Free Please by Peter Darbyshire

out the window at the last bit of smoke rising from the truck. "Would have been perfect," he sighed.
    We found the way out and went down the street in the direction of the hospital. More fire trucks drove past us, and I could hear sirens in all directions.
    "This is really not a professionally run operation," Rachel said.
    "Maybe we should start a union or something," I said.
    "Maybe we should look for another job," she said.
    "What would we do?" I asked.
    "Something with benefits," she said. "In case we ever really get sick."
    When we turned into the hospital entrance, I started to head for the parking lot, but Eden stopped me.
    "Hey," he moaned from the back seat. "Emergency!"
    "But I can't park in Emergency," I said. "It's just for ambulances and stuff."
    "Emergency," Eden said again.
    "I think you can park long enough to bring someone inside," Rachel said. "You just can't leave it there."
    "All right," I said, "but I better not get towed."
    None of that mattered, though, because as I drove into the Emergency area, I collided head-on with an ambulance coming the other way.
    In the second before we hit, the ambulance driver and I stared at each other through our windshields. He opened his mouth to say something. Rachel screamed. Then the steering wheel came up and hit me in the face, and I couldn't open my eyes for a while.
    When I finally managed to force them open once more, I saw Eden staggering through the Emergency doors. In the ambulance, the driver was slumped back in his seat, unconscious or dead, I couldn't tell. The other paramedic was standing in the rear of the ambulance, holding his head with one hand and the inside wall of the ambulance with the other.
    "We'd better get out of here," I said, but when I looked over at Rachel, I saw that she was injured too. She was slumped back in her seat, and the windshield was cracked from where her head had hit it.
    "Help!" I called out. I tried to undo my seat belt, but it was stuck. "Help!" I called again, this time to the paramedic who was conscious. He was out of the ambulance and stumbling around to the front of the vehicle now. He looked my way, then opened the driver's side door of the ambulance and dragged out the other paramedic. I pounded on the horn, but he didn't look back as he carried the other man through the Emergency doors.
    I looked at Rachel again. I couldn't even see if she was still breathing or not. "Don't worry," I said. "I won't let you go." I leaned across as best I could with the seat belt holding me back, and I pinched her nostrils shut, blew air into her mouth. "I'll keep you alive until someone can save you," I told her. I kept it up until the nurses came out and took her away from me.
    That was the first time we kissed.
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    JESUS CURED MY HERPES By Peter Darbyshire
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    AFTER I GOT KICKED OUT of The Code, I started driving out to the airport at night to watch the planes take off. I'd find an empty side street and sit on the hood of my car for hours. Sometimes the planes passed right over me, so low I could almost touch them. You could watch them for several minutes before they disappeared into the clouds overhead. There were always clouds over the airport.
    There were other people out there who watched the planes, too. Most just parked on the street like me, but there was one group of men that met in front of a twenty-four hour garage. They were always there whenever I drove past, no matter what time of night. Five or six of them sitting in a circle of lawn chairs at the edge of the garage's parking lot, staring up at the sky and drinking beer from cans.
    Once, I parked behind their row of trucks and wandered over to the edge of their circle. "Mind if I join you?" I asked. They all looked at me for a moment and then made noises like this was okay with them. One of them reached into a cooler at his feet and pulled out a beer, tossed it to me.
    They didn't say anything at all as they waited for the next plane to pass, just kept staring up at