Final Response: Firefighter Crime Series

Final Response

by E. R. Yatscoff

ISBN:

Copyright 2021 by E.R. Yatscoff

Cover art by Michelle Lee

All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the publisher of this book

Dedication

To my wonderful wife Gloria who has tolerated me during my writing and editing when my head was more in the clouds than out.

Thanks to the Beaumont writers group, especially Edna Gerrie and Em who were there to completion. Thanks to N. Bell my editor to rid the original story of a speed bumps.

To firefighters everywhere—solid to the core

You have taken my loved ones and companions from me;

the darkness is now my closest friend.

-The Sons of Korah

Chapter 1

Late October

Everyone into the lounge. Got our fearless Captain, Hollywood Jack on the tube, announced Ross Fiscus, over the fire station PA system.

The men filed in and sat in a semi-circle around the big screen TV.

The program kicked off with an altitude shot of the expansive Alberta oil sands. Getting there meant driving seven hours drive north of Edmonton on the Highway To Hell, a popular TV reality show that aired years ago. A voice-over narration gave a brief history of the area and the effects of the Polar Vortex on the site. Reporter Emma Anders wore a grey ski jacket puffed out like a marshmallow. Red-cheeked and holding herself tight against the blowing snow, she stood on the edge of a hard snow-packed road beside a chest-high embankment of ice and snow squinting into blinding sunlight. Hair blew into her face from under her blue hard hat. Excavators and equipment worked behind her, loading broken up ice chunks into dump trucks, unaffected by a persistent wind trying to suck every degree of heat from them.

Keeping the oil flowing at the best of times is difficult. With the relentless encroachment of the massive ice field, this is a 24/7 mission, a Herculean task, she explained, her fur-trimmed hood doing the jitterbug. Her free hand groped to control the hood flopping around her shoulders.

What do you think she’s wearing under that coat? said Kevin Brogan, our heavy-duty mechanic, to no one in particular.

A warm wooly pink sweater, replied Doc, eliciting some chuckles.

Long underwear, added Orry. The old trap-door type.

Chuckles turned into laughter.

The camera panned across to a dozen pickup trucks in a long line. Men in heavily padded snowsuits and balaclavas stood in the truck beds blasting away at ice inexorably creeping onto the road. They used laser cannons mounted on tripods. All very sci-fi and Star Wars.

Very cool, said Kevin. Those laser cannons are exactly what we got on the Beast.

Bullshit, said Lieutenant Ben Bemmer, we got the kid’s model; the Fischer Price one.

More laughter from the men.

No way. Same unit, only those have more power running through them, countered Kevin. The trailers behind them? They carry better generators than ours, cranked up to feed the cannon.

You mean ours can do that, too? asked Orry.

Sure, but the power’s got to be reconfigured from the on-board generator and maybe boosted from house power. We played with it at the service center when we first got it. It can…uh, do some major damage, replied Kevin.

His tone made me wonder what they did actually damage.

Shhh! C-mon, quiet guys! I said, frowning.

The camera cut to a bearded man standing in a truck bed, bug-eyed wearing blue-tinted goggles, his bulky mitts were on a laser canon controls. This is man versus nature, he said, grimly.

The camera cut away to the inside of a work trailer. A few tables and plastic chairs were scattered about with lunch boxes and packs of cigarettes on them.

Emma continued her newscast from beside a window in the trailer. Hundreds of kilometers south of here in the provincial capital of Edmonton, Alberta, we have a crew of firefighters assigned to protect part of the city. After last winter’s fiasco, it seems everyone—insurance companies, the city, citizens, and even the police—have bailed out, virtually abandoning it for the winter. Since properties are no longer insured, owners pooled their insurance premiums and worked out a deal with the city and Vulcan Security. This lonely band of brothers are the only humans south of here until Red Deer, a smaller city who faced its own population loss. I spoke with Fire Captain Jack Sellars at his refitted fire station via Skype.

My face appeared on-screen. The HD telecast wasn’t doing me or my worry lines any favors.

Lookin’ good, Captain, said Doc.

I ran a hand over my cheek; at least I’d shaved for the interview.

Hey, Captain, you’re a movie star!

You should invite her down here for a ‘personal’ interview.

I smiled and raised my hand. Okay guys, I really want to hear this.

The actual interview lasted twenty minutes and for the life of me, I could barely remember what I’d said. What I now heard myself saying to the reporter sounded boring, but honest.

Our mandate is simple; don’t let the city burn down. With all utilities shut off and the human element gone, we figure there shouldn’t be any problems here. We are well-supplied and should have enough distractions to fend off the isolation.

The camera switched back to the reporter and she signed off. From the center of the Polar Vortex on the cusp of the Ice Age at the Alberta oil sands, I’m Emma Anders.

She chopped my speech into a tiny sound bite. What kind of report is that? I complained, with the men mumbling their agreement. Not that it mattered. I mean, this had to be the easiest gig anywhere.

What could happen in an abandoned city with no people?

According to our contract, we couldn’t leave for six months, until May. Everyone put great trust in Vulcan Security who contracted the job from the city. They stockpiled our food, provided satellite communication, and outfitted the station against the intense weather storm patterns.

With the logistics looked after, the human dynamic was another creature altogether; six months of isolation with a crew I’d never worked with before. Like going to Mars but with gravity. There’d be no going home to get away from the office. Cabin fever in a big cabin.

Ross Fiscus charged out of the adjacent Comm-room in an excited state.

Captain Sellars, Vulcan HQ satellite detected a vehicle fire on the freeway, he said, pulling up on his belt buckle, attempting to hide his muffin-top midriff.

We all exchanged glances, surprise flashing in our eyes.

Then, what I never imagined could happen, did.

*

I stood beside the Beast, our red all-terrain fire pump, and looked up at the dark sky, electric stars piercing the velvet blackness. With all the streetlights shut down and no ambient light until May, it was a pleasure to see them so vibrant, in the deep darkness. Like my childhood growing up out on the lone Prai-ree. There was a hint of the Aurora Borealis, the Northern lights, growing in the distance.

The diesel engine of the Beast purred beside me, a contented creature. It was a fire truck set on a tracked chassis, much like a tank, and it towed a water tanker for fires. We had two of them, each one in its own bay in the station.

Every emergency, every rescue, required a basic framework of response; scene management, equipment options, manpower, timing, sweat, and sometimes brute force, under an umbrella of experience. For over thirty years it pulled me through. These things, combined with a support system second to none, made my job as a fire rescue officer much easier.

Until now.

Brilliant halogen scene lights flooded the snowy landscape in front of the Beast. Red flashers and strobes blinked against the silver reflective tape on the men’s yellow insulated duty coats. It all seemed so surreal—except for the smashed SUV 4x4. The vehicle lay on its side, the front bumper bent up and forward like a dead rhino.

When we turned onto the freeway it wasn’t hard to follow the trail of wreckage, sort of like blood splatter, from where the SUV caromed off an overpass trestle. Deep impressions in the snow marked where the vehicle cartwheeled like a stone skipping over the water, no less than six times before coming to rest—a leading candidate for the flying car competition or some disaster show. Or the news at eleven, if there was such a thing anymore.

What bothered me was the mangled body inside the battered SUV. Yesterday, we checked out a burnt-out vehicle a couple of kilometers west of this location. The vehicle had burned up and a Swirl moved in cutting our chance to get to it. In a city supposed to be empty, except for a handful of fire rescue personnel, these discoveries were troubling.

Forget the Jaws, I said, tired of watching Evan trying to bust open the vehicle. We don’t have time to screw around. Use the laser cannon. Don’t worry if it starts on fire. We’ll push it over, first, I said.

Okay, Captain, said Firefighter Evan Didchuk. He nodded and dropped the Jaws. Be nice if Lieutenant Ben was here. He could do it by himself.

Evan referred to Lieutenant Ben Bemmer, the hulk, known in the past for his feats of strength. Four of us gathered on one side of the SUV, gripping onto whatever edge we could.

Okay, I said. One, two, three…

With a collective grunt, the vehicle tilted upright as good as could be expected.

I pulled a sand shovel off the side of the Beast and began to pile snow beside the wrecked vehicle. Evan slid out a side compartment and lifted out the laser cannon paraphernalia. Evan, the tallest man on the crew, had no trouble reaching the higher compartments on the outside of the Beast. Dominic ‘Doc’ Belland, our paramedic, helped him set it up on a tripod.

What’cha think he died of Doc? asked Orry Millens, shouting over the on-board diesel generator powering the lights.

Doc, a stout almost baby-faced man, pulled himself up onto the wreck and removed his yellow helmet for a look inside the window. Metal trauma. He looked back at Orry, walking around the wreck, his eyes twinkling through the circular holes of his black balaclava.

Don’t think so, the autopsy will show deceleration trauma, said Orry.

I tightened my collar against a cold shiver crawling down my neck. Global warming my ass. Let those eco-geeks come up here for six months and stand inside the Polar Vortex and theorize. Not quite the end of October yet and the weather appeared to be getting worse. A taste of the imminent future. At least the Swirls didn’t last so long. But when a full-blown Polar Vortex dropped south, they might just as well paint over the windows and turn out the lights. Hibernate.

As a young boy living on the prairie, I’d seen some awesome blizzards, literal train-stoppers, but only one could hold a candle to the Swirls, a recent winter phenomenon. Some of the drifts created bordered on spectacular, resembling desert dunes.

Tempted with eighteen months pay for six months’ work, a fat bonus, plus a two-year kick into my pension, I figured I could get through anything. Every perfectly drawn X on my date calendar ground on toward May 1st, my retirement. May Day.

Yesiree, yours truly, Captain J. Jack Sellars would walk out on May Day, hop in a taxi headed for the airport. Mexico’s tropical heat beckoned, where my only wish would be to sit in the sun and bake my frozen bones until they turned to dust. Last winter, I’d rented a cheap apartment on Vancouver Island and picked up some work as a security guard at a Nanaimo marina.

Vulcan, the security company contracted by the city to provide fire protection, gave us a simple mandate; don’t let the city burn down. October 18 had been E-Day; mandatory evacuation. Ejection. Eviction. Everyone’s ass was ousted; the operation enforced by police patrols. Citizens fled to points south, mostly Calgary, and some to Red Deer or over to British Columbia where the Rockies shielded people from the worst of the weather. In an evacuated city with human error out of the equation, the risks were vastly reduced. No cooking, heaters, smoking, or candles. Combined with gas and power shut off, what could start a fire? Anything was possible, but unless someone left a generator, or some unknown gizmo, running before leaving town, a fire seemed very unlikely.

But now, looking at the wreck…it did give me pause. All roads into the city were barricaded. If you were determined enough, sneaking in between the wild weather and the barricades with a snow machine would be easy. Once here, you’d need food and shelter. Motion sensors were scattered on several major south side routes. By the amount of activity detected one might think the place was still inhabited. The sensors were supposed to be set to notify us of profiles larger than deer or moose. The few times we ventured out we hadn’t noticed much wildlife. It began to raise suspicions that Vulcan hadn’t thoroughly thought this out. Coyotes were everywhere, hunting down the hardy stray dogs and cats that refused to evacuate. How any creature could survive a lengthy Vortex was a credit to their fur coats.

These two vehicles on the freeway shouldn’t be here, and the man inside, also shouldn’t be here. The other vehicle burned down to a blackened frame with no corpse inside. Several different boot prints, mostly covered by the overnight snow, surrounded it. A person didn’t have to be a Sherlock to figure out we weren’t alone. Back along the freeway, vehicle tracks paralleled each other’s, weaving almost together at times and then up on the berm at others, as though they were playing some sort of game.

At our converted fire station, we also had a personnel challenge; self-titled Station Commander George Johnson. He ordered our communications man, Ross ‘Radar’ Fiscus, to disregard any detections. If something large turned up on a passing satellite thermal image, he said Vulcan would let us know and, weather allowing, we could go out and take a look. This begged the question; larger than what?

Evan fussed over the LC power booster pack.

Evan, I called. You’re sure you know how to operate that?

He looked up and rolled his eyes. Yeah, yeah, yeah, he mumbled. It’s why I’m here. These padded gloves are too thick for the little toggles.

The department put it in service with minimum hands-on training before the big evacuation. Bad enough to be the one jammed in a wreck when the Jaws of Life were used, but worse might be the LC with an idiot on the trigger. The beam cut steel like a hot knife through butter. During training, it often set vehicles ablaze as well as the ones next to it, and cooked the asphalt below, harkening back to when cutting torches were in service. Back then, extricating a patient from a crumpled vehicle was a real challenge as the torches would often ignite the seats or paneling.

I considered the LC too sensitive for our daily purposes. Every minute wasted on adjusting it could be critical to a patient caught in an MVA, a motor vehicle accident. Evan was a training instructor for the last year and knew his stuff. He trained the rest of the guys on the crew to competency levels.

I climbed up onto the track of the Beast to go inside and warm up when a staccato burst cracked the crisp air.

I jumped off and dashed around to the other side of the Beast, skidding on the snow. My short hitch in the military as a young man attuned me to the sound of gunshots.

Hoots of laughter broke out from the men surrounding the wrecked vehicle.

What the hell’s that? I shouted, peeking around the Beast.

Orry pointed a machine gun at a snowy embankment and squeezed off another burst. Bullets stitched the snow in short sprays. The gun’s banana-shaped clip clearly identified it.

Orry lowered the weapon. The crew turned to me. Must have been my angry expression that made them grow quiet.

Uh…an AK-47, Cap. A beauty, replied Orry, admiring the weapon. One of those machine guns whacked-out Ay-rabs fire up in the air all the time.

Yeah. I can see what it is. Where’d it come from?

Orry pointed the gun at the wreck. Under it. Finishing off this clip is all. He winked.

Now we have vehicles, a body, and an automatic weapon in a city where no one but us should exist.

We could bag a deer with it. Have some fresh meat, said Doc, looking at Orry Millens.

With this LC science fiction gizmo, we could bag a herd, said Orry, grinning. Sliced and diced, too. Orry, thirty-one years old, was a big game hunter, spent his vacation operating several hunting camps around Alberta pursuing spring bear, elk, and moose.

Put it in the Beast, I ordered and trudged to the wreck hoping to find the vehicle registration inside the twisted interior. I leaned in the window for the glove box. Sparkles from the backseat floor caught my eye; something more than the glass crumbs littering the interior. It appeared to be the end link of what might be a necklace or bracelet. I jammed myself in further, but only blocked the light and lost the sparkle in the shadows of floor mats, paper cups, and two blankets. An open rectangular case lay on its side, its interior lined with blue velvet; a jewelry box.

I reached in through the broken window glass as far as I could, but the floor twisted away, almost bent under itself. I extricated myself and went over to what barely resembled the front passenger area. Impossible to tell where the glove box might be in the crumpled and shattered dashboard.

The frozen corpse, grotesquely twisted under the dash, curled beside the engine which had smashed through the firewall and pinned itself against the front seat. So much for airbags. It reminded me of a guide at the Planetarium who said, ...when traveling through space at the speed of light turning on the headlights wouldn’t matter. I was able to reach the sun visor. One flip and the registration papers floated down.

Doc turned to me. Can’t see his other leg.

Great, I muttered and patted my pocket for the cigarette pack.

We needed to find the body part. Come springtime the floodgates would open, citizens would return and have a fit, finding a leg along the freeway. An extra boot for an amputee and a photo-op for tourists. Not an item for lost and found ads.

Orry! I called. Have a look for this rat’s leg. Take Kevin with you. I glanced around. Where the hell is he?

Evan looked at me with his sad eyes and thumbed back to the Beast with his bulky mitt. To most people, Evan reminded them of a favorite dog. Behind his green eyes and hunched posture—from being married to a short woman, he’d say—belied an intelligent man.

I frowned before marching to the vehicle’s door. Kevin Brogan, a ferret-faced man with medium length brown hair was a heavy-duty mechanic at the department service center. He was forced into taking a quickie firefighting course and, by default, got the nod. The rest were picked out of a hat—a very small hat. Unfortunately, even as the boss, I didn’t get to pick my crew.

I had no idea what type of person Kevin was like at the service center, but soon discovered his tendency to be a slack-ass here. He was the youngest man on my crew at 28 years old. His ferret-faced features didn’t endear him to anyone’s heart. Obviously, he’d signed on for the money—didn’t we all? However, the job did require some work, a concept he detested. The station commander, George, hinted Kevin should go on the Beast for some driver training, and for the only time, I agreed with him.

I stamped the snow from my black boots before pulling myself up onto the tracks and opened the door. Heated interior air rushed against my face in a warm flood as Kevin turned with a start. He’d been napping in the driver’s seat.

Hey! Get out there, Kevin, I said.

What...what for?

Help Orry look for the poor bastard’s leg.

A leg? Geez, I’m supposed to be driving and fixing the rig. He looked through the windshield and slid closer to his door, away from the frigid air flowing in.

My face warmed with rising anger. When you step on this rig with me, Mr. Brogan, I expect you to pull your finger out of your ass!

But it’s cold out there.

I pulled a face. It’s always cold out here. It’s the Ice Age! Move your ass!

Kevin shook his head. Alright, already! He reluctantly reached for his mitts and balaclava, opened his door, and jumped to the ground. He marched around the front of the vehicle under my glare as I took a seat.

After warming a bit, I stepped out, taking off my gloves to light a smoke. It was a mild enough night not to have my fingers turn into popsicles. I leaned back against the Beast, comforted by its steady vibrations as I watched Evan fuss with the LC.

Evan toggled the power booster and pulled the trigger. A narrow pencil of white light flashed from the glass tube and began to slice through the wreck. All eyes looked on, fascinated by the pure beam and its obvious power. Wisps of smoke began to rise from the interior. Doc tossed a few shovels of snow inside while instructing Evan where to cut, framing out a general pattern.

I tossed away my cigarette and returned to the wreck. I reached through an opening and grasped the body by the ski jacket. Frozen blood pooled like melted red wax. Poor bastard must have bled out from his stump. The man’s face was covered by his coat. I pulled on the coat, keeping a steady pressure, and felt the form begin to give somewhat.

The body suddenly loosened and jerked up.

Startled, I lost my balance and stumbled back.

Whoa there, Captain! said Doc, chuckling.

Dead eyes stared at me, inches from my face. A horrific gouge bisected his head, squashed into an oblong shape across the forehead revealing white bone and some gray matter. The gash moved down and back where it had severed an ear.

That is one horror show, I said, catching my breath, recovering my balance, and taking another hold. The battered body didn’t appear to be much older than a teenager. I couldn’t help shake the feeling he wouldn’t be the last one I’d see dead. Keep away from the seats and the dash if—

Yeah, yeah, said Evan. The power booster is oscillating a bit; hard to control. His words hung in a white cloud of his breath.

Don’t worry, he won’t feel a thing, Cap, said Doc. Nice to have him frozen. No blood and stuff dripping.

Getting the body out presented another problem of where to put the corpse. Without EMS or the coroner’s meat wagon around, and no instructions regarding this particular detail, we were on our own. Flying by the seat of the pants was par for the course in some emergencies, where no precedents existed to fall back on.

A shrill of steady beeps from the external speakers on the Beast pierced over the thrumming diesel.

Bad news. The alarm warned of an imminent Swirl.

All eyes went to the Beast and its green strobes on the roof before fixing on me. A sharp bite of cold ran over my face. I glanced at the white exhaust from the large tailpipe trailing out with the beginning of a breeze.

Over here, Doc, let’s peel him out! I said.

The external speakers crackled to life. Base to Captain Jack.

Evan cut in the vehicles’ side through both doors and posts using the LC. Doc and I yanked harder on the frozen body until it tore loose, and we were able to tug him out and roll him onto a tarp. His leg appeared pinched off. We hoisted him up into a compartment on the Beast. Evan shut down the LC and began to shovel more snow into the vehicle where smoke still emanated.

I pulled myself up onto the tracks and into the cab and reached for the handset. Captain Jack here, go ahead.

You heard the alarm, right? Satellite detects weather at your location in two-zero minutes. Coming from the west, said Ross.

There was no mistaking the urgency in Ross’s tone. He was an experienced dispatcher, a 36-year-old man, who normally kept his emotions in check when on air.

A prickle of fear washed over me. Is it a Swirl or the Polar Vortex?

A Swirl, Cappy.

I gritted my teeth at the term. Cappy. He must watch too many cartoons or something. Copy that, Ross. I replaced the handset and peered at the edge of the halogen lights trying to see the stars. They were blotted out by the usual cloudbank at the leading edge of the Vortex. I hoped it’d be a Swirl, a short one, so we could get back soon. If the Vortex dipped down, it’d last for days.

Okay boys, let’s wrap this one up fast, I said into a handset broadcast over the external loudspeakers. Weather coming in two zero minutes.

Orry and Kevin were already skidding down a snowy embankment. I could hear the compartment doors banging shut as they stowed the equipment. The men piled into the Beast, closed the doors, and stripped off their padded clothing.

Last year the meteorologists identified 30 Swirls in an 80 square kilometer area. Now all air traffic and vehicles avoided the place like the plague. It never ceased to amaze me how they came up so fast. The Polar Vortex took a little dip south and spawned dozens of the micro blizzards before it. Wind speed varied in each, as did snowfall, but it was the wind chill that made them so feared. Any wind chill with a minus 40 Celsius could be deadly.

No leg? I asked, turning around to the back of the cab where the men stripped off their balaclavas and gloves.

Orry shook his head.

The radio crackled. You guys aren’t moving yet! Everything okay out there? asked Ross, a nervous edge in his voice.

Radarman Ross, sounds more scared than us, said Kevin, putting the Beast into gear lurching the vehicle forward.

"Be afraid, Kevin. Be very afraid," said Orry, in an eerie tone.

The crew chuckled, lightening the moment. They were always ribbing him when he drove the Beast.

I watched the tracks churn up snow down beside me and reached for the handset. All clear Ross. Cut the alarm, already.

Almost immediately, the Swirl warning stopped, giving way to the diesel engine vibrations through the cab and the trundling of the tracks.

Kevin steered up a low embankment. Shortcut, he murmured, catching the questioning look from me.

Okay, Kevin, but straight up, right? This Beast is top-heavy.

Snow pellets began to batter the windshield like thrown rice. The tanker trailer we towed was a behemoth triple axle, a very heavy unit with its 3,000-gallons of water. We could feel it at our backs like a boxcar tugging and pushing as we bumped along. If the rig turtled, we’d be popsicles in a very short time. With a Swirl almost on us, the quickest way home was the best. It could be a bad idea dragging along the tanker. The one wrecked vehicle had burned for a while in a light blizzard before the satellite picked up its heat signature. It would certainly take longer to detect a cold, upturned unit.

The men sat in the cab behind me, against the rear wall. They started in on Kevin’s driving as we lurched up and over the freeway embankment. Our modified fire station sat on a gradual slope up a few blocks north of the freeway, about five klicks away from the accident scene. The pellets became a cloud with our headlights reflecting at us, making it difficult to see through the featureless white.

C’mon, Kevin, step on it! said Evan.

Kevin’s knuckles were white on the wheel; cheekbone muscles danced. His torso leaned forward.

The wind-blown snow did its best to create a whiteout. Glimpses of homes, fences, and power poles faded in and out like mirages. I recalled one ferocious prairie storm where my mother and I were trapped for three days in the house, a long time ago in our tiny Saskatchewan town. The entire populace became snowed in, terrifying my mom. Dad was away at a lumber camp. It was the first time I felt real fear. Snow piled higher and higher until we couldn’t even open the doors. Is this the end of the world, Mom? I asked. You never forget something like that. It sticks with you; a sacred sight of white death outside the window, a vision branded into your soul.

The rush of the heater fans filled the interior as we blindly plodded along. After some long, slow minutes, the Beast began to buck like a wild horse and abruptly slammed down with a series of loud crunches.

What the hell was that? I asked.

Evan cursed. Something brown flipped past my window. I think we demolished a fence or something.

The crew hooted their derision.

Cut me some slack guys, said Kevin, I’m driving blind here.

You always drive blind, said Orry.

Hold it there, cowboy, I said and tapped the GPS to no avail. The screen blinked and locked, proving no one gave a shit about us. Providing decent, operational equipment was an afterthought in the city’s hasty exit strategy.

Kevin pulled the air brake switch. The