by Adam Cesare
The man was Thomas. He was not a patient, but close enough. He was a janitor who’d been working at Mercy House since his thirties, well over four decades. With his pronounced limp and poor attitude, Tommy’s cleaning left much to be desired, but the old man was an “institution”—Donner’s word—at Mercy House and as such had never been forced into retirement.
Beatrice and Thomas were different now, though, both seeming taller as they entered the room. Beatrice’s long fingers curled around Thomas’s neck, then moved to the buttons of his jumpsuit. The man propped the door wide open, their shadows stretching to absurd lengths along the tile.
Tommy grunted and helped Beatrice roll down his sleeves, shrugging out of his uniform and peeling back the embroidered name tag over his breast. The flesh of his stomach and arms had taken on a new texture, did not bounce or jiggle as he moved. Leather pulled tight over muscle.
Sarah took a soft step deeper into the shower stall, repulsed not by the act of sex but by the change that had overtaken these two. These were people she knew, people she’d joked with and cared for, and they had been rendered alien by their ferocity, by the red light skating across their transformed bodies.
Gripping Beatrice’s bright red hair with one hand, the wig coming loose but not slipping completely off, Tommy groped at her breasts with the other. They were embracing now, their mouths engaged in sloppy, violent kisses.
Tommy gave a quick yelp and pulled back from Beatrice to reveal a thin line of blood running down his chin, he then laughed as she dipped her head to lick it up, her nails carving into his chest, and his hips beginning to gyrate with her scratches.
Sarah leaned back and the cool metal of a faucet touched the back of her neck. It was all too much and she couldn’t stop the gasp from escaping her lips.
Beatrice turned away from her lover at the sound, squinted into the darkness at Sarah.
“Join?” the old woman said, not trying to suppress her giggle. She waited for a response, and when none came she pointed to the shower curtain.
Tommy nodded and laughed, then crossed the room to gather Sarah up.
Chapter 15
Armaments were slim pickings in the office, but the group did the best it could. Dr. Dane found a rather sinister-looking letter opener in someone’s desk drawer. It had no range, but it was sharp. Paulo disassembled a coatrack, his work yielding a heavy three-foot length of pipe that he wielded like a combat baton, and Nikki was left with a pair of scissors. The scissors had points, at least.
“Ready?” Paulo asked, his key already in the lock.
The group decided that he would lead the way, with Dane at the rear, Nikki sandwiched in the middle. She didn’t object, but she also didn’t think Dr. Dane would offer any attackers much resistance. Not only had Dr. Dane already been frank about his cowardice, leaving them in the dining room, but his head was beginning to nod forward, his eyes looking even sleepier than they had been at dinner. Whatever he had taken either hadn’t kicked in yet or was kicking in too well, pounding the doctor into a stupor.
Paulo opened the door, timing it to coincide with a boom of cheers from the recreation room. Whatever was going on in there, the residents were finding it far more exciting than shuffleboard.
Paulo stopped at the door to the anteroom, listened, and then pushed his head inside. Nikki counted out a few heartbeats, feeling exposed in the hallway. Dr. Dale’s white coat made them more of a target than they otherwise would have been. They should have asked him to take it off, but Nikki had to wonder if he would have.
Even with Mercy House tearing itself apart around them, Dale had attempted to lord over Paulo, trying to find holes in his plans while they discussed what to do back in the office. It was obvious that before whatever was going on, physical therapists were outranked by staff physicians. Either that or Dale was always a dick.
Paulo flicked his head to give them the go-ahead and they followed him inside the waiting room.
Dale was tasked with one job—closing the door behind them—and still he fucked it up. The bang of the door closing under its own power shook the room, the sound ricocheting off the high oak ceilings that had looked so impressive scant hours ago. Now the room was big and empty, indifferent to them. Well, empty except for the large barricade that had been erected to block off the front doors.
All the angular, chic furniture that had filled the room earlier was now piled up against the far wall. Copies of Good Housekeeping and People lined the bare carpet, piles of books lay under where the bookcases had been, the shelves were now broken up, and the jagged pieces of particle board used as mortar for the barricade.
“Do we try to unpile it? Or will they hear us?” Dale asked. They were good questions, metered in a way that the doctor hadn’t been up until that point.
“We’ve got to try, every window in the building is barred,” Paulo whispered, flinching as every word was picked up and amplified by the room. “Okay?” he asked, directing the question at Nikki, like she was the deciding vote, because she’d been through the wars with the big man, while Dr. Dale had been popping pills by his lonesome.
She nodded. She’d seen the bars on the windows when they had come in, but this was the first time they’d been mentioned. We are locked in here. Dread flooded her mind and the room seemed to dim as her blood was diluted with a bit more shock. When she finally came down from this endorphin high, she’d likely slip into a coma.
“Watch the door,” Paulo said to Dane. It sounded, to Nikki, like he’d tasked the doctor with “guarding the car,” while Daddy slipped into the store to buy a gallon of milk, and the snub pleased her. Paulo approached the pile of furniture and rubbed his eyes. Untangling it was a giant game of Jenga, especially while trying to keep the noise to a minimum. Paulo began from the outside and worked his way in, selecting the smallest pieces first, then testing them before pulling them out, making sure he wasn’t going to cause an avalanche.
When he had both feet inside the pile, he began handing pieces to Nikki so she could set them gently on the carpet. It took them five minutes to reach the blocked doors, long enough that by then both Nikki and Paulo had a layer of sweat dripping off them, the beads looking like rubies in the red emergency light.
“Fuck,” Paulo said, peeling off a cushion that had been pressed against the doorknobs, both doors still unmovable under the weight of junk.
“What?” Nikki whispered. She looked back to Dane, who was watching them and therefore had his eyes on the wrong set of doors. He got the message from her expression and turned his head back in the right direction. Paulo held the cushion above his head, motioning with his elbow to the knobs. The heavy double doors had been sealed. Not locked, but the knobs were tied together with what, at first, seemed like a length of rope.
It wasn’t rope. That much was evident from the power cord running out one end. Whoever had wrapped the floor lamp around the knobs had been incredibly strong, able to tie the metal around twice and then leave a rough knot on the end, kinking the heavy doors closed as if the metal rod was a giant twist tie.
Paulo handed her the cushion and she watched as he tried to undo the tangle of metal. He hissed, not moving the mass but pulling his hand back, his left thumb lacerated on one of the sharp ends.
“Nope, not getting that off,” he said, and, as if to run his point home, Dr. Dane sounded for their attention.
Paulo dropped his hands and Dane closed the distance to Nikki and whispered in her ear.
“Someone is in the hallway,” Dane said.
The statement was redundant, since they had all heard it.
Paulo wiped his hand on his scrubs, a smear of blood dotting the blue fabric, and walked to the door, his tread light for such a big man. Nikki followed him, putting her head below his chest and peering out as he opened the door a crack.
A fight had broken out in the cafeteria and was spilling over into the hallway. Two women encircled a man, kicking him. But that wasn’t cause for alarm. More troublesome were the
three figures patrolling the hallway, with what looked like pikes and shields gripped in their hands. The shields were reappropriated lunch trays and the pikes were some kind of pole, kitchen knives strapped to the ends. The figures on each side used the blunt end of their staffs to break out the office windows nearest them and then spread the blinds.
They were not bothering to ransack the rooms, or even enter them. Nikki took this to mean that the men were looking for survivors, young people.
Paulo pulled back from the door and motioned for them to get back. At the current pace, the group had maybe thirty seconds to a minute before the patrol was at the doors to the waiting room. On the south wall was a sign-in window that led to a small office, which seemed to Nikki to be the only place they could hide, if they were all able to fit.
“Under the pile,” Paulo said, handing Dane a sheet of particleboard while Nikki grabbed a cushion. Paulo hefted a coffee table over them, and then pulled an upended armchair onto himself as he lowered his back end into the blockade, his large body causing the pile to shift. Nikki prayed that it would hold. There were enough broken boards and exposed nails to make being crushed or wounded under the weight of the structure a real possibility, or at least a real embarrassing way to be caught.
The last of the detritus settled just as both doors were pushed open. It was impossible to tell if their group was truly concealed, or if snatches of flesh and clothing could be seen from the outside. They could have been ostriches, for all Nikki knew, heads in the sand and asses in the air. Nikki wanted to watch the figures, all men, but she didn’t want the glint in her eyes to give them away. As she thought about this, her eyes started to water and sting, so she closed them to a squint.
The men spread out as they entered the room, filling the space like trained professionals, checking the corners, clinical and disciplined, not at all the blood-hungry rage monsters that the creatures in the dining room had been, nor the gluttons that Nikki had seen stuffing themselves in the cafeteria.
Each man was outfitted slightly differently, but all had smeared their clothes in war paint, turning their sweatpants and pajama tops into fatigues. One of the soldiers was black and heftier than the other, who was tall, with the wisp of a blond mustache spread over his upper lip.
A third figure was not combing the room but standing sentry instead, his shield lowered to his knee, leaning slightly on his staff. Even standing still, he was the most imposing of the three. His glare was fixed on the barricade, either admiring his handiwork or noticing that it had been tampered with. If he saw them he gave no indication.
The men wore bandoliers of duct tape. Bungee cords, knives, and bottles of Poland Spring dangled at their sides. The tangle of supplies clacked together as they moved, the sound giving some ambient noise as cover, but not enough that Nikki felt comfortable enough to breathe.
Nikki could feel blood vessels ready to burst in her face, but she held her breath as the two soldiers swept the room, one busting out the window of the sign-in desk, thrusting his spear down and inside before looking over the edge, checking for anyone he might have speared. Good thing they hadn’t hidden there.
Beside her, Dane shifted, then exhaled, a tiny sound, but loud enough that Nikki was sure they’d be dead soon. She looked over, not ready to die until she’d given the doctor her most accusatory stare.
As Dr. Dane met her gaze, a pained expression on his face, Nikki looked down to see that he’d placed his hand straight through a nail, the sharp metal sticking out between the webbing of his middle and ring finger. Considering the extent of the wound, it was truly incredible that he hadn’t screamed. His self-control was probably due more to the drugs in his system than to his stoicism.
The leader kept staring at them, taking a step forward that Nikki thought might signal their doom. It was possible that his eyes were locked with her own. It was hard to tell, his face was so dark even as he got closer, the new folds and tight contours of his skin not denoting age anymore but something else.
He moved, halving the distance between himself and the barricade until suddenly he stopped, cocking his head to the side, a sound catching his interest.
The commander about-faced, heel to toe.
Both doors were thrown open behind him and a figure entered the room, made up in a decidedly unfamiliar way but wearing an overly familiar red and black sweater.
Harriet.
Her bent posture was in stark contrast to the leader’s rigid, disciplined silhouette. She’d gained length in her legs and arms, and her skin had been drawn taut. The sleeves of her sweater were pulled tight, too short now, and Nikki could see the veins of her forearms popping, every joint cut like a lightweight boxer. The transformation itself seemed to affect her the same as it had the others, but she hunched and held her arms aloft. She was less civilized, a snarling animal.
“Girl,” Harriet said, barking the words, her larynx doubling up on its muscle mass just like the rest of her. It could have been a question: “Girl?” She was looking for someone, and Nikki had a feeling she knew who.
The leader looked to his right, nodding. The lackey with the golden mustache got the message well enough, brandishing his staff up high, not threatening Harriet with the knife end but faking with the blunt side and causing her mother-in-law to lose ground, backing toward the hall doors.
“Whore,” Harriet said, as if to clarify her initial query. Pardon me, sir. Have you seen a whore around these parts?
In two large strides the leader was on top of Harriet, his shield cinched to his forearm, leaving his hand free to wrap around her neck, lifting her off the ground. He held her there, the strength and size of him uncanny. It seemed to take no effort at all to lift the hissing, clawing Harriet. For what she’d done, what she’d become, Nikki did not feel a whiff of remorse in wishing that the man would crush her throat, or impale her with his spear, whatever method he deemed necessary to dispose of Harriet Laurel, the hateful woman who had ruined her life and now wished to end it.
“Go,” the man said, tossing Harriet back out the door, not giving her much of a choice.
She hit the tile of the hallway and slid, landing harder than when she had fallen off the dining room table, but still looking relatively unharmed.
The lead resident took one last look around the room and then grunted something. His two lieutenants fell in behind him as they left the room. One took a running kick at a pile of books on his way, the kind of reckless vandalism usually reserved for teenage boys, not men in nursing homes.
The doors slammed closed, they listened for a few steps down the hallway, and then all exhaled at once. Dr. Dale began to whine about his hand, but Nikki was more concerned with one question.
“What now?”
Chapter 16
More of them came upstairs to enjoy the hydrotherapy room. So many more.
Tommy had taken Sarah’s flashlight from her, his hand going amber over the glow as he closed his fingers around it. “No, no, no,” he said, giggling and prying her digits back from the small penlight. He tossed it behind her and she’d heard it skitter and then roll, coming to a stop with a splash, dropping to the bottom of one of the pools. Without the LED there was only the red glow of the propped door for the next few hours.
At least it felt like hours.
In the beginning, back when it was just Beatrice, Tommy, and herself, Beatrice had tried to get Sarah involved, lowering her scrub pants and rubbing her thighs, moving her long fingers up, the tips of her nails still moist with Tommy’s blood, but Sarah had successfully squirmed out of the way, never moving too quickly, in case Beatrice was prepared to get rough with her.
Tommy had grown impatient, though, and then made it clear that he wanted the old woman’s attentions to himself.
In the dim light, it was easy to ignore the sights, but there was no mistaking some of the sounds: the zipper and snaps of Tommy’s jumpsuit coming all the way undone, the whole thing hitting the tile, the wet gulps from Beatrice, and finally the satis
fied gasps of both parties.
Sarah listened to this, trying to inch her way toward the door when Beatrice clamped a sticky hand around her ankle and cooed, “Stay.”
Almost on cue, two more figures darkened the doorway and then approached, one of them slipping and falling into a whirlpool, lukewarm water crashing over the sides of the sunken tub and soaking through Sarah’s clothes, the rest of the residents giggling. Tommy moaned and flopped onto his back, seemingly spent. There was a string of viscous fluid catching in the light, still attaching his privates to Beatrice as the woman crawled away from him, up onto Sarah, spindly hands grasping at her breasts like two enormous spiders.
If this was what was going to precede the hours before her death, she’d rather just skip to the end. No, she chastised herself, giving up was not an option. She then reminded herself of the word of the day: survival.
A pair of slippers splashed down into the puddles next to Sarah’s head. The man attached to the feet was not looking at the nurse but at the nude octogenarian on top of her. Beatrice’s nipples were long and gnarled like baby carrots, her skin glistening from sweat, chlorine, and Tommy’s slime.
The man above Sarah unzipped his slacks and dropped them and his briefs in one motion, the clothes crumpling down onto Sarah’s face. The smell was intolerable and she wiggled her head out from under the pile just in time to see the man grip Beatrice by the back of the neck and bring himself to her.
Sarah curled and rolled, disentangling herself from the two bodies, only to be gripped by the sopping wet arms of the man who’d fallen in the pool.
“Hello, nurse,” he whispered into Sarah’s ear, already hard and pressing himself against her back. There was no fighting his grasp, his muscles were like stone. Whatever had happened to the residents was not only a mental change but a physical one as well; Mercy House had a fine PT division, but the therapists weren’t this good.