Page 43 of No Asylum Here

Squelch, squelch, squelch. Like something stabbing into wet flesh repeatedly.

My nerves launched into overdrive as the urge to turn and run gripped me tight. As a doctor, I didn’t allow myself to follow that instinct. Curiosity and the desire to help in the event of an accident pushed me forward.

“Hello? Is anyone there?”

I stole a glance around the altar, and what I saw had every cell in my veins freezing over with unholy dread.

A man was on the ground, lifeless, a pool of blood spreading around him as his blank eyes bore straight through me. A nurse straddled the corpse, a scalpel clutched in her hand as she stabbed his throat over and over, blood smattering her white uniform with every jab. She'd been at it awhile. His head was a few stabs away from being completely severed.

The man’s gown was pulled up to his ribs, leaving him bare from the waist down, and the nurse’s dress was bunched around her hips. She rocked with wild abandon on his pelvis.

Disgust slithered under my skin. The sloppy wet noises weren’t just coming from the scalpel thrusting into the man’s destroyed throat. The nurse was having sex with her victim, and by the look of it, her victim hadn’t been dead for long.

Disquieting awe twisted through me.

They’d been having sex when she'd murdered him.

The nurse’s moans grew louder, to where I was sure she hadn’t heard me approach. I had to go and get help. As I backed away, her undulations stilled.

Then, like something straight from a horror movie, the woman’s head turned a full one-hundred-and-eighty degrees. The sound of her own bones cracking only had the disturbing grin on her face, stretching wider. "Would you like a turn, Doctor? He feels so good inside!”

She erupted into shrill laughter as she resumed fucking the corpse.

My stomach heaved, and my hand slammed over my mouth to hold back the bile burning up my throat. I’d seen my fair share of disturbing shit, from the bloated corpse of my alcoholic father lying on the floor of his trailer amongst a swarm of flies, to the grisliest of accidents from my training in the ER.

But I hadn’t seen anything like this.

Then I registered the green veins covering the nurse’s exposed buttocks and thighs. Was this just another hallucination from the pills? How could it be? I hadn’t taken them in days. More likely, it was an extreme reaction the nurse was having to Rook’s Treatment.

The nurse angled her upper body in a way that gave me a clear view of the nametag fixed to her bloody uniform. Nurse Marisela.

Marisela giggled. “Come on, Doctor, he’s got a nice big cock. It will be even harder once rigor mortis sets in!”

"Wh–what have you done?" I managed to rasp.

"This patient was naughty. He needed to be punished."

She appeared surprised by my expression of sheer disgust—and a maelstrom of other emotions I couldn’t begin to process. “Don’t worry, Doctor. He’ll come back. They always do.”

I couldn’t move. Couldn’t back away. I was going into shock, and before I could shake myself free, Nurse Marisela screeched her release. Her nails ripped into the dead man’s chest, and she convulsed on top of him as if possessed by a demon. Her scream tore through the chapel like an evil hymn, and the statue of Christ gazed down at me with disapproval. As if I could have stopped this. And maybe I could have stopped it if only I’d arrived sooner.

“Boo!”

A new voice shouted behind me. I screamed as I whipped around to see Bunny jumping out from behind a pew.

The girl howled with amusement as she fell onto the floor, kicking her bare feet. “Did you see that, Joanie?” She held her doll up with one hand and pointed at me with the other. “We got her good!”

“Bunny, run! Go get help!!"

Her giggle attack came to a sudden halt. She sat up, blinking at me. “What’s wrong? You don’t like this game?”

What was wrong with this girl? Couldn’t she see all the blood and the dead body? I glanced back at the altar, bewilderment gagging me. The nurse was gone. Her victim, too. In fact, there was no trace that they’d been here at all.

Even the blood was gone.

My pulse thrashed in my chest. "Th–they were just here, a nurse...c-covered in blood."

"The nurses here usually are," Bunny said matter-of-factly as she got up from the floor. "Do you need a hug? You look scared.”