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The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/Areys_Nin on 2024-09-25 19:19:55+00:00.

I’ve been working on the truck for, well coming up on ten years now pretty soon. So believe me when I say that in this job you see some shit. Some seriously weird, seriously fucked up shit and, like the title says, a man’s got to vent. I heard you guys like reading people’s stories, so here I am.

Now, I work in a smaller city, there’s only one hospital and only three or four trucks. It’s due to that fact that in this story I was at the end of a 24 hour shift of nonstop calls. Turns out both god and mother nature had decided that I was doomed to have a bad fucking day because it was hot as hell, too. We were sitting in the truck, just trying to relax for a few minutes, when we got a another call.

“We got a grandma that isn’t feeling well,” the operator informed us. Me and Red, my coworker on the truck, looked at each other with mutual “you hearing this shit” faces.

“Come on, you’re not even trying at this poin.t That’s the third sick grandma we’ve done today,” his voice was filled with surprisingly light sarcasm. Red has always been better at keeping his cool than I am. The worse things get the more calm and cheerful he becomes. It’s definitely more comforting than my more serious and tense demeanor.

Me and the 911 operator half heartedly laughed at Red’s joke before getting the address and speeding off to the house. As I raced the truck though traffic, I was unknowingly driving straight towards the most tense moment of my life. Maybe not the scariest, but that’s a story for another day.

When we pulled up to the house, it was a basic looking middle class place. We were let in by a 20 something young man with black hair and a metal band hoodie. As we walked in, there were a few faces around the living room all looking worried. There was the boy who let us in to our left, on the couch sat a middle aged woman who was nervously knitting, across from her by the door to the kitchen was an older man who leaned to one side, and as we entered, a small girl ran down the hall to a different part of the house. My eyes were focused on the middle of the room where ‘granny’ sat in a rocking chair. She was pale, the kind of pale you only see when things are going really bad.

“Hello, everyone,” Red greeted the room with a smile that was not returned. He turned to me instead, “Tough crowd huh, let’s get started.” He walked to the rocking chair and put his hand under the old woman’s scarf to check the pulse.

“Oh god!” he gagged and pulled away clearly trying not to vomit. I moved in quickly and removed the scarf. Turns out that “Grandma’s not feeling well,” translates to having her throat cut wide the fuck open. The whole room was stunned.

The older man something along the lines of “what the fuck- did someone cut her neck.” Let me tell you, it took every ounce of will power I had not to yell “No shit Sherlock.”

But I didn’t, I knew I needed to regain control of the situation and looked at Red. “Hey, you ok-” I didn’t give him time to answer. “-get to the truck, get us a cop and a coroner.” He had to get to the truck because for some reason our cheap ass hospital didn’t think personal radios were necessary for us to get the job done. Even though I could list infinite situations where they would be way way better, but hey they were able to save like $50, so worth it.

He ran out of the room and I was left alone with the family. It was deathly quiet. I draped the scarf over the dead women’s face and turned to that family. I opened my mouth to speak but the words escaped me when the dad spoke. “What- how did this happen?” the dad’s eyes locked with my own. I had to answer but I didn’t really have an answer to give. So I deflected.

“The cops are on they’re way so we’ll just sit tight for now.” I announced to the room. It was then that I heard the worst thing someone on edge could hear. Fast foot steps rushing down the hall to my right, but as I turned my head I only found a 10-12 year old girl. I took a deep sigh to try and unstick my heart from my throat. Then the child spoke.

“Daddy’s box is open,” my eye darted to the older man in the room I had assumed he was ‘daddy’ which was confirmed when he said.

“Was the gun still in there?” We’re in the southwest so the box being a gun safe wasn’t the worrying part it was when she shook her answering no. The room burst into a cacophony of people shouting at each other I almost joined them. Instead I was drowned out by a young man in a dumb band shirt yelling.

“EVERYONE SHUT THE HELL UP!” the room fell deathly quiet, me most of all because the voice came from behind me. I slowly turned on my heels to face him. He had the gun, and it was pointed right in my face. Have you ever looked down the barrel of a gun, not metaphorically but actually looked into the dark tube to see the bullet in the chamber. It’s scary, to look at and know that in any moment, with any movement, your life could be over. Not to mention that it’s even scarier when you know that the person holding the gun is a dumb teen with a stupid ass band shirt. So I held my hands in the air, and I spoke.

“Hey, let’s calm down-” he didn’t let me continue.

“You said the cops are coming?” I guess he was still a few steps behind. There was a pause as I contemplated what to say, I was frozen in fear. I just wanted to escape, just a way out. It was like if I didn’t say anything nothing could happen, but of course that’s not the way it works. “Hey!” the boy’s yell brought me out of my own head.

“Yes, but let’s think ok, if the cops come bursting in here and see you holding me at gunpoint. what are they going to think?” I tried to appeal to the logical side of the kid, but I didn’t have the chance to see if i had convinced him. The next few seconds were a bit of a blur, so I’ll give it from my P.O.V. then what really happened.

I had my hands held at my level with my head, the door burst open, I squeezed my eyes shut, there was a bang, yelling, a body hitting the floor, and grunts of pain. But there was no pain, I’d had heard from patients how you don’t feel gun wounds at first, only the pain never followed. I was surprised to find myself still standing when the chaos had subsided. It was only then that I opened my eyes.

I was told by red later that the cop had grabbed the kid scaring him and making his shot only graze me. the teen was put in hand cuffs, and arrested. I was lucky being left with just a burn on my cheek.

My break is all most over so I have to wrap this up. Both me and Red were called to testify at the court case, the kid was guilty, not much came from it other than us both getting a day off. There’s not really a moral to this story, if I had to say I guess it’s that I’m lucky enough to dodge a bullet but not lucky enough to not get shot at in the first place. If y’all like this maybe I’ll post again, I got plenty more to rant about.