water in the bottom, and taking two juice cups, he filled them up and was back out and down the hall, returning to the room with the two old men. He handed each of them a cup.
“Thank God,” the one in the wheelchair whispered, sipping on it, John having to hold the other cup so that the man in the bed could sip it down.
The man in the wheelchair was wearing an old commemorative cap, “Big Red One—Omaha Beach 1944- 2004” emblazoned on it. Pins across the front, which John instantly recognized, Combat Infantry Badge, Silver Star, two Purple Hearts, miniature sergeant’s chevrons. He felt sick looking at the man, sipping the last of the water in the cup and holding it back up.
“Son, I hate to bother you,” the man whispered. “My chair just won’t move. Would you mind getting me another drink?”
“John, where in hell are you?”
It was Jen, her voice shrill.
“Right there, Mom.”
“Sir, I’ll be back shortly,” John said, and he fled the room.
He tried to not look into the rooms as he walked down the corridor. An elderly woman, naked, sitting curled up and crying, a sickly scent from the next room, and he dared to look in…. A body of a bloated man, face yellowing with the beginnings of decay, bedsheets kicked off from his final struggle, his roommate sitting in a chair, looking vacantly out the window.
John reached Tyler’s room, Jen in the doorway, crying.
“We got to take him home,” she said.
For a moment John thought Tyler was dead, head back, face unshaved. The IV was still in his arm. Gravity fed, it was empty. The feeding tube into his stomach was driven by a small electrical pump, the plastic container attached to it… empty.
He was semi-conscious, muttering incoherently.
The smell of feces hung in the room and John struggled to control his stomach. It was something that always defeated him. He prided himself on being a damn good father, but when Mary was alive the diapers was her job. Mary’s chemo was a nightmare, but he had manfully stood by, holding her when she vomited, cleaning her up, then rushing to the bathroom to vomit as well. After she died, when the kids were sick Jen would come over to help. He was horrified by what he had to confront now.
“I’ll clean him up,” Jen said. “You find a gurney so we can move him out to the car.”
“How in hell are you going to clean him up?” John gasped. “Just find a gurney. I’ll take care of the rest.”
He backed out of the room and stormed back down the corridor to the nurses’ station.
“I’m pulling my father-in-law out.”
“Good, you should,” Caroline said quietly.
“How in God’s name can you allow this?”
She looked up at him and then just dissolved into sobs.
“No one’s come into work. I’ve been here since… since the power went off. Wallace and Kimberly—they took off last night—said they had to get home somehow to check on their kids and would come back, but they haven’t. I’ve got a kid at home, too. Her father’s such a bum, shacked up with someone else now. I’m worried he hasn’t gone over to check on her and she’s alone.”
Caroline looked at him, tears were streaming down her face.
“I need a smoke,” John said.
She nodded and fumbled in her purse and pulled out a pack, as if he were asking for one.
He shook his head, reached into his pocket, and took two cigarettes out, offering her one. They lit up. It was a nursing home, but at this moment he felt at least a smoke would mask the smell and help calm her down.
She took a deep drag, exhaled, and the tears stopped.
“I need a gurney to move my father-in-law.”
“I think you’ll find one down the next corridor. Waldo took it a couple of hours ago.”
“When was the last time these people were cleaned, fed, had water?”
“I don’t know.”
“Think, damn it.”
“I think two days ago. Then it just all seemed to unravel. Mr. Yarborough died, then Miss Emily, then Mr. Cohen. No one’s come to take their bodies. Usually the funeral home has the hearse here within a half hour. I think I called, but they haven’t shown up. Mrs. Johnston in room twenty-three fell, I think she broke her hip, and Mr. Brunelli, I think he’s had another heart attack.
“Now they’re all dying. All of them. Miss Kilpatrick is dead in the next room. God, how I loved her,” and she started to sob again.
He remembered Miss Kilpatrick, actually rather young. Bad auto accident, paralyzed from the waist down and in rehab and training before going home. Science teacher at the high school until she was nailed head-on by a drunk, one of her own students.
“She got some scissors and cut her wrists. She’s dead in the sitting room.”
He didn’t even see her as they came in.
“She said she knew what had happened and wouldn’t live through it.”
“Caroline, you’ve got to get help up here.”
“I don’t know. I’m just an LPN. I’m not trained for this, sir.”
She began to sob again.
“Where’s the supervisor?”
“In her office, I think.”
He nodded, left Caroline, and went down towards the opposite wing and turned into the administrative corridor. The door to the supervisor’s office was closed, and without bothering to knock he pushed it open.
The woman behind the desk was fast asleep, head on her desk.
“Ira, wake up,” John snapped angrily.
She raised her head.
“Professor Matherson?”
“Yes, that’s me.”
She rubbed her eyes and sat up.
“I know you must be upset.”
“‘Upset’ isn’t the word for it. This is an outrage.”
She nodded silently.
“I know. I’ve got four people in the building, maybe three; I think Kim-berly took off. I sent the last of our kitchen staff down to the town to try and get help. But that was hours ago and no one’s come back. No water, no air-conditioning, no refrigeration for food or medication…”
She fell silent, then looked down at a checklist on her desk. The woman was obviously pushed over the edge and reverting to an almost standard routine to hide in.
“Last rounds I counted seventeen dead. Six families have pulled their relatives out…. Let’s see, that leaves forty patients and three staff on overtime. Normally during the day I have over thirty working here.”
God, you’d think everyone would have pulled their people out, John thought, then realized the difficulties of that. Some had no family nearby at all. A couple retired here, the spouse died, the other wound up here, the kids somewhere else, New York, California, Chicago… the American way.
Even for locals, just five or ten miles away. How to get a sick, demented, or dying parent or grandparent moved? And many most likely just assumed or wanted to assume that “Grandpa is safe there; we’re paying five thousand a month to make sure of that.”
“But you’ve got to do something,” John protested weakly.
“Pray, tell me what I should do first,” she said quietly. “Did I tell you we were robbed last night?”
“What.”
“Some punks. One had a gun, and demanded the drugs. They took all the painkillers, pills, the liquid morphine.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know. The one with the gun had a shaved head, earring, tattoo of a serpent on his left arm, red
