Bottled Abyss

by Benjamin Kane Ethridge

It took a few hours before Janet got a hold of Stacy Roberts. Thankfully, she still worked at Loma Linda and remembered who Janet was. She didn’t know anything about the fates of Melody or Herman though, and that made the conversation easier. Stacy, as chipper and bubbly as Janet remembered, had no problem showing her around the hospital a second time, but tomorrow would be better. Janet explained she wasn’t interested in a new job, but she was back in school and studying medical malpractice. Taking a big chance, she mentioned her current paper involved the rights of a patient being held under police custody, and that she would love to learn more about how Loma Linda staff dealt with such patients. Stacy wasn’t sure if she could help her there, but said they could probably find out from someone there.

  Good enough.

  Janet took a long stroll down to the liquor store. She would pick up some snacks to silence her stomach and a bottle of water that would be preferable to the metallic tasting tap water in her room. Inside her overcoat, she clenched the bottle by its throat. Leaving it in the room with Lester wasn’t an option. It was too dangerous; the dog had shown too much interest. Besides which, this part of town was pretty raw. On her first trip to this liquor store, she’d seen a junkie lying in an alley so narrow it could scarcely be called one. Between the store and a laundry mat, he had wedged himself in, knees pressed to his chest, eyes shut, needle still inserted in his forearm for the entire world to see. The man’s clothing had that brown hue that only the homeless could cultivate. His beard, likewise, was a silver-white conflagration from upper lip down to his neckline, a hobo’s pelt by any standard.

  The second trip he’d been missing from the alley. This time, he was back, with a new needle in his arm. His eyes weren’t shut though, just heavy with ecstasy-tears.

  Janet had been thinking about something since first seeing that needle. Officer Davis noted yesterday that Josue Ramirez had taken a turn for the worse and (off the record) had acquired a horrible stomach infection that had spread and ulcerated. The pain was excruciating and the doctors had him on a morphine drip. Hopefully he wasn’t doped up when she stopped by for a visit.

  Even getting there is assuming a whole hell of a lot.

  Sober or not, if she could get past an armed guard and slip into Ramirez’s hospital room, how could she get him to talk? He hadn’t spoken to anybody else yet, not even when his loved ones started showing up dead. That meant he wasn’t protecting his accomplice out of loyalty; he was protecting him out of fear.

  Faye had met the Fury and survived. It was possible just to take the coin away like before. If Janet monitored an interaction between the Fury and Ramirez, maybe the son of a bitch would see something more motivating than his criminal partner. And if he wouldn’t talk then, nothing would make him. He’d die then, and that would mean Janet would be leaving behind a dead man. How would she keep the police on duty busy before and after this went down?

  How could she make it look like an accident? Janet mulled over morphine and heroine and drugs in general as she walked the sad little aisles of the liquor store in search of snacks and dog food.

  That needle.

  Heroine. Morphine.

  Noting the bum’s gaunt appearance, he seemed to be eating more Horse these days than food. Was an overdose in his future? It sure as hell looked like it.

  Janet stood there, eyes fixed on a can of wet dog food that cost six dollars and ninety-nine cents. Holy shit, better stop food shopping at liquor stores.

  She grabbed some other items of varying degrees of sugariness and saltiness, then went to the counter and purchased them, all the while shuffling the bottle back and forth in her hands, sometimes setting it on the ground and clamping it between her calves. Twice the liquor store clerk glanced suspiciously at her actions but said nothing.

  Outside rain clouds had gathered to the east and were pushing toward the city.

  The homeless man babbled something about “ringing up those vinegary donkeys, ring ‘em up, ring ‘em up, ring ‘em up sour!” and then blew out a raspberry and took a big joyful sigh. Janet approached, feeling like an assassin, for after all, she was taking away something meaningful from the man, and damn if she didn’t know exactly how that felt. No way in hell did she feel she was saving him… but that was up to him to decide, not her.

  The man didn’t sense her standing over him and hardly moved as she poured an ounce of fluid over his dirt-creased brow. He made a ragged sound, brought up phlegm, and coughed out a coin. It landed under his legs. Janet took out a tissue from her coat and went to grab it.

  She yelped as the man caught her arm. “Whatcha going and doing?” His bleary eyes tried to focus.

  “I dropped my money.”

  “That’s my money.”

  Janet tugged at her arm, seeing the hypodermic needle wagging back and forth, still lodged in his arm. She felt sickened by the sight of it. “Let go of me or I’ll scream.”

  This got him. He released her and watched, strangely amused by her picking up the coin with a tissue. She was about to thank him when his eyes found the needle in his arm. He let out a wail, a big semi-toothed channel opening in his beard, and quickly yanked out the needle.

  “Holy Grim. Holy Grim. Holy Grail. Never going over to Johnny’s house again!” he hollered and fought to his feet. “Never again, God Almighty save me from this!”

  He tripped, ate the ground hard and regained himself. It was clear he was still sky-high but his revelation had jumpstarted him. Janet watched the man increase his pace down the street, impressed when he reached full speed. She took out her coin purse and dropped the coin inside, making a mental note to buy some gloves.

  Rain came down first in a mist and then minutes later in a steady drizzle. She saw the Fury standing in the shadows of an abandoned building across the street. It leaned against the brick wall with a scaled hand smeared in bloody mucus. Even from the distance she could see its chest heaving and its black stone eyes imploring.

  Janet headed back to her room.

  It had been some time since she’d made herself up. Janet felt like she wasn’t just in different clothes, but in different skin. A low cut black dress, but not so low as to send other women sneering, or draw attention, just enough to pique curiosity and throw someone off balance. That was the hope anyway.

  The half bald man in the LomaLindaHospital mail room did not have time to be impressed with breasts, however. He was working, and furiously. His eyes slid away from his computer monitor for just a moment. “Can I help you?”

  Janet held up the sealed envelope. “Do I just find a mail-drop for letters to patients or give the letter to you?”

  “Is the patient’s full name on there?”

  It was.

  She nodded.

  “Room number?”

  “I’m not sure what it is.”

  Unceremoniously, he reached through the window and took the letter. He typed something on his computer and mumbled to himself, “Josue… Eduardo… Ramirez.”

  He waited while something loaded, then snorted, double-checked the screen. Janet was about to ask if Josue was on a special floor, since he was under guard. She couldn’t find the right words though, not without appearing to be there to extract information.

  And it turned out, no probing was required. The man swiveled around in his seat and tossed the letter in a slot marked FLOOR 4 – WARD C.

  Janet found herself staring and quickly asked, “How long will it take to be delivered?”

  The man turned his pale blue eyes on her, his expression bland. “Probably by lunch time.”

  “Thanks, ‘preciate it.”

  “No problem.”

  Janet guessed that mail might be reviewed before Ramirez got to read it, but there were no hidden shivs or razor blades inside, just a flowery get-well card, signed in her best handwriting, See you soon—Jan.

  Stacy Roberts had changed. Or maybe Janet had. Either way, the woman was not somebody Janet could tolerate in large doses. Throughout the tour of the various pavili
ons and Children’s hospital, Stacy did not shut up. She yammered on and on, about this and that, as though every word she uttered would earn her a dollar. Janet didn’t recall Stacy being so obnoxiously hyper, and she was really looking forward to the moment they parted ways. Stacy made Faye look like a sedated slug. The difference being that her energy and bubbly nature didn’t strike Janet as authentic. Faye was just built that way, but Stacy had purposely built herself that way, for whatever reason.

  You’re sizing people up like Evan, and you need to knock that shit off.

  This encounter made Janet appreciate not having Faye around. After everything had happened the way it had, it wasn’t how she wanted to leave things with her friend. Not Evan either, she supposed. Janet wished they could be working on this together, as a team. She wanted to call them back, but that would have to happen at a better time. Right now, they’d only want to talk about Herman, and Janet preferred to push him as far back into her frantic mind as possible.

  Concentrate on now. The hospital. Josue Ramirez. His buddy, the Murderer.

  So far everything in the hospital appeared to be sophisticated and secure. Most doors were electronically locked and you either needed an ID card or to pick up a phone for a receptionist to let you in.

  Stacy was not shy about bothering receptionists. It wasn’t surprising many people on many floors knew Stacy by name alone. The corridors where her ID badge didn’t work, she had a little routine: she swung her black and purple beaded dreadlocks away from her ear, picked up a phone and said in a sing-songy voice, “Hey, this is Stace! Let me in puh-retty-please!”

  Janet wanted to roll her eyes. Just because Stacy worked with children didn’t require her to act like one. Janet allowed that she’d probably become too sullen of a person to process someone like Stacy in a positive way, but that didn’t cure her annoyance. She’d come here hoping for the real dope and all she got was one dope, and it didn’t bode well for her campaign.

  There you go again, appraising the poor woman…

  Stacy had seemed to forget Janet’s initial query about patients under guard altogether.

  “That’s the way to the cafeteria, OINK!” Stacy’s voice echoed through the long hallway.

  “What about dangerous people? Criminals? Is it possible to go up to the floor where they’re being held?”

  “I really wouldn’t know,” said Stacy. She lifted her badge on its lanyard and swept it across a gray plate on the wall. “Let me show you the lobby for radiology. It’s super fancy.”

  “Sounds good,” Janet muttered. “Thanks for doing this.”

  Stacy’s dark face broke in a tremendous smile. It was the first genuine thing she’d done today. “It’s my pleasure, Janet.”

  They journeyed down an over-bright hallway and passed some restrooms and a water fountain. Much like Stacy’s mouth, the hospital just went on and on. Big hospitals rendered Janet helpless inside now. She recalled the harsh, dreamlike memories of Melody’s last fight before passing away, which had been an awful extension to previous recollections of her favorite aunt, Sarah, dying of lymphoma and her great-grandmother expiring during a voluntary hip surgery. The vastness of these institutions, with all their briskly walking, scrub wearing employees and thought-absorbed doctors, just felt alien; there was a largeness of utilitarian purpose in every sterile corner, but also the smallness of humanity perfuming the air. It should have been the other way around. It didn’t matter if you named a floor after Hope or Inspiration or Health—these things were not consciously accepted as truth, perhaps only a well meaning attempt to soothe. Then again, Janet reckoned you wouldn’t find pavilions named after Death, or Pain or Stress or Misery. Only the true pessimists would seek admission to such a hospital. She imagined it for a moment: black tiled floors, exposed piping in the ceiling, sprouts of steam issuing down in the darker reaches of the winding hallways, wooden stairs that creaked like painful sighs…

  “Oh they have Lemonheads!” Stacy shouted and startled Janet. They’d taken a turn at a corner where a dimly lit vending machine squatted.

  When Janet jumped the bottle sloshed around in her purse. She’d tested it back at the room with a new rubber cork; no fluid had spilled out when she rested the bottle on its side, but the splashing sound gave her pause. She didn’t want to blindly reach in to check though. Coughing up a coin in front of Stacy would not be opportune. Bringing her Mary Poppins purse, as Herman had liked to call it, closer to her person, she continued on, hoping for the best.

  “I’m going to have to get a box of those on the way out. They’re good for blocked salivary glands. Did you know that?”

  “Never heard that before,” replied Janet.

  Stacy switched gears with little cause for transition. “Up ahead is the LearningCenter. It’s here temporarily at the Heart and Surgical hospital—because the other location at the Children’s hospital is being renovated. That’s how I know so many folks here.” Stacy laughed.

  “Oh I see.”

  “I’m thinking my mentor there can tell you about your legal questions. Was it about criminal hospitals or something?”

  “Pretty much,” Janet said, resigning herself.

  They walked by a door propped open with a florescent yellow mop bucket. A spilled soda lay on the floor inside a stairwell and two wet floor cones had been placed around the ice laden liquid. Stacy prattled on about her mentor’s love for Spanish soap operas and how she’d gotten her hooked on the closed captioned English translations. Janet read the words on the open door. EMPLOYEE ACCESS.

  Stacy took a left turn and was in mid-sentence when Janet cut her off, “Sorry, I have to go to the bathroom. I’ll be quick.”

  “Oh, there’s one down by the LearningCenter.”

  “I’ll just go to that one we passed a bit ago.”

  “You sure? It’s closer—”

  “No worries.” Janet took off briskly, shoes clapping the tile.

  “Oooookay, I’ll be here,” said Stacy, sounding bothered.

  Janet’s heart thrummed in her throat and her skin became itchy with emerging sweat. She crossed the hallway and turned immediately into the stairwell. Stepping over the spilled soda, she heard echoes of a conversation on the floor directly below, accompanied with footsteps. Janet climbed the stairs toward a wall with a painted 3 on its face. She hurried up a flight and then took another. The bottle sloshed again with her swaying purse.

  The door read FLOOR 4 – Ward B.

  Close enough, she thought, and pulled the handle.

  2

  The bottled glugged and bubbled as she stepped down the corridor of patient rooms. Janet had passed the same nurse’s station twice and the two young nurses, both with their hair tied up in the back, took quiet notice of her each time. A door opposite the staff entrance, on the other side of the circular ward, had the inscription LOBBY and beneath it, TO WARD A and C. Janet was holding out for an adjoining hall that would avoid the lobby; she was on the inside now, with the patients, and she didn’t want to sacrifice her good fortune. There didn’t seem to be any alternate routes though, unless there was something behind the nurse’s station.

  If it hadn’t happened already, she was bound to attract attention just hanging around with no real place to go. She had to get in motion and focus on the best direction, without any possible distraction or interruption. Thinking ahead, she texted Stacy, Stupid me, got lost. Just head to the LearningCenter w/o me. I’ll find my way there. Sorry.

  Janet went back to the employee entrance, eager to discover some secret path between wards. She pulled the handle and the door thudded in place. It must have locked behind her when it closed and could only be opened with one of those ID cards.

  “Shit…,” she whispered.

  “Are you lost?”

  A tired looking doctor of Middle Eastern descent stood behind her with a bag of Fritos in one hand and a can of Papaya juice in the other.

  Janet took a breath. “Yes, I… am. I’m…”

  “It’s
no problem. What room is it?” he asked with a good natured smile that wrinkled the corners of his eyes.

  “I think,” she laughed, “I might be in the wrong ward. I’m supposed to go to C.”

  “Really?” He looked surprised. “They let you in? These girls.” He shook his head and pressed his lips together in disapproval. “They should have let you know. Too busy with their jobs.”

  “Well it’s my fault for not reading signs,” Janet explained.

  He took her gently under the arm. “This way, please. I just want to have a word with them. They are the reason you’re lost. Too often this happens.”

  “No, that’s really okay. I don’t want to get them in trouble.”

  “Brenna,” the doctor called as they approached the nursing station.

  A woman with bulging eyes and strong receding hairline popped her head out the side of the nurse’s station. “Yes, Dr. Malik?”

  “You buzzed her in and this isn’t even the correct ward she’s visiting.”

  “I haven’t buzzed anybody in,” Brenna replied. Her head disappeared and she asked the other nurses.

  Janet stiffened and a spike of dread went through her chest.

  Brenna appeared again. “We haven’t buzzed anybody in for over an hour.”

  The doctor looked at Janet and smirked. She opened her mouth to say something but came up short.

  “No, no.” He led Janet passed the station. “They won’t take responsibility, and they never do.”

  “Is there a quick way to Ward C?”

  “Through the lobby, cross the hall to the Ward C lobby. Not far at all.” Dr. Malik took her to the lobby door and opened it. An electronic catching sound registered. “Sorry for the confusion.”

  “Thanks for your help,” Janet replied.

  Malik nodded graciously and closed the door behind her.

  Janet stood there a moment, processing her defeat. An older man and woman sat together in a corner together, the woman thumbing an iPad, the man with a Time magazine less than a foot from his eyes. The thought was fleeting, but it caught at Janet. That could have been Herman and I. If our lives hadn’t become a nightmare within a nightmare…