The Morgue is my Sanctum

Interns are the least experienced...

It was every once in a while Violet mingled with the dead. The experience was not uninteresting in the least. Every so often a new resident would check into the Spring Gates Morgue, the very cause of their death sometimes dramatically apparant. A few months ago a woman came in on the gourney, face scrunched, mouth stretched more wide than it should be, her hands cringing and bent toward her mid-section where the huge gaping gorey hole stood rather clear for all to see. The last second of pain the corpse had felt before falling into everlasting rest must have been extreme. The kind of pain you wouldn't want to feel for even one second, the sort you'd wish death upon yourself willingly before considering the aftermath and seeing the grotesque bleeding wound and scraps of flesh left behind from the blow.

 

She was used to this kind of thing. You had to be if you were to do this type of job. Sad to say the innocent visitors who had received a glimpse of the corpse ended up being treated at the local psychiatric center, still effectively tortured with that vivid moment replaying itself in their heads.

 

Who can say what will come next behind those two white swinging doors? Preparation is vital for this work if your not to end up somewhere getting treatment at the local Spring Gate Institution. The first thing you must have is an interest in the subject of death and decomposition. Watch a few mortuary videos where they disect the corpse, do Y incisions, organ weighing, blood draining and all that comes with it - it's a start. It's not pretty to those who are nauseous and weak of heart. But to one who views it with the eyes of science, it is a thing of morbid beauty.

 

Putting on the white gloves and overcoat, Violet took a step back to observe the corpse. He looked about 40-ish with graying sprouts developing within his hair. His blue eyes were open, limbs in the last stages of rigor mortis, she noticed, as she tried to lift the arm to examine the right under-side of the chest where a large postmortem stain, or decomposing blood, developed as the man was lying on his back at the time of death.

 

Finishing her review of the body, it was time to check the insides. The next step was the internal examination. On a small table beside the gourney lay the disecting instruments. A scalpel would be used to do the simple Y incision, starting from both shoulders and extending to the navel. In studying medical examination, it was vital to check all areas of the body starting externally to make sure the cause of death is not too obvious. In this field, it usually isn't. Though back in her college days, it was fun to think of ridiculous ideas of what the real cause of death could be. During anatomy class, Violet would draw cadavers and make up fake illnesses at which the fist of death crushed the unfortunates. One time, she remembered, she had made up a disease called zombieitis, which at first seems obvious that the dead patient was a zombie. But in her journal this meant the patient had diseased organs that flared up and developed human-like features such as mouths and eyes and would eat the corpse up from the inside. And after they finished their rotted meal, they would grow legs and arms and escape from the morgue, preying on living humans.

 

Smirking at the memory, Violet continued with the incision, cutting up near the left shoulder first. Of course there was no blood visible. All of it had drained down to his back. The flesh split apart, and as she cut, she thanked the dead man mentally for shaving his own chest while he was alive, so she didn't have to do it. Of all the things that really grossed her out...dead body hair was one of them. 

 

Finishing, she used her thumb and forefinger to lift the skin flaps, releasing the moist and putrid stench of rot, and revealing bone, muscle, and intestines. An hour passed as she weighed each organ in the hanging pan near the waste sink. All seemed normal until she weighed the stomach. It was several ounces too heavy. Nothing looked unordinary from the naked eye, and any food this man may have eaten had already been vomited up - which was noted in the reports.

 

For medical notation, Violet set the abdominal organ carefully on the disecting tray and with a cleansed scalpel, proceeded to cut into it. Though cutting into it seemed to be near impossible. No matter how much pressure she leaned into it to get inside, nothing was breaking. This was interesting. Something must be in there, something that provoked the vomiting and contributed to the blue-eyed man's death, she thought.

 

Upon this moment, she turned her head to looked at the body behind her and noticed the man's eyes had closed shut. Hesitantly, she put down the scalpel next to the uncooperative organ and walked over to where Mister Blue Eyes lay. Yes, she wasn't hallucinating from dead body odor, his eyes were closed. Shaking her head, she imagined that he would regain consciousness, sit straight up and tell her to 'put his organs back now so he could go home and let the dog out before his wife gets home from work.'

 

For her own mind's sake, she took his wrist and felt for a "pulse." Sighing, she let go and set the arm back down on the table. "Sorry Blue Eyes, you're too late. Wife's going to have to clean up the dog crap herself." She shrugged as if he was listening and about to come back with a snarky comment telling her to 'screw off, has she no respect for the dead?' She turned away a second later and went back to figuring out what to do with this guy's stomach. It seemed silly, but she thought of using the plyers. Now wouldn't that be something for the books? How could she tell her colleagues she used that instrument just to open up an organ? It was reasonable enough for this situation, even though plyers are usually reserved for cracking  ribcages.

 

Still, the examination must go on. She had a duty to this man's family. She had to provide an answer for them, using any means necessary. Grabbing for the plyers, she walked over to the sink to rinse them off from their last task. Moving over to the table where the stomach lay, she thought herself crazy for doing this, but proceeded with the disection. The scissor-like metal plyers delved straight into the stomach as she pushed the handle bars together, making a cracking sound. As soon as she heard this, she stopped and set the plyers next to the sink. Looking closely, she noticed a few metal looking shards poking out from the organ. Using her hands this time, she gently peeled back the outer lining of the stomach.

 

This was something else.

 

Pulling the entire lining away, right there, taking up a huge amount of space, lay a large metal cross. Now she knew this was why the man had experienced violent vomiting episodes. But the question was, how the hell did this large object get in here? It would have been impossible to swallow considering its bulky size. Or - was it? Suddenly, she remembered she had not yet checked the man's esophagus yet. Turning to go back to the corpse, again she saw the eyes had returned to being open as they were when he had first come into the morgue. If this was happening due to rigor mortis, how come none of his other limbs had moved? Just his eyelids?

During all her other examinations in the past, she had never experienced this before - why, all of sudden di-

 

It grabbed her wrist.

 

Screaming, she buckled to the ground, dragging the corpse off the table and onto the floor with her. It fell with a loud "smack" as the flesh made contact with the hard tile floor. She was breathing hard, she was shaking, trying to catch her breath which had sped up from to increased blood flow due to panic.

 

She looked over to where the naked corpse lay beside her. It was just a reflex, Violet old girl, a reflex. Calm yourself. Trying with all her might to stand, she couldn't. Her body was still in a state of shock her muscles were weakened. Blue Eyes was still gripping her wrist, but she found just enough strength to retract from it, and a few minutes later, she found the strength to get up.

 

Looking down at the body which was face down against the floor, she knew there was no way she could lift him to get him back on the table again. Unfortunately she would have to wait until morning since she was the only one at the morgue at nearly 2:30 a.m. All she could do now was finish her examination with the stomach organ, with that damn cross thing in it. Slowly walking over, she continued trying to take the cross out of the encasement. It wouldn't budge. Now what? She sighed, turning around again.

 

Blue Eyes was lying on the table.

 

She backed off, gasping for breath. Backing away so that her arm hit the counter, knocking the plyers into the sink. No, he wasn't on the table. He couldn't be. She didn't put him back. She remembered she was going to wait until tomorrow to do that.

 

It was then she noticed to her left, the cross. It wasn't there. She looked across the way. It was now lying on the man's chest. She heard a whisper. Well, she thought she did. It sounded as if it was right next to her ear. She felt a touch on the skin of her neck - no that was nerves. Her whole world was shattering right now. She knew right then and there she was going crazy. Now her lips where moving, but nothing was coming out. She was mouthing something. Lip-reading being one of her talents, she immediately put together, even through sheer terror, the supposed whisper she heard. It was something like, 'I will not leave. I do not belong out there. The morgue is my sanctum.'

 

What the hell does that mean? Did the fall mess up her mind? She couldn't move now, but that corpse across the way sure could. He sat up, holding the cross to his lips. This man was no holy man. He was some kind of demon. He had to be. There was no other explanation. Because, of course, there was no such things as - zombies. 

 

She hadn't gotten a chance to look at the esophagus, but she knew that cross hadn't been swallowed, it had been shoved down his throat. It was with great horror when she finally deciphered the rest...

 

'I will not leave...'

 

Blue Eyes turned his head.

 

She stopped breathing.

 

'And neither will you.' It mouthed.

 

And lunged at her.

 

 

 

Author's Note

Inspiration from Dr.G. :) Please ignore the pinkness in the first couple paragraphs. I have no idea how that happened or how to remove it.

Reviews

[Sassafrax]

AWESOME!!! ok, for reasons, is the title, the morgue is my sanctum. it sounds cool like Redrum. i'd like to hear more zombies say that.
second, there was good and accurate description. you can cut a few sentences about surgery, but that's ok. The pacing was good, and that's rare. a lot of stories have the character in a meadow one second and the page, they're in Antartica because his girlfriend has been kidnapped and her body has been found there and he's suspecting that his inner demon killed her... (???) But yea, pacing good.
Some improvements you can make is that when Violet is reminded of her zombie idea,i can already predict what's going to happen. Also, i keep forgetting her name, and that might be because you only mention it six times in 4 pages. you you can replace "she" with Violet sometimes.
But overall, well done mate