We were all now in the nursing home's hallway, with Laura in the rear. She closed the door behind her, making a very loud noise that startled Church and me. We looked back at an embarrassed Laura who made a cringing face of apology at us. The building had the smell of mothballs and aspirin, and the air was stale. It was creepy as hell. I moved further into the hallway and noticed that each of the private rooms' doors was open. I'd shine my light into one and see a made bed, with a crocheted blanket on top, but no residents. I felt Jay getting closer to me, and that brought me some comfort. She smelled vaguely of the sea, and it was altogether very nice.
We approached the next open door, and this time I went in. I turned to whisper to Church and Laura, "We'll check this room." Church looked quickly from me to Laura, who was doing the sign of the cross, and then looked back to me.
"Why are we whispering?" he quietly said back.
"'Cause I'm scared, I don't know!" I replied. Okay, old people's homes freaked me out. Whatever. Church pulled another flashlight out to use while those two continued on further inward, as Jay and I checked out the room. There was a walker with the tennis balls on the front two pegs next to the bed. This bed wasn't made, and looked like someone had gotten out of it in a hurry. Jay was closer to me now, practically on me when I looked at her. "You okay?" Jay's tentacles were shaking, and her eyes darted around before looking at me.
"No. I think I'm scared too," she replied. I stopped walking for a second, and so did Jay. My eyebrows furrowed as I thought about that. Why would she be scared? She's been so cool and level-headed this entire time. It's not like she's a physical being or something that can be hurt, so why the sudden fear? I made a note to circle back to that later, and we continued checking the room out. There was a spilled cup I saw, and some Wether's originals hard candies on the bedside table. My foot came down on something that made it slide a little. I moved my foot to see that I had stepped on a large, yellow coin. A game token.
"Oh," I said. I bent down to pick it up. Holding it in front of my face, I saw text floating above it. It said UNASSIGNED. I pocketed the token for now and moved to the other side of the bed, where it looked like the occupant had gotten up from. As I rounded the foot of the bed, I saw it. Thick, reddish-black goo all along the side of the bed on the ground. I heard Jay say something, but I was too entranced by what I was looking at. I knelt down to look closer when a yell came from nearby. A scared shriek, but it didn't pull my attention away. Inside the goop was a pair of earrings, a necklace, and a few rings. I pulled one out to look closer. Holy shit…
"Jay, is this… is this what happened if you didn't select a race at the beginning?" The screaming turned to loud sobs, which snapped me back to reality. I dropped the ring and broke into a sprint. I reflexively grabbed Jay's hand as I rushed past her to bring her along with me. In the hallway, I looked down both ways and saw the flashlight coming from a room. We hurried to the door and busted through. I was ready to fight, but instead, what I saw was horror.
It was the kitchen of the nursing home. Church was holding Laura on the ground near the door, with Patti trying to lick Laura. Laura reached a slow hand out to touch Patti for some comfort. Inside on the kitchen island, there were little metal containers filled with scrambled eggs, crumbled sausage, and toast alongside yogurt cups and two giant pitchers, one labeled coffee, the other tea. Down on the floor, all around the breakfast items, was the reddish-black goop. It looked like at least seven piles on the ground. They had walked into a bloodbath. I leaned down to Laura and tried to use my best soothing voice.
"Hey, let's go to the front room, okay?" She kept her head down as she cried, but nodded to me in agreement. Church and I helped her up and walked with her to the living area. The two of them sat on the couch. Patti jumped up as well and curled next to Laura. Church gave Laura another pat on the back and stood up. He nodded his head in a direction away from the couch, and I followed. Jay stayed behind to keep comforting Laura.
We ended back in the hallway next to the kitchen door when Church said, "Man, this is not good. She is really, really upset." I nodded solemnly in agreement. "I think we need to get this stuff out of here, if that's okay." I looked back at the couch, and Laura was talking with Jay now.
"Yeah, I agree, dude. The room we checked out also had this goop as well as this," I said as I held out the game token I had found. Church took a look before pulling his token out of his pocket, holding it next to mine. Then I thought about how we went back for his token, and something hit me hard. It made no fucking sense. "Why are you not goop?" Church just looked at me, confused. "You never activated your coin, which is what happened to these people, and it's why they all got melted. So how are you not goop?" Church just looked at the coins and shook his head slowly side to side.
"I don't…" he began before looking up at me with worried eyes. "How the fuck am I not goop?" He began looking more frantically around, but now was not the time to have him break down as well.
"Hey, we'll figure it out later, okay? I'll ask Jessica or something. Let's just clean up and wait for the Kellys to come back for now." I said. Church was still very worried, and I put my hand on his shoulder and gave it a squeeze. He looked up at that and nodded, looking slightly better. We looked through some closets and found some of those plastic buckets you'd find at a construction site. There was also a broom and dustpan, which turned out not be the best way to gather the goop, of which there was a lot. As we finished filling the first bucket, Laura and Jay were calmly talking on the couch when we were heading for the front door. The filled bucket was surprisingly heavy, and it took both Church and me lifting together to move. We unblocked the doors and were about to head out when Laura stopped us.
"What are you going to do with that?" she asked. The fiery personality of hers was dulled. Church and I looked at each other before looking back at her.
"I guess dump it outside?" Church said. Laura made a very large frown at this, and Jay was shaking her head with wide eyes at us. This was going to set her off again, and I had to stop it quickly.
"Um, what do you think we should do, Laura?" I asked.
"Can we," she took a gulp. "Can we bury it?" Church and I looked back at each other and sighed as we lowered the bucket down. I remembered seeing a hand trowel in one of the closets and fetched it. With that in hand, we found a spot outside in the grass and began digging, which is not easy with a tiny ass hand trowel. Laura came outside and saw our location.
"No, that's no good!" Laura said.
"What?" I said in between heavy breaths. I looked at Church, and he was making a gross face at me. I think my dead angel zombie breath was getting to him. I really needed a new form. That would be a top priority. I switched back to my bone form while Laura had a thinking look on her face.
"Somewhere nice, dignified," she replied. Laura walked around with Jay and examined a few spots before stopping near a colorful bush. "This will work. Muchas gracias, Huesito." What did that mean? We did as she asked and dug the damn hole. Digging holes is already hard work, but with this hand trowel, it was just bullshit. All in all, it must have taken close to three hours to dig a deep enough hole to fit all the goop. We thought we were good at one point, but Laura informed us it needed to be lower so no animals got to it. Once we reached the proper depth, we were given the final approval and began interning the liquid remains. During this time, Jay even created these small items, which consisted of a stick with a circle at the top.
"What are these?" I asked.
"Where I'm from, we usually mark graves with these. Just a sign of respect and to show some dignity," she replied. She had made nine in total, the number of goop piles we had found.
"That's really thoughtful, Jay," I told her as I examined her work. "Seriously, that's sweet." Jay smiled, and we walked together to the grave that had just been covered up by Church. We both were covered in dirt and looked awful. We all stood around as we took turns planting one of Jay's grave markers in silence. It was silent as Laura cried softly. She ended up walking back inside, and Jay turned to us.
"Her grandma is in a home like this. She is very worried." Jay said. We all walked back inside in silence.