The afternoon Typhoon "Whale" made landfall, the sky was already as dark as seven in the evening.
When I came on shift, Old Zhou was dozing at the duty-room desk, his phone playing that screechy opera music. He heard the door and looked up at me, two dark circles under his eyes.
"Xiao Lin's here?" He yawned. "The window at the end of the third-floor hallway won't shut properly. Old Zhao taped it up this afternoon—go check if it's still leaking air. And the mop by the electrical room on the second floor fell over. Just stand it back up."
I grunted and shoved my canvas bag into the locker. The strap was soaked. The three hundred meters from the bus stop to the nursing home—the umbrella couldn't keep up.
Old Zhou stood, shrugged on his jacket, and turned back at the door: "Oh, right. Grandma Zhang in 203 has been saying all afternoon there's someone in her room."
"Someone?"
"Yeah. She says someone's under her bed." Old Zhou pursed his lips. "I went to look. There's nothing under her bed but an enamel bedpan. The old lady's hard of hearing, and the low pressure from the typhoon—probably she misheard something."
Then he left.
I stood in the duty room, listening to the wind slam the window at the end of the hallway. The sound traveled the whole length of the corridor, broken and irregular, like someone hammering the glass with their fist.
The nursing home was an old building from the early nineties, three stories, the red brick face covered in dead ivy vines. First floor was the activity room and the cafeteria. Second and third floors housed the old folks. I'd been working here as an aide for almost two years, and I knew every one of them, their habits inside out.
Dinner was at five-thirty.
Today's meal I delivered with Xiao Liu, pushing the cart. Braised pork with potatoes, stir-fried bok choy, seaweed egg-drop soup. The cook had done something nice for the typhoon, but the old folks mostly had no appetite. The pressure was low, the air thick and sticky, and wind kept squeezing through the window cracks in thin whistles.
When I got to 203, Grandma Zhang didn't come to the door. I knocked three times. Nothing. Three more. Then finally the shuffle of slippers on the floor. The door opened a crack and half of Grandma Zhang's face showed through the gap, her lips dry and peeling.
"Grandma Zhang, time to eat."
She didn't take the tray. Her eyes flicked past me, down the hallway.
"Xiao Lin," she said, so quietly the wind almost swallowed it, "when you were knocking just now, I heard someone knocking in my room too."
I pushed the tray into her hands: "Wind's strong. The window's rattling. You misheard."
She took the tray, nodded, and shut the door again. As it closed I caught a glimpse inside—curtains drawn, the room dark, no lights on. That old-person smell mixed with damp crept out through the crack, heavy and thick.
A little after six, it went fully dark. The two old locust trees in the yard bent into bows, branches whipping the second-floor windows. *Slap. Slap. Slap.* Fast, irregular.
At seven-fifteen, the lights flickered twice.
I was writing the shift report in the duty room when the fluorescent tube above me buzzed and crackled, and then the whole building went dark. Shouts from the old folks down the hall. Xiao Liu yelled something on the second floor.
I pulled the flashlight from the drawer. The moment I pushed the door open, wind poured into the corridor and slapped my face with rain spray. All the doors were shut. Only a window in the first-floor public bathroom was slamming open and shut.
"Xiao Liu! Shut the bathroom window!" I yelled.
Xiao Liu leaned out at the second-floor landing, holding up his phone screen: "Lin-ge, I'll check the second floor first. Grandpa Li was just calling out about his chest."
"Fine. I'll take the third."
I climbed with the flashlight tight in my fist. The stairwell was pitch black. The beam lit barely two steps ahead of my feet. A big patch of plaster had peeled off the damp wall; it crunched underfoot.
The third-floor hallway was quieter than the second. Wind poured in through that half-closed window at the far end with a low moan.
I checked every room.
Grandpa Li in 301 was already in bed. He rolled over when the light hit him and muttered something. 302 and 303 were closed, light leaking out under the doors. Grandma Zhao in 304 had her door open, sitting on the bed's edge sewing a shoe sole under a little rechargeable lamp.
"Grandma Zhao, it's windy. Don't sleep with the door open."
"I know, I know. Closing it now." She waved me off.
As I reached 305's door, the flashlight beam wobbled.
Grandpa Wang lived in 305. His son had picked him up that afternoon to spend the weekend. A padlock hung on the doorknob, swaying in the wind, tapping the door. *Tap. Tap.*
But there was light under the door. Dim and yellowish. Like a candle burning inside.
I stood at the door listening for a few seconds. There was a sound inside. Soft, thin, like an old radio off station. I pressed my ear to the door. The sound stopped. Then from the door itself came a *thunk*, like someone knocking the panel from the inside with a knuckle.
I stepped back, my beam pinned to the padlock. It hung there, fine, intact.
"Who's in there?" I shouted.
No answer.
Wind tore the window at the end of the hallway open with a *crash*. Rain poured in, soaking half the corridor. I gritted my teeth, turned, and went to shut it, thinking I'd have to tell the director tomorrow that window needed replacing.
I didn't think about 305 again.
The flashlight was getting dimmer. Battery nearly dead. I fished my phone out of my pocket. Nine-sixteen. Four more hours to go.
When I reached 203, I stopped.
The door was ajar.
I remembered shutting it earlier when I delivered the meal. Now the gap was wider than this afternoon—about two fingers—and pitch black inside.
"Grandma Zhang?" I called.
No answer.
I called again and angled the flashlight through the gap.
The beam sliced through and lit a patch of floor beside the door. A dark wet stain ran from the doorway into the room, like someone had walked in with wet shoes.
Wrong.
I shoved the door. The hinges creaked. It swung most of the way open.
The beam swept in. The first thing I saw was the window. Curtains pulled open, one pane swung wide, the typhoon shoving rain inside, the sill soaked. The curtain bulged, pushed out by the wind like something was propping it from inside.
Then I saw her.
Grandma Zhang sat on a wooden stool by the window, her back to me. She wore that blue-and-white checkered cotton pajama set, hair combed neat, both feet bare on the floor. The wet stain was right at her feet.
Wind poured in through the window, lifting the hem of her pajama top, letting it fall.
"Grandma Zhang?" I stepped forward. "The window's open. Aren't you cold?"
She didn't turn around.
The beam fell on the back of her head, the bun's outline clear, a few white hairs lifted by the wind, glinting in the light.
"Grandma Zhang, shut the window. The rain's blowing in."
Still she didn't move.
I was confused, and a little spooked. The old lady was hard of hearing, but normally she'd at least turn her head when you talked to her. Tonight she just sat there. Not a twitch. Not even her shoulders.
I took another step, meaning to close the window.
And then my flashlight swept across the bed.
The beds here were iron-framed singles painted white, with a crank at the head to raise the old folks to a half-sitting position. Grandma Zhang's bed was made up with a pale pink cotton sheet printed with little flowers.
Someone was lying in it.
Covered by the blanket, pulled right up to the chin, gray-white hair spread across the pillow. Face turned to the ceiling, eyes closed, lips parted a sliver, chest rising and falling evenly with each breath.
It was Grandma Zhang.
I froze.
The beam rested on the face of the "Grandma Zhang" in the bed for two or three seconds. She slept peacefully, breathing slow and steady. The wrinkles matched the face I'd seen behind the door this afternoon. The mole at the corner of her mouth. The age spot on her cheekbone. Nothing different.
Then I slowly turned my head to look at the window.
The "Grandma Zhang" by the window began to move.
Her neck moved first, then her shoulders, and the whole body turned with agonizing slowness. So slow that my flashlight beam swept across her face and back again before she'd finished.
Her face.
I can't describe that face.
Nose, eyes, mouth—all where they should be. But it looked like someone had gone over it with an eraser. The outlines were there. The details were smeared. Her eyes were two shallow hollows, her nose a blurry ridge, her mouth open slightly, like she was saying something.
She was speaking.
Her lips moved. Once. Twice. Between them, I could see darkness, deeper than black.
The flashlight flickered twice.
My heart seized. I slapped the flashlight's butt hard. The beam fought, went dimmer, the edges turning red, like it was burning out its last filament.
The "Grandma Zhang" by the window kept turning. Her shoulders were square to me now, head tilted slightly, that blurred face aimed my way. Her lips were still moving.
Wind poured in through the window behind her, pressing her pajamas against her body. I could see the bony shoulders under the fabric, the sunken chest. It didn't match a person sitting there.
The flashlight died.
Dark.
I blinked. There was nothing. I couldn't even see my own hand in front of my face. My ears filled with wind and rain and my own heartbeat. *Thump. Thump. Thump.* Like a drum.
The window swung once in the wind, hit the frame. *Smack.*
I stepped back and my knee slammed into something—the iron frame at the foot of the bed. Pain shot through me; I hissed. I reached out, felt the wet windowsill first, then the little side table where Grandma Zhang kept her cup, and the enamel mug sitting on it.
No one by the window.
My hand found nothing. The wooden stool lay on its side, soaked.
Phone.
I fumbled the phone out of my pocket with shaking hands and pressed the side button. The screen lit up. Fourteen percent battery. The cold white light cut through the dark like a blade.
I looked with the phone's glow.
The window was shut.
The sill was flooded, the curtain plastered against the glass, soaked through. The stool was on the floor, a puddle of water beside it, like someone who'd sat there a long time had suddenly stood up. On the bed, the blanket bulged. Someone was under it.
I turned the phone toward it.
Grandma Zhang lay under the blanket, same position as before, face to the ceiling, eyes closed. But her lips were moving.
Slowly. Slightly opening and closing.
I brought the phone closer.
Her lips moved again. This time I could just make out the shape.
"There's one more."
Then her eyelid peeled open a crack, and her eyeball rolled toward me from inside. Her pupils were enormous, black, eating all the white.
I couldn't stop myself. I stepped back and my lower back hit the doorframe, the metal handle digging into my spine, pain flashing dark across my vision. I held the frame to steady myself and aimed the phone back. Grandma Zhang's eyes were closed again. Her lips still. Breathing even, sleeping like nothing had happened.
The old landline in the duty room started ringing.
I ran. I practically sprinted back to the duty room, knocking over the plastic trash bin by the door, the instant noodle cup rolling out, soup spilling everywhere. I grabbed the phone. The director was shouting on the other end: "Xiao Lin! When's the power coming back? Why hasn't the backup generator on the second floor started?"
"I'll—I'll go check."
"Why are you out of breath?"
"I ran."
I hung up and stood in the duty room, breathing deep for ten or fifteen seconds. The phone screen locked. The dark closed back in, only the row of little indicator lights on the phone base glowing faint red.
The duty room window wasn't shut tight. Wind leaked through the crack, smelling of rain. I heard a creak from the third-floor hallway, like someone pushing a door open.
Then shutting it again.
I walked out with my phone. Nothing had changed in the corridor. All the doors were shut. The window at the far end had blown open again without me noticing, rain mist drifting in, the tiles glistening wet.
I stood at the landing and looked up. The third-floor hallway was dark, but I could just make out a thin line of faint light in 203's door gap. A dim yellow, like the nightlight she kept charging by her bed. I remembered she did have one. Plugged in. It shouldn't have been lit after the outage.
"Who's there?" I called.
No answer.
Wind slammed the window at the end of the third-floor hallway shut again. *Bang.*
I climbed to the second floor clutching my phone and checked the generator first. The electrical room was at the corner of the second-floor landing, door unlocked. I pushed in and shone the light. It was a diesel backup generator; Old Zhou had topped it off that afternoon. I yanked the starter cord. It sputtered a few times, then caught.
Three emergency lights came on in the second-floor hallway, cutting it into alternating bands of light and dark. A few old folks cracked their doors and peeked out. I talked them all back in.
With the generator handled, I went to the first floor. Four old folks lived there, all fine. Two were still playing cards by candlelight. I told them to watch the flame and headed back to the duty room.
Passing the first-floor stairwell, I glanced at the resident board on the wall.
The whiteboard held the names and room numbers of forty-eight residents, color-coded magnets by floor. I aimed the phone at it. The third-floor column.
303, Li Xiufen. 304, Zhao Guilan. 305, Wang Defa—in red pen behind it, in parentheses, "Picked up."
203, Zhang Xiuying.
One name. Forty-eight old folks, forty-eight names. Not one extra.
But that room, just now...
I squeezed my eyes shut.
No. I must have seen it wrong. Typhoon night, power out, dead flashlight, bad light. I'd been walking the halls half the night, eyes tired. Hallucination.
That thing by the window, same shape as the old lady—maybe it was one of those plastic dress forms she hung clothes on? Some old folks did keep those half-body hangers, with wig and old clothes on them. In bad light, the silhouette really could fool you.
And the one in the bed—that was the real Grandma Zhang. She'd been sleeping. She was sound asleep when I came in.
As for the face smearing into a blur when the "her" by the window turned around—that was the flashlight dying. The light scattering. Things look blurry in dim light.
As for the words she said. "There's one more."
"Xiao Lin?"
I whipped my head around.
Xiao Liu was coming down from the second floor, phone in hand: "What's up? You've been standing here spacing out."
"Nothing." I said. "Power back on?"
"Yeah, yeah, second and third floors are lit. First floor still tripped. I've got Old Zhao on it." Xiao Liu walked up and gave me a look. "You look terrible."
"Tired."
"Take a break then. I'll do another round on the third floor for you."
"No!"
The word came out so loud it startled me. Xiao Liu blinked, staring at me.
"I mean—" I softened my voice. "I already did the third floor. Everyone's asleep. Don't go disturb them. Just deal with the first-floor breaker."
Xiao Liu made an "oh" and turned to go. Two steps later he looked back: "Oh yeah, the window at the end of the third-floor hallway blew open again. When I went up to shut it, I heard someone talking inside 203. Is Grandma Zhang chatting with someone?"
"She... she talks in her sleep sometimes."
Xiao Liu nodded and left.
I stood in the stairwell. Sweat had soaked my work T-shirt, cold against my skin. The lights came on upstairs, tubes crackling as they powered up. Everything was back to normal—power restored, wind easing. Rain still fell, but it had lost its fury.
I walked slowly back to the duty room.
The instant noodle cup was still on its side, soup spread across the floor. I looked at the mess and didn't clean it up. I sat down and stared at nothing for five minutes. Then I picked up the duty room landline and called Old Zhou.
Three rings. Old Zhou picked up.
"Old Zhou, when you checked 203 this afternoon, what exactly did Grandma Zhang say?"
"Huh? Just that there's someone under her bed."
"What were her exact words?"
A few seconds of silence on the line. Old Zhou seemed to roll over in bed. "She said, 'There's a person under my bed, breathing.' I went and looked. Only a bedpan under there."
"What was her face like? Was she scared?"
"Scared? She just said it, plain as anything." Old Zhou yawned. "What's up? Something happen?"
"No. Just asking."
I hung up, leaned back in the chair, and stared at the fluorescent tube on the ceiling, now glowing. It hummed. A moth sat on the shade, wings fanning once.
At eleven that night, I did another round on the third floor.
The corridor lights were on this time. I opened every door and checked. 203's door was shut. I knocked three times. Grandma Zhang opened it. She wore the blue-and-white checkered pajamas, hair a little loose, eyes squinting like she'd just been woken.
"Grandma Zhang, just checking your window's shut."
"It's shut. Shut long ago." Her voice was thick with sleep, all nasal. "Xiao Lin, come in and look. All shut tight."
I stood at the door and looked in. Window shut. Curtains drawn. No water on the floor. The bed was smooth, the corners of the blanket tucked in. The wooden stool stood neatly under the windowsill.
Nothing.
"Alright. Sleep well."
She smiled at me and shut the door. In the instant it closed, I saw her feet through the gap—cotton slippers, dry as a bone.
I turned and headed back.
Passing 305, I slowed without meaning to. The padlock still hung on the knob. But through the door gap I could see the light was on inside. Grandpa Wang had been picked up by his son.
I stood at 305's door, hesitated a few seconds, then raised my hand and knocked.
The light inside went out.
I stared at the black line under the door, my heartbeat climbing. After maybe ten-odd seconds, light reappeared under the gap. The lamp was back on. Then the doorknob turned. The door opened.
Grandpa Wang stood in the doorway in his pajamas, face sour: "Who is it?"
"Grandpa—Grandpa Wang? Didn't your son pick you up this afternoon?"
"Picked up, so I can't come back?" Grandpa Wang frowned. "The typhoon got too bad, we turned around halfway. My son drove me back. What's it to you?"
"Nothing. Nothing. Sleep well."
He snorted and slammed the door.
I stood in the hallway and took a deep breath. Eight rooms on the third floor. Except for Grandpa Wang's 305 and the empty storage closet at the corner, I'd checked them all. The old folks were asleep. Their breathing leaked through the door gaps—steady, steady and reassuring.
But the Grandma Zhang lying in the bed in 203, her breathing had been steady too.
I thought of the "Grandma Zhang" by the window, turning, that blurred face, lips opening and closing like she was saying something.
"There's one more."
One more what? One more person? Or one more... her?
It was eleven-thirty by the time I got back to the duty room. Xiao Liu had fallen asleep at the desk. I shook him awake and told him to go sleep in the rest room bed. He rubbed his eyes and went.
I sat alone in the duty room, listening to the wind.
The typhoon hadn't passed. Rain rattled the windows. Next to the landline sat the duty log. I opened it to today's page, picked up a pen, and wrote a few words in the "Incidents" column.
I looked at what I'd written, then struck it out.
I'd written: "Typhoon night: figure appeared in Room 203, suspected hallucination."
Instead I wrote: "Window at the end of the third-floor hallway still won't seal. Maintenance needed."
I put the pen down and killed the light.
There was a fold-out cot in the duty room. I opened it and lay down, face to the ceiling. There was a water stain on the ceiling, shaped like a face in profile. I'd never noticed before. Tonight I couldn't unsee it.
I closed my eyes.
Sleep came fast—I'd been up half the night, my body was wrecked. In the haze I heard footsteps. Light. Coming from the third floor. One. Two. Three. Then they stopped.
I didn't open my eyes.
Then a softer sound, right outside the duty room door. Like a fingernail dragging across the wood.
*Scratch.*
I snapped upright.
The duty room door was shut. No light under the gap—the corridor lights must have been off. I stared at the door for a long time. Nothing.
Six the next morning. Daylight.
The typhoon was gone. Rain had stopped. A sliver of gray-white light sat on the horizon. The yard was full of broken branches and standing water. One of the locust trees had lost a big limb, crashed into the flower bed.
Old Zhou came for his shift just as I was getting ready to leave.
"How was last night?" he asked, shrugging off his jacket.
"Fine."
"That old lady in 203 didn't act up again, did she?"
"No."
I slung my canvas bag over my shoulder and headed out. At the door I stopped. I turned: "Old Zhou, the bed in 203—does it have railings?"
"Yeah. Why?"
"Nothing. Last night I thought I saw the railing wasn't up. What if she rolled over and fell out? Raise it for her when you get a chance."
Old Zhou nodded.
I walked out the gate. The air was wet, puddles everywhere. A few steps on, I patted my pocket. My phone. Left it in the duty room.
I went back.
The gate wasn't locked. Old Zhou was mopping the first-floor corridor. He looked up, surprised: "Forgot something?"
"My phone."
I went up to the duty room. Passing the first-floor stairwell, I looked at the resident board again.
Forty-eight names.
But after counting, I stopped. I stood in front of the board and counted again, start to finish.
Forty-seven.
Only forty-seven names on the board.
I counted again. In the third-floor column, 203's name—Zhang Xiuying—was gone. I stepped back, blinked, looked again. Zhang Xiuying still wasn't there.
Old Wang came down the first-floor corridor: "Xiao Lin? You're still here?"
"Old Wang, what about Grandma Zhang in 203?"
"Zhang Xiuying? She passed away last night. You didn't know?"
I stood in the stairwell, hand on the wall. A vein at the back of my head was jumping.
"When?"
"Around three in the morning. Xiao Liu found her. You were asleep by then? He said you looked exhausted, so he didn't wake you. Called 120 right away. She was already gone by the time they got here. Heart attack, they said." Old Wang sighed. "Eighty-something. Low pressure from the typhoon. Her heart couldn't take it."
"She... she was perfectly fine last night."
"Who knows. Old folks go in an instant."
I turned slowly and looked up the third-floor hallway. The window at the far end was shut tight today. Daylight came through it, laying a long rectangle of light across the tiles.
Someone was coming down the stairs from the third floor.
Grandma Zhang.
She wore the blue-and-white checkered pajamas from yesterday, hair combed neat. She walked slowly, one step at a time, one hand on the railing, the other tucked into her pajama pocket.
I watched her come down.
She saw me too, and smiled.
"Xiao Lin, you haven't left yet?"
She said.
I stood at the foot of the stairs, my back against the wall. The fluorescent tube in the first-floor hallway hummed above my head. Old Wang was saying something next to me. I couldn't hear him.
I watched Grandma Zhang step off the last stair, turn, and walk slowly into Room 203.
The door closed.
"Old Wang," I said, my voice hoarse, "what time did you say Grandma Zhang passed?"
"Around three."
"What time?"
"Around three. I don't remember the exact time. Ask Xiao Liu."
I nodded.
I turned and walked two steps toward the door. Then I stopped. I pulled a pen from my pocket—that black ballpoint from the duty room. I don't even remember shoving it in there.
I walked back to the board.
In the third-floor, 203 column, I wrote three characters.
Zhang Xiuying.
I set the pen in the tray under the board, turned, and left.
Out the gate. The sun had come out, glaring off the puddles. I looked down at my hand. On the web of my right thumb, a crescent-shaped red mark, like someone had pinched it with a fingernail.
When did I get that?
I don't know.
Walking home, I stopped at the breakfast stall, bought two baozi and a cup of soy milk, and ate standing at the curb, waiting for the bus. The wind was still cool. I zipped my jacket all the way up.
The bus came. I got on and took a seat by the window.
As it pulled away, I looked out the window at the nursing home's red brick building. The window of 203 on the third floor stood half open, the curtain blowing out like a white flag.
Someone was standing beside the curtain.
Blue-and-white checkered pajamas, hair pinned up, facing the window, like she was watching something.
I looked down and stuffed the last bite of baozi into my mouth.
There's one more.
Forty-eight old folks. Forty-eight names. The one who's extra... who is it?