In Call Only - Must Have Flesh - Chapter 5

A crescendo of applause came from the television as we came to stand in the open doorway. The bed, dressed in a powder-blue comforter and sage green pillows was empty as was the wicker chair in the corner. Across the room, light could be seen coming from the crack under the door across the room. Turkey lifter at the ready, I motioned for Ian to stay where he was and I crossed the hardwood floor to feel the mattress where the bedclothes had been pulled aside.

I expected it to be warm, as if someone had just gotten up from a nap, but it was cool to the touch and slightly damp. I felt it again to be sure, and then examined my hand before holding it up to Ian. “Wet.”

“Eww. Maybe Sanje wets the bed.”

Perplexed, declined smelling it to determine the moisture’s origin and I wiped it on my jeans while I looked around. Neat, but lived in, the room was typical of that of a married couple. On one side of the bed, a bottle of hand lotion and a Patricia Cornwell novel I had read a few years ago. The endtable on the side of the bed that had recently been occupied was a pair of glasses I recognized to be the doctors.
A low moan from behind the closed door. Silently, I again motioned for Ian to stay put while I investigated. I knocked lightly and called out.

“Dr. V?” Another low moan.

The door was unlocked when I turned the knob and I opened it, unsure of what I would find on the other side. The door opened noiselessly and the bright vanity lights revealed a man lying face down on the floor. His salmon colored polo was plastered to his torso. The death smell I had encountered on entering the house was stronger here, if that was possible, and I adjusted my shirt tighter around my mouth and nose.

“Dr V?” Fearing the worst, I knelt next to the man and turned him over. He groaned again and I barely recognized him as the man I had last seen walking briskly in the Autumn sunshine, laughing at his son, and trailing a very happy Golden Retriever.

Dr. Visweswaran was beyond death’s doorstep. He had knocked and was awaiting an invitation from the Grim Reaper to come for in a cup of coffee and cinnamon streudel. His normal milk-chocolate coloring had faded to an ash that I thought only existed on the faces of ill-fated patients on television medical dramas. Under my hand, the skin on his arm was cool and slick with sweat.

“Dr. V” I shook him and his eyes, normally sparkling with mischief, opened to mere slits.

“I am not feeling very well.” His singsong Indian voice sounded paperthin and my concern for him grew exponentially as a deep, wetsounding cough shook his body. He struggled to draw breath, and the coughing quickly became a deep, body wracking gag. Quickly, I helped him to sitting position effective enough to hang his head over the toilet and the gagging stopped as a flood of vomit the color of and texture of driveway sealant hit the water in the bowl. I stared, mesmerized, at the water that had once been crystal clear as it swam with the black and tarry substance.

“Ewwww….” Came my son’s voice behind me. “That’s dis-

“Ian!” I went into full on mom-handling-a crisis mode. Leaning the doctor against the tub, I pulled a towel down from the rack next to the bathroom sink. I wet it and used it to wipe the man’s mouth. “Find a phone. Call 911.”

“Gross. Is he dying?”

“I don’t know.”

“I’ve never seen puke like that before.”

“Neither have I. Ian. Phone. Now.”

I heard the makeshift weapon hit the carpet with a thud and my son’s footsteps retreating out of the bedroom and out into the hallway. I turned back to Dr. Visweswaran. His breath came in shallow gasps.

I flushed the toilet, unable to look at the mess and I sat next to the Doctor on the floor. When the flushing had stopped, I listened to Ian dashing from room to room and I counted the moments, waiting to hear the siren of an ambulance. Through the open door, I heard the scrape of the chair at the front door and the crash of the mirror. These days it was common for families to have no land line with which to connect to the outside world, but rather let the outside world connect to them via their mobile phone so I was not surprised when Ian had not been successful in his quest for a phone and was heading out into the neighborhood to find someone with a cell or a neighbor who would allow a 13 year old zombie past the welcome mat.

I was alarmed to hear, not a siren, but my son yelling “What the hell?” and I heard a female voice asking “Where?”

“WHERE!” the unknown female demanded.

“Upstairs.” I heard him answer, the bristle against the sharp voice and the air of authority that came with it apparent even from where I sat. “Scare the crap out of me, why don’t you?”

“Up here!” I called out, heading my son off at the verbal pass and was met with the sound of heavy footsteps ascending the stairs. Relieved that the likelihood of my needing to help Dr. V through another episode was diminishing with the Calvary’s approach, I closed my eyes and took as deep a breath as my shirt slash odor filter would allow.

Mothers are good at handling the crisis, cleaning up whatever bodily fluid resulted, and making sure whoever involved gets to the E.R. or back to bed before we allow ourselves the luxury of acknowledging the disgusting nature of the events prior. This, however, was not my child and I cannot remember a time in my life when I held the figurative hair of another adult who was releasing his or her stomach contents back to the wild.

Ian had been completely and totally accurate in his one word assessment. Gross.
“Hi” said an oddly cheerful voice. Instead of the female EMT I had expected, I opened my eyes on a pair of scuffed combat boots that were attached to wool socks and a pair of hairy legs. The legs in turn were attached to a man.

A very large man. A very large man with no pants.

Taking up most of the door way was a giant in a white oxford shirt and a rugged looking garment I recognized as a Utilikilt. Built like the tartans seen on Scottish bagpipers at parades and funerals and occasionally, the Prince of Wales, Utilikilts were made of less traditional fabrics like canvas and heavy denim. The perfect gift for the carpenter in your life who needs a little more room in the inseam. Expectantly, the giant stared at me over the top of a pair of frameless rectangular glasses.

It’s not unheard of, so I’m told, that in times of stress a person’s leasehold on reality can loosen slightly, resulting in hallucinations. I resisted the urge to pinch myself and instead replied to this apparition’s grin.

“Nice kilt.”

The smile grew wider, a feat that I had not imagined was possible considering that it had already occupied a large section of prime real estate on this odd man’s face.

“Thank you.” He gestured to the man I had propped against the tub. “Friend of yours?”
I shook my head. “Nodding neighbors.”

The giant took his glasses off and put them in his shirt pocket. “Would you mind joining my wife and her new, young friend downstairs?”

Wife. New, young friend. None of these words made any sense to me as I sat on the bathroom floor and I stared dumbly at my visitor. Apparently it was time for action on his part, because he held a hand out to me.

“Come on. Up you get” he said, as if to a child lingering in a sandbox past dinnertime. “Quit hogging this man’s company and give me some room to work.”
“Room to work?” I wondered aloud as I accepted his hand and he pulled me to my feet.
“I’ll explain it all in the next little bit, ‘kay?”

After pausing to pick up the turkey lifter and cocking an eyebrow in my direction, he steered me toward the door of the bedroom ultimately leaving me at the stairwell.

“You’ll probably find them in the living room.” I remember him placing my hand on the banister and giving me a gentle nudge, prompting my descent of the stairs