Chapter Twenty-Three
Creed
This day reminded Creed of war as he jumped from one critical mission to the next. His mind and body were inured to heavy task loads.
As Creed and Rou jogged toward the Iniquus transport to grab ropes and pulleys, his gaze caught on a minivan that was one of the last vehicles he’d called in to Mandy before he was rerouted to find Parker.
Creed had knocked on the window and said, “If you’re walking wounded, get out. Get the kids out. Get up the hill.” The family seemed fine. For them, it had been a fender bender that set off their airbags, but they’d looked no worse for wear.
But the dynamic had drastically shifted. The front of their minivan had rammed under the frame of a jacked-up truck in front of them. Without the airbag there to cushion the blow, they’d taken the full force of the impact. And even with an airbag, it didn’t look survivable.
“Mandy, it’s Creed. Pin this location.”
“I have you on the board.”
“The parents in the van were walking wounded. I don’t have the doors open. Their new triage ranking should be red or black. They’re trapped under this guy’s tailgate. Male and female in their late-twenties or early-thirties. We need a first responder to assess.”
“I have a minivan in that location with three children, about five, about three, and an infant.”
“Affirmative. The children are in their car seats and seem unharmed.”
He was going to get these kids out of here. They couldn’t be in the back seat calling for mama when her mom was dying in front of them. They needed to eat and drink, get warm, and the baby probably needed a diaper change.
Frustrated by the delay to get back to Auralia, damned straight. But he wasn’t conflicted. Auralia had the resources and know-how, and she had her feet on solid ground. She wasn’t in danger; the babies were.
“The infant is in an infant carrier?”
“Affirmative.”
“Any access to a stroller?”
“No. I don’t see that. There’s a diaper bag. And a woman’s purse on the back floorboard.”
“We’ll need to get the children forward to support. See if you can’t get a diaper bag and if the woman has a purse so we can try to identify kin.”
Creed moved Rou to the other side of the ditch, took off his pack, and told her to down-stay.
The doors were locked, and Creed decided to break the mother’s window to protect the babies from the glass. Surely, if she were conscious, she’d agree.
He reached in and felt for a pulse, but from the angle of her head, the fact that he couldn’t find one wasn’t definitive. Creed wouldn’t call that in unless it was certain, lest it put her name on the black triage list if it didn’t belong there.
Reaching in, he pressed the door unlock buttons and heard a click and a shift at the doors.
Pulling up on the handle, Creed was surprised it had no give. He checked again to make sure the locks were unlatched. Next, he placed his booted foot on the side of the car and thrust out with his leg as he yanked on the door, but the vehicle’s body was too buckled.
He reached into the mother’s window again on the off chance that he could roll down the back window, and to his great surprise, that worked.
Creed grabbed the purse and diaper bag and flung them toward Rou, taking a moment to assure himself that she was on task.
From there, he unlocked the doors.
The oldest child was facing front and was positioned behind her dad. There was no access to their car from that side. The car had buckled inward from the pressure of the other crash vehicles. He wouldn’t be able to reach her.
She had stopped crying and was blinking overly wide eyes at him.
“Sweet girl, do you know how to take off your seat belt?”
She gave him a solemn nod.
“Could you show me how you do that?”
She reached between her legs, pressed the red button, unlatched the belt, and pulled her arms out of the loops.
“What about your brother’s seat? Can you do your brother’s seat belt?”
Creed might be able to reach that one, but he wasn’t sure of the mechanics of the rear-facing seat, and this was easier.
It also gave him a chance to assess the girl’s well-being.
“Thank you, sweetheart. Hey, I have my puppy dog here. Her name is Rou. Your car is pretty smashed up. How about you come sit with Rou so you don’t get hurt?”
“Mommy!” she keened.
“Mommy got hurt in the accident, sweet child. We need to get a doctor in to help her. Right now, mommy wants you to be safe. You think mommy would want that, right?”
She squeezed her lips together into a tight pucker as her chin wobbled. She was holding back her sobs.
Creed leaned as far as he could into the car.
“Put your feet on the floor for me. Can you help your brother out of his seat and help get him into my hands?”
“What about Charlotte?”
“Charlotte is your baby?”
The girl pointed.
“Yes, I’m going to get Charlotte, too. And we’re going to see my doggy, Rou. Then, I’m going to take you to some friends who will keep you safe and warm while we get help for mommy. Is that mommy and daddy in the front seat?”
She pointed forward.
“Okay, help your brother. What’s his name?”
“He’s Joey, and my name is Marybelle.” She reached for her brother’s hand and pulled. “Come on, Joey, we have to get out. The car crashed.”
“Nice to meet you, Marybelle. I’m Creed.”
As the children clambered out of their seats, Creed picked up an umbrella and the plastic bags from an earlier trip to the dollar shop that lay on the floorboard. He shoved those in his pocket. He reached his hands under Joey’s armpits and pulled him through the window.
He put Joey on the ground and held him in place by sticking out a leg and sandwiching the boy between his shin and the car. Balancing on one leg, Creed reached back in. “It was a little easier for Joey because he’s so small. If you held my hands, could you climb to me?”
The infant carrier was a problem that he wasn’t sure he could solve. Marybelle was going to have to come over the top.
“I’ve got you, sweet child. Listen, I want you to stay crouched down like that on the seat, but turn and face Daddy.
Good girl. Cross your hands over your chest and tuck your chin down.
That’s right. Now, I’m putting my hand on your back, and I’m going to put a hand under your bottom.
I want you to just lean back, and I’m going to pull you out the window over the top of the baby.
Here we go. Here are my hands. That’s right, just keep leaning back.
I’ve got you. I bet you learned how to swim like this. ”
“Mommy’s teaching me to float on my back.”
“That’s right. That’s what we’re doing now.” He eased Marybelle out of the window, and she seemed happy to find Joey standing there waiting.
Creed had hoped to get the infant carrier out just as it was because he wanted a paramedic to assess the baby in place, lest she had suffered a spine trauma. The baby wasn’t awake and crying, and that concerned him.
The kids weren’t safe along the road if he wasn’t giving them his full attention, so Creed lifted Joey onto his hip.
Joey held his bright yellow boots with rubber duck faces out to either side on straight legs, and Creed knew from his nieces and nephews that this was the way to keep his boots from sliding off.
He reached for Marybelle’s hand, which she slid trustingly into his.
Her boots were black with bright red ladybugs, and he was glad that they were dressed to survive in the rain.
“Joey and Marybelle, look, here’s my puppy Rou.
Do you see she’s wearing her red shoes? She has little red socks, too.
” Creed spread the plastic dollar store bags on the side of the hill, one on either side of Rou.
“This is Rou’s lead. She’s still a puppy.
I was hoping that you could hold on to her lead and keep her safe while I go get Charlotte. Would you hold Rou for me?”
Creed pulled off his pack and set it behind Rou. Then, he opened the umbrella he’d found in the car and ran the post through the pack’s loop, sticking the hand loop under the weight to keep it in place.
He gave it about a twenty percent chance of being there when he got back.
The wind was steady with sudden, powerful gusts.
“Marybelle, I need you to do me a favor. We need to keep the rain off of you three. Can Joey hold onto Rou, and you keep your hand on the umbrella? It’s too cold to be out here and get wet. ”
Her hand wrapped the umbrella handle, and Creed stood.
“Back in the shake of a lamb's tail. He picked up the diaper bag and purse and walked them over to them, partly to keep the bags from getting sodden—there were probably diapers and formula that the baby would need—but also to check and see what the kids did when his back was turned.
All was well enough.
Back at the car, Creed took a moment to make sure the baby was breathing.
The relief he felt at the slight exhale on the back of his spit-dampened skin felt like guardian angels hovered close.
Creed pushed and pulled, pressed, and cursed until he got the carrier separated from its base, and then repeated all of that as he got the handle folded down.
He took a moment to assess the padding before unclipping it around the edges and folding it over the baby.
With a trained eye, Creed measured the width of the carrier versus the space in the window.
He took off his jacket and laid it over the baby as he broke out the short lip of glass that stuck up past the door. He felt that gave him the space he’d need if he could swivel the carrier.
The cursing he kept under his breath, but there was a point at which he had to put his foot against the door and press himself back as he compressed the plastic sides that absolutely didn’t want to give.
A blessing and, quite literally, a curse, with lots of curses.
He ended up on his ass, then flat on his back as he rolled to keep the infant as cradled as possible. That babe had been jarred enough.
When he got to his feet, he turned to check on the children, only to find Marybelle chasing the umbrella into the woods. He watched to make sure she didn’t get out of sight as he reattached the baby’s bunting.
“Okay, Marybelle and Joey, come on down. I’m going to take you up to get you warm and comfy. It’s too far for you to walk, so we are going to become a great big giant together. Should we do that?”
Neither child answered. “Marybelle, I’m going to put you on my shoulders.
It’s your job to hold the umbrella. Joey goes on my hip, and the baby stays in her carrier.
Joey, I need you to keep holding Rou’s lead.
She has trouble walking in her little red shoes.
Throwing on his pack, slinging the mother’s purse, then the baby bag across his chest, next came Marybelle and her umbrella, Joey with Rou, and finally, Creed scooped up the baby carrier.
Creed didn’t know how to keep the kids' attention away from the destruction that they passed alongside. All he could do was keep pointing out things he saw off in the woods.
At one point, he needed to walk in the ditch to avoid the rescue workers, who were using heavy equipment that threw a shower of sparks into the air as they cut people free.
Creed noticed they hadn’t applied a layer of fire-retardant foam, which seemed okay for the moment because the sparks landed on wet macadam.
And the foam wouldn’t help if the wind carried those sparks off into the tree line.
When he’d gone after Jeb that morning, he’d seen how dangerous the drought conditions were in the surrounding woods.
It reminded him of his emergency response training evolution in Nova Scotia, which had come to an abrupt end when the government deemed the risk of forest fires so severe that it banned people from entering the woods province-wide, with a $25,000 fine for those who ignored the rule.
Though here, just in a few hours, things had—at least in terms of fire danger—improved with the downpour. By the time Creed had gone after Parker, the top surface was damp.
Still, it was a risk. Especially because fire helicopters couldn’t fly, and the logistics of circumnavigating the wreckage with equipment would be daunting.
But Creed knew the teams were moving as fast and as hard as they could to save life and limb.
Everyone who could lend a hand was elbow-deep in helping.
Mandy had told Creed that a nurse, Mrs. Simpkiss, was waiting at the Iniquus transport to take over care of the kids.
Since Mandy was tracking his exact position on her Logistics board, he wasn’t at all surprised to see a woman in scrubs standing in the drizzle with a plastic bag tied on her head like a bandana.
“You happen to be Mrs. Simpkiss?” Creed asked.
“That’s me. I’m supposed to take care of Marybelle, Joey, and Charlotte.”
“I’m Marybelle. And that’s Charlotte. Joey is holding onto Rou.”
“And he’s doing a mighty fine job of it,” Mrs. Simpkiss said.
“Where are we heading?”
She ushered him to an ambulance to put them all down. He told Marybelle and Joey how brave and strong they had been. And that he’d never played great big giant with three better kids.
And as Mrs. Simpkiss leaned in to ask them questions about how they felt and if anyone needed to go potty, Creed headed over to the fire engine to ask for ropes.
Since no one was around, Creed dug through the side bins until he found the necessary equipment and loaded it into his pack.
If there were mea culpas to be said, he’d do that later.
Right now, he needed to get to Auralia.