Morgue

Natalie Evans focused on nothing but her work, drowning out even the sounds of other life outside the office. This intense focus helped her forget that she was three floors below ground level, surrounding by dead bodies. Natalie worked at the City Morgue as an assistant to the coroner while she herself was in pathology school. Right now she was comfortably curled up in the large chair in the office adjoining the autopsy room, working on organizing some of the coroner’s latest reports. The office was much more comfortable than the autopsy room, with warm carpets and personality displayed in pictures lining three of the walls. The third was glass and looked into the cold autopsy room, with its hard tile floors and icy freezers. Natalie was slowly growing accustomed to the morgue, though in her first days she refused to be alone and always promptly left before sunset. Now, she didn’t mind staying late into the night, though she didn’t like to do so alone. Soon she would be like the coroner, who felt so comfortable in the building even in the dead of night, alone, that he would sometimes sleep overnight, if he had a lot of work to do. Most of the other employees thought he was slightly insane.

A quick rap on the open door to the office brought Natalie’s attention back to her surroundings as she signed her name on yet another report file.

“Still working?” It was Mike, the other assistant assigned to this shift. Natalie nodded.

“I’m so backed up, I’m not sure if I’ll ever finish.” She said with a sign, tossing her pen on the stack of files defeated.

“Want me to stay and help?” He asked politely, though Natalie knew he would rather leave. He had a girlfriend waiting at home; compared to the nada she had waiting for her tonight. Her boyfriend was on a business trip, so she figured she could give Mike a break for once, letting him have some fun at least.

“No, that’s fine.” She said. “It’s still only eight o’clock; you can probably still see Cheryl…” She trailed off suggestively. Mike blushed, murmured his thanks and a farewell, and left the office. Natalie chuckled and returned to her work.

It was nearly midnight before she was interrupted again. Footsteps echoed outside the office, in the dark hallway beyond the autopsy room. She looked up, surprised by both the hour and the fact that someone else was working as late as she was. But she thought no more of it and returned to her papers, squinting at the words that in her increasing exhaustion were beginning to blur together. Not fifteen minutes passed before more footsteps sounded from the hall, this time accompanied by soft, unintelligible voices. Natalie was disturbed this time, though she did not know exactly why. She rose from her seat, crossing the tile floor, and pulling the door open.

“Hello?” She called into the shadows. There was no verbal answer, though the footsteps moved away from her, towards the stairwell. Natalie followed, letting the door to the morgue swing shut with an ominous click. She was halfway up the first flight of stairs before she realized that she had moved from the safety of the morgue. But she didn’t stop or turn back, like her survival instincts told her to do. A strange compulsion had taken hold of her.

Three flights later she emerged from the stairwell onto the ground floor lobby.

“Hello?” She called again, still with no answer. She laughed softly at her own foolishness, turning her back on the above ground world and heading back into the sub-terranian world of shadows and dead bodies. She was searching for her key card in her lab coat pockets when a scuffle from her right made her look up. She screamed.

A bone white face stood out from the darkness. It’s staring black eyes pierced her, it’s mouth open in a silent scream as terrified as her own.

And in the next second, it was gone. Natalie’s scream faded from even echoes and the world seemed to right itself. She was still terrified beyond all belief, shaking so hard she could barely put the key card into the slot and open the door. She staggered across the autopsy room, nearly collapsing on the table, and into the office. She was nearly crying as she rummaged through her purse, searching desperately for her phone. She had to call her boyfriend, it didn’t matter that he was thousands of miles away. She wasn’t thinking very clearly; the knowledge that she was losing her mind made her quite frantic. She found the phone with a sigh of relief.

It was dead.

She shook her head in self-loathing. She must have forgotten to charge it that morning, on top of slowly going insane, hearing things…seeing things…

She reached for the landline with an unsteady hand.

It too was dead.

Natalie really began to panic now. It used to be a simple answer; she was going insane, probably suffering some sort of mental breakdown from the stress she was under. She had been working late these past few weeks, maybe she just need to get some sleep. But both phone lines being out raised a more terrifying possibility. Maybe this was really happening. She sunk into the chair, softly crying. She was even hearing things again. These noises began to rise in volume and she covered her ears, begging the sounds to go away. But they didn’t and after a few more minutes she began to understand what the sounds were. She looked to the freezers in horror. Someone- something- was scratching desperately at the inside of a freezer door.

The same sick fascination took hold of her and she crept forwards, unable to look away. The freezer door handle tilted, as if touched by an unseen force, and the door began to open. The tray slid out of the icy darkness, cold fog spilling onto the floor. There was a body on the tray.

She was young, only about sixteen. Her skin was ghost white and marred by thin white scars. A thick bloody line encircled her neck; her throat had been slit. As Natalie watched her eyes opened, revealing pools of bluish gray, with no discernable pupils or even irises. Natalie couldn’t even scream she was paralyzed. Her survival instincts kicked in and she tried to run but she tripped halfway across the room, landing hard on her knees. The girl from the tray was suddenly standing on surprisingly steady feet, moving slowly towards Natalie. She was suddenly behind her, brushing Natalie’s hair behind her ear. The girl bent down, whispering in her ear.

“Mary Harrington. Joshua Starveling.” She whispered in a high voice. The room swam before Natalie’s eyes, darkness starting at the edges and moving in until she was completely blind and felt no more.

She didn’t wake up until eight the next morning, when Mike came in for work.

“Jeez, nice place to fall asleep, Natalie. Are you okay?” She sat up slowly, cracking her neck.

“Yeah I think so. Just a little stiff.” She abruptly recalled the events of the night before, looking towards the last freezer, which was now closed tightly. She ran over to it, pulling open the door. Her heart gave a jolt when she rolled out the tray. It was the girl from the night before, looking perfectly dead. She didn’t move. Natalie slammed the door shut, running into the office, rummaging through the files she had been working on last night.

“What’s going on, Nat?” Mike asked, following her into the office. Natalie didn’t answer. She had found what she had been looking for. A manila folder, MARY HARRINGTON scribed neatly on the tab. She flipped through it, noticing it was Mike’s handwriting.

“Mike, humor me.” She said suddenly, looking at her confused co-worker. “Does the name Joshua Starveling mean anything to you?” He looked puzzled for a moment but understanding suddenly lighted on his face.

“Yeah, he’s a person of interest in the Harrington case. Why are you so interested all of a sudden?” Natalie frowned.

“I think she came to life last night and told me.” She whispered.

“What?” Mike didn’t hear her. Natalie shook her head.

“It’s nothing. Just a hunch. Can you tell the cops to look into him further when they pick up the report?” Mike shrugged.

“Sure, Nat. I’ll tell them. There actually was a bit of evidence in the autopsy that suggested he was the killer. Nice catch.” Mike gave her the thumbs up as he backed out of the office. “Hey, I’m going for coffee. Want something? Or do you just want to head home and sleep?” She smiled wryly.

“I think I need to get some sleep.” Mike obviously thought nothing was unusual, she realized as he walked out of the morgue. Maybe that was best for everyone, Natalie thought. Mary’s murder would be solved, she was sure of it, and she would never mention the incident again. It was probably just some amazingly insightful and odd dream. Yes, she would never mention it again.

This became harder when she opened the freezer door one last time to just look at the body and noticed something she hadn’t seen before.

There were scratch marks on the inside of the door.

Two weeks later the news dominating the front page of the paper was the high profile arrest of Joshua Starveling, the man who had murdered at least five girls, the latest of which was Mary Harrington.

That night, around midnight, Natalie heard footsteps in the hallway.