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I groan as I take it off the hook. I hold it close to my mouth and press the button at the side. “C’mon now, Gladys,” I say. “Rob and I were just heading back.”
“Sorry boys, but you two are closest to the scene,” she says while snapping her gum. I’d know her gravelly, smoker’s voice anywhere, seeing that I’ve heard it thousands of times now.
I picture Gladys bent over her keyboard, squinting at the screen that tracks Prescott’s emergency vehicles as her knobby fingers tap and click away. Gladys must be at least fifty, and she’s got a bad case of arthritis, which makes using a keyboard difficult. Yet, she’s still here too, and pulling overtime to boot—Gladys should’ve been off work at least an hour ago.
I grunt.
“What’s the situation?” Rob shoots me an annoyed glance, and I shake my head. I’m just as disappointed about the new assignment as he is. I may not have a family or a wife waiting for me back home, but I am looking forward to taking a hot shower and relaxing with some reheated pizza and a can of cold beer. Thank god for the simple things in life.
Gladys’s voice crackles back on.
“We got a call a couple of minutes ago from an unidentified caller. I asked for their name, but there was no reply. There was just screaming, and …” She hesitates for a second, and then her voice drops to almost a whisper, “I think I heard a chainsaw or some other kind of mechanical equipment grinding away. It sounded bad, boys.”
My heartbeat spikes. I share a look with Rob, while he mouths “a chainsaw?” in disbelief.
“Sam, you there?”
“Sorry, Gladys. We’re on it. What’s the address?”
“8382 Maple Ave,” she says. “It’s an apartment complex. You’re maybe fifteen minutes away. I don’t know what the apartment number is, but we’re tracing it right now.”
I nod as Rob turns on the siren. His face is grim as he does a screeching U-turn in the hospital parking lot, and then heads back the way we came. Damn it. Is this call for real? We get drunk drivers and that kind of thing, sure, but Prescott has never had anything like a chainsaw-wielding psycho. What the fuck?
“Yo, buddy,” I grunt. “What do you think’s going on? You think we really have Friday the 13th on our hands?”
His handsome face is grim.
“Who the hell knows? But Gladys has been working dispatch forever. She knows what she heard.”
“Shit. I guess we’ll see when we get there.”
Minutes later, we screech to a halt in front of the apartment building. There are no police cars, no panicked residents, and no mayhem to be seen. There isn’t even the sound of a chainsaw. In fact, it’s a balmy night, and the only noise I hear is the chirping of crickets. Yet, I can’t relax until I know for sure that Texas Chainsaw Massacre isn’t being reenacted in sleepy little Prescott.
Yanking off my seatbelt, I grab my bag, and jump out of the cab of the ambulance like an Avenger. But Rob is slow to follow. Damn. He looks even more exhausted than before, and I nod at him.
“Yo, I know this is against protocol, but I can handle this on my own. I’ll call you if I need back-up.”
“You sure?” he asks, his voice dripping with skepticism. “Remember, there’s some maniac up there with a chainsaw.”
My laugh is more of a bark than a chuckle.
“Yeah, yeah,” I say. “I’ll let you know how my date with Leatherface goes. Hey, I’ll even get you a cup of coffee if I can find one.”
He gives me a thumbs up and leans back in his seat, his skull dropping listlessly against the headrest. Those kids must be running him ragged. Meanwhile, I half jog towards the building, and let myself in. Fortunately, there’s a man standing behind the front desk.
“Yo, Prescott EMT,” I grunt, approaching him. “We got a call? But we don’t know from which apartment. Could you give them a ring?”
I show him the cell number that Gladys sent me and wait while the middle-aged man dials. After a little while, he shrugs and hangs up. “No one answered,” he says.
“Can you look up the phone number and tell me who lives in that apartment?”
“Oh, sure. Right.” The man turns from me and starts to type on his computer. After a few moments, he comes up with an apartment.
“That phone belongs to Jessa Miller up in 225. Is Jess okay? She’s a nice girl.”
“I don’t know, but I’ll find out,” I call over my shoulder while jogging to the staircase. This place is fucking weird. Was that the doorman, or not the doorman? Plus, it took him maybe five minutes to look everything up, and he was moving in slow motion. There might not be some crazy person walking around swinging power tools, but if someone’s hurt, I don’t want to waste time getting to them.
