He fires off more shots without aiming, then he talk-yells, like he’s delivering a sermon. “You want to be a sickle you must bend yourself. I can’t help you. I won’t be burnt with you.”
Instead of sidling away from the man and heading deeper down the hallway, Ramola considers going forward and back into the elevator vestibule, where Stephen crouches and carefully peers around the edge of the hallway. They would be covered but also potentially trapped. The stairs offer no safe exit (Is that boy still there waiting for them on the platform? Is he moments away from opening the fire door?) and she’s unsure if the elevators are operable.
A commotion approaches from the other end of the hallway; clacking boots and shouts of “Stay clear!” Three members of the National Guard in full fatigues: one carrying a gun-metal-colored shield, the other two clutching automatic weapons. They quickly overtake and pass Ramola and Natalie. The soldiers shout unheeded commands at the man, each soldier taking a turn, as though singing in rounds. A hail of gunfire drowns out their infinite canon. The man with the pistol screams and falls to the floor. Most of Ramola’s view is blocked by the circling soldiers, particularly the one with the shield, as the man uses his hands and arms to crawl forward on his stomach, his motionless legs trailing red smears. He hisses and gurgles, and drums his lips together like a child might when imitating a car engine. His bloody, foaming mouth is a leer and he lashes out with a hand, reaching for the ankle of the shield carrier. A single gunshot discharges from one of the soldiers’ guns. The man goes still. After the briefest moments of silence, that end of the hallway explodes into argument and recrimination between approaching medical staff and the soldiers.
Dr. Awolesi has flipped the EMT onto his back. She explores his midsection for a reason Ramola cannot determine. He is most certainly dead; the left half of his head is a sizable trapdoor left ajar, hair and scalp misshapen and jellied with gore. Dr. Awolesi climbs out of her crouch, dangling a set of keys in one hand.
Ramola and Natalie follow the doctor down the hallway, swimming upstream through waves of more soldiers and, now, firefighters. Stephen the guard doesn’t continue with them. He stays behind, leaning on the corner of the elevator vestibule and hallway, talking to soldiers and pointing, presumably, at the door to the stairwell.
Ramola walks side by side with Natalie while looking every direction at once. They do not talk. She tries to catch Natalie’s eye, to give her a nod or a smile, whatever either expression is worth, an opening to perhaps ask the dreaded How are you doing, how are you feeling? Natalie grimly keeps her gaze pointed forward, to the finish line they cannot yet see. Her gait is hitched and her right arm is scaffolding under her stomach. The overnight bag bounces off her hip with each step.
A few paces ahead, Dr. Awolesi talks into her radio. The keys jingle as she gesticulates, flashing her right arm out to her side and pointedly jabbing it forward.
Natalie asks, “Who’s driving us? Is she driving us?”
“I don’t think so. EMTs work with partners, don’t they.” Ramola doesn’t mean it as a question, but as emphasis. “How are—”
“I’m fine.” Her eyes fixed on the hallway horizon, Natalie shakes her head no as though her physically taxed and possibly catastrophically compromised body cannot tell a lie. They pass intersecting hallways and signs with arrows pointing to the ICU, cafeteria, Psychiatry, and the Washington Street entrance, which is closed, and Natalie repeats, “I’m fine.”
The Central Street exit/entrance is a service and employee entrance, one not generally used by patients or visitors under normal circumstances. Two armed and masked soldiers guard the glass double doors.
Dr. Awolesi shows her ID and identifies herself as acting chief medical officer. This is news to Ramola, and her use of “acting” and its implications floods her system with pulses of unease. Dr. Awolesi tells the soldiers, with permission granted by the incident commander, she is transferring Natalie and her attending physician to another clinic.
There is no argument as Ramola anticipated there might be. One soldier nods, says, “We know,” and mumbles something about minutes to spare. The other opens the door and closes it as soon as they pass through. Outside the hospital, the wail of the fire alarm is muzzled (but still audible), and the cool air is bracing on Ramola’s sweat-slicked skin. The parking lot is significantly smaller than the sea of blacktop by the ER. A skinny rectangle that winds and tapers by the entrance has only thirty or so parking spots for staff, currently filled with military trucks and other vehicles. Two trucks, parked tail to head, block access from Washington Street. Soldiers guard and maintain one-lane access to and from Central Street.
A large white ambulance with the company name writ in blue cursive on the side panel is parked at the walkway curb in front of the exit. Dr. Awolesi jogs ahead and pounds on the passenger door with an open hand and stands on tiptoes, peering into the window. When no one answers, she opens the unlocked door, pulls herself up into the main cab, and visually inspects the rear of the vehicle. She hops back onto the sidewalk, looks around, and throws up her hands.
She says, “This is alarming to admit, but I cannot locate the other EMT. She might be inside helping. But I don’t know, and now it doesn’t matter.” She hands Ramola the fistful of keys she lifted from the dead EMT. “I’m conscripting you into driving, Dr. Sherman.”
Ramola holds the loose pile of jangling metal in her left hand, out and away from her body as though cupping a handful of sleeping bees. “Are you sure . . .”
“Yes, and before you can ask, I have that power. Come on,
