No Rest for the Dead : A NEPA Ghost Story

            Wilkes-Barre. We all know it for one reason or another. Maybe for the two colleges squeezed unto the same street, maybe for The Fine Arts Fiesta or possibly The Kirby Theater. Or maybe you know it because the best library book sale in perhaps the state also takes place in Wilkes Barre.

            Like most communities in North Eastern Pennsylvania, Wilkes-Barre has its own local ghost stories. As in most ghost stories, the dark past does not stay buried forever.

            Francis hadn’t heard the stories though she grew up just a few towns over from The Diamond City. As an adult, she found herself working at The Shady Oaks Nursing Home by the Susquehanna River.  At first glance, it seemed to be a standard nursing home, a cute name and elderly patients crowding the T.V. room no matter was happened to be on.

            Aside from the lack of oak trees on the grounds, she found her orientation to be a bit odd. “You can wear any color scrubs you want,” the head nurse told her, “except for black; the patients will think you’re the Angel of Death. Oh, and watch out for the Exit light in Ward B. If it blinks, then a patient is dying.”

            Francis stared at the woman, expecting her to laugh, wink, or, shrug, anything to indicate that she was joking. But the woman just proceeded with the orientation.

            Deciding not to press the matter, she almost forgot about it in the craziness of acclimating to a new nursing position.  However, when working in a nursing home, death, even stories of death, can’t be ignored for long.  She was on her way to deliver medicine to a patient in Ward B when something distracted her from her purpose.   She looked up to see the neon red Exit sign blinking slowly.

            She was puzzled as to why the sight caused her heart to pound within her chest and her breaths to come so rapidly. Then she remembered the strange words on her first day. The blinking light meant someone was going to die.  Before she could dismiss this ludicrous thought the PA system announced a Code Blue, which is medical code for death.   

            She hurried to the location of the Code Blue, realizing it was the very patient she was on her way to see.  The nurse who beat her there, shook his head. “Heart finally gave out.”

            Francis just nodded, trying to convince herself that it was just a badly timed coincidence, but as she was leaving the room she nearly collided with an old man in a wheelchair.

            “Saw the light didn’t you?” he wheezed in between the soft puffs emanating from his oxygen tank.

            “What?”

            “The blinking light,” he replied, annoyed, “the one that means death.”

            “That’s just a story,” she said using her best comforting nurse tone.

            He burst out laughing but was interrupted by a coughing fit. When it passed, he smiled, “Could be a true story.  Ghost like to leave signs when people leave the world of the living to join them.”

            Francis could only stare at the man. “Ghosts?”

            “You’re deafer than I am,” he chuckled. “Yes, ghosts, this place is full of them, the grounds, the cemetery across the way. The ghost from there are still looking for their graves.”

            “Um, right, look, why don’t we get you back to your room?”

            “Oh, you’ll see them soon enough. Agnes really stirred things up.”

            “Is Agnes one of the ghosts?” Francis asked patiently.

            He frowned, “You young people know nothing of the past.  You’ve got a smart phone, smart person, look it up.” With that he rolled past her, pinching her toes under the wheels.

            She winced and bit back a curse as he rolled away, but on her break she did Google Agnes, Wilkes-Barre, PA.  To her surprise that was all she needed. Agnes was not a person but a hurricane that flooded the Susquehanna River, devastating the area. As though the deaths and damage done to homes and businesses was not enough, the flood even unearthed hundreds of graves in local cemeteries.  Since this was back before DNA testing, most, if not all of the bodies were never reburied properly. Many of the headstones were gone forever as well.

            Francis looked up from her phone with a frown.  One of the two cemeteries was across the street from the small side garden that was meant for the patients, but was usually used for staff smoke breaks.  For an instant the graveyard looked as though it was covered in a film of mud marred by overturned stones and unearthed graves. She blinked and the image was gone replaced by a slightly overgrown, but intact graveyard.

            She shook her head, not sure why the story was getting to her. She vaguely recalled hearing about the flood now that she’d just read about it, so why did it chill her to the bones even though it was scorching hot in the garden?

            “Stupid old man,” she, muttered, shoving her phone into her pocket, “telling me a ghost story right after poor old Hellen died.”

            Her break was over so, she hurried back inside. She wanted to find that pecky old geezer and tell him off for the timing of his warped history lesson. What if he spewed that crap around Helen’s friends or worse her family?

            She couldn’t seem to find him however, despite the nursing home being a bit small. She finally asked another nurse if she knew the man. “He sounds a bit like Jerry,” she mused. “He likes to bring up the flood and the ghost stories a lot.”

            “I just don’t want him upsetting anyone with them.”

            “He shouldn’t, but we can go speak to him. Come on he’s in room 18 in Ward B.”

            However Jerry turned out not to be the same ghost story telling, wheelchair bound man Francis spoke with.  This man was a thinner and had a distinctive liver spot on his left temple.  

            Confused as to who she spoke with, Francis decided to forget the whole thing.  After all, she had much more important things to worry about at work than an old man telling ghost stories sprinkled with history.

            Her determination didn’t last long though. The very next day, Sarah, one of the friendliest, patients wanted to show Francis her photo albums.  She’d been at the nursing home for five years and had two, huge albums dedicated just to the patients and staff. After a few pages in the first book, Francis recognized the cranky man from the day before.  

            “Sarah? Who is that?” she asked.

            “Oh, that’s Markus,” she replied. “He was always so grim,” she added with a chuckle.

            “He told me ghosts from the cemetery came over here looking for their graves.”

            “Markus told you that?” Sarah asked, puzzled. “Are you sure it was him?”

            “Positive, why?”

            “It’s just I’m fairly certain that he passed away a few weeks before you started.”

            Francis frowned, “But I spoke to him yesterday.”

            “It can’t have been, dear. Markus is dead. I’m sure it’s on record somewhere.”

            “It must have been someone who looked like him then,” Francis said, more to convince herself than Sarah.

            Francis didn’t run into Markus again for the entire two years she worked at Shady Oaks, but some residents claimed that they did. Jimmy said they played Chess every Thursday, but Markus cheated badly and didn’t know his history. Also, she and some of the staff kept finding wreaths lying around Ward B, not the kind you put on doors, but rather the kind you leave on graves.  

            The number of wreaths seemed to increase and Francis could always smell a musty, moldy smell that when she described it to Sarah, the old woman frowned and whispered, “That’s what the whole city smelled like after Agnes, mud, and mold, and death.”

            Francis began looking for a new job soon after that. She found a nursing home in Dallas, nestled on a hill and far away from any flood waters.