Refill

Driving was fun. Driving was fast. Driving was easy. Anthony took his hands off the wheel and threw one out the window, one over the backside of the passenger seat. Outside, the wind was rushing down this rural Washington highway at eighty-five miles per hour, and the sun was bright. Beside him sat Hector, laughing through the straw of an orange soda filled fast food cup. The burger wrappers and old napkins were on the floor, smashed under Hector’s boots. There was music blaring on the radio, and everything was perfect. “Put your damn hands on the wheel,” Hector snapped through a laugh. His cup nearly spilled as he slapped Anthony’s hand away, but Anthony just snorted. “Here, here.” Anthony wedged his left leg up between himself and the wheel to rest his knee against it. He proved his great control by giving the car a sudden jerk towards the guardrail. “Hey—!” Hector shouted. The car returned to its proper path, down the road at ninety miles per hour. Anthony had a knee on the wheel, one arm around Hector’s shoulders, and his other arm still hanging out the window. There didn’t look to be another car for miles, out there on the open road. That was the joy of taking a quick trek out of the city. The open roads. The freedom. The bright sun unblocked from clouds and too tall buildings. It was what Anthony lived for—especially when there were no cars. He hated other cars. Anthony had always been a bit of a troublemaker. Right from the moment he was born, he was figuring out how to get extra food or a newer toy. Eventually, it was the cookies from the cookie jar and better gifts at the holidays. Before long, it was alcohol and weed from the older boys. Once he was one of the older boys, he just needed the money, and money wasn’t too hard to come by when Anthony could smile like he did. He was good at getting what he needed. Better at getting what he wanted. He pulled his arm away from Hector, not to grab the wheel, but to turn up the volume as a new song came on. He tapped his fingers along to the music on the center console. He had his sunglasses down, the wind in his hair. It was auburn hair, with painfully orange roots peeking through that said he’d been teased one too many times as a child. “Come on,” Hector tried again. “Put your hands on the damn wheel and find some place to turn around. My show’s on tonight, and I want to watch it.” Anthony laughed. “Really? Want to get home to watch some cute little show? That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.” Hector rolled his eyes. “All right—all right, f**k. You got me.” It was a stupid show, a guilty pleasure. “Few more miles,” Anthony promised. “Look, look, I’ll get you better.” Anthony dropped his knee down and did put his hands on the wheel, both of them. He gripped hard enough that his knuckles turned white, and he pressed his foot down on the accelerator just a bit harder. Flooring it looked fun in movies, but Anthony had often found all it did was cause his tires to spin haphazardly before deciding that was all they were good for. Things never went well, after that. Anthony had learned not to do it. His car worked so much better with a gradual increase. Ninety-five One hundred. One hundred five. The music was blaring, loud. Hector sang along, off-key. Anthony whooped in his excitement, throwing his hands up off the wheel. “All right, all right!” Anthony shouted. “About to pull off the most impressive of U-turns, are you ready? Heading back for Hector’s stupid show in, three—two—one—” Anthony grabbed the wheel again and yanked it to the left. The car turned. The tires screeched. Rubber burned into the road. It was a two-lane highway, nothing to divide oncoming traffic from going traffic. Anthony hadn’t spent ten seconds looking to make sure this was safe before he wrenched the wheel, and once he had, it was too late. The car spun in the middle of the road, just like Anthony intended. It would spin three times before he got it back on track—that was the plan. He’d done this so many times before, it felt like second nature, the way he had to work the stick and the wheel, both at once. Hector was laughing beside him, eyes closed and jaw open, crinkles around his nose. He was happy. He was enjoying himself: hands up and orange soda left forgotten in the cup holder. Anthony could see it all happening in slow-motion, hear the way the music slowed, and Hector’s laughing turned into shrieking fear. Anthony saw right through the passenger window on the second turn of the car. Another car. Anthony hated other cars. For a moment, he hated his own car. Hated himself. The collision sent everything jolting back into real time. Real, painful time as the car crumbled under the impact and the insides shook, rattled like a can. The side of the car collapsed. The hood of the other car buckled and squished. Everything from the sound of cracking plastic and breaking metal, to the drip, drip, drip of leaking coolant. Somewhere. It was all Anthony could hear through the ringing in his ears. He seemed to remember a personal collision. His head, right into the crest of the steering wheel. Something was broken. Everything was broken. His ears were still ringing, louder by the passing second. There was blood, somewhere—he could smell it. Remember what it smelled like from his first party in college when he’d gotten into a fight with some guy. What was his name? Benjamin, Bentley, something—maybe it was a girl. Beatrice. The broken beer bottle had scratched up his arm, and Anthony still had the scars from it. It smelled like blood. He knew the smell. Everything right around the corners of his eyes had gone intensely dark, black, and focused. He couldn’t see anything beyond the mangled dash of his car. The broken glass. It smelled like smoke and coolant. It was the coolant. Anthony didn’t know why it was the coolant, but it was all he could smell. All he could focus on. It was easier to focus on than anything else. The broken cups. The spilled soda. There was no crinkling of burger wrappers beneath Hector’s boots—that was too much to think about. Too scary. Time slowed back down again, and Anthony lost track of everything. Everything but the smell of coolant and the sound of his own voice. What was he screaming for? Who was he screaming for? Was there someone there? He didn’t know, anymore, just that there was pain through every inch of his body, and someone was yanking on him. Pulling him out of the car, as if that had even been possible. The frame had buckled, and the doors seemed too broken to ever open again. It must have been the other driver. Maybe they’d had an older car—older cars were made of such stronger stuff. Slower. Worse gas mileage. But stronger frames. Maybe the other driver was fine. Anthony felt the hands under his arms, yanking and pulling with enough strength that he was sure his shoulders popped. Something wasn’t where it belonged. Broken. Bent the wrong way. Out of socket. Something, but it hurt. It hurt, and then Anthony was hitting the hard concrete. Burnt rubber. Broken cars. Snapped metal. And all Anthony could smell was the coolant. All he could feel was that pain. Even the concrete that should have been roasting in the sun was nothing. He just laid there, ears ringing and vision black. Somewhere behind it all, there was rummaging. Through his jean pockets in a desperate search for something, but everything was in the car. His wallet and his phone. The person must have known that—smart, Anthony mused. Smart. The rummaging continued. He could hear the metal and the leather creaking beneath weight that didn’t belong. Anthony hoped they’d find his phone, that they’d find everything. Get them help. It was all Anthony could think about, and it was strange. Throughout his entire life, he’d caused trouble. He’d f****d in bars and drank in alleyways, shot up in seedy old houses on broken couches just for the rush. But none of it mattered anymore. All he could think about was his mother. He’d been nine years old, and his mother had just caught him running through the house. It’d been a school project, he thought. Something about cutting up magazines to make a collage. He couldn’t find the scissors. Where were the scissors? He found them. The scissors. Mom had stopped him in the hallway with her face blanched white and knuckles strained from the grip she had on his shoulder. Terrified. She had every right to be terrified. He was dying, dying, dying, right there on the concrete of a two-lane highway. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid. “Don’t run with scissors,” she’d said. “You could hurt yourself.” I’ve f****d up, Mommy. It was the last thing he thought. I’ve f****d up, real bad. * * * * There was an accident. The call had been explicitly clear—two cars, two males, and one female. Horrible wounds, one dead. One of them must have been fine enough to call. There’d been a call. Explicitly clear. Horrible accident. And very polite. Please, please, come quickly. He might die if they didn’t. But who was he? It didn’t matter. The call ended right after that. The caller insisted he’d done all that he could, but it hadn’t been enough. It wouldn’t be enough. He seemed to insinuate that this ambulance and this team were the only ones who would be enough, but that was a detail quickly forgotten and easily ignored. It wouldn’t save any lives. They’d been sent right out in a rush. Gabriel wasn’t the one driving, but he wished he were. It was imperative that they arrive on the scene as soon as possible; if the call was to be believed, there were two people who were in potentially mortal danger. None of that meant they needed to weave in and out of traffic like crazed racecar drivers. Maybe Gabriel was gripping the seat because he was terrified. Maybe it was just the panic and the beating of his heart. This was his job. Still, being the only thing between people and death wasn’t an anxiety he was used to. He’d never be used to it. When they arrived on scene, Gabriel was the first one out of the ambulance. He took the scene in, all at once. The burnt rubber, the T-bone collision, and the fact that there seemed to be someone standing there, entirely unscathed. He was a heftier man, a bit older. He was wearing a fine, old-fashioned waistcoat with a pocket watch chained to one of the pockets. He’d been looking at his watch, but the second Gabriel’s foot hit the ground, he looked at Gabriel. By the sudden point of that man’s finger, Gabriel’s gaze was directed to a man lying perfectly posed and straight on the ground. Gabriel rushed forward, his supplies gripped tightly at his side. The windshield of the car wasn’t shattered, which meant the victim couldn’t have been thrown from the car. He was still breathing, too. Being thrown from a car like that would have likely killed him, but he was clearly alive. His breaths were ragged, slow, and shallow. The man’s eyes were closed. They wouldn’t have much time before he lapsed into unconsciousness. Gabriel looked back up, where he’d thought to find the old-fashioned man, with intention to ask what had happened. The man was gone. Like wind. Like he’d never even been there, at all; the man was gone. If the situation was different, Gabriel might have pondered on it a bit longer, but there was a man in front of him in need of immediate attention. He could worry about a freak disappearance when there wasn’t a life hanging in the line. “Hey—hey,” Gabriel started, trying to get the man’s attention. “Can you tell me your name?” There was a groan. The man on the ground looked worse for wear, with bruising all around the face and an unfocused gaze. Gabriel couldn’t quite get those eyes to focus on him, which was never a good sign. “You have to stay awake,” Gabriel urged. “Tell me your name.” “A-Anthony,” he bit out. There was radio chatter around them, sirens blaring and people shouting over top of them. Through the radio, he heard of a woman trapped in her car, barely alive. Her name was Naomi; they were going to have to break open the car to get her out. Even then, if they couldn’t do it fast enough, she would die. “We’re going to get you to a hospital, Anthony,” Gabriel said. “My friend—” Anthony spat out. “My friend—where’s my friend? Is he—” Gabriel pushed Anthony back down, flat against the concrete. How Anthony was even still able to move was beyond anything Gabriel had ever seen from wreckage this bad. “I don’t know. When I find out, I’ll tell you. Just try to take it easy, okay?” Gabriel needed to work. Once Anthony was ready to be moved, Gabriel waved over a team with their stretcher to get him loaded up into the ambulance. The woman still wasn’t free, but they couldn’t wait around. Another ambulance would be on the way, and Gabriel would make sure Anthony made it to the hospital. He could pat himself for a job well done only once they’d made it; Anthony would need intense supervision on the drive. Gabriel had seen too many victims succumb to injury or other for lack of the proper care. He wasn’t about to let that happen, but something stopped him before he could join the crew in the ambulance. It was just a pause, staring as another team wheeled away a stretcher—not with a man on it, but a body bag. He knew the woman wasn’t even out of the car, but she also wasn’t dead. He’d heard it over the radio chattering in his ear. Which meant that could be none other than the second, unidentified male at the scene. Gabriel swallowed down the lump in his throat and looked over the ambulance; they were loading Anthony into the back. It must have been Anthony’s friend. Gabriel stepped over to the car, just for a moment. He had to see the rest of the wreckage, and what he saw was impossible. The way the car had crumbled in the accident, there was metal bent right towards the driver’s seat. Close enough to the seat that there was no way it wouldn’t have killed Anthony on impact, but he was alive. He might not be alive for long, if they didn’t get him to the hospital, but he was alive. The longer Gabriel looked at that car, the more he couldn’t fathom how it was possible. He was no expert, but he knew that the metal was bent in deep enough to have pierced Anthony’s chest. Metal to the chest usually resulted in death. Anthony didn’t have any chest cavity trauma. Gabriel hadn’t seen any. “Gabriel, get a move on!” Someone shouted. “He’s not doing too hot—he needs fluids. Let’s go!” Gabriel jolted back into himself and turned towards the ambulance. He jogged, trying to make up for lost time, and then climbed up into the back. They slammed the doors shut, and the ambulance was moving before Gabriel had even sat down to get to work. He was the only one on the team qualified to do an IV, and Anthony was in desperate need of it. He’d been bleeding out on that concrete, and if not for how fast that’d call had come, he’d probably be dead. “His name is Anthony Crawford, age twenty-nine.” One of the EMTs had his wallet and his phone. The only two personal effects he seemed to have, and the phone was broken. Anthony had severe head trauma. He had a broken leg, a dislocated shoulder, and a shattered orbital bone. There was extreme bruising. With Gabriel’s experience, he’d decided that internal bleeding was a high probability. That didn’t even account for the external bleeding, with the number of cuts he’d received. The head trauma had been the worst, from where his face had hit the wheel and the back of his skull had rammed back into the seat. Against all of those odds, Gabriel would make sure Anthony made it to the hospital. After that, his job was done. He could pat himself on the back. If he were to hear, several days later perhaps, that Anthony had died in surgery, at least he would know that he’d done everything he could. There would still be guilt, but it was nowhere near a level Gabriel imagined doctors and nurses and surgeons must have felt when they lost patients. Gabriel saw patients for a few hours, at most. Hospital staff could see them for days. Weeks. Gabriel might just go back to see this one. Something about Anthony was strange. He’d survived that accident when there was no possible way to survive. They’d found him just lying on the road, perfectly still and straight, like he’d been placed. And there was that strange man Gabriel swore that he saw. When they’d gotten the call, they’d just assumed that one of the people involved in the accident had called. But that wouldn’t have been possible. The only one who could have made the call was the woman, and the voice had clearly belonged to a man. The man was gone. Gabriel was sure no one else had seen him. If Gabriel brought him up, he risked his team thinking he was crazy. He didn’t need that. Maybe he’d just imagined it, too. Seeing a man at the scene of an accident? Weren’t there stories about that? People thinking they’d seen another figure because it was the only way to explain whatever had happened. Whatever had happened was nothing short of a miracle, and that miracle meant that Anthony was going to survive. The hospital was expecting them, and they’d be expecting the woman the moment she arrived. Anthony was dying. Actively. Anyone who’d been in that emergency room first who wasn’t dying was suddenly less important as they rushed Anthony inside. He was alive only because they’d kept him alive, but that didn’t mean his future was bright. They had to see him now. Gabriel stayed behind to tell the hospital staff all they needed to know about Anthony’s condition. That was the end of Gabriel’s involvement. Still, as they took Anthony off down the hall, he couldn’t help but watch. The noise of the hospital drowned out as Anthony disappeared down the hall. Would he be okay? Gabriel could only sigh. Gabriel never checked on patients he admitted. It was tedious and cumbersome and generally not his business. Once they made it to the hospital alive, he was done. Anthony, though. I just might come back for him. The situation was too strange to do anything else. Gabriel finished up the paperwork before he went about his way. Maybe a miracle had taken place. Unfortunately, there were other things to do. Now that their patient had been delivered, they needed to clean the ambulance. There was blood, used needles, and discarded bandages. He knew a few of the nurses in the emergency room; if he was really that curious about Anthony, he was sure they’d give him some updates, if he were to ask. It wasn’t important enough to deal with immediately. The mess in the ambulance was. They needed to exchange linens, too. Anthony had left quite a mess. * * * * After thirteen long hours, Gabriel finally clocked out. His plan had been to go straight home for a nice long sleep, which would probably last no longer than a few hours, when he was inevitably called back into shift. He had a day off, soon, but it was not soon enough. On his way towards his car, however, his plan evaporated. A few of his friends—EMTs who worked with him—were all waiting out beside his car. It wasn’t a particularly nice car, but sitting on it still wasn’t appropriate. He meant to shoo them away, but April moved first to smack down his hand before it even went up. She gave him that little smirk she always gave when something was about to happen. Whether that was being told they were five hours from freedom or turning on sirens just for the fun of it, something was about to happen. April was the one who drove; she had a knack for it, but Gabriel always wished she’d eased up. Her type of driving turned cocky, quickly, and then it turned into an accident. “We’re going out, Gabe,” she said with a wink. She was all tan skin and red lips, a veritable movie star with stick-straight brown hair. “Don’t call me that.” Gabriel batted her hand away. “I really need to get home.” “Always so stiff and formal. Come on, ease up,” Henry chimed in. Henry had platinum blond hair and brown eyes; he’d been Gabriel’s colleague for the longest, though Gabriel hesitated to call them friends. They were convenient acquaintances. They didn’t meet outside of work, save for spontaneous outings, like this. “You look stressed,” Henry continued. “It’ll be good to get a drink or two in your liver.” Gabriel sighed. As much as he didn’t agree with that statement, it had a good ring about it. “We’re not all taking my car,” came Gabriel’s hesitant agreement. April and Henry high-fived; Gabriel swore he’d see them kiss, one day, and chuckled at the idea. They went off to their cars, no carpooling today, and Gabriel climbed into his. Come Saturday, maybe he’d finally get to settle down for some relaxation. He might even take a bath. It’d been awhile since he’d sunk down in the tub and just forgotten a few things. Alcohol did the same thing much faster; it just offered less relaxation. Gabriel had been told he was a rowdy drunk; not that he could remember. He drove to the bar in silence; it was some little hovel he could never remember the name of, but his body knew how to get there, so he let it. He talked big about safe driving for someone who dozed off on autopilot while staring straight down the road, but it was late. There was no one else on the road save for him and his friends-by-association. Gabriel arrived at a dead bar with a half-empty parking lot about five minutes after his colleagues. He was slow to drive and even slower to get out of his vehicle, stopping first to check his phone. Then, he made his way inside. By the time Gabriel arrived at their table, Henry had already ordered the first round of drinks. Henry wasn’t, by any means, a tall man. He was around average height, in his mid-twenties, and liked to boast he found time for the gym seven days a week. Everyone knew it was a lie, but they humored him. Henry was pleasantly strong, after all. He was made of lean muscle and pale skin. April’s tan came straight out of a bottle, because she was too proud for tanning beds. She had straw-like brown hair and sparkling green eyes, red lips in spite of everything. She was short, but if she had been the one boasting about the gym, everyone would have believed her. She looked like one might expect a miniature bodybuilder to look. If hard pressed, she may have just been able to pick Henry right off the floor, despite the head difference in height. Then, there was Sara. Sara didn’t talk much. She was quiet and preferred glasses to contacts. She always wore her dark hair pulled back tightly into a bun. She was of medium height, medium build, and medium everything. Sara rode the averages better than anyone else ever had. Her skin was dark, her eyes were dark, but she always wore blindingly bright clothes. Yellows, oranges; her clothes were vivid where Gabriel had always found her a bit dull. In truth, he found all of them a bit dull. As the last member of their unlikely crew, Gabriel Werner was thirty-two years old and had been working as a paramedic for a decade. He had black hair and perfectly blue eyes. His skin was handsomely tanned, if not a bit wrinkled from the years of stress and worry. Being a paramedic hadn’t been his dream, no. He’d wanted to be a doctor, once, but this is where life led him. He’d be lying to himself if he said he didn’t enjoy his work. There was something exciting about it, fulfilling. Once he’d gotten started, he’d kissed the doctor dream away. Still, he marched up to the bar and joined them for the first round of shots. The first round was always straight liquor; after that, they could each get however fruity a drink they wanted and not have to suffer the mockery. It was friendly mockery, because they all drank fruity cocktails; it was just one of their traditions. Things that friends did. Gabriel didn’t actually mind the taste of alcohol; he just preferred the taste of fruit. “To a job well done,” April cheered, raising her shot glass. “Cheers,” the rest said, in unison. They raised their glasses, clinked them together just gentle enough not to spill any liquor, then drank. Gabriel was the only one whose cup stopped at his lips and went no further. Had they done a job well done? They’d been responders to a home break-in, first thing on their shift, and the victim—a forty-year-old woman with three kids and a dog—had died on the way there. Then, Anthony. He’d been so badly mangled that Gabriel was sure he would have died on the operating table, though he hadn’t let himself realize that belief until that moment, a shot of whiskey to his lips. If not for that mysterious figure, he was sure Anthony would have died in the car alongside his friend. “You good, man?” Henry asked, slapping his hand into Gabriel’s back. “I’m just thinking,” he muttered. “Whiskey’s good for that.” Henry winked, like he was trying to get Gabriel to take the shot. “What happened out there at that accident today? The one just outside of town?” April had just ordered her first fruity drink, a cute little cocktail with an umbrella hanging over the rim of the cup. It was a house special. She’d been about to take her first drink, then stopped and set it back down, shaking her head. Her nose scrunched up like she was thinking. “I know we like to boast that we’re heroes,” she started, “but we get to accidents like that and, most of the time, we’re too late to save everyone. I could still smell the burning rubber, like the accident had just happened. I mean—now, hear me out, this is the weird part. What if we got the call before the accident happened?” “That’s entirely unlikely,” Sara droned. “Unless both drivers had somehow planned for the exact place and time that they would collide—” “But who called?” April snapped. “Male caller doesn’t introduce himself. Nobody was even conscious when we got there, so someone must have called before it happened.” “You’re crazy.” Henry laughed, but his eyes sang a different tune. He looked like he believed her, like he might have even agreed with her. They were all just trying not to think about it. “Did the woman survive?” Gabriel asked. He didn’t know her name. “As far as I know,” April informed. “She made it to the hospital, at least. That other male in the fancy car—the one who was dead at the scene. He’s the only one who died.” “His name was Hector Jacobs,” Sara said. “You really should take the time to learn their names if you want to talk about the dead.” “Anthony was asking about him,” Gabriel muttered. “Anthony was the redhead on the pavement. Wanted to know if his friend was okay.” “That’s dark,” Henry sighed. “I got a quick peek at the body. Hector Jacobs was very, very far from okay. At least, he died quickly.” “Do you think anyone would take the time to tell him?” Gabriel asked. “Anthony, I mean. About his friend.” April shook her head. “Why would they? They tend to reserve that information for next of kin. We doctor people tend not to be as considerate as the movies make it seem.” “We are not doctors,” Sara said. She wasn’t even looking at them, anymore. She’d pulled her e-reader out of her purse and had immersed herself in that, instead, with her glasses pushed all the way up to her brow. “Anyway,” Henry cleared his throat. “If you’re so worried,” he looked at Gabriel, “you should go check up on him. Maybe it’s not normal, but nothing about that accident was normal. Break some rules, I always say.” “I don’t think there’s any rule that says he can’t see patients.” April rolled her eyes and raised her cocktail up for a fake toast. There came no toast, and she drank it like she’d drink a shot. Thankfully, martini glasses were small. “I think I’m going to head home,” Gabriel said. “Whatever, man. See you next fun time.” Henry waved. April and Sara waved, too, though Sara had yet to look up from her book. As much as Gabriel might have thought to run directly back to the hospital to see Anthony, there was no point. It was late. If Anthony were out of surgery, and if he’d survived it, he’d be asleep. They’d pump him so full of pain medication and sleep aids that there was no other possibility, because sleep was what he needed. That was the best way to get to the body to heal. That sort of trauma tended to take it right out of people, too. It wouldn’t make sense to go now. Instead, Gabriel went back to his apartment. He drove slowly, as if the single shot would have impaired him so badly, he wouldn’t be able to make the ten-minute drive. But once he arrived, Gabriel took the stairs to his top-floor home as fast as he could, two and three at a time. He was tall, fit; he’d been an athlete in his youth. If he hadn’t had the dreams of a job in medicine, he might have made a better firefighter. Gabriel’s apartment was sparsely decorated, furnished, and lived in. He was here to eat, sleep, and read his books. He had a television, but the chances of him watching it were slim. It was more of one of those things he had for when company came over. Company always watched television. Gabriel just read his books in his armchair. He usually fell asleep there, too. The living room was on the left, the kitchen and miniature dining room were on the right. One long hallway ran through the length of the apartment; down at the end of the hallway was a bathroom, a closet, and a bedroom. Gabriel didn’t even bother to change out of his clothes. He barely had the strength to toe off his shoes at the end of his bed. Once he sat down, laid down, he shut down. He never quite realized how exhausted he was until he was finally in bed. It was one of his poorer traits, he’d always been told. He pushed and pushed and pushed until his body refused to push anymore, and that was when he went to bed. Gabriel went right to sleep, and he dreamed of the accident. He dreamed of that man that he’d seen. He could hear no words and see nothing beyond that man. That man was there, wearing his old clothes, like he was in the wrong time period. Everything had looked hand-stitched and hand-dyed beige, and he’d worn tall, laced boots long out of fashion. The look he’d given Gabriel, equal parts concern and horror, had been enough to chill any man to the bone, and maybe that was why there was this unnatural urge to go and see Anthony. That man had done something—if he’d been real. If he hadn’t been, then Gabriel was crazy, and that explained everything just as well.