Old Chaos (9781564747136) Read Online Free Page A

a stethoscope and a blood-pressure cuff from her bag.
    “Hello, er,” Meg said. “She’s taking his vital signs.”
    “Who is speaking, please?” A foreign voice.
    “A neighbor.”
    “Huh.” The doctor, if he was a doctor, sounded cross.
    Kayla beckoned imperiously, and Meg handed the phone back. Kayla recited the kind of statistics Meg forgot as soon as she left a doctor’s office, listened for a considerable while, chewed on her lower lip, and said, “Yeah,” several times. “But he’s still unconscious.”
    Meg cleared ice from the man’s hands. He groaned.
    “An hour… okay. Thanks.” Kayla shut the phone off and slipped it into her handbag. “Dr. Singh says all the ambulances are in use. We’ll have to move him.”
    “How?”
    “The emergency blanket. Lay it out beside him and we’ll slide him onto it. I can cradle his head.”
    “You’re sure?”
    “Nope. I’m setting myself up for a lawsuit, but what the heck. I’m supposed to be a care-giver, right?”
    “Right.” I, on the other hand, am a librarian. Meg didn’t say that. She stood up. Her knees creaked. “You’ll have to tell me what to do.”
    “Take this into your house—it’s closer.” Kayla handed her the purse. “Light some candles while you’re at it. The power’s going to go out.”
    Sure enough, it did, just as Meg was pumping the Coleman lantern on her kitchen table. She managed to ignite the intimidating thing. The light it shed was bright and blue. When she got back to Kayla’s side in icy darkness lit only by the pickup’s headlights, the man was stirring.
    “Can we wait for him to wake up?”
    “No. Hypothermia.”
    Well, duh. Meg’s teeth were chattering.
    They contrived to slide the victim—or most of him—onto the aluminum blanket. His legs stuck over the end of the blanket. Kayla shielded his head.
    “Now what?”
    “Now we scoot him to your porch and lift him onto it. Then into your kitchen.”
    Meg spared a thought for her back, which was middle-aged. “I’m going to do the pulling?”
    “I’ll keep his head from banging on things. You pull.”
    It took some doing. The blanket slid readily enough, and the man didn’t roll off it. Clutching his ankles, Meg duck-walked, low to the ground, to avoid slipping. So did Kayla. Halfway up the sidewalk to the porch, the man moaned and threw up. Kayla had turned his head, so he didn’t choke on his own vomit, but it was a close call.
    “Cheerios and a Mars bar,” Kayla said, looking at the mess on the ice. She took a tissue from her pocket and wiped his mouth. He was unconscious again, if he had roused at all. Fright gave strength to Meg’s flagging arms and screaming thighs. She tugged hard at his ankles. When they reached the porch steps, she was panting.
    Kayla was not even winded. “One giant boost up to the porch, then we drag him into your kitchen. You have gas heat, right?”
    Meg shook the kinks from her arms and legs. “Propane. Rob said it should keep on working, because the thermostat’s so old it’s not electronic.” Meg’s house was the oldest on the block, older even than Rob’s gingerbread Victorian.
    “You may have the whole neighborhood in with you before the night’s out. My heat’s electric.” Kayla grinned.
    “You’re welcome to stay.” By tomorrow everybody in the county would know that the new librarian was having a flaming affair with her next-door neighbor. If they didn’t know already.
    “Thanks,” Kayla said. “On the count of three…”
    The first attempt failed. The man rolled off the blanket, face down in freezing slush. Under Kayla’s grim direction, they did better the second time, and Meg didn’t quite spring her back. She opened the door on a blast of heat. They got their patient into the room eventually. He lay still in a widening puddle of water.
    “Towels and dry clothes if you’ve got them.”
    Meg scurried off. She found a set of Rob’s sweats in the powerless dryer, and a thermal blanket