For four days they scrubbed, polished, hauled, scraped and plunged with barely a word exchanged between them. The few times Nolan had tried conversation—the second day while they were eating their cafeteria-provided lunch of fish and limp greens and the third day when they'd paused in the closet to look for a case of light bulbs—Samuel had grunted and turned away. It was a lonely way to pass twelve hours, but payday was mañana. The look on his dah's face when he brought home his sack of food and barter slips would supply enough sunshine to get him through these dim days.
Payday was Friday and Friday was floor day as Samuel put it. Floor day meant scrubbing until blisters formed on his palms, until his knees ached like an old man's. Nolan threw himself into it, knowing that on the other side of this day his prize was waiting.
He scrubbed the last of the polished black and white tiles on the first floor. He'd just learned a new technique of twisting the mop head on the last pass for a streak-free shine. It had taken him four hours and two blisters, but this time when Samuel came by to inspect the floor, he might harrumph in approval instead of disappointment. Nolan was finishing his last turn when his back bumped into something. A solid, windowless set of double doors blocked the end of this hallway behind him. He realized he'd never seen them before.
In four days of cleaning, he'd been all over the hospital. He'd cleaned the giant swimming pool deck with the girls (that he was not allowed to talk to under any circumstances) bobbing up and down like seals in the frothy water. He'd cleaned the staff cafeteria on the first floor, the nannies' cafeteria on the second floor and even the girls' cafeteria on the sixth floors, after dinner hours of course. Here, on the main floor, he'd cleaned storage rooms, offices and labs with equipment that boggled his mind. Yet, he'd never seen the inside of this particular room. He looked down the long hallway for Samuel. His supervisor had disappeared, as he was known for doing. He was likely resting his bones in a storage closet somewhere while Nolan busted his hump. How many years would he have to slave before he could get a youngster to do all his work for him? Far too many, he suspected.
The double doors were locked, but almost every door was locked, especially when you got upstairs where the girls and their babies were kept. These doors had the familiar key card slider on the wall to the right. Nolan slid out his key card and swiped.
The key card slipped through the slot and the light blinked green. Nolan palmed down the handle and pushed through.
Darkness greeted him. He fumbled for a switch and found none. Using the hallway light, he peered in. The room was large, judging by the echo of his footfalls as he took a step inside. Slowly his eyes picked up green, scrolling lights. Computers. Maybe this room held rows of cubicles.
Yet, there was a smell…something that made the hairs of his neck tingle. Something that stank like…the garbage dump where his dah used to work. The tangy, rank odor of decay. He’d smelled only new and clean in every nook and cranny of this place since he’d started. Something had spoiled in this office. It was his job to weed it out and remove it for the good Breeders' doctors. They weren't used to putrescence. He, unfortunately, was bred on it.
Leaving the safety of the doorway, he fumbled along the wall for the light switch. There'd have to be one somewhere. But, as the door clicked closed, plunging him into blackness, he realized his mistake. Fumbling around in the dark? He'd break something and then Samuel would have his head. He started back toward the door.
Except…where was the door? He swam in a sea of night with no right or left. And the smell— like dog carcass left to rot in a garbage pile—grew stronger. The fear crept up his limbs. Why would something stink like that in a hospital? Was it…a body? He thought of Herry by the campfire.
They pluck the babes from their ma's cracks and gnaw on their arms and legs. Suck the marrow outta their bones.
A shiver ran up Nolan's arms. He turned to run.
His knee banged into something metallic. A clang echoed beside him. His hand fumbled over soft fabric, a sheet perhaps, and something firm, yet…cold. He gripped it, trying to identify. A wrist. A human wrist.
Nolan screamed.
He bolted. Another crash. He was banging around like a dog in a market alley, smashing into racks and spilling things just to escape. He'd be punished, but the terror wouldn't allow him to stop.
A human wrist. Dear God!
A wedge of light cut into the darkness. “Nolan!” Samuel's voice sounded frantic. Footsteps thudded through the room and then the click of a switch. Above, a dim light snapped on.
It was even more horrible in the light. Nolan stumbled back into the wall. Vomit rose into his throat.
Now he knew where the smell came from.
In a room the size of a small gymnasium, lay rows and rows of hospital beds. On each was a woman, or rather what might've been a woman once. Now they looked like corpses with bed sores, stringy hair and skeletal limbs. Closed eyes sunk down in hollowing sockets. Monitors beeped at each bedside and tubes pierced arms, mouth, and nose, making their bodies look half flesh, half machine. Beneath the top sheet, their bellies rose in tell-tale mounds. Pregnant, all.
Nolan vomited on his shoes.
When he looked up from his haze, Samuel was at his arm.
“Oh lad”—he said, shaking his head— “this is not how I wanted you to find out.”