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With Arthur face-down on the floor, Glenda trembles with anxiousness. Why didn’t I already call 911?
“Sandra,” Glenda says, her voice wavering, “call somebody. Get 911.”
Glenda barely holds back tears; without Arthur, her kids will die.
Despite Arthur’s condition, her children need to be the focus right now. She chokes down worry for her children, and flees to her house where she rushes up the stairs to check on her kids. Maybe they weren’t already dead earlier like she thought. Panic might have caused her to misjudge everything.
Tracy lies in the middle of the bedroom floor on his back, palms up with his eyes open and mouth agape. His shoes untied. They are always untied.
Glenda turns her attention to the lump underneath the blankets on Shelly’s bed. The lump is her incredibly bright daughter who loves to play, loves to ask questions, and learns very quickly. Glenda steps over her son—whose tongue is backed up in his throat—to get to Shelly’s bed.
It’s here that she knows for sure that she doesn’t have kids anymore. In front of her, only remnants of something deeply loved and cherished, but not her kids. The remains of them.
Knowing Shelly and how headstrong her daughter had become, Glenda imagines Shelly had gone underneath the blankets while she choked, not realizing she was dying. That’s the thing with the insidiousness of the stench. People didn’t realize they were dying. Raheem, her daughter, her son. Maybe Arthur.
Considering the circumstances, Tracy might not have heard his sister choking. Shelly had probably died first, leaving her brother calling his sister’s name, alone, as he choked to death. The stench had gobbled Tracy up so fast he didn’t make it downstairs. The stupid mother she is, she slept through the whole damned thing. Although they were still alive when she went to Arthur’s, she couldn’t wake them, which was suspicious, but...
She’d need to call Raheem at his work and tell him that, Shelly, their own December baby, and, Tracy, their son born a year and two months before her, had both died.
The fireman said they should have a mask, yet nobody in her family had a mask. She hadn’t made an effort to get masks, either. She and Raheem had talked about moving out of the area, but she never pressured Raheem into doing so. They never searched for another home, not even online.
What to do with the bodies? Take them downstairs? Leave them where they are? How is this supposed to happen? What is this?
She runs downstairs to phone Raheem.
His phone rings and rings, rings and rings.
Their living room never seemed so empty. Usually, the kids caused so much movement in the house that at times it upset her. The current calm means her children are dead, called home to the Lord.
Glenda drops the phone on the couch, starts up the stairs to retrieve her children. One hesitant step after another, she makes her way back up the staircase.
In their room, she shuts the windows on the far side to keep anything or anyone from looking in. Only family is allowed. She lifts Tracy from underneath his neck and knees. His dead weight sits in the cradle of her arms so perfectly, the moment must be preordained. She’s meant to carry him down these steps in this very manner.
Step by careful step she finds her way down to the living room with her son in her arms—his limbs swinging. In her mind, she hears him ask if he’s going to wake.
“No, sugar,” she answers. “I’m sorry, you’re not going to wake up.”
“Where’s Daddy?”
“Daddy is at work. He doesn’t know yet, sugar. I’m going to set you down right there on the couch so when the paramedics come, they can, let’s see, get to you easier. And you’ll be comfortable.”
“What about Shelly?”
Glenda sets him down on the couch. She pets his head, rubs his cold cheeks, takes a few steps back, and stares at him. His death certainly caused by her. She convulses in tears. She’s been more mindful of the petty stuff than of her children. Giving her children life and taking it from them are somehow cut from the same process.
Dejected, she starts up the stairs to retrieve her daughter.
The ringing of the phone stops her. It must be Raheem. It’s like her feet are buried in the carpet as she reaches for the phone.
“Hello,” she says into the microphone.
“Glenda, are you okay?” Raheem asks.
“No, I’m not,” she stutters. “Our babies...”
“What.”
“I have Tracy downstairs and Shelly is upstairs under her blankets.”
“I only wanted to see if you all were okay.”
“They’re not, ‘Heem. They’re not. I am; they’re not.” She sniffs, and then pauses like a statue with her mouth open.
“What the hell happened?”
“They’re not okay they’re not okay. I’m sorry I’m sorry.”
“Coming home right now. Be cool, it’s going to be okay.”
“No, it won’t.”
“Coming home right now.”
“Come home,” she says.
“Glenda.”
She sniffs and coughs, has snot run down to her upper lip.
“Glenda,” he whispers. “You need to lock the doors. Lock you guys in. It’s some bullshit going on out here. Lock everything and get the bat. I love you. Be there soon.”
“What’s going on?” she asks, but he’s already hung up.
***
Sandra and Quincy watch Glenda quietly stroll out of Arthur’s house. They watch her burst across the driveway to her place. Neither of them budge.
Quincy hunches over speechless, next to Arthur’s body. His fingers on Arthur’s neck, and then wrists, to get a pulse.
“Can you help me?” Quincy pleads to Sandra.
As angry as Sandra’s been at Arthur, his sudden demise befuddles her. Is he truly gone? Alive and dead have been blurred.
She whips her head ninety degrees so she can see out the kitchen window, imagines what Glenda must have been going through next door.
Quincy flips Arthur over with both hands. “I can’t make him younger. Never done it to someone who is dead.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Can you help me?”
She stares at him.
“Come on, help me put him somewhere better,” Quincy says.
She folds her arms.
“Step aside, then. Step aside.”
He kneels, grabs Arthur’s ankles, and pulls him into Arthur’s office behind them. Again, kneeling, he slides to the middle of Arthur’s body, places one arm underneath his legs. Another arm under the middle of his back. Quincy lifts Arthur onto the futon, leaves Arthur’s arm and leg to lazily hang off.
Quincy exits Arthur’s office, finds Sandra in the living room staring at the front door.
“The last thing I’m going to say before I go,” he says. “After I leave, don’t call anybody.”
“It’s too polluted out there to go anywhere.”
“Don’t call anybody.”
“You’re going to leave him here?”
“Aren’t you? You don’t give a shit. That’s what you’re saying, right? Okay, then don’t give a shit. I’ll be back for him.”
“I’d do it again. If it was up to me, I’d put the gun right back to my head and pull the trigger.”
“Don’t let me stop you,” he says.
“You don’t know what happened between us.”
“He did nothing to you, not on purpose. I can vouch for that.”
“He abused me.”
Her words are a jolt. For a moment, to him, she ceases being a person and becomes a subject, a thing that speaks in tongues, spells out detailed lies. “Bitch, you don’t know what type of ghetto you’re spitting from your stupid face.”
“I know you think I’m lying.”
“You’re drooling that false shit.”
“I’m like a puppet with no strings.”
Quincy thinks of the thing Arthur conjured not too long ago.
“Shit,” Quincy says. “Don’t completely blame him. He’s not the only one with abilities.”
She takes a moment to think about his words. Her face twists into something that disagrees with the rest of her. “You’re talking about you?”
“I’m going to leave. Come back for his body.”
“Did you hear me? You’re talking about you?”
“It’s all me.”
She looks him up and down. “If you hid something that well, it’s lying.”
“Not that it matters.” He finds the couch and collapses into it. “Shit doesn’t matter.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Give me a second. I’m drunk.”
***
Several of Raheem’s staff no-call no-showed.
Unless they’re in the hospital and not able to use a phone, he’ll fire them. Employees who don’t care for their jobs are one of the challenges of managing The Cheap Dream chain of dollar stores.
Customers aren’t present this morning. While the store is slow, Raheem checks emails in his dusty office. The stench that killed him not too long ago has crept in, but he can ignore it for a bit. No one has pinpointed where it comes from. Most likely from a far-off factory or from the beach, somehow. He feels safe from its effects. He knows Arthur will be there for him. Regardless, he feels fine and everybody else seems fine. The day goes on without delay.
Raheem sits in front of a two-sided window. He watches employees work and not give a damn he’s watching. Or they don’t believe he’s doing it. The employees are the biggest threat to steal merchandise.
Scott stands at his register waiting for customers who aren’t in the store yet. It takes everything in Raheem’s power to not judge the twenty-something-year-old kid negatively. Scott stands there, leaning on the register. Scott should sweep the floor or wipe something down or face an aisle. Anything.
Raheem exits his office in a huff, meaning to nudge Scott to do some actual work. When he gets to him, Scott has his hand over his nose, his palms covering his neatly trimmed mustache. Scott breathes hard, eyes Raheem as if to say something.
“Are you okay, man?” Raheem says. “What’s up?”
“Can’t breathe, Raheem. Can’t breathe.”
“You can’t breathe?”
Scott might be going through what Raheem himself had gone through not too long ago. If so, then this young man’s life might be in danger.
“I think you’ll be okay,” Raheem says. “You want to have a seat? What’s up?”
“People are dying from it.”
Scott breathes more intentionally. Deep breaths, while he struggles to savor every inhalation.
“I don’t want to die here,” Scott says.
“You’re not dying.”
“Are you a doctor, or a store manager? You look more like a store manager.”
Raheem gathers himself, wants to slap the kid, fire him on the spot for being a lazy bonehead. But Scott has a point.
Raheem says, “Why don’t you get away from the register? Just don’t talk shit to me right now. Go get some air.”
Scott covers his mouth, heads straight for the exit doors.
In search of someone else to man the register, Raheem starts for the loading dock. Patricia and Ronal should be out there working as a team. Patricia can work with the customers if they happen to come in, so he’ll move her to Scott’s spot at register.
Out back in the docking area, neither Patricia nor Ronal are doing their job. Instead, they’re sitting on the edge of the loading bay next to each other, Patricia’s arm around Ronal’s neck.
Employees just don’t care about their jobs nowadays.
“Guys let’s get to it,” Raheem starts. “I’m sending Scott out for a minute so, Patty, can you grab a register? I’ll help with the shipment if need be.”
Patricia faces Raheem. “Ronal’s not feeling it, I don’t think. Look at him.”
Raheem’s initial reaction to the moment couldn’t have been correct. Now he’s convinced two of his employees are sick from the air. Raheem again recalls his symptoms before he himself had died.
“What’s going on?”
“He can’t breathe,” Patricia says. “He can’t talk.”
Ronal, a middle-aged Mexican man, and a thick black mustache going down the side of his face, sits with his head down, gasping.
Ronal never lies, never comes in late, so whatever has been happening to him, it would be better to hear it from him than from Patricia, a dumpy gossip queen who always finds reasons to not work.
“Let him talk,” Raheem says.
“I’m telling you he can’t.”
“Ronal, what’s the deal?”
Ronal grabs his throat.
Raheem grabs Ronal by his shoulders. “Hang on.” Raheem looks at Patricia. “Leave now to get him to the hospital.”
“You want me to go where?”
Thinking better of making Ronal go anywhere, Raheem positions himself slightly at the back of Ronal, and ushers him through the store. He calls 911 from his office. The operator says paramedics will be there as soon as possible.
He pulls the phone from his ear. “As possible?”
“As soon as possible.”
‘As soon as possible’ implied nobody would be on their way anytime soon or not fast enough.
He tosses Ronal in the back seat of his car and starts for the hospital.
The lobby of the emergency room has a population of people gradually choking. Maybe because he had died before, but he notices these people are having different symptoms of the same issue. He sees an older woman reading a magazine, struggling to swallow. Kids playing near the books and magazines, sneezing and coughing. Most of these people are on their way to their deaths. They just don’t know it.
Present hospital workers wear masks. A visitor might not think hospital staff wore the masks to protect themselves against the stench, but he figures that is exactly what they are doing.
Prior to his death, he didn’t wear a mask, had always felt fine, just like everybody in here must have. After his death he felt fine, still didn’t wear a mask or do anything differently, simply because he lacked symptoms. Simply because he thought he was safe even if he had previously died.
He closes his eyes, finally, deeply contemplating the vulnerability of himself and his family.
Sitting Ronal in the chair, for the first time, he imagines a disease killing people seemingly randomly because its symptoms are hidden and ignored. This epiphany is so distracting he doesn’t acknowledge his phone ringing until it’s already gone to voice mail. Soon, when people start collapsing dead in the streets from the sickness, it’ll be craziness.
He checks his phone, sees Glenda has called. Instinctively, he calls her back, hopes things are okay, though he assumes they aren’t.
“Hello,” she answers.
“Glenda, are you okay?”
“No, I’m not,” she stutters. “Our babies...”
“What.”
“I have Tracy downstairs and Shelly is upstairs under her blankets.”
“I only wanted to see if you all were okay.”
She says, “They’re not, ‘Heem. They’re not. I am; they’re not.”
“What the hell happened?”
She says something that doesn’t register.
“Coming home right now. Be cool, it’s going to be okay.”
“No, it won’t.”
Although he had said things would be okay, he can’t be sure. “I’m coming home right now.”
“Come home.”
“Glenda.”
She sniffs and coughs.
“Glenda,” he whispers so the emergency room won’t hear. “You need to lock the doors. Lock you guys in. It’s some bullshit going on out here. Lock everything and get the bat. I love you. Be there soon.” And then he hangs up, anxious to get home.
***
Raheem resists the urge to weave in and out of traffic. Being pulled over and ticketed will only slow him down. He thinks this as he pulls over for yet another paramedic vehicle racing through traffic.
The radio reports of an elevated number of people being admitted to hospitals for unclear, yet possibly related reasons: sporadic, irregular breathing, headaches, flu-like symptoms. People are urged to stay indoors and get checked out if they have symptoms.
Raheem’s shoulders stiffen, almost certain the public will not find a cure for the symptoms of the stink. There are too many people ignorant like him in dire need of a medical help.
He arrives in his driveway, quickly shuts off the engine. He catches himself grinding his back teeth.
He pushes open the front door.
Glenda sits on the living room couch between Tracy and Shelly who are lying down.
“Are they okay?” he says.
Glenda’s hands go directly to her face. He can tell she’s been crying, as she avoids his gaze. He gets on his knees and gently touches each of his children on their respective foreheads. He places his index finger on Tracy’s lips. His children are lifeless. He stands, and then drags himself to the living room, on his way to Arthur’s house. With a dead family, he needs another miracle from Arthur.
Down the steps and into his driveway, Raheem kicks rocks to the side. He guides himself across Arthur’s driveway, up the steps. The stench in the air, the distant sirens. The hollow wood of Arthur’s small porch beneath his feet. Moths resting in corners of the porch, draped in cobwebs. Chipped wood on the handrail. The thought of his children having left him, leaves him with a feeling of individuality he has never known.
He turns the knob to see Sandra in Arthur’s living room with a sloppy individual he’s never met. The sloppy man lurches forward, sandals barely on his feet, spittle at the side of his mouth.
“Where’s Arthur?” Raheem says.
Quincy and Sandra first gaze at each other, as if the other is supposed to say something.
“He’s dead,” Sandra says. “How are you? Oh my gosh, how are you?”
Raheem gasps, “Where is he?”
“He’s in there,” Sandra says, nodding towards Arthur’s office.
Raheem tiptoes past Sandra and Quincy. He touches the wood door, slides it open to see Arthur lying half on the futon, half off, his face turned to the side, tongue hanging. Imaginary flies circle.
Not fully accepting Arthur’s death, Raheem moves in reverse back into the living room.
Before Raheem can say anything, Sandra firmly grabs his hand. “We’re going to get through this.”
“We already didn’t.” Raheem yanks his hand from her, cocks his head to the side, begins his descent back to his place, solemnly dragging his feet.
Inside his home, he finds a spot on the living room carpet in front of the couch and Glenda’s feet. She glares at him, implies with her eyes that it’s not his fault, that she has already taken the blame. He reaches out, places his hand on her knee to console her. He shouldn’t have gone to work and let his family die. He should have stayed home and helped them.
“I’m so sorry, baby,” he says, tears at his cheeks.
She replies with a blank stare.
He closes his eyes, and gently places his hand on Tracy’s forehead. “We can’t leave them here.”
While touching his son, Raheem’s body goes limp.
Sirens streak down the block. One vehicle, then another. Then another vehicle, and then another. The world outside choking on itself.
A light illuminates Glenda’s face. She sits straight up.
“What,” he says.
“We wait.”
“We what?”
“It took some time for Arthur to bring Sandra back, didn’t it? She had been dead for over a week.”
“But—”
“—We wait for Arthur. Somehow, he’s still with us. We buckle down. And we wait.”