Halloween Part 3

So, there I was, sitting in the middle of Porter street, 5 minutes from the hospital covered in fire extinguisher gunk, shreds of skin where my shoulders, elbows and legs should be intact with a paramedic staring at me as if I just burned through an ambulance floor. My wits crept in like ants through an open window as I realized I needed to get out of there. If I stuck around they would be expecting answers to questions that I did not have.

I glanced over and saw the ambulance just sitting there, the siren still wailing out its demise. Standing next to the ambulance were the driver and another paramedic paying attention to a screaming white mass. Sandpaper scrubbed my eyes as I tried to blink moisture back into them. Trying to refocus my eyes, I zoned in on what they were doing. The screaming mass was the third paramedic, screaming as the others were pulling latex from his blistered, swollen, red raw hands.

Holding up my hands, I looked back at the paramedic near me and said, "I'm ok, how's he?" Snapping back to reality, he looked over at his partners, back at me, and back to his partners trying to make sense of everything, I assume. After taking a step toward me, he hesitated remembering the dripping latex, "Stay there! lie down! I'll be right back!" he yelled out before turning and running over to help his partners. It was at this point that I decided to disregard everything he just said and get out of there.

I checked myself over, it was so strange. My skin was shredded, I should've been bleeding profusely, my blood pooling under me before seeping through the pores of the intersection of Porter and Chinook. But I wasn't. Everywhere my skin was shredded, it looked like my blood was already scabbed up and three days old. I was sore, about as sore as you would expect to be if you just tumbled down the street at 50 mph. But nothing seemed broken and I needed to hurry. I got up, took a last look over at the people who saved my life and I repaid with pain and fear. Then I ran. Ducking through alleys and staying off the main road (remember, I was naked) and I eventually made it home.

I locked the door, and headed straight into the kitchen. I poured myself a glass of water, drank it in one gulp and poured another. Glass after glass of water flooded down my throat. With each swallow, I could feel each individual cell absorbing it. My eyes finally focused and the eyelids stopped scratching me. After about 10 glasses or more, I went into the bathroom poured myself a bath of cold water and climbed in. The water warmed up and at some point, I passed out.

My dreams were too weird that night, but I can't really remember what they were.

Halloween Part 2

From amidst the blackness came a screeching awareness. Electricity was pouring through my body. Lightning was striking me on both sides of my chest and the bolts were surging through my body. Then I was at peace again, nothing. I know the saying that lightning doesn’t strike twice in the same spot, but apparently it does. 3 times. The third time the bolts entered my chest; they wrapped their little arms around my heart and gave it a nice squeeze. My eyes flew open, my arms and legs tried to soar upward and I saw faces all around me. Masked faces. They were masks and eyes with uniforms hanging underneath. There was wailing in the background, an inhuman monster crying out to the darkness of the ongoing storm. Almost as soon as my eyes opened, I felt hands touching me. People were putting icepacks on me. I could smell something burning. Then one of the men next to me threw up his hands and released a fervent cry; molten latex dripping from his hands. The icepacks were leaking water everywhere and steam was filling the room I was in.

Instantly, I fell. I was lying on my back looking up at faceless uniforms and then I was lying on a floor staring up at dripping red hot steel with a 6 foot hole in the middle. The wailing continued but now there were shouts amid a cacophony of other noises. I was still burning up, but now there was more. . .everything. five seconds later and I was falling again, this time it hurt. I landed on pavement with tires on both sides of me just before they passed and I tumbled and rolled down the street. The ambulance kept rolling for a while, then it exploded in a fiery inferno.

Well, that’s how it will happen in the biographical documentary. What really happened was more painful and less anti-climatic. I did fall through the bottom of the ambulance and when I hit that pavement, we were probably going about 50 mph. I flipped and flailed and bounced along the road. The ambulance rolled for a bit and came to a stop, unable to continue. The paramedics poured out of the broken ambulance with fire extinguishers spraying the ambulance floor. One of them came running over to me and sprayed me down for some reason. It was at this point that I realized that I had cooled down. My massive fever was gone, but they seemed too scared to touch me. That’s when I remembered the melting latex gloves on the one paramedic. There is no way that my fever was so high that I burned through latex and solid steel of an ambulance.
No way.

No way.

Halloween

I died last night.

I hate Halloween. I mean, sure, its great that kids get to go around and get candy and dress up in cute little costumes and all that, but from a inventory regulations inspector (read desk job at a grocery chain), its a nuisance. Every November first I have to go throughout the whole store, pull all the unsold halloween candies, decorations and costumes count them up, tag them all with a discount price (still a huge markup) and throw them into a bin to make room for Christmas stuff. However, this Halloween was exceptionally crappy.

I was out screen golfing with the Jakes and Bria. The room was stifling hot. So hot the gum in my pocket was soft and beginning to ooze out of the wrapper. Jake G tried turning on the A.C. but being Halloween, it had already been winterized. By the time I was teeing off the 7th hole, I had begun sweating so badly that the club slid right out of my hands and flew through the air hitting the screen before clattering to the ground to the sound of my graphic description of what the owner likes to do with his mother and where he came from.

Walking over to pick up the driver while wiping the sweat from my hands like a 7th grader at his first school dance I started feeling faint. It seemed to get hotter and hotter as I got further from the vents. The Jakes and Bria seemed fine, a little warm maybe, but nothing like what I was feeling. Grabbing the driver, I turned and stumbled for the door passing it to . . .someone as I headed out the door for some fresh air.

Things started to go black. I remember being in the bathroom at the golf zone shirtless, splashing water all over myself. Somehow I ended up outside naked with steam rising off my body. My head was pounding, my mouth was cracking and super dry. Someone was calling my name but my sandpaper eyelids wouldn't open. They were frantic. "Brian?" they called out. " Are you okay?" "What's happening?" "What are you on?" "Someone call 911!" "BRIAN!" Then there was a scream. I think I was on my knees but I may have been laying down or floating in a fiery cauldron of burning tar while someone poured pure molten lava over me, I couldn't really tell, or care. I just kept getting hotter and hotter until I stopped. Everything stopped. Pain, Caring, Their Cries, All the debates of the world, Everything. It all stopped, including me. I was dead. My blood boiled inside me, eventually, it cooked my heart and I was done.

Death is quiet.