DarkTalesfromElderRegionsNY

by Hieber, Leanna Renee

  Upon it, he detected a trace of bergamot.

  ~~END~~

  Retro Viral

  by Andrea Janes

  Dr. Tayborn stared at the x-ray. “I’ve only ever diagnosed one case of it,” he said. “But that was years ago. A woman, recently returned from abroad. Middle aged. Nothing like this.”

  “All six of them, under twenty-five?” asked the epidemiologist.

  “All in the same age range, all with the same point of origin,” Dr. Tayborn confirmed. “All on the same night.”

  “It’ll be tough to determine the index case.” The epidemiologist made a note on a long yellow pad.

  “Highly anomalous, seeing something like this in New York City. It’s nineteen eighty-nine for god’s sake.” The doctor shook his head.

  “Did you read their testimonies?”

  “I did. It occurred to me that they had all ingested the same, tainted, substance. But that was tested. It was pure, as far as it goes, and besides, it hasn’t affected the others the same way. Only those six.”

  “There are too many variables.” The epidemiologist walked over to the x-ray and peered at it up close.

  The doctor said slowly, “Well, there’s only the one common factor. From their testimonies. Medically, it’s…”

  “Absurd.”

  “I was going to say inexplicable.”

  *************

  The air hit them like stale morning breath when they walked into the damp building and Heather coughed, “Holy shit.”

  Tommy laughed. He shoved the bolt cutters under one arm and shouldered the padlock and chain. “File in, kids.”

  “Lights!” someone shouted, and turned on a big yellow Rayovac flashlight. It illuminated the yawning interior better than Heather’s penlight had. Eight or nine kids followed Tommy inside, kicking up dust.

  “Awesome…” Heather looked around the empty room. Some of the old equipment had been moved to the corners and piled under drop-cloths, but an open space about 500 feet long, and half as wide at its widest side, was clear and beckoning. The building diminished into a narrow slice at each of its three corners; it was, interior and exterior, a perfect triangle, each of its vertices no wider than a foot or so, forming a crosshatch of interlocked brickwork. Haphazardly covered with dilapidated horizontal blinds, the windows provided perfect, clear vistas through each other on every side, locked in a strange three-way embrace like an imperfect marriage. It was an eyeless, soulless, staring edifice. Walking around it, one got the impression that the fourth wall was missing, that it had been lost somehow; it was disorienting to walk around three sides of the structure and come back where you started.

  Tommy found out about the building from the Spanish boys on Christopher Street who were always hanging out by the PATH station. One of them said, “It’s closed now, you know. That homo closed the place down.” Tommy loved the Spanish boys. They would fuck you twice and then call you a fag. He got a laugh out of that.

  Heather flipped out when she saw it. “Let’s do it,” she said.

  Everyone loved it. A girl whispered, “This is insane.”

  “If we can do it in a church, why not here?” Heather grinned.

  But Eric was wary.

  Eric kept his spiral-ham arms folded up against his chest, tight in his leather jacket. His hair was cut short. He was Bridge and Tunnel and looked it, white t-shirt and everything. He looked around at the humps of old equipment moldering under the drop cloths. “Where’s the chair? The chair that he touched?”

  “What chair?” snapped Tommy.

  “He sat here, right? He was here?”

  “So?”

  “All the stuff he touched, it’s not still here, is it?” Eric’s Staten Island baritone came out terse and clipped.

  “Excuse me? You think you can get AIDS by touching a chair?”

  “Nobody knows how you get it—”

  “You get it from fucking,” Tommy spat. “So you don’t need to worry.”

  “Come on,” Heather said, her eyes pleading with Tommy. Be nice. “Help me set this up.”

  “Yeah, come on Tommy dear, don’t be mean,” Devon said. “It’s play time, not fighting time, okay sweetie? Be a gentleman.”

  Tommy made a lemon-sucking face. “Why is she even friends with him?” he stage-whispered. Devon giggled and waved a slim brown hand in Eric’s direction. “I think he’s cute.” He giggled again and Tommy rolled his eyes.

  Heather shone her penlight into a corner. “Here,” she said.

  The kid with the Rayovac held up a beam for her as they set up the generator.

  “What do I do with this?” Devon held up the black rubber tube and started miming with it pornographically. He got Tommy laughing again; Tommy’s moods were like spring weather. If you don’t like it, just wait five minutes.

  Tommy affixed the tubing from the canister to pour the gas into the generator. “Sure you don’t want to huff any?”

  “I only huff designer gas,” Devon riposted.

  Heather pulled the starter and everyone cheered as the generator grumbled to life.

  The bulky little machine made the floor vibrate. Robin, standing aside, felt nervous. Robin was birch-tree slim and pale, dressed in black: one of those goth kids who wandered into parties sometimes, lured by the drugs and the depths of the music. She was nervous though, ever since she saw the dilapidated sign over the door: “Founded 1827.” One hundred and sixty-two years old. Her shoulders twitched as she considered the building’s structural strength. We could all crash through the floor… no, no, she was being paranoid. She’d smoked way too much before she came out, taking her time with her hair and outfit, spending forever on her eyes, and smoking most of her hash; and then she had started getting nervous, running around the apartment with a can of air freshener, desperately spraying, hoping to get the smell out by the time her parents got home. They thought she was at Samantha’s house sleeping over; they didn’t know she hadn’t seen Sammy or any of her old friends in months. They didn’t know she was about ride the 9:18 into the city. Perhaps their trains had even passed.

  She needed to calm the fuck down. That Eric guy was freaking her out, too, talking about getting AIDS from a chair. That’s stupid, don’t let it get to you. You can’t get AIDS that way; everyone knows that now. A few years ago maybe it was different, and maybe if people had know it then, this place wouldn’t have gotten sued, and the old clinic would still be operational. But then there’d be no party. So all’s well that ends well, she reasoned.

  Robin watched as the DJ set the speakers up. He talked about wattage and fussed over his turntables, a cigarette dangling from his lips. Smoke was already beginning to fill the dim room with blue shadows. No fire extinguisher in here, Robin noted. Shut up, she told herself. Stop it.

  The speakers crackled to life and low bass notes filtered into the room. Another cheer went up.

  “Ladies and gentleman,” the DJ breathed into the mic. “We have twelve hours of power on this piece of shit low-wattage generator…. Let’s bounce some bodies.”

  It was time.

  *************

  “Collective paranoia is, of course, a possibility,” Dr. Tayborn mused.

  “Quite possible, given the nature of their activities that night. It’s even possible it manifested itself in some form of mass hysteria, a mass hypochondria, if you will. But to manifest those symptoms…” It was the epidemiologist’s turn to trail off.

  The two men sat in thought awhile, just staring at the lungs on the wall and the dark shadows within them.

  “The clinic did shut down due to an AIDS scare in 1986,” Dr. Tayborn finally said. “Is it possible…?”

  “That what they’re manifesting is actually HIV?”

  “No, I suppose not.”

  “Of course not. There’s nothing wrong with your diagnosis. We know what we’re seeing.”

  “We just don’t know why.”

  *************

  A bottom-dropping splatter of
synth pierced the massive, juddering walls of BPM; then a brief respite of quick, hollow beats, then a build up again, faster than before. Kids bopped in through the door, dancing as soon as they crossed the threshold. Heather smiled. It was a good party.

  Eric was getting down. Heather was glad she’d brought him along. They gave him a hard time, but he was all right. And Eric had the perfect accouterments. Sky blue, bright orange, acid smiley-face yellow: the pills came in all colors, including plain old white. And there was enough to go around; Eric was putting away more twenties than Chase Manhattan. Everyone was feeling it, even Heather, and the room she surveyed overflowed with an outpouring of mutual affections.

  A girl in a nurse’s outfit and tiny angel wings was handing out candy. She glided past Robin, handing her a sucker. “Penny candy for the baby. Don’t end up in a puddle on the floor…”

  Tommy danced alone. Just as long… as I’ve got you, I’ve got enough…

  Eric was pleased, too. It was going on twelve o’clock, and this was the happiest place on earth. Enough business had been conducted, he decided. He could relax now. Even the uptight fag with the nervous laugh was dancing. Eric looked at tall, redheaded Heather, shaking a little, her slim, white legs long in the short shorts, and walked over to her.

  They went upstairs.

  There were people dancing on the second floor; the building was so small you could hear everything up there and the sound from downstairs rose up easily through the wooden floorboards. Heather and Eric held hands and went on, up to the third floor.

  Heather found a beanbag chair that someone had brought and abandoned, a sad little discarded lump that looked like an ancient stray cat, bedraggled and slightly obese. They jammed it up the rickety stairs in total darkness until Heather turned on her penlight and held it between her teeth.

  The dust was a little worse on the third floor, and plumes of smoke had drifted up from below to form a thick miasma, but they didn’t notice. They were alone. They sank into the beanbag chair and Eric kissed her slowly. Everything seemed to slow down. The beats grew fainter and soon were only tiny bleeps as the two melted, syrup sticky, in the sticky-fur cat chair.

  “What?” Heather said.

  “What?” Eric looked at her. “Did I say something?”

  An invisible diva belted out monosyllables over the bleeps, which segued back into a new rhythm as the DJ mixed the record. Heather laughed over the music. “Did I say something?” her voice came through the air, distorted, loud yet distant, and strangely hollow, both stretched out and sped up at once. “I thought you were drifting away.”

  “Where?” said Eric. The tempo changed again. It was arrhythmic, and made something plunge in Eric’s stomach.

  Heather laughed, “Waaaay back,” and her voice and her laughter slid into the song. With a sudden panic, Eric realized what the stomach-plunge signaled.

  He had to take a shit.

  The diva sang, “Hey there…”

  Somewhere between the last thought and the next, Eric stood up. Heather waited in the chair for him, enjoying texture of her knees.

  He had to go downstairs. He had to find a bathroom. Was there even a bathroom here? Had no one thought of this? His stomach flipped over.

  The dark stairs led somewhere, but it wasn’t the same place they had come from. This wasn’t the main room. He could hear the party but he couldn’t see it. Did he go too far downstairs? He seemed to be in a basement.

  He pushed on a wooden door that smelled musty and damp. The door swung open, and he saw a hallway. And at the end of the hallway was a small water closet. It was filthy, and probably inoperable, it had a chain hanging from the ceiling like the john in his grandma’s tenement apartment on Orchard Street, but it would have to do.

  *************

  The light from the windows began to illuminate things for Heather as her eyes adjusted. The shapes in the dark were old pieces of medical equipment. It was all still here. No one had bothered with drop cloths on the third floor. “Whoa,” she said. “Cool.” An old dentist’s chair still stood in the corner. It was made of puke green vinyl, covered with a layer of yellowed plastic. She sat in it. I wonder if they have any laughing gas up here…

  And as she sat in the chair, she started rushing. Oh my goddddd… Where was Eric? She wanted him here now.

  Whoa. The chair bent backward all of a sudden, and Heather found herself lying down. It must be broken.

  Her body twitched in a mild spasm, and she let herself lie back in the chair for a minute. The feeling of plastic on her skimpily clad legs was suddenly… strange. It felt different. Why? She looked at the chair. It wasn’t plastic. It was made of something else. She brushed her hands along it. It was made of wood.

  “Heather?” A male voice same from out of the darkness. “Let’s take a look at that mouth.”

  A glimmer of a metal flashed briefly and Heather shook her head. She wanted out of this chair but she couldn’t move. She clamped her mouth shut.

  Her teeth began to grind.

  *************

  “You’re too young to be here.”

  “What?” Robin whirled around. “Oh, that is a fucked up outfit,” she breathed.

  The woman standing in front of her was really getting into the spirit of the old building. She was in full costume, and it was unlike anything Robin had ever seen —a long, old-fashioned dress, with droopy sleeves and a tight waist, complete with a lace shawl and cap.

  “I mean, it’s amazing,” said Robin. “But it’s like… full on.”

  The costumed woman frowned. “A healthy young thing like you, so feverish. Come, I’ll put you in the book and then we’ll find a place for you to lie down.” For some reason, Robin’s immediate thought was: Don’t put me in the book.

  “Sign your name here.”

  The woman’s long sleeves swished lightly as she opened the registry. How Robin knew it was called the registry, she had no idea. The word just flashed into her mind. It was comically huge, like a prop from a play, bound in leather, brown and cracked. Tiny writing filled the yellowed pages in neat columns and rows. Robin hesitated.

  “You can read and write, can’t you?”

  “What?”

  “My child, you are completely insensate. I’m going to take you straight to bed. We can worry about the registry later.”

  A slim, short man in a black suit walked toward them. “Good day, sir,” the costumed woman said. The man in the black suit nodded at her and politely coughed, “Good day, ma’am.” He had bright, black, febrile eyes, and a high, white forehead with the sheen of sickness on it. His glassy eyes looked right through Robin, who stood there staring, open-mouthed. “Stop gaping, child, and, follow me,” the costumed woman admonished Robin, just before she walked through the wall.

  *************

  “Yo,” said Devon. “I want to go.”

  Tommy cocked his head to the side. “Why?”

  The crowd danced around him, except Devon, who entwined his fingers with Tommy’s and begged, “Let’s go somewhere else.”

  Tommy mumbled through a cigarette as he lit it. “This party is sick. Why would you want to leave?”

  “Look,” said Devon, “This old ass building is creeping me out. And this DJ… I can’t dance to this.”

  Tommy pondered and looked down at his feet. He wiggled his toes inside his platform heels. Devon took his silence for hesitation. “Listen, I don’t want to get all voodoo chile on you, but I have to tell you something. This place gives me a brown-acid vibe. Come with me where it’s civilized. Where you can get a cocktail. Tommy, I saw… well…” Devon trailed off. He debated inwardly whether he should tell Tommy about the gaunt, pale man in the black suit. “Anyway, step into the light with me, okay?”

  At length, Tommy nodded. “Let me catch up with you? I want to say goodbye to Heather.”

  “You sure you’re cool in here?”

  “Why wouldn’t I be?”

  Devon sighed. His grandma always said the
second sight was like singing: some people have perfect pitch, others be tone deaf. “Just come along soon, okay? I’m out.”

  “Yeah. I’ll catch up with you later.”

  *************

  “Of course, there would’ve been dozens of cases treated when the place was a functioning hospital, back in the 19th century,” said Dr. Tayborn as he flipped through his files.

  “Was it a full-fledged hospital?”

  “More of a clinic really, for the poor. I’m sure the place saw several incidences over the years.”

  “But none recently,” the epidemiologist asked.

  “No. The place was refashioned as a dental clinic by the turn of the century, and wouldn’t have treated a case like it in decades.”

  “Not knowingly.”

  “No,” said Dr. Tayborn. “Not knowingly.”

  *************

  Eric was washing his hands in the cracked porcelain sink next to the john when he saw him.

  The water worked, incredibly, though it was freezing cold. When he looked up into the ancient, foggy mirror, he saw a face beside his. It was pale and gaunt, and looked shiny with sweat. The eyes were huge and dark and staring, the mouth fine, the hair black and drooping. He was struck by the sadness of the face.

  It coughed once, then disappeared.

  Eric ran.

  *************

  Heather was grinding, gnashing her teeth.

  The man looked into her with his dark eyes, smiled at her and reached for her mouth, but she clamped her jaw shut and gripped the arms of the dentist’s chair. I’m going to have words with Eric when this is over. This E is fucked up. This is so wrong.

  “Heather?” Tommy appeared at the top of the stairs.

  Heather opened her eyes. The man was gone. “Tommy!”

  “Hey… this is crazy! Look at this shit…” Tommy started rummaging around the filing cabinets, rifling through the old-fashioned bottles and medical books.

  “Did you see him?” Heather turned her eyes on him. Her pupils were onyx dinner plates.

  “Hmmm…?” murmured Tommy absently. “Oh wow.” He reached up above Heather’s head, where the old x-ray machine still hung. “Let’s turn this on and give you super powers.” He laughed.