The Midnight Hour & Other Scary Stories

Autopsy

A murder had taken place in the old apartments downtown. There was only one body. The murderer had been the neighbor and they swore that the victim was a danger, not only to everyone in the apartment complex but to anyone who had been fool enough to cross their path. The murderer was then placed in jail while the coroner was called to look over the body.

The examination was to happen after a routine autopsy.

Grace had been assigned the body. She had been working late into the night and this was to be her last case. She was currently the only living person in the morgue and aside from her earbuds, the place was deathly quiet.

The autopsy began simply enough. The victim was a man in his late twenties. Despite the murder having been reported as being perpetrated by a blunt object, Grace couldn't find a single blemish on the body. Odd. She thought. Maybe they misspoke. His chest and stomach, however, seemed bloated, if only a little.

She took her scalpel and was about to begin with an incision along the sternum when she remembered to start her recording device. Grace turned long enough to flip the switch and turn off her earbuds.

When she looked back, she noticed that the chest cavity had deflated. The stomach, however, appeared to have remained the same.

Strange. She turned on her recorder and put her face shield down.

"Subject is late twenties. Caucasian. Male. Death was reported as blunt force trauma but no contusions can be seen." Grace noticed something odd by the corpse's lips. It seemed to be a thick almost viscous fluid. She touched it with her gloves, stretching the strands of goo between her index and thumb. "Strange fluid near lips, seems to cover interior of mouth. Chest was slightly bloated. Cause unknown. Cavity has now deflated."

Grace took a swab of the mouth.

Something clattered in the back of the morgue.

"Hello?" She asked. No one responded. Grace stored the sample and then left the corpse long enough to check on the noise. As she approached the various cold boxes near the back of the room, she could hear something wet and slithering. However, when she came to the sound's place of origin, she saw nothing but a white floor--and a strange fluid on the ground. It looked like what had been on the corpse's cold lips. She followed the trail back to one of the cold boxes. Whatever had left the trail must have gone inside.

Grace opened the door to the cold box and looked inside. Aside from some other corpses, there wasn't anything out of the ordinary.

She closed the big silver door and walked back to the table holding her current subject. Nothing about them had changed. Not that she had thought they would. It was a corpse after all.

Grace took her scalpel and began to cut along the sternum. The muscles were difficult to cut and put up quite the resistance. As she went about her work, Grace began to notice that something seemed off about the body. There were no signs of damage to the corpse's bones, but the organs were missing. It was as though someone had removed them prior to the examination. That was impossible, however. The police had shipped the body here after they were done with the crime scene. There wouldn't have been a chance for anyone to have removed the man's organs, especially not with the skill and care that she observed. The body's skin had been flawless as well. There had been no signs of damage to it.

She clicked the recorder again. "Subject's organs have been removed prior to autopsy. No visible method has been identified. Sternum and surrounding bones are intact. No evidence of fractures present. Though... Hold on."

Grace found something strange on one of the bones. A polyp. She gently pressed it with her finger. It wasn't hard, but soft; gelatinous, almost.

"I have found a polyp of some kind. Substance is not as hard as originally thought but gives when slight pressure is applied."

She pressed a bit harder.

A spray of blood splattered against her face shield. Surprised, Grace went rigid. She was about to wipe off the blood when she saw something wriggling in the viscera.

Grace removed her face shield and examined the little intruder. It appeared to be a worm, or something similar to one. It wriggled in the blood and began thrashing when she picked it up with tweezers. Quickly, Grace found a petri dish and deposited the creature inside.

She clicked the recorder. "Unidentified organism has been identified from polyp. Annelid of some kind. Will have to look into further."

The worm writhed against the petri dish. Were there more of it? A strange sound came from the table. She turned back to face the corpse.

The body had been closed shut.

Grace did a double-take. She ran her fingers along the subject's chest but found there to be no seam. It was as though she had never made a cut at all. That was impossible! She slowly raised the recorder to her face.

"Subject has experienced a remarkable change. The incision I made has been healed somehow. Not sure of the cause. Making another incision along sternum. Will observe outcome."

Grace made a small cut along the chest once more; not enough to peel the skin back, but more than enough to watch. She waited. Nearly a minute had passed before she noticed what appeared to be threads forming in the wound. Only they weren't threads. The meaty strands were worms. They crisscrossed the cut, drawing it to a close. In seconds, the mark had been healed completely.

She swallowed. "S-subject has healed the incision, again. Autopsy cannot be completed. Will reach out to qualified--"

Something banged against the iceboxes. The sound cut her off before she could finish. Grace dropped her recorder.

"H-hello?" She asked.

Another bang caused her to stumble back. She fell against the table and the petri dish went crashing to the floor. She looked at it in time to see the little worm inside slink away at surprising speed, leaving a trail of viscous fluid in its wake. Grace didn't have long to worry over its escape, however.

The banging grew louder.

Trembling, Grace slowly walked over to the icebox. She stared at the silvery door and waited.

Bang!

Something hit the door--something inside the icebox. It hit so hard that the metal dented. Her throat tightened. No. That can't be right. There were only corpses in there! She backed away as the banging continued.

Grace turned around in time to see the corpse on the table shudder. It heaved as something large worked its way from the dead man's stomach and up his throat. Long black legs breached the mouth moments later.

Grace ran for the door. She pulled on the handle but it wouldn't budge. Sometimes the door had a problem with jamming. Why now?

She looked over her shoulder.

The thing from his stomach began to crawl out of the corpse's mouth on those spidery legs. Its thick, segmented body thrashed like the little worm in the petri dish. As it did, more banging came from the opposite side of the room, from the other set of iceboxes. The corpse on the table--or perhaps the thing inside it--began to shriek. It was a horrible sound that caused Grace to fumble with the handle.

The body fell to the floor. To her horror, the creature, still lodged in the dead man's throat, began to crawl towards her, dragging the corpse with it.

Grace looked back to the door.

"Work!" She cried.

The lock finally released. The door, however, flew open suddenly and Grace fell backward.

Her following screams echoed throughout the empty police station.

The next morning, the janitor came into the building to find the woman's body sprawled out on the floor. The police were called in and after examining her corpse, they couldn't find a cause of death, only a viscous fluid on her lips and on the interior of her throat. The police listened to her recorder, and apart from the poor woman's screams and a strange clicking noise in the background, there were no hints of her attacker. The chief then ordered that her body be sent to the state morgue in the hopes they could perform a proper autopsy...