Black Ops

Chapter 3

3

Tom felt disembodied, fluid. The sides of the road had become blurred, and he faded in and out of consciousness. He turned and looked into the back seat and saw the faces of his dead wife, his dead parents, and his dead brother. They looked at him with pity. Helen whispered, “Can you hear me?”

A red light was approaching at speed, coming directly at him, sirens blaring. He lapsed out of consciousness and in his mind, he saw a leopard keeping pace with the car as he drove. He accelerated but the leopard stayed alongside, moving at an easy lope. He thought of his daughters, Sophia and Angela, just as his eyes were closing.

“Can you hear me?”

Tom woke wearing an oxygen mask with two tall figures beside him and the alarm in his car beeping incessantly. He was stretchered to an ambulance. Pain pulsed through his body and he could taste blood. He tested the movement in his extremities, and cautiously turned his neck left and right. All in need of repair, he thought, but no parts missing. He heard the paramedic say “rear-ended.” He raised his hands—they were streaked with blood and the face of his watch was smashed. His wrist was bandaged, and his shirt had been cut off revealing the thin black armband around his left bicep.

As his breathing began to steady, two police vehicles pulled up. One of the paramedics informed the officers that the driver of the second vehicle had died, probably on impact, and that when the fire brigade had finished cleaning up around the vehicle, they could remove the body and begin their investigations.

Tom tried to sit up. He overheard a police officer calling in the details of the accident. “Driver of first vehicle, male Caucasian, alive, condition steady, internal injuries. Driver of second vehicle, female Caucasian, deceased.”

“I’m Senior Constable Peter Collins. Are you alright, sir?’ asked a police officer, as he took out his notebook.

“Yes … yes … I think I’m fine, officer,” Tom replied.

“Can I see your licence, please?”

Tom slowly removed his wallet and handed it over.

“Okay, now can you tell me what happened?”

“I was just driving home, and next thing I knew I was on a gurney.”

“So, what are you doing out here after four on a Wednesday morning?”

“I’m an SES volunteer just coming back from my last job, back burning, up around the Faulconbridge area.”

The officer wrote the word volunteer in his notebook and leaned closer towards Tom to hear him better but also trying to shelter himself from the wind and rain.

“I was a volunteer, 2001 bushfires. Say you know, the heat the last few weeks … thank God for this storm. Do you feel okay, Tom?”

Tom sat up a little and saw the green MG with its front demolished.

Natasha. Tow trucks and police cars surrounded the car. An ambulance drove off. Flashing blue, red, white, and orange lights lit up the area, pulsing in the rain. There was blood and glass on the bitumen. Steam rose from the side of the road. Then, from nowhere, a police helicopter lit up the entire area. Tom was blinded. He felt a needle go into his arm, and everything went black.