I was the kind of girl who would take any job as long as it paid me well. And work at a hospital presented itself to me. Don't get me wrong. I am not a nurse or doctor. I was hired as an Information Clerk.
My job was mixed with some tasks from the Admitting office since we're under the same department. And the mix includes going for rounds at the hospital before midnight to check if all the patients in our system are still there. Definitely someone else's job, but our supervisor insists. I have no choice but to do it when I am on a graveyard shift.
Our uniform, being extra fit, does not make it any easier.
Our office has to file a report of the total number of admissions and discharges for the day. We need to have the exact numbers with the nurse station's record for new admissions and discharges per floor. We could have done this easily via phone call, but again, our supervisor insisted on making the rounds and seeing the patients firsthand.
For the record, taking this job was the biggest mistake of my life.
One night, while going around the hospital, I saw the hallway going to the Operating Room. There are no rooms near it, and it's the only door in that hall. I stared at it as I felt something luring me into that room.
A little bit later, while I was slowly walking towards the door, it opened as an orderly, and a nurse brought out a covered body in a blanket.
"Expired?" I asked.
"Yup, do you have a paper? Let me give you the details," said the male nurse.
I gave him a pen and paper so I could look for the information and update our system. But when he gave back the paper to me, I saw a mobile number instead of the patient's details.
"Come back here later. I will give you what you need." He winked at me and then left. They walked away giggling.
I felt disgusted. I have no reason to go back there, so why would I?
As I watched them walk away, I thought I saw the patient flinch. I gasped. They stopped walking and looked at me.
"Relax. That's normal; they even fart sometimes." The nurse laughed and smacked the chest of the deceased patient multiple times. He even removed the cover of the patient's face for me to see.
I felt bad for the patient. After a few minutes, the doctors came out of the OR. I heard them talking about the patient. A male doctor said that the patient went under the knife earlier and had an emergency surgery tonight. Everything was fine after the bypass, according to him. The doctor also said that he noticed an external wound that looked like someone had stabbed the patient.
The doctor looked my way. Probably thinking why I was there. "Can I ask a question?" I hesitantly inquired.
"Sure, what is it?" The doctor responded.
"May I ask the name of the expired patient so I can update my report?"
He looked for my ID. And when he confirmed that I was an employee, he gave me the name. He also said to keep the information private because there would be an investigation. I didn't want to bother him so much since he looked tired, so I did not ask for anything else and walked away after thanking him.
"Rafael Mila, he's a VIP," I said to myself.
I went to the ground floor where our department was located and headed to my table. I looked for the patient's information and saw that he was a 67-year-old man who had undergone bypass surgery this morning.
I wondered what went wrong but then proceeded to mark him as deceased and wrote the info on our logbook for the next shift.
The night passed, and the emergency room just beside our office was particularly quiet. I went to the water dispenser beside the office window to get hot water for my coffee. And while I was getting water, I saw the nurse who gave his number pass by our office. Behind him was another guy, probably a patient.
"He was supposed to push the patient on a wheelchair inside the premises," I murmured.
It was a rule. Regardless of the patient's condition, a nurse or an orderly should push the patient into a wheelchair. It's an insurance thing because it takes just one trip for a patient to sue us.
I was about to go back to my seat when I heard a loud slam on the door. The hot water spilled a bit on my hand. I turned around and saw the nurse laughing. I locked the door and talked to him through the window.
"The heck was that? What do you need?" I asked.
"You're the one who needed something," he said. I saw his eyes roaming around my body. "Not bad." He added.
It was so uncomfortable. I crossed my arms while I was still holding my mug. "How about I tell the nursing supervisor that you did not push a patient on a wheelchair inside the hospital premises?"
"A patient? I was with an orderly the whole time." He answered with a smirk.
"I know the difference between a patient and an orderly! I saw you with a guy wearing a patient's robe!" I angrily whispered.
"The only patient I was with was the deceased patient you saw." He explained. "Unless he is a zombie. He would have followed me here, though."
I know what I saw. He was with a patient. Patients wear a white robe with thin vertical black stripes, while an orderly can only wear a plain black scrub suit.
"What happened with that patient anyway?" I curiously asked him.
"I will tell you. But would you let me in?" He asked.
I hesitated. This man could harass me if given a chance. But I gave him the benefit of the doubt since I can scream if he tries to do anything.
We sat in the waiting chair inside the office. I kept my distance. He stretched his arms and legs and cracked his neck.
"A doctor left a blade in his body during the bypass." He casually said while intimately tracing my body with his eyes.
"That's impossible," I said while trying to get more space away from him.
"I don't know, and I don't care. He's dead anyway. Now, care to give me what I need?" He said while slowly bringing his face closer to mine and his fingers caressing my face.
"I will scream," I said.
"You can try," I suddenly felt a cold, sharp object pointing to my neck. "I know that there are no cameras in this office, and most especially, I know every major vein in your neck. Just one stab, and you'll be the next after that deceased patient."
I silently cried while he was taking off my clothes with one hand. When he was taking off his, I saw someone behind him.
The guy looked familiar.
And he was inside the office.
While I was staring at the guy behind him, my memory became clearer.
"Rafael... Rafael Mila." I said.
He was the patient following this nurse earlier. And most of all, he was the deceased patient they had just taken out of the operating room.
The nurse was sexually assaulting me while I was still staring at the old man standing behind him. I don't know which one scares me the most— the nurse or the patient.
When the nurse saw my face, he looked behind him. I guess he saw nothing. That's when the lights started flickering. I took the chance to run away from the nurse, but I didn't have the strength to run out of the office.
I crawled towards a corner and hugged myself as I saw the man standing in front of the nurse. By that time, the nurse had seen the patient already because the nurse had started crying. With every flicker of the light, their position changed like I was looking at photographs.
I was scared when the nurse kneeled and faced me. The patient was behind him. With another flicker of light, the knife he used to threaten me was stabbed to his chest. The patient was still behind him
I screamed and closed my eyes as I saw the nurse's body slump on the floor face first. The patient made his way toward me, and all I could do was scream as I saw his face change.
From a normal face of a human, his face warped as if it was slowly burning and turning to a bone. His flesh and his eyeballs were melting. His nose slowly disintegrated from a normal human nose to a hole in a skull. His hands turned to bones and were reaching for me. I closed my eyes tightly and covered my ears.
A few minutes later, I felt someone holding me by my arms, assisting me. I opened my eyes and saw people, doctors, and nurses around me. They went there to my rescue and called the police.
The death of the nurse was ruled as self-defense. I also found out that the nurse has multiple offenses in the hospital but was ignored because he is a board member's nephew. And I resigned; who wouldn't?
I concluded that the nurse was the one who left a blade inside the patient's body that caused his death. The nurse might even be the culprit behind that stab on his chest, as to why the patient sought revenge even after death.
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