The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike, est. 2007) Part 2829 by Angharad Copyright© 2015 Angharad

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This is a work of fiction any mention of real people, places or institutions is purely coincidental and does not imply that they are as suggested in the story.
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Simon grabbed the injured man and I slammed the door shut as something banged hard against it. After the troubles with various Russian criminal gangs we’d had the door strengthened by addition of a half inch of toughened steel added to the already thick oak.

“What happened?” asked Brown.

“Lie still, you’ve been shot.”

“I often wondered what it felt like,” he groaned. “It hurts.”

“Get Stella,” I told Simon, “And keep down. Do the shutters.”

Stella arrived and almost fell over when I told her to get down. I could hear Simon and the older girls shutting the shutters none too quietly. Stella pulled open his coat and then his shirt. “Ambulance,” she mimed at me.

“Yeah, we’ve got at least one shooter, they’ve hit a visitor who may or may not have been the target. Okay, we’ll await your arrival.” Simon looked at me, “How’s he doing?”

“He’s still alive, don’t know if they hit anything important, but in the chest there’s quite a chance of it. Stella’s with him, Can you check all the windows upstairs?”

“Okay, you going to blue light him?”

“I held his hand and nothing happened.”

“Oh, is that normal—you know—usual?”

“Not really. Most people who’ve been shot will take help from wherever they can get it.”

I heard Stella calling instructions and Sammi ran to her with a pack of sanitary towels. Stella snatched a couple from the bag and held them against the wound. Brown was lying on his back with his eyes closed. I looked at Stella who shook her head.

“Help is on its way,” I said loudly enough for Danielle to hear it in the lounge, ‘Good,’ I heard her call back.

The problem in being stuck inside is you can’t see what’s happening outside, especially at night. Trish was wanting to use my image intensifier to look for the villains but Simon went off to find it and see what he could see. I asked Trish to help me and she understood, albeit reluctantly.

We both grabbed one of Brown’s hands, they were flaccid suggesting he was either unconscious or in deep shock, Stella kept saying to him to stay with her but he wasn’t responding. She knelt over him pushing hard on the pads over the wound.

“Hello Jason, it’s Cathy Cameron here, try and listen to my voice it will help you feel better and recover quicker.” As I spoke a helicopter sounded close by presumably doing a sweep with thermal imaging and infra red cameras, once it was safe the police and ambulance would be here very quickly.

“Jason, just cooperate with what I tell you and you’ll be okay. In case you aren’t aware you’ve been shot, Stella who is a trained nurse is helping control the bleeding and the ambulance is on its way, so hang in there. I want you to watch out for a blue light, you can’t miss it and follow it. Once you see it, stay with it, it will lead you back to safety. I’m just going to see if I can stop some of the bleeding, I’m sorry if it hurts.” I placed my right hand over the wound and Stella’s hand, she withdrew hers and I took over the pressure at the same time powering energy into the wound.

“Cor,” said Stella pulling back and grimacing at the smell of burning. It was pretty gross.

I continued my energy assault upon the wound and knew the bleed was much reduced as was the hole. The helicopter was very close now and I hoped that meant our attackers had fled. Things were starting to look as if we might just save Jason Brown—then his heart stopped. How did I know? I know these things, especially when I have an energy bond with the person. Oh shit—just what we didn’t need, CPR is going to add to the bleeding but if we don’t do it, he’s dead.

I looked up and saw Brown standing by his body looking down at it. “What are you doing?” I said angrily to him, “Get back in there.” He looked at me in horror, suddenly realising what was happening. While he did so, Trish who’d also seen him stood up and pushed his ethereal body and it fell upon his corporeal one and was absorbed again. “And stay there,” I said loudly.

I began CPR shoving in the energy while pumping on his chest. Some minutes later I was aware of a different sort of blue lights as emergency vehicles filled our driveway and the banging on the door accompanied by shouts of, ‘Police,’ tended to confirm it.

Simon opened the door and two police and a couple of paramedics ran in and we shut the door again. “Keep going,” said the senior paramedic as they unzipped green bags and pulled out their equipment.

“No pulse, how long d’you reckon?” he asked.

“Couple of minutes, I’ve been doing the compressions.”

“Okay, we’ll defib.” He began shaving Brown’s chest to stick the electrodes to the skin. “Why are they always so effing hairy?” he muttered to himself. His mate kept up the pressure on the wound.

‘Analysing’ said the machine, followed by ‘defibrillation starting, stand clear.’ It did this three times before the flat line changed to one of peaks and troughs and the machine printed this off, presumably for the hospital to see. A stretcher was brought and to my astonishment, they closed the main road and landed the air ambulance, the police chopper keeping an eye on things from above.

“He going to make it?” I asked the paramedic quietly.

“Lady Cameron, if he hadn’t met you, he’d be a body bag case. After your help, I expect so.” He winked and they ran down the drive the stretcher being carried by the two paramedics and two policemen. I watched as they loaded the helicopter and one of the paramedics got in and moments later the rotors increased their speed and the machine left the ground. A minute or two later, the police let the traffic start again and I came in.

We sat in the kitchen drinking tea. “Special Branch are on their way.”

“Did you catch the sniper?”

“No, he probably ran off as soon as he fired at you. The problem is all of these nutters have been trained by the Israeli army, so they know what they’re doing with weapons.”

“That’s great consolation to know they won’t shoot themselves by mistake.”

“How d’you think it feels for us, we’re the poor buggers who have to go and look for them.”

“Sorry, I hadn’t thought of that, but standing next to the guy who was shot tends to focus the mind on your own safety.”

“Understandable,” he said as senior officer I’d seen up in London walked into my kitchen. After making him some tea, we went to my study for him to take a statement. Then he spoke to Simon, Stella and finally Sammi who handed him a DVD—the result of the cameras outside the house some of which are infra red.

“He shoots twice and legs it. Motorbike down by the end of the drive.”

“I don’t suppose you got the number?”

“Of course I did, it’s on there too. Here,” she handed him a slip of paper.

“How did you do that—the number plate thing?”

“It’s all computerised, I devised a software to focus in on number plates which it recognises and also faces. It should have sent an email to your incident room as well.”

He looked astonished which made her smirk just a little—smart arse.