Story code: ST-000241
Part 2: The Antidote
The intense white glare of the weapon-mounted flashlight reflected sharply off the small, rigid object in the stranger’s hand. Julian squinted past the blinding corona, his brain desperately trying to pivot from the anticipation of a lethal threat to the confusing reality unfolding on his frozen driveway. The object was not a weapon. It was a thick, cylindrical plastic tube with a bright orange cap and a green base.
An auto-injector.
Julian’s finger slid slowly off the trigger, resting flat against the cold polymer frame of the Glock. He lowered the muzzle just a few inches-enough to pull the blinding center of the beam out of the man’s eyes, yet keeping the weapon leveled at his chest. The sudden, jarring shift in context left Julian dizzy. This was not a calculated home invasion. This was a man begging for his life.
The stranger tried to speak, but the effort only produced a wet, guttural rattle. The sagging side of his face appeared completely paralyzed, his jaw slack and pulling downward. Through the harsh lighting, Julian finally recognized that the dark, glossy stains soaking the front of the man’s heavy winter jacket were not melting frost. It was blood. A massive amount of it, thick and arterial, soaking the collar and freezing into stiff, blackened patches in the bitter air.
Before Julian could find his voice or reach out to take the medical device, the last of the stranger’s strength evaporated. His knees buckled violently. The man collapsed forward like a puppet with cut strings, slamming chest-first into the wooden edge of the porch stairs with a heavy, sickening thud. The auto-injector slipped from his violently trembling fingers, bouncing onto the frost-covered planks and rolling to a stop just inches from Julian’s bare toes.
Julian took a startled step backward, his heel hitting the metal threshold of his open front door. The warm air from the hallway hit his freezing back, a stark, mocking contrast to the biting winter night that was currently numbing his bare feet and shaking his core. The man on the steps began to convulse, his one good arm weakly clawing at the icy wooden risers as he tried to drag his dead weight up into the house.
Keeping the handgun locked in his right grip, Julian dropped to a crouch and snatched the plastic cylinder with his left hand. The casing was slick with fresh, warm liquid. Julian held it up to the ambient glow of the porch fixture. His stomach twisted. The device was smeared with blood. He used his thumb to wipe the label clear, expecting to see a standard epinephrine brand, but the bold black letters were completely unfamiliar. Underneath a military-style lot number, the label read: *WARNING – NEURO-TOX EXPOSURE ONLY. ADMINISTER INTRAMUSCULAR IMMEDIATELY.*
The man on the stairs let out a horrifying, high-pitched gasp, his airway clearly beginning to close. Julian’s mind raced. He needed his phone. He had left it sitting on the bedroom nightstand when he scrambled to grab the gun. He couldn’t call an ambulance without running inside, but leaving the man choking to death on the freezing concrete felt like a death sentence.
Julian had to make a choice. He shoved the freezing metal slide of the Glock directly into the waistband of his flannel pajama pants. The frigid steel burned against his bare stomach, a dangerous and uncomfortable carry, but he needed both hands. He dropped to his knees on the frosty wood, grabbing the man by the heavy, soaked shoulder to roll him onto his back.
As Julian turned the stranger over, the porch light fully illuminated the side of the man’s head. The sagging face wasn’t just a symptom of a stroke or a toxin. There was a massive, blunt-force trauma wound just behind his ear. The skull looked visibly indented, and blood was actively pouring down his neck, matting his hair and pooling in his collar. Julian stared in horror. Was the paralysis from the mysterious exposure mentioned on the label, or from the catastrophic head injury? Would injecting this strange chemical into a man with a severe brain bleed kill him instantly?
Julian readies the auto-injector, popping off the bright orange safety cap with trembling fingers. He didn’t know what the right call was, but the man had fought through sheer agony to bring the device out. Julian aimed the green base at the thick fabric of the man’s outer thigh, preparing to drive it downward.
Before he could plunge the needle, the stranger’s bloody hand shot upward, gripping Julian’s wrist with a terrifying, frantic strength that defied his dying state. The sudden grab made Julian flinch, nearly dropping the injector.
The man wasn’t looking at the life-saving device. His wide, glossy, terrified eyes were fixed on something out in the deep darkness, far beyond the illuminated cone of Julian’s motion-sensor light.
Julian followed his desperate gaze. At the very end of the long, rural driveway, where the gravel met the isolated country road, the absolute darkness was suddenly broken. A pair of intense, pale-blue LED headlights clicked on, cutting through the freezing fog and glaring directly at Julian’s house.
A heavy, modified engine rumbled to life, the low and menacing vibration carrying clearly through the dead silence of the winter night. The stranger’s grip on Julian’s wrist tightened until it felt like his bones might crack, smearing hot blood over Julian’s cold skin. The bleeding man tried to pull Julian downward, shaking his head weakly as his paralyzed mouth formed a garbled, frantic warning.
Out at the edge of the property, the idling vehicle killed its headlights, plunging the entrance back into pitch black, and the crunch of heavy tires on gravel began to roll slowly up the driveway.