Welcome Aboard

WELCOME ABOARD

“The dead roam those halls.”

At first, Emily assumed the voice was her own, an echo bouncing off the building’s façade. She continued toward the entrance nonetheless, brushing the cliché away as though it were just another snowflake caught on her coat. Every one of her steps ushered the cinderblock structure closer until it loomed overhead, and as she passed into its shadow, Emily found herself admiring how the building managed to be both nondescript and foreboding at the same time, a balancing act of utilitarian blandness that screamed government institution!

The voice spoke again. No, not just spoke. It came at her.

“That place belongs to the dead.”

She paused. The speaker wasn’t in her head, rather somewhere to her right: an old woman with wild gray hair, dressed in black. Emily knew she shouldn’t be unsettled—that she was above all the theatrical bullshit that came with this territory—yet she felt her stomach knotting anyway.

“The dead roam those halls.” Repeated, of course, for emphasis. And worst of all, it fucking worked.

“I know.”

The old woman’s expression was pinched into a familiar mask of fear and desperation. Familiar, yes—but from where? Emily clutched her coat, though the chill rippling through her nerve endings had little to do with winter’s grip and more to do with that face.

And then it came to her, the coalescence of a memory, the jigsaw of a half remembered dream coming back together again. Yes, of course.

The rat.

Four nights before, after tucking Lucette into bed with a headful of prayers—

(“now I lay me down to sleep”)

—there came the snap of the trap.

(“I pray the Lord my soul to keep.”)

Emily tiptoed into the kitchen, the floorboards of her ancient rental creaking underfoot, a sound that would have alerted the living to her presence on any other evening, although she suspected she was now dealing with the dead. The almost dead, as the stuttering florescent proved. The rat, which had been making meals out of their dry goods for the past two months, had been caught. Emily drew near, could smell the funk of dust and copper as the night thief kicked, once, twice. It studied her with a glare that seemed to say:

I don’t understand what’s happening. Not really. Yet here I am anyway.

I’m not ugly, not worthy of your fear. But you think I am.

Hungry. Hungry was all I ever was. Yet for this I was despised, gifted pain.

“Don’t go in there,” the woman said, her breath pluming in the frigid Chicago air.

Emily had no choice.

There was a job that needed to be done, and though the pay was a pittance, those pennies and dimes were enough to keep her landlord at bay and the heat on in the house. This was all the motivation she needed, ensuring the embers of her courage remained stoked. And they needed stoking. Always. Hunger was such sweet fuel, second only, perhaps, to gin. Though Emily had to admit it was a little early in the day for that, even for her.

Bones cracked as the old woman shook her head. “Don’t.” That ratty face twisted tighter. She stretched out her hands, fingers knotted like the roots of some weather-beaten tree. Searching for soil, for purpose.

I’m hungry to save you, the gesture implied.

Don’t fear me.

I’m not the intruder here. You are.

And that place there, that place is the trap.

With the same finality, the same pity, which Emily lent the rat (a thunk to the head with one of her wooden spoons to finish what baited cheese and spring-loaded barbs had not), she continued up the steps. “I have to go.”

“Then you’re doomed.”

“Yep, honey, I know that, too.”

“No one who goes in that place comes out unscathed!”

Emily paused at the door, glanced back and realized the old woman was part of a larger group gathered at the corner, as they always were, whatever and wherever the facility. And of course, their constituents were always the same. Waifish soccer moms anchored to the ground by crucifixes. Preppy teenage boys whose prejudices had been adequately sculpted by the parents at their sides. Angry retirees who no longer felt safe wandering the highways in their RV’s now that the infected weren’t killed on sight. It was never any different, just the lost and the bored chanting the same things over and over again, like sad Christmas carolers, who in the heat of their hatred had forgotten what they were there to sing about.

Many of their hand-scrawled signs were incomprehensible, misspelled.

“LIFE IS 4 THE LIVING”, “BRING OUT UR DED”, “NO TOLERENCE 4 BONE EATERS”, “LET’S FINISH THE JOB”.

A shake of the head. Dug through her purse. Pulled out the keycard she’d been issued at the agency. Swiped the scanner.

Emily heard the click as the first of two glass doors slid open, revealing a security antechamber. A gasp of warm air ruffled her bangs as she steeled herself for the stink to come.

The lobby and unmanned reception were lost to shadows. Emily, determined to breathe through her mouth for a little longer, knew her nerves would emerge the victor here if she weren’t careful. And that couldn’t happen. Not now, not ever. Off-white walls adorned with paintings of sailboats and flowers seemed to absorb the light shining in through the glass doors at her back, as opposed to reflecting it. A row of uncomfortable looking plastic chairs on her left, a metal bin overflowing with magazines. Tinsel snaked about the place, shimmering in the dim. It was all so desperate.

Emily was alone.

The hallway stretched toward the back of the building, doors branching off to either side at regular intervals. At least it was brighter up ahead. She waited, shifting from foot to foot.

Distant clip-clopping shoes. Hissing electricity. An auto-tuned rendition of Winter Wonderland. The CD was scratched, the resulting melody unnerving her as though the singer’s tongue, perverse and septic, were flickering in her ear.

She gripped her handbag, and inhaled through her nose for the first time.

There it was, the stink she knew so well—a heady mixture of piss, shit, and overcompensating bleach. But not all the bleach, not all the protesters in the world, could hide what was going on within these walls. And why, after all, should the truth be hidden? Emily had asked herself this question many times, though the answer always remained the same.

The ugliness of a truth doesn’t make it a lie. Avoiding your responsibility does.

Emily started forward as a man emerged from a door halfway up the hall. In that very moment—as she gasped with shock and took one very definite step backwards—she detested herself.

He was a walking stick figure, skin sallow and covered in angry blemishes. His head was devoid of hair, and not just on his scalp either—there were no eyebrows or eyelashes to be found. His hands were twisted into arthritic claws, yellowed nails trimmed to the quick, which was standard procedure in hospices to keep the infected from scratching anyone. A line of drool swung from his lips, a pendulum reminding them all of his battle against the clock. Cloudy eyes, crusted with pus. A moan escaped him as he shambled closer. His gait was unsteady.

Get the fuck out of here, Sunshine, said a tiny voice in Emily’s head. Its shrill tone was not unlike that of the ratty harbinger outside.

You’re playing Russian roulette with your life every time you step into one of these damned places. So turn around and go.

Emily stood her ground. She could smell the man’s decay.

Pump gas. Stack shelves. Jockey a cash register—Christ only knows the pay’s better. Leave. The old bitch was right; nobody comes out of this place unscathed. Why do you do this to yourself? To Lucette?

Sunshine, you don’t need to be here.

And with that her fear dissolved. The voice in her head often told lies, and none had been more prominent than that final manipulation. Because yes. Yes, she did need to be here.

A middle-aged woman followed the man out into the hallway and grabbed his arm just as he started to fall. Holding him up, allowing him to place his weight on her, the woman said, “Hey Speedy Gonzales, I told you to hold your horses. Lean on me.”

When the woman noticed Emily standing there, she stopped. “Are you supposed to be in here?”

Unable to take her eyes off the ravaged man, Emily said, “I’m looking for Mrs. Woods. I’m sorry, there was no receptionist out front.”

“Receptionist quit yesterday. What else is new? This place. Pfft. Woods’ office is the last door on the left.”

“Are you one of the nurses?”

“No, a relative. This is my husband. You a permanent newbie or just a temp?”

“Agency through and through, but if they want me, I’ll stay.”

“Ah! That’s the attitude we want. Ain’t that right, Speedy?”

The woman’s husband did not reply.

Emily paused as she made to move past the couple. “It’s nice to meet you. No doubt our paths will cross again.” She saw the exaggerated length of the man’s yellowed teeth, the beginning of his permanent smile, an awful irony considering his silent torture. “Is Speedy here—?”

“Yessum. Grade A. He’s in FSU, the Final Stages Unit up there aways. They let me take him out every so often.” Emily saw the way the woman’s fingers gripped his arm. There would be bruising, no doubt. The man moaned. “We’ve been together almost twenty years. Now it’s hard to tell how long he’s got. But Speedy has his good days and his not so good days. Today’s one of the latter. He’s hardly said a word to me all morning. I’m not sure I know why I bother coming anymore.”

A weight bloomed in Emily’s chest, a sorrowful flower she had no choice but to cut off at the stem. Were she to let it live any longer, both Emily and that voice at the back of her head knew she wouldn’t last longer than two minutes in this place. “Ma’am, is it a good idea for him to be out of bed?”

“Got to keep on moving. Ain’t that right, Speedy? You tell the nice lady. After all, she’d keep on running if the devil was at her back, too.” The woman locked eyes with Emily, her stare part plea, part spite. “They say if you keep them active, the blood pumping and all that, it can prolong—well, you know.”

That’s true, Emily thought to herself. But look at him, honey. He’s wasting away. He can hardly stand. Are you sure prolonging this is for the best?

(The dead roam these halls.)

“I’m not ready to let go just yet.” The woman’s murmur was as delicate as fluttering moth wings. “But soon. Soon.”

Then she got her husband moving and they hobbled back the way they had come. All that was left behind were the scents of death and cheap perfume, freckles of spit drying on the linoleum.

Emily, now flushed, took off her coat, draped it over her arm, and continued on. At the end of the corridor on her left, an open door revealed a black woman in blue scrubs sitting at a desk, typing furiously at a computer. She didn’t seem to be aware that she was no longer alone until Emily rapped on the doorjamb.

Glancing Emily’s way without pausing in her typing, the woman said, “Can I help you?”

“Mrs. Woods?”

“That’s right.”

“I’m Emily Samuels.”

The clattering of keys stalled.

“Oh dear, is it that late already? I meant to meet you in the lobby.”

“That’s all right, I have my keycard already.”

“Well, come in and have a seat. I have some paperwork for you to fill out and then I’ll show you around the place, explain our procedures, introduce you to our guests.”

“Guests?”

“We find it puts people more at ease than calling them patients.”

“I see.”

“Did the Right-to-Lifers out front give you grief?”

“Um, not much. A warning that I was doomed if I came in. The standard song and dance.”

“A nuisance is what those folks are, harassing people on their way in and out like that. I called the police, but they said as long as none of the protestors came on the property there was nothing they could do. I suspect the authorities round here just don’t give a toot.”

“I have a thick skin,” Emily said. “They can shout at me all they want, it won’t bother me none.”

Woods leaned her forearms on the desk. Cracked her neck. “Okay, girl. You a Ms. Samuels or you an Emily?”

“Emily, please.”

“Emily. I read your file and saw that before you started up at the agency you were a nurse at Saint Michaels. Must’ve been making a good salary over there. I called your old supervisor. He raved about you, said how sorry they all were to see you go.”

Woods paused as if she expected a response, but Emily wasn’t sure what to say so she sat silently with her hands folded in her lap.

“I guess I just wondered why you’d give up that kind of financial security at a state-of-the-art facility to come work for understaffed hospices like this dump, and for peanuts, no less. The Ministry has cut our budget; we never have enough hands on deck. Why choose this?”

Emily shrugged. “There’s work here that needs to be done. Isn’t that reason enough?”

“Hm. Where you from, Emily?”

“Nearby. The Russian quarter. I got a car if that’s what this is about. I’m always on time.”

“No, that’s not what it’s about. Not with an accent like yours. Where you from before you moved to The Windy City?”

“South Carolina.”

“I thought as much.”

“And that’s supposed to mean what, exactly?”

“It’s just that we’ve had trouble with people from down south coming into this place and bringing with them certain prejudices. Staff, I mean. My understanding is that they still don’t treat the infected all that well down in South Carolina, regardless of the reform.” Wood’s eyed her, a feline flash that made Emily, a dog lover, dislike the woman even more. “I’m sure you can understand my concern. I’m the warden here. I need to look after everyone’s wellbeing. Why the move to Chicago?”

Emily didn’t spare a second with her reply. “I don’t deal well with the heat.”

And with that, the standoff cooled.

“Okay, Emily Samuels. Do well this week and we’ll take you on permanent, assuming you want it. Monday to Friday. Six-thirty in the AM to three in the PM. There’s no shortage of a shortage here, if you catch my drift.”

“I’ll sing for my supper given the chance. Your patients—guests—have largely been abandoned, but they are still human beings who deserve the best care. Especially at the end.”

“Nice textbook answer, but have you ever actually been around the Grade A infected?”

Emily stiffened. “Yes. I’ve had extensive experience at the agency of working with C’s, B’s, and A’s. The zombie contingent is—”

Woods threw up her hands. “No, no, no! We don’t say ‘zombie’ here. Nor do we refer to our guests as ‘smilers’, or ‘bone eaters’ or whatever else it is you hear over there in the Russian quarter. It won’t fly here, Emily. There’s a reason those offensive B movies and trashy novels about the infected have been withdrawn from circulation, and banned. We, being a government funded non-profit, also don’t want to promote—” cue finger quotation marks “—’negative perceptions’. Understood?”

“Crystalline.”

Woods scrutinized her with a tilt of the head for a few moments before saying, “Okay, then let’s get started. Welcome aboard.”

The stink of the hospice followed her home.

Emily washed her hair three times, her scalp scratched and raw. The water was hotter than it should be. Steam cloyed, as strangulating as grief. There was no other option—she had to get out or faint. Emily sidestepped from the stall in her bathroom and toweled off. Finished, her hand rose to the mirror and carved a palm’s width through the condensation.

I’m boiled. Boiled, but clean. That’s all that matters.

It was nine in the evening and Emily wondered where the remainder of her afternoon had gone. It was only as she took inventory of her tired red-rimmed eyes that the weight of the day revealed itself. After leaving work, everything had become a series of events she’d walked through as though in a dream. The resulting fatigue was deep. It was in her bones, and the hot water in those pipes couldn’t remedy that.

She remembered picking Lucette up from school, which was located two blocks away from their house. Convenient. This memory stuck because Emily had pulled up in her car with the awful fear that her daughter wouldn’t be there waiting for her.

Due to the early starting time of her shift at the hospice, Emily had no choice but to let her ten-year-old take the bus from their shit-box, ground level apartment to Saint Mary’s. Sure, she didn’t have to walk far to catch a ride, the bus picking her up right outside, but that did little to curb the anxiety. Just crossing the empty lot between their front door and the stop could be a dangerous journey. Why? Because the world had claws. Complacency killed.

But Lucette had been waiting there for her, of course, backpack dangling from one shoulder, a smile from ear to ear. She was so tiny in her bulky snow jacket. Emily’s relief had been instantaneous. Yes, this arrangement might just work.

Her daughter had leapt into the car and told her about her day, only parts of which Emily could recall now. Something about a new substitute teacher, a man who had spent time in Japan and was teaching them how to make origami cranes. Lucette had been beaming over this, a surprise.

Oh—origami, then. Not what I’d anticipated as your newest phase, but okay.

Lucette was a lot of things, gregarious and easy to anger, not the kind of girl who would find the folding of paper fun. Generally speaking.

Well, what do I know? It’s so hard keeping up with it all.

Time ticked by on autopilot.

They then went to the grocery store, where Lucette pushed the trolley, as she loved to do. Before Emily knew it, they were back home, cooking up a pot of spaghetti, the news playing in the background, the reporter saying something about a bone eater that had been wandering around the city dockyards and killed a tourist. Dishes washed, packed away. A boiled kettle. A teabag bled in the mug. Warmth. And finally, all that scouring in the shower.

The mirror fogged over. Emily turned away and sat down on the bathroom stool, her knees cracking. Had a truck hit her at some point? It felt as though one had.

Tomorrow will be easier. The next day always is.

She wrapped herself in a nightgown and walked into the hall.

Lucette was lying on her stomach in front of the television, head propped in her hands, feet in the air. “Okay, darlin’,” Emily said. “Time for bed.”

“Five more minutes?”

“Nope. Big day tomorrow. For both of us.”

Her daughter relented after the usual push and pull, and switched off the set. Lucette was getting taller by the day and beautiful in a tom-boyish way, despite the pig-tails and legs made for dancing. Emily smiled. She’d never thought it possible to love someone so much.

Lucette slinked into her arms, smelling of soap and bubblegum. “What’s the matter, Mom? You seem sad.”

“Just exhausted, darlin’.”

“Is your new work good?”

“Doing a good thing rarely feels good. I’ll earn my sleep, let’s put it that way.” Emily planted a kiss on the crown of her head. “I’ll be fine.”

“Will you tuck me in?”

“Of course.”

After prayers, and after promises to not let the bedbugs bite, Emily left Lucette in the dark. There had been a time when there had to be a nightlight in the room at all times, but things had changed somewhere along the line. Unlike her mother, Lucette seemed to be growing braver by the day. Emily was almost envious, and mourned the steel of her own resolve. Sure, she presented as hard-nosed to others—and damn it, she had to be at times—but by night, as she tiptoed through the house and extinguished every bulb, she knew better.

Emily’s room was tidy. Tomorrow’s uniform slung over the back of a chair. Sneakers on a piece of newspaper. A place for everything and everything in its place—except for one thing. There was a new baseball bat on the bed. Emily had bought it yesterday for twenty-nine dollars. Lucette would love it, she being the kind of girl who didn’t care much for dolls—not anymore, not since the Raggedy Ann she’d nicknamed Natalia. The Dodgers, on the other hand, were legendary. And her daughter had quite a swing on her, too. This made Emily proud.

Maybe I should get her a book on origami for Christmas as well, considering how psyched she was about it today. After my first paycheck.

Earthquakes, the weather, a ten-year-old’s whim—none of these could be predicted, not really. No matter what people said. There were always variables, and those variables kept Emily on her toes. Not necessarily a bad thing.

She was convinced the bat would be a sure-fire hit on Christmas day in two weeks’ time. Tomorrow after her shift, she would pick up some wrapping paper from the corner store, something with reindeer on it or little Santa Clauses. It would be gift numero uno under this year’s tree—an artificial cheapie with bent branches. Mother and daughter had erected it the prior weekend.

Her fingers curled around the bat. Gripping it made her long for summer. She hid it in her walk-in wardrobe and eased the door shut. A little groan of exhaustion escaped her. The mattress called and she had every intention of answering.

Emily thumped down and the bedsprings sang their lullaby. Silence.

The streetlight outside her window lent just enough peace of mind. Emily studied it now, watched all those snowflakes falling in straight lines like a rain of dead things. There was no wind. No stars.

Reality dissolved at some point. In her dream she stood at the windowsill, hands flush against the glass. She looked out at the empty lot next door. The ground should have been flat as dead calm water with all that virgin downfall. No. There were corpses upon corpses there; frozen hands pitched this way and that. Their smiles wide enough for all of Chicago’s rats to make homes from their mouths.