The sound of Tami May moving her dentures around the hard candy she had just popped between her wrinkled lips reminded me of the old cartoons with the skeletons playing music with their bones. No doubt she was debating on whether she should roll again or be smart and pass on her turn.
Normally I would hurry her along by this point. If you have to think this hard at Pig, then it's time to end your turn. But my attention, while still focused enough to be internally annoyed with Tami, was distracted by the strange purple fog that seemed to be tapping at the game room windows. If Dr. Tod had been the attending who visited us yesterday before most of the house went on retreat, I would have thought he mixed up my meds. Dr. Tod tended to get distracted by the nurses… any nurse, even Frank. The only male nurse to make it over a few months with us old biddies, seemed to catch Dr. Tod’s eye, whenever he had to bend over to pick something up. But as it was, we had no attending yesterday, I can't remember the specifics of why not, but I'm getting off track, the fact of the matter is that I should have been given the correct medication by the nurses as always. They did it every day after all, except for doctor visitation days. So, the fog should not be purple or be tapping on the windowpane.
“Is that fog tapping on the window for anyone in particular or is it just me,” I ask, not paying nearly enough attention to the game I am playing with my three friends.
“PIG!”
All thoughts of the window fled from my mind as Marlean announced that she had won the game. Marlean, who has never won a game of pig in her whole time here because she won't stop rolling until she gets a one. A strategy that would work fine if we were playing a normal Pig but we wipe the board at one’s, and you have to toss in a candy as penance. So she has invested a lot of candy in the pot at most games. I looked from the window back towards her, catching in that brief second her eyes flashing, as if someone had accidentally turned on the lights within her head only to realize their mistake and quickly flick them back off.
“It’s not cheating! I leveled up, and I chose intuition.” She looked over my head and out the window. “I may not be the best at Pig but it's sure as heck better than what it wanted me to choose. Who even has time for all that class leveling and stat percentages nonsense.” She took a deep breath and looked down from the window for a moment, apparently remembering her winnings. “Yippee it's all for me,” she said, scooping up the sugar-free hard candies.
“What are you even talking about Marlean,” said Linda as she sat back in her chair with a huff, and delicately placed her hands on her thin frame. “Anyway, when is breakfast I swear they are trying to starve us, and while I could lose a few pounds, I refuse to start diets at breakfast.”
We all turn to look at the clock that hangs over the game room door. It was thirty minutes past breakfast and no hopeful smell had drifted in to tempt us the whole game.
“You don’t think they all left us. I mean just because I don’t want to go to the casino for the hundredth time doesn’t mean I should have to make my own food. My son pays good money to make sure I’m treated well.” Tami May pushes herself up and out of her chair, the sheer indignation of the late breakfast causing her hands to shake more than the Parkinsons already inflicting them.
I move with her, glancing back towards the window just once more before getting up from the table. Without a second thought, I reach back for my knitting bag and sling it over my head. It’s a nylon duffel bag I swear I have had since the 80s. Though back then it was mostly used for my children's sleepovers, it now has a second life as my knitting bag. I should probably also mention that I am horrible at knitting, but my mother had been magical with it. I had inherited her knitting needles that had come with her from Scotland and were made of… well it doesn’t matter. At six-five my hands were not as delicate as my mother's, who were slim and tiny just like her, but I was determined to be at least decent by the time I died.
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“I’ll go check! You will just make them angry and then we will only get burnt toast.” No one objected.
The window forgotten; I made my way down towards the kitchen. I knew that someone was on duty, they had prepared coffee and had sounded the morning wake-up call. This was standard for the temporary services that they called in for those of us who stayed behind during the group trips. But they had never been late with breakfast before, especially since it was only the four of us.
Summer Eve Residence’s, the place we called home. Had a kitchen as it should, though it was in the basement, a strange placement for today's standards but apparently something that happened back when it was built in the Victorian era. Most of the equipment that had served the original residence still occupied the kitchen, though the cooks typically preferred to use the electric equipment that had been installed around thirty years ago. Unfortunately, none of it looked to be occupied today.
“Hello?” I did not dare to enter the kitchen uninvited. Instead, I stood just at the door, as the bulb above me flickered ominously but I reminded myself that that particular light had been the annoyance of the staff for the last few years and that it was definitely not an omen.
“If you don’t tell me not to then I’m coming in!”
There was no one in the kitchen. I wasn't surprised as I could see most of it from the door, but what did surprise me was just down a hallway that led to the outside garbage cans and the staff parking area. The door was open, and the purple fog tentatively poked tendrils at the inside air.
“Haven't even started breakfast and they're already on a smoke break,” I said with a frown.
The purple fog was beckoning me towards it, and the open door. It’s wisps taking on a look of hands, one finger curling in on itself coaxing. I wouldn’t have been surprised to see a Cheshire grin and two cat eyes appear within. I was beginning to think that I had gotten the wrong drugs.
“Why is it that the legal drugs are the only ones I have ever hallucinated on.” I couldn’t help but chuckle at the memory of Thomas and I trying mushrooms for the first time. For me, the room just seemed to get a bit brighter, but Thomas was having full conversations with an invisible creature that apparently lived within our walls and loved my cookies.
The still too fresh pain of loss filled me as I reached the door. Thomas had been my late husband, and he had been gone for a few years now, but I don’t think I will ever stop missing him, and this damned purple fog, what drugs did they give me, and where the heck was breakfast?
“Nurse!” They weren’t nurses technically, the ones that watched us while the others were away, but people love titles. “I— am going to need to talk to you about a few things. First, there are some hungry lady’s upstairs that are soon to be hangry, and I think I got someone’s happy pills.” My hands looped around the strap of my bag, and I made my way to the open door. “This has to be the worst sub-caretaker they have ever hired.”
Stopping in front of the open door I fully expected to see a person just on the other side, happily puffing away and ignoring everything I had been saying. But there was no one, or to be more specific the fog was so thick that if there was someone, they could be standing two inches in front of me and still be invisible. But then a scream came from within the fog, high and feminine.
Without thinking I stepped out into the fog and stopped. Thankfully I had realized just how stupid I was being, and turned back to the door which was already hard to see even just one step away from it.
“Holy heck. I’m no good to anyone If I am bumbling around out here alongside them.”
With as much quickness as my old hands could muster, I dug into my knitting bag and grabbed one of the rolls. Tying the loose bit to the door handle I made my way out into the fog, part of me wondering if I was hallucinating the whole thing, but the sound of another scream, and it sounded close.
The gravel of the walkway crunched under my feet as I moved towards the sound only stopping for a moment when I thought I heard another scream, but this time it sounded like a horse. You know the type, the squeal they make when they don’t want to be tamed. Or at least that’s what it sounded like on TV and the movies. It was a scream like that.
“Is there a horse out—” My foot collided with something, and I fell to the ground with a thump.
Groaning, I pushed myself up from the gravel and looked back at what had just tripped me. I wish I hadn't looked back; I wish I had just not ever left that damned door. The body of the caretaker lay in a heap on the ground. Her black hair was spread around her like a nightmare spiderweb, and a red hole had been punctured through her chest where her heart should have been. Her temporary name tag read Rachel Yates, and she was smiling in her picture, most of them never smile. As if on cue the fog rolled back from me and Rachel Yates, exposing the two other creatures who were there with us.