Dead City. Joe Mckinney

were people banging on the doors and windows and the trunk, but I didn’t bother to avoid them.

      I stepped on the gas and peeled out, knocking people to the ground as I shot away from the curb. Swerving like a drunk, I kept the pedal on the floor all the way back up Chatterton.

      At the top of the hill I was doing maybe fifty miles per hour and was completely out of control. I glanced off two parked cars and careened across the lanes just as two police cars came up on me.

      When I saw their strobes I cut the wheel sharply and went into somebody’s front yard. I couldn’t keep the car in a straight line and the front end got away from me. The car spun suddenly to the right, and when the wheels caught, the car shot back toward the street.

      We finally came to a stop after hitting a brick mailbox and the back end of somebody’s parked car.

      The last thing I remember was the airbag exploding in my face.

      Chapter 2

      I don’t think I ever totally passed out, but I don’t remember being put in the EMS unit either. When I finally came to, there was an oxygen mask on my face and an EMS tech was trying to put a blood-pressure cuff on me.

      I recognized him from some of the calls we’d made together, but I didn’t remember his name. I think it was Robertson or Robinson or something like that.

      I coughed hard and couldn’t stop. It felt like I was being ripped apart inside.

      “Take it easy, Hudson.”

      I reached for the oxygen mask and tried to pull it off my face. He grabbed my wrist so I couldn’t.

      “Leave it there.”

      “Let me go,” I said, though it came out muffled and slurred through the mask, all in one syllable.

      I struggled weakly to sit up. My neck and shoulder felt stiff and I thought I was going to throw up.

      “You stay there. Your sergeant said for you to stay put.”

      “I’m gonna throw up.”

      I got the mask off my face, and this time he didn’t try to stop me. I turned my head to one side and coughed again. My face and eyes were burning, and I figured I must have gotten some of that pepper spray after all.

      “Where’s Tompkins?” I asked.

      “I don’t know,” he said, still trying to fit my arm with the blood-pressure cuff. “They were taking him Code Three to Downtown Methodist, last I heard. He looked pretty bad when they pulled him out of the car.”

      He raised my arm off the gurney. “Come on, now. I’ve got to get this thing on you.”

      “What about the people we shot?”

      It was urgent. I had to know. I grabbed his arm and squeezed hard. “Tell me!”

      He didn’t want to say anything about it, I could tell. He stammered, and when I pressed him even harder he blurted out, “I don’t know. Let go of my arm.”

      “Those people wouldn’t go down!” I was almost yelling it at him and I could see him looking at the straps on the gurney next to my arms, wishing now he had put them on me.

      “They were zombies!” I said, urgent to get it out. “Like dead people. We shot them, and they wouldn’t go down. They just kept coming!”

      “Settle down.” He pushed my shoulder back down on the gurney and tried to hold me there.

      “Let go, damn it! Let me go! Get off!”

      He tried to hold my shoulders down but I could tell he didn’t want to have to fight me. Firemen don’t like fighting people with guns.

      He finally backed off and let me sit up. “I’m going to get your sergeant,” he said. “You wait here. I’ll get him and he can explain it to you. You wait here.”

      He opened the side door and left me alone in the back of the unit. I leaned back and put my hands over my face, completely exhausted. The adrenaline had carried me that far, but now I was crashing.

      All I wanted to do was keep my eyes closed and my mind empty. But even as the tension was leaving my body, my mind was turning circles around itself, still trying to comprehend the violence of the last few minutes.

      I had experienced the same sort of letdown a few times before, after being involved in car chases and fist-fights and stuff like that, but never had the feeling been so strong, so unshakeable.

      When I opened my eyes, I forced myself to pause over my surroundings, hoping that I could stop replaying the incident in my mind by engaging myself with something mundane.

      It was completely dark outside now and the only light came from the cheap, city-improvised track lighting along the roof of the ambulance. The halogen glow gave everything a sterile, institutional atmosphere, and the sickening smell of anesthetic and sweat made me feel hostile and unhealthy.

      All ambulances are the same.

      I’ve been in the back of EMS units hundreds of times before, interviewing people about traffic accidents and shootings and attempted suicides. But that was the first time I had ever really paused to take in the way they made me feel. I knew then that I hated it. I hated it all and all I could do was count the rows upon rows of insulin bottles and saline solution and sterile bandages, and I realized I was getting nowhere sitting there thinking about it. I was closed off and claustrophobic, and I wanted out. I had to get out.

      I tried to sit up and just as quickly wished I hadn’t.

      My neck and shoulder were throbbing and my eyes and chest still felt like the pepper spray had settled in to stay. All I could do was cough and spit and wait for the burning to go away.

      I put my head back down on the gurney and studied the road map of what the next few hours were going to be like.

      I had been at other officer-involved shootings, and I had seen firsthand the crap they had to go through.

      The officer at the center of it all was always off in his own little world, with everyone else running around him, trying to be cool about it, but still asking each other what had happened and whispering in those hushed tones that they hoped it was a good shooting—for the officer’s sake.

      What they meant was they hoped the officer hadn’t screwed up.

      It made me wonder if maybe I had screwed up. Was I going to lose my job? I kept seeing the scene play over and over in my mind and I wondered where I had gone wrong.

      I knew the detectives and evidence technicians and the supervisors were already on the way. Some of them were probably already doing their thing.

      They would start by walking around the place, taking pictures, knocking on doors, and talking to people that may or may not have seen anything. The position of every last piece of evidence, from the placement of shell casings to the length of skid marks and the damage to both our cars would be mapped out with surgical precision, bundled together in a thick manila folder and presented to the disciplinary board for administrative review.

      And while all that was happening, I was going to have to sit in a windowless little room at headquarters, waiting for some detective to take my statement and wondering what everybody else was saying about what I had done. Was I gonna get sued? Was I gonna be looking for a new job?

      It was going to be rough for me, but not nearly as bad as what was happening to Chris. He was going to have to do the same thing I was, except he was going to do it from a hospital bed.

      It occurred to me that I didn’t even know his wife’s name. But whatever her name, she was going to get that call from the sergeant, saying Chris was hurt and he was at whatever hospital he was at.

      Yes, she could come see him as soon as she liked.

      No, she wouldn’t be allowed to talk to him until the detectives got his statement.