Bob Kalkreuter

 

Dan had never seen anybody look so strung out. Not in real life anyway. Sure, he’d seen people on TV who looked pretty rough, mostly on the news, convicts in bright orange jumpsuits, all staring at the floor, tamed by chains and shame, breathing the fumes of justice.

He’d never seen anybody like this in real life before, ratcheted as tight as the guy coming up the stairs at the end of the hall, eyes fuzzy and yellowed by booze or drugs or surefire madness. Moving as if he were late for a deadline he didn’t understand.

He carried a large shopping bag gripped to his chest.

Another day, Dan might have wondered why this guy was in the maternity ward, rivet-eyed and tense. But he let the thought pass in the space of a glance, the way you ignore single raindrops in a rainstorm. Big always overwhelms small.

Dan had troubles of his own today. His head was buzzing. And he’d just had a run-in with the head nurse. Perhaps he was still hung over, or freshly drunk from the wine he’d had for breakfast. Or maybe it was the weed he’d smoked before he left for work, weed he’d heisted from the stash his roommate hid under the couch to keep him from stealing it.

Or maybe just a combination of all three.

Of course, there was the simple possibility of bad luck. But did it really matter? Things weren’t going his way, and it didn’t help him concentrate.

Now, Dan struggled to steer a goddamn mop bucket, trying to guide the wheels in a straight line. Hard enough by itself, without having to fight against a loose strand from the mop head looped around one of the wheels, making the whole contraption jerk hard to the right.

At first, he tried to pull the strand loose, but gave up because it was less complicated to push the bucket than figure out which direction to unravel the string.

To the right, where another corridor came to a tee, there was a peaceful gauntlet of pink and blue balloons hanging from some of the doors. Up ahead, he could see the nurses station, where She probably waited for him. She. That’s what he called the head nurse, when She was within earshot. Chucky when She wasn’t.

She was a short woman with a large head and straight, bottle-red hair. She wore round glasses that kept slipping down her nose.

She drove him crazy with her constant badgering. As if She expected him to give a shit. Finally, last night, after drinking a bottle of cheap wine, he decided to quit his job and leave his budding medical career for something on a beach somewhere. Anywhere. A sand pile in a vacant lot would be fine. As long as it wasn’t anywhere near this damn hospital.

So he called his cousin, who agreed to drive to Florida with him in the morning. They resolved to sleep in Dan’s car, splitting the cost and the girls they planned to hustle. Since they had no money, they figured to sell dope along the way, all for fun and profit. They were in no hurry. Who wants to rush a good time?

But after midnight, on his way home, the transmission in Dan’s car dropped out, and along with it vanished their only transportation. So this morning, going to work took on a different meaning. Even if he sold the old car for junk, he didn’t have enough money to replace it, and walking and thumbing a ride to the hospital this morning, particularly in his condition, took several hours.

By the time he arrived, She was furious.

Puckering her jowled face, She shouted,”I can’t decide if you’re trying to be a jerk, or just a fool.” Dan didn’t know the answer to that either, but figured that telling her anything else would just open up more options. Some of which he’d even thought about himself, but he really wanted to cut down on the complications in his life, not expand them.

After She got through hollering, She sent him to clean up a bathroom, where some asshole had thrown up all over a toilet. That’s when She became Chucky for good.

Not that he gave a damn about anything Chucky said or thought. No, and he didn’t care what he did with his own time either, as long it didn’t cause him pain. So now he was stuck in this stupid hospital for several more months, working to get his life out of hock. He felt trapped, like he’d just been denied parole.

Dan paid scant attention when the stranger marched past without blinking or flinching, his yellowed eyes staring straight ahead, as if he were wrestling with thoughts harder than stones. Thoughts Dan didn’t care anything about. He was an orderly, not the emperor of curiosity. He didn’t give a damn where this guy walked or what he did, as long as he kept on going, dragging his own fucked-up world with him.

In the stranger’s wake was the odor of sweat. Maybe something in the bag shifted because he stopped and rotated his load. His fingers were short and thick, with black hair growing around the knuckles. Then he turned, as if waking from sleep. And for the first time Dan saw the man’s eyes move, rolling like two smashed grapefruit, studying Dan for an instant, then sliding away, sinking into confusion.

“Room 221. You know where it is?” asked the stranger. His voice was nervous, irritable.

“Beats the hell outta me. Ask them.” Dan nodded at the nurses’ station at the end of the hall, dismissing the guy with his best don’t-give-a-shit shrug. Leaning, Dan tried to wrestle the mop bucket forward, but only managed to twist it sideways. “Son of a bitch,” he said.

The stranger came out of his trance and looked at Dan hard, but Dan didn’t look up. He continued to mutter directly into the bucket while he pushed the protruding mop handle, causing the whole contraption to move against itself, as if trying to go in two directions at once. The wheel stuck, grinding, and water sloshed over the rim.

The stranger blinked, shook his head, and peered down the hall. He backed against the wall, his face twitching. Then he moved toward Dan, his feet lifting higher than necessary. The overhead light looked yellow on his cheeks, gray on his chin.

“I got something for my wife. You gotta help me,” said the stranger. He closed in, hugging the bag.

Dan fidgeted, feeling the mix of wine and dope in his system. “Sorry. Gotta go,” he said. He didn’t mind orderly work. Usually he just pushed around stiffs, who didn’t have any particular timetable, and mopped up shit and blood and puke. And when you did that, most people left you strictly alone, to do as you pleased. But now that he was stuck here for several more months, he felt little tolerance for hassle, especially from people who expected him to give a damn, from nurses who acted like his broom should have a purpose. Especially when they gave him a hard time when he showed up stoned or drunk. He didn’t have any trouble fitting together the various parts of his life, and he didn’t understand why others couldn’t make the same allowances.

The stranger stared, crinkling his brows, jaws tight. He took a step forward, holding out the bag, his face pinched and taut. “You gotta deliver this.”

“I ain’t Western Union.”

The stranger grimaced, shifting his hands. As he did, something tumbled from the bag, hitting the floor with a thunk. Wild and bushy, it rolled toward Dan, wobbling. Stopping at the wall. All teeth and matted hair. Smeared with something that looked like ketchup.

A man’s head. Whiskered and severed.

“Fuck!” said the stranger, sweeping the head back into the bag, almost sending it through the hole again. His elbows flapped in every direction, even in some that Dan wasn’t sure an elbow could bend. His eyes burned with fear and accidental rage.

“Whoa,” said Dan, sorting through his senses, his reeling mind. Did he really see a head rolling around the floor? Or was this morning’s weed cut with opium? Something his roommate bought when he had money. Which wasn’t often.

Dan stared at the floor where a trail of blood squiggled to the wall. “You bringing it back for a refund?” he asked, saying the first thing that popped into his mind. And regretting it right away.

“You think you’re funny?” Something flashed in the stranger’s hand, glinting in the artificial light. “Now hit it with a mop. Here,” he said, pointing with a blade. His eyes rolled, hardening.

“No problem. You got the right guy,” said Dan, splashing a mop full of water onto the floor. Glancing up and down the empty hall, his heart pounding, he wondered why it was so easy to get away with things when you wanted somebody to see you. He squeezed out the mop and did it again.

Maybe, if that really worked, he’d try to get caught robbing a bank a little later …

The stranger frowned, struggling with a thought. Then his arms moved suddenly, awkwardly, grabbing the head by the hair and thrusting it into the bucket of dirty water. Water splashed onto his shoes and the floor.

Dan jumped back.

The head was still visible, sitting on the mop head, so the stranger yanked out the mop and laid it back into the bucket, covering the head with dirty cotton strands, making it look something like a decapitated Medusa. “Now move,” he said. “No monkey business, or I’ll slice you open.” He folded up the empty bag and held it to his chest.

Dan tried to swallow, but his mouth was dry. This was wilder than opium-cut marijuana, worse than a broken transmission. “Where are we going?” he asked, trying to keep his feet from floating away.

“Room 221, asshole. And if you open your fucking mouth to anybody, I’ll cut you to ribbons.” To emphasize his point, the stranger touched the blade to Dan’s ribs, his eyes bristling. Then he slid the knife into the bag, his breath coming fast and ragged.

As Dan steered, he heard the metal-on-metal of wheels and the slosh of water. A handful of dark hair wiggled among the strands of the mop head, and once a nose rotated to the surface and disappeared.

The stranger walked slowly, clutching the bag, studying the room numbers like he was trying to find a secret passage.

A woman in a floppy white robe emerged from a room with a pink balloon on the door. Shuffling past, she frowned and glanced away, her nostrils twitching.

Room 221 was halfway down the hall, on the right. There were no balloons on the door, only a hand-lettered sign that said: It’s a boy.

Beyond them, a hundred or so feet away, was the nurses’ station. There were two women sitting behind the counter. One was fat, every hair in place. She was reading a magazine, licking her fingers as she leafed through the pages. The other one faced in the opposite direction, bent over a file cabinet, her butt a rounded patch of white.

Maybe it was time to make a break. Dan didn’t feel any desire to find out exactly what this guy intended to do, or to clean up the damn bathroom either. He’d be entirely happy to spend the rest of the day drinking beer or wine, if he could find somebody to buy it, or to smoke his roommate’s dope. Better yet, both. Hell, he’d be happy to stare at the ducks in the park if he could get out of here in one piece.

He glanced toward the fat nurse, wondering if he could flash her some kind of sign, but she was flipping through the pages, her lips moving with the words. Then he smelled the stranger’s breath, close and fetid.

By itself, that squelched any idea of escape. He’d already lost his transmission today, he didn’t want to lose his plumbing too. Even the baloney sandwich he left in his locker was beginning to sound like fillet mignon, something to look forward to.

Either the wine and dope were wearing off, or fear was breaking through his buzz.

The stranger nudged Dan forward, nodding toward the sign on the door. “She was fucking around, you know what I mean,” he said, as though Dan had asked. Or cared. There was a hard edge to his tone, an inward glaze in his eyes.

“So you brought him by for a visit,” said Dan, without thinking. “In case she got lonely.”

“Shut up!” said the stranger with a groan.

But Dan didn’t look around. He was too busy wishing he’d kept his mouth shut.

Outside the door, they stopped. Dan looked at his watch. It was eleven o’clock. “I got an appointment. You can take it from here, if you want,” he said.

The stranger shook his head, rattling the bag. His eyes frightened, bleary. “See if she’s awake.”

Dan understood the rattle. Hoping to be noisy and conspicuous, he poked the door, relishing the tiny squeak. For the first time he tried to imagine what would happen when the stranger was ready to leave. But just as he brought the thought into his mind, he pushed it away. He felt giddy, as if he were dangling in mid-air.

He slipped his head around the door, afraid to go completely inside. The girl rested in a cloud of sunlight diffused and whitened through the gauzy window curtains alongside the bed.

“Can’t tell,” said Dan, leaning across the mop bucket sitting in front of the door at his feet. “I think she’s asleep.”

“Go in,” said the stranger, his voice rasping.

“What about …” Dan motioned at the mop bucket and its grisly contents.

“In! Go on.”

Dan shrugged and pushed, trying to move the bucket with his shins, the mop handle lying against his neck.

“Hey! What are you doing down there?” A shrill voice filled the corridor, rushing through Dan’s senses like a derailed train. He stopped, but the stranger bumped into his back, touching the knife to his spine.

“Who …” said the girl, her voice groggy and soft.

“What’s going on down there?” The same shrill voice, agitated.

The stranger shoved and Dan fell forward, banging his shins on the bucket, the mop handle splashing up water as they both fell into the room. Dan tried to grab the door, but he missed. “Shit,” he said, tensing for the blade. Feeling the sting of his hands slapping the floor. Turning to see the stranger’s legs step across him.

“Oh my god! Jack!” cried the girl.

“Brought you something,” said the stranger, his voice thick, quaking.

In the bucket, a white eye poked through the dirty water, floating in waves of dark water. Reaching down, the stranger pulled out the dripping head, lifting it by the tangled hair. He growled like an animal.

The girl screamed.

Down the hall, soft-soled feet hammered the floor. Then mingled voices, muffled and unclear, spliced into the quick sound of more, faster feet clicking in the distance. Dan tried to rise, but the stranger kicked him in the chest, sending him sprawling back, landing on the round mop handle.

Without thinking, Dan rolled, swinging the handle into the air. Wood struck bone. Then a clatter of metal, and a blunt toe caught him in the nose, bringing tears and blurred vision, dulling his senses.

He tried to move, but couldn’t. The knife lay at his side. The fat nurse was standing over him, a wisp of hair dangling in her face, waving a rolled up magazine like a weapon. A second nurse stepped on his fingers to reach the girl, who was huddled against the pillow, shivering, clutching the sheet to her chest. Her screams shifting into hysterical wails.

The fat nurse sucked a sharp breath. “Wh … wh … what?” she stammered, pointing.

The stranger was gone. Dan’s face was a raging fire of pulsing, aching flesh. In his lap rested the head, unmoving, shiny with water and clotted blood, staring with rolled-back whites at the cold ceiling.

He threw up.

 

 

Bob Kalkreuter has placed 32 stories with magazines such as Potpourri, Fairfield Review, eFiction, Underground Voices, Edgepiece, Writes For All, The Stone Hobo, and Enigma. Two of his stories were nominated for Pushcart Prizes. One story was awarded the Herman Swafford Prize from Potpourri Magazine.