Three in Billions

Dave Onstad didn't know where he was. This was not unusual, ever since he had a stroke when he was seventy eight, he had a hard time remembering where he was. He knew some things, for instance, he was outside, in a wheelchair. Dave couldn't remember why he was in a wheelchair today and he knew he needed to get moving if he was going to make it to the plant in time for his shift on the line. A few moments later the fog lifted over his blighted brains and he remembered he was eighty four and had retired long ago. He also remembered he was at the Sunny Vale retirement home, where they had full time nurses to care for him. His current soiled state disgusted him, as did the constant IV's in his arm to keep him hydrated and the baths every two days by nurses, some of them female!

'That is what happens when you get old enough.', he thought bitterly, 'Hell on earth.'

It was not so much that he prayed for death as an improvement to his condition. The doctors all said he might recover some ability after his stroke, he remembered his wife telling him that over and over, back when he still lived in his home with her. Then one day she stopped coming in, things got blurry after that, but something had happened to Darleene, his wife of over fifty years, his son, who called him 'pops', had been crying and the next clear memories were of Sunny Vale. So far he had not recovered the ability to walk, or move his arms with any sort of precision or even talk. The best he could do was let out a loud moan when he needed something. But his mind was still there, at least about half the time, imprisoned in his earthly shell with no hope of relief due to modern medicine.

Today was a strange day. He had been shuffled out of bed and into a wheelchair and then pushed out onto the balcony in the cool weather. It was mid-summer, so far as Dave could tell, and the mornings were cold, so the attendant had thrown a thick, scratchy blanket over Dave after wheeling him out to watch the sun rise. Dave could not recall the last time he had seen a sun rise. There were several other non-mobile residents out on the patio this morning too. Behind them all was the cafeteria, or 'dining hall' as the staff called it, the smell of bacon and eggs was making Dave salivate. He knew he would get oatmeal or cream of wheat or maybe, if he were extremely lucky, some fine chopped scrambled eggs, but bacon was what he was wanting right now. He tried to say the word, to practice it for when the attendant came to get him.

“Whacol. Wh-ac-onl.”, No, that was not right, not to his ears, “Wacon.” Better, but would the attendant understand. Softly Dave mumbled the word to himself, practicing for his big moment. Suddenly all thoughts of bacon disappeared from Dave's head and he spent some more time in another place again. When he came back to himself he noticed several people on the lawn of the retirement home. They didn't look like they were supposed to be there. Their clothing was ragged and some of them looked hurt, bleeding hurt. They staggered up the lawn in the soft morning light, leaving trails behind them where they disturbed the morning dew.

An attendant rushed out and yelled, startling the residents. Several more also came out and started hurriedly pulling the residents inside the cafeteria, when Dave's turn came he yelled, “Hacon!” as loud as he could, in a moment of serendipity the attendant looked at him and said, “Dave! Good Lord you said bacon!” then continued to push him into the room.

The attendants closed and locked the doors to the room, the whole of the patio was visible through the glass, the entire wall facing east towards the sunrise was windows from floor to ceiling. Dave could see the people outside gathering on the patio. They looked frightening, wounded and bloody, one of them approached the glass and raised its fist to strike it. His fist bounced off, but the sound reverberated like a doom bell in the room. Soon the others got the idea and started pounding on the glass as well; the sense of fear was palatable in the room. The smell of urine soon joined the untouchable sense of fright and Dave hoped he had not added to the mess. The attendant, who had wheeled Dave in was arguing with some of the other attendants when the glass in one of the windows shattered.

Most of the attendants fled then, elsewhere Dave could hear screaming down the halls of the home. Then Dave was moving, the man who had taken him in leaned over his head from behind and said, “We are in for it now Dave, I don't know what to do with you, but I won't leave you to the others.”

The boy, although the attendant was probably in his mid thirties Dave thought of him as a boy, wheeled Dave past the buffet, where Dave once again let loose with his new word, “Hacon!” as they passed a large container of the greasy, over cooked meat. The wheelchair paused and before Dave knew it a plate of the stuff, was thrown haphazardly onto his lap. Pieces of the delicious meat were falling off as the wheelchair was raced down one of the hallways. Exerting all his force Dave still could not control his hand enough to pick up a strip of meat. A large dollop of spittle fell out of Dave's mouth to land on his pull over shirt. A pull over shirt. Dave would never have dressed himself so casually! The nerve of these people to dress a man as a child...his mind went away for a little while.

He was in a residence room, something as in his mouth. He was facing the door, but he could make out some blinds to his right that were down and slanted shut. It was bacon. Dave saw the plate on a bed tray about two feet from his face, he was slumped over a bit in his chair and had a piece of bacon in his mouth, stuck there like a cigarette. It was delicious. The flavor was everything he remembered it to be and his mouth was full of the stuff.

'The boy must have shoved a few pieces in my mouth before he left me in here.' Dave thought, he was quite alone too.

A heavy noise broke the silence, something had pounded on the door to this room. The initial thump was followed by several weaker poundings, then the heavy thump returned. The door handles were of the kind that resembled latches, Dave detested latches, they were for poor people who couldn't afford better. The latch to this room slid down, then sprang back up, followed by another thump. The thump was too slow and the door remained latched and closed. The room's door did not have a lock on it. It was a retirement home, the residences could not be allowed to lock themselves in.

The door latch slid down again and the small pattering of thumps were enough to open it a crack. Dave saw the fingers first, they were on the ground, old person fingers pulling a wrinkled old arm along with it into his room. The door shuddered one last time as it took another heavy hit, which swung it all the way open. There were a half dozen old folks out there, all gummy and piss smelling as they looked in. Standing bold and firm in the front was a younger man with a hefty build that would have been called 'fat' back in Dave's day. He was a bare footed hippy freak and Dave didn't like the look of him. For one thing it looked like one of his eyes was gone and part of his hair and scalp too, there was blood pouring down the side of his face, encrusted in his brown beard. The guy opened his mouth to reveal a set of broken teeth and a writhing purple tongue.

Dave more smelled than felt his bladder let loose as the motley crew approached him. He chomped down on the bacon and tried to swallow it down. Dave thought about trying to yell for help, but he knew no help would come. This wasn't normal, these were bad people, this was the end. His mind tried to blank out as the undead tore into him, the pain acted as a great catalyst and kept him conscious of every bite, every pain inflicted on him until the very end. His last conscious thought before he surrendered to death's embrace was that the bacon really was as good as he remembered.

..home..