The first thing I do when I get home is to deadbolt the door and call a 24-hour locksmith on my landline to change the locks that very night. I don't have a window in my bedroom, so how would he know that I have a four-poster white wrought iron bed?
It came with the apartment, don't judge me.
The jackass kept my cell phone. He's probably going to run up a huge bill on phone sex lines and drunk dials to his buddies, but at least I'm still breathing.
Of course my parents are out of the service area again, and I leave a message to call me at work in the morning. Mom and dad are going to be a little pissed that they have to move to a new campground, but I'm sure they'll enjoy continuing breathing just as much as I do.
After the locksmith finishes, I draw up the hottest bath that I can stand and pour in half a bottle of bubble gum scented bubble bath. My teeth are chattering. Shivering in the steaming hot water, I feel scalding tears flooding down my face.
Mortal danger threatens and yet I'm relieved. I know what I am now. There's more of my kind out there. I'm not alone anymore. The hard, brittle shell of isolation and despair that I built up during years of hiding cracks with every chest wracking sob. I stay in the tub until the bubbles pop and the water is tepid, then crawl into my ridiculous bed to sleep until the alarm rings.
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One of the good things about working in a newer medical facility is that everything is linked up by the Electronic Medical Record. You don't have to chase down a paper chart filled with all the little bits of paper crap that a patient acquires.
This is also a bad thing since it's hard to cover up your digital trail if you start looking in places that you shouldn't. Luckily, some people are sloppier about logging out than others. I borrow one of the record tech's logged in terminals when she heads out for her lengthy smoke break.
Suck down that sweet, sweet nicotine Karen. You just take your time.
Seven hits when I look up recent patients by deceased status. Wow, that's more than I thought I'd find. One died in the clinic and the rest passed at home from septic shock. The clinic death was an overdose of anesthesia. There's already a lawsuit starting on that case, I bet. I am so screwed if anyone catches me doing this. Well, better to be unemployed than dead.
Glancing over the names in the surgical roster, I see that there are only two names that pop up in all the cases. Leslie Cushing, surgical nurse and Phil Graves, anesthesiologist. Very interesting.
Clinic rumor has it that these two are having a bit of an affair outside of the office and Zola swears she caught them banging in his little red sports car. He's such a total douchebag. Always trying to play grab-ass in the OR. I mean who does that these days? He intentionally wears his shirt collars popped up. Leslie's got worse taste in men than I do. Wait... no she doesn't, not any more.
Deleting my query, I slip out the door. Sorry Karen, but you have to logout of your terminal when you go on smoke break, you know that.
Thank God that I only have to work a few hours this morning. I don't think I could have survived a whole day. After my stressful late night with Forbo, the smell of the electrocautery gun wafting out of procedure room two smells like the most mouth-watering barbeque. Oh yeah. Jackpot! The vascular surgeon is pulling an all morning varicose vein stripping marathon. I'm going to clean this room. I'll do anything to get into the aftermath of that action. I wipe my involuntary slobber off with the back of my hand.
Zola is only too happy to leave the cleanup to me. The vascular surgeon is sloppy with his sharps and she'd rather not have to deal with an accidental stick from a needle or scalpel. I'm not worried. My head bump has already completely healed. Apparently I am one of nature's apex scavengers and don't have to worry about getting sick. When was the last time I even had a sniffle?
I stifle an orgasmic groan of delight when I discover a pile of stripped leg veins. When surgeons strip massive varicose veins with blown out valves they pull them inside out like a nylon stocking through a small incision in the leg. They look like deep red, wriggly worms. Stuffing as many as I can find into a small red biohazard bag, I shiver in anticipation of slurping down these tasty morsels, then stash the bag in my scrub pants.
There's nothing wrong with me. I'm now a part of the natural order of things. That's what ghouls are, I decide. We're misunderstood creatures that were meant to dispose of the weak and the dead. I'm doing society a favor by consuming this succulent, salty, wet human tissue.
At the end of my short shift, I go behind the clinic and have a little private time in the overgrown backyard of the self-storage lot. Nobody has been running this place for at least a year. How many of the storage bays have stuff in them anymore? Only two or three have padlocks on them. I suppress the urge to rifle through the dilapidated buildings and find a lovely oak-shaded patch of paving stones to have a little private picnic on.
Sitting down and leaning against the tree, I fish my bag of stolen munchies out of my scrub pants. Oh yes, they are still body temp warm and that's perfect. For some reason human parts taste so much better when they are at about 98.6 degrees. It must be like a fine wine connoisseur thing. I stifle a giggle while contemplating the bouquet and aroma of viscera. I'm able to think so much more clearly about my dietary quirks now that I know what I am. Embracing my heritage, yeah that's right, that's what I'm doing. I'm not going to be a glutton. I can control myself. I can stop anytime.
Dipping my fingers in the bag and swirling around my fingertips, I enjoy the silky feeling of the veins against my skin. Who did these veins belong to? Why did they want to get rid of them badly enough to have surgery? Were they painful? Did the swollen varicosities just look gross when they wore a bathing suit? Did they pop open and bleed when they bumped against the kitchen counter? Are these free-range organic people, waiter?
Smiling in anticipation, I lick my fingers and let the flavor overwhelm my taste buds. Slowly, Mirri, slowly. I put the end of a vein between my lips and gently suck on the end of one of the still hollow collapsed tubes. Deliberately, I take my time slurping up the vessel like a piece of tough rubbery spaghetti.
YOU ARE READING
Hunger Pangs
HorrorMirrianna Shelley has a small problem. She has to eat small bits of human flesh that she steals at work to survive. She doesn't know why, but she knows it isn't normal. She certainly isn't going to ask anyone for help with her taboo snacking and she...
