Alien Phobic

Chapter 2 Part 2

“GUARD THE DOORS!!!”, Julie yelled. The Memory Care Unit required that all doors are magnetically locked to prevent the residents of that unit from getting out. Some of the residents regarded Memory Care as a jail and in some ways it was. Only the residents where not there for a crime they had committed but they were locked in to prevent them from wandering off and then forgetting how to return. Julie knew she had her hands full already but the explosion of that magnitude probably meant that some of her residents died.

She watched to make sure the aids were running for the doors then she ran downstairs. She opened the door to chaos. People with dementia didn’t do well in situations like this.

“No, come here”, she told one resident that was about to fall. She helped him to a chair and sat him down. “IS ANYONE GUARDING THE DOORS?”, she yelled.

“Yeah, we got it”, she heard one of her aids say. Good, now what? Is help coming? She pulled out her cell phone and dialed 911. Nothing. She looked at the bars. It was flat. Okay then. She took a deep breath and started going from room to room.

The bottom floor of Memory Care was named, “Spring Garden”. Julie always thought it was a silly name, but it helped if you ever had to explain where in the building someone was when they fell or got hurt somehow. It worked so Julie didn’t question the name.

I guess I’ll just start with the first door, she thought. Where else would I check? She knocked, “Is anyone in here?”. She had to push hard on the door to get it too open. Debris fell away from the door as she opened it. She immediately stepped into a pool of blood. The wind blew in through the window and a large hole in the wall. A portion of the wall had collapsed into the room. There is no way I can lift that, Julie thought. “Anyone here?”, she asked. Nothing. She stepped over the debris and walked through the hole in the wall.

Stepping away from the building she could see trees had fallen over the large shed in the back of the property. Beyond that was the swamp. Was it some sort of gas explosion from the swamp?

She turned toward the Memory Care Unit and could see that all of the windows had exploded inward and portions of the wall had caved in here and there. She was pretty sure that no one could have lived through that, but she had to check. She moved from room to room and peeked in side with a, “Anyone in there?”. But no answer. She walked around the side of the building and surprising enough there was no damage there. Just the back, she thought.

She walked around to the front and could see a FedEx truck driving away from the entrance. She walked in through the front and headed for the Assisted Living med-room. It was closed. She unlocked it and went in and sat and Clays desk. Better leave a note for him since the cells don’t work, she thought. She paused a moment and picked up the land line phone and listened. It wasn’t working either.

CARL, JUST LEAVING YOU A QUICK NOTE THAT I’M FINE BUT I HAVE MY HANDS FULL. I GUESS YOU DO TOO. IF YOU NEED ME, I’LL BE IN MEMORY CARE. She signed it and headed back to memory care. She almost took the elevator but realized that without power it wouldn’t work.

Suddenly the lights came on. The generator finally kicked in or maybe the electric is back to normal, she thought. But…she took the stairs instead.

“Is the power back on?”, an aide asked. Her eyes were wide and her voice was shaky. “Yeah”, Julie said, “are you okay?”. Julie looked at the aide’s name tag. Aides rotated through Evergreen every so often because they would burn out over the amount of work they did for only $8 an hour. “Your name’s Christine?”, Julie asked. “You look a bit shaken and I can understand that but I need you to focus and help me to help the residents. Okay?”.

“Yeah”, Christine said. “It’s just I’m so afraid of being alone. I’ve always been afraid of being alone and now…I don't know…this just feels a lot worse than normal”.

“Okay, I don’t mean to sound rude, but we need forget our fears and feelings and start helping our residents”. Christine shook her head.

“Start with this room here and just try to help who you can”.

“I’m not a nurse”, Christine said, “I don’t know how to help them”.

“You don’t need to do anything that would require nursing knowledge”, Christine said. “If it looks like they are dying, I wouldn’t be able to help them either. Just move on until you find someone you can help and move them to the common area on the north side. The blast had no effect there. Then go back and find someone else to help. I’m going to tell each aide the same thing and doing what I can. Okay?”.

Christine shook her head yes. “Okay, go”, Julie said and then went from aide to aide telling them the same thing. Some of the residents asked her for help and she told them to follow the aides to the north side. Once all the aides were notified Julie headed back to her med room.

“Julie”, a voice said. A chill ran up Julie’s spine. She recognized the voice but knew it couldn’t be her. Her mother died years ago. The med room was dark. The sun had already gone down but the lights in the med room were never bright enough for her.

“Is someone in here?”, Julie asked. She walked over to the wall with all the residents charts. The voice seemed to come from there.

“Julie”, she heard the voice again and spun around. She was alone.