Touching Strangers

by Stacey Madden

  “What’s the matter?” Luca asked.

  “Aren’t you afraid you have that?”

  “What?”

  She nodded at the TV. “Buzzard Flu, idiot.”

  Luca chuckled and flopped his hand onto her thigh.Samantha flinched and moved away.

  “Jesus,” he said. “Sorry.” He turned his head and started coughing.

  Samantha got up off the bed. “You touched that bird.” Herinsides were swirling. There was no doubt anymore: they wereboth going to die. She always knew she’d die this way—shutaway in her bedroom, victim of some highly-evolved and lethaldisease—but she always imagined it would be with Aaron, theircorpses rotting side by side for days until their feculence pooledtogether and they became, finally, one. She didn’t want to meltwith Luca. She’d have to relegate him to the couch.

  “Shove over a bit,” she said, climbing back onto the bed. “Itreeks of sick in here. I need some air.”Luca’s stomach groaned as he rolled over.

  Samantha moved the curtains aside. A spectre of light invaded the dark room like a knife-slash. She squinted into the parkinglot as she opened the window. The sky looked mercurial, likeliquid silver. It smelled like it might rain.

  She inhaled a large breath of moist spring air and held it inher lungs. Luca clutched at the duvet and cocooned himself moretightly, then shivered in an exaggerated display of irritability.Men were such babies.

  She was about to crawl off the bed in a way that would disturb his comfort when she heard a weird scraping noise comingfrom outside. She pressed her forehead to the glass. The sound was coming from along the side of the building, somewhere shecouldn’t see from this angle, but it was getting closer.

  The shadow appeared first—a monstrous hunchbackedthing, like some skulking Nosferatu—then the source itself. Itwas Zack Pike, dragging a rolled-up rug along the pavement. Itlooked like he was really struggling with it, like the rug was heavier than it should be. He was more than just sweaty—he wasslimy. His skin was custard-yellow, and there were variouscoloured stains all over his oversized white t-shirt.

  He stopped, put his hands on his knees for a rest, and yelled “Fuck!”

  “What’s going on?” Luca mumbled.

  Samantha shushed him and moved her face aside, in caseZack looked up. He didn’t, and after a moment began lugginghis rug—it looked to Samantha like a giant jelly roll—acrossthe lot, toward the hole Mr. Böröcz had been digging when hecollapsed.

  By the time Zack reached the hole, the rug was lumpy, misshaped. You’d think someone who rolled so many joints wouldknow how to roll a rug more securely. There was obviouslysomething inside. Things like dirty laundry and bags of drugscrossed Samantha’s mind before she saw the foot, and the cuff ofleopard-print pants.

  “Oh my God,” Samantha said, slamming the window shut.

  “Whazzamadder?” Luca asked, yawning.

  Samantha didn’t answer—she didn’t even hear him—because Zack was looking up at her with a shovel in his hand.

  *

  Something didn’t feel right.

  Dr. Sedgwick went over everything in her mind as she waited for Jane Doe’s test results. The young woman had come in,unaccompanied, in an ambulance. No purse or bag of any kind,no I.D. Apparently she’d been picked up outside a sex shop. Shewas quite possibly homeless, maybe a prostitute. Dr. Sedgwickhad developed a sixth sense for these kinds of things.

  Dr. Ormsby had done the right thing and isolated their JaneDoe in The Canister immediately, and Roz had gone to examinethe girl herself. That’s when she got the funny feeling.

  At first glance, she looked like a typical street escort:unwashed dyed blonde hair, way too much eye makeup, bruisesspeckling her forearms and shins. She was rail-thin in someplaces, bloated and puffy in others. Her pale skin was slimy withsweat, and the rash on her neckline and upper torso was all-toovisible given her skimpy top. The skin underneath her chippedand painted fingernails had swollen up to the point where the nailon her left pinky had fallen off completely. Textbook BuzzardFlu symptoms. Their first female patient.

  Still, something felt odd, but Roz couldn’t put her finger on it.

  She picked up her phone to check for a text response fromLisa. Still nothing. She felt a big fight coming on, when this wasall over. How dare Lisa even attempt to put her in the dog housefor dealing with the city’s biggest epidemic since SARS orH1N1. And if it was something else—if Lisa was sick—why keepher in the dark, especially when she was better equipped thananyone to deal with such news?

  Just as she tossed her phone in the top drawer of her desk andslammed it closed, the office phone on her desk rang.

  “Sedgwick,” she said, gulping down her irritation.

  “Hey, Roz.” Dr. Ormsby’s voice was shaky on the otherend of the line. “Can you meet me in Dr. Rottermeyer’s officeas soon as possible?”

  “Results are in?”

  “Yes.”

  The walk to through the hospital was a blur. Nurses, doctors,gurneys, clipboards, patients, noises, yelling, footsteps. By thetime she reached Dr. Rottermeyer’s office and entered withoutknocking, her vision had become hazy. The two men stood withtheir backs to her, wraith-like in their lab coats, hunched oversomething on the desk.

  “What’s the verdict?” she blustered.

  Her colleagues spun around symmetrically, like funhousemannequins on a floor circuit. Dr. Ormsby’s face was gravely aghast, while Dr. Rottermeyer’s crooked grin suggested scandal,even prurience.

  “Well?!”

  “This is big,” Dr. Rottermeyer said, then cleared his throatand his grin vanished.

  Dr. Ormsby stepped forward. “Test results found unusuallyhigh levels of certain hormones in Jane Doe’s bloodwork, namelyprogestogens and antiandrogens, which, needless to say, threw upa red flag. That’s when I called Ishmael for a consultation.”

  The shorter, rounder doctor then stepped forward, andremoved a collection of photographs from a large manila envelope. “I only needed to examine the patient for a few minutes. Inoticed the prominence of the thyroid cartilage right away. Theprominent knuckles and narrow hips. Once I had a look at thegenital area, it was obvious. The patient has undergone genderreassignment surgery. A vaginoplasty via penile inversion, to beprecise. Quite an expert job, I must say.”

  Roz began to sweat. There was the explanation for herfunny feeling. She felt faint, but absolutely could not show anyform of weakness. Not now. Not after this bombshell.

  She moved behind the desk and sat in Dr. Rottermeyer’schair. “Those photographs were taken without consent,” shesaid, weakly. “You’ll have to dispose of them.”

  Dr. Rottermeyer shrugged. He was almost smiling.

  Dr. Ormsby, pale as paper, chewed the inside of his lip and said nothing.

  Roz sighed. She was almost ready to stand up again. “Sowe’re back to square one. All the victims are male. Or were bornmale.”

  “Looks that way.”

  “Well, we need to figure out why the hell that is.”

  “You want me to deal with the press on this one?” Dr.Ormsby asked.

  Roz waited a moment before shaking her head. “It’s my job.”

  When she got back to her office, dizzy and out of breath,there was, finally, a message on her phone from Lisa: “I’m fine,babe. Don’t be such a quack.”

  *

  Claire Canyon, a.k.a. Betty Blitz, née Cameron St. Clair, layin a hospital bed, dreaming that she was fourteen years old again,and still a boy, wandering the Parisian catacombs with herfather—except instead of bones, the walls were stuffed withbleeding Barbie dolls, and her father was a kind man who heldher tight, instead of an alcoholic pervert who raped her and then,later that same night, put a pistol in his mouth and squeezed thetrigger.

  STAGE 8: TOUCHING STRANGERS

  “What do you mean, you’re leaving?”

  Daw
n’s eyes bulged in the bedroom doorway as Aaronstruggled to zip his backpack closed. The truth was, he didn’tknow why he had to leave. He only knew that he needed to gohome, even if “home” for him meant living with a cheating girlfriend inside Ground-Zero of the Buzzard Flu explosion. Despitehis irrational fear of disease and potentially cancerous penis—which might soon be losing its protective cover—the feeling thatate up his heart was lovesickness. He needed Samantha. She washis narcotic, and he her helpless junkie. So she’d slept with someone else. Could he blame her? They’d been friends, and thenlovers, since pre-teenagehood. It’s not like he hadn’t snuckglances at Nicole over the years, when she leaned over the cashregister in a low-cut top or bent over to organize a row of toiletbrushes, and thought, I wonder what it would be like? What it camedown to was Samantha’s impulsiveness versus his restraint, whichhad always been the essential difference between the two ofthem. Her fire burned wildly until it flamed out, while his was aslow broil. If he knew anything about Samantha, it was that shewas already regretting what she’d done, and was, by now, possibly even disgusted by it. He had to get home to her.

  “Aaron?”

  He looked up at his sister and realized he hadn’t responded.He pretended to pick something out of his eye.

  “I thought you were going to stay for the weekend at least.Hang out, catch up a bit. Did you hear from Samantha?”

  “No.” The stupid teapot wouldn’t fit in his bag.

  “I don’t understand,” she went on. “Is it because of what thedoctor said? You know, I actually think a circumcision is a goodidea for all guys, suspicious moles or not.”

  Aaron sighed. “Can you stop?”

  “Stop what?”

  “I don’t know about other guys, but I don’t feel all thatcomfortable talking about my junk with my sister.”

  Dawn’s eyes narrowed. “Don’t give me that crap, Aaron.You know I don’t mean anything by it. I’m trying to be there foryou, and you’re so . . . curt. And withdrawn. I just want to makesure everything’s fine.”

  Aaron kept quiet, and continued to try to force his backpack’s zipper closed around the protruding teapot.

  Dawn snuffled a laugh. “Why did you bring that thing, a nyway?”

  He sat back on the bed and sighed. “I have no idea.”

  She sat down beside him, grabbed the backpack, and beganreorganizing its contents. When she pulled out a pair of boxerbriefs, he reached his arm out but she smacked it away. In a matter of minutes, his clothes were neatly folded, the spray cans andbottles of pills were stuffed into side pouches, and the teapot rested on top of everything, the spout sticking out between the twozippers, the tags of which Dawn fastened with a safety pin.

  “There.”

  Aaron nodded a thank you.

  “Jayzus Christ!” Martin yelled from the living room, wherehe’d been watching T.V. “She’s a fookin’ tranny!”

  Dawn sighed and shrugged. “Sometimes he watches Jerry Springer.”

  “Git yer arse in here and look ah’this!” Martin called.

  Aaron gathered up the rest of his things while Dawn went tohumour her husband. He heard her say, “Oh, wow,” beforeappearing again in the doorway, shoulders hunched, arms foldedover her chest, to tell him the latest news.

  *

  Nicole fed her last handful of change into the hospital vendingmachine. Since hitching a ride in that sick prostitute’s ambulance,she’d already lost track of how long she’d been here. Two hours? Six? She had no idea. She’d lost all concept of time, except bymagazine count (five, cover to cover) and coffee intake (one horrible decaf and two metallic cappuccinos). She’d made four trips toreception to ask about Mr. Vaughn, and had received the sameresponse each time: “If there are any developments, Mrs. Vaughn,you’ll be the first to know.” She didn’t correct them.

  Perhaps being mistaken for her boss’s wife was why she’ddecided to stay. Paula obviously hadn’t been coming to visit.Apparently she had better things to do than check after her husband, who lay sick in hospital with one of the deadliest virusesthe city had ever encountered. If pretending to be Mr. V’s concerned and impatient wife got him more attention from doctors,Nicole didn’t mind keeping up the ruse.

  She was halfway through her third vending machine cappuccino when a youngish, handsome man in a lab coat appeared inthe waiting area.

  “Mrs. Vaughn?”

  She stood up.

  “I’m Dr. Ormsby. Can I speak to you for a moment, please?”

  He led her down one hallway and into another. His footstepswere like seconds on a clock. This is the part in movies when theytell the wife her husband is dead, Nicole thought.

  The handsome doctor stopped, turned to face her, and tooka breath. She couldn’t pretend any longer.

  “I have to tell you something, doctor,” she blurted.

  There was an almost imperceptible twitch about his moutharea. This was not what he was used to hearing, before deliveringthe death speech. He nodded as if to say, continue.

  “I’m not Arthur’s wife. I’m his employee. I just . . . I don’tknow what I . . .”

  “I see,” he said—not sternly, but as though he understood.He probably thought she was his mistress.

  He reached out and put a hand on her shoulder. “We’regoing to need to get in touch with Mrs. Vaughn.”

  “Yes, I can . . . I have their home number.” She rummagedthrough her bag for her phone, then paused. “Can you just tellme, doctor. Is he . . . ?”

  But he didn’t need to reply. The answer was in his slowintake of breath, the gentle bob of his Adam’s apple, and the factthat he hadn’t once—not once—broken eye contact.

  *

  At first Zack thought he’d hallucinated the girl in the window. It was hard to tell what was real and what wasn’t anymore.His sight was bad, that was for sure: like looking at everythingthrough ultra-thin rolling papers. He couldn’t stop sweating, hisscalp felt on fire. He was constantly on the verge of passing out,but knew he had to dispose of the body. Why? Because that’swhat you did when you killed someone, by accident or not.Maybe especially if it was by accident. Movies had taught himthat. Get rid of the evidence. Smoke a fat blunt. Puke, shit, anddie, if that’s what was in store for you afterwards. But getting ridof the body was Priority Fucking One.

  There was a half-dug hole in the patch of grass behind theparking lot. He’d seen it from his window. He thought hemight have to hack up Martha’s body before dragging her outthere, but he felt too weak.Anyway, he didn’t own an axe ora saw. But he did own a rug, left to him by his Granny P., mayher racist soul rest in peace.The last thing she’d ever said tohim was, “When are you going to grow up and stop pretending to be black?”

  Seconds after that memory had poisoned his brain, he rolledMartha’s blown-apart corpse into the forsaken heirloom andhauled the parcel into the elevator. It was mid-day, but so-thefuck-what? People around here didn’t pay attention to shit. Heonly hoped that the shovel he’d seen lying next to the hole wasstill there. It was.

  He didn’t know what made him turn around to look up atthat Samantha chick’s window. Fate, maybe. But there she was,like a ghost, looking down at him with her face pressed againstthe glass, and the next second she was gone. He wondered if shewas naked, like in her Facebook photo. He held up his hand tosee if she would reappear.

  She didn’t, so he picked up the shovel and began workingaway at the hole. Once he had the body buried he’d go up to herapartment and take care of her, too.

  *

  Samantha stumbled backward. “Holy Münchausen.”

  Luca rolled onto his side. “Bless you.”

  “There’s somebody in that fucking rug!”

  “Huh?”

  “He killed her. That noise. He fucking shot her.” She wasstarting to hyperventilate.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “L
ook out the window. Wait, don’t. He’ll see you.”

  Luca closed his bloodshot eyes and yawned. “I have no ideawhat you’re talking about, but I really don’t feel well. Do youmind if I get some sleep?”

  Samantha glared at his glistening face. She hated him. Hatedherself for ever touching him. He was a slug in her bed, viscidand repulsive. He could do nothing for her.

  “Fine,” she yelped, fighting back tears. “Sweet nightmares.”

  She slammed the door on her way out of the room. She hadto think. Nausea rippled in her stomach and up her spine. She ranto the bathroom and swallowed two tablets of Gravol, cuppingwater into her mouth from the tap. Then she went to the phoneand dialed Aaron’s cell.

  The number you are calling is not available at the moment. Please try again later.

  “Ugh.”

  There was a brick in her stomach. She ran back to the bathroom and defecated into the toilet. Was the door to her apartment locked? Yes, of course it was. It always was. She flushedaway her shame, sprayed some Lysol, then went to make sure allthree bolts were secure.

  She returned to the phone, considered calling 9-1-1 andreporting what she’d seen, but thought better of it. Why getinvolved? She opted for a hot shower instead.

  *

  Aaron stepped off the bus at the Toronto terminal, bumpedhis way through a horde of dozy commuters, and headed straightfor the subway.

  He tried to stay as far away from men as possible. It seemedpretty clear, after today’s revelation, that Buzzard Flu affectedonly those with XY chromosomes. But could women still be carriers? He didn’t want to think about it. He was also sick of thinking about it. What with the citywide outbreak and Samantha’sinfidelity and his sister’s confession about the Etch-a-Sketch incident, not to mention the fact that he was soon to have a part ofhis penis hacked off, Aaron was overwhelmed to the point ofnear apathy.

  He yanked off his mask so that it flapped under his chin ashe walked. He wiped at the perspiration on his upper lip with agloved hand, which accomplished nothing, so he pulled off hisgloves, balled them up, and threw them in the next trash bin hepassed. He felt like he was shedding skin—becoming a normal,insane, unafraid human being—even if it was only a temporaryinsanity. It was reckless, and it felt like it could be addictive.