Where the Dead Go to Die

by Aaron Dries

  Not that I can pretend to understand how their minds work.

  During the early days of the outbreak, Emily assumed those who were the most terrified of the infected and screamed the loudest for their deaths would change their tunes once someone they loved became affected. Then they would be able to put a face to the disease, realizing that the infected were just human beings, not statistics in the making. That assumption turned out to be naïve. All over the world, parents disowned children, children turned their backs on parents, spouses split. There were reports of people killed by family members simply for being suspected of having the zombie parasite in their veins.

  Blood wasn’t as thick as water, and neither was thicker than fear.

  Knuckles rapped the passenger-side window. Emily gasped, followed by a shaky laugh when she saw that it was Mama Metcalf out there peering in.

  “Yoo-hoo! Space for two?”

  Emily motioned for her to get in, which she did. The old woman cupped her wrinkled hands over the vents for warmth. “That feels good,” she said in her slow drawl. “It’s only two blocks from the L station, but it’s cold as a witch’s tit out there and I’m a walking popsicle.”

  An involuntary laugh sputtered from Emily’s lips, to which Mama Metcalf’s reply was a blank, questioning look. Emily enjoyed the older woman’s company because she obviously had no idea just how funny she was. No matter how dark the mood, this squat little stranger could elicit smiles from stone. Emily had even seen Woods buckle to Mama Metcalf’s randomness.

  “Well,” Emily said, “you’re welcome to share my warmth.”

  “Same here, sweetie. I saw you sitting in the car looking like somebody done pissed all in your Cornflakes. I thought maybe you could use a friend.”

  The heat suffused Emily’s cheeks, and she wiped at her dribbling nose with another napkin. “I’m sorry, I know this isn’t very professional of me.”

  “Ain’t no shame in letting it out sometimes,” Mama Metcalf said, patting her knee.

  (There’s no shame in that, Robby. We all have to let it out.)

  “It’s just that, you know, this job. It’s—”

  “It’s rough. That’s why there’s so much turnover.”

  “Yeah. How long have you been volunteering for?”

  “Going on four years now.”

  “Wow, that’s impressive. What’s the secret?”

  Mama Metcalf scratched her chin. “For starters, I’m old. Not much I ain’t already seen or had to deal with. But you’se never too old to hurt. Breaking down empties out all the bad so you can face another day.” She smiled. “And it looks like you know that secret, too. You’re in for the long haul, I can tell.”

  “Well, I appreciate the vote of confidence. Sometimes I’m not so sure. The last few days have, well, they’ve tested me.”

  “The boy.”

  Emily closed her eyes, nodded.

  “Whole thing’s a tragedy. Bad enough what happened to him, but for his folks to just dump him that way. Can’t wrap my brain around it. I mean, far as I’m concerned you don’t throw your kids away no matter what. Whether they’re on drugs, in jail, gay, or zombie.”

  Laughter bubbled up again, and though Emily tried to contain it, it slipped out anyway.

  Mama Metcalf took her hand. “If you think it’s hard on you just imagine how he feels. And that’s where we come in. He needs people to help him through this, people he knows he can count on. If his folks are too piss-poor to be those people, it’s our job to take up the slack.”

  Emily smiled. Piss-poor. Yet another hit from The Best of Bessie Samuels, one Emily hadn’t heard since she was a child herself.

  “Mama Metcalf, I’m just curious, where are you from originally?”

  “Little town in South Carolina called Gaffney. You probably never heard of it.”

  “Ha! It’s home of the peach-shaped water tower. It looks like a giant ass hanging over the interstate.”

  “We’re famous for our giant ass,” Mama Metcalf said with a wheezy laugh. “How come you know about Gaffney?”

  “Because I was born and raised in Charleston, South Carolina.”

  “A fellow South Cackalackian! Never would have guessed. You ain’t got much of an accent.”

  “I’ve been out of the South for a long time now,” Emily said, not wanting to mention that she’d purposefully worked at losing her accent because she thought it made her sound like a dull-witted hillbilly. This, in spite of the revolution that had sprung up on those very streets.

  “You know what they say, ‘you can take the girl outta the country but not the country outta the girl’. I moved up here a few years back after I split with my old man so I could be closer to my son, Erik. ‘Course, I still don’t see him much as I’d like. He’s got his own life. He runs a business with his husband, Paul.” Mama Metcalf paused and looked sharply at Emily. “My Ervin’s queer. Not that bitchy kind of queer, though. Not like Mykel.”

  Emily didn’t even try to mask her giggles this time. It felt good, this unrestrained release. Freeing. “I can’t tell you how nice it is to meet another southern lady like yourself.”

  “That vice is versa, sweetie. You should come by my apartment sometime for supper. I make a killer cornbread that’s so good you’ll swear you’re back in your own mama’s kitchen.”

  “I might have to take you up on that.”

  “Please do. Bring the young’un.”

  Emily dabbed at her eyes again. “Oh shit. Well, there’s no more putting it off is there? What do you say we get inside and start this damn day?”

  “You go on ahead, sweetie. I’m going to brave the cold for another minute and get me in a few puff-puffs.”

  The two women exited the car, Emily carrying the crane and Mama Metcalf pulling out a pack of rolling papers and a bag of loose tobacco from her purse. Emily started for the street but stopped at the curb when the older woman said, “You ever need a friend, sweetie, I’m here.”

  Emily smiled, said thank you, and continued across the street. The Right-to-Lifers yelled as she passed, but their hatred was like water off a duck’s back.

  Another expression from better times.

  THE LAST ORPHAN

  Emily watched Robby breathe.

  She became conscious of the easy, natural rise and fall of her own chest, so unlike that of the boy’s, whose rib cage fluttered and hitched beneath the sheets. He’d been sleeping so much since the pneumonia had taken hold, a blessing were it not for the nightmares playing out behind those eyes.

  He twitched. Clenched.

  Robby’s phlegmy snore filled the room, reminding Emily of the way the generator on her parents’ property sounded after a season of disuse, the rumbling groan as it kicked into gear. The sound used to frighten her as a kid, though she endured it because there was light at the other end. Only the abandoned machine of meat and ambition before her wasn’t starting up. It was winding down. And the only thing Robby would soon know? Darkness.

  She hoped.

  Nobody knew if there was consciousness after the climax. Just theories and speculation. She prayed the infected slid into nothingness, an entreaty that left her kneeling at the altar of anti-faith.

  Emily tiptoed to his bed and placed the origami crane on the adjoining table. She’d tell him who it was from later. Or then again, maybe not. Separating work from her home life was difficult enough without bringing Lucette into all this sickness.

  Though it wouldn’t be her first time, would it?

  Yeah, and look how that turned out.

  Emily brushed the hair from Robby’s forehead but stayed her hand, afraid of waking him. There were no screams today, so there was a possibility his twitches weren’t evoked by nightmares. She didn’t dare rob him of what might be a good dream, one in which he climbed mountains, brandishing sword sticks to battle dragons. Dinosaurs.

  Like a normal boy.

  Though from where she stood, there was little normality left to Robby anymore. The beginnings
of his rictus grin. The whitening skin.

  Let him sleep and beat the dragon, because his waking battle is one he isn’t going to win.

  “Seems cruel, doesn’t it?”

  Emily jumped as Mykel stepped up next to her.

  “Jesus, you scared me,” she said, keeping her own voice low. “You’re a ghost the way you sneak up on people.”

  Mykel gave her a wink. “I hover about an inch above the floor, that’s all. You know what they say about my kind, we’re light in the loafers.”

  Her tightened jaw relaxed into a smile. Mykel could be about as sensitive as a sledgehammer, and he seemed to be in this line of work strictly for the paycheck and not out of any deep-rooted desire to help his fellow humans, but he could be funny. There was no denying that. Plus, like it or lump it, they were going to be working together. Hating him was far too distracting an effort.

  “What seems cruel?” Emily asked.

  “Letting them linger. On.” The way he broke up the sentence made her queasy.

  “Yeah, because giving them the best possible care and managing their pain is such a bad thing, Mykel. In some cases we’re actually slowing the process.”

  “But maybe what we should be doing is speeding it up.”

  Emily frowned. “What are you talking about?”

  “Come on, who are we kidding? They’re all breathing corpses. We can’t change the inevitable. They’re all going to end up the same way. We only call them zombies after they turn, but the truth of the matter is that they already are. We should send for the Crowners.”

  “Mykel,” Emily gasped. “We are not going to have this conversation here. Show some decorum.”

  “Why not? You don’t think he can hear us do you? And, I mean, look how peaceful he looks. They could do it while he’s sleeping and he’d be that peaceful forever.”

  Emily’s voice was little more than a whisper. “You shouldn’t be talking like that. They’re still people. And they deserve our respect and compassion.”

  Mykel infuriated her further by laughing. “See, it’s that kind of bleeding-heart thinking that caused so many people to try to hide infected family members in the first place. That only made the epidemic worse. ‘Hiders’ are just domesticated terrorists.”

  Emily shot at him and latched her hand to his forearm, the fingernails digging in. Mykel gawked, shocked. Her breathing was not so even and calm now. She held him for a moment longer, their eyes locked, and waited for the urge to slap him to fade. It did. Her grip slackened, leaving imprints in her co-worker’s flesh, which was so much less than he deserved. Though better that than a star-shaped bruise on his face and a visit to Woods’ office soon afterwards, a visit that would likely prove her last.

  “Stop,” was all Emily could manage.

  At first Mykel didn’t move or reply, his face an impassive mask. Then he smiled and said, “I knew you had some spunk in you, New Girl,” before turning and exiting the room.

  Emily walked down the hall, carrying a plastic tub full of supplies. Even though Corridor 3 looked like every other corridor in the building, it felt different. The sense of finality was stronger here, as if each death had woven itself into the space, tainting the antiseptic air, coating the walls, slicking the floors, soiling the beds. Were she to put a record needle to the walls she would no doubt hear the tin-can music of innumerable death rattles, all of those final words and prayers.

  It’s in your head, girl.

  Only it wasn’t. This was Corridor 3, The Final Stages Unit. FSU. Emily had been lucky enough to not have stepped foot in this area since her induction. But another staff member had quit that morning and Woods herself had requested Emily pick up the rounds—a backhanded display of trust if there ever was one. The kindest compliments always came with the unkindest expectations.

  Emily drew herself together, concentrated on the task at hand. She gripped the tub tighter than she had Mykel’s arm. Well, almost.

  Out of the frying pan and into the fire. Let’s do this.

  The door on her left was open and inside was the patient she’d encountered on her first day, the one whose wife had called him Speedy. Emily had since learned his name was Reginald Simms. To the best of her knowledge, his wife had not visited since.

  Ahead in the next room, through another open door, giggles trailed into the hallway. Emily glanced in at Mama Metcalf, sitting on a bed with a female patient, engaged in a rousing game of Uno.

  “Hey sweetie,” Mama Metcalf said, her voice muffled by the mask all personnel were required to wear over their noses and mouths while in the FSU. Emily was wearing a similar one herself. “Want to join us?”

  “I’d love to, but I have a bed bath to give. Hi there, Ma’am. How are you doing?”

  “Nurse Samuels, this is Tammy. Tammy, Nurse Samuels.”

  “Hi, love,” their guest said. “Sure we can’t tempt you with a hand?”

  “Ladies, there’s nothing I’d rather do. But I must soldier on.”

  “Just as well,” Tammy said. “Mama here is beating the pants off of me. But I’m a glass-is-half-full kind of gal. I’ll die before I let her win again.”

  Mama Metcalf and Tammy laughed again, setting off a volley of coughing in the patient. The gaunt woman hacked sputum into a kidney-shaped basin, which would later be disposed of in a hazardous waste container and incinerated.

  Emily couldn’t help staring. Tammy’s smile was stretched so tight the yellowed teeth jutted out, lending her a mule-ish look. Emily wondered how old she was; she could be twenty or sixty. Her hairless head looked like a skull covered in the veneer of skin. Dim, hollow eyes—only a few shades lighter than those of the man who had bitten Jordan.

  Yet still she joked. Still laughed.

  “You need some help?” Mama Metcalf asked, starting to rise.

  “Oh no, I can handle it. You two continue with your game.”

  “More like a massacre,” Tammy said as Mama Metcalf laid down a Draw 4 card.

  Emily left them laughing and continued down the hall. Tammy’s half-filled glass should have lightened the atmosphere but instead left her feeling ashamed. Guilty. If someone with as many problems as Tammy could find humor in this darkness, what right did she have to wallow in self-pity?

  I’m not wallowing.

  (Then why all those matted Kleenex tissues in the car?)

  I’m trying to make a difference.

  (Oh, is that what you call it?)

  I’m . . . using my own fucked up bullshit as motivation to help others.

  There was truth in that, but with a lie at its center.

  Her destination was at the end of the hall on the left. The intake file, which Emily had read after being cornered by Woods, listed the guest’s name as Mr. Edwin Mabry, age 47. He contracted the infection five years ago. He’d held on longer than most, though his journey was almost at an end.

  Last stop Corridor 3.

  Emily stepped into the room and came to an abrupt halt, almost losing purchase on the tub. It wasn’t the sight of the wasted figure in the bed that startled her, but his companion. A healthy man sat in the chair next to the bed holding Mr. Mabry’s hand.

  “I’m sorry,” Emily said. “I didn’t realize any visitors had come in this morning.”

  The man also wore a mask, but the creases at the corners of his eyes told her he was smiling. “I’ve been here since last night.”

  “Oh, I didn’t realize.”

  “I know it’s technically against the rules, but Eddie here doesn’t have much longer so the rules tend to get a little bendy. Woods cleared it. She’s good like that.”

  “I see. I’m Nurse Samuels.”

  “Vick Weston.” Emily recognized the name from the intake file, where he was listed as their guest’s Next Of Kin.

  “I’m supposed to give Mr. Mabry his bed bath.”

  “Go right ahead.”

  Emily walked over to the bed and placed the tub of supplies on the table. After washing her hands at the sink, she donn
ed a pair of latex gloves and turned back to see Vick reclining into the chair.

  “Vick, I might have to ask you to step outside to allow Mr. Mabry his privacy.”

  “Eddie doesn’t have anything I haven’t already seen. We’ve known each other since Junior High and I’m not leaving his side longer than it takes to go to the bathroom. Not ‘til the fat lady sings.”

  Emily considered going to find Woods and decided against it. She’d been in this situation before in a number of hospitals and aged care villages, only this scenario was better than most. Generally speaking, when a family member requested to be present for the bathing of a loved one, the staff member in question was being watched to ensure they were doing the correct thing. In other words, they were under suspicion of wrongdoing. Not that Emily had ever been anything less than professional in her years on the field, but she couldn’t be by someone’s side twenty-four hours a day. Good workers could be the unfortunate beneficiaries of the bad ones. The quality of care fluctuated from worker to worker with frightening elasticity.

  And the bad workers could be very bad.

  But Emily could tell from the man’s warmth that she wasn’t being scrutinized. That wasn’t what this was about. Vick’s desire to be present was about companionship, not accruing evidence for a Ministry complaint.

  “Mr. Mabry,” Emily said. The man in the bed didn’t stir or open his eyes. An IV stuck into his left arm dripped morphine into his system that would ease the pain as much as possible. He was also hooked to a machine that monitored his vitals, what those on the floor called a ‘nurse on a stick’. It displayed his elevated heart rate and blood pressure. It was high. Too high. Perspiration dappled his face, his temperature hovering just over 100 degrees.

  “Mr. Mabry, I’m going to remove your gown and wash you now, okay?”

  “I’m not sure if he can hear you, Ms. Samuels.”