Fallout: Part III of The Journal Series

Chapter Eight: A Life and A Death

Late March, 1997.

"Sir, you need to leave. You need to give us space to work."

"I'm not leaving! I called you and I'm <i>not</i> leaving until he's okay! Help him! Fucking do something!"

"Sir, you need to calm down. Calm down, step back, or we'll call the police."

"Damn it, hurry up! He'll fucking die! Stop fucking around and do something!"

"Holy shit, Greg, I... I think...you know who this is?!"

"It doesn't matter! Fucking help him! It shouldn't matter who he is! I kept him alive this fucking long, fucking do something!"

I was barely hanging on, clinging to life, listening without reaction to the sounds around me.

Duff was a fucking wreck. Before two strangers arrived I had been dimly aware of a mouth on mine, lungfuls of breath filling my own, my chest deflating and a weight pressing upon it.

"That's it... Come on, come on, keep fighting...breathe... Come on, Slash, you can do it..."

More artificial breath from lips soft and familiar, like burning, velvety rose petals upon mine, cold as death.

"There ya go. There ya go... Come on, you got this, baby. Fight it! Fight it!"

I was cold. I was so, so cold. I wasn't shivering but completely still, the only warmth I felt from the body guarding me.

"Administering Narcan..."

With a tremendous gasp I was hurtled through a nonexistent wall of icy, glacial water so cold it burned my face. My head pounded as if I'd been slamming it into a wall for hours on end, and the first thing I realized was that I didn't recognize anyone around me.

I tried to skitter away like a terrified rabbit but my limbs were too weak to budge my weight. Men in uniforms with shining badges were bad things. The words they said made no sense. Their outlines were fuzzy, their commands and questions unwanted and unwelcome.

The only sound I could make out was the thundering heartbeat in my head as my startled eyes flit back and forth from intruder to intruder. It matched the uncontrollable racing of my heart, the unyielding, wild fluctuation of sudden vulnerability and chemically-induced paranoia.

I had two strangers sternly lecturing me right in my face, demeaning, condescending, treating me as if I were nothing more than a criminal, a waste of life.

Something in my gut rolled. Without warning a mass of puke spewed from my throat, splattering all over my chest and dousing the strangers who crowded me.

Disgust radiated from them, and their words didn't register into my delirium as wave after wave racked me, the force of vomit pummeling the back of my throat so hard my instant migraine intensified.