Richard Hale - Frozen Past

Jaxon lay on his back, dazed. Things swam in his peripheral vision, but the world around him remained eerily silent. The stars above winked down at him as an orange glow began to wash them out. Suddenly a face was above him, the lips moved, but no sound escaped them. Another face appeared next to the first and Jaxon recognized the two detectives from the van. One was gesturing frantically at something beyond Jaxon’s vision while the first continued to shout something at Jaxon he could not hear.

A low roaring began to rise in his ears and faint voices bled through the noise. Jaxon tried to sit up, but pain in his back forced him back down again. He realized he hadn’t taken a breath in a long while and opened his mouth, breathing in. He choked on something and spasms racked his body as he coughed uncontrollably. He rolled over on his side, gasping for air and saw the destruction laid out before him.

The shack was nothing but a burning pile of rubble on the ground. Fire shot up in a plume thirty or forty feet in the air and Jaxon’s mind was having a hard time wrapping itself around what it was seeing. Maybe a ruptured gas line? One of the detectives from the van shouted in his face and Jaxon barely made out “…alright?!”

Jaxon nodded and tried to sit up again taking it slow. Pain shot up his back but it was bearable. Something was laying across Jaxon’s legs and when he realized it was a severed arm clad in black with the words ‘SWAT’ stenciled on it, he kicked at it frantically, ignoring the pain that shot in spasms up his back. He saw blood dripping on his shirt and realized it was coming from somewhere on his head. Reaching up, he felt warm liquid ebbing from his nose, though he could not feel his fingers touching it. His face felt numb. He went to a kneeling position and tried to stand.

“Don’t think you should try that, Detective,” a voice said, faintly, through the roaring that continued in his ears.

He tried his voice. “Victoria?”

“What?” the detective yelled, but to Jaxon it sounded like he was whispering through cotton.

“Where’s Victoria?”

“I don’t know. I haven’t found her yet. It’s chaos. Are you ok?”

He nodded and stepped toward the burning wreckage. He had to find Victoria. The detective grabbed his arm, trying to hold him back. “No Sir! It’s too dangerous!” Jaxon shook him off and stumbled through the debris toward the fire.

“Vick!” he shouted, but his voice sounded so far away. “Victoria!” He tripped over something and saw a leg protruding from under a piece of siding. Ignoring the searing pain in his back, he bent and flung the siding off to find Sally staring face up at him, her eyes open and vacant. Her face was calm and unharmed. No dirt, or soot, or even a scratch could be found, but the lower half of her body was a mangled mess. Jaxon knelt and retched to the side. She was gone.

“Oh shit! Sally! Dammit!”

Scoggins was just to the left of where he and Sally were, or at least what Jaxon thought was Scoggins. He looked back down on Sally’s face and a feeling of emptiness swept through him. He could not believe how wrong this had all gone. This son-of-a-bitch had set them up and led them right into the lion’s den and now Sally lay dead in front of him, the SWAT Team more than likely suffering the same fate, and Scoggins in pieces scattered across the yard. He had to find Victoria, though he was terrified at what he might discover.

One of the detectives came up next to him. “Oh Damn!” he said. “I’m sorry Detective. Shit!” He then saw Scoggins and took a step toward him, but stopped. He turned and vomited all over his shoes.

Jaxon stood, pain shooting down his legs now, and scanned the area. A small swatch of white caught his eye in all the destruction and he shambled toward it. Victoria had been wearing a white blouse that evening but had covered it with the blue FBI jacket. He hoped he was not seeing part of her in the wreckage. Stepping over a piece of burning door, he saw an arm and hand sticking out from underneath it. He lifted the door and pushed it over out of the way exposing Victoria laying face down in the weeds. She was bleeding from her head and her FBI jacket was torn half off. He knelt and placed a shaking hand on her back. She was breathing.

“Hey! You! Detective! Help me. She’s alive!” His voice still sounded far away, but he could see the detective react to his voice and step quickly through the debris toward him.

“The ambulances should be here soon,” he shouted. “We called them as soon as the blast went off.”

“Help me carry her away from here,” Jaxon said.

They picked her up carefully and lay her by the street. Her hair was matted with blood and she had small spots of it soaking through her clothing scattered all along her back, but Jaxon could see no other injuries. He was relieved. She had been the one closest to the front door, yet had survived while Sally and Scoggins had not.

She came to and rolled onto her back, moaning. Jaxon knelt down next to her and smiled at her when she looked at him. “Hey there,” he said.

“Are we dead?” she asked, and though Jaxon’s hearing was starting to come back, he still could not hear what she said, but could read her lips.

“I was worried there for a minute you were,” he said.

“You were worried?”

He nodded.

“About me?”

“Scared shitless,” he said and she finally smiled, but then winced in pain.

“What the hell happened?”

Jaxon looked up at the destruction and shook his head. “He must have rigged it to blow. He must have some surveillance cams around here somewhere. He knew exactly when we were going in.”

“Sally?”

Jaxon shook his head and looked away. “Scoggins too. I don’t know about the SWAT team. I haven’t seen anybody else come out of there but me and you.”

“Aw shit, Jaxon.” She looked angry, even with all the blood streaked on her face.

He saw flashing red lights and watched as the ambulance pulled up followed by a fire truck and two squad cars.

“You look like shit,” she said.

“Thanks. So do you.” But he smiled at her and reached for her hand. She clasped it in hers and held it tight to her chest.

“Stay here with me?” she asked.

“Sure.”

“He’s moving,” John said suddenly, startling the others out of their own thoughts. It had been an hour since Luke first called Jaxon and he had tried every fifteen minutes since, but Jaxon had not called them back. Luke was starting to get worried and Ellie kept looking at him with her sad eyes, as if asking him to come up with something. He was just about to try Jaxon again when John spoke up.

Luke went to the computer and watched the blip slowly move across the map. He was heading past the tennis courts in the direction of the pool complex.

“Do you think he’s on his way to do it?” Ellie asked.

“I have no idea,” Luke said, but was worried she was right.

“We need to call somebody,” Ellie said.

“Nobody will believe us,” Jimmy said. “We’re just a bunch of punks to them.”

“It’s their job,” Ellie said. “They’re supposed to believe us.”

“Come on, El,” Jimmy said. “If somebody called you with this crazy story, would you believe them?”

“Jaxon’s the only one who knows what’s going on,” Luke said. “Jimmy’s right. Nobody will take us seriously.”

“We have to do something!” she said. “We can’t just sit here and watch.”

“I know,” Luke said, frustrated, “but what can we do?”

“Call 911," Ellie said.

“What do I tell them?” Luke said.

“I don’t know,” she sounded frustrated. “Tell them we think somebody is going to be killed.”