The Day I Searched for Carole

     The summer heat was taking away every bit of our energy, like a shop-vac sucking the water right out of us. The high temperature was as tight as an old-fashioned rib belt around our chests, making it hard to breathe.  We were seeing an unusually long list of patients that day, and we drove our route to the next patient’s house, Carole’s house.  It was in a seedy part of town, and the small concrete driveway, black with mildew, barely accommodated our two cars.  Our light- blue scrub suits were drenched in sweat, and my assistant, Mr. MacKenzie, smelled a bit stale, but I wouldn’t have told him so. My own surgical mask was melting to my face. As we got out of our cars, Mr. Mac, as I frequently called him, dropped his Nifty brand clipboard, and papers fluttered to the ground; there was no wind to move them. I heard him groan as he bent to pick them up. I covered my eyes from the sun, gazing up at an unusual portico. The house had a New Orleans feel to it, with small black wrought iron balconies adorning the second floor windows. Maybe that’s why I had sensed the presence of otherworldly spirits as soon as we approached the house.  

     A ten-foot black iron gate guarded the brick sidewalk leading to a massive, wooden front door.  I thought it a bit strange that the iron gate bore a padlock and chains.  Always a skeptic, I rattled them just to be sure.  As our bad luck would have it, they held fast.  Mr. Mac, always a Doubting Thomas, double-checked his notes and assured me that this was the correct house.  He had spoken to Carole herself a few days prior and verified her address, as was his custom. After all, the reason I hired him was that he generally stayed one step ahead of me, annoying as that could sometimes be.

     It became obvious that we could not enter through the main portico, so we looked around the side of the residence. An open iron gate on the left side of the house led to an alleyway which was dark, even in the blazing afternoon sun.  Mr. Mac trailed behind me, blotting beads of sweat from his forehead. He is a short man, and his scrub pants were dragging on the ground, which thoroughly irritated me.  Nevertheless, I said nothing and we proceeded onward.  

     We saw a wooden entrance door to our right, marked with a scrawled, handwritten sign that stated, “Masks Required.” We debated whether or not this was the entrance.  I won the discussion as usual, and we knocked with trepidation and waited for permission to enter.  We noticed fortuitously that the door was open one-half inch. After fifteen minutes of no response, timed by my watch of course, we knocked again.  No response. We then very, very gingerly pushed the door open even further and entered the house. A guest book was on a spindly oak table by the door, and we both signed in. It was with great interest and attention to detail that Mr. Mac pointed out the fact that the first entry on the facing page was indeed the signature of Carole Hartsfield, the very patient we were scheduled to visit.  He thought it interesting, while I pooh-poohed his concerns. An unwise endeavor on my part.

     Inside, the house was dark and surprisingly cool. A black and white television sat on a bureau in the small entrance way, but the sound was turned off. The floors under our feet were dark mahogany wood and very shiny.  The circular rug in the foyer was oriental and looked expensive, but smelled old and dusty. The clerestory windows above us were stained glass and emitted an ominous yellow-green light into the lower level of the house.  It was a nauseating, bilious color, reminding me of unpleasant sights and sounds. I started my quest to locate my patient.  I began calling out, “Carole, Carole,”  but there was no reply.

     As the time was passing by quickly, I reminded myself that I still had my daily quota of patient visits to fill unless I wanted a solid berating by the staff in the home office. I once again called out, “Carole, Carole,”  but there was no reply.  Ahead of me, a staircase of mahogany wood curved up and to the left. It looked shiny, as if it had just been polished. Indeed, as I approached it and touched the carved ornate railing,  my hand became greasy with an oil-like substance which I took to be wood polish. I quickly wiped it on my coat, where it left a handprint stain. At the top of the stairs I could see a small landing and at least three mahogany doors on the second floor, all of which were closed.  A piece of thick rope hung from the newel post and I touched it gingerly.  It appeared to be spotted with dried blood.

     Mr. Mac began exploring the room to the right.  As I watched him, I reminded him not to get distracted as I called out even louder, “CAROLE,  CAROLE!” But again, there was no reply. To the right of the foyer sat a living room, the furniture covered with white sheets. As Mr. Mac explored and lifted one sheet, a rose-flower pattern on the upholstery could be discerned. The style of the furnishings were of an antiquated period, with wood frames adorning the backs of the furniture and square wooden legs supporting the couch and loveseat. There was also a television playing an old black and white movie, but the sound was turned off.  It looked for all the world like an old western, and we debated the name of the main actor. 

    “That’s John Wayne,” Mr. Mac insisted. However, I knew he was wrong.

     “No, it is indeed James Stewart, Mr. Mac,” I said, correcting him, as I threw him a sideways glance. 

     “No, you are quite wrong this time,” he insisted, and he turned his back on me and defiantly headed into what would be the kitchen. “I’m going to look for a glass of water!” 

     I heard a scratching noise and tapping as though it was the sound of footsteps. It sounded as though there was marching.

     “Doesn’t that sound like footsteps up there? Listen! I think I hear doors unlocking, Don’t you hear that, Mr. Mac?

     “Haha, my dear! Your imagination has gotten the best of you once again!” He laughed as he waved his hands in the air and flapped them back and forth, one of his most annoying mannerisms. 

     Somewhere in the distance, a machine was alternatively pounding and grinding.  I kept calling out, “Carole, Carole,” many more times, but there was never a reply. 

     With great trepidation, I followed Mr. Mac to the kitchen, where the smell coming from the oven was putrid and undeniably awful.  Three large kettles were set out, cooking on the prettiest, most ornate gas stove I had ever seen.  Foam was seeping from the top of the kettles and dripping down the sides. The lids were on sideways to vent the pots.  It smelled a bit like my Granny’s chicken soup, but had a stronger, almost putrid scent. I felt my nostrils starting to burn.  I noticed a large bowl of uncooked curly pasta, looking forlorn as it waited to be added to the mixture. A cutting board sat lazily beside the pots on the dirty kitchen counter. Was that celery and onions?  Carefully I picked up one of the onions and held it up to the light. 

     “Yellow?” I asked.

     “Wrong again, Boss,” Mr.Mac replied confidently. “Vidalia if I’ve ever seen one!” 

     “Well, if anyone knows their onions, it would be you, Mr. Mac!” I lauded his culinary skills once again. “Not to digress, Mr. Mac, but since Lady Bird ran off, you’ve spent the majority of your recreational hours watching cooking videos, so I hope you’ve learned something!”  I laughed.

     “One thing I’ve learned, Boss, this is not your average chicken soup.  And, where is that most irritating grinding and pounding coming from?  Wait! I hear steps!  Someone's here, and now we can find Carole and finish our day!” he added, beaming with pleasure.

     We took a few steps back into the living room where we first entered. Suddenly, out of nowhere, a middle-aged man with a disproportionately large, but misshapen head and bulbous lips appeared. He slowly, very slowly, started walking toward us. 

     “Carole isn’t here,”  he said robotically, as he continued coming toward us menacingly with a slow, limping, steady gait.  “She hasn’t been here for a long time,” he stated mechanically, as his voice wavered.  Just then, other people appeared, all walking very slowly out of different doors and passageways, all saying the same thing, calling out the name “Carole.”   Some were from the upstairs landing, and some were marching in cadence down the staircase through heavy mahogany doors. Some were silent. Some kept calling out the name “Carole,” or repeating the same phrase softly, “Carole’s not here. Carole’s not here.” They did not speak at the same time, which led to a cacophony of noise and continuous chants of, “Carole’s not here.” It all threatened to make my head split wide open.   It was then that I noticed how hot the room had become, as if I was sitting under a heat lamp.  I felt my face flush deep red.  I grabbed Mr. Mac by the arm. I saw that his face was red too.

There was an assembly of men and women marching down the stairs, at least thirty of them, wearing plastic aprons over drab clothes.  Some of the men were wearing flannel shirts, inappropriate dress for summer.  One of the men picked up the piece of rope up from the newel post and clutched it in a loop that resembled a noose. The misshapen man with the bulbous lips held both hands up to his mouth and began to weep. A gray-haired woman wearing a plastic apron and a white hair-kerchief comforted him and rubbed his shoulder. She dried his tears with a dirty old towel she pulled from her apron pocket. 

     “Are you going to be okay?” she asked him, as she looked at us menacingly. Then, with a low-pitched growl, she snarled, curling her stubby fingers into a fist.  “Carole hasn’t been here for four years,” she said angrily, looking at us with a blank stare.  “Can’t you see what you’ve done to him?” 

     The man with the misshapen head and bulbous lips continued to cry, sobbing as the woman with the white hair-kerchief hugged him and patted his back sympathetically.  The rest of the people continued to chant: “Carole’s not here!  Carole’s not here!”

It was then that Mr. MacKenzie and I looked at each other and realized that the machine elsewhere in the house was still pounding and grinding, but the sound was getting louder. It was then that Mr. Mac remarked wryly, “Boss, we better get outta here!” I froze in place, and carefully thought of three possible answers to his statement.

     1. Not on your life.  I’m not leaving until I set eyes on Carole. We have the daily quota to think about! Let’s not forget what we came here for. I am going up those damn stairs to search for her!

     2. What the heck is that grinding and pounding? Maybe they’re grinding up Carole and she needs our help! Let’s get back to the kitchen!

     3. No paycheck is worth this misery, RUN!!!

     I then, again, rationally reviewed my choices and decided that the best answer undoubtedly was TWO.       

     We quickly made our way back to the kitchen. The smell coming from the oven was even more putrid and more undeniably awful the longer the whole concoction cooked.  Ahead of us, through two white sliding wooden doors which were now open, we observed what seemed to be a laboratory.  There were two men wearing flannel shirts and plastic aprons, and they were hovering over a laboratory slab.  There was, to my amazement, a large butcher’s meat grinder on that very slab.  What appeared to my trained eyes to be a femur bone was poking out from the top.  Mr. Mac pointed to it, and silently shook his head, his eyes wide, his mouth agape.

     On a second metal slab in the laboratory, we observed a fragmented body lying naked on the slab, arms and legs amputated. The abdomen was splayed open. In somewhat of a half-in and half-out situation was the entirety of the small intestines.  They were piled in a turquoise plastic bowl, and a pair of silver tongs rested on top of the pile. The face appeared intact, the make-up well-preserved. It appeared for all the world to be the Carole that we were searching for.

     The man with the misshapen head and bulbous lips was still sobbing as he headed toward me. I noticed now that he held a short noose of rope, and the gray-haired woman who previously had comforted him was following behind him closely clutching a handful of zip ties. She off-handedly remarked, “Glad you could join us for supper!”  

     I fainted dead away.  When I woke up, I was lying outside on the grass.  Mr. Mac was splashing water on my face.  

     The man with the big head was now bleeding and the paramedics that had arrived had kindly secured his head in white terrycloth towels.  The other residents, still in their plastic aprons,  were handcuffed and were being marched into a police van. Environmental workers in hazmat suits were carrying black bags labeled “evidence” out of the house. Like a heroine in a bodice-ripping novel, I was saved by a man I had underestimated for years.  

     Mr. MacKenzie, my short, unappreciated, poorly-compensated assistant had called 911 and felled most of the residents with several well-placed karate kicks. Thankfully, he had also called the office and informed them we would be running late for our next appointment.  He retrieved the assignments for the afternoon, which concerned refills of medications, work excuses, and other matters which were required to be completed prior to the close of the business day. It was just another day in paradise.