Frightful Flash Fiction

A Bad Stomachache

I work as a doctor in my town's local hospital. As a doctor, I have seen lots of different things, some people just can't help but get into terrible accidents. One guy once walked in with half of his face missing it's skin. It was a terrible motorcycle accident. I've seen people who were so sick that they would vomit blood. And while I don't like to admit it, I've even seen someone die on the operation table. Seeing all these things, it's something you come to accept as a doctor. I had a patient once though, if you can call him a patient, who I can never forget. It was the first time I ever had to deal with something like that. You see, he came in one day complaining about a terrible stomachache. Apparently, it had started that morning and hasn't stopped. He was screaming in pain asking for immediate help. I talked to another doctor and we brought him to the emergency room, but everything seemed to be fine, we even took x-rays. After some time passed, he stopped screaming and asked what was wrong with him. I must say he was quite surprised when I told him nothing, and that he was fine. He assured me that I must of missed something, but I know I didn't. He claimed there was a beast inside him. I presumed he was just describing the pain he felt. Not thinking about it much, I told him to go home, and with some convincing, he did. However, the very next day, he came back, complaining about stomach pains. He said they were worse than before. I asked him to describe the pain. I wanted to know if it was the same as before. He told me that it was the Beast inside of him, moving around his stomach. He said that it now burned the inside of his stomach. Now I knew this wasn't the case, because we would of seen something like that yesterday. He kept pleading to me and the nurses to help him. I felt kinda bad for the guy, so I thought maybe if I showed him that he was fine, he wouldn't keep freaking out over nothing. Me and a couple nurses took him to a room where he could stay. I had the nurses watch him while I went to grab some papers showing that the man was okay. Shortly after I received the papers, the two nurses that helped me and I were called for an emergency. I was lucky enough to get a different doctor to go for me so I could show my other patient that there was nothing wrong. When I arrived to the room I left him in, I was in complete shock. I dropped the papers onto the floor. My patient was kneeling on the floor with his stomach cut open. There was blood all over the floor and on his hands. He dropped the knife and looked up at me and said, "I know it's in here doctor, please, you have to help get it out". I went to call out for some help, but then I saw it. It crawled out of his stomach, I couldn't tell if it was red or was just covered in blood. It's body must of been at least 9 inches long, and it's tongue was about the same size of it's body. I couldn't believe my eyes, it was, The Beast.