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piece of his lung into his bedpan; and Mr. Haynes was making his
presence known by peering down Summer hall, tapping on his watch
every ten minutes.
    Finishing the usual
rooms, he knew it was time to see the Jane. After a few steps down
the hall, Mr. Haynes’s bald head and mustache popped out from
around the corner of the head of the hallway. “Rick, you’re
running behind schedule. The auditor is on the way right now. Let’s
get our Jane cleaned up as soon as possible,” Haynes said.
    “Don’t worry, sir;
I was just heading that way now.” Smarmy
suit, go have a seat in your big leather chair while I do all the
dirty work, Rick cracked a sideways smile.
    “Alright, get to it
then, double time.”
    He parked the roll-away
next to room 137 and knocked on the door, but didn’t bother to
announce himself. The Jane had been unresponsive the day prior, the
effort would be futile. He found her turned, facing the wall,
allowing him a few extra seconds of normality. He lightly tapped her
on the shoulder, making her aware of his presence, and to his
surprise, she rolled on her back and looked at him with that furious
red eye. He stepped away, and her gaze drifted over to the wall after
a few seconds. Then, he proceeded to remove the woman’s overflowing
undergarments; it was obvious that nobody checked on her during
nightshift.
    Rick couldn’t discern
where hell ended and the woman began, but he managed to get The Jane
into the tub in the attached bathroom. Aghast by her figure, he could
barely hide it from his face. Most of her uncovered body was
festooned with growths similar to the ones on her face. The nodes
around her genitalia were the most disturbing. Overlapping scales
folded over where the woman’s sex should be. He was surprised her
urinary tract wasn’t obstructed.
    He picked her up and
set her in the shower chair, latching the restraint around her waist.
When he picked up the towel to dry her off, she tilted her head and
looked directly at him. “He knows what you did. He knows what you
are,” a voice said; it screeched with the accompaniment of audible
interference that sounded like an old radio.
    Her stare fell as soon
as the voice cut away. Rick didn’t think that she would be able to
speak at all through her ruined mouth.
    It
has been a long day, perhaps the noise was a radio in another room, Rick thought to himself, and dried her as quickly as
possible, and then put a new adult diaper on her while looking away.
    Rick put her in a fresh
gown and carried the woman over to the bed. When he began to stretch
her limbs, he felt the awful presence from yesterday, but more
intense. Something peering through him, peeling him apart with soiled
fingertips. Rick had an indescribable sensation, a wave of regret and
embarrassment overcame him, dredged down feelings pulled inside out.
The babble of familiar voices spoke in unison, their collective
tongue impossible to comprehend. His energy abruptly exhausted, his
knees buckled, and the room began to teeter. Rick thought that he
could be having a nervous breakdown. He steadied himself on the
footboard of the Jane’s bed and went for the door.
    On the way to the
employee restroom in the main foyer, Rick barely averted bulling over
a man dressed in a suit on crutches. “Rick Soblinski, can I have a
few words with you concerning the new patient here at Oak Leaf?”
The limping man asked, as Rick bolted past him.
    The man was shorter
than Rick by almost a half a foot, but dapper in an off kilter way.
He would almost look sophisticated if he wasn’t hobbling around on
crutches. In his early fifties with salt-and-pepper hair; he wore a 3
piece suit, minus the jacket. His face looked somewhat familiar, but
Rick couldn’t figure out why. “I’m Russell Levy; as you
probably know, I’m here to audit the condition and care required
for the new female patient that recently took residence here.”
    Rick was taken off
guard, but couldn’t just dismiss him. He took the