The wolf’s howl echoed into the foggy night, and I watched as the beast turned toward me. He stood on top of the stretcher with his teeth drawn back from his lips in a snarl. They were fish belly white under the ambulance’s bright fluorescent lights.
From my vantage point at the vehicle’s rear double doors, I only had a second to consider the situation. My partner looked dead. He was sprawled on the bench seat and was covered in blood. Our patient, the man we’d struck with the ambulance, was nowhere to be seen. Had he gotten free somehow and escaped while the wolf attacked my partner?
Those thoughts left my mind when I saw the wolf flex his hind legs. He then pounced towards the door lightning fast, and left me with almost no time to react. Only the right side of the double doors was open. I swung it shut hard, and the wolf slammed into it. The beast was large, maybe as much as 200 pounds, and the blow almost knocked me to the ground. Somehow I managed to stay on my feet, but the door was still ajar. The only thing that stopped the wolf from escaping was the fact that it had been briefly stunned by its collision with the thick metal door.
The wolf recovered and rammed the door again. I braced against the door and kept him inside. If I could just close the door, he’d be trapped, unable to work the latch from the inside with his thumbless paws. The wolf’s forelegs and snapping muzzle filled the gap between the closed left door and the open right door, and its teeth gnashed savagely. If it were to escape, I’d be done for. There was no way that I’d be able to outrun the wolf. I’d end up as so much dead meat on the side of the foggy road.
We struggled on, and I could feel my strength fade. I made one last ditch effort to force the door closed. At the same moment, the wolf threw its full weight into the door, and it banged hard against my head. My vision blurred as I bordered on the edge of consciousness. Blood began to run down my face. For some reason, I think because the wolf caught the scent of blood, he relaxed his pressure on the door and that’s when I finally closed it.
The wolf threw himself repeatedly against the door as I sat on the bumper, dazed, catching my breath. It was hard to sit there for more than a minute. The wolf howled out of frustration and from somewhere close by in the fog there came an answering howl, a sound that got me moving.
I ran down the left side of the ambulance only to fall hard to the wet asphalt when I stepped into a small pothole that was invisible in the darkness. I went down hard and the wind whooshed out of my lungs as I belly-flopped hard against the blacktop. The pavement was wet from the fog and dew. In seconds, my clothes were soaked as if I’d stepped beneath the stream of a running shower.
I was tired, and it took all the strength I could muster to fight the urge to stay down. Nothing would have pleased me more than to lay there, close my eyes, drift off to sleep and await the rising sun. The only thing that kept me from doing just that was the noise of the wolf crashing against the back doors of the ambulance. The beast was big and heavy, and I knew that he’d eventually get lucky, hit the latch just right and free himself. I had to get to the cab. It was my only hope.
I got to my feet and steadied myself against the side of the ambulance. My head swam as I wiped the blood from my eyes. The wolf slammed against the rear doors once more and I got moving. I stumbled to the driver’s side door, pulled it open and climbed behind the steering wheel.
I fought the urge to rest, and the one thing that kept my mind in action was the sudden silence from the back of the truck. It was then, in a terrible moment, I realized that I had walked into a trap. I spun in my seat, grabbed the knob of the open window between the cab and the back of the ambulance and slid it closed. A second later, the wolf’s snarling face appeared at the window.
The window was made of hard plastic and was about one-foot square. The window allowed the paramedic in the back to communicate with the driver up front and vice versa, and you could also pass items back and forth through the opening. Despite the window’s size, the wolf clawed at it with great energy and bit at it with a fierceness that was unnerving. If he ever got to me, I’d be done for.
I needed a weapon. I snatched open the glove box. It was full of nothing but loose papers and fast food napkins. Next, I zipped open John’s jump bag, and my heart sank when I recalled that he’d already removed the handgun that he kept in case of an extreme emergency that required the last resort of self defense. In the compartment beside the door, I did find a large flashlight. I might get one good lick in on the wolf with it, but beyond that it would be of little use as an effective bludgeon.
I flicked the light on and searched behind the seats. There was nothing of use behind the driver’s seat, just a few spare boxes of rubber gloves and a roll of white paper towels. I cast the beam behind the passenger’s seat and the light fell on a long red plastic box.
I pulled the box free and sat with it in my lap. I worked the latches open and looked inside. The box contained our roadside breakdown kit. I dumped it all into the passenger’s seat. Beneath a packet of triangular reflectors and a folded safety vest, I found what I’d hoped was inside, two roadside flares. They were covered in dust and looked like a pair of old Roman candles.
Between snarls and bouts of scratching against the window, the wolf’s black eyes met mine. How could I use the flares against him, I wondered? Could I drive him out of the ambulance and away from John? The back of the ambulance had two exits, the double rear doors and a side door. My problem was that I could only open one door at a time, so how could I drive him out of the truck with a flare? Worst of all, suppose he’s not afraid of the flare? What if he ignores it and pounces on me despite the hot, bright thing in my hands?
I glanced over my shoulder, peered past the wolf and tried to look at John. His face was obscured behind the sharps container where we threw away our used needles. I could only see him from the chest down. He was covered in blood and was perfectly still. I knew that he was either dead or dying.
It occurred to me that I might be approaching things all wrong. Unable to unlatch the doors himself, the wolf was trapped. Instead of driving him out of the truck with a flare, I could start the ambulance and drive to Claiborne. I’d either arrive somewhere to get help or get within cell phone or walkie-talkie range.
I took a deep breath, and my mind was made up. I set the flares in my lap and reached for the keys. I turned the ignition switch, and the diesel motor roared to life. I put the truck in drive, but it was then that my worst fears were realized. The small plastic window gave way under the wolf’s constant onslaught. The window came off its track with a loud snap, and the wolf wriggled its large head into the cab.
I tried to move out of the reach of his snapping jaws, but failed. They were inches from my face, and I instinctively threw my right arm up to protect my head and neck. In the next instant, his powerful jaws and razor sharp teeth sank into the flesh of my right forearm. Blinded by the pain, my right foot pressed down on the gas pedal, and the ambulance leaped forward.
As the truck gained speed and the tires left the road, I groped for the flares in my lap. In the struggle, I knocked them aside and saw them disappear into the darkness of the floorboard at my feet. A moment later, the ambulance came to a sudden stop as it entered the ditch and collided with a large pine tree. Unrestrained, I surged against the steering column, and everything went black.
(All rights reserved. This story is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are products of the author's imagination or are used fictiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons living or dead is entirely coincidental.)
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