Working in an Assisted Living facility wasn’t easy. Some of the residence needed more care than just ‘assisted’. Vivian never complained when she had to do extra, or clean up a resident who had an accident. She was loving, caring and compassionate.
“Drugs!” a resident yelled. “They’re saying she was on some sort of synthetic drug.”
Alice peered up. The residents had put the news on again. “Mr. Daniels,” she scolded and walked over. “This is inappropriate.”
“We aren’t children,” Bert grabbed the remote control before she could. “If we wanna watch the goddamn news, we’ll watch the goddamn news. I’m pretty sure there’s nothing too inappropriate for me at eight-five years old, do you?”
Before Alice could sputter out an answer, the deep, steady buzz of the fire alarm sounded along with the flashing of the emergency strobe lights.
Alice kicked into high gear, she knew the routine. Find out the location of the hot spot and move the residents to a safe zone. Then check the rooms. She placed the ear buds to her radio in her ear expecting to hear the fire zone.
“Please secure all residents,” the radio said. “Keep them from the halls.”
She looked out the recreation room door into the main hall. She didn’t see any smoke. The front door wasn’t far and she could gather the eight residents and move them, or shut the fire doors of the recreation room. But her instructions were to hang tight and that’s what she would do.
Bert stood with his walker. “We getting out of here?”
“No, no.” Alice said, walking over to him. “Sit back down. There’s no evacuation code called out. We’re going to stay here.”
“Oh, yeah, leave a bunch of immobile old people to burn.”
“Not funny.” Alice turned and walked over to the doors. As soon as she grabbed the handles the alarms stopped. She breathed out and looked up at the ceiling to the strobe lights. They stopped as well.
Withdrawing her hands, she leveled her gaze, that was when she saw them.
A group of eight people walked into the main hall. Two broke off and headed her way. It wasn’t the sight of strangers that bothered her, it was the fact that they wore respiratory masks, goggles and gloves.
“Ma’am,” a woman approached her. “If you can just step back into the room we’ll be with you shortly.”
“I have to get back to the nurse’s station. I’ll grab an aid to sit with them,” Alice said.
“No one moves or goes anywhere until we survey and do a head count. We’re on lock down.”
At first she thought, ‘My God, Vivian did escape and was here in Country Meadows.’ Fearful of the answer, Alice asked. “What’s going on?”
“This facility,” the woman replied, “Is under quarantine.”
THREE - MOVE
“Mommy.”
“Calling, Mercy Allen Oberlin, this is Medvac Bravo two-two-seven,” the male paramedic said.
“This is Mercy Allen, go ahead please,” came the voice on the radio.
“Mommy.”
It was all still a dream. Vivian kept hearing her youngest daughter’s voice as she tried to get her attention.
“Mercy Allen, I have a priority one trauma for you coming in from Wakeman, let me know when you are ready. Copy.”
“Go ahead, Two-two-seven.”
“We are transporting a semi-conscious female. Multiple lacerations on both legs and ankles, appears to be scratches of sorts. Female also has two human bite marks on both arms. Reporting they are self-inflicted,” the paramedic said.
Pause.
“Two-two-seven, would this be the person of interest in the Wakeman incident?”
“Affirmative.”
“Please, hold.”
Vivian didn’t know what was going on. She felt nothing, not at the moment, everything was a blur and surreal.
“Two-two-seven is the patient stabilized?”
“Stabilized and restrained, law officials on board.”
“Two-two-seven we are transferring the call to Firelands, Sandusky.”
“Firelands? That’s fifty minutes out.”
“Two-two-seven we are ill equipped to handle the patient, transferring to Firelands. Do you copy?’
“Copy that.”
“Mommy.”
“No!” Vivian opened her eyes and even as confused as she was, her body flooded with a feeling of complete fear. Eyes barely opened she attempted to move, to sit up, but every part of her body was strapped and bound, including her head
She knew she was moving, she could tell, however her senses were dulled all the way around. Through clouded vision she shifted her eyes and saw a man with a mask and gloves, he fiddled with the line on the IV, turned his head and spoke to someone else.
His voice deepened, slowed and became more echoing with every word.
“Another thirty seconds, she’ll be out.”
Then Vivian was.
She was living a reality check. Opening her eyes in the ambulance the only thing she recalled was hearing her youngest daughter, Kira, calling her name. At first Vivian thought she slept in, then she knew that was wrong when she heard the paramedics.
They drugged her again, but not enough to stifle the dream.
Bash. Bash.
In her dream the sun was bright. She was in the yard, sweat formed on her brow as she brought the garden hoe down to the soil, trying to break a hard spot. It was time to plant the garden.
Bash. Bash.
Elsa stood across from her, judging her, like she always did. Vivian didn’t want to hear from Elsa about how she was doing it wrong.
“Leave, Elsa. Go,” Vivian told her.
Then she felt the ground soften as she looked down.
No longer was she in the garden, but in her kitchen. Her husband, Ben, twitched and jerked, grabbing onto her one second, then clawing to get away the next.
Bash. Bash.
It wasn’t a garden hoe, it was a frying pan in her hand. Vivian was out of control. She couldn’t stop. Over and over she hit into his head, smashing it, until he didn’t move, until there was nothing left. Bits of his skull were splattered across the kitchen floor, nothing of his brain remained intact, it poured out like jam, and his eyeball adhered to the top of her shoe.
He was dead. She knew it. She couldn’t stop hitting him.
Fueled by rage, Vivian just kept smashing and probably would have done so all night had the police not barged in with guns blazing as she held that pan midair ready to swing down.
“Drop it!” they shouted. “Drop the weapon now!”
Vivian did, the pan fell not making a sound as it landed in Ben’s remains. She froze unable to move as they charged for her.
FOUR – MYSTERY
The two lane road of Route Twenty, or Cleveland Road as the locals called it, was barren of cars and had been since they passed the town limits of Norwalk. Which surprised Brady since there were a lot of trucks going in and out of the road to Norwalk County Airport.
It was busy then suddenly nothing.
“Is a Bill Hollonsworth from a Beaver County, Pennsylvania in your notebook?” Jason played with his phone as he sat as a passenger in Brady’s car.
“Name doesn’t sound familiar so I’m gonna say no. Why?”
“Well, he killed his mother and father, ate his father’s face. They said his nephew escaped. He called the police and they killed Bill while he was eating his dad.”
“That’s why he’s not in my notebook. He’s dead. No follow up. Why are you talking about him?” Brady asked.
“Because I thought it was weird they shut down a town, so I looked it up to see if there were any other cases. That was one of them. This was the other day.”
“Anything else?”
“One in Virginia.”
“The teenager that went nuts?” Brady asked. “Yeah, I have that one. They only shut down the street because he got loose.”
“Probably what happened to the Wakeman chick, she got loose. I mean,
let’s face it,” Jason said. “I’m looking at the map now. Wakeman is in the middle of farm lands. If she’s off running, only five streets go through that town. It’s easy to seal her in.”
“Fucking bath salt people get crazy. Or whatever that new synthetic drug out there.”
“Oh, yeah, I saw videos of that on line. That’s some crazy shit.”
“Speaking of crazy shit.” Brady slowed down. “We still have a mile to Wakeman. Look at this.”
Jason looked up from his phone. Not far ahead, maybe three hundred yards, a state police car and fire truck, both with lights flashing, blocked off the lanes along with a white, extended bed pickup.
In front of the vehicles stood two policemen and a man wearing black coveralls.
Brady brought the car to a near stop when he saw a couple of soldiers behind the police cars. “Does this seem odd to you?” Brady asked.
“Uh, yeah. Why is the military here?” Jason lifted his phone and took a picture. “I’m sending this to Corrie, she has to see this.” His fingers moved on his phone as he sent his message. “I think we should turn around.”
“I agree.” Brady reached for the gearshift. As soon as he touched it he noticed one of the police officers walking his way. “What should I do? He’s coming.”
“You can’t leave now. He’ll think you’re running. Keep driving his way slow.”
Brady nodded and inched his car forward. “About right now I’m thinking this was a really stupid idea.”
“You and me both.”
The police officer lifted his hand and Brady stopped the car completely and rolled down the window when he approached.
“Afternoon boys. Where you headed?” he asked.
After a second delay, Brady answered. “Brunswick. We’re headed to Brunswick.”
“Road is closed ahead. Gonna have to backtrack and catch One-Thirteen.”
“We’ll do that, thank you Officer,” Brady said. “Is uh, everything okay there?’
“Yep. Just a little gas leak.”
“We’ll turn around. Thanks again.” Brady wound up his window and the officer stepped out of the way. “Gas leak my ass. We know he’s lying.”
“Maybe not. Because …” Jason held up his phone. “They got her. Corrie said they got the family killer a while ago.”
“Maybe it is a gas leak after all.” Brady turned the wheel and lifted his hand in a wave to the officer.
“They cleared all the news people out. They were here when we left the house,” Jason said.
“Let’s just go.” Brady turned the car to the other lane and just as he began to head west, he spotted something from his peripheral vision. “Holy shit. Look.” He pointed to the field next to them.
A man ran through the weeds, he ran fast, looking over his shoulder. On his heels in pursuit, was a soldier.
Jason lifted his phone.
“You getting this?” Brady asked.
“I am.”
It sounded like firecrackers, two of them going off and with that, blood sprayed from the running man and he fell from sight.
Brady panicked, and his car swerved.
“Fuck. They shot him,” Jason said. “They shot him.”
“I saw. I saw.”
“Go. Go.”
“Did you get it?”
“I got it. Go.”
Brady hit the gas, but it wasn’t long before the flashing lights of the police were in his rearview mirror. “Shit. Send it.”
“I am,” Jason said.
“Tell her they’re after us.”
“I did.”
“Delete it. The video, the picture and the text.”
Jason nodded nervously. “Why am I doing that?”
“Just do it.” Brady urged, then put on his turn signal, he slowed down and pulled over.
“What are you doing?”
“We can’t outrun them.”
“Yes. Yes we can.”
“For how long?” Brady exhaled and put the car in park as he watched in the mirror, the squad car pulled up behind him. “Maybe they’re just getting me for speeding. I did haul ass.”
“Maybe.”
“Maybe we’re just paranoid.” Brady wound down his window as the same police officer approached. Only this time he wasn’t alone and his gun was drawn.
“I’m gonna need you boys to step out of the vehicle,” he said as he aimed his gun steadily on them. “Hands where I can see them. Now!”
It was hard for Brady to remain calm. His gut twitched with nerves, as his heart beat out of control. Despite the fact that every part of him trembled he did what was asked. He and Jason stepped out of the car.
<><><><>
The steady beeping of Vivian’s heart monitor seeped into her subconscious, stirring her awake. When her eyes opened an instant pain hit her. It wasn’t physical, it was emotional. A deep, stabbing pain in her chest weighed her down. It felt like a black hole, sucking every ounce of her soul into the dark abyss.
“No,” she whimpered. “No.”
She tried to move her hands, but they were restrained. The heart monitor increased in intensity and the beeping went out of control.
The back of her head was elevated slightly and Vivian was able to see when a nurse barreled into the room. Her mouth and nose were covered with a mask, and her eyes were the only thing Vivian saw.
“One second,” the nurse held a syringe to the IV line.
Vivian felt the fabric of her scrubs brush against her hand, and with everything she had she extended her fingers latching onto the pocket of the nurse’s uniform.
The nurse reached down to remove her hand.
“Please,” Vivian whimpered with a raspy ache. “Please, please, please. I didn’t do it. I didn’t do it. Oh, God!” she cried out with a sob. “I didn’t do it.”
The nurse stared down at her.
Or did she?
Vivian was lost and confused. They arrested her like a criminal, throwing her to the ground and handcuffing her. They treated her as if she did it, maybe she did and didn’t realize it. Perhaps her mind was justifying her actions by creating something that never happened.
An illusion of the events.
A delusional state made more sense, because what Vivian actually recalled happening was too fantastic to be real.
“There you go, Bert,” Vivian braced Bert Daniels under the arm as she helped him stand and step out of the shower of his County Meadows room. “You okay? Did you get hurt?”
“No, I didn’t fall,” Bert smacked her hand away. “I told you, I bent down because I dropped the shampoo and I couldn’t get back up. Now, if you don’t mind, I am bare ass naked with my ding dang dong flapping in the wind.”
“I’ll leave you be. Press the call button if you need help again,” Vivian told him and stepped from the shower.
Not many residents showered unassisted, but Bert wouldn’t let an aide in there with him, so Vivian stood outside his door.
“Viv?” Alice approached. “Hey, your daughter has been trying to call you. She said it’s important.”
“Shit. Okay, can you stand here?”
“Sure.”
“Thanks.” Vivian pulled her phone from her pocket and walked down the hall. Four missed calls from Ben’s phone. She immediately dialed. She had left work earlier the day before because her husband still wasn’t well. His fever had spiked, he was pale and wheezing when he wasn’t coughing. She begged him to see a doctor, but he insisted he was fine. Yet, he barely got out of bed.
“Mommy?” her daughter Kaddy answered the phone.
“Hey, sweetie, what’s up?”
“Something’s wrong with Daddy. Something is really wrong with him.”
“I’ll be right there.” After hanging up, Vivian apologized to Alice, but she had to leave and right away.
The entire short, ten minute ride was filled with thoughts of either calling an ambulance, or taking Ben to the hospital.
She made it home without a problem, but
right after she pulled in the driveway she saw her youngest dart from around the house into the side door, and right behind her running, was Ben.
Immediately, Vivian was annoyed.
She left work and Ben was out running?
Not that she had a high paying job, but it was work and she liked her job.
She stepped out of the van and walked to the front door, Spud their dog barked continuously.
‘Jesus,’ she thought, ‘What is going on in there?’
The front door of the small frame house opened to the living room and the staircase was against the wall to the left.
Vivian dropped her purse and keys on the table by the door and turned toward the stairs. The dog kept barking.
“I’m home,” Vivian hollered. “I’ll be right down, I have to run to the bathroom.”
About five steps up, Vivian stopped when she heard the scream. It was Kira. Many times her child screamed in play, but nothing like she had just heard.
The mother in her knew her child was hurt.
Just as she turned she slipped on something and lost her footing tumbling down a couple steps. When she caught her balance, heart racing from the scare, she saw what caused the slippage.
Blood.
Her hand was covered with blood and hair.
“Oh my God.” Vivian lifted her eyes. The entire staircase was covered. Hurriedly she ran as fast as she could up the steps. At the top, across the walls of the hall, were smears of blood. Vivian didn’t need to go far to see the cause. The bathroom door was open and on the floor was her middle child, Karen.
Karen’s eyes were wide open, half of her scalp was exposed, hair gone, her abdomen gutted, her insides strewn across the bathroom floor.
In a fearful and gut wrenching reaction, Vivian screamed. She cried out loud and long. She wanted to drop down, grab her daughter, but she had to find her other two.
Racing from the bathroom she headed to the stairs, after two steps the blood on the hardwood surface was like a coating of ice, Vivian toppled down the stairs.
She landed with a ‘thud’ against the closet door that was on the landing. Spud barked and raced over to her.
A second later she had her bearings and stood only to see Ben standing in the center of the living room, holding their youngest child, Kira.
Three Miles Out: Book One Page 2