Touching Strangers

by Stacey Madden

“. . . can’t fucking believe you. When Mr. V gets out of thehospital I’m going to tell him about all of your bullshit. I’m serious, Aaron. This has been going on for far too—”

  He slammed hard into something and felt it give way. Whenhe looked down he saw he’d bumped into a little boy—a skinnylittle thing, about six or seven years old, all elbows and wobblyhead. The force of Aaron’s grown-up, fast-moving body hadbeen like a vicious body-check to the poor kid. He hit the pavement hard. There was a cracking sound. A nearby woman turnedaround and rushed to the boy, who was looking up at Aaron withwide-eyed shock.

  “Cody!” the woman shouted.

  Aaron was frozen. He ‘d removed the phone from his earand was just standing there, frozen, watching the look on theboy’s face transform into a scrunched-up grimace of pain. He wascrying loudly now, and people were gathering around to seewhat the commotion was, looking from Aaron to the boy andback, making judgements and shaking their heads.

  “Oh, God, I . . . I’m sorry . . .”

  The woman whipped her head at him and shot him a lookof absolute disdain. “Watch where you’re going, for Christ’ssake!” She clutched her boy to her chest and rubbed the back ofhis head—which, Aaron noticed, wasn’t bleeding.

  The boy continued to wail.

  Aaron needed to escape. He started to back away from thescene. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to . . .”

  The woman ignored him. She rocked the boy gently in herarms, saying “Shh, baby, shh.”

  Suddenly he was alone again, just another moving body onthe street. He pressed a button on his phone to end the call withNicole, who still seemed to be shouting at him.

  Taxis and buses zoomed past him in both directions. Theycould take him somewhere. There was a bus stop at the cornerof the street he was on, and a bus stuck in traffic down the road.He hated public transit but he needed to get away from here. Hepressed his hand against his back pocket: yes, he’d rememberedto take his wallet. He shook out some filthy coins and held themin his sweaty hand, telling himself he’d buy a bottle of sanitizeras soon as he got anywhere.

  There was a cluster of sick-looking people waiting at thestop, any one of whom could easily have Buzzard Flu, so helurked in the doorway of a closed-down dry cleaners’ until thebus arrived, trying to think of where he could possibly go.

  Before stepping on, he asked the driver, “Do you go to thebus depot downtown?”

  The driver gave him a look like he was bat-shit crazy, andshook his head. “Subway station.”

  Cars began to honk. Without thinking, Aaron stepped ontothe bus, dumped his change into the fare deposit box, and satdown near the back, taking care to leave at least two empty seatsbetween himself and the other riders, all of whom looked homeless or diseased.

  The bus lurched forward, and that was that. He was leaving.He was really doing it. His broken heart bashed around in hischest.

  *

  The first thing Samantha felt was relief. Aaron walked outthe door—slammed it—and the tension that had been fogging upthe room like dark smoke instantly dissipated, like it had beensucked out the door with him. She immediately wanted to getnaked and continue dancing. Did that make her a terrible person? She locked the door and went to the window to watch himwalk away. He must’ve been running, because all she caught was a flash of his hair and sweater as he bolted around the corner andout of sight. Then she snuck a quick glance at Luca’s windowand snapped the blinds shut.

  She stripped down to her Batman socks and sat on the bed.She hadn’t wanted to hurt him. She just wanted him to know.She needed him to know, and, ridiculous as it might be, she hopedhe’d understand. They were a couple, sure. Lovers. A team. Butthey were also best friends, brother and sister, two freak peas in ademented pod. They should be able to share these kinds ofthings—desires, fears, perversions and kinks—and not blow agasket. They were soul mates, God damn it. How dare he leave?

  At the same time, she wanted him to go. As soon as she sawthe look of disgust and disappointment on his face, she wantedhim out. Not forever, but for now. He was better at being in theworld than she was. He’d come back eventually, she was sure ofit. She could feel it in her tachyrhythmic heart, her rheumaticbones, even in the fungus she was certain was growing under herfingernails—and she was sure he knew it too, in all of his cancerous moles.

  This was not the end of Aaron Cordic and SamanthaRiske, in her opinion, but a small fissure in an otherwise sturdyconstruction.

  Feeling reassured, she hopped off the bed, went to the desk,and flipped open her laptop. She hadn’t checked Facebook sincesending that friend request to Zack Pike. She kind of regretteddoing it, especially since she’d managed to connect with Luca onher own. What in the world had made her think Luca would beFacebook friends with riffraff like Zack Pike anyway?

  She signed into her account, half-expecting a dozen crudemessages from Mr. ‘Lick My Nine’, but he hadn’t even acceptedher request yet. Weird. She grabbed a clump of her hair andplayed with it. Zack’s lack of response was no more than a gentleflick to her ego, which was flying high after her thing with Luca,but it irked her nonetheless. Why the fuck had he ‘poked’ her inthe first place?

  Her first impulse was to remove the request, but she hesitatedas her cursor hovered over Zack’s ridiculous profile picture—a close-up of his ugly face in a flat-brimmed baseball cap, the pricetag left on and dangling beside his ear, as he let smoke driftupward out of his wide, fish-like mouth. She left his page, clickedon her own profile, and turned on her webcam. After a fewmoments she was looking at herself on screen, naked in her computer chair, her big white bed consuming the background like agiant piece of wedding cake.

  She made eye contact with her digital reflection. The lightfrom the webcam washed out her features so that her face lookedwhiter than normal. Her boobs were floppy and her hair was adisaster. She adjusted the camera so that her tits were out of view,flipped all of her hair across one shoulder, and let her eyes gosleepy. Took a snapshot, then another, and made the better ofthe two her new profile picture.

  Her belly roared. She needed a Tums. Maybe some celerywith cheese spread. She went to the kitchen, made herself asnack, and when she came back, there was a little red notificationflag at the top left of her laptop screen. Zack ‘Lick My Nine’ Pikehad accepted her friend request. Seconds later there was a message in her inbox.

  ? u makin a nigga swett

  Samantha was disgusted and exhilarated at the same time. A smile flitted across her spectral face. She put on some hard,pounding House music and danced around her room. She livedalone now, at least until Aaron decided to return. She’d alreadymade up her mind to take a trip down to Luca’s apartment later,see what he was up to.

  *

  He’d puked enough to drown a tub full of ferrets. He feltbetter now. Not great, but better. Good enough to walk over tohis computer, log into Grooveshark, and turn on some BiggieSmallz. One of his old school jams, Mo’ Money Mo’ Problems. Heloved this song—it always made him feel better about beingbroke-ass. He started bopping his head to the music, thenswitched to a gentle nod when he started to feel nauseous.

  Zack rapped along with Biggie, “Gats in holsters, girls onshoulders, playboy, I told ya!” as he opened a new window andlogged into Facebook.

  He had one notification. He clicked it. Samantha Riske hadsent him a friend request. He felt a tingle in his groin area andclicked ACCEPT.

  The first thing he noticed was that she’d changed her profilepic. Her new one was a selfie, taken with a webcam. She lookednaked, but it was hard to tell. It was only a headshot. Zack gothard instantly.

  He clicked MESSAGE and typed, damn gurl. y u bin hidin

  He then proceeded to creep through her six or seven photos,saved them all to his computer, and masturbated to the thoughtof sliding his cock up and down between her tits. After blowinga load into his hand and wiping it on an old Yankees do-rag, hewent to the fr
idge, cracked open a can of Coke, gulped it down,belched, then sat down on the couch to roll a fat blunt.

  Ugbo’s gun was on the table. He stared at it for thirty wholeseconds, biting his lip and nodding his head yes. Then he pickedit up and pointed it at the TV. Stared at his fucked-up reflectionin the screen. With this thing he could make anyone do anything. He felt a surge of power, followed by a gurgle in his gut.A bead of sweat dripped from his forehead onto the weapon’sbarrel. There was a hurricane stirring in his colon.

  He put his new toy on the table and ran back to the bathroom.

  STAGE 6: EMERGE

  Nicole threw the cordless phone at a display of hanging packaged shower curtains, knocking some of them onto thefloor, and immediately rushed over to pick them up. She wantedto scream, but an old woman was browsing the toilet brushes andshe didn’t want to scare her off. It was one thing for Aaron toskip out on his shift, but hanging up on her had been the laststraw. As soon as Mr. Vaughn was healthy and back at work,she’d give him an ultimatum: either he fired Aaron’s paranoid ass,or she’d quit. She wanted to go back to school to get her interiordecorating diploma anyway.

  An elderly voice behind her said, “Excuse me, darling?”

  Nicole hung the last shower curtain back up onto the displayrack and turned around. The old woman was holding a toiletbrush and smiling at her with bright, crinkly eyes.

  “I don’t mean to bother you,” the woman continued pleasantly, “but I thought you should know. There’s a young ladyasleep on the pavement just outside your door.”

  Nicole’s gaze swung to the front of the store. Sure enough,lying stone-still just outside the front door was a skinny blondewoman in cut-off jean shorts and a loose and tattered tank top. Wasshe sleeping or drunk? Was she even breathing? It was hard to tell.

  “Jesus,” Nicole said.

  The elderly woman continued to smile. “You should probably call an ambulance.”

  “Right,” Nicole blurted, and rushed behind the counter topick up the phone, only to realize she’d just flung it across thestore. She ran back over to the shower curtain display, found thephone on the floor next to a bargain bin of novelty drain stoppers, and by the time she’d dialled 9-1-1 and spun around again,the old woman was carefully stepping over the motionless body on the sidewalk, the handle of an unpaid-for toilet brush stickingconspicuously out of her purse.

  Nicole said, “Hey, wait—” but was interrupted by the emergency operator’s voice on the line.

  “Toronto nine-one-one, what’s the nature of your emergency?”

  “Hi, yes, um. There’s a girl—a woman. Somebody collapsedor passed out or something just outside my store. I don’t know ifshe’s homeless, or—”

  “What is your location, ma’am?”

  Nicole cleared her throat. “Faucet Fountain. Nine seventyfour Kingston road.”

  The operator said something Nicole didn’t hear or understand while a lanky man with a face full of pock-marks andwhiskers approached the passed-out woman and nudged her withhis foot. It took a moment for Nicole to recognize the man asGord, the manager of Lips next door.

  “Are you there, ma’am?”

  “Hi, yes. Sorry.”

  “An ambulance is on its way. Please stay on the line and—”

  Gord was leaning over the woman now, shaking her shoulder roughly. She didn’t seem to respond. With the operator stillchattering away on the other end (“. . . Ma’am? Ma’am? . . .”),Nicole put the phone down in the bargain bin, approached thefront door, and knocked on the glass. Gord looked up at her,startled, with his dirty-rat face. There was a gnawed toothpickdangling from his lip.

  Nicole gestured at the woman, and Gord shrugged. “She’sout cold,” he said.

  “I called an ambulance,” Nicole said, her breath foggingagainst the window. “How did you even notice her?”

  “She was in my store just a few minutes ago. Asked me if Isold Ambien, acting like she’d already swallowed about a handfulof the stuff. Then she stumbled and fell into a display of ediblethongs, so I kicked her ass outa there. When I looked out thewindow to see if she was gone, I saw her lying right at yourdoorstep.” He yawned, and the toothpick fell out of his mouthinto the passed-out woman’s hair.

  Nicole looked at him, horrified, but he didn’t seem to havenoticed. She grunted and opened the door, shoved Gord aside,and just as she’d bent over to pick the nasty stick of wood out ofthis poor woman’s scalp, a stream of dark yellow vomit splatteredonto her shoes.

  “Jesus tap-dancing Christ!” Gord said, jumping back. “Nowthat is just nasty.”

  Nicole stood there motionless, too shocked to be repulsed,her cheeks hot with embarrassment. She glanced at the drippyyellow liquid on her shoes for a fraction of a second, then immediately turned to Gord, who was now laughing.

  “Can you maybe get some paper towels, asshole?”

  Gord just nodded and continued laughing as he went backinto Lips. Repulsion kicked in when she noticed that the vomitfelt warm against her thin fabric runners. She gagged once thencomposed herself. The woman moaned and moved her head alittle. The sirens were now audible in the distance.

  *

  The phone calls were endless. Dr. Sedgwick had just hungup on the mayor, that detestable boar, who seemed to think thisoutbreak was her fault. Fix this, or it’s your ass, is what he’d said,as if firing her was even remotely in his power.

  She was now on hold with Dr. Pham, Chief Resident atEtobicoke General, who’d just confirmed four new cases ofBuzzard Flu at his hospital. The disease had spread to the other endof the city, and she still had no idea why every victim was male.

  There was a knock on her office door just as Dr. Pham came on the line.

  “Chaos!” he shouted into the phone. “Everybody’s panicking.”

  “Excuse me, Dr. Sedgwick?” The voice outside her door was agitated.

  “The nurses don’t want to come in to work,” Dr. Pham continued.

  “Dr. Sedgwick? Can I speak to you for a second?”

  Roz closed her eyes and massaged her left temple. The dragon in her skull was awakening.

  “Even one of my doctors is showing symptoms,” Dr. Pham wenton. “Not good. Absolutely not good.”

  More rapping on her door. “Dr. Sedgwick, are you there?”

  “I’m sorry, doctor, I’m going to have to call you back,” shesaid, and hung up the phone. “Yes, what is it?” she shouted atthe back of the door.

  The handle spun and a short, very young nurse cameinside. She was red-faced and panting. “I’m sorry, doctor, butwe have—”

  “An emergency, yes. Where’s doctor Ormsby?”

  “He told me to come get you.”

  Roz sighed. “What about doctor Rottermeyer?”

  “He, uh . . .” The nurse hesitated. “He’s, um . . .”

  Dr. Sedgwick stood up. “Never mind. What’s the problem?”

  “Paramedics just arrived with a new patient showing signs ofBuzzard—of severe flu symptoms, and—”

  “Yes, we’re seeing six to ten new cases every day. Why areyou telling me this? No offense, but I’m very busy at themoment. So, if you don’t mind . . .”

  “Dr. Sedgwick, the patient is a woman.”

  Roz was looking at a photo of Lisa on her desk when herbrain processed what the nurse had said. She swallowed. “I’msorry. Thank you. I’ll be down in a minute.”

  When the nurse had left the room, Roz pulled out her cellphone and sent Lisa a text.

  Might have our first female case. Not sure why I’mtelling you this. Don’t worry, but be careful. Love you.

  She put on her white lab coat without realizing it was insideout, and stepped out into the arctic hospital corridor.

  *

  The bus lurched to a stop in the crowded terminal at thesubway station. Aaron looked out the window and saw a crushof bodies waiti
ng to board, and in a span of five seconds, he saw at least four of them cough. Every single person looked tired,haggard, and hostile.

  Aaron was the last passenger to exit the bus, and as soon ashe’d placed one foot down onto the concrete, the boardersrushed the doors. He had to swerve and dip and turn to avoidbeing gobbled up by the swarm, or pushed back onto the bus.

  While his fellow riders paraded into the station, Aaronwalked over to an open space under a sign that read, COSBURN87: ROUTE TEMPORARILY OUT OF SERVICE. He needed to catch hisbreath and put his scrambled thoughts in order. He could feel hisheartbeat slow as the few remaining stragglers shuffled into thestation and he was the last person left on the platform.Somewhere in his stunned and overwhelmed brain he knewwhere he was going, but he needed to shape it into a conscious,coherent plan.

  He took out his cell phone, pulled up his contact list, typed‘D’ for Dawn, and pressed ‘CALL’. He waited for the ring tosound but nothing happened. He looked at his screen: no service.

  “Jesus Münchausen!”

  He moved around the platform, holding his phone up like atorch. There had to be a pocket of wireless service somewhere.He hadn’t found one by the time another bus came rumblinginto the station. He stood off in the corner and against the wallwhile another horde of commuter zombies tumbled out of thebus and down into the subway.

  Once they’d cleared away, he noticed a row of three payphones next to a garbage bin. A cold tingle dashed up his spinelike a cluster of frantic spiders. He hadn’t touched a payphone inyears, maybe a decade. The filthy receivers were essentially coated with diseases waiting to be caught. He also had no idea howmuch a call cost these days, but there were coins in his pocketand his cell phone definitely couldn’t pick up any service here.

  He needed to call Dawn now, before descending into theexcavation of filth that was the Toronto subway system. Therewas no fucking way he was exposing himself to those kinds ofhealth hazards—during an epidemic, no less—only to find out thathis journey was all for naught because Dawn and her husband Martin were out of town, or accommodating other houseguests, orsimply didn’t want him there. He had to call her now, and thatmeant using a payphone and probably contracting an ear infection.