MY EYES OPEN to a light so bright I’m blinded. The air trembles from the wail of high-power engines. Everywhere dust and debris fly around me at a high rate of speed as if being whipped-up by a small tornado. For a moment, I think I’m being abducted by aliens. It takes a minute to realize I’m lying flat on my back in the dirt outside the smokehouse at The Uke’s cabin. It’s not a spaceship hovering overhead but a police chopper. Through the bright lights and the swirling debris, I can just make out the insignia of the New York State Police.
A paramedic kneels by my side. To reassure me, he says, “Don’t die on me.”
Standing looking down at me is Thomas Upton. He stares as if I’m Lazarus raised from the dead. He is flanked by a team of State Police wearing assault gear. I feel like Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz.
“What are his chances?” Upton says to the paramedic as if I’m not there.
“He’s lost a lot of blood. He’s suffering hypothermia, too. Not good. If he makes it till sunup, his chances improve. If he goes into shock...?”
I can almost hear the paramedic shrug. I try to ask about Gabby, about Mel, about The Chatterbox, about The Uke, but my lips are frozen in place; won’t budge. If they do, no words come out. I don’t want to pass out again because I know if I do, I won’t wake up. Which, given the circumstances, might not be the worst thing of all.
They transfer me from the ground to a stretcher basket, the kind they use to haul climbing victims from mountain-tops and survivors from ocean disasters.
As they raise me in the basket to the chopper, I have a fantastic view of the water. The surface of Elk Lake is frothy with mist created by the downdraft of the rotors. With the chopper’s powerful lights shining down, it looks like an Arctic wasteland of blowing and swirling snow. Around the cabin, I see the flashing red, white, and blue of a dozen roof-lights. People wander into and out of the frame. A few I know, most I don’t. I don’t care because I don’t see Gabby, I don’t see Mel. And I don’t see The Chatterbox cuffed and lying face-down in the dirt.
My last thought before losing consciousness is to wonder What the fuck have I done?