By Ross

“I don’t get it,” firefighter/paramedic, John Gage, confessed, as he perused the list of streets, avenues and roads in his hands. “There is no Almira Drive.”

Squad 51 had just been toned out, along with Engine 36 and Ladder Truck 18, to a structure fire at 1313 Almira Drive.

Being as how the incident was in 36’s district, 51’s firemen were totally unfamiliar with area.

Alas, a careful search of both the County-wide wall map and the department’s vehicle map index had failed to provide the paramedics with a route to the fire.

“Let’s just go to Old Mill Road,” his partner, Roy DeSoto, suggested, “and take it from there.”

“There’s no Old Mill Road, either,” Gage regrettably announced.

“What about Waverly Way?”

“Ummm. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. There’s a Waverly Way. Hang a right.”

Roy did and Squad 51 went wailing off...in the general direction of the structure fire on Almira Drive.

Fifteen minutes of wrong turns and a lot of back-tracking later, the rescue truck’s frazzled passengers finally found, what they hoped was, Old Mill Road.

“There can’t be anybody living out here,” Gage determined, after a few dozen twists and turns down the dusty, dirt road.

“Why not?”

“Because there are no street signs…no phone lines…no power lines…no nothin’.”

“That may well be,” his buddy concurred. “But I just got a whiff of smoke.”

Another tight turn brought them to a junction with an even narrower—unmarked—road.

“Like it would kill ‘em to put up a street sign,” Gage groused.

Roy brought their rescue truck to a stop. “Should we try it?”

“Why not. We’ve tried every other road between here and Waverly Way.”

DeSoto turned down the drive.

Three minutes, and several more twists and turns, later…

A hazy two-and-a-half story house suddenly appeared up on the right, looking like something right out of an ‘Addams Family’ rerun.

Roy slowed their truck to a crawl and carefully scrutinized the battered old abode. “This has got to be the place.”

“There’s no street sign…no house number,” Gage continued to grouse.

Roy stopped anyway.

Hell, there was smoke billowing out the back of the house.

He cut the sirens and they started reaching for their door handles.

‘Bleep-bleep-bleep’ their radio suddenly squawked to life. “All units responding with Engine 36, cancel.”

The two paramedics turned to one another and traded a couple of ‘You have got to be kidding!’ looks.

Roy snatched up their truck’s dash-mounted radio’s mic’, “L.A., Squad 51 is already on scene and we have smoke showing. So we intend to follow through. Request the other companies continue to roll, as well, and we will advise if they can cancel…”

“10-4, Squad 51.”

They donned their turnout coats and started wading through the knee-deep weeds that covered what was once the creepy abode’s front lawn.

John halted at the foot of a rickety set of wooden steps that led up onto the dilapidated place’s equally rickety front porch. “After you,” he graciously invited, with a wave of his arm. “I, uh, don’t wanna run you down, when Lurch answers the door.”

Roy rolled his eyes, but he had a feeling that Johnny was only half-joking.

The pair cautiously climbed the steps and even more carefully crossed the porch’s loose, and most likely dry-rotted, floor boards.

Roy rapped his knuckles on the side of the home’s screen door and called out, “Fire Department!”

They both exhaled sighs of relief when an old lady, and not Lurch, finally came to the door, with oven mitts on her upraised hands and a frown on her face. “What do you boys want?”

“Did you call the fire department, Mam?”

“Twice,” she curtly replied. “Didn’t they tell you?”

“Tell us what?”

“Not to come.”

“Yes, Ma—”

“—Well, then, what are you doing here? If I would have wanted you here, I wouldn’t have told them to tell you not to come her—”

“—Yes, Mam,” Johnny jumped in. Two could play the impatient game. “But, yah see, we were already here when they told us not to come here.”

The old lady eyed the dark-haired firefighter for a few moments and finally broke into a smile. “Well, since you are already here…Won’t you come in?”

They entered the smoky house.

“Could I interest you boys in some milk and cookies? I just baked a big batch of gingersnaps.”

It smelt like she had just burnt a big batch of gingersnaps.

DeSoto stared at their hostess in disbelief. “Mam, there’s smoke billowing out of the back of your house!”

“Of course there is. I have a fan running in the back door. You see, I got so absorbed in my soaps, I’m afraid that some of my cookies got a little…well-done.”

She led the boys into the back of the house, to show them her ‘smoke ejector’ in action. “I’m afraid that Marlena and Don have never been the same since D.J. died. And now Don is having an affair. That poor, poor woman!”

The entire top half of the kitchen was enveloped in a thick haze of smoke and there were two cookie sheets of still smoldering gingersnaps setting on the counter.

The fan in the open doorway did, however, seem to be sucking the smoke out of the house.

The old lady sidled up to the dark-haired fireman and flashed him another smile. “Have you ever considered getting into acting? You have that swarthy ‘soap star’ look about you.”

The old lady’s latest comment sent the swarthy paramedic’s companion into a coughing jag.

John gave his now purse-lipped partner a ‘Not one word of this to Chet’ glare.

“C’mon,” Gage urged. “We’d better go cancel the other companies.”

The old lady’s smile vanished. “What about your milk and cookies?”

Her guests gazed distastefully down at the two dozen charcoal briquettes—er, smoldering gingersnaps.

“Thanks anyway, Mam,” Roy graciously responded. “But we really gotta be getting back.”

That said, the boys beat a hasty retreat.

“That was just plain weird,” Roy remarked, as the pair waded back through the weed patch, en route to their rescue truck.

John glanced back over his shoulder. “I still don’t get it.”

“You’re not alone,” Roy assured him.

“No. I mean, I don’t see how she could be running that fan…and watching television…and calling the fire department…when there are no power lines or phone lines out here.” John came to a complete halt and turned to face his friend. “No wonder we couldn’t find this place.” Upon seeing his companion’s questioning look, he solemnly continued, “There are no maps for…‘The Twilight Zone’.”

His rather dramatic remark elicited yet another eye roll from Roy.

The ‘run ragged’ rescuers reached their truck, replaced their turnout coats and wearily climbed aboard.

Roy cut the vehicle’s overhead lights and snatched up its dash-mounted radio’s mic’. “L.A., Squad 51. All units responding to 1313 Almira Drive can cancel.”

“10-4, 51. All units responding to 1313 Almira Drive, cancel.”

Roy started their rescue truck up, but hesitated to drive off. “I hope you remember how to get back.”

“I hope I do, too. Or they’ll be sending out a search party. Man, that’s all we need. To get lost. Hey, why not? That’s all we’ve been doin’ all day, anyway, is spinning our wheels.”

“Like sands through the hour glass,” DeSoto suddenly—and quite melodramatically—quoted, “so are The Days of Our Lives…”

Gage’s face filled with a combination grimace and grin. “Not. One. Word,” he re-warned.