Where the Dead Go to Die

by Aaron Dries

  Mabry crooned in Betty’s ear. Her breath like dead mice in a crawlspace. “The abomination ends.”

  Before Betty could ask the woman what she meant by that, the crowd swallowed them alive. In the heat of their guts, Tim planted a kiss on Betty’s lips, more passionate than any since before Robby was born.

  “We’ll get you a sign,” he said.

  ***

  The group gathered in front of the hospice wasn’t even worthy of a sigh, but Geraldine gave one anyway. Every time the five of them had come to perform their duty, the crowd always seemed a little bigger than it had the time before, more threatening. But she’d never seen it swelled to such numbers. They teemed like a river about to break its bank, and when it did, Geraldine had no doubt that sinners and saviors would be drowned alike.

  “Great, just what we need today,” grumbled one of the Ministry workers at her side. Geraldine couldn’t remember his name, but she understood his trepidation and gave his arm a polite squeeze. She wasn’t here to make friends, so her cohort shouldn’t expect additional pandering, but a healthy amount of condescension would make this journey easier.

  The Crowners’ responsibility was destined to be difficult, though Geraldine had to admit the burden felt heavier today. They were here to ‘counsel’ a child.

  As they approached the protestors, the group turned their ire from the imposing cement walls of the hospice and onto them. Insults and curses stoned them from every direction, all screamed in the name of the same God Geraldine clung to. But beneath her layman’s camouflage—the tattered woolen scarf, her scuffed shoes—there was more than governmental policy steeling her resolve. There was resentment, crusted over like a protective scrim. The source of her bitterness was how two people could read the same text and interpret the words so differently.

  And yet they don’t realize the truth of it all. Go on, scream and shout. Hate until you’re blue in the face. It all ends the same way. One way or another, we all kneel before the crown.

  The five reached the steps. Geraldine felt something wet slap her cheek and realized someone had just spat on her. She glanced over to see an old woman in black laughing and pointing at her. A sudden wind whipped through the crowd and sent the spitter’s gown fluttering on her frame, her gray hair like Medusa’s snakes, revealing the boyish sneakers on her feet. Geraldine refused to give the bitch the satisfaction of watching her wipe the phlegm away. She wore it like a tattoo right up to the front door, at which the head administrator, Woods, was standing.

  The Crowners hurried inside.

  ***

  The passage of time was no longer marked by anniversaries or birthdays for Wanda Mabry, rather in pockmarks from surgeries dug from the flesh beneath her dress. Her body was riddled with Melanomas, and come March, she was scheduled to go under the knife again. The snarled clusters of cancers clung to her system, growing fat, telemarked above by a blemish or mole. But with time they spored, a bullet in the blood seeking out fresh places to corrupt.

  The allusion was not lost on her.

  She broke away from the group, and when she was sure no one was watching, ducked down the narrow alley that ran around to the back of the building. Her white sport sneakers, a new pair that she’d picked up two weeks ago with the remainder of her pension, splashed through sludge. She cradled her handbag as she went.

  Steam seeped into the air from a nearby sewer grate. The side of the hospice barrier was covered in a lattice of graffiti, phalluses, smiley faces, names, and words that made no sense to Wanda on any level. She stopped to catch her breath, one of her strong hands against the wall. Through her fingers she read a small vignette:

  Time to go, no time to grieve. If it doesn’t end now we’ll never leave.

  She shuddered. It was as though the poet had come to this very place, carved the rant upon the wall, and known that someday in the future she would come along in her brand new sneakers, and feed off the motivation. It nourished her when she needed it most. She had to do what she’d needed to do for so long. But doubt, like her cancers, spread fast.

  She thought of her dead husband. The living sons who no longer spoke to her. Of the poet. Yes. It was time.

  Wanda approached the trashcans piled against the wall. She’d moved them to that position in late November, though her plan had been mapped out months before. For a long time Wanda wondered if she would ever go through with it, but as she sat in her tiny apartment the night before to watch the ball drop on her television, sipping Vodka from a teacup and chewing pickled cabbage, she realized some resolutions had to come to fruition.

  The world was a cancer victim. Nobody lived forever. It was important to do what we were put on this earth to do, and then let ourselves be taken into the arms of the Almighty. This she believed more than anything else.

  Wanda turned to face the wall and saw the barbs at the top. A black cat was wrestling with the remains of a half frozen pigeon entangled in the wire. Small pointy teeth speared the carcass, yanking it sideways. A single feather rode the wind and vanished up the alley. The cat lost its footing and landed on its feet in the virgin snow next to Wanda’s sneaker-prints, followed half a beat later by the bird itself. Those dead eyes stared up at her as the cat spirited it away.

  ***

  Mama Metcalf sat by herself in the courtyard outside of the break room, puffing on a hand-rolled cigarette. The echoes of traffic combined with protestor chants could be heard from here, a constant bee-drone that almost made her sleepy. Her cell was on the bench beside her, its silence plus the nicotine buzz keeping her awake. It was an old brick of a phone that Erik had bought for her so they could keep in contact, which she’d attempted to do not ten minutes ago only to be told that he was too busy to talk and would call her back later. This was a promise that he’d made many times before, and almost never followed through on. The screen glared up at her, a green window into a room she was only sometimes invited.

  “Not this time,” she murmured.

  Come hell or high water she would be knocking on his door after work. Sure, there was a possibility that he might see her visit for what it was—an ambush—but Mama Metcalf was confident in her ability to frame it as the kind of surprise ‘you didn’t know you needed ‘til it arrived’. Desperation had made a truth-tweaker out of her more than once. Today would be no different.

  Mama Metcalf stubbed her cigarette on the bottom of her shoe, the sensation of squishing it into an ashy mess weirdly satisfying as always, and put the butt in the plastic sandwich baggie she’d brought with her. She laced her fingers together and tilted her head skyward. The clouds parted to let through some sunlight. It was still as cold as a witch’s tit out here though. Summer had never felt so far away. Once it was warmer she might stay with Erik for a while, or propose a short vacation together. Somewhere outdoorsy. She’d always wanted to see the great redwood forest on the outskirts of San Francisco, passing through their shade and out into the open where the Golden Gate Bridge, she’d been told, was on proud display. Mama Metcalf made a note of talking to her son about it that evening.

  The cell phone display reflected the sunlight. Though not for long. Those heavy clouds rolled across the sky again. Over, done with, gone. For now, at least.

  She was readying herself to get back into the hospice where she would fill up her medication trolley and complete her rounds when she heard a scraping from the wall enclosing the smoking area. This was followed by banging, crunching tin. Grunting. A frown creased her already wrinkled forehead.

  Oh, for crying in a bucket. What now?

  Mama Metcalf stepped away from the picnic table and drew her coat close to her neck. She strode over to the wall and glanced up as a black jacket came sailing over its upper edge, catching on the barbed wire fringe.

  Turn away now, said a voice in the back of her head. That terrible unease that had been with her since the moment she stepped inside the hospice roiled again, churning her senses. But she didn’t turn away, and instead stood there, watching with he
r mouth open as a pair of hands clawed at the jacket from the other side.

  “Now-now-now!” Mama Metcalf said, waving at the intruder and shuffling on the spot. “Don’t you go and do that.” She felt useless and silly the way she was carrying on, but there was nothing else to do.

  Churning. Churning.

  A woman in a black dress began to pull herself up over the wall using the jacket to protect herself from the barbs. An old face peered down at her; the expression warped by what surely must be an arthritis-aggravating contortion. Just looking at her made Mama Metcalf ache. The breeze whipped the old woman’s hair until it covered half of her face like a veil. She couldn’t believe what she was seeing. The woman climbing over the fence very well may be as old as Mama Metcalf, but unlike her, this stranger had a coarse strength to her.

  “Hey, you get down from there. You’re going to hurt yourself.”

  As if her words caused it to happen, the woman slipped and her left forearm slit open on the barbed wire. Blood rushed in a torrent, freckling the snow. Mama Metcalf gave a yell, knowing too well how easily the papery skin of those who were long-in-the-tooth ripped, and watched as the stranger toppled forward, cutting up her legs in the process. Her dress—so black and tight fitting, like something people with little imagination wore to funerals—snagged on the spikes, exposing her slip as she fell to the ground. Mama Metcalf figured the fall itself might have done some serious damage if last night’s snow hadn’t left a bed of white for her to land in. Having worked as a volunteer at the hospice for as long as she had, and being as old as she was, Mama Metcalf knew how easy it was to break a hip. Hell, old folks did it sitting down on the commode too damn hard. Let alone this.

  “You foolish thing! Are you okay?” Mama Metcalf said, rushing to the woman’s side. An almost electric shock of recognition hit her then: this was one of the protestors from outside, the crone who sometimes spat at them. The one who seemed to hate them for their compassion worst of all. Mama Metcalf knew she should run back inside and call for help, but it was in her DNA to not leave. Not yet. When someone was in need, she had to reach out. Her emergency response training unraveled before her.

  Check for immediate danger—downed power lines, spilled water, that kind of thing. Nope, skip this part. It wasn’t relevant. The old bat had done this to herself. Next: assess the victim. Check for a pulse, identify the issues, and then seek help.

  The old woman snapped herself around at a speed that made Mama Metcalf’s heart skip a beat. She was almost sure she’d heard the crunch and grind of bones popping as the sinewy frame uncoiled in front of her, kicking snow with those funny looking sneakers, with those clawed hands reaching for her purse. An image came to Mama Metcalf’s mind just then. A snake, readying itself to strike. Fangs dripping venom.

  It happened so fast.

  Those pale eyes rose to meet Mama Metcalf’s. Lips parted to let out the stink of her words. “The devil comes in the guise of an angel,” the woman said, raising her right hand.

  Mama Metcalf recognized the object in that hand as a gun an instant before the report. The noise came as a shock, a clap of thunder through an open, sunny field. It was tremendously immediate. She felt like someone had smacked her across the back of her neck. Mama Metcalf touched her throat and felt something peculiar there, a flower with fleshy petals peeling back. Red rain showered down from the sky to douse the old woman with the gun, coloring the snow about them. A moment later Mama Metcalf realized the rain was coming from that flower. Sizzling arcs draped the picnic area like the Christmas tinsel still adorning the walls of her house.

  She fell backwards, head rapping the ground. It was the sensation of being winded that caused her to panic. There was no pain otherwise. Only that sky up above, the clouds drawing back to let through a little warmth again. Just enough to tickle her nose and make her squint. She thought of the light through redwood trees growing brighter as she neared the clearing where the Golden Gate bridge could be seen.

  An odd numbness began to spread throughout her body, sweeping away the image of those tall trees. Soon there was only the sky again. The clouds parted further, and when Mama Metcalf tried to raise a hand to shield her eyes she found that she couldn’t muster the strength. That numbness had her in its hold now, and she feared it would never let go.

  She didn’t need to worry about the glare for long. The light was eclipsed by a figure. The sun crafted a halo from its hair. Arms like those of a great black bird, or maybe those of a man. A man who wanted to hug her. His invitation was strong.

  “Erik,” Mama Metcalf said, gurgling on coppery blood.

  You came to see me. I’m so—

  ***

  The old woman shot her in the face.

  ***

  Mykel heard the pop over the ding-dong of overlapping emergency buzzer alerts from where he was standing, slipping off a pair of latex gloves, in the corridor leading to the break room. Even though he knew it made no sense at all, he could have sworn someone had just set off a firecracker in the courtyard. He hurried down the hall, passed through the empty kitchenette and glanced out the glass door on the left. Mykel wasn’t sure what he expected to find, perhaps the sizzling remains of someone’s New Year’s poppers propped up in the snow. Only no. That was not what was out there.

  It took a moment for him to comprehend what he was seeing. When it clicked, he felt a tiny trickle of urine slip into his underwear.

  Mama Metcalf was lying on the ground, her face like a punched in Halloween pumpkin, surrounded by wings of crimson snow. Another old woman—this one in a torn black dress—stood over her. Mykel’s paralysis broke when he saw the gun in her hand.

  He yelled back into the building for help as he pushed through the door and sprinted across the courtyard. The woman in black unloaded another shot into Mama Metcalf’s head. More starbursts of blood. Mykel tackled the old woman to the ground, wondering the whole time, What the fuck am I doing here?I’m no hero.

  That was your brother. Remember?

  The world became a shaken up snow globe as they rolled, fighting against one another. Red slop splashed into Mykel’s mouth and he hardly noticed. Adrenaline eclipsed all else. The woman—who looked like someone out of a Grimm’s fairy tale illustration, an old witch ready to lure children into her oven—was so damn strong. This caught him off guard. As did her scream, which was angry, primal. She tried to raise the gun again. He snatched her wrist, his whole hand wrapping around her bones, and banged it against the leg of the picnic table. The woman cried out. Dropped the weapon. Mykel kicked it away and laid the full weight of his body on her frame, making sure she couldn’t scramble free.

  “You cunt!” the woman screeched. “Cunt!”

  “Stop. Christ, what’ve you done? Fuck. Fuck.” And then to the sky, spittle flying: “HELP! Someone help me!”

  Behind him he heard shouting voices. Footsteps. He prayed they were running towards him, not away.

  ***

  Lucette backed against the wall outside Corridor 3. An alarm started to bleat from speakers she couldn’t see, making her clutch the near-perfect crane to her chest as though shielding it from the noise. Down the hallway she saw her mother and Woods skirt from one of the building’s arteries and into another, their faces matching portraits of confusion. Other nurses bustled about.

  The alarm was loud, frightening. It sounded like a wounded animal screeching over and over again, a vulture from one of those environmental documentaries her teachers made them watch at school on rainy sports days. The overhead bulbs dimmed and secondary lights, all red, flicked on. Lucette told herself to be a big girl, be brave. She figured there must be an emergency somewhere, and as sad as that may be for those involved, it was the perfect distraction for her.

  She scuttled closer to the door leading to the FSU, stopping to glance over her shoulder and make sure she hadn’t been seen. So far so good. Lucette flicked bangs out of her eyes and reached up to punch in the code she remembered her mother using. Hopefully i
t hadn’t been changed since that day.

  67845 followed by the # key.

  Was Lucette aware that she was doing something naughty? Yes, of course she was. But like the day she’d pretended to be a bone-eater at school (or a zombie, or a smiler—whatever she was or was not supposed to call them) she sensed that going to visit Robby was the right thing to do. Even if it meant doing a wrong. She clenched her jaw and braved the keypad, resenting the adults of the world who spoke as though their rules were simple when in fact they were anything but. More than anything, Lucette had come to believe that there were special times when people needed to know that they were being mean to someone, like the kids in her class who had made fun of her. And in turn, there were times when people needed to know they were appreciated. People like Robby.

  Though it had been she who made the crane in the end, it was he who had earned it.

  Buttons clicked and clacked under the tip of her index finger and she was relieved when she heard the lock unlatch from the jam. Not knowing if she was going to encounter anyone on the other side, Lucette decided her best course of action was to act like she belonged here, to stare straight ahead and walk with a steady, confident gait.

  The ruse wasn’t necessary as it turned out. The hall on the other side of the door was deserted, bathed in that scarlet glow. She crept forward, drawn to soft moaning, soft weeping, which came from the room on her right and somehow managed to slit through the screech of the alarm. Lucette edged closer to the door, hands gripping the architrave. Peered in.

  Her mouth went dry. Eyes widened.

  She’d heard their names bandied about in FSU by nurses coming and going between the rooms. From memory, they were Speedy and Tammy—though she may have heard wrong. The man was sitting on the edge of the bed next to an empty wheelchair and the woman was on her knees between his legs. The back of her hospital gown was open, the rise and fall of her spine casting its own shadow in the red light; it almost hurt to look at. Their bodies were woven with IV tubes. Lucette clung to the architrave tighter; not quite understanding what she was seeing but drawing the dots together. The woman had Speedy’s pee-pee (no, say it right, it’s a penis) in her mouth and was bouncing her lips up and down on it, making the man grunt. Or was he crying?