I’m typing this before the police come back. I’m sorry for the grammar or the spelling I just need to get everything down. I don’t know what they think happened or if they think I did it but I need to get this all out now before anything bad happens. Well, before anything worse happens.
I’ll start with what I know is true.
My name is Lindsey Cooling.
I work as a dental hygienist in Boston at Dr. Peter Scarfell’s office near Friend Street.
I have worked there for approximately 11 months and 23 days.
What I don’t know is if today I killed a patient or if that patient was even human.
That’s crazy right? Like some sort of otherworldly demon monster would show up for a six month check up. But I swear what happened today has no explanation besides something supernatural.
I’ve seen a lot of shit. People who don’t brush their teeth or don’t floss, people with sores surrounding their entire mouth. Tonsil stones the size of walnuts. I get it, mouths are weird and can be gross but I’m not some flighty kid. I come in on time, do my job, and treat all of my patients with respect.
Here is what I remember:
The last patient of the day was at 4:45. Our office closes at six so I remember hoping that they just needed a quick check up so that maybe I could scoot out a few minutes early and beat the rest of the commuter crowd to the T station.
I walked out to our receptionist Tara, and she handed me the patient’s file. I remember thinking it looked pretty sparse. Even new patients usually have old records that were sent over or at the very least an emergency contact sheet filled out. The only thing in this file was a name and a symptoms complaint sheet. There wasn’t even a date of birth. I remember looking at Tara but she just shrugged and went back to texting. She’s a nice girl, terrible receptionist.
I walked into the waiting room and there was only a young woman sitting in the corner. The first weird thing about her was she was sitting up straight staring directly at the door leading back into the practice. Most people have their phones out or maybe a book if they’re older but she was just sitting there, hands folded, looking as if she was waiting for me. I mean I guess she was, but it was just odd.
I walked over and introduced myself and explained that I would be cleaning her teeth today and she just stared at me. She didn’t even blink. She just stared at me. For a second I thought maybe she didn’t speak English. We have plenty of patients who aren’t native speakers but usually we have a tele-translator sign on. I decided to ask her about one of the complaints on her sheet, general discomfort. I asked if she experienced while or brushing or eating, was there a sensitivity to hot or cold and she nodded or shook her had at appropriate times so I figured she was a little odd but at least I wouldn’t have to try and make small talk while my hands were in her mouth.
I got her seated and opened up a new patient file on the computer. I asked her some basic questions. I had her name, Jane, but everything else was blank.
I tried asking her for a good phone number to call her at or an email. She shook her head in decaying she didn’t have either. I asked if maybe she had a boyfriend or a girlfriend, someone who we could call to get in touch with her and she said shook her head. I asked if she had a mailing address since we did have a few older patients without phones or emails who needed all their information sent through the mail but again she shook her head.
I was running through all the possible scenarios in my mind. Maybe she was homeless, maybe she was a runaway, maybe she was trying hard not to be found by some abusive asshole. I just remember thinking it wasn’t my business and I had a job and that was that.
What I did next was stupid and I get that. I know better, I was just trying to be a good person. I figured fuck it, I would touch up her teeth and get her out of there as quickly as possible and then just tell Dr. S that she had been a “no call no show” and that we didn’t have any information to send an invoice for the missed appointment. It had happened before it wasn’t a huge deal. You have to understand I was trying to do the right thing.
It wasn’t until I had her reclined in her seat I realized the extent of the damage. Honestly
I don’t know how I hadn’t noticed earlier but maybe the lighting in the reception area helped conceal it? Her lips looked awful. They were puffy almost bruised looking with strips of flesh so dried they looked almost black. I had seen people come in with botched lip fillers before but this was something else.
The skin on the side of her mouth was raw and ragged, twin slices parted at the edges as if she had tried to widen her smile with a switch blade. Something wriggled under the thin layer of skin near her Cupid’s bow. I just remember thinking I have no idea what this woman has been through and I was just here to clean her teeth not to judge. I just put on a clean pair of gloves and applied some petroleum jelly to prevent her lips from cracking and bleeding. I didn’t say anything about it, I didn’t want to embarrass her. Remember, I was trying to be nice.
She opened her mouth slightly and a foul odor hit me. It smelled like sulfur and pennies mixed with rotting flowers. I honestly thought I might gag. But I said nothing and began to move my tools around the inside of her mouth.
Her gums were receding at an alarming rate. The root of each tooth was plainly visible and ones of her canines seemed to have rotted from the inside. Her molars were blacked and it looked as if her wisdom teeth had began to crest her gums pushing the remaining teeth together into a massive cluster. This was too much, there was too much damage for one person to handle in a single visit. She needed extensive work maybe even surgery.
I asked her how long it had been since she had seen a dentist, she shrugged. I gently began to try and remove the tartar build up but as the pick hit her her molar it sank into the tooth. It sank. I know that sounds crazy but I saw the tip of my instrument slowly sink into her tooth as the molar collapsed in on itself.
I know some people have soft teeth but that just means they are more prone to chipping or breaking them off, it doesn’t mean they are the same consistency as wet sand. I felt bile raise in my throat but I clamped down hard on the inside of my cheek and kept working. I tried another tooth and was met with the same level of resistance, that is to say almost none. How was this woman eating? How was she even drinking? There was a hint of something moving inside her gums. Like an inch worm slowly exploring the space. It freaked me out so much I pulled my tools out too quickly and I hit her front teeth.
I began to apologize, blame it on a trick of the light but the teeth that had made contact with my tools were suddenly bleeding from the gums. Not unusual. Honestly, seeing that almost made me feel better, it brought me back to reality. It brought me back for approximately 30 seconds. As soon as it registered that the gums were bleeding her teeth popped out of her mouth. At fist it was just one, and it came out so fast it was almost like when a child hangs on to a baby tooth for too long and a strong wind will take it out. It broke free so easily. Before I could say anything the space where the tooth had previously been began to bleed profusely, a steady stream of blood was pouring out of her mouth. The worst part was, I don’t think she even noticed. She sat in the chair eyes staring into the ceiling as if this were a normal day.
I quickly grabbed gauze and began to apply pressure to stop the bleeding but once my fingers grazed another tooth that too fell from her mouth and onto the floor. More and more teeth slipped from her mouth tumbling down the front of her blouse as more and more blood pooled in the back of her throat. I called for Dr. S but he didn’t respond, I could for Becky, another hygienist, but still got no answer. In a last ditch attempt to help this poor woman I called for Tara but even she did not respond. I watched as the woman mouth filled with dark red blood.
I reached for my ejector but the blood was coming out too fast for the little straw to suck up. The liquid started to dribble down her chin, splattering across the tile floor. I screamed for anyone to help but there was no answer. The blood soaked into my white sneakers, the rubber souls slipping unable to find purchase.
The whole time the woman started blankly into the ceiling. Even as she choked and gagged on her own blood and saliva her eyes never showed an ounce of fear.
I kept ramming gauze into her empty sockets but they seemed to make no difference. There was too much blood on the floor there was no way she wasn’t going to bleeding out if she hadn’t already. Slipping across the tile floor I ran for the door, my hands sticky with the gore. The door wouldn’t open. I pulled and pulled and even leveraged my foot against the jam praying to a God I wasn’t sure existed anymore to please let the door open. As the blood began to cover my sneakers and swished over my ankles. I gagged as the smell of copper flooded my nostrils. As the room began to fill I began to scream only to have the sound drowned out by the sickening sound of the woman laughing as she gargled what must have been gallons of blood. She was hysterical her whole body was convulsing as she let out this god awful laugh in between huge gulping breaths that were only obstructed by the blood that refused to stop pouring from her mouth.
I screamed one last time as the flood overtook me. I could feel the hot liquid as it crashed over my face, sputtering as the blood filled my mouth and ears, blinking hard as it pushed its way into my eyes. I remember this moment of perfect clarity, just thinking this was how I would die. I would drown in this woman’s, this thing’s blood.
The next thing I knew Dr. S was holding my head in his hands and his eyes were swimming with worry. I could see him mouthing words. I think he was saying my name. Tara was standing behind him with her phone in her hands speaking fast into the receiver.
The rest of what happened was a blur, I think they sedated me. My throat is still raw from screaming. They told me that the homeless woman who had wandered into our office had died while I had cleaned her teeth. They think it was some sort of break from reality due to the trauma of having a patient die, but even with that said, they couldn’t explain all the blood on my clothes. I can still taste her blood between my teeth.
The police are coming back to my room now, I can hear the radios crackling. I need someone to tell me what happened. Please just tell me someone knows what really happened.