possibly shattered when it passed through the vest.”
They worked on me for the following few minutes, while inquiring about allergies, medications, and many other points I answered as best as I could. I don’t know if that is standard procedure, but I got the impression that fucking sadist simply wanted me to stay awake while they prodded my wounds.
“Alright, he’s stabilized for now. Timothy, we’re gonna sedate you now and roll you into the OR. Don’t worry, we’re gonna take real good care of you!”
“Insurance card in my left knee pocket.” I croaked as the pain suddenly lessened, and that weird sensation of heaviness spread through my body before I passed out.
I fucking hate being anesthetized. You don’t fall asleep like they claim, you pass out! That feeling of heaviness that starts in the arms, then creeps in the chest, and finally spreads across the body before it seeps into your head. That is followed by the sudden dizziness that increases at an alarming rate and feels so unnatural you just know it’s a bad thing, so you try to fight it and stay awake but ultimately lose that battle. It’s the ultimate loss of control, you’re completely at someone else’s mercy, and it’s scary as hell! But the next thing I knew, I woke up to a rhythmic beeping sound, with a nurse standing next to me watching a monitor.
“What happened?” I croaked groggily, my throat feeling unusually dry. “I thought I was going into surgery?”
That made her laugh.
“Mr. uh...” she leaned over to check my chart. “Mr. Brown. Your surgery was yesterday. You are now in the ICU.”
‘Yesterday’, she said! My brain strained to make sense of that information. The party started on Monday. When Campbell showed up, it was around Midnight. That would mean I was rolled into surgery in the early hours of Tuesday. And now it was the next day? Did she mean it was Wednesday now!? She had to be joking! It would explain why my mouth and throat were so dry, though I didn’t feel like I was out for that long. Actually, I still felt like I had just closed my eyes!
“I was
