A Vagrant Story by Paul Croasdell Read Free Book Online Page A

piled then burned as to make the objects unrecognisable. It blocked a straight path to the exit and cast up fire like a defending blockade. The route to safety had been cut off.
    Alex would have cursed, but couldn’t muster the strength for it. He slid to the floor, allowing the blistering emotion of total failure to take control of his being. He coughed once, and that would have been the end of it.
    A blasting crash pummelled the room, rattling it like a snow globe. Further collapses began as if hastened and unified by the explosion. It might have been a gas canister for all he knew. For all he knew this might have been a fuel shop. What he saw was a new opening. That explosion cleared the flame and broke down a wall. He could see a way outside.
    Alex heaved the others on, all the while watching the flame - how quickly it moved to regain lost territory. Collapsing wood belted over his back, small to large pieces pushing him down. He moved still, despite it all. Yet he moved slow, too slow.
    The fire closed in and he’d not made half the distance. In his mind he forced himself to push on, until his legs buckled and he crumbled to his knees. To catch a moments rest he stayed there longer than he should have. The man he intended to save, instead lay limp on the ground as the fire crept ever closer.
    Hands grabbed Alex around the waist and lifted him to his feet. In a haze, he found himself being carried through the opening then planted outside on a chilly sidewalk. Fallen back on the ground he chanced a glance up. He saw Rum running back inside to grab the unconscious man. Sierra dragged Henry out in kind.
    Alex found his eyes opening and closing. Eyes open: he saw Rum place the other man by his side. Eyes closed: he heard voices calling and sirens ringing. Eyes open: he saw Rum helping Sierra carry Henry.  
    His head fell back against the stone. Eyes open: he lay there a moment, staring at the highest tips of the fire then down to a sign above the door. It burned like everything else but the words were clear. It read: Jack Matters’ basic supplies. When his vision lowered to ground level he saw the snow dotted with smashed bottles all of the same kind, some still lay unbroken and full, a tissue in the cap holding the liquid in.
    Eyes closed.
     
     
     
     
     

 
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
    Chapter 4
     
    The darkness of morning brightened to mid-day. It came as no surprise, the doctor’s brief handling of Rum and Sierra. The two were rinsed through procedure then tossed to the waiting room. Communication broke off from there.
    There seemed an unruliness to this hospital. In places, utensils lay on the floor near unattended gurneys, with unattended patients still in them. It looked as though the staff would drop their current task and dash off for another, leaving the previous patient in a forgotten state of purgatory. Rum labelled it a staff shortage issue during an observation based conversation. They’d been having a lot of those. He and Sierra had been waiting hours now and topics of discussion began wearing thin.
    On average, clinic time for the average bum tended to be ten to twenty minutes tops. This lengthy delay didn‘t seem to bode well for Alex and Henry.   
    ***
    Henry was starting to dislike hospitals, this one in particular. Upon being rushed here by ambulance they tossed him straight to a bed gurney. Following the procedural rubdown they gave an all clear and rolled him into this room. Other patients were dumped here too, dumped being the operative word. As Henry could tell the room appeared long enough to hold at least thirty patients, which failed to explain the odd forty or fifty sandwiched together.
    One doctor monitored the room. From the way he kept entering and leaving he might have been tending another room besides this. Occasionally he would speak to someone outside the door, perhaps another member of staff.
    Since Henry’s arrival, the doctor took a special kind of interest in