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The House of Grimm Presents: LUNATICThis story may contain adult content. |
| Written by J. Grimm | |
| Saturday, 23 February 2008 | |
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Share it:      He sat up, head spinning. His mouth was dry and filled with a strong coppery, salty taste. He vomited. Either from the pungent odor that overtook his senses or from the pain in his head and chest; he wasn't sure. Probably both. He couldn't see. There was no light, so he had to rely on groping around to get a sense of his surroundings. It was cold and hard, whatever he was lying on, and, for the first time, he realized that he was naked. His hands touched his bed. Cold metal. He began to panic but stopped himself. That would do no good. He decided he would save the panic attack until he found out where he was and why. He sucked in a quick breath as his feet touched the cold floor; more pain shot through his chest. The ice-cold floor had the texture of ceramic tile. His toes tingled and he shivered from the cold air. His head swam in a sea of nausea and he vomited again and the pain in his chest was almost unbearable. Now his nose stung with the vicious odor in the air and the smell of puke. In the back of his mind, he regretted waking up in the first place. Step by step he moved, not knowing where he was going. Toes testing the floor before placing a foot. Hands moving side to side out in front of him; feeling for any obstacles. Something in the atmosphere of the pitch darkness changed. He didn't feel so alone now; someone, or something, was in the room with him. He sped up his search for an exit from the darkness. His left hand finally touched something. A small, cold metal platform waist high. He put some weight against it and it moved. Hearing a squeaky wheel at his feet, he knew what it was: a stainless steel, wheeled surgeon's table. The kind you might find in an operating room or... a morgue. His hands groped the top of the small table but it was bare. He became nervous, now. Turning to his right, he bumped into another table. This one was much larger. As his hands slowly roamed the table, he touched something cold and soft like leather. Flesh! Dead human skin! His hand instinctively shot away from the cold flesh. But he reached out again. It was an arm. His fingers traced along the lifeless appendage up toward the shoulder. He stopped when the smooth skin became ragged and torn. A depression in the arm where the bicep should be. He kept going, his fingers touching what he knew had to be muscle and tendons and then... bone. He almost pulled his hand back but something urged him on. Something sadistic. A natural, sick curiosity perhaps. His sensing of another presence in the room subsided. The bone felt odd. Smooth in most places except for several jagged grooves. Six to be exact. They were deep and the bone was splintered at the edge of the last one he came to. The first and sixth grooves were deeper than the others. He was no medical examiner or such, but he surmised quickly that these were bite marks made by an animal. A large animal. The distance between the first and sixth bite marks was just over the distance from his thumb to the tip of his middle finger. ****! That's a big animal. A grizzly or a tiger; what ever the hell it had been, just the thought of trying to fend off a monster like that scared the **** out him. He debated on whether to continue his blind exploration of the body, knowing that this poor soul wasn't done it by just a mere bite on the arm. There had to be more gore waiting for him if he continued. So he did. He shivered and inhaled; his chest once again stung with pain. He wasn't sure what the cause of the pain was. Maybe he had a few broken ribs. But he had never had any before so he didn't know what it should feel like. His attention returned to the body before him, trying to forget about the chest pains. His fingers climbed their way up to the shoulder. Then to the neck, where they sank into a gaping, wet hole and the exposed spinal column. He found the top of the head with his other hand. Working both hands towards each other, his hair stood as if a cool breeze brushed across his body and he nearly vomited again as he discovered that half of the head had been torn off. What the ****!? The entire bottom jaw was missing, leaving a vast gap between the throat and base of the skull and he was repulsed when his fingers skimmed over the tongue, feeling the unmistakable studded texture of taste buds. The side of the skull closest to him was gone. His fingers got tangled in the matted hair and accidentally dug into exposed brain matter. He could feel the slimy remnants of ocular fluid and mucous when he groped the eye cavity. He thanked God that he couldn't see this horrific atrocity. He knew he definitely would have thrown up from the sight. He felt the need to wash his hands now and groped for anything. He came to a wall and felt along it for a light switch. A sharp *CLICK* and his vision was flooded with bright fluorescent light. He stood still until his eyes adjusted. When his vision returned, he saw that the body he had been groping was not the only one in the room. It was a large room obviously used for autopsies by the coroner. He figured he must be in a hospital in the medical examiner's ward. There were six other tables, besides the one he had been on, and they all held nude, uncovered bodies. They all had apparently suffered the same fate: mutilated by a large animal. One was missing both legs from the hips down. Another had a huge chunk of torso missing, its chest cavity hollow. Yet, another had been placed on its stomach to display that all of the skin on its back had been shredded off by the animal's claws; the rib cage exposed showing that several had been splintered and broken. One was even missing its head. That fact that he couldn't see it anywhere in the room told him that they must have been unable to find it. What the hell happened to these people? Had they been part of a camping group or something? Was he a member of the group, too? His brain swam in a sea of confusion. He couldn't remember a damned thing. Wait a ******* minute! This was a morgue! Only dead people are brought here and left in the dark. So why the hell wasn't he dead? Or was he thought to have been dead when they brought him in? Yes. That had to be it! But if he had been wheeled in dead and possibly part of this group... something in his gut knotted up. Somehow, he was afraid to get a look at himself. What kind of mutilations would he discover on his own body? He spotted a mirror on the far wall near a sink. He approached it, washing his hands before even glancing into the mirror. His head swam and he vomited again, straining his chest, sending the pain traveling through it again. Slowly, his eyes turned to the mirror. What he saw shocked him. He looked normal... except for the seven bullet holes in his chest. No doubt the source of his pain. The sounds of gunfire and visions muzzle flashes flickered in his memory. His head jerked backward as if he had been punched in the face as he remembered hiding in the darkness when the shooting started. He was still unclear where he had been or what it was that had brought him there. But the reason for his being shot at was right on the edge of his memory. It was just too vague. The bullet holes weren't as large as he would have imagined. They were beginning to itch; the familiar kind of itch you get when a wound is healing itself. Wait another ******* minute! Seven slugs and he was still alive? He turned slightly and got a look at his back in the mirror. Five big, sucking exit wounds. As he watched, they began to heal on their own. And he remembered. He could feel the remaining two slugs still in his chest. Big deal. His body would eventually expel them naturally. He had been shot many times before. More than he could remember and long since before the time of Christ. Arrows, crossbow bolts, muskets, bullets. Nothing had ever stopped him before. It was just the problem of his memory every time it happened; it always took a while to regain it. In all his time roaming the earth through the ages, this was his first time ever waking up in a morgue. He couldn't be sure how long it had been since his body was brought here, but judging by the rapid healing of his wounds, he knew it wouldn't be long before it happened again. His weak cells would be replaced by those much stronger, more vicious. His senses heightened and a thousand times more alert. His strength equal to that of fifty men. The time had come. Slivers of sharp pains raced through his brain, embracing his body. He picked up the distant sound of footsteps approaching from the other side of the closed double doors that lead into the hallway beyond. Fighting the sharp attacks on his body and internal organs, he staggered to the wall and shut off the lights. He fell to the floor, holding his stomach. Every pore in his body itched like a sonofabitch but he fought the urge to scratch, knowing it would be over in another minute or so. He felt the very core of his body transform from the inside out; bones contorting, motor skills reverting to that of a savage animal, mentality taking on a less complicated thought process. He was no longer himself by the time the doors opened. The shaft of light fell into the room from the hallway silhouetting two figures. His beastly ears could hear the two things making melodic noises that he had heard time and time again: they were communicating with each other but it didn't register with any kind of signals his brain. All he wanted to do was eat. So he did. From out of the darkness, he rushed to two objects. His right front claws tearing into one's midsection; a sloppy, bloody glob of mess gushed out onto the floor with a wet splat. The figure fell. The other figure began to make a loud noise that ended in a labored gurgle as he tore into its throat, the warm copper-like, salty taste once again rushing into his mouth and down into his gullet. He bit down almost effortlessly and heard the snap of bones, then watched as the thing's head rolled away from him. The warm liquid pumped from a bloody, gnarled stump and he lay on the floor, lapping it up as it poured out into his mouth. He turned his attention to the other figure, now. Hungrily feeding on the pungent pile of slop that fell from its gut. After a time, enough time to hollow out the torsos of both bodies, he ran down the hall as fast as his four large legs would carry him and broke through the glass doors that led out into the night. His body tingled as the big, bright thing in the dark sky beckoned him. Controlled him. Made him feel stronger, invincible. Blood thirsty. He threw his head back a called to it in a loud howl; worshipping the bright thing. Acknowledging its dominance over him. Copyright 2008 J. Grimm |
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| Last Updated ( Saturday, 23 February 2008 ) |
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