PART 1
It’s been 6 months since I started working the graveyard shift at my local hospital. It’s the kind of place that you just forget existed. It was built in the 50s and had to be repaired every year the paint had started to peel off in layers. Thus, in general the building wasn’t exactly appealing. Inside, the hospital was clean and smelled strongly of bleach that has been used to clean it thousands of times. It had a plain white wall and checkered floorings.
It was usually run by 20 staff members, 10 nurses, 2 janitors, 1 receptionist and 7 doctors. I had worked at multiple other hospitals so I was no rookie to the job but the hospital insisted on pairing me with Rick, a man in his 40s who had worked the graveyard shift for over 15 years. He had a good start on a pot belly, a bald spot that he always covers with a hat of some sort and a greying moustache.
For the first 5 months nothing seemed to be out of the ordinary. The only things that were bizarre were the occasional suspicious “accidents” like how a doctor accidentally cut one of her fingers off while performing the fetal abduction on a pregnant woman. At the time I questioned the story but Rick whispered to me that it was better this way for all of us and I haven’t thought much of it since.
The real incidents started last month, a woman had arrived at our hospital close to 2 am and she claimed that she had eaten something and felt unaware ever since she ate it. I am a gastroenterologist which means that I specialise in treating stomach related issues and was assigned to help her. The woman who was probably in her late 20s looked healthy. She had blonde hair, sparkling blue eyes and was in good shape. She described the symptoms that she was experiencing violent stomach aches, gurgling stomach and feeling bloated. She wasn’t sure what she had eaten but she was sure that her problem was caused by it.
After hearing her describe what she was experiencing I concluded that her stomach ache wasn’t caused by the usual reasons such as bloating, overeating, or a possible pregnancy since she was single. I decided to do further examination to have a more conclusive result of the exact cause. So I started running the usual tests. I listened to her stomach and as she had told me it was indeed sloshing and gurgling unnaturally. I asked her if she had eaten anything in the last 12 hours which she answered no which left me confused. The sounds her stomach was making indicated that her stomach must be trying to digest something or unless. . .
I noticed that part of her stomach seemed to be more roundish, as if something was leaning on it from the inside. It made no sense. If what she said was true then her stomach should be empty and nothing should be causing it to swell up. Then suddenly, the small lump seemed to move a little. It almost made me jump out of my seat.
“What the fff!”
Holy shit there is something alive in the woman’s stomach!
“Sorry Doctor Franklin, I didn’t mean to scare you. But it’s been like this all day!”
It was then I knew that things are only about to get more and more complicated from here. I decided to take a an X-ray of the woman’s stomach to see what the fuck just moved in there. Rick came with me since he specializes in taking X-rays. The first few shots revealed nothing except for the usual organs, etc. But on the 4th shot, I could clearly see something with the outline of some kind of centipede slug thing it was in her Small intestine seemingly wriggling around.
“Holy shit what the fuck is this!”
“Are you ok Frank what’s wrong?”
“The woman’s got a fucking centipede or something wriggling around in her Small intestine!”
I showed the photos to Rick who looked equally surprised but only responded by calling the front desk. He had a 2 minute conversation with the nurse. He used words that they never taught us at medical school. In fact, it sounded more like some kind of military code. The conversation quickly ended and 3 minutes later 4 nurses showed up and told the woman that she had to come with them and they left, leaving me alone in the X-ray room. Rick padded me on the back and told me to “Take it easy and the x-ray had just malfunctioned”. I knew enough about x-rays to know that that’s not how they work but I didn’t want to point out that Rick and the hospital were obviously trying to hide something. I was too tired and shocked to unveil this fuckery that was going on with everyone.
The next day I asked Rick what had happened to the woman and he had told me a story about how she had had a few too many drinks at a party and got pregnant without her remembering it. Once again, Rick was trying to hide something from me but this time I decided to pursue the obvious bogus story until I get to some conclusion that I can accept.
“Wait, but if she is pregnant, how come when we took the X-ray it didn’t show a fetus?” I asked
“Well, I already told you the machine had broken down and you know the rest of what happened. . .” He said, looking at his foot.
“No, I don’t know what really happened! X-ray machines don’t just create random images!” I yelled.
“Look Frank, if I tell you what happened you’re not gonna like it, it’s for the better good of both of us.” He said trying to calm me down
“The only thing that’s better for me is knowing that that woman from last night didn’t have some kind of fucking alien growing in her stomach! I slammed the table and cried out like some rabid animal.
“The truth, are you sure that is what you want? Then fine! She was an 072 case and that’s all you need to know now go back to whatever you were doing and leave me alone!” I had gotten Rick into his impatient zone and I knew better than to ask more on the subject so I left still thinking about the woman and the mysterious creature living in her stomach.
I decided to sneak into the hospital at 10 pm, the only hour when the hospital is closed for cleanup and changing shifts. I had the master key which I had stolen from Rick’s office and I prepared to find out the truth about this place.