The Vines

by Shelley Nolden

  Pocketing his utility knife, he threaded his way through the overgrowth. At the bottom step of the central entrance, he scraped the dirt from the treads of his boots.

  Finn touched his phone within his pocket for reassurance and ascended the stairs. He reached the granite doorframe and paused. The crumbling walls and ceiling had left a layer of white dust on the folding chairs and broken furniture scattered throughout the dim, circular lobby. The room looked frozen in time. The scent of plaster was so strong; he could almost feel the grit in his nose.

  Short patches of sunlight sliced into the gloom but did little to illuminate the far doorway. He stepped forward to study the structural integrity of the room.

  A single, distant clanking sounded from above.

  He jumped at the sound.

  It could be her.

  Or a new occupant.

  Or a rat.

  The noise didn’t repeat. He moved to the center of the room and slowly turned. The walls lining the exterior were decaying faster than those within, but overall, the structure appeared to be sound.

  Boot prints, covered in a film of dust, crisscrossed the lobby. None looked recent or small enough to be hers. And the tread marks didn’t match the pattern of the orthopedic sneakers Rollie wore to combat his plantar fasciitis.

  Curious if his fresh prints would be obvious, Finn scrutinized his tracks and noticed a clean line in the dirt near the entrance.

  Crouching before it, he spotted a piece of twine. Visually he traced its path upward through a series of eye bolts screwed into the plaster. The string disappeared into a slit in the ceiling. On the opposite side of the entrance, six inches from the ground, he found a single empty hook. For a tripwire.

  He tugged on the twine, and the distant clanging sounded again.

  It had to be a homemade alarm system. Despite the humidity, a chill brushed the back of his neck.

  “Hello!” he yelled, and his greeting echoed through the chamber.

  As Finn crossed the lobby, the air thickened with the scent of decay. He took a deep breath and entered a dim room filled with broken desks and filing cabinets. Blue tiles coating the lower halves of the walls gave the administrative office an underwater-like quality. Finn passed a row of rusting mail slots, some still locked, and peered into an open closet. On the floor lay a sheet of paper titled ***Hospital Patients in Seclusion Rooms.

  He shuddered.

  From his research, he knew there were isolation units above him. By the time the facility’s construction had ended, a vaccine for tuberculosis had gained traction, and local hospitals could more safely treat infectious diseases. The building had never been used for its originally intended purpose. Instead, from 1952 through 1963, Riverside had served as an experimental rehabilitation clinic. The clerks who’d worked in this suite had processed admittance paperwork for juvenile heroin addicts.

  And his grandfather had been one of their doctors.

  A decade ago, Sylvia had whispered to him that his grandpa had been stationed at Dachau. At first, Finn had been shocked. An apple-pie-loving patriot, Grandpa had donated to the local VA and driven his antique Model T in the Port Jefferson Fourth of July parade every year. He’d even given Finn his collection of vintage American flags the day Finn had signed up for Cub Scouts. And he’d regularly stated that the immunological breakthrough they were so close to achieving would help “every single American, no matter how black or dirt poor.”

  A Nazi past hadn’t seemed possible.

  Yet his grandpa did have a cruel streak. Most Sundays after church, Rollie had taken Finn on the Long Island Rail Road to visit his grandparents. Kristian, who’d often met them there, would join their father and grandfather behind closed doors, leaving Finn with two choices: find Grandma in the kitchen or head outside. More than once, Finn had wandered too far from their property or “accidentally” smashed one of the little clay gnomes in his grandmother’s garden. It had been Grandpa who’d dealt the punishment, with his leather belt.

  When Finn broached his grandfather’s past with Rollie, his dad hung his head in shame. “Why do you think he’s so obsessed with eradicating disease?”

  Finn shrugged.

  “It’s the only way he’ll ever forgive himself,” Rollie said and changed the subject.

  To Finn it sounded like just another outlet for his grandfather’s fanatical drive and discipline, but the respect in his father’s tone had warned him to keep that view to himself.

  Trying to stymie creeping visuals of lobotomies and electric shock therapies that had surely occurred here while the facility had treated drug-addicted teens, Finn squared his shoulders and stepped into the main corridor, his eyes widening. The decaying plaster and flooring, patches of blue wall tiles, and streaks of sunlight created a kaleidoscope of human-made and natural effects.

  The last time he’d felt this sense of awe he’d been fifteen. His mother had taken him to a cut-paper shadowbox exhibit at the Museum of Modern Art. For hours, he’d stared into the three-dimensional, intricate scenes, each backlit with an LED light. A humpback whale breaching the sea, a boy lost in a haunted forest, a Chinese pagoda atop a mountain.

  That day, he’d realized that by studying physics, he could contribute an expertise needed for research at a facility with no access to power. Rollie had approved the plan, and for a while Finn had felt like he might live up to his father’s expectations.

  With his knife and flashlight in hand, Finn entered what must have been the medical wing. From the doorway to an operating room, he bounced his beam from floor to ceiling, where it landed on a framework of lamps hanging like meat racks, their incandescent lights broken.

  The odor of antiseptic filled his nostrils, and his stomach contracted. Just as it always did when he entered his mother’s hospital room during one of her stays.

  Lily, too, detested that smell. After her bone marrow transplant, she’d remained confined to a sterile hospital wing for eight weeks because of life-threatening complications with graft-versus-host disease.

  Finn continued down the corridor, halting in front of a closed metal door and turning its knob. Locked. The room on the far side of that steel might contain boxes of medical records. Or something far more sinister.

  Throughout Finn’s childhood, Rollie would bring home patient charts to update while Finn completed his homework. Each file’s top right corner had a name scrawled across it that didn’t match the patient’s. The first time Finn noticed the pattern he’d asked Rollie about it.

  Smiling, Rollie set down his pen. “I try to chat with all my patients, and then record the name of the person they each love most.”

  To an eleven-year-old, the practice sounded lame. Finn grimaced. “Why?”

  “To help me see them as people, not just a collection of organs. Your great-grandfather’s early records show he did the same. He shouldn’t have dropped the habit.” He squeezed Finn’s bicep. “Make sure I don’t.”

  Now Finn worried that that’s exactly what had happened.

  Glancing down the corridor, Finn decided that if the woman were on this floor, she would have made her presence known by now.

  He climbed the central staircase to the second story and studied a faded, peeling mural adorning the hall. He could just make out a poem, written in cursive:

  I hate Riverside

  Its workers too

  Though some of the

  Nurses will fuck for you.

  Appalled that his father had grown up in this environment, Finn shook his head.

  The heat trapped within the pavilion was starting to get to him. He swigged his water and continued up the stairs, which led to a dayroom invaded by vines. They’d slithered in through the broken windows and strangled the radiators.

  Softly, he trod down a hallway plagued with debris. Even on this floor, the smell of antiseptic lingered.

 
The scent had to be in his head, he decided. Ahead, every other door was sheathed in metal. Finn inspected one. Below a small, eye-level slot, a deadbolt had been retrofitted to the door. He’d reached the isolation rooms.

  Pausing at the first doorframe, he peered into the room. Sunlight, filtered through the fenced-over windows, cast an eerie glow. One sidewall contained a window covered in mesh. Beyond it had to be a nurses’ station, from which a junkie could be supervised during detox. Penciled graffiti adorned the cell walls. From the hallway, Finn craned to see the nearest marks.

  Help me

  I am being

  held here

  Against my

  Will

  Holy shit.

  He wondered where the guy was now, and what role Grandpa had played in his “treatment.”

  As he turned toward the main stairwell, a succession of shrieks erupted outside.

  From the corridor, he strained to see through the grating over the cell’s window. In the distance, he could make out a swarm of birds. Either a patrol had come ashore or the woman had disturbed them.

  Or worse: Rollie had arrived.

  Finn squeezed his utility knife.

  This was Tuesday; Sylvia had physical therapy. Rollie always accompanied her. They should be there now.

  His father could have instructed the day nurse to take her. But he would have had to kayak here in broad daylight without the Harbor Unit detecting him. Even though he was in excellent condition for his age, his approach to the island, against the currents, would have been labored and slow.

  Maybe Finn’s entire theory was off-base. Unless Kristian’s irritation at Rollie for mothballing the project had also been a ruse and he’d been handling the onsite work.

  He glanced down the hall to ensure it was still empty and moved to the grate, where he smelled iron, and beyond it, fresh air.

  The herons were taking flight from the trees near where he’d come ashore.

  The beach and both decaying docks near his landing spot were empty.

  Beyond them, a dark, red form blotted out a patch of the glistening water.

  He squinted for a better look at the object, circling in an eddy. “Fuck.”

  She must have pushed in his kayak. If he sprinted, he might be able to reach it before it became ensnared by a current or was spotted by a patrol.

  Finn bolted for the exit, reeling backward just before smacking into the door.

  He hadn’t closed it. Nor had he heard its rusty hinges as it swung shut.

  Blinking rapidly, he pushed, but it didn’t budge.

  What the hell?

  He slammed his shoulder against the metal. The pinched nerve in his neck ignited in pain, blending with a fiery sensation in his bicep.

  “Guys much stronger than you have tried that same move,” said a faint, raspy voice from the adjacent observation room. “It didn’t work for them, either.”

  Heat radiated from his chest, flooding his entire body with fire.

  He’d found her.

  Or rather, she’d found him.

  1902–1904

  A period of rapid expansion for Riverside Hospital,

  spurred by a series of outbreaks in Manhattan’s tenements

  February 1902

  eat from the blaze stung Cora’s back as cold wind chapped her face. Pushing through the knee-deep drifts, she slogged barefoot toward the seawall. Falling snow blended with the lavender-gray sky and whitecaps of the East River, creating a heavenly illusion. Even if her survival instincts could override her desire to die, hypothermia would render her swimming skills useless.

  A scream crackled through the air.

  Cora halted.

  Although she kept to herself, several in the typhus overflow encampment had been kind to her. Mostly immigrants who’d settled in the squalid tenements of New York City, they clearly understood the pain that death leaves when stealing a family member.

  Now she turned to face the burning tent as Mrs. Levitsky staggered from the inferno, flames devouring the back of her gown.

  Horrified, Cora scanned the men in the fire brigade, who appeared too busy managing the hose to come to the woman’s aid.

  “Help her!” Cora screamed, but the wind stole her words along with her breath.

  Despite the germs’ grip on her frail body, Mrs. Levitsky had been like a mother to the group, telling Russian fairy tales at night, beckoning sleep to each fevered mind. Cora hadn’t understood the words, yet they’d still been soothing.

  “Damn it!” Cora yelled through gritted teeth before darting back through the knot of makeshift shelters and frantic patients.

  A nurse reached Mrs. Levitsky first, grabbed her, and threw them both into a snowdrift.

  Even after the smoke had cleared, the old woman continued to wail.

  Cora dropped to the ground and helped the nurse pack snow onto her friend’s backside as she writhed.

  Although she should try to calm her, Cora couldn’t bring herself to look at the woman’s contorted face. Before Cora had arrived at Riverside Hospital, New York City’s most notorious pesthouse, she’d wanted to become a medical assistant. Two months on the island had changed that. These days, she wanted nothing more to do with disease and the doctors’ feeble attempts to stop it. She’d rather work at a Macy’s counter or sell pickles on the street.

  Beyond them, a section of the tarp fell away, creating a window, framed by flames, into the pavilion, where a single ember had jumped from a coal stove to the canvas. All two dozen of the thin pallets were burning. Aside from Mrs. Levitsky’s, the only bed Cora could be certain was empty was her own. They’d been so fearful of the silent assassins festering within them; this incarnation of the devil posed an even greater threat.

  She detested this prison island.

  An orderly arrived to carry the moaning, charred Mrs. Levitsky to the main hospital building, and Cora stepped out of his way. A current of air, packing sea spray and snow, whipped her tunic around her legs before crashing against the burning timbers. Despite its water content, the gust countered the efforts of those manning the fire-extinguishing apparatus. So far, the blaze had been contained to the single tent, but if the staff failed, the devastation would surely spread to the other makeshift shelters and then to the hospital’s permanent wards and ancillary buildings.

  Behind her, a child coughed the deep, rattling trademark of consumption, sending a shiver through Cora. With no other safe way to comfort the girl, she simply smiled. The child’s blue lips remained in a taut grimace. She’d likely be dead within a week.

  Dozens of other invalids, cloaked in blankets, joined the vigil. The smoke had driven the typhus patients from their assigned tents, and others had come to gawk.

  “Tret zurück! Step back!” shouted a strained voice with a German accent. Though he was holding a rag over his mouth, Cora recognized Dr. Otto Gettler.

  Seemingly mesmerized by the fire, most of the onlookers didn’t budge. The blaze was alive, more so than anything else Cora had seen here. Two years before, when she’d read about the great Hoboken docks fire in the Tribune, she’d secretly wished that she’d witnessed the spectacle. Her name, with a brilliant quote, might have appeared in the paper alongside the other firsthand accounts. What a fool she’d been.

  After an orderly shouted that they’d cleared the tent, a cheer reverberated throughout the encampment.

  Dr. Gettler whooped in obvious relief and tossed the rag.

  Waving his arms, he addressed the crowd: “Return to your pavilions.” He spun and beckoned to the nearest staff member, who happened to be head nurse Kate Holden. “You know they must remain segregated by disease. We cannot have the pests mingling.”

  “We’ll see them to their wards at once, sir,” she replied.

  A prickling sensation crept up Cora’s neck. Nearby, a man clea
red the phlegm in his throat, and the sound felt like a fog bell pressed to her ear. A woman coughed wetly, and Cora covered her own mouth and nose.

  Nurse Holden called to four in her staff, who lined up like soldiers to receive their orders. Only the sodden hems of their Mother Hubbard gowns, tangled around their rubber overshoes, betrayed the women’s fatigue as they collected those housed in their respective wards—measles, scarlet fever, tuberculosis, and typhus.

  Cora dropped her hand from her face. She should welcome another disease: it would hasten her death.

  The typhus patients who’d evacuated the burning tent, barefoot from fleeing their cots so quickly, looked to nurse Holden, who’d personally suffered through a bout with this most deadly of diseases. Although she managed all aspects of the hospital not under the head physician’s purview, she often found time to lift their spirits.

  Her wit reminded Cora of her dearest friend, Sophia, who lived in her same tenement on West Ninth Street. She wished she were with her now, talking about marriage prospects and the hats they couldn’t afford in the shops on Millinery Row. Cora wondered if she would ever again find joy in something as trivial as a green felt headpiece.

  Now though, as the nurse, her face blackened with soot, surveyed those remaining, she made no lighthearted remarks.

  Even though they’d survived the fire, several wouldn’t see another sunrise. The day following the last one in the overflow encampment, Cora had heard two of the nurses discussing the final death count in hushed tones.

  “Ladies and gentlemen,” the head nurse called, clapping her hands, “I’ll be reassigning you to new quarters, where you’ll receive medical attention, as well as blankets and tunics. Please give the fire a wide berth so the men can do their job.”

  Before the loss of the tent, the typhus ward had already been overcrowded. A shipload of Russian exiles had imported an outbreak that had filled the quarantine hospital beyond capacity. Now, to accommodate the newly displaced, pallets would be laid on the floor wherever space remained. Throughout the night, Cora knew, there would be moaning, coughing, vomiting, and periodic final gasps, followed by the removal of a body. By morning, the incinerator would be busy.