“Doggy?” I yelled. My nearest neighbor was a good three miles down the beach, so I didn’t worry about waking anyone up. “Hey, dog, if you found something dead and stinky and are planning on rolling in it, I’d like to encourage you to change your mind. For one, it’s not nearly as attractive a smell as you think it is, and for another, I don’t think you’d fit in my bathtub—Oh no, not again!”

By now I’d come upon the dog, who was standing with his nose pressed against a black shape that was slumped on the ground.

“If that’s a dead seal or something equally nasty…” I started to warn him, but stopped when I got a better look at the shape.

It was a man.

A dead man lay at my feet.

Right there on the beach. The tide was going out, leaving the ground sodden with seaweed, the tang of the night air stinging my eyes. I stared at the black shape, wondering who was screaming.

It was me.

“No!” I said in protest, wanting to turn on my heels and run away from the horrible sight. “No, no, no. I can’t have this. I can’t have men lying dead at my feet. The last time that happened, I ended up hooked to a machine that zapped me full of a kajillion volts. I refuse to be crazy anymore. Therefore, you, sir, cannot be dead. I forbid it.”

I reached down to turn the man onto his back, jerking my hand away when a static shock to end all static shocks snapped out between my fingers and his arm.

“What the hell?” I rubbed my fingers, wondering if the man had some sort of electronics on him that had gotten wet. But before I could ponder that, he moaned and moved his legs, his head lifting off the rocks for a few seconds before he slumped down again.

“What is this, my day for seeing dead things that aren’t really dead?” My mind shied painfully away from that thought. “Hey, mister, are you okay?”

It was a stupid question to be sure—he was facedown, obviously having been deposited on the shore by the tide, and clearly unconscious. But at least he was alive.

Tentatively, I reached out a finger and touched the wet cloth of his sleeve. “Mister?”

There was no static shock this time, so I tugged him until he rolled over onto his back. His hair, shiny with water and black as midnight, was plastered to his skull, while bits of seaweed and sand clung to the side of his cheek and jaw. His chin was square and his face angular, with high cheekbones that gave him a Slavic look and made my fingers itch to brush off the sand. There was a bit of reddish black stubble on his jaw that I really wanted to touch. I was willing to bet that it was soft and enticing…

I shook that thought away. What the hell was I doing thinking about a man’s beard when he was lying at my feet, possibly near death?

“Stick to what’s important,” I told myself, noting that his chest rose and fell in a regular rhythm. Although a quick examination didn’t show any obvious signs of injury, it was clear he needed medical attention. Accordingly, I pulled out my cell phone and called the emergency services number.

“What is your emergency?” a coolly impersonal voice asked.

“There’s an unconscious man on the beach next to my house. He’s alive and breathing okay and I don’t see any blood or twisted limbs, but he might have hit his head or something.”

“And your location?”

I gave her the address of the family home.

She tsked. “You are very rural.”

“Yeah, I know. My parents liked that. How soon can you get someone here? The breeze is picking up, and I should probably at least cover the guy up until the paramedics arrive.”

“There has been a large fire in Maslo,” she answered, naming the largest nearby town. “I cannot send anyone to you for some time.”

“You’ve got to be kidding,” I said, shocked by such a callous response. “This guy is unconscious. He could have a brain injury!”

“You said he was breathing on his own, and there was no blood or signs of external injury.”

“No, but—”

“The nearest hospital to you is…” I could hear her fingers tapping on a keyboard. “Seventy-two kilometers in Kirkeist.”

I knew exactly where that hospital was. I’d spent a horrible night locked up in the psych ward two years ago. “Are you suggesting that I move an injured man? What if he has back injuries?”

“You must move him with care if you believe that to be the case.”

I shook my head in disbelief. “I can’t believe that you’d tell me to haul this poor guy to a hospital so far away. That’s almost inhuman. Aren’t the emergency guys obligated to come and help?”

“Not in your region, no. There is no funding for emergency services. They are provided by regions that have them, but on an as-needed basis, and I just told you that the aid units are dealing with the fire in Maslo.”

I gritted my teeth and fought back the need to punch out the woman on the phone. I’d never before had such a violent reaction to anyone, but frustration and a long, emotion-packed day had pushed me close to the edge. “There’s got to be a clinic closer than Kirkeist.”

Tappity-tappity went her computer keys. “There are two, but neither has emergency hours. There is a doctor four kilometers from you who is listed as an emergency resource, but his hours are not stated. If you like, I can provide you with that information.”

“You do that little thing,” I snarled, patting myself to find a small notebook and pencil. I wrote down the doctor’s name and address and thought seriously about giving the woman a piece of my mind, but Dr. Barlind’s strictures on “a calm mind is a happy mind is a sane mind” had me simply snapping a terse “Thank you” and hanging up.

“So, doggy, I guess this is my day to rescue everyone. Hmm.” I eyed the man. He looked pretty solid. I doubted I could lift him and carry him to my car. I shifted my gaze to the dog. “I don’t suppose you’ve ever pulled a sled?”

The dog sat down and squinted at me.

I sighed. “I didn’t think so. Not to mention the fact that I don’t have a sled anyway. Stay here, doggy, and watch over the man while I go grab a blanket or something.”

To my surprise, the dog was still there when I returned. “All right, you get bonus points for loyalty. Now, if you could grow a couple of thumbs, I’d be delirious with joy. Ugh. Sorry, mister, this is going to be slightly unpleasant for you.”