Chapter 3 - Station 42 and Real Emergencies
Station 42 sat on the industrial fringe of the county, a brick bunker nestled between an abandoned freight yard and a cluster of aging subdivisions. It wasn't picturesque, but it was functional, smelling reliably of motor oil, bleach, industrial laundry detergent, and charred hickory.
When I walked through the bay doors, Captain Miller was already leaned over the workbench in the tool room, using a wire brush to clean the threads on an intake valve. He was fifty-two, had knees that clicked when the barometric pressure dropped, and possessed an uncanny ability to smell personal drama from sixty paces.
“You’re early,” Miller said without looking up. “And you don't look miserable. That means either your brother got hit by a bus, or you finally killed him.”
“Worse,” I said, stowing my gear in locker 14. “I canceled his Spotify.”
Miller stopped scrubbing. He turned around, wire brush in hand, his weathered mustache twitching slightly. “You pulled the plug?”
“The whole panel, Cap. Autopay is dead. The family fund is dissolved.”
Miller let out a low whistle that sounded like air escaping a pneumatic hose. “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. Did you bring an axe to Christmas dinner, or did you just drop the grenade and walk out?”
“Trevor flipped the turkey on the floor because I wouldn’t give him the keys to the F-250.”
“Why did he want the truck?”
“Forty-two fainting goats.”
Miller stared at me for five consecutive seconds. A firefighter’s brain spends years cataloging impossible human behaviors, but Trevor always managed to introduce new, uncharted categories of nonsense.
“Goats,” Miller said quietly.
“Miniature ones. For corporate wellness retreats.”
“In December.”
“In Ohio.”
Miller slowly nodded, turned back to his intake valve, and resumed scrubbing. “Well. At least if they faint, they won't slide as far on the ice. They’ve got low centers of gravity.”
Before I could reply, the overhead speakers cleared their throats with that sharp, electronic crackle that sets every firefighter’s pulse jumping before the tone even drops.
*PING. PING. PING.*
*“Engine 42, Medic 42. Respond to 744 Ridgewood Lane. Smoke investigation, possible residential structure fire.”*
Ridgewood Lane was less than three miles from my parents’ house.
Miller tossed the wire brush into a metal tray and grabbed his turnout coat from the rack. “Let’s move, Bennett. Let’s see what the regular citizens are burning today.”
I threw on my bunker pants, pulled the heavy suspenders over my shoulders, stepped into my boots, and climbed into the jump seat behind Miller. The big Detroit Diesel under the cab roared to life, the red bay doors slid up on their steel tracks, and Engine 42 lunged out into the snow, sirens wailing against the gray sky.
When we turned onto Ridgewood, there was no black header in the air, no billowing column of gray carbon to indicate a working fire. Instead, there was a thin, sickly haze of white smoke hanging over a split-level suburban driveway, accompanied by a smell that was distinctly, undeniably pungent.
It smelled like burning cardboard, rancid grease, and wet hair.
Standing in the driveway, frantically waving a snow shovel at our fifty-thousand-pound fire engine, was a man in an oversized green parka and yellow ski goggles.
Miller peered through the windshield. “Bennett. Tell me that isn’t who I think it is.”
I leaned forward, my face tightening as the scene resolved through the snow-speckled glass.
Parked in the driveway of the house was a rusted, twenty-foot livestock trailer attached to Trevor’s beat-up Honda Civic. The Honda’s rear suspension was completely flattened, the rear bumper dragging within an inch of the snow. Plumes of acrid smoke were pouring out from beneath the trailer’s tarp cover.
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And standing next to the man in the ski goggles—arguing violently with a neighbor who was holding a leaf blower—was Trevor.
***
