My name is Kaitlyn Smith. I’m 23 years old, and I used to work as a nurse in a hospital just south of London. As a nurse, you would see terrifying things almost every week. I had worked there for 5 years, and I’ve seen it all. Patients with dislocated jaws, missing eyes, and the like. When you work in the medical field, you’ll see some crazy stuff.
Nothing, however, could prepare me for the case of a patient named Jack Tyler.
According to his file, and notes from his pediatrician, Jack was 6 year old boy. He was a smart kid, who was kind and caring. He made good grades, and always used his best manners.
When he came in, his face was blue, and he was coughing up blood. There was a massive bulge in his throat. Me and 4 other nurses took his stretcher and practically threw him down the hall, barely gripping the handles on the stretcher.
We reached a vacant room at the end of the hall, and wheeled him in. He was in critical condition, coughing, crying, and bleeding from the mouth.
I nearly jumped back when I saw the bulge in his throat twitch violently.
Sweat started pouring down my face, panic rushed over. Never before had I seen something so gut-wrenching as a moving mass caught in a patient’s throat, and the throat of a child, no less. I called for a doctor, and waited patiently. My best hope at the time, although it wouldn’t be pretty, was that we could use an invasive procedure, I.E, long tweezers, to go in and pull the object out. It twitched again, then again. The foreign object started thrashing in his throat violently, causing the patient to spit up a thick, dark-red substance, which I assumed was coagulated blood. Any thoughts of extraction without harming the patient fled my mind. My mind was spinning, and I suddenly lost control. Acting purely on instinct, I grabbed the writhing mass in his throat.
I held in a yelp of pain as I felt a sharp, needle-like object pierce my finger. I pulled my hand back. Protruding from the bulge in his throat was a large, sharp stinger. The thing in his throat has just stung me. I looked on in horrified confusion as the mass dug deeper into his throat, causing the bulge to disappear. I gagged, my heart racing. His coughing stopped, and he spit up a thick glob of blood before going limp.
It was at this point the doctor entered the room. The boy’s eyes had closed, and the doctor checked for a pulse. He got none. The boy had died, or so we thought. The doctor shook his head, and ordered me to grab a defibrillator. I turned to grab it.
When I turned around, I suddenly heard a gasp, and then an inhuman shriek from behind me.
I turned to see Jack, sitting upright in bed, looking directly at me. His gaze was cold, lifeless, and unblinking. It genuinely terrified me. He coughed and coughed, before coughing up a large, ridged stone. The stone, or what I thought the stone was, started to uncurl. It was a large insect, similar in design to an isopod or one of those bugs that rolls up into a ball. It was red in color, and drenched in thick, crimson blood. It scuttled fast around the boy, before he coughed up another, then another. A nurse tried to grab one, only to be stung.
At this point, we had to leave the room, in fear of a parasitic infection. I didn’t hesitate. We locked the door behind us, and ran off to the front desk. I got on the intercom, and explained that a parasitic infection had broken out on the ground floor. I tried to remain calm, but even a deaf man could hear the fear in my shaky voice.
I told his mother not to worry, and that her boy was safe, but since her son was the cause of the parasitic infection, she had to remain in the building, as did anybody who had maintained any physical contact with him.
The doctor and I ran to the supply closet, where they kept the biohazard suits. We slipped into the suits. There were only enough for two, so the other 5 nurses stayed to care for the woman.
I walked down the hallway, my breath shaking and my whole body running with cold blood. My mind was curdling with fear and disgust. I slowly crept into Jack’s room, my shaky breath fogging the transparent viewport of the suit. To my horror, Jack was still vomiting the parasites, which now coated the floor. I hastily grabbed a pair of tongs from a bag of medical supplies, and grabbed one of the writhing parasites. The parasites were easily 4 inches long, and about an inch in diameter. I put it into a glass jar and sealed the lid. It crawled around inside. I grabbed the boy sitting on the bed, and felt his pulse. His body was stiff, cold, and had no pulse. For all intents and purposes, he should have been dead, and he was.
But, he was still sitting up, vomiting buckets of thick, coagulated blood, and 6 or so parasites with each heaving of his chest. It was disgusting to look at. I wanted to cry. Not only was it horrible to watch a young boy die like this, but I also have crippling entemophobia. The parasites seemed to be wandering around the room, idly. I decided it was best to get out of the room. I flung the door open, but to my horror, a scream rang out from the next room over.
I darted to the room, tripping and falling on my face. When I stood up, I flung the door open to see a teenage girl, crying in a corner, watching who I assumed was her mother in bed. She had been here a week, due to a bout of E. Coli.
Parasites were coming out of the vent, dropping onto her, and crawling into her unconscious mouth.
I gagged at the sight, and grabbed one of the bugs out of her throat, throwing it across the room. It’s exoskeleton cracked, but it lived. It started toward the girl. I stepped on the bug with a fleshy crunch, killing it. Taking the girl’s hand, I nearly threw her out of the room and yelled at her through the suit to get out of the hospital. I also told her to tell the blonde lady in the front that her son wasn’t going to make it, and that the parasites are spreading across the hospital.
By this point, the doctor had taken his cigarette lighter, and a few inhalers to use as flamethrowers.
Our goal was to get to the fire exit on the other side of the building.
At a turn, there was a hallway swarming with the parasites, but the fire exit door was right there.
The doctor used his homemade flamethrower to set the parasites ablaze, but he inadvertently set his own suit on fire, too. The sprinklers came on, and doused the flames. He was left with a hole in his suit. Despite his efforts, a parasite got in, and stung his neck, causing him to scream. The insect forced its way down his open mouth and into his neck.
I tried to grab it with the tongs, but it wriggled down his throat. I did the only thing I could do, grab the inhalers, and pour the liquid all over him, and in his mouth. Then, I lit it ablaze, and started crying. I screamed and tried to speed up his mercy-killing with the chair, which I feel only worsened his suffering. I grabbed his head and yanked hard, breaking his neck.
I decided it would be best to leave him. I ran and ran, not even bothering with any of the other patients. Once I made it to the exit, I flung the door open. I checked my suit for any parasites. When I found one, I grabbed it and squished it under my foot. Afterward, I slammed the door shut on the army of parasites crawling down the hall. Tears were streaming down my face.
I got in my car, and floored it all the way home, still in my suit.
When I got home, I took my suit off on the front lawn, and threw it in the street. I grabbed a tank of gas from my garage, and doused the suit in it before lighting it with a match.
I stood for a second, my whole body covered with sweat and tears. Then, I sank to my knees, and began sobbing deeply.
Three days later, the hospital, which had been locked off, was intentionally set ablaze by a team from the CDC.
To this day, nobody knows where these parasites came from. All I know is that I’ll never set foot in a hospital again. I have since quit my job, and spiraled down into a deep depression. I never want to leave my home again. I have a deep, unnerving fear that if I ever leave, I’ll see those damn bugs again. Every time I eat, I always check my food thoroughly. It’s a childish fear I have, I feel like, but I’d rather be safe than sorry…