Page 51 of Possess Us
Get up and get out.
That’s all I can think of.
Get. The fuck. Out!
Their feet start to move. They begin to slide out!
I can’t breathe. My heart hurts, it's hammering in my chest so hard. I want to run, but all I manage is slowly standing and walking out as though drunk, swaying from side to side as the world spins around me. I cling to the wall, trying to shake sense and coordination back into myself.
I hear the dull thuds of their feet meeting the floor as I leave the room.
If I die of a heart attack now, after everything I have been through in my life, I will be so fucking pissed!
I enter the next room.
What could possibly be worse than all that? Well. Let me see.
I stop still, taking in the sight. An old light flickers above a steel table. Two nurses stand on either side. One points a wind-up camera down at a man strapped to a metal gurney. The otherholds a tray of rusted implements. The man’s chest is bare, and his wrists are chained to the table. A doctor in a dirty white coat with a matching hat and face mask stands poised with a scalpel at his patient’s chest. I breathe a sigh of relief when I realise they are mannequins. The light flickers and buzzes with electricity, threatening to go out completely and plunge me into darkness. Thick cobwebs cover the ceiling, and the speakers continue to play those distant screams and moans.
‘Breathe, Willow,’ I tell myself. ‘Do not have a heart attack. It’s just a mannequin.’ I carry on. Three steps in, the lights flicker and plunge the room into darkness. My heart pounds. Every muscle in my body tightens, and my legs won’t cooperate.
Why does the darkness make everything so much more terrifying?
The light flickers back on.
Everything is the same. I’m still alone. And there’s a sign up ahead.
I take another step. The lights go out again. Chains rattle. Not through speakers. Not from another room. But close.
A man moans.
The light flickers back on.
I freeze, still staring at the exit sign.
‘Keep filming, Nurse,’ A well-spoken man says. ‘We must document. Now, calm yourself. This will only hurt for a moment.’
I hear a man plead, beg and thrash. His screams become desperate as a wet squelching sound tells me the scalpel has cut flesh.
The ticking of the camera as she films continues.
‘Rib spreader, please, Nurse.’
I don’t want to look. I really don’t. But I slowly start to turn, my body on autopilot as it entirely ignores my mind.
I see exactly what I expect to see. No longer are they plastic mannequins but very real people. The patient struggles against his restraints as blood spills from the cut down his chest. The doctor lowers the scalpel and takes the spreader from the nurse.
The light flickers out, but I hear it. The snapping of bone. The wet squelches. The screams.
The light flickers back on and I step back, knocking over a glass of something green. It smashes. The doctor and two nurses stop what they are doing and slowly lift their gazes to me.
‘Shit,’ I hiss, still very much a deer in headlights. I offer a smile and a wave, looking at the blood dripping from the doctor’s hands and the spreader half in his patient’s chest cavity. ‘Hello. Don’t mind me. I’m just… yeah. I’m leaving.’
The light flickers out, and I stagger back. When it flickers again, the doctor comes at me with the scalpel raised. I scream, falling on my backside like a scene in every bad horror movie I have ever seen. The light becomes strobe, plunging the room into darkness and light, making the nurses' and demented doctor’s movement jarring and impossible to predict. Scrambling away, I try to get back on my feet. He’s there with the scalpel halfway across the room. Then directly in front of me. Then the scalpel is heading straight for me. Its blade meets my arm as I try to protect my face. Another scream as he slices through my skin. Blood spills from the gash.
‘FUCKING HELL! STOP!’
I turn and scramble onto my feet, desperately looking for the door.
