Arrival: A Post-Apocalyptic Thriller

1

Maya Talbot lived for the moments suspended between life and death. Although she couldn’t save everyone, being a paramedic at Nashville Fire Department Station #19 made her feel necessary—like she was contributing something positive to this crazy world.

Nevertheless, the bags under her eyes grew darker with each shift, which was natural for a single mother working such a stressful job. In a few years, she’d be approaching forty, and the thought of it made her shudder. Despite Maya still receiving her fair share of compliments, though, her hair required more frequent colorings, and the “killer blond” phase had finally grown out to lighten the last several inches of her long, dark hair. The Southern sun kept her face perpetually tan, but it had also begun to draw crow’s feet at the corner of her sharp, hazel eyes. It was all part of aging, no matter how much hot yoga she did or how much kale she ate.

She’d compensated by keeping a strict workout regimen to help her stay healthy and defy age. Despite her busy schedule, Maya was sure to squeeze in yoga, cardio, and weightlifting. She’d also kept up with her Jiu-Jitsu sessions, which she’d been taking for nearly twenty years. And although she hadn’t had as much time of late for hobbies, Maya loved getting her hands dirty under the hood of a cherry red 1965 Mustang she’d been restoring for years.

Maya drove down Rosa Parks Boulevard with her partner, Reno, in the passenger seat. They’d wrapped up their final break of their shift at the Farmer’s Market. Jamaica Way was there, and it was one of Maya’s favorite restaurants in the city. The last time the two of them had eaten there, their break had been cut short by an Emergency Medical Dispatch call—or an EMD, as the paramedics called it—to a nearby house where a woman had suffered a stroke. But no calls had come in during the latter part of their shift, so they’d managed to take an extended break. Maya had ordered jerk chicken, not even bothering to skim the rest of Jamaica Way’s menu.

The leaves had started to turn, and it was cool enough for folks with small children to be out and enjoying the park after a long, hot summer. Nashville sparkled in October as the humidity finally died down and autumn arrived. Maya had spent all that summer in Tennessee working extended shifts to cover for everyone else’s vacation. Somebody had to be on duty. They passed Bicentennial Capital Mall where folks strolled and fed the birds.

“I really need a vacation.”

“Ha! You and me both,” Reno said, running his hand through his short afro.

“Didn’t you go to New Orleans for four days?”

“Yeah, but that was way back in July.”

“Oh, yeah, you’re right. That was like a whole three months ago,” she said, the last three words dripping with sarcasm.

“Seems like longer.”

“You’ve been my partner for—”

“One year and eleven months.”

Maya smiled at him. “Wow. So precise. Are we dating now?”

“I wanted to make sure you remembered that next month is two years. You know, so you can get me an anniversary gift.”

“Yeah, right,” Maya said, laughing. “But as I was saying, do you remember me ever taking a vacation?”

“What about those three days I had to spend with Raymond as my partner?”

“Are you kidding me? That wasn’t a vacation! My son was sick!”

“Well, believe me when I say you got the better end of that deal. Raymond drives like a maniac. I thought I was going to end up in the back of this rig.”

Reno Harvey had moved to Nashville from Baltimore, and being almost ten years her junior, he kept Maya on her toes out in the field. They had been partners for two years now, and although soft-spoken, Reno carried himself with an inner intensity. She knew he was strong, as he’d grown up in inner-city Baltimore. His father had split when he was only eight, leaving him to help his mother take care of his two younger siblings. Reno had defied the odds of many other African-American men from his neighborhood by graduating high school, obtaining a college degree, and getting out of town. He’d come to Nashville with his girlfriend, Robin, who he’d recently broken up with. Maya had no doubt that the kind and gentle man would find another easily.

Maya checked the traffic around her and grinned as she took a sharp turn onto Charlotte Avenue.

“Whoa!” Reno said, grabbing onto the dashboard and forcing himself to slide into the door as if they’d taken the turn at eighty miles per hour instead of twenty.

As she straightened the ALS rig, Maya laughed.

“Nice,” Reno said. “I sure hope you’ll be more careful with that vintage Mustang—if you ever get it street legal.”

“If,” Maya said, drawing out the single syllable. “The two-row-core radiators don’t have enough cooling capacity for the inline-sixes, let alone a V8. Old ‘Stangs are always overheating—mine did the last time I had it on the road.”

The EMD radio buzzed. “We need all available units to 3^rd and Broadway. Vehicular accident involving pedestrians. Injuries reported.”

“Jesus,” Maya said.

Reno grabbed the radio. “Copy.”

Maya switched on the siren as they drove around Municipal Auditorium. Luckily, they were only a few blocks away from the scene, but people had already crowded the narrow one-way streets. She honked the horn and swerved around the cars as best she could.

“A car and pedestrians,” Reno said. “You don’t think this is a terrorist attack?”

“Don’t know. All I know is this traffic’s making it a pain for us to get there and find out.”

Several vehicles in front of them had stopped, and they were approaching them fast.

“Come on!” Maya yelled, laying on the horn. She groaned and blew a wisp of hair away from her face before cutting out around them, narrowly missing a newspaper stand as their tires popped up on the curb.

“All right. You might be as crazy as Raymond behind the wheel.”

Five cop cars had already blocked off Broadway in both directions, but Maya pulled the rig to the middle of the road so that she and Reno could jump out with their gear.

Some of the officers kneeled next to the wounded while others fought to keep the gathering crowds out of the way. As Maya approached, she saw about a dozen people on the ground. She looked for blood to figure out who needed medical attention first. On the sidewalk in front of WannaB’s Karaoke Bar, a sedan had crashed into a pole. Smoke billowed from under its hood. An officer hurried over to Maya and Reno as a firetruck came around the corner and another rig headed toward them from the other end of Broadway.

“Who is most critically injured?”

“This way.”

People were screaming. Some of the hurt reached for Maya and Reno as they passed by, and she bit her bottom lip, seeing the pain on people’s faces. They had to focus on the most critically injured first, though, and wait for back-up to arrive for the rest.

The officer led Maya to a woman lying on her side. Blood streaked her blond hair, and she clutched the bump that was her stomach. Maya kneeled.

“What’s your name, sweetie?” she asked, keeping her tone soft and steady.

“Courtney,” the young woman said with a stutter. She was wearing a pants suit and had likely been walking on the sidewalk when the car had run up onto the curb.

“All right, Courtney. I’m here and I’m going to take care of you. How far along are you?”

“Thirty-four weeks.”

“Okay, good, good,” Maya said. She put on her stethoscope, checking Courtney’s heartbeat. As expected, it was high. She moved her hand down to Courtney’s stomach, feeling for blood—and movement. “Can you tell me what happened?”

“I was walking down the sidewalk when I heard people screaming. I turned around, and a car was coming right at me. I dove out of the way—landed on my side, but I still hit my stomach. God, please, tell me my baby is all right.”

Maya looked in the woman’s ears and then checked pupil dilation, to make sure she didn’t have a concussion.

“Is my baby going to be all right?”

“Everything’s going to be fine,” Maya said, wanting her words to be true, but she needed to get the pregnant woman into her rig immediately.

She stood and signaled to a nearby police officer who ran over.

“We need to get this woman to the St. Thomas ER right away,” Maya said, her voice soft enough that the woman wouldn’t hear. “Get a stretcher over here immediately while I stay by her side.”

The cop ran off, waving to a nearby paramedic who had an empty rig. Maya made eye contact with Reno, who was helping an elderly man clutching his left leg. She was sure he could see the concern in her eyes. She then returned her attention to the pregnant woman, kneeling next to her again.

“What’s happening?” Courtney asked. “Am I okay? Is my baby all right?”

Maya gave her a short but bright smile. “You and your baby are going to be fine. We’re preparing to take you to St. Thomas. I’m going to get you some oxygen, and then we’re going to put you on a stretcher. Just a precaution, all right?”

The crying woman nodded. Maya placed an oxygen mask over her face, nodding at the pregnant woman to encourage her to draw the pure air from the tank. The other paramedics arrived after another moment, and Maya held Courtney’s hand as they loaded her onto the gurney. With Reno still treating folks at the scene, she’d have to trust other paramedics to get the pregnant woman to the ER.

The woman’s eyes shot from one paramedic to the other, her hands caressing the bulge of her stomach the entire time as the workers placed her into the back of the rig. Maya watched them until the door shut. For as long as she’d been doing this, these moments never got easier.

Reno called out to break into her focus on the woman then, and Maya took off running toward him as sirens ripped through the city streets of Nashville.

Maya pulled into St. Thomas forty-five minutes after they’d arrived on the scene of the accident. Reno sat in the back with a man who’d been grazed by the vehicle. When the man had landed, he’d dislocated his shoulder. Reno and Maya had decided to bring him to the hospital themselves to make sure that was all that was wrong with him, as well as to clean up his cuts and bruises. These days, even the slightest bump to the head could leave someone concussed, and an untreated brain injury could cause problems for months, if not years.

They signed him in at the ER entrance, and then Maya walked to the front desk. An attendant named Jean sat behind the counter.

“Hey, Jean. Do you know where they took the pregnant woman that was brought in here from the accident on Broadway?”

“They’ve got her in Room 7.”

“Thanks.”

“Hey,” Jean said. “What happened down there? I heard a car ran into some people on the sidewalk.”

Maya nodded. “It was an elderly woman. Apparently, she thought she was having a heart attack, panicked, and lost control. She ran up onto the sidewalk on the corner of 3^rd and Broad. Hit a bunch of pedestrians.”

“My God.”

“Yeah. I was helping the pregnant woman, so I’m going to go check on her.”

Reno was standing behind Maya when she turned around.

“You want me to come down there with you?” he asked.

Maya shook her head. “You don’t have to do that.”

“I don’t mind.”

“Shift’s over. You did your 12 hours. Now go on and head home. I know you’re exhausted.”

“All right. Well, shoot me a text and let me know how she is, all right?”

“Can do.”

Maya was almost to the double doors when Reno called after her. “You did good out there today, Talbot.”

A smile was her only reply. Then she headed through the doors.

When she arrived at the central corridor of the ER wing, Maya flashed her ID card at the electronic pad and the doors swung open to let her inside. She walked down the hallway toward Room 7. She looked through the window, and her eyes went wide.

A nurse held a newborn baby in her arms—the umbilical cord still attached and covered in blood. Courtney lay motionless on the operating table.

A doctor left the room even as Maya peered through the window, removing the gloves from her hands. Maya waved her down.

“Is she all right?”

“She’s going to be fine. The baby is premature, but he seems to be in good health. They’re transferring him to NICU. Are you family?”

“No. I’m the paramedic who was on the scene.”

“You saved that child’s life. The umbilical cord had wrapped around his neck. If we hadn’t operated right away, he might not have made it.”

“I was just doing my job.” The cliché burned her ears, but it was all Maya could think to say. She sighed and then choked back a sob. They’d made it in time, and she’d had the instinct to get Courtney into a rig despite her otherwise “minor” injuries.

“You’re a hero. Accept it.”

Maya smiled, and the doctor returned the gesture before she walked away.

After glancing into the open door of Room 7, Maya realized the premature baby would make it. And his mom would wake up to meet him.

She yawned and felt the ache in her lower back. She’d long ago accepted pains like this in exchange for saving lives. It was that sense of satisfaction that kept her coming back for each next shift.

But, for now, she wanted to get home to her kids.