Lump

Cafeteria Food

Cafeteria Food

THE DOOR CLOSED BEHIND her with a soft click. Marissa looked down the hall, her left hand gripping the shaft of the IV tree. She wheeled it next to her as she snuck down the hallway, her bare feet slapping on the cold tiles. She had to get out of there. Something wasn’t right with the hospital, and definitely not with the attending doctor.

She wasn’t sure what floor she was on, and the hallways were long and blank, void of any landmarks that would suggest she had been there before. As far as she knew she was wandering through a circular hallway. A door opened. She pressed herself into a shallow alcove in the wall.

A stout nurse with chunky white heels backed out, wheeling a gurney through the doors. As the double doors swung shut against the sides of the gurney, the nurse cursed. Marissa’s need to leave the hospital suddenly became more urgent as a severed arm fell from beneath the stained sheet, splattering blood onto the floor.

The nurse picked it up and shoved it back beneath the sheet with a quick look around the hallway, then wheeled the gurney down the hall. She disappeared around a corner.

Marissa moved slowly and paused at the door the nurse had come through. It had caught on a red stained cloth, leaving a few inches of viewing space. Inside she saw a doctor, Dr. Cadaver, her attending physician, preparing a needle. On the table in front of him was a squirming woman. He shoved the needle deep into her chest until she stopped moving. Marissa watched as he caressed her all over, cooing and talking in low tones that she couldn’t hear. Finally, with a laugh, he turned and took out a surgical saw.

Marissa ripped the needle out of her arm and ran. She turned the corner just as the nurse disappeared at the end of the hall through a set of doors labeled KITCHEN. Marissa peered through a circular window and watched the nurse sort the body parts into bins. Each bin had a different label. Meatloaf, Lasagna, Beef Stroganoff. Marissa choked on bile and spit on the floor when the nurse tossed a head into a dumpster.

The nurse looked up. Her eyes locked on Marissa’s through the window.

“What are you doing out of your bed?” she asked with a twisted smile. Her red lipstick had bled into her face powder.

Marissa turned to run but was stopped by a thick hand around her neck. Dr. Cadaver smiled at her, the surgical saw, dripping with blood and flecks of flesh, was propped on his shoulder.

“Let’s get started,” he said in a low voice, eyeing the front of her gown.

Marissa screamed, but it was no use. She was the only one left.