If you haven’t heard of the Four Beeps, then you might want to stop reading. I wish I could go back to when I had no idea what it was, or even to when I didn’t really believe it was anything more than coincidence. That being said, here’s my story, for as long as I have left.
I first heard about the Four Beeps from my Aunt Gigi. She worked in a nursing home and mainly provided care for people in hospice. She would be borrowed to other nursing homes from time to time when a facility needed staffing help. She was very well known in the medical community, and is a fantastic person in general.
Her story begins back in late July of ‘16. She had been sent up to Saint Josephine’s Retirement Home for a week and some change. It was her first time at that location, but she was already familiar with quite a few of the staff. Her pal Jody, a massive, 6’4” hulk of a man with the sweetest soul in the world was tasked with showing her the ropes. It was an uneventful training shift. She knew more than him anyways, but was polite enough to let him feel like he was showing her new things. And, again, since this was a new facility, she didn’t want to come in all high and mighty like she knew everything and owned the place.
The fifth night she was there, Friday the 29th, she was in a room with Ms. Simmons. She was in her late 90’s, but still sharp as a tack with a sense of humor that could weather any storm. She had jokes about everything that most people wouldn’t, or shouldn’t, laugh at. Her late husbands. Her old pets. She missed each and every one of them, but decided not to let grief cast its shadow for too long. So humor was her thing. She had my Aunt in stitches that night. For almost an hour straight, Gigi could barely catch her breath. Ms. Simmons was relentless. Everything out of her mouth was funnier than the last.
Suddenly, she went quiet. There were a few moments of near silence as Gigi composed herself and dried her eyes. The ripples of a few chuckles still echoing from her. She looked over at Ms. Simmons and saw her staring off in the distance. As coherent as she ever was, she said softly “Did you hear that?”
Gigi asked “Did I hear what? How you almost made me wet myself laughing?”
But Ms. Simmons just slowly looked over at Gigi and said “The Four Beeps just now. What was that?” Gigi glanced around the room. Her television was off. The radio hadn’t been used in ages and just served as a clock on the bedside table. She hadn’t heard any beeps, but still tried to think of what could have made the noise. She stood and walked over to the bathroom, just to check and see if there was some device that could have beeped. Maybe a smoke alarm from the hall? Ms. Simmons had no cell phone, and Gigi only carried her walkie-talkie while on duty, and it never made any beeps, just squawks.
“Ms. Simmons, I didn’t hear anything. You said it was four beeps? Like a car horn? Or something more high pitched?” Gigi turned around and saw Ms. Simmons’ head slumped down, her chin resting on her chest. Gigi’s breath caught in her chest. She didn’t need to check. She had been in this line of work for long enough to know that she was gone. She had a DNR, so doing CPR could land her in a lot of trouble.
The job of contacting family and services took the forefront of her thoughts, and the ‘Four Beeps’ were almost immediately forgotten.
Until two nights later.
It was like wildfire. Report after report of residents hearing ‘Four Beeps’. Just once, not repeating. There was no panic or worry, just a vague curiosity of where the beeps came from and if anyone else had heard them. Then they started dying. In order of first report to last report, they lost fourteen residents in less than two hours.
Cliff Davies, 89 years old, poked his head out of his room and asked Tracy, another nurse, if she made those ‘Four Beeps’. Tracy, confused of course, said no. Cliff went back to his room, laid on his bed and a blood vessel burst in his lung, killing him.
Jill Freeman, 92, was being wheeled back to her room after a thrilling game of bridge, when she asked James, a young nurse who had barely been there a month, what that beeping was. He asked ‘What beeping?’. Jill said, ‘Those ‘Four Beeps’ just now.’ and she was dead before they rounded the corner. Heart failure. She didn’t make a sound.
Boston Emmett, 87, already showing some signs of dementia, shuffled past Jody and laughing out loud said “Beep beep beep beep!”, then went to his bathroom, slipped on some water that had leaked from the toilet, struck the back of his neck on the sink, severing his spinal column, and slowly suffocated on the floor.
Gigi couldn’t remember every single one who died that night, and most of them were things that just happen at that age anyways. Boston’s was the worst. The rest of them were fairly quick and painless. But then, the night claimed one more victim.
Ambulances had been in and out nonstop to to take away the bodies. Their on site morgue could only hold ten. Gigi and James were stripping one of the beds after the body had been taken away. She remembered seeing a sheen of sweat on James’ forehead, and said something to calm him. Something ‘generic’ she said. She wishes she had thought of something a little more profound or thought out. Something like how death isn’t all bad. It’s an ending, sure, but maybe the beginning of something else. Either way, she doesn’t remember exactly what she said except that it was ‘something I wouldn’t want to hear in a time like that’.
As they were pulling fresh linens onto the bed, James stood up straight and said softly “How many beeps did they say they heard?” Gigi recalled everyone saying four. She tried not to dwell on it, and said something like “Oh, I don’t know, four?” dismissing it as coincidence. James didn’t move, he just said “Oh fuck.” and had a pulmonary embolism, dropping to the floor dead. He was 26.
As much as my Aunt had seen over the years, that was what finally spooked her enough to take some time off, go back to school and get a degree in art. She now teaches art at a local community college and loves every minute of it. She once said that moving from ‘guiding people to the end of life’ she now ‘guides people to the next part of their life and helps them see the beauty in all of it, before it’s too late’.
As much as the night had bothered her, she still took some advice from Ms. Simmons’ and found the humor in almost everything. Usually after a silly joke or even a tidbit of sage advice, Gigi would say “Beep beep!” and pinch me. Only the two beeps. Never four.
That was her story. My story began yesterday while driving home from the store. I was listening to a podcast, drivers side window cracked for a bit of cool air. I was in a good mood without a care in the world. And then…
BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP
I almost swerved off the road.
As much as I remember Gigi’s story about the beeps, she never did a fair representation of the sound. Literally she would just say the word ‘beep’ without inflection or pitch. Just ‘beep’. Hearing the beeps, I wanted to think it had come from the podcast, that it was something technical on their end and that was that. But of all the voices on the podcast, three of which were known to point out any technical gaffe so they could roast the others, none of them even acknowledged it. I managed to keep driving, my eyes on the road and darting around the car to try and figure out where the beeps came from.
The window was open; did it come from outside? No, the sound definitely came from inside the car, it had been too clear.
Was it my dash mount for my phone? It beeps if I turn the car off without removing my phone first. No, it makes a completely different sounding beep. And not four.
Was it the car itself? The display didn’t show any warnings. My tank was half full, the check engine light absent. And my car makes the common soft ‘diiing’ when giving a notification anyways.
I could feel myself spiraling. I didn’t know what to do. I was only a few blocks away from my house, just a single stop light away. I decided to pull over in front of a house on the right. I could see the stop light just seven houses down from me. It was only three more streets and I’d be home. But I couldn’t make myself keep driving. I couldn’t make myself ignore it.
I turned my attention back to the podcast, their voices just a dull noise in the background. I reached up to my phone and hit the 15 second rewind button. I let it play on. No beeps. I tapped the button twice, taking it back 30 seconds and let it play on. Nothing.
I did 45 seconds, a minute. I let it go back 2 full minutes until I knew it would have beeped if it had come from the podcast. Nothing but the voices of the hosts and guests.
I gripped the steering wheel, checked my mirrors, took a deep breath, then started driving towards the stoplight ahead. It was all in my head. I felt fine. I was fine. Everything was fine. I just needed to get home, get the groceries put away, pour a nice glass of wine and just chill the hell out.
The light turned green before I got there. Nice, I thought. I hate having to stop at lights. As I approached the light, that had been green for at least ten seconds, a dump truck with smoke billowing out of the hood, flames licking out of the grille, barreled through the light, demolishing the pole, taking out the power line, hopping the curb and plowing straight into a house to my right.
In front of me, the power lines came crashing down onto an empty intersection. An intersection I would have been in the middle of, had I not stopped to search for the Beeps.
I put my hand to my forehead and felt a thin sheen of sweat. I lowered my hand to my heart and waited for the inevitable. I checked the rear view mirror, nothing behind me. I put it in reverse and backed into the closest driveway to my right, spun the wheel and decided to take the longer way home and avoid the carnage I had just witnessed. I glanced to my left at the spot that I had just recently been parked in, wondering if that little bit of curb in front of the random house had somehow saved my life.
Then I glanced to the right across from the house and saw the sprawling field of tombstones of a cemetery.
I said to myself “Probably not.” then gave my horn a quick double-tap and drove home.
I’m sitting here with half a bottle of wine, a quiet house, and everything that takes batteries or needs to be plugged in without power, besides this laptop and the battery will soon be drained, but all sounds are silenced.
I heard the Four Beeps.
Now all I can do is wait.
I’ll keep you posted.