Elder Care

A breeze brushed against his skin, awakening David from a deep slumber. Moonlight lit the room and a haze wafted through the air, causing him to choke a bit on the first inhale. His throat was dry and scratchy, his eyes tingly as he scanned the room. 

Smoke? David thought. 

Looking to the window, he realized it was wide open—the windows having a barn door design with no screens, common in older Victorian style homes. His eyes darted around, searching for other sources of smoke—under the door, from the vents—but... nothing. 

David bounded out of bed towards the opening, grabbing his glasses for a better look at the unlit landscape. Blurriness clouded his vision immediately, and he recoiled from the window, as if some ghastly cloud of smoke had somehow blinded him. He opened his eyes again when he was back to the other side of the room, and this time he was sure the blurriness was because of the glasses themselves. 

Did I grab an old pair somehow? He wondered. 

Frustrated and confused, he threw the glasses on the bed and slowly approached the window. There was no large cloud of smoke threatening his vision; in fact, he could see clearly. Not just clearly, David thought—better than clear, better than better—he could almost see the individual snowflakes of the fresh powder that had fallen while he was asleep. 

The wafting smoke floated into view, temporarily curtailing his strange amazement. His gaze fixated towards a small orange flicker through the dense woods skirting the property. A set of incoming footprints, headed straight for the front door of the old mansion, was the second sight he saw. 

David froze. Those footprints must be recent, considering the snow had come while he was asleep. Maybe the person involved with that fire needed help? The house remained silent while he pondered the possibilities. If someone needed help, they most certainly weren’t making any discernible indication. He listened for signs of movement throughout the house—signs of life—but all he heard was the hum of power in the electrical wires, spider-webbing through the walls. 

What the fuck is going on? He thought, as he covered his ears reflexively against the strange sensation. 

Dressing quickly in some pajama-pants and a bathrobe, he slipped his feet in some boots and headed out of his room towards the grandiose staircase at the center of the upstairs landing. Cautiously, he crept down the stairs, his eyes scanning every detail of the house in all directions. Everything seemed shiny and illuminated by the moonlight, like the house was alive—the bannisters shimmering like hot oil, dust clouds dancing through the air in slow-motion, paintings and statues shifting slightly—exhibiting an animated quality. 

“Ow.” David grimaced, as he pinched himself. An idiotic cliche, sure, but everything since he opened his eyes seemed...unreal. Furthermore, he knew where he was, but was somehow forgetting why he was there. The mansion was familiar enough to resonate in his bones, but an ominous disparate memory of the place lay hidden somewhere—inaccessible at the moment. 

With nothing alerting his apparently heightened senses, David opened the front door, revealing the footprints beyond. Prints coming, but not going. The footprints, were actual feet. No shoes. No boots. Bare feet. He saw a second set of footprints—boots this time—heading into the woods from a small, but elaborate looking shed-like building on the edge of the tree-line.  

David started sprinting toward the wood-line, wanting to be very far away from whatever was happening in that mansion. Perhaps running full speed towards a fire was reserved for rescue personnel, but David thought he would be in need of rescue soon enough. The ground gave way beneath his boots. Crunch. Slosh. The forest loomed ahead, bathed in that eerie, silver light. He didn't slow. Bounding over twisted roots, he slipped past angular saplings and heavy oaks, a phantom in the moonlit woods. The orange glow of the fire pulsed brighter in his vision. 

The blaze taking shape now; a car had crashed, flipping on its side, the road scattered with pieces of what looked like a couple of cell phones and the remains of a leather jacket. David halted his alacritous hurdling, just before stepping foot on the road. 

A body was splayed out on the yellow center line of the road about ten feet in front of the car—a woman, it looked like. Gelatinous blood and viscera covering the chest and arms, the throat and face torn open, like the gnarled wrapping on a hastily opened gift. The right eye hung loosely from its socket, and the teeth looked like they were unzipped from the mouth. A second body hung awkwardly from a nearby guardrail. Strangely curious, David moved to get a better view of how the body was stuck there, the legs stiff and nothing but the head touching the top of the rail, clinging like a magnet. He realized the man’s skull was embedded into the curved piece of metal, his brains leaking slowly into a pile of snow. The man was also eviscerated, his chest cavity visible, exposing the root-like circulation system surrounding where a heart should be. 

Behind the burning car, a human shape emerged holding what looked like a gas can. The fire illuminated the shape, and a man in a pair of coveralls and a cowboy hat looked towards David. 

“Boss?” The man said, shielding his eyes against the blaze. 

“Wh-who the fuck are you!?” David readied himself to run. 

“David. Calm down buddy, you’re alright. I’m your friend—y-your caretaker. I... I live with you.” the man seemed a little frightened himself, unsure whether to move. He placed the gas can safely away from the fire and walked slowly towards David with his hands out, palms facing up. 

“Let’s get you back to bed David; the sun will be coming up soon. We can talk about this when you wake up tomorrow night.” Still cautiously walking, he gave a smile that was eerily familiar. 

There was something comforting and alluring about the man’s presence. David’s racing thoughts slowed, his shoulders falling, breath steadying. He felt the urge to hug the man, tears starting to form in his eyes. He smiled back at the man and relinquished his body into the man’s welcoming arms. The man slipped his arm over David’s shoulder and turned them back towards the house. 

“You’re just a little confused is all. Everything will be just fine. I’ll get you back to bed and I’ll clean this mess up. Don’t worry even a bit.” The man said, as they walked back to the old house, awash in the moonlight.