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Home / Emotional Realism Short Story / Ambulance at Ten Miles an Hour / Chapter 1 - Chapter 10

All Chapters of Ambulance at Ten Miles an Hour: Chapter 1 - Chapter 10

11 Chapters

Chapter 1

Deep winter. Two thirty in the morning. The apartment complex had gone dark and silent.My phone rang. The hospital, emergency line. A car accident victim with intracranial bleeding. Surgery needed within thirty minutes.I grabbed my coat, snatched up my keys and phone, and ran for the door.I hopped on one foot, wrestling my shoes on while confirming details with the hospital. "Prep the OR. I'll be there in thirty minutes!"The door next to mine cracked open with a low creak."Where are you going this late?"A woman's voice cut through the predawn hallway, so sudden I nearly lost my balance.I looked up and saw my neighbor, Gina Mercer, watching me with an odd smile.She looked like she'd been standing behind her door the whole time, listening for any sound from my side.We were barely on nodding terms. The whole thing struck me as odd, but I didn't have time to think about it."Emergency surgery. I'm in a rush."I darted past her and jabbed the elevator button."Isn't your car in the

Chapter 2

Gina reached up and closed the call log on her phone.Only then did I notice she'd called her husband three more times while I wasn't looking. He still hadn't answered.She didn't answer my question. Instead, she asked one of her own. "Tell me something, Dr. Kent. When a man doesn't answer his wife's calls in the middle of the night, is it because something happened to him, or because he's cheating?"The shift caught me off guard. "Maybe... bad signal?"Gina scoffed. "Bad signal? Is that why every time you go out in the middle of the night, my husband's phone just happens to have a 'bad signal'?"I froze, not following her at first."What? What are you talking about?"Gina laughed softly. "Every time my husband works late, you have an emergency. Tonight he won't even answer his phone. So I'd like to ask you: what exactly is going on between you two?"It finally clicked. Now I understood why she'd been acting so strangely all night.She actually thought I was having an affair with her h

Chapter 3

Nathan Mercer?Wasn't that Gina's husband's name?I remembered what Gina had said. Her husband's phone had been pinging near the hospital all night.It hit me.My heart lurched. I spun toward Gina. "Drive faster! Gina, your husband's been in an accident! I have to save him!"She slammed on the brakes. "What are you talking about?"I held up my phone, jabbing at the report that had just come through. The name on it was unmistakable: Nathan Mercer."The hospital just sent the test results. The accident victim is Nathan. He's in the ER right now!"Floor it!"I kept swallowing, but Gina made no move to drive.A twisted smile spread across her face. "How do you know his name if you two barely know each other?"I sputtered. Of all the things to fixate on. "I found out his name when I brought him medicine that one time."One night after work, a medication delivery for Nathan was left at my door by mistake, so I took it over to him.That was the only real interaction we'd ever had."Bullshit!

Chapter 4

Three minutes later, the car stopped in front of an apartment complex.A young man, shivering and hunched against the cold, climbed into the back seat.He rubbed his bleary eyes and greeted Gina. "What's going on? Why so late?"Gina turned to him. "Danny, I need to know. Where is Nathan tonight?"This was Nathan's assistant. I was at a loss for words. A man was dying, and she'd made a special trip just to ask him this."Don't bother covering for him. I have a tracker on his phone. I know he's at the hotel next to the hospital."Danny blinked. "Mr. Mercer said he didn't feel like going home and wanted to stay at a hotel for the night. I dropped him off at eleven and went home.""All right. Thanks. Go back to sleep."Danny rubbed his eyes, bewildered, and shuffled back inside."Still won't admit it, Dr. Kent? He's at a hotel tonight. The man at the hospital can't be him."And a man who avoids his wife to stay at a hotel? If that's not cheating, what is?"What could I possibly say? The as

Chapter 5

Gina grabbed a fistful of my hair and yanked me backward. It felt like my scalp was being peeled off. My vision went dark from the pain.I spun around and slapped her across the face as hard as I could.She screamed and let go. I snatched the key from her hand and unlocked the doors.Click.The door swung open and freezing air rushed in. I tumbled out of the passenger seat and hit the asphalt, my knees slamming into the pavement. My entire leg went numb for half a second.Behind me, Gina kicked her door open and came after me, her heels hammering the ground like a death march.I scrambled to my feet and ran.The alley was deserted. Streetlights stretched my shadow long and crooked across the pavement.The footsteps behind me grew louder. I didn't dare look back, just gripped my phone and sprinted.Around the corner, a delivery driver sat on his scooter checking his GPS. It was like being thrown a lifeline."Please!" I threw myself toward him, my knees nearly giving out. I fumbled my ho

Chapter 6

Gina had followed me.I had never hated anyone as much as I hated her in that moment. I wanted to tear her to pieces.The SUV pulled up right behind the cab. The driver caught on fast. "You know her?""A neighbor. She's got the wrong idea about something, and she's trying to stop me from getting to the hospital. My patient can't wait. I don't have time to explain it all to her."The two cars pulled alongside each other. Even through the glass, Gina's contorted face radiated hysteria.The driver frowned, said nothing, and pressed the gas a little harder.But the SUV stayed on us, swerving from the middle lane to the left. Its headlights in the mirror grew brighter and closer.Gina rolled down her window. Her hair whipped wildly in the wind, tear tracks streaking her face, but the voice that came shrieking through the night was almost gleeful. "She's a homewrecker! She seduced my husband! Don't help her!"The driver visibly eased off the gas.The speed dropped from a hundred to eighty. M

Chapter 7

All I felt was the airbag slamming into my face. My nostrils filled with the smell of gunpowder.My forehead cracked against the headrest in front of me. Everything went black. A ringing in my ears lasted two or three seconds before sound returned.I checked on the driver. He seemed alert enough.I gave him a quick once-over. "It's just surface injuries. My colleagues will take you in for a full exam."He nodded and waved me off, telling me to get to the hospital.The cab sat crooked in the middle of the intersection, its right front crumpled inward, the bumper dragging on the asphalt.The white SUV was wedged against my side of the cab, its headlights shattered across the pavement. Gina stumbled out of the driver's seat with a gash on her forehead, but she didn't seem to feel it.I shoved the door open. My knees were already wrecked from the earlier fall, and slamming them against the door frame tore a gasp out of me.But I didn't stop. I broke into a limping run toward the hospital.

Chapter 8

The head nurse's face fell."Still in the OR." She paused, lowering her voice. "Get up there now. One more minute and we'll lose him for good."Gina's voice rose behind me again, ghostlike and shrill. "One minute and he's gone? And you call yourself a doctor? Why don't you take another ten minutes and really show us what you're made of."Before she finished, she kicked my wheelchair and sent me sprawling onto the floor.The head nurse hadn't seen it coming. She scrambled to help me up.The staff around us rushed to form a barrier.I clenched my teeth and looked at her. "Gina, if someone dies tonight, you'll be a killer. No, worse. You'll be the woman who killed her own husband. You'll live with that for the rest of your life."Everything you've done tonight, the law won't let it go. And neither will anyone who saw it."Gina's smile was savage. "The one who should die is you, you slut!"So what if Nathan actually dies? A man who sneaks off to hotels to meet other women? Who cares if he'

Chapter 9

The surgical lights went dark.I peeled off my gloves and dropped them into the biohazard bin. The blood on the rubber had already dried to a dark brown.The head nurse stood beside me, silent. The monitor had gone quiet. The only sound left in the OR was the scrub nurse counting gauze in a low murmur.I took a long look at Nathan. I barely knew him. We'd nodded at each other in the elevator, nothing more.But tonight I'd fought with everything I had to save him. Forty minutes. He was trapped on one end of time, I was trapped on the other, and between us stood a woman who had lost her mind.The surgery had failed.Claire pushed through the door. She was the deputy chief of my department, covering the ER for me tonight."Dr. Kent..." She glanced at the operating table and didn't finish."Tell the family," I said.Claire nodded and walked out.I leaned against the wall and stood there for two seconds. My hands were still trembling.Not from exhaustion. From rage. Four hours of fury had b

Chapter 10

Gina's whole body jolted. She saw me.She dropped to her knees in front of me, right at the OR doors.Dawn was breaking. The hospital was filling with people. Everyone around us stopped.She lifted her head. Snot, tears, and blood smeared across her face. She looked up at me.Her voice came out strangled, as if someone had a hand around her throat. "Dr. Kent... please save him... I'm begging you..."It's all my fault. Every bit of it. Please save him."Wasn't she just saying she didn't care if Nathan lived or died?"I tried." My voice was flat, dead calm. "Forty minutes. You held me up for forty minutes."The words "forty minutes" hit her like a slap. A muscle in her cheek twitched.Then she raised her right hand and slapped herself across the left cheek.Smack.A sharp crack. Her head snapped to the side. A thread of blood seeped from the corner of her mouth.Smack.Again.The sound of each slap echoed through the crowded ER hallway, louder than the last.Hatred boiled inside me. I wa

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