Flash Fiction #1 -- She Missed

JLP

11/18/2023

Flash fiction -- a short story written in under an hour and with little editing.

"Hey officer, could you at least help me move this guy from the bin?"

I had brought this guy down from the emergency department but it had taken a while for me to get to the body. I had come to learn that he was somebody important and that he was killed while at the Blazer game.

In fact, I didn't have much to do for the past few hours as they shut down the whole ED once this guy was brought in. We were only a few miles from the Memorial Coliseum, where the NBA basketball team, the Portland Trail Blazers played. They had won the championship 9 years prior and were very popular and all the games were still sell-outs, with 12,666 seats for every game.

It seemed as if the whole police department and fire department were at the hospital and were all standing in the parking lot of Emmanuel Hospital, where I worked as a porter. It was a cold night and I could see the breath of everyone milling around as I peered out of the ground floor window.

I had been listening to the radio broadcast of the Blazer game and they were up just a few points over the Philadelphia 76ers, the team they had beaten in the finals 9 years prior. It was now halftime. An announcement came over the halftime show stating that the rest of the game had been delayed and was going to be finished on a different day due to an incident during the halftime show where someone was injured.

I really hadn't thought much of it until the calls to evacuate the ED outside of essential personnel and have the rest of the hospital in lock-down came over my radio. I had never heard anything like this before. It wasn't long before the sirens came.

As best I was able to decipher, from snippets from radio broadcasts and talking to the cops and firemen was that this was some sort of Soviet diplomat, high ranking, who had come to discuss the Arvydas Sabonis draft pick the Trail Blazers had made.

Now this had my attention.

Sabonis was Lithuanian and as such, was under the umbrella of the Soviet Union. Sabonis was one of the best basketball players in the world and it was unlikely that the USSR wanted to let him go to play in the United States. The Blazers had drafted him in the 1986 NBA draft, with the 24th overall pick. The only reason he was so low in the draft was because it was near certain that he would not be allowed to play in the NBA -- possibly forever, but definitely not for a long time. Other teams did not want to waste a pick on a player who was effectively unavailable.

Igor Kuslova was the diplomat's name. And now he was in the bin, which was a gurney that looked like a magician's box where people were cut into thirds. Gurney's with a sheet pulled over the deceased's head catches more eyeballs than the bin. I had just pushed the bin out of the ED and into the service elevator and down into the basement, where the morgue was.

It was me, Igor in the bin and two officers, both wearing black suits with cool twisty cords from their collar to some earpiece. I looked at the other one after getting on response for help moving Igor from the bin.

"We are not officers, we are agents. Refer to us as agents." This is what the other one said. Neither moved to help me.

I lowered the side of the bin and moved it closer to the table that slid back into the refrigerator where the bodies were stored. As I did this, something fell to the floor, and clanked to the side of the room. The first agent pulled a gun and was on one knee pointing his side arm at whatever fell from the bin. The second agent took a step towards me and he also had his gun out. It was pointing at my face.

I looked down at whatever had clattered to the corner of the room and all I saw was a thin black pencil looking thing, with one end being stained with what looked like blood.

One of the cops in the parking lot had told me that Igor was killed by an arrow that went right through his heart. This arrow was shot by the halftime act. She was upside down and shot the arrow from a compound bow with her feet. Igor was behind the backboard, about 15 rows up and her aim was true. Unconscious within seconds and dead within a minute.

I had my hands up. The agents slowly lowered their guns. I gave both of them an exacerbated look. They still did not move to help me move Igor. I locked the wheels on the bin and move to the other side of the table and reached across the table to grasp the sheet which ran under and up and around Igor.

I had been working for a porter for about 4 years. I learned right away that sometimes, when the freshly dead bodies are moved, there is still air in their lungs and when they are moved, some of this air comes out of the lungs, and can make a noise. Usually it sounds like a guttural moan. While always somewhat disquieting, it had become routine.

I reached for the sheet and pulled. Igor barely moved. I braced myself against the table and the wall behind me and really yanked on the sheet. Igor moved. Igor was no small man. Igor also made a noise, as the sheet was wrapped around his thorax. I saw the agent raise his gun at me again. I jumped back, letting go of the sheet and Igor rocked back towards the bin. He had some more air in those big lungs of his and another moan came out. Even his post-death moans sounded Russian.

The agent pointed his gun at the body. I slowly relaxed. The second agent, who had not drawn his gun a second time gave his partner a stern look. He slowly lowered his gun.

"Look, agents, bodies have gas and the gas comes out and the gas makes noise." I raised my hands in the air with the palms facing the buzzy fluorescent light tubes behind browning plastic, as if to say, what do you want me to do? One of the agents picked up the pencil looking thing from the corner of the room. He put it on the table on the other side of the bin. I could now clearly see that is was a busted piece of a wooden arrow.

I gave the agents a look and a gesture, as if to tell them that I was going to try and move Igor to the table. They did not protest, which I took as a blessing. I braced myself again and with a few hefty jerks of the sheet had Igor moved from the bin to the morgue table. I took his sheet off of him and could clearly see the hole the arrow had occupied. Igor was covered in blood from his chest down. Some modest attempts at cleaning him had occurred in the ED. I moved to push the table into the cooler. Again, with some heft, I managed to get the table moved and the door closed.

I began to pick up my things and prepare to move to the next task. I turned to the agents.

"Does this mean we're getting Sabonis, or not?" I asked, not really expecting an answer. I began to move towards the elevator, as now that the lockdown was over, there were dozens of CTs, XRs and requests to move patients all over the hospital. And, more dead bodies that needed to be upgraded to the suite with AC.

I turned back as the elevator doors opened and I prepared to step inside. The agents were deep in quiet discussion and I thought I heard Russian words. I stepped into the elevator and hit the close button, not willing to wait for them to close on their own.