On the Slab

It was just after 3:05 AM on Miguel's graveyard shift at the city's morgue and only a few hours into his shift. He was inspecting a deceased body, a Jane Doe from a car accident that happened earlier that day. In his own world, Mozart plays in his earbuds. THUMP THUMP... Every few minutes he stretched his neck, arms, and hands to try and keep his tiredness at bay. There can only be so many energy drinks a person can drink before the effects no longer work. THUMP THUMP... With his magnifying goggles Miguel was stitching up the woman's pale blue-gray throat that was covered with red raw lasherations. The various organs in metal bowls from the autopsy. THUMP THUMP...

A sounding thump had broken Miguel's attention. He lifted up his goggles and took out his earbuds to hear if someone was trying to grab his attention. “Hello?” At this hour no one should be around, everyone had gone home for the day. Miguel walked towards the entrance, the only door in the room, opened the door and was only met with silence...

“Hel..help...”

After a quick side to side glance into the hallway, the flickinger fluorescent lights keeping the hallway lit, Miguel closed the door and went back to his work. Goggles back on and the music plays through his speaker rather than his earbuds. Miguel resumed his documentation of all the injuries to Jane Doe: hemorrhaging, concussions, and a bugle on the forehead. Her chest was covered in dark black and deep blue bruises. Miguel grabbed the Jane Doe file to make more notes:

Jane Doe #203 8/32/21

T.o.D: Appx. 9:05 AM

....Aside from the blunt force trauma and various injuries, our Jane Doe would have passed fairly quickly. Toxicology reports came in and showed high levels of alcohol, ketamine, morphine, and water in her lungs...

Miguel took a deep breath only imagining what kind of trouble life this woman had lived through that made her take all of these substances. This was the third Jane Doe within the past few weeks that had similar levels of drugs in their systems, maybe there was a connection. The area in the city where he worked was well-known to be a harbor for dark impulses. Perhaps Jane got mixed with the wrong crowd and fell into an unfortunate circumstance.

“It...wasn’t me...”

A cold chill passed by Miguel, his arms getting goosebumps and the hair on his neck sticking up sensing a disturbance in the room. His breath visible in front of him and his goggles gathering frost on the edges of the rim, and his music began to break in and out, and turned to a loud, harsh static feedback.

“IT WASN’T ME.” A piercing voice boomed in Miguel’s head making him cover his ears and close his eyes in pain, “PLEASE, YOU HAVE TO HELP ME. IT WASN’T MY FAULT.” the female voice wailin in deep cries of anguish and sorrow, gurgling as if she was talking underwater.

The clanking sound of metal and heavy objects bouncing made Miguel open his eyes and in horror see the body of Jane Doe convulsing on the operating table with all the aperattises still attached to her. Miguel started walking back away from the table as the convulsing began getting worse and more forceful. Water was being coughed up by Jane and the sounds of a death rattle came from her throat. Then it stopped...the silence felt heavy and stale in the room. Jane’s body began to rise from the table and her head turned towards Miguel and she let out one more piercing scream.

RING RING. Miguel woke up from his desk, his notes attached to his hands with drool., startled from his phone ringing. He reached for his phone that had found itself on the floor, face down. As Miguel went to reach and flip over to view the screen, the time read 3:04 AM...