17
The sun was setting when Elijah parked his car next to Angela’s trailer.
“Is this it?” he said, and he felt something sink from his chest into his stomach. He suddenly realized how unprepared he was for whatever was about to happen. He looked up at the sky; the sun had begun to disappear behind the trees.
“A little late for a house call,” he muttered to himself as he stared at the sky through his windshield.
Before he could talk himself out of it, he opened his car door and stepped out onto the pavement. The grass was tall, the crickets were loud, and the trailer—which could only be Angela’s, for there was nothing else anywhere near the address—looked like it would be swallowed up by the ground at any moment.
He walked up to the trailer, which had “87” stenciled on the front door. He knocked on the door and waited for a few seconds. Nobody answered. He knocked again and waited some more. Nothing.
He looked back to his car, then up at the sky again. The sun was burning dark orange.
He suddenly felt like this had been a bad idea. He had no business showing up to a patient’s home after the workday had ended. It was unprofessional, and frankly unnecessary. If Angela needed something, she would come back to Dr. Leonard’s house.
He looked back at the trailer door and the faded “87.” He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and started down the steps of the trailer back to his car.
He heard a tapping from behind him and froze where he was standing. He looked back at the trailer and saw the bottom of the door shaking in time with the taps. The tapping stopped as suddenly as it had started, and then he heard a cluck.
“What the...” Elijah started.
Before he could ask himself if it was a good idea, he was walking back up the steps to the trailer and turning the doorknob. It was unlocked, and he pushed it open a crack. Sure enough, there was a chicken on the floor, staring at Elijah. He peered into the trailer and saw more chickens—at least a dozen.
“The fuck?” he said, scanning the inside of the trailer in disbelief.
His gaze caught on the kitchen table, where there sat the bottles of penicillin and trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazole, and a note. He walked inside, carefully closing the door behind him, and walked over to the kitchen table. He read the note:
“Sheila,
Went to the farm for a sec
Don’t worry I didn’t forget dinner
Back soon
- Ang”
He had seen too much. Whatever had sunk from his chest to his stomach was now sinking further down. Without any conscious effort, his legs carried him back out the front door and down the steps. His head was full of static as he collided head-on with a woman with dark hair.
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