A fire truck had pulled into the parking lot along with a pair of police cruisers and the paramedic van. She assumed the firefighters had come to hose down the area around the Volvo to dilute and disperse the gasoline that had leaked from the damaged vehicle, but since the paramedics were still trying to revive the man at the scene, all they could do for now was stand around looking bored. The emergency lights of the first responders’ vehicles were all activated, and as dusk edged its way toward night, their colors seemed to become brighter and more garish. As she stared at the lights, doing her best not to think of anything in particular, she saw a van turn into FoodSaver’s lot. It had a small satellite dish attached to the roof, and Action News was painted on the side. The driver pulled up close to the police cruisers and parked. Three people got out – a pair of men, and a woman wearing a skirt and a blazer. Lori didn’t watch the news, whether national or local. She found it too depressing. She didn’t recognize the woman, but she knew she was a reporter, and that meant she’d want to interview any witnesses to the accident. Especially the woman the Volvo had almost hit. It would only take a few moments for the news crew to get ready to start recording, and once they found out who Lori was from the police, they’d hurry over to get her firsthand account of the accident. No fucking way was she going to stick around for that.
She picked up her purse, stood, and went inside FoodSaver. Forcing herself to walk at a normal pace in order not to draw any attention, she made her way to the back of the store. There was no exit for customers here, but there was a pair of swinging doors with Employees Only written on them. She pushed through the doors without hesitation and found herself in FoodSaver’s storage area. She saw stacks of empty cardboard boxes that hadn’t been broken down yet, as well as wooden pallets containing boxes of non-perishable items. The boxes were labeled – paper towels, breakfast cereal, potato chips – but there was no one present to open them and remove their contents. She figured that whoever had been working back here had gone out front to watch the action after the accident had happened. This meant there was no one to see her, let alone stop her, as she walked toward the receiving dock. The dock’s large door was shut, but there was a regular-sized door next to it, and this was the one she went to. She found it unlocked and she opened it, half expecting an alarm to sound, but she didn’t hear anything. She stepped outside and closed the door behind her. There were several dumpsters back here, some for trash, some for recycling cardboard. The trash stank of rotten meat and sour milk, and her stomach roiled at the smell. She hurried past the dumpsters toward the west side of the building. She walked around the corner and continued on, going slowly, careful to remain close to the wall. She kept going until she could peek out into the parking lot.
She saw the reporter speaking to the police, one of the men recording her with a camera while the other stood by, watching. The paramedics had strapped the old man to a backboard and lifted him onto a gurney. They wheeled him to their vehicle and got him inside. One of the medics remained in the back with the old man, while the other closed the rear doors, jogged to the front, and climbed into the driver’s seat. A second later, the vehicle’s engine roared to life, its emergency lights came on, and its siren began blaring. The vehicle started moving, slowly at first, but once the driver pulled onto the street, he hit the accelerator and sped off. Lori knew they would take the man to the nearest hospital, which was in Ash Creek, about fifteen miles away. The news cameraman had stopped filming the reporter’s discussion with the police officer and shot footage of the paramedics leaving. When they were gone, the firefighters started preparing to wash away the gasoline that had leaked from the Volvo, and the cameraman began filming them.
She drew back and, as she’d done before, she sat on the ground, back to the wall, knees hugged to her chest, purse resting next to her. She wondered what it must be like for the paramedics, knowing that the patient you were transporting was almost assuredly nothing more than a collection of bones and dead meat, but needing to pretend that some small spark of life might be hiding somewhere within him in order to do your job properly. She couldn’t imagine anything more depressing, and she was glad she was a physical therapist. The patients she worked with might be in pain – sometimes quite a lot – but they were alive. They could heal, maybe not all the way, and maybe their bodies would never get back to the point they were before whatever had happened to break them. But they could get better. They could improve. That was a hell of a lot more than the old man would ever be capable of.
She’d ridden in the back of a paramedic vehicle only once in her life – back in high school – and once was enough. She unconsciously reached down to rub her right knee, and although there was no reason for it to hurt, she felt a distant, dull throb. The pain drew her attention to her hand, and she quickly removed it from her knee.
Look forward, push onward, she reminded herself.
* * *
Lori remained hidden until everyone – the police, the firefighters, the reporters – had left, and both the Volvo and
