This is the first of four chapters from a short story. . .
Death is everywhere. The inevitable ending will undoubtedly come,
sometimes unannounced and sometimes expected, sometimes tragic and sometimes
just. But as life begins, it will one
day end.
Officer
Gabriel Farmer worked his beat like any other day. He worked the afternoon shift which was busy
in the northwest section of town. He
worked the gambit, from domestic disturbances, drunk and disorderly subjects,
drug complaints, burglaries and the occasional street violence that seemed to plague
the city.
He had just left
the jail after catching a wanted person right out of the gate. The forgetful drug addict had failed to
recognize Farmer from his arrest the week prior and tried to lie about his name
again. He realized the cop wasn’t buying
the alias and upon finally seeing through the foggy haze of the narcotic high, the
foolish man remembered the young cop’s face and tried to run. Farmer was ready and pounced on the pathetic
criminal before taking him to jail. He
never understood the stronghold that drugs had on people and to what lengths
they would go to just to chase the next high.
After leaving
the jail, he drove back inside the boundaries of his beat and passed by a city bus
stop where a man sat alone. The man
perked up as the marked patrol car passed by and watched Gabe intently. He was disheveled in appearance and Farmer
guessed the man was homeless. His
tousled hair and odd mannerisms, as he observed during that short window, led
to the assumption he had the additional burden of a mental illness. Gabe peered out of the windshield and locked
eyes with the man. He saw a darkness
surrounding the man that engulfed his being.
His soul was tormented by some unknown evil lurking like a leviathan
waiting in the depths of hell. It was
distracting to the point Gabe veered slightly off the road as he passed the bus
stop. He snapped out of the mini trance and
headed to the next call.
He wondered
about the demons that men possess inside and tried to shake the eerie
connection he felt with the man at the bus stop.
As dinner time
neared, Gabe checked in with a squadmate to swap stories collected from earlier
in the shift. Suddenly, an alert tone beeped
over the radio calling for the nearest units to respond to a car crash with
serious injuries just down the street.
Gabe answered the call and sped down the road with his lights flashing
and sirens blaring. As he prepped
mentally for the call ahead, a cold chill shuddered down his spine as he
realized he was responding to the area of the bus stop where he saw the
tormented man. The dispatched updated
the notes of the call; it was a vehicle versus a pedestrian crash. An unsettling feeling began to grow in the
pit of his stomach.
As he broke the crest
of the hill, he saw a charter bus pulled off to the side of the road, its
hazard lights were flashing and a uniformed driver waved frantically at the
oncoming patrol car. A small white sedan
was stopped at an odd angle just a few yards past the bus still sitting in the
inside lane. It’s driver’s side door was
slightly cracked open. Gabe parked in
the middle of the road short of the scene and left his emergency lights on to
warn approaching traffic. He jumped out
of the patrol car and ran up to the scene.
He ignored the bus and the small white sedan, for what he saw was a
bloody heap of human bones and skin painfully distorted to the realm of utmost
horror. He ran to the man’s side and
locked eyes with the tormented man he saw at the bus stop earlier that
day. He knelt down to his side.
He was still
alive, barely. His eyes were wide with
unanticipated fear and looking around for answers that would never come. His face was cut deep across his forehead and
both cheeks, gashed down to the bone and seeping blood. His body was inhumanly contorted as his left
leg and ankle somehow came to rest across his right shoulder and his foot was
twisted around pointing outward. His
insides were pulverized into pieces by the small white sedan that hit him at
forty miles an hour and rolled over his limp body sending him tumbling down the
asphalt in excruciating pain. The man
gasped for air and tried to grab for his leg and move it back to where God had
intended it be, but lacked the strength and ability to make that happen. As he desperately searched for answers with
his eyes, he finally looked over at the young cop who was knelt down by his
side.
An overwhelming
sense of helplessness washed over Gabriel Farmer as to what he could do for
this tormented man. He was trained as a
first responder but that would not be enough to help this man. A team of surgeons dressed and ready wouldn’t
make a difference. The man’s searching
eyes locked onto Gabe’s as if to say “help me”.
He looked over the man’s body and felt there was only one way to truly
help. He grabbed his hand as it searched for the
misplaced leg and he held it tight in his own.
The sound of sirens from additional units grew louder as they approached
the scene. He leaned over to the man,
who stopped his futile struggle to listen to Gabe.
“Let go,
brother. Just let go.” Gabe said in a soothing and comforting tone
unfitting for the middle of a highway amongst the chaos of a horrendous traffic
crash. Gabe repeated the soft command
and felt the grip of the tormented man loosen in his own. Taking the cops advice, he stopped fighting
and let the light fade from his eyes.
No matter how
small of a chance the man had for survival, he would never walk, never hold
anything in his hands, make love, hug a friend or even control his bodily
functions. The torment and anguish would
be over and he could rest in peace.
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