Chapter 1

Oh shit, it’s only 7:15 a.m. I just got the coffee on. I’m cold, I’ve got a headache, my wife said she wanted to go out to eat tonight, and I’m staring at this thick stack of papers my supervisor wants done before I go home today. The only thing I see that’s important is my supervisor’s scribbled comment that we can’t afford the new safety equipment I recommended; he says the county won’t pay for it. And now this; another call!

Well it’s Thursday, it’s foggy and it’s wet out on the Interstate, everybody’s in a hurry, and it sounds like real trouble. I drop the memo, grab my crap, and rush out to join the ‘regulars’ for the run. I’m an EMT, a supervisor, youngest one in the county, and from the voices crackling over the radio this is shaping up to be a bad one. Bass Ebersole’s the name.

Across town, roughly six miles away Owen Ebersole, Bass’s father, had just finished with his nebulizer. He cursed himself for he guessed the millionth time for not quitting smoking and for working around all those caustic materials at the machine shop all those years. Pulmonary fibrosis is what they called it, five years was what they gave him, that was six years ago. He was lucky. He took his medications religiously; the pf was getting worse, and it didn’t help that he had ‘afib’ and a half dozen stents. The doctors said his veins and arteries looked like sausage.

He went to the front door and unlocked it so Margaret wouldn’t need to when she got home. He saw outside the paper had come, but didn’t feel up to getting it himself. Margaret would see it and get it when she got home. He went back and poured in the water to make the coffee. Margaret his wife and mother of his two grown sons would be getting home soon. She promised she’d be in before the morning traffic. She’d spent the week at her sisters in the next town up. Her sister was a widow and had been having a bad time; she was dying of cervical cancer. Margaret was an RN, and though retired she still liked to be of help where she could.

Owen looked at the lights on his old scanner. There’d been an accident on the freeway. He wondered if Bass was on. He hoped the accident wouldn’t delay his wife.

The ambulance pulled as near the wrecked vehicles as they could. First on the scene, Bass scoured the area. They’d need more help. He called back to a partner, “Call in some more people. This is even worse than anyone thought.” He jumped forward and ran through the wreckage. There must be five, six, no ten cars strewn all about. Everywhere he heard the moans and cries of the injured. Christ what a mess!

Over beyond the shoulder he espied an overturned Jeep Cherokee. Next to it a crushed Honda, and beside the Honda a Ford sedan turned on its side. He recognized the National Guard decal and the yellow ribbon that complimented it. It was his mother’s car!

He rushed toward the crashed Ford. He saw the driver’s side door was agape. Had she forgotten to fasten her seat belt? In the soggy brush, in last fall’s still uncut foliage he saw the worn leather coat, the ragged slacks, and the heap of torn flesh that had been his mother. By the time he reached her he knew. He fell to his knees and brushed the brambles away from her once beautiful face. There wasn’t anything he could do. He just stared at the lifeless shape. He reached out and caressed her now cold dead cheek. “Mom,” he whispered.

Behind him Bass vaguely heard his friend and cohort Vernon Abernathy, “Bass! Bass!”

Vernon saw the bloody carcass. He reached for the phone held on his shoulder and called in, “We’ll need a lot more help. Send four, no five more vehicles. There’re several fatalities, at least four. It’s a bad one, and it looks like my partner’s going into shock.”

Over the speaker Harriet the dispatcher at the center responded, “They’re being called. Who is it?”

Vernon replied, “Bass, Oh Jesus; he’s found his mother.”

Bass looked up but didn’t immediately recognize his friend.

Vernon saw the signs. He grabbed Bass by the shoulders and spun him around. He slapped him hard on both cheeks, “Bass!”

Brought back to reality by his partner’s crisp voice and insistent slap Bass responded, “No, I’m all right. Get a stretcher. Let’s get her out.”

By then two other EMTs were on hand. While Vernon pulled Bass away and to his feet the others loaded his mother on a stretcher. She’d be bound for County General in a matter of moments.

Bass pushed his friend away, “I’ve got to get home, tell dad, tell Rath.”

Vernon knew both people. Rath was short for Wilson Rathbone Ebersole, Bass’s older brother, “Come on,” he said, there’s a state cop, “we’ll get you out of here and back to the firehouse.”

A few miles from the Interstate his wife Sarah had just backed her car up and pushed the button that closed the garage door. She stepped out and up to the door that took her through the laundry room into the kitchen. She heard on the radio about the accident; she assumed her husband would be there.

She stepped through the kitchen to the hallway. Her hands were shaking; perspiration was already slowly dribbling down her back moistening the thin filmy blouse under her jacket. Sarah worked part time at the town’s ‘Welcome Center’. She’d already called in and told her morning’s compatriot she’d be a few hours late. She done it before and expected no trouble.

Sarah stepped into the dining room, “Rath, you there?”

Rath Ebersole, dressed only in a pair of white boxers, carrying a towel stepped from the shadows, “Over here.”

Sarah stepped into Rath’s outstretched arms, “Your wife?” She involuntarily shuddered when she said it; she disliked Rath Ebersole, his indifference regarding his wife, his lack of compassion for the woman who loved him. She wrapped her arms up around his scrawny shoulders. She pulled his face down to hers. She gave him the appropriately affectionate kiss he expected.

Rath returned the kiss and nuzzled his face in her thick brown hair while his hands searched and found her large firm breasts, “Not to worry, she won’t be home till late this afternoon.”

Sarah sighed. She felt his manhood, hard and insistent as it pressed against her. She swallowed back the bile that rose in her throat. She knew what she was doing was wrong. She was happily married, she had three young children. She murmured, “Rath this is...”

He whispered back, “I know. I don’t care...”

She kissed his neck and thought, ‘Me? Oh well. She loved her husband, but right now ... this moment she’d do... ‘

He lifted her and carried her to the bedroom.

At County General Bass, Vernon, and several others concerned themselves with the people they were bringing in. Bass had declined the policeman’s offer; he wanted to stay with his mom till her remains were safely at the hospital.

Bass wanted desperately to protect his father for as long as he could, but they wouldn’t let him forge his father’s name on the paperwork. Not knowing what else to do he opened his cell phone and called his wife’s work.

He got Nellie, a friend and fellow employee. Nellie told him his wife had called in that she’d be late. Bass thanked her and called his wife on her cell, but it went to voice mail. He figured she’d had to stop off at school; something probably about the kids.

Now what? He called Rath, but got the same response; voice mail on his cell and the recording on his landline. He dare not call his father; something like this over the phone could kill him. What to do?

Down a ways across the street from the hospital was ‘Heaven’s Place’, a hospice. His good friend Corinne Woodward worked there. He saw Vernon, “Hey Vernon. I’m gone OK?”

Vernon held up a hand and waved, “Need a lift anywhere?”

Bass waved him off, “No, going over to the hospice to borrow Corinne’s car.”

Vernon gave his friend a closer look, “You sure? You OK to drive?”

Bass waved back, “I’m good.”

Minutes later Bass was at the hospice. He found his lifelong friend, “Corinne I need your car.”

Corinne was unabashedly and unashamedly in love with Bass Ebersole. He’d been her ‘Knight in Shining Armor’, her ‘Prince Charming’, her hero, ever since they’d been children but especially since he’d stepped in and rescued her from her abusive husband. That had been seven years now. She was sure she’d be dead if it hadn’t been for Bass. She went and retrieved her purse, handed him the spare key to her Chevy and asked, “Anything I can do?”

He took the key and kissed her cheek, “Talk to you later.” He was out the door.

Corinne watched him drive away. God how she loved him; she hoped everything was all right. How could men be so clueless?

Back at the eldest Ebersole’s Owen poured himself a second cup of coffee. He checked the clock on the wall. Margaret was late. He bet the accident on the Interstate had held her up. He went to the living room and turned on the TV. Nothing about the accident so he turned to one of the cable news stations, adjusted his oxygen, sat back in his chair and started to doze off.

On his way to his father’s Bass got cold feet. He felt shaky. He knew he wasn’t feeling right. He needed help. Better go get Rath. He’d tell Rath. Together they’d see dad. He turned off and started for his brother’s house.

He thought about Sarah. God if he could only talk to someone; if he could just talk to Sarah. He pulled open his cell and called her work. Nellie told him she still wasn’t in. He thought, ‘Better not try her cell, if she was at school, a call there would only get in the way.’

He drove on.

Sarah squirmed out from under her half somnolent brother-in-law. She checked the digital clock by the bed. She knew she had to be going soon; couldn’t leave Nellie hanging forever. She slipped into the bathroom. She’d take a shower and wash Rath’s smelly goo off her thighs.