BY JON-PAUL D. PALOMBA
Copyright is held by the author.
CECELIA SHOULDERED the post office door open, rainwater dripping off her hood, three soggy cardboard boxes stacked against her chest. The bell above the frame jingled like it was mocking her.
She dumped the boxes on the counter with a wet thud. The clerk grimaced. Cecelia didn’t care.
“Morning, Cecelia,” came the sing-song voice behind her. Father Cole. Of course. That man could sniff out sin like a bloodhound with a Bible. He wasn’t even holding mail. Just standing there, hands folded, waiting for someone to bless with his presence.
Cecelia lit a cigarette. The No Smoking sign glared down from the wall; she blew smoke right at it. “Cole,” she muttered, rain dripping down her nose. “Don’t you have graves to haunt?”
He gave a small, patient smile. “That your little craft business again?”
“Side gig,” she snapped. She slapped a half-crumpled shipping label on the counter hard enough to make the clerk jump. “Gotta keep the lights on somehow. Unless you’re ready to foot my electric bill, Father.”
Cole chuckled like she’d made a joke. “And what exactly are you selling?”
“Stuff people want. Handmade. Organic.” She turned just enough to let him see the sharp edge of her grin. “Not that it’s any of your business.”
The top box sagged, water seeping into the cardboard. Cecelia pressed her palm down hard, daring him to say something.
“Nothing sinful about a side hustle,” she added, voice sweet and poisonous at the same time.
***
Cecelia’s night shift smelled like bleach, microwaved soup, and slow death. The fluorescent lights hummed overhead, the kind of hum that could drill into your skull if you listened too long.
She walked the halls with her clipboard, but she didn’t bother jotting down vitals. She already knew the truth. Half these residents were just waiting for a bed to open up in the cemetery.
“Evening, Cecelia,” chirped Linda at the nurse’s station, all teeth and cheer. “Don’t forget Mr. Kearns needs his meds crushed. He choked last time.”
Cecelia forced a smile, the kind that could cut glass. “Don’t worry, I’ll handle it.” Handle it meant noting that Mr. Kearns had no visitors in six months and a daughter who hadn’t returned her calls in over a year. Strike one.
Room after room, she did the same. Mrs. Feldman had a son in Arizona who only sent postcards at Christmas. Mr. Alvarez had nobody at all, just a Bible on his nightstand and a toothless grin. She marked them all in her head like a shopper circling sales in a catalogue.
She flipped open her beat-up copy of Necromancy for Dummies tucked under the clipboard and scribbled in the margins: “no family, no visitors, no problem.” It was the only training manual she’d ever had — and somehow it worked.
At 3 a.m., the halls went quiet. The kind of quiet that only exists in places where people are too tired or too close to the end to fight it. Cecelia sat at the desk, flipping through old magazines, but her ears stayed open. Every rattle of a cough, every wheeze of an oxygen tank, every silence that went on too long — all of it filed away.
By dawn, three names were circled in her head. No family. No one to ask questions.
She clocked out, snagged the keys to the nursing home’s dented delivery truck, and rolled it out of the lot before anyone noticed. The rain had started again, steady and hard, drumming against the windshield.
The truck groaned under the weight in the back. Cecelia didn’t look behind her. She knew what she’d find.
She took a drag, scowled at the fogged glass, and muttered, “Hustle culture is such a pain in the ass.”
***
She killed the engine, slid out of the cab, and lit another cigarette, palming it between her thumb and index finger to keep the rain off the cherry. The truck groaned under the weight in back, a wet thud against the metal walls as if the cargo had shifted. Cecelia frowned, tugged her hoodie tighter, and yanked the rear doors open.
Three black bags slumped against the side rails, glistening in the downpour. They looked like overstuffed trash sacks, swollen and slick. Cecelia stared for a moment, then grabbed the first by its knot and dragged it onto her shoulder. Dead weight.
She trudged down the concrete steps into the basement, her boots leaving muddy streaks on the floor. The bulb above her head flickered twice, buzzed, and then hummed steady. The damp air wrapped around her like a wet towel.
The bags hit the floor one after the other with dull, heavy thuds. The basement seemed to answer back — a faint rustle, a chain shifting somewhere in the dark. Sixteen grannies already lurked there, working. The new recruits would be joining them soon.
Cecelia scowled, blew smoke into the shadows, and muttered, “Inventory.”
She turned on her heel and climbed the stairs without another glance. The door slammed behind her, rattling the frame.
***
The pounding started just as Cecelia was peeling off her wet hoodie. Three hard thumps on the front door, followed by a nasal voice she’d know anywhere.
“Miss Cecelia! You think you’re clever, don’t you? Lights on at all hours, strange smells, noises like . . . lawn equipment at two in the morning!”
Cecelia groaned, lit another cigarette, and shuffled to the door. She cracked it open just enough to see his blotchy red face. Dolan — her landlord. The kind of man who raised rent every year but still drove a car with a muffler held on by duct tape.
“What do you want?” she snapped.
“You’re disturbing the whole property!” he barked, his eyes bulging. “Tenants have rights too, you know. My house reeks because of you! And that buzzing at night — sounds like you’re running a goddamn leaf blower at midnight. You’re a liability, Cecelia! You don’t belong here.”
Cecelia exhaled smoke right in his face. “Dolan, if I wanted to listen to diarrhea with opinions, I’d stand outside your bathroom door.”
His jaw worked furiously. “One more complaint and I’ll have you out on the street. You can’t live here if you can’t follow basic rules!”
“Neither can your ass in those sweatpants, but we all suffer in silence.”
That did it. He shoved a finger in her face, close enough she thought about snapping it off. “This is your last warning! Pay up, shut up, or pack up!”
Cecelia’s eyes narrowed. “Perfect. Come see how I handle rent.”
***
Dolan stomped in after her, still ranting about ordinances and fire codes. The wood chipper sat in the middle of the concrete floor, its paint flaked, its blades dull but hungry enough. A jerry can of gasoline leaned against it.
Dolan’s eyes bulged. “Gasoline? That’s a fire code violation! You can’t store this crap in a rental —” His gaze snapped to the cigarette dangling from Cecelia’s lip.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” he hissed. “You’re smoking? In here?!”
Before she could react, he lunged, plucked the cigarette from her mouth, and stomped it out like he’d just saved the block.
Cecelia stared at the smudge of ash, her jaw tightening.
“That,” she said flatly, “was a mistake.”
She yanked the pull cord. The chipper coughed once, twice, then roared to life, blades shrieking as they spun up. Dolan froze, mouth opening for another complaint.
Cecelia shoved him. It didn’t take much.
His scream was shredded in an instant, swallowed by the machine. A thick red spray hit the inside of the garage door and poured into the barrel waiting below.
By the time the barrel was half full, the garage reeked of rust and bile. Cecelia pulled a fresh cigarette from her pocket, lit it off the hot casing, and muttered, “Smoothie time.”
***
The barrel sloshed as she rolled it down the concrete steps, squeaking on its dented wheels. The thick red slurry slapped against the sides, heavy and wet. Dolan finally found a way to be useful.
She parked it by the work tables and flicked on the basement lights.
Sixteen old women sat in a crooked semicircle, wrists shackled to rusted chairs, heads bowed. Their fingers twitched against the keyboards in front of them, clacking out half-written Etsy listings, crochet patterns that looped endlessly, scarves that unraveled even as they grew. The air hummed with the sound of brittle joints grinding, chains rattling, and the occasional wet cough.
Half of them were running on duct tape and half-remembered spells scrawled out of Necromancy for Dummies, but it kept the orders flowing.
At the scent of fresh slurry, the grannies lifted their heads in unison. Cloudy eyes rolled back, gums smacking, throats emitting a collective moan that rattled the ceiling joists. They tugged against their chains like overeager pets.
“Dinner’s served. Don’t say I never do anything for you,” Cecelia muttered, flipping the spigot at the base of the barrel.
A thick red stream poured into a row of mismatched dollar-store dog bowls. The grannies scrabbled for them, slopping most of it onto their cardigans, but enough made it into their mouths to quiet the moaning.
The feeding frenzy was always disgusting, but tonight had a special kick. Dolan must’ve had something extra in his system — the women shuddered with each gulp, typing faster, stitching tighter. One pair of hands rattled across the keyboard so fast the spacebar snapped clean off.
Cecelia leaned against the workbench, smoke curling upward, and scowled.
On the shelves behind her, half-finished orders were stacked in soggy piles: scarves with strange stains, mittens that twitched if you touched them, dolls with eyes that seemed to follow you around the room. A pile of Etsy complaints sat crumpled in the corner: “Smells like mildew.” “Whispered to my kid.” “Product arrived damp, box was leaking.”
Cecelia kicked the stack away. “Ungrateful bastards. Free shipping, too.”
The grannies clattered and moaned, fingers flying over their keyboards, creating more “handmade” goods for shipment. The basement lights buzzed, chains rattled, and the floorboards creaked under the weight of the operation.
She exhaled a long drag, watching the slurry drain.
“Business is good,” she said flatly. Then she cracked a grin.
“Guess the rent’s covered.”
***
Jon-Paul D. Palomba lives in Hackettstown, New Jersey, U. S., and works delivery gigs while collecting strange story ideas from everyday life. He writes with a pipe nearby and a curiosity for where the weird might lead. This is his first publication, but not the last.
