Story [Emergency!]Ten O'Clock High - Johnny owie - one-post

Title: Ten O'Clock High
Author: ardavenport
Timeframe: Sometime in the 1970's when everything was bad hair and polyester
Genre: Emergency!, drama, humor
Characters: John Gage, Roy DeSoto, and Rampart General Hospital Emergency staff
Keywords: Emergency! hospital, Gage, DeSoto
Summary: John Gage falls victim to an unusual experiment.
Notes: Typo is my middle name, with missing words and errors that spell checkers do not catch being my speciality - if you see any, just post a reply or send a PM with the what and where and I will kill them with no mercy.
Disclaimer: All characters belong to whoever owns the 1970's TV show Emergency!; I am just playing in their sandbox.



He heard a siren.

Getting louder.

But it wasn't the squad's siren. John Gage knew that one too well. This one was different. Higher.

Why was he hearing it?

He turned his head. Opened his eyes. He saw blurry gray and black and white. And blue.

Oh, no.

"Johnny?" Roy DeSoto, his partner.

There was an oxygen mask over his face. A taste like air and plastic.

"Hey, don't move. We're on our way to the hospital." Roy gripped his left arm. There was an I.V.

He reached with his right hand for the mask. Roy tried to stop him, but he pulled it down far enough down to speak.

" - - mm gon be sick - - "

The mask came off. When Gage turned to the side, straining against the straps of the stretcher, there was a paper bag for him to throw up in. Marco had made burritos for lunch. Roy loosened the restraint strap across his chest as the convulsions continued. Soon enough there wasn't anything left. But Gage lay trembling and panting over the bag for another moment, fearing that it would start again. He finally lay back down.

" - - aw nee aher? - - "

He could taste the stomach acid and refried beans all the way up in his nose.

"Here you go."

There was a cup of stale, warm water. But it was still water. Roy supported his head as he rinsed the worst of it back down his throat and snorted, trying to clear his nose. Roy wiped his face with a tissue.

"Here let's put this back on you."

Roy put the mask back over his nose and mouth, sliding the strap back over the back of his head. Air and plastic again, but it wasn't as bad as the burritos. The nausea receded. Blinking, Gage's vision cleared. His view of the boxy inside of an ambulance, drifted in a light-headed wander. His partner leaned over him. There was another person on a stretcher on the other side of the ambulance. Unmoving. Oxygen mask over his face. I.V. hanging overhead.

"He's the guy you tried to get out of the closet. He's pretty bad, but the oxygen is helping and he's stable now."

Gage nodded and relaxed, dropping his head back onto the pillow.

. . . . . tried to get out of the closet.

What an idiot.
.........................................................

When they entered the house with a shade tree in the front yard at exactly 10 AM, on a run of 'man unconscious', no one answered the doorbell. But it was unlocked and when they looked inside they found four unconscious people. In a living room with beaded curtains, bright pink sofas and psychedelic posters on the walls. They knelt beside each person. They were all alive and unresponsive.

"Roy, do you smell something besides incense?"

"Yeah, I think so."

They called for a fire engine to check for gas and started to drag the people out into the front yard. John had the last one, who stirred and asked about Dave and waved toward a closet. John set him back down on the pink sofa and went to look.

First mistake. Should have taken the victim out first, then gone to look. He did yell to Roy that there might be another one and that he was going to check.

The closet had a sliding door and silver duct tape all around the edge, but it was not sealed shut, just very hard to open. When the door came free it went back all the way and he felt like he'd walked into a wall of cold sickly air. The victim was propped in a corner. A male, maybe 25 to

 

This used to be one of my favorite shows!