EYEHEARTZOMBIES

The radio looked like it still worked. Not that Seth knew how to use one, anyway. He picked up the handset and clicked the press-to-talk button. “Uh. Hi. I — uh — I need help. I’m at — uh — I’m on Grand Avenue. Uh. Can you send an ambulance or something?” He released the button and waited for a response. Nothing. Not even static.

Seth leaned forward and looked at the radio slung under the dash of the taxi cab. The dial’s LCD numbers were glowing red at him, the number nineteen. A big dial to the side of the LCD display said “Volume” and was turned way down. He turned the dial to full force and said “Hello?” into the microphone.

Again, nothing. No static or an angry voice demanding to know who was using this channel, it was for cab drivers only! Just the silence, or as much silence as possible with buckets of rain pounding on the roof. He looked at all of the flips and switches on the radio and gave up.

Back out in the rain, the cabbie was still kneeled down by the girl, not moving. She, of course, was still where Seth had rolled her over. He could just barely see her chest moving up and down between rain drops. That was a good sign. He tapped the driver on the shoulder. Elijah jumped, obviously lost in his thoughts, and turned around. “Huh?”

“I don’t know how to work your radio.” Seth jerked a thumb over his shoulder toward the open door. “Can you call for help?” The man stared numbly at him still. “For her?” Seth pointed a finger back over the man’s shoulder toward the girl laying on the pavement.

Elijah didn’t look at the girl. He chuckled a few times before laughing once, loudly. “Ha! That radio’s busted all to shit. Ain’t no one callin’ out on that. It only plays what comes in. That’s how I knows about my pickups, ya see. Busted all to shit.” The man laughed again, his middle-age pot belly shaking. The jiggling was made obscene by the dying girl on the ground next to him. Seth held back an urge to knock out a tooth or three from Elijah’s pudgy mouth.

“Well, help me move her back to the library, then. It’s only a half of a block or so.” Seth moved around the fattening driver and the girl and bent down to pick up her feet.

“Shouldn’t we just leave her there? I mean, that’s what they always said on ‘Rescue 911′. Just leave people with bad injuries right where they lay. You move ‘em and and you’ll just hurt ‘em more. I ain’t touchin’ her.” He folded his arms over his belly and shook his head, like a king deciding on a prisoner’s life or death. He had decided to condemn the girl to death, it seemed.

“Listen, you fat fuck!” Seth screamed, the last word seeming to echo off of the rain drops. “I’m not leaving this girl in the middle of the fucking road! She’s still alive, you didn’t kill her. She’s alive and if we don’t get her out of the goddamned road, that might not last long. So help me move her!” Seth reached down and picked up her legs under her knees. He looked up at Elijah. “Come on, help me.”

Elijah’s eyes widened as if he was unable to believe he was going to do this, then reach down and picked her up by her armpits. The girl moaned softly, but the sound of it was lost in the rain and wind. If Seth hadn’t been looking at her face — strangely untouched by all of the destructive forces that had been against her today — he would have never noticed it. He wasn’t realy even sure he did, just that her mouth opened a bit and he could see one eye roll in its socket behind the closed lids.

They moved with her, completely onto the sidewalk, and began to walk back toward the library, Seth leading the way with her feet swinging down beside his hips. Seth hated walking backward, always made him think he was going to trip on something and fall flat on his ass. Oh well, this was definitely one time that he didn’t mind.

The two of them with their morbid package between them reached the stairs of the library and started up, now walking sideways to make the climb easier. At the top they were protected by the overhang with the chandelier. Elijah moved to set the girl down here.

“What are you doing?”

“You wanted her at the library. She’s at the library.” He sat her head down somewhat roughly and stood back up. “I’m done. I did my bit. I’m done.” Elijah turned to descend the steps and Seth grabbed his shoulder. Elijah turned, swinging his meaty right hand at Seth’s head and made contact. Seth fell back, sitting down on the wet stone of the landing. He dropped the girl’s legs at the same time, leaving her sprawled on the porch of the library.

“You ass! This is all your fault!” Seth yelled at the panicked fat man. He jumped back to his feet and lunged at the guy, knocking him off his feet. They slid, Seth on top, down a few steps until they were stopped by one of the longer steps that occured every five or six stairs. “If you want to run and hide, that’s too bad. You fucking hit her and you’re fucking helping me get her inside so we can call a fucking ambulance. God, you FUCK!” Seth was clenching the man’s jacket and screaming into his face. Spit mixed with rain and Elijah’s eyes widened. He started to blubber, but Seth just slapped him across his face and shook his jacket. “No, don’t start fucking talking, you fat ass. Just get up on your fucking feet and help me.” Seth sat back off the man and stood up, still holding his jacket. He halfway pulled the guy to his feet. “Come on.”

Seth turned and led the way back to the body. He couldn’t stop thinking of her as a body. He knew she was still alive, or had been back at the car, but she just looked so…crumpled. There was no way that was still a living, breathing person. He sighed and felt a catch in his throat. No, no time for that.

Seth turned, not sure if he’d see Elijah behind him or not. There he was, though, still wide-eyed and shaken. He picked up the girl’s shoulders again and Seth grabbed the knees. They carried her up to the library door and Elijah popped it open with an elbow. Seth caught it with his heel and in they went. Same method for the next door and they were inside, dripping wet.

“Hey!” The librarian stared at Elijah’s back with a mixture of frustration and boredom. “Don’t bring all that water in here! Go wipe your….” She trailed off when Seth moved around to the side and she could see the girl’s thin legs dangling.

“I need you to call an ambulance,” Seth said, amazed at how steady and calm his voice was. “There’s been an accicent. She got hit by a taxi. Call the ambulance.” The librarian was still in shock at the sight of the body. Her mouth was halfway open, dangling between “your” and “feet”.

What was wrong with all these people? Seth shook his head slightly and yelled “Now!” She jerked out of it and reached for the phone that must have bene under the circulation desk.

“But — what happened?” She was still a bit slackjawed, but seemed to have come back to her senses for the most part. She raised a cordless phone above the desk and looked at Seth for an explanation.

“I told you, she got hit by a car. Now call the fucking ambulance!” People were starting to notice the noise. The few people sitting in the reading area leaned around to look at the front desk. Seth felt his face turning red. Yelling in a library! What next?

The librarian was still standing behind her desk, phone in her hand. “A car. She got hit. OK. Yeah, ambulance. Need to call and ambulance.” She looked down at the phone in her hand, then back up at Seth. “Is she breathing? I mean, is she dead?”

Seth just stared at the librarian, struck dumb by her questions. What did it matter if she was alive or not? Why wouldn’t the librarian just call the goddamn ambulance and then ask questions? It wasn’t like the call would take that long! Just a few minutes and then people trained to deal with this kind of situation would be there, taking care of this situation. Then he could answer whatever questions she had while the girl was on her way to the hospital.

Hospital. That reminded him of his mother. He had to get to see her, find out if that was really the drug she was taking. No, the girl was more important right now, more immediate. He looked back up at the librarian and yelled at her again. “Hey! Call the goddamn ambulance! Now! Call them!” He knew his face was red already, but he could feel it start to glow with all of the people staring at him from the reading area. He glanced around and saw three or four faces from there. He also saw someone staring down from the third-floor balcony. The girl from earlier. His ears started to burn.

The librarian looked back at the phone again. She picked it up and pressed the nine key once and the one key twice. Then she held it to her ear.

Seth could hear the phone ring. Once, twice, then a voice. “Thank you for calling nine one one. What’s your emergency?” The librarian looked up at Seth again, her face blank and pale. She reached a hand up to fondle a curl of hair hanging down by her face.

“Uh, I, uh, really don’t know. A young man just carried in a girl. Uh. Here, you’d better talk to him.” She leaned over the counter and held the phone out toward Seth.

He set the girl’s feet and legs on the ground. Elijah leaned down to set her shoulders down and eased her head onto the floor this time. Seth watched him and was happy to see his acting gentler. He reached over and took the phone from the librarian’s hand. He still couldn’t believe the woman couldn’t tell an emergency operator what they needed, but this day was quickly turning into an exercise in stupidity.

“Hi. We’re at the City Library on Grand Avenue. A girl just got hit by a taxi out there. He didn’t see her and she stepped out or something. I don’t know. Anyway, she’s hurt pretty bad. One hand is all smashed up and her back seems to be broken. She’s breathing though, or she was. And she had a pulse when I checked. We brought her in. I know that was probably the wrong thing to do, but — ” Seth realized the phone had gone dead. What the hell? “The phone’s dead,” he said, turning to look at the librarian. She had a look of complete helplessness on her face for a split second.

Then the lights went out and someon gave a little scream in the stacks. The librarian gasped and Seth felt himself jump at the sudden darkness. He felt his way over to the front desk and sat the phone back down on it. It was useless in a power outage, of course. He needed a wired phone, or a cell phone. He felt someone touch his back.

“Hey,” Seth said and heard a “hey” from behind him. It was Elijah, feeling his way through the dark. Seth moved to the right a little and could feel Elijah find the desk too. The librarian was still standing where she was when the lights went out and Seth could smell her perfume. “Miss?” He hoped she’d know he was talking to her.

“Y — yeah?” Her voice was shaky. Seth couldn’t blame her. A nearly-dead girl and a power outtage all in the space of five minutes. He took a couple of deep breaths so he wouldn’t sound angry or anything.

“Do you have a wired phone somewhere? In someone’s office or something? Or a payphone? Anything but this one?” He held up the phone in the dark, unconcious of how pointless that action was.

The library was quiet for a few seconds while she thought. A few rustles came from the reading area where people started to shuffle their way toward the front desk. The windows on the third floor, way up near the ceiling, let in a tiny amount of light from the heavily overcast sky outside. Just enough to show a chair or table directly in front of someone, but no where near enough to move quickly or easily anywhere in this maze of furniture. Seth wondered about the girl on the third floor, whether she was trapped up there.

“Yes,” the librarian finally answered. “There’s an old rotary phone in the reference librarian’s office. I think it still works.” She rustled a few papers in front of her in the dark. “I’m not sure, though.” Seth could hear the worry in her voice. She sounded close to panic, too. He had had enough of that today.

“OK, good. Now, how do I get there? I need to call 911 again since I’m not sure how much of my call got through last time.” Seth hoped she’d say the office was somewhere here on the first floor, maybe in a room off from this main room. His hopes didn’t last long.

“It’s in the basement. The first level. It’s just down the stairs and around the….” He could hear the panic edge further into her voice when she remembered how dark it was. “Oh, dear. Maybe I have a flashlight here somewhere.” Seth could hear here digging around in the assorted junk under the circulation desk. A hollow tink sound was followed by the sound of liquid sloshing out. The librarian sucked in a breath and let out a small curse when her hand found the spill. She shuffled further down the desk a few steps, still feeling around. A more solid thunk led the sound of scambling fingers, then a weak beam of light shot out from under the desk.

She pulled the flashlight out from under the desk and shined it up into her face, momentarily putting it into harsh relief more approriate for ghost stories around a campfire than a rainy day in November in a library. “Here!” Her voice was almost ecstatic at the discovery and she handed the flashlight to Seth, handle first. He took it and went over to the girl.

He checked her breathing by putting a hand under her nose. Still there, but shallower than before. He felt for a pulse and found it to be weaker, too. She was alive, but not for much longer. “OK,” he said, standing up again. “I’m going to go down to the reference office and see if I can get ahold of someone to send out an ambulance. Uh, you guys just stay put. I’ll be right back.” His words drifted out into the library. He turned around and held the heavy, black flashlight out in front of him.

Seth swept the beam around the doorway leading to the stairs and the restrooms, took a deep breath and went through. The door to the basement stairs wasn’t locked and the knob turned easily. He wondered for the first time if the reference librarian or any one else was down in the basement, trapped in the darkness. “If they are, I guess I’m going to rescue ‘em.” No one heard this mutter but him. He pulled the basement door open and shined the beam down the flight of stairs in front of him. He pushed the door all the way to the far wall, made sure it would stay open on its own, then started down.