Mask of Flies (21 page)

Tony told Haynes about
the missing people: three residents and one employee caregiver, and
about the strangeness of the rooms.

Straight brown hair sat
in matted clumps, edging the director’s bald crown. He looked up
squinting through bifocals, furling his bulbous nose. “You sealed
off Samuelson’s room?”

“Yes, all locked up
for now. I wanted to talk to you before anything else.”

Haynes took off his
glasses and rubbed his eyes. “Two of the missing cannot walk,
suffering from terminal illness—they could’ve been taken out of
their rooms—what the
fuck
is this?”

Tony had no answers.
“Should we call the authorities?”

“Yes—it looks like
we have no choice. In a situation like this, there’s a critical
point when
not
calling the police becomes negligent.” Haynes turned in his chair
to face the wall adorned in awards for the facility. “God damn it,
call it in and lock this place down. I don’t want a soul in or out
unless it’s cleared through me.”

“Staff as well?”

“Hope you didn’t
have plans. I’m not paying the hourly’s overtime, but I want you
to run a mass roll call at shift change, followed by a search of the
entire facility. I think that will be sufficient enough”

On the way out, Tony envisioned his
night underneath the cheap tack-board desk in his office. It wobbled
severely; a strong gust would blow it over.
Probably
not much better than my apartment
. He wondered if he would
get workman’s comp if it collapsed on him.

Back at his desk,
Tony took a deep breath, picked up the phone, and dialed the Amherst
Police Department.

After a few rings a
woman with a sweet sounding voice answered, “Amherst Police
Department, how may I assist you?”

Tony told her about the
missing persons.

The operator took his
information and said, “In an incidence of one missing person, we
ask the person reporting to gather as much information as possible:
photos, names of friends and relatives, and locations that they
frequent. In this case, we have four—much more information needed.
I’ll have to get somebody to help you get together the details.
Would you mind if I asked you a few basic questions, to get the
process started?”

“No, not at all.”

“What are the names
and ages, if you know them, of the missing people?”

Tony had it all written
down.”Lydia Taylor, our employee is 46; Will Samuelson, a resident,
is 88; Marsha Gillium, a resident, is 84, and Joshua Reynolds,
another resident, is 79,” said Tony.

“Was there any
evidence of violence?”

“A struggle of some
kind, in Will Samuelson’s room. I would prefer the detectives to
judge.” Tony didn’t want to make any unfounded conjectures,
keeping his disclosure of Will’s room as neat as possible.

“We’ve had a rush
of accidents due to the weather, and its only getting worse. All
available are tied up right now. We’ll send someone out as soon as
we can.”

Tony gave the operator the address
of Oak Leaf, his office phone and personal cell number. Saying
“goodbye,” he wished he could see the woman on the other end with
the sweet voice and hung up.

At shift change, Tony
called an emergency meeting in the cafeteria with all of the staff:
day and night shift. He had pulled up pictures of each of the missing
patients on his computer—each a tiny thumbnail from their IDs. The
enlarged versions greatly distorted the pictures, turning the faces
into grainy blurs. Luckily, Kaja found more photos in the rec
room—taken from the large collage that held every resident and
employee—even Jim and the near dead residents of Summer Hall.

Tony addressed 30 out
of the normal 50 employees. “There are three missing residents, all
from Summer Hall.” He held off telling them about Lydia, in fear of
an employee mass exodus. “Two of the three were terminally ill,
incapable of walking.”

Mystified faces
encircled him, staring blankly into space—perhaps trying to develop
their own conclusion to where the missing could be.

“Split up into groups
of three, and I’ll assign each to search an area of the facility.”
Tony continued.

The vast grounds of the Oak Leaf
facility included three stories, housing almost 100 residents, a
substantial area to cover. The first floor housed the assisted living
facilities and accounted for half of the populace, this best
accommodated patient transport during medical emergencies. Retirement
condominiums filled the second floor—housing for more able bodied
patients. Two elevators, installed during the annex’s construction,
brought patients down to the main foyer, mitigating patient falls and
adding marketability to the condos. The third floor was under
construction: the plan had half the floor utilized for condos, and
the other half housing business offices for asset management, known
around the facility as “liquidators”. Each corner had ceiling
latches that accessed four separate attics, located inside the
conical shaped roofs of each corner’s turret.

Each search party,
including Tony’s, came back empty handed. An overweight temp, who
breathed noisily through his mouth, pulled Tony aside. “Is there a
key to the attic latches on the third floor? I couldn’t get them
open.”

“They should open by
pulling the string from the ceiling hatch.”

The temp made a long face. “Tried
that, didn’t work.”

At night, with a bag
of gym clothes and an old moving blanket from his trunk, Tony
constructed an improvised bed behind his desk. After the discovery in
Summer Hall, the thought of sleep unnerved him, mostly, the lingering
prospect of waking up reduced to a pile of peeled skin and teeth,
like Will Samuelson.

Tony’s nighttime
counterpart, Steve, spoke outside the door with one of the nightshift
orderlies and then entered. “Camping out in here?”

Shift change would’ve
normally occurred hours ago, but today, for Tony time was
meaningless. “At least until the cops come. You don’t mind?”

“No, not at
all—Haynes brought me up to speed on everything. It’s nice to
know you’ll be within kicking distance.” Steve grinned, toting
his handheld television. “I’ll be at my post if you need me.”

When alone Tony
unbuttoned his white and gray, checkered shirt and set it on his
chair. His bed tonight, made from a scratchy moving blanket and a
pillow filled with old gym clothes, lay spread out behind his desk.
He sprawled out on it, locking his hands behind his head, looking at
the ceiling.

Of all things, he
thought of his black cat, Maddy, and hoped she had enough food for
the night. He remembered how his ex, Vanessa, had begged him to buy
Maddy as a kitty but lost interest once the cat outgrew of the “cute
stage”. Maddy became Tony’s to care for.

Spoiled rotten had to
prove her power over Tony, time and time again, and eventually,
Vanessa became bored with him too, just as she did with all her
playthings. Tony could never be enough with his $45,000 salary, his
Volkswagen, his apartment—all these things she had found
inadequate. Her expectations far exceeded reality in terms of the
give
and
take
,
focusing exclusively on the
take
.
Her monthly car-note for her Mercedes, maxed out Victoria’s Secret
credit card payments, and all-organic, vegan, gluten-free diet,
liquidated Tony’s salary into pocket lint, forcing him to live like
a pauper.

Thinking on the
disproportionate nature of power between the sexes, his ex was able
to trade up significantly—in regard to her ability to attract
lovers—despite her severe personality flaws, compared to Tony, who
settled for loneliness. Tony knew he was better off without her and
focused on her physical shortcomings to make the pain easier to
swallow. He thought of her pointy breasts, the unintelligible
expression on her face when something went over her head, and the
coarseness of her pubic region. Despite his attempt to sully her
mental image, she still held a power over him that rattled his inner
core. She undid something within him, and he was having a hard time
putting himself back together.

Tony’s stomach roiled
and rumbled; his body’s cry for nourishment shook him from useless
brooding that left him dejected. He realized that the last thing he
had eaten was a breakfast burrito on his way into work—which now
seemed like eons ago. His hunger lost amongst the chaos of the day.
It dawned on him that he had a whole industrial sized kitchen at his
disposal.

No doubt some of
today’s leftover food would have been prepped into tomorrow’s
meal by the cafeteria staff. It was not unusual to see some of the
same ingredients spread across the week into different
recipes—another incidence of Mr. Haynes making the most of the
facility’s budget. Tony could simply reheat whatever they had in
there, albeit cafeteria food lacked the love that Tony needed in a
meal right now.

Out the door Steve
stopped him, “What’s your take on all these people vanishing into
thin air shit.”

“It’s pretty scary
stuff. I’m surprised you haven’t run off like the rest of the
staff.” Tony liked to give Steve hell when he could. It was all a
sport between the two.

“Ha, some of the
residents and staff got freaked out by the Jane Doe, that’s all.
She acts out one night, and they call her witch. I’d like to see
any of them bear the burden of her condition and maintain their
sanity,” Steve said.

“Maybe so, perhaps
they are fearful of Ms. Kingbird for no good reason . . . But you
have to admit, the details surrounding the disappearances are pretty
strange—all within a week of her arrival.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Steve
waved his hand dismissively at Tony. “You think that two of the
missing patients couldn’t have walked out because they were dying.
But maybe their families came and took them out without clearing it
through us. The hall was unsupervised for most of the day. They
might’ve caught wind of the attack on Tom McKinney and wanted to
get their folks out of the facility. Some people have the inside
track on what’s going on inside here, friends of the staff have
family members in here, ya know.”

“Could be, but
regardless, we filed a police report. I was directed by Jim to do so.
We hadn’t even thought to call the families yet, but I guess we’ll
let the professionals do their job. Tony’s stomach rumbled loudly,
interrupting the conversation.

“Damn you better go
take care of that thing.”

“Oh, haven’t eaten
since this morning with all the craziness. I was actually heading
over to the kitchen to see what I could scrounge up. Want anything?”

“Grab me a pop.
Whatever’s in there’ll be good.” Steve kicked his feet back up
on his desk, focusing his attention back to his handheld Panasonic,
switching channels to the local news report. The back of his big bald
head looked like some kind of prehistoric egg.

Tony walked to the end
of the main foyer but remembered something.” I almost forgot to
ask; it’s about the attack on Tom McKinney in Spring Hall. I was
the one that found him in his room, early in the morning. Do you
recall hearing or seeing anything out of the ordinary last night?”

“No, it was really
quiet last night.”

“I haven’t told
anyone about this yet: when I was in Tom McKinney’s room, waiting
on the ambulance, he signaled that he wanted to write something—to
communicate. When I handed him pen and paper, he wrote down a name:
Will Sammy
. I go to
Summer to question Will, and he’s nowhere to be found. But his
room, it was a mess, a real horror show.”

“I was told that his
room was under quarantine, because of the state it was found in, but
hadn’t heard the details.” Steve said. “It wasn’t bad enough
to transfer the patients out of Summer Hall, so it couldn’t have
been too bad.”

“I’ll spare you the details
until after you take lunch.”Tony made his way back towards the
kitchen.

The cafeteria was an
expansive room that held over thirty tables with fake plastic flowers
as center piece. The only light source was cast from the parking lot
outside, spilling ruddy light through the windows onto the dark
walkway. When Tony walked towards the rear, he heard something on the
other side of the wood-laminate double doors, leading into the
kitchen: lip smacking and heavy breathing.

Tony thought it could
be a night shifter going rabid on a midnight snack.
People
do strange things when they think they are alone.
This
thought calmed him, until he saw the darkness underneath the door.
Then his heart rate increased to a beat of quarters. His first
inclination was to go back and get Steve, but he didn’t want to be
deemed a coward.

He walked into the
pitch black kitchen and saw a shadow move in convulsions, heard wet
wheezing and chomping. Tony’s mind didn’t want to acknowledge its
presence; he wanted to classify it a Fata Morgana,
created by the sudden adjustment of his eyes to the
steepening darkness. But the shadow continued to twitch and gnaw away
on some unknown foodstuff.

Frantically pawing for
the light switch, Tony almost tripped over something on wheels. When
he pushed out against the wall for balance, a small protrusion
stabbed the meat of his palm. He flicked the switch and the overhead
lights glared down, bathing the aberration in sterile white-wash. Red
carapaces for eyes vaguely regarded him; they stayed fixated inside
the tin of raw hamburger, as the creature scooped out the remaining
pink meat and shoveled it into its toothy mouth. It had a human face,
stretched in a hawkish dimension, maybe a head taller than Tony,
dangerously thin and barley standing upright. An ill-fitting bed
gown—colored the cornflower blue that signified residents of Summer
Hall—exposed sharp collarbones, leathery nipples. The emptied tin
clanged off the ground. And time stood still.