The Hospital – Short Story

When you are admitted to a hospital, they place on your wrist a white wristband with your name on it. But there are other different colored wristbands which symbolizes other things. The red wristbands are placed on dead people.

There was a surgeon who worked a night shift in a local hospital. He had just finished an operation, and was on his way down to the basement. He entered the elevator and there was just one other person there. He casually chatted with the woman while the elevator descended. When the elevator door opened, another woman was about to enter when the doctor slammed the close button, and punched the button to the highest floor. Surprised, the woman reprimanded the doctor for being rude, and asked why he did not let the other woman in. The doctor said, “That was the woman I just operated on. She died while I was doing the operation. Didn’t you see the red wristband she was wearing?” The woman smiled, raised her arm, and said, “Something like this?” The doctor looks over to see a gleaming red band on her wrist. At that moment, the lights start to flicker. He goes into a corner, panic starting to form in his mind. The woman looks at him, smiling no more. The lights continue to flicker. With each flicker, she seems to get closer and closer until…

The lights go out. The doctor is now starting to cry. The sound of a little girl’s voice is whispering on the other side of the elevator. It seems to be far away from where he was standing. The doctor walked over to the other side of the elevator and touched what he thought was a wall. But as his hand trailed down, he felt the features of a face. Then, against his hand, he felt an icy cold exhale of air come from an opened mouth. The doctor shrieked and jumped back in fear. A light flickered on and nothing was there. He heard a sizzling sound start up. He looked up to see the light bulb twitching and smoke streams traveling from the inside. The doctor covered his face, just in time to be pelted with hundreds of glass shards. The doctor was plunged into darkness. He sat there, sweat pouring from his face down to his chin where it dropped and pooled onto his collared shirt. The doctor looked around but could see nothing. He was completely blinded. He didn’t know what but something urged him to reach out and touch for whatever was in front of him. The doctor reached out and wiggled his fingers, trying to grab or touch something, anything that was out of place. But he was only met by darkness. A light flicked on, but it wasn’t inside the elevator. It seems the elevator had extended into a hallway. But how could this be? Had I thought I got on the elevator and passed out here instead? I must be losing my marbles, the doctor thought to himself. The on-edge doctor slowly stood up, leaning against a banister for support.

Ever so cautiously, the doctor shuffled down the narrow, dimly lit hallway. Out of the corner of his eye, he thought he saw something staring at him, but when he turned to ease his overly alert nerves, he saw nothing. This was more than he could take. He had just about had it with this freaking hospital. When he got home, he was gonna call his boss and give him a piece of his mind. The doctor regained his composure and laughed as he realized he had stepped off the elevator and was now at the top floor. He laughed a little harder as he recalled the way he acted only moments ago. He walked more surely now down the hall, more confident in himself. The doctor began to hum to himself, as he continued to his office just around the corner. The doctor stopped dead in his tracks, and turned around. He saw nothing but an empty, dimly lit hallway. There was a window on the wall overlooking the parking lot. He ran to it and quickly scanned for any other cars suggesting that someone else was here with him. To his fear, he was here alone. “But how could this be,” he thought to himself, “If I’m here alone… then who or what is making that sound?” The doctor noticed a woman run past him, in the opposite direction in which he was going. “Excuse me, miss,” he yelled out to her as he turned down the hallway she ran down, “You aren’t supposed to be up here without an appointment.” He waited for an answer but heard nothing. Maybe I really wasn’t alone, and someone would catch up to her later and take her home, the doctor thought to himself. He continued towards his office, planning to call his wife and tell her not to wait up and that he might be a little late coming home tonight. As he reached his office door, he felt a hand slide down his back. Startled, he spun around on his heels to find that he was alone in the narrow hallway. He looked up and down the corridor but was met by emptiness. With quite a bit of urgency, he slammed his key into the office lock and let himself in, slamming the door behind him.

Sliding his hand along the wall, he searched for the light switch, but to his horror, he only found a smooth, cold surface. “Don’t panic,” he said aloud, “You’re simply looking in the wrong place.” Calmly, He fished in his pocket for his phone. Using the light from the phone, he found the light switch, and flicked it up. With a loud POP, the lightbulb bursted, sprinkling the floor with its remains. It took all the doctor’s willpower and strength not to burst into another stream of tears. “No,” he said, “I am getting out of this hospital.” The doctor found the doorknob, unlocked the door and headed out into the hallway. Nearly sprinting down the hallway, the doctor headed straight for the stairs. He refused to take that Godforsaken elevator again and he wouldn’t ever again, not even if his legs broke. He’d gladly crawl before he took that elevator. While running, the doctor noticed red paint trickling down a wall to his left. Curious, he stopped his escape to examine the paint closer. What he thought was just paint splatters, turned out to be actual words. The doctor’s breath came out in reluctant heaves as he read the words, “CURIOSITY KILLED THE CAT, YOU KNOW?” Not wanting to be there another minute, he turned away and was about to run when he heard a crying sound coming from a room somewhere behind him. It sounded like a child crying. The doctor’s heart and mind were screaming at each other in an intense argument. His heart was telling him to go check it out, meanwhile his mind was saying to run. In the end, his heart won and the doctor crept slowly back the way he’d come from.

The sound seemed to be coming from the far side of the hallway. The doctor’s neck hairs began to stand up. For he had heard some strange things about that part of the hospital. No one went down to the north wing. According to hospital tales that he’d eavesdropped on in the main hall, a doctor by the name of Richard Hemsworth, suspected to be in affiliation with the local cult, used to take kids down to the basement, gut them like a pig, and hang them out to dry. This went on for years and years until one day, while cleaning, a janitor walked down to the basement and stepped on something. When he bent down to pick it up, he nearly vomited. He just stood there, holding a little boy’s hand by the wrist in his own. The police spent weeks trying to find Hemsworth, but after the weeks turned into months, the case went cold and Richard was lost. Some say that the little kids that Hemsworth killed sometimes walk around the north side at night, spirits of rage with a wicked vendetta. Doctors, janitors, nurses, visitors, patients, and kids have all go on that side and are never seen again. Other stories say that, at night, if you listen hard enough when it’s real quiet, you can hear the cries of all the children that Hemsworth slaughtered all those years ago.

The doctor mustered up as much courage as he could, and continued walking down the hall. As he continued to walk, he noticed something on the wall, to his right, coming up towards him. Slowing his stride, the doctor stared in awe as he read “CURIOSITY KILLED THE CAT, YOU KNOW?” in the same red paint, trickling down the wall in the same way as the other set of words on the wall. “It can’t be the same. It’s literally impossible,” he said aloud, feeling less convinced than he sounded. Shaking from head to toe, the doctor attempted to pinpoint the crying. It was coming from the stairwell that lead to the roof. The doctor walked towards the door, on the verge of tears for the third time this night. “I didn’t sign up for this b******t,” he thought to himself, as he pushed the door open, revealing the upward staircase. The crying got louder, as he made his way up the stairs. After what seemed like forever, he finally broke out onto the slippery roof, immediately drenched by the hard rain falling down from a moonless night sky. His eyes adjusted to the darkness of night, but he’d really wished they hadn’t because what he witnessed, nearly had him backpedaling towards the door.

Roughly fifty little girls and boys stood before him, but what really held his attention was the massive gashes in their upper torsos and the missing limbs. He began to back away but was stopped by something wall-solid. He turned around to see that Richard Hemsworth was standing behind him, staring down at him. Genuine fear moved its way through his veins, as Hemsworth donned an evil grin, eyes darker than the night itself. The doctor turned to run but realized that he was running straight to the edge of the building. But by the time he realized this and turned around, he was being pushed across the side. His screams rang out into the atmosphere, loud and long. Another sound left its mark on the night, the sound of laughter. Richard Hemsworth stood on the edge of the building cackling into the night sky. That was the last thing he saw before his body made contact with the ground. Richard Hemsworth had claimed another life.

  • PurplexiaSphinx

    The beginning I’ve definitely heard before, but the ending left me wanting more–in a good way–and I’m genuinely impressed with the writing. The grammar was great, the spelling was flawless as far as I could tell, and the story was that perfect blend of dark and gruesome, not relying on gore as the main tactic but rather playing on the reader’s own paranoia and obvious knowledge of creepy things (since, y’know, you wouldn’t be here if you didn’t know about creepy things) to keep us on edge the whole time until a final, surprisingly kind death for our poor protagonist. At least compared to what I typically read and write. Nobody gets a quick death in my stories… Fantastic job!!