Post by StoryGirl83 on Jun 14, 2009 23:12:19 GMT -5
Chapter Six – The Hemophobe* Saves the Day
Olivia Tunnels climbed the stairs as the lights flickered back on, again. She smiled as light flooded the hallway in front of her. It was kind of creepy downstairs with the lights out. Hopefully they would stay on this time.
She turned a corner in the hall and froze. A few feet away a man’s body lay in a heap in front of her. Without stopping to think she ran to his side and dropped to her knees. She forced back the urge to throw up that always came at the sight of blood as she tried not to take in all the blood covering him. She pressed two fingers against his neck, as she had been taught in her high school health class, hoping for a pulse.
Finding one she rose quickly to her feet and shoved open the door of the nearest office and hoped the phones were working, again.
What greeted her was an utter mess. The desk had been turned over, the phone pulled out of the wall. She almost turned around, but something caught her attention.
She bent down and scooped up the cell phone from the floor. She flipped it opened and breathed a sigh of relief as she realized it appeared undamaged. Now, if only it could call out. She hit 9-1-1 and the call button and waited, hoping to hear if ring.
When it did she grinned. “Thank you,” she whispered.
“9-1-1 emergency,” a voice on the other end intoned. “What is your emergency?”
“I need an ambulance,” she announced. “There’s a man in the hall who is covered in blood. He has a pulse, but that’s really all I know.”
“Where are you, ma’am?”
“The Museum of Natural History . . . er . . . I don’t know the address,” she admitted. “Can you find it?”
“We’re dispatching someone right now,” she was told. “I need you to stay on the line and tell me what you can about the injured man. I’ll pass it onto the ambulance.”
“Okay.”
“Do you know who the man is?”
Olivia heaved in a breath. “No. I was more interested in if he was alive. His face was covered in blood.” She stepped back into the hall and bent down, forcing down the bile. “I don’t deal well with blood.” She looked down at the face of the downed man and realization slowly spread over her face. “His name is Wyatt Halliwell. He works here.”
“Can you see where he is wounded?”
“Everywhere. I think he’s been stabbed, a lot.”
“All right. Do you have anything to stop the bleeding?”
“I wouldn’t know where to begin and I don’t think I could do it,” Olivia told her in despair. “It’s all I can do to look at him. It was so hard to check for his pulse.”
“All right. Can you find someone else, someone who can stop the bleeding?”
Olivia nodded. “Okay. Okay. I’ll do that. How soon is the ambulance coming?”
“Soon, a couple of minutes. Can you find someone for me?”
Olivia nodded as she rose to her feet. “Okay. Hurry.”
“Keep the phone line open.”
Olivia nodded as she started down the hall in search of help. “Okay. Hurry,” was all she could think to say as she hoped Wyatt still had time.
* For anyone who doesn’t know, hemophobia is the fear of blood. Olivia has a mild case of it.