by James Barton
Dylan was a clean-shaven military man. His features had once been sharp and chiseled, but years of stress, energy drinks and fast food had softened him.
“I just don’t know if it’s a good idea, I’m starting to feel sick,” Beth said as she tossed her nursing scrubs into the hamper.
“We’ve been planning and saving for this trip all year. You never get time off work and the tickets are non-refundable. Why don’t we just go and, if you get queasy, at least you would be doing it in a small bed and breakfast in Le Nord Côte, not our apartment, right?” he urged.
“I could be contagious though,” she said and rubbed her hand nervously. Ever since she touched that patient, Adam, she felt … wrong.
“Baby,” he said and moved in close. “It’s a ferry, if you want to stay in the car you can. Plus, nothing is going to stop me from loving on you,” he said and leaned in and kissed her. Beth pulled away too late and he had a look of hurt underneath his bravado.
“I don’t think we should …” she began. Dylan wrapped his arms around her waist and she gave into his charm. Thirteen minutes later there was no question to his level of exposure.
In the end, he was able to convince her to go. He always had a powerful sway over her, but then again, a lot of couples had a way of pushing each other into bad decisions. As they hopped into the car and drove to the port, Beth put her hand over her stomach. It made an audible gurgle of unrest. She felt lightheaded and queasy, but, more than anything, she felt nervous. She was a nurse; she had gone through school to be smarter than this. Was it possible that her training had simply made her paranoid, or could she really be carrying something nasty? She couldn’t really make up her mind, and like her position in the car, she felt like a passenger to this whole event. Mistakes and bad decisions rarely happen by accident, they happen because we continue to march toward them, knowing we should turn back.
The radio had been blaring some of her favorite songs and was interlaced with news and weather updates. She didn’t take much joy in them as her mind was wrapped in a depressing fog. Dylan drove the car up onto the upper deck of the ferry and parked it behind a line of other vehicles. There was something on the radio that sparked Beth’s attention.
“The latest news story is about the Ashbury hospital. Our correspondent, Jeffrey Blair, has the latest.” Just as the voice of the field reporter began to issue from the car’s speakers, Dylan killed the engine.
“Turn the car back on!”
“Why?”
“That was about the hospital.”
“Babe, didn’t we agree to not stress over your work, just for a few days?”
“Turn it on,” she barked.
There was a pause from him as he seemed both offended and scared. He slid the key back into the ignition and turned it to auxiliary power, reviving the remainder of the news story.
“… gas leak that endangered the lives of both hospital workers and patients. Thankfully, with the help of military personnel and emergency workers from our neighboring town, all personnel have been evacuated while city personnel work to contain the dangerous leak. This is Jeffrey Blair, reporting from a police blockade outside of Ashbury.”
“Well, thank you, Jeffrey, we couldn’t be more thankful that everyone made it out safely. Later, we will be talking with experts that say carrots could secretly be killing you, tonight at nine.”
Dylan twisted the key back to the off position, killing the dashboard lights and any other word from the station’s broadcasters. The sudden silence was a perfect accent to the questioning look that was plastered on his face.
After a full ten heartbeats of frozen silence by both of them, Beth said, “Thanks,” in a voice that sounded miles away.
Dylan mentally shook himself as if coming out of a trance. “You got out of there just in time,” he said.
“Yeah, but something about that doesn’t sound right.”
“How so?” he asked, already knowing the answer but fighting hard to ignore it.
“It’s nothing, I’m probably just being paranoid. Let’s try to focus on having fun.”
“Sounds like a great plan to me!” he said enthusiastically, thinking, anywhere but here. “Let’s go.”
As the ferry pulled away from the dock, Beth fell asleep. It was getting dark and she was more exhausted than usual. She woke up alone in the car, a throbbing pain in her arm. She looked down and through the faint glimmer of the ferry’s deck lights, she could see black veins climbing up her arms like the roots of a dead tree. She screamed and threw her head back into the seat.
“Whoa, whoa, are you alright? You were having a nightmare,” Dylan said and put his hand on her shoulder.
“Where were you?”
“I’ve been right here?”
“Did you leave?”
“About twenty minutes ago I grabbed a soda from the little shop. I got you one,” he said and held up a blue bottle filled with dark bubbles.
Beth slapped on the interior car light and examined her arm. There were no marks and absolutely no black veins. “Did you see them? When you got back how did I look?”
“Uh … peaceful. Did I see what?”
“Anything strange or out of the ordinary.”
“Other than the way you are acting, no,” he responded slowly.
“Oh God, did you touch anyone?”
“Are you accusing me of cheating on you?”
“No, not like that. Did you physically touch anyone, a pat on the back, a handshake?”
“Baby, no. Well, I mean the clerk at the shop shook my hand and thanked me for being in the military.”
“Fuck!” Beth shouted and reached up to turn the rear-view mirror toward her dry, tired eyes. But it wasn’t her eyes that caught her attention, because casually sitting in their backseat, gazing with almost gleeful interest at the other cars, was the man from the hospital. Alan, or Adam, she couldn’t remember exactly. She opened her mouth to scream and, instead, fainted.
“Beth!” Dylan shouted. “What has gotten into you?” He tried to understand what had gotten her so … weird. He turned and looked out the back window, but there was nothing out there except the heavy chain that closed off the deck from the open sea, swaying gently with the slow rolling of the boat on the dark water. In the back seat, his upright duffle bag softly rocked in time with the chain, strangely reminding Dylan of a young woman gently rocking her baby to sleep. Turning back to Beth, he put his fingers near her nose and felt her breath, and then leaned in and kissed her on the forehead. Maybe it was an omen … maybe the best thing for her to do now, was sleep. He was beginning to feel like he could really use some himself.
“Who are you?” Beth asked the man. They both stood on a sloped brick road, much like those found in movies of Greece or other old-world places. They were both surrounded by a mob of people, people with groceries in their hands, dogs on leashes; children were playing, all very ordinary … except, they were frozen in place. Beth looked around and the sky began to darken.
“What is this place?”
“You worry too much,” the man from the hospital said to her. “I’ve heard that you shouldn’t worry about things you have no control over. That seems like pretty good advice, don’t you think?”
“I don’t understand,” Beth said.
“Actually, to be honest, this is a new one for me as well. Seems that you are quite special, Beth.”
She began to take a step backward from the man. There was something so conflicting with his appearance. In one way, she saw him as a monster, disgusting and vile, and yet she found herself drawn to him in ways that made her feel truly alive. There was something about him that was both alluring and dangerous at the same time. As she stepped back, the streets became filled nearly shoulder to shoulder with people. She was surrounded by hundreds, if not thousands, of people frozen in place.
She tripped backward and bumped into a man holding a dog leash. He came to life and looked at his hands in a horrified gaze. He looked at her wi
th sadness and then he exploded into a cloud of dust. The dust struck about six people behind him and they also came to life. A moment later they too exploded. This chain reaction began to move quicker and quicker until everyone in the plaza had disappeared. Beth stood alone as the sun was nearly blotted out by a hurricane of ashes. She dropped to her knees and tried to scream, but nothing would come out.
The ashes became so thick she couldn’t see farther than a few feet. She reached out in fear and felt a warm comforting hand clasp her own. As the figure stepped closer, she could see that it was Adam.
“Don’t worry, I’ll never leave you.”
Beth jerked upright in the bed and nearly head-butted Dylan in the process.
“You’re okay, you’re okay.”
Her eyes darted across the room trying to understand where she was and what was happening. Once she finally realized that she was in the hotel, she felt a wave of relief. She threw her arms around Dylan and hugged him tight.
“You had me so worried,” he said as she pulled away.
“Dylan … your face,” she whispered. He had dark circles under his eyes and his skin had lost some of its color.
“I know, I haven’t slept since we got here. I was too worried about you. The doctor said that you are physically okay, but you could be suffering from a mental breakdown or panic attacks.”
“Doctor?”
“Yeah, I had him come by first thing in the morning. He examined you, but assured me that you just needed to rest and everything would be okay.”
“What about you? You look sick,” Beth said.
“He looked me over too. Again, I’m just tired and worried about you. I’ll be fine.”
“How long have I been out?”
“About twenty hours, if you don’t count the sleepwalking.”
“What?”
“A few hours after the staff helped me carry you upstairs, you got up and went into the hallway. You made it all the way down to the lobby before I could stop you. You just stumbled around like you were drunk. You sounded like you were talking to someone, but I couldn’t understand you. I was afraid they were going to ask us to leave after you fell into that group standing at the front desk.”
“Oh, shit.”
“It’s fine babe, I got you back upstairs. You spent the rest of the day sleeping it off. You look vibrant, almost glowing. So maybe it was a 24-hour bug, eh?”
“Could be,” she lied. The man in her dream was right, she wasn’t alone, and she could feel it. It was the same feeling that she would get if someone was staring at her from a distance. Whatever it was, it was with her now.
As the evening passed by, Dylan’s condition grew worse. Beth lay in the bed with him and they watched the hotel TV. As the French comedy show played, she was hit with a strong feeling of homesickness. It all felt so foreign. Here, she was in a strange bed, in a new place and she felt like her best friend was drifting away. She didn’t know what to do, her mistakes seemed irreversible.
Beth had called the doctor that had done the house call, but he was acting strange. He assured her that Dylan simply needed rest. He suggested that it could just be a bug. Beth was left speechless as the expert hung up the phone in the middle of a coughing fit. She knew she should do something. She was just so scared; it was all a nightmare. If she just waited, maybe it really would work itself out.
Beth and Dylan lay together watching the TV. The man on the screen managed to light his mustache on fire cooking and Dylan let out a hoarse laugh. His laughter normally a sound of joy, came across to Beth instead as a whisper of misery. She felt as though he might never laugh again. She worried that the life they had built together would come crashing down; that their last moments together would be watching a French rerun on public television.
She leaned up against him under the covers and his skin was cold. She looked up at him and his eyes were pale and his complexion had faded into a sickly grey. Beth could only pray that if she was able to beat her illness, that maybe so could he. She placed her head on his chest while they lay in the bed. They talked about everything and nothing all at the same time. If she could keep him talking, he would be too busy. Too busy to what, die? Beth sighed heavily.
“Have you ever made a mistake? One that you knew every second of it, that it was wrong?” she asked.
“I stole my dad’s car when I was younger, to go to a party. I didn’t have any fun the whole night because I knew I was going to be in so much shit when I got home. Like that, you mean?”
“Something like that. I’ve just been thinking about how I should’ve stayed home. I got you sick and who knows what else I’ve done. I just have this feeling that this isn’t the flu.”
“Baby, hush. I’m ... fine,” he said as he tried to catch his breath. “I’m sure it will pass and we ... and we will be eating baguettes by ... morning time.”
“What if something happened at the hospital? What if it wasn’t just a gas leak? I have tried to call Abby and she won’t answer. She always answers.”
“She probably won’t answer because she knows you will worry. You worry … too much.”
“Maybe you’re right,” she said. Deep down she felt like he was a liar. He was being selfish and he convinced her to go against her judgement. Whatever illness she had come down with was obviously contagious. Not only that, but it was killing him. “If only he could have kept his damn hands to himself and listened to me for once,” she thought. She gently pressed her ear to his chest, listening to his rattled breathing and the slow, stuttering thump of his heart as it struggled to push his poisoned blood another lap around the torturous course. Across the bed lay a fancy feather pillow. The idea crossed her mind to grab it and suffocate him. He was weak enough that she could easily overpower him. It would be quick.
Beth blinked hard as she realized what fucked up things she had been thinking of. Why would she even think that? Those angry, vicious thoughts felt foreign. Almost like they were not her own.
It was at that moment she felt a strong, but shaky lifting of his chest, as if he were trying to breathe in the entire room full of air. Then, like wind through an old cave, he slowly exhaled until it seemed his entire existence had flowed out into the quiet air. Beth, with her ear still gently pressed against his chest, almost felt as if she actually heard him leave the room. There was a moment when she couldn’t move. Each passing second felt like an eternity.
“Rise dammit, rise,” she thought to herself, knowing what she didn’t want to know.
She waited and waited. Her head did not rise with his breath and she reached over and pressed mute on the TV remote. She still hadn’t looked up at him. Beth knew that she was probably hugging a corpse, but as long as she didn’t look, it wasn’t final.
She began to cry silently into his old grey shirt. The tears came out hot and angry as she blamed herself. “Look at him. You are a nurse, fucking face it,” she thought to herself. She slowly raised her head and leaned back to look at him. Beth imagined his head would be slumped over peacefully, like an exhausted airline passenger. What she saw was anything but peaceful.
Dylan’s eyes were wide open and there was a discolored film crusted over them. It made them look foggy and slick. His dead stare was locked on the front door. His bottom jaw was jutting out slightly and his lips were curled back like an angry mutt. Beth had witnessed a lot of death throughout her career, but it never looked … like this.
She couldn’t say how much time had gone by, it couldn’t have been more than a minute or two, but every second that passed felt like a knife was being pushed deeper into her gut.
“Baby?” Beth whispered.
It was time to be professional – despite her debilitating emotional state, she pulled herself together. Even if it was just temporary, she was able to disconnect from her feelings. She put her head on his chest and gave him one last squeeze.
Dylan suddenly moved, forcing an uncontrollable cry from Beth as he nearly knocked her off the bed. In complete disbelief,
Beth looked over at him and saw that he was sitting straight up. His eyes were fixated on the door and yet he was frozen in place. Could it have been a spasm, Beth wondered? She swallowed what felt like a mouth full of cotton balls and finally spoke up.
“Honey?”
Dylan did not respond. A trickle of drool ran down from the corner of his mouth. There was a bone cracking sound as his lower jaw shifted to the side. Beth flew out of the bed with a cold sweat. She stood between the doorway and Dylan. Her mind raced, but the only thing she could think of was running. She looked directly into his milky eyes and saw nothing, his gaze felt like it pierced through her. Outside, in the hallway, was the sound of a door shutting.
“Baby, are you …” she began.
Dylan’s head tilted like a confused dog and his gaze began to search the room. He clicked his teeth together as spittle ran out his mouth in small torrents. Beth bolted into action and flung herself at the door and yanked on the handle. The door slid open and stopped hard against the chain. “Fuck!” she muttered. Her hands shook as she reached up and fumbled with the chain. The bed let out a wailing creak as Dylan shifted to his feet. Her sweaty hands slid the chain to the small opening to release it from the door and her fingers slipped. She reached up and pinched the small bulb to pull out, but, for a second, the sound of a creaking floorboard froze her in place.
She plucked out the chain before turning around to face the reaching arms of her lover, only a few inches from her quivering body. Only this was no attempt at a hug; his lips were curled back into a sneer and fluid ran down his chin in a grotesque display. Beth reacted both out of thought and panic as she flung herself into the bathroom and kicked the door shut with her foot. She leapt to her feet and turned the lock just as the door shook from an impact.
“Baby, calm down,” she said.
There was a low moan that lingered in her ears for almost a minute. It was both terrifying and sad. There would be no calming down. Beth knew that he was beyond saving. His infection had driven him mad and while she was unsure what his intentions were, she knew that they weren’t good.