His last two teeth dropped from his gums.
Didn't matter. He was better than the rest. He'd beat this.
Sudden blasts of agony shrieked from his fingers and drove him to his knees as hooked claws burst from the tips.
And then indescribable pain from his jaws as the fangs erupted and tore through his cheeks and lips, like he'd forced his face into a wood chipper.
His vision blurred, then cleared. He saw everything in such detail now, like switching from a blurry black-and-white TV to hi-def. Same for his sense of smell. A delicious, mouth-watering odor was wafting through the door. He recognized it: blood. Beautiful, warm, red, delicious blood. He had to--
No! He was better than this. The cops were here. He'd heard the sirens. He'd stay in here and explain through the door what had happ--
Hungry! So hungry! That smell was driving him crazy.
His hand seemed to move of its own volition. Hard to turn the knob with those claws, but he managed. And when the door swung open the blood smell enveloped him, banishing every desire but to feed, every feeling but hunger.
He saw a pair of wary EMTs--fat woman pulling in front, middle-age guy pushing from behind--hesitantly wheeling a stretcher through the door. The siren hadn't been police, it had been an ambulance.
Blood! Fresh blood!
Lanz leaped up on the nurse's station and launched himself at them. The claws of his left hand pierced the side of the fat, lead EMT's face as Lanz sailed by. The hooks caught and set. Lanz felt a tug and then a give as the face ripped free.
By then he was upon the second, sinking his fangs into his exposed throat, tearing the flesh, chugging the hot gush of blood as it rushed into his mouth. The guy went down, kicking and trying to scream but he had no throat so how could he scream? And then he stopped struggling and the blood stopped flowing.
So soon?
More!
Lanz turned and saw the fat EMT on her knees, screaming as she held her ripped face in place. He lunged at her and tore into her throat.
Again, the rush of the gush. For the first time in his life Lanz truly felt alive. He couldn't stop. He wouldn't stop!
Nurse Winslow
THE two big orderlies emerged from cold storage into the autopsy suite where Janine stood by one of the tables, gripping the stainless steel so her hands wouldn't shake. She'd been head nurse at Blessed Crucifixion since Jenny Bolton had been fired, and nothing had rattled her up until now, not even the ten burn victims who'd come through her ER six months ago when the Doublespruce Hotel had gone up in flames.
But she'd just watched Ralph and Benjamin roll a man past her on a gurney whose head had been ripped off, and she didn't have a filter for that. They'd set the victim's head in his lap with his hands positioned so it appeared as though he was holding his own noggin, one of them cracking a joke about Ichabod Crane as they wheeled past, and she would've dressed them down right then and there, but it was all she could do to keep standing, her legs threatening to give out at any moment.
Nothing about this was right. They'd brought that rich old man in several weeks ago on a morphine OD scare, and he'd barely had the strength to get himself around without a walker.
She looked up. Ralph was standing in front of her.
"Anything else, Ms. Winslow?"
Low, booming voice. Bloodshot eyes suggesting a healthy marijuana habit.
"No, but go check with Dr. Lanz."
She followed the orderlies to the entrance of the morgue. "I'm going to lock myself in," she said. "Call me when they've caught the old man."
She closed the door and turned the deadbolt, knew she should feel safe now--no way to open that door from the outside unless you had a key--but something about being down here in the basement with six corpses still unnerved her.
Janine drifted over to the coroner's desk and eased down into the metal folding chair. God, she was tired. Her shift should've ended an hour ago. Couldn't wait to get home, crack open that four-pack of Bartles and Jaymes Strawberry Daiquiri wine coolers, and watch the newest episode of House she'd TiVo'd last night.
Hugh Laurie.
Yum.
Even now, she felt that warmth between her legs. House would know how to handle a situation like this, no doubt. She'd never admitted it to anyone, but she often imagined that Lanz was House, and she was Dr. Cuddy, took the whole fantasy quite a bit farther than she was comfortable admitting, even to herself, especially after two or three wine coolers and her lounging in a bubble bath with her Natural Contours Personal Massager.
It had suddenly grown very quiet. She never liked coming down to the cooler. Not even in the middle of the day with the medical examiner and his team buzzing around. The chill that radiated out of cold storage just plain creeped her out.
She rubbed her arms, gooseflesh spreading across her skin.
Her navy scrubs wouldn't keep her warm down here.
A sound perked her head up.
Soft, muffled. Sourced from cold storage.
Temperature gradient, she figured. The metal doors of the refrigerated morgue drawers contracting and expanding.
She glanced at her watch: 9:12 P.M.
She should be home by now, dammit, already into her second--
Another sound. Unmistakable. Like someone had thumped one of the drawers. She stood up. If Ralph and Benjamin were fucking with her, she'd make certain they were drug-tested next week. Would bet her next two paychecks they'd both come back with hot UAs.
She walked through the autopsy suite toward the large door to cold storage, which stood wide open.
From what she'd heard, practical jokes were a common occurrence down here, but she couldn't believe even those two stoners would try to pull something on a night like this.
She stepped through into cold storage and put her ear to one of the drawers.
Sounded like fingernails scratching against metal.
The scratching stopped.
BANG.
She jumped back.
BANG. BANG.
What the hell?
BANG. BANG. BANG.
Janine stood facing the refrigerated nine-drawer cabinet, and she could see the metal vibrating.
The body in there was still alive.
Winslow rushed to it, fingers locking around the stainless steel handle.
Then she paused.
The woman was in there. The mother, who had her entire intestinal tract torn out. The orderlies had used a snow shovel to scoop her insides back into her body cavity.
How could she still be alive? There was no way.
The banging had stopped, and Winslow wondered if she'd somehow imagined the noise. Fear and stress could make the mind play tricks. After what she'd seen in the ER, Winslow might even be exhibiting symptoms of shock. Or post-traumatic stress disorder. Auditory hallucinations weren't unheard of.
BANG!
The loudest yet, the handle vibrating so hard it stung her palm.
And it was accompanied by a scream. The loudest, rawest, most agonizing scream Winslow had ever heard.
My god! How can that poor woman still be alive?
Heart thumping, throat dry, Winslow tugged hard on the handle, putting her entire hundred and ten pounds behind it, the drawer sliding out with a metallic ring.
Yes, the poor woman was alive, her eyes wide, the pupils dilated. Her guts were strewn all over her body, and her head thrashed back and forth in unbearable pain.
No...not pain. It wasn't pain at all.
The woman's head shook because she was trying to chew her way through her own intestines.
She held a loop in both of her hands--her twisted, clawed hands--and her mouth tore at the tough, stretchy tissue of her transverse colon, which was still attached to the gaping hole in her abdomen.
The woman screamed again, her wide eyes locking onto Winslow's.
Then she spat out her digestive tract and reached her horrible hands out for the nurse, her hideous, fang-filled mouth yawing open to an impossib
le size.
Winslow reacted instantly. She pushed the handle, leaning into it, her rubber soled nurse's shoes squeaking against the polished tile floors as the drawer slid closed.
The mother creature rolled onto her chest, sliding off the drawer on a pool of her own blood, slipping out and plopping, face-first, onto the ground just as the door slammed shut.
Winslow backpedaled, tripping over her feet. The mother creature shrieked at her, scrambling across the floor, closing the distance between them. Janine opened her mouth to yell for help--the orderlies might still be near. But her throat had locked in fear, and she could only manage a soft squeak.
Crabwalking backward, Winslow felt and saw one of those claws grasp her shoe. Its grip was a vice, and its pointed finger bones dug into the thin flesh of Janine's ankle. She kicked out with her other leg, trying to break free, her rubber soles bouncing harmlessly off the creature's hand. Then it began to pull, its jaws snapping so hard and fast it almost sounded like a tap dancer.
Against her every impulse to pull away, Janine Winslow leaned forward instead, pawing at the Velcro straps on her shoe, ripping them free, then yanking her foot out of the mother-creature's grasp and crawling into the corner of the room by the desk.
Catching her breath, filling her lungs, Nurse Winslow let loose with the loudest scream of her life.
"HEEELP!!!!"
The mother creature had Winslow's shoe in its mouth, chewing the leather and rubber to shreds. Its wide nostrils flared, and it began to scurry toward Winslow once again.
Ten feet away.
"HELP ME!"
Five feet away.
"JESUS CHRIST HELP!"
Two feet away, its wicked claws reaching out, Winslow curled up fetal in the corner, her knees tucked into her chest.
Then the creature jerked to a stop and hissed. It writhed for a moment, its whole body shaking, but it didn't come any closer.
Winslow saw why.
Its intestines. They're caught in the drawer.
They stretched out the length of the morgue, a slimy, bloody rope keeping the creature away like a dog on a leash.
"Ms. Winslow? Holy fuck!"
Ralph. At the door, peering in through the small, square window. Winslow watched the knob shake, but not turn.
Locked. I locked myself in.
"Get the key from Kurt!" Winslow cried out.
Ralph nodded, then disappeared. Winslow faced her attacker, which had stopped trying to reach for her. Instead, the mother creature, eyes bulging, was chewing on its own hand, scarfing it down like it hadn't eaten in weeks. Winslow watched the blood spurt, listened to the tiny bones crack and splinter, and then turned away from the spectacle, her attention zeroing in on the desk.
A weapon. I need a weapon.
She yanked open a drawer, pencils and desk supplies raining down on her. A stapler. Some Post-It notes. Paper clips. She picked up some child's safety scissors with blunted tips, and stared at them incredulously.
It's a morgue, goddamn it. Where's a goddamn scalpel?
A choking sound from the creature. Winslow dared a glance. It had bitten off and eaten all of its fingers, and was jamming its own stump down its throat, gagging obscenely. Then, suddenly, it twisted around and began gnawing at the taut loop of intestines tethering it to the drawer.
Winslow got onto her knees, opening up another drawer.
There. A trocar.
It was heavy. Sharp. Formidable. A hefty metal tube, hollow and pointed on the end, used for aspirating body cavities. This was a large model, wide as a garden hose and close to eight inches long. Winslow gripped the base and faced the monster, which had gnawed its way through its own entrails and lunged toward Winslow, its mouth so wide it looked like it could almost swallow Winslow's head.
She thrust the trocar upward, using both hands, punching the razor tip through the creature's ribcage and into its heart.
Blood immediately sprayed out the base like a spigot, drenching Winslow's clothes as the monster flopped onto her. But instead of latching onto Winslow's neck, those hideous, snapping jaws kissed the floor, a mangled tongue lapping at the tile.
Blood. It's licking up its own blood.
The creature hoovered it up as the red stuff pumped out of its own chest, smearing it across its face, sucking it in with a sound like slurping soup.
But it wasn't quick enough. Winslow watched, horrified, transfixed, as the creature's blood output overtook its input. The trocar was too big, pumping out blood faster than the mother could take it back in. The crimson pool grew ever wider, even as the thing's frenzy increased.
Eventually, it toppled onto its face, limbs splayed out, tongue still licking feebly at the sticky floor, until finally even that was still.
BANG.
Winslow's head spun at the sound.
Another drawer. Something alive inside.
BANG!
BANG BANG!
And another one.
BANG BANG BANG!
BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG!
BANGBANGBANGBANGBANGBANGBANGBANGBANGBANGBANGBANG!
All of the drawers were shaking, rattling, the cacophony so loud it drowned out her wail of fear. Then the hissing started, spliced with that horrible shrieking, Nurse Winslow's brain telling her to move, get out, but by the time her legs received the message the first door had burst open, and along with a blast of cold air, a clown popped out onto the floor, landing on all fours. Awful teeth, black eyes, fright wig, its fangs already chomping as it stared across the room at Winslow.
Now, finally, Janine's legs were moving, and she was sprinting toward the exit. She collided into the door and jerked on the handle out of pure instinct, but it didn't budge.
Behind her--
SQUEAK.
SQUEAK.
SQUEAK.
The clown, on its feet now, its comically oversized shoes fitted with joke squeakers, which got louder as it plodded closer.
Winslow's fingers found the lock, and as she turned the deadbolt, pulling the door open, she heard a flurry of squeaks as the monster ran at her, crushing her with its bulk, and her last thought as its fangs sank into her face...
I've always hated clowns.
Benny the Clown
FOUR hours earlier, Benjamin Jamison Southwick had been sitting in a cheap motel room, a gun in his mouth. Most clowns were crying beneath their painted-on smiles, and Benny the Clown was flat-out suicidal under his.
After deciding that, yes, he was finally going to do it this time, Benny the Clown had spent a while trying to figure out if he should do it in his clown costume. It would get a lot more attention if he did. Local Clown Blows Brains Out, Declared Unfunny. But he came from a long line of clowns, and did he really want to disgrace the Southwick name?
He'd thought about it, weeping much of the time, and then decided that yes, he would kill himself in his clown suit.
But he couldn't do it. Couldn't pull the trigger.
Just like the last three times.
Finally he'd checked his watch. He was scheduled to do a birthday party in half an hour. Might as well keep his commitment.
Getting bit by the birthday girl made him sad.
Having her braces get stuck in him made him sadder.
Sitting in the hospital with the girl and her awful mother, Benny the Clown had never been so sad in his life. If he'd had the gun with him, he thought he could have pulled the trigger, no problem.
He didn't remember any of that now. Because now, with the taste of blood in his mouth and much of the nurse's cheek between his teeth and no thoughts beyond how to get more more more MORE MORE MORE, Benny the Clown was happier than he'd ever been.
Oasis
WHY had Mom never told her that people were filled with delicious red candy? It was better than jelly beans. Way better. She'd only gotten a taste of it, but she needed more. Right now. That mean, brown-skinned nurse had punched her in the face when she'd bitten her arm, and then everyone had rushed out, leaving Oasis alone
in the treatment room.
She looked down at her hands--they weren't really hands anymore. They looked like monster claws.
The pain in her face was going away.
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