Horrors from Around the World

Night 004 - The Night Shift

The night shift at St. Mercy's Hospital had always been quiet, too quiet for Roger's taste. He'd grown used to the long hours alone, the hum of flickering lights, and the sterile smell of antiseptic clinging to the walls. But lately, something felt wrong, as if the silence had a pulse of its own. Shadows lingered too long in corners, whispers seemed to drift down empty halls, and a constant chill crawled across the back of his neck.

Then there was Clara.

She wasn't like the other nurses. Clara had appeared about a month ago, and from the moment she walked through the hospital doors, Roger had sensed something off about her. Her pale skin almost glowed in the dim lights, her dark eyes seemed to follow you even when she wasn't looking, and her smile... something about that smile left a rotten taste in his mouth.

But it wasn't just Clara that unnerved him. Patients had started disappearing. At first, it was only whispers among the staff—someone moved to another facility without warning, a death marked as "natural causes" even though the body was gone before morning. But the rumors grew louder. Rooms would be empty, beds cold to the touch, as if the patients had simply never existed. Yet Roger had seen them. He knew they were there.

And tonight, that whispering silence had returned, thicker than ever. As Roger stared at the grainy images on the security monitors, his eyes kept drifting to the basement—the morgue. A part of him didn't want to look, but something was pulling him there. He could feel it.

A crash echoed down the hall, sharp and unnatural.

Roger's heart leapt in his chest. He stood, grabbing his flashlight, and headed toward the noise. It had come from the old locker room, a part of the hospital no one visited anymore, not since the renovations. His footsteps echoed in the dead silence, the chill in the air pressing down on him with every step. The overhead lights buzzed weakly, flickering as if struggling to stay alive. The smell of mildew and rot intensified as he approached the locker room, mixing with something else—something metallic.

Blood.

The door creaked as Roger pushed it open. His flashlight flickered, casting long shadows across the rows of rusted lockers. The metallic smell was stronger now, almost choking him. His breath hitched as he stepped into the room, sweeping the beam across the lockers.

And then he saw it.

A locker stood slightly ajar, and a dark stain oozed from the bottom, spreading across the floor like an inkblot from hell. Roger hesitated, his instincts screaming at him to turn back. But he couldn't. His hands trembled as he reached for the locker door and pulled it open.

A body fell out.

Roger staggered back, bile rising in his throat. The corpse was crammed unnaturally into the small space, twisted and broken, its face a grotesque mask of terror. But it wasn't just the sight of the body—it was what was missing. The chest had been sliced open, hollowed out, as if something had ripped its way out. The organs were gone, leaving only an empty cavity.

Roger stumbled, his hand shaking as he brought the flashlight closer. The body's eyes had been sewn shut, but crudely, as though whoever had done it didn't care about precision. A deep chill seeped into his bones as he recognized the face—it was one of the patients who had disappeared just a week ago.

A whisper, soft and chilling, slithered through the air.

Roger froze, his pulse hammering in his ears. The whisper wasn't coming from the room. It was inside his head, crawling like cold fingers over his thoughts.

"Help me... find them."

His breath quickened as he backed away from the locker, the beam of his flashlight shaking wildly. His eyes darted around the room, searching for the source of the voice, but there was nothing—just shadows stretching and curling along the walls.

"Help me..."

The voice grew louder, more insistent. Roger's heart raced. The air seemed to close in around him, thick with something he couldn't name, something old and evil. Then, from the corner of his vision, a movement—slow, deliberate.

He turned, and there, standing in the doorway, was Clara.

Her uniform was pristine, her skin almost too pale under the flickering lights. But it was her eyes that made Roger's blood run cold. They were dark, too dark, as if they swallowed the light, leaving nothing but a hollow void.

"Roger," she said softly, her voice smooth but cold, like a blade drawn slowly across skin. "You shouldn't be here."

His throat tightened. "Clara, what the hell is going on?"

Clara smiled, that same unsettling smile, but now it looked different—twisted, cruel. She took a step forward, her movements too fluid, too unnatural, like a puppet on invisible strings.

"You've seen too much." Her voice was a whisper, but it cut through the silence like a razor. "But you still don't know enough."

Before Roger could react, Clara moved—faster than humanly possible. Her hand shot out, cold fingers wrapping around his wrist like a vice. He gasped, dropping his flashlight as the room plunged into darkness.

"You were never supposed to find this," Clara hissed, her face inches from his. Her breath was cold, unnaturally so, and her eyes... they seemed to shift, almost pulsating with some unseen force. "But now that you have, you're part of it."

Roger struggled against her grip, panic surging through him. He could hear something behind her, a low, wet sound—like the dragging of something heavy across the floor. His eyes darted to the open locker, and his blood turned to ice.

The corpse was moving.

Slowly, impossibly, it crawled out of the locker, its head lolling unnaturally to one side, its fingers clawing at the floor. Its mouth gaped open in a silent scream, and its chest—its hollowed-out chest—glistened wetly in the dim light. The corpse reached out, its mangled hand grasping for Clara's leg.

"Don't..." the corpse rasped, its voice like broken glass. "Don't let her take you..."

Clara's face twisted into a snarl, and she released Roger, spinning toward the corpse. "You're mine!" she screeched, her voice now inhuman, distorted. She raised a hand, and with a sickening crack, the corpse was flung back against the wall, its body crumpling like a rag doll.

Roger staggered back, gasping for breath. The air around him seemed to pulse, the very walls closing in. Shadows writhed along the floor, crawling toward Clara, swirling around her legs like smoke. And in the darkness, he could see them—more bodies. Dozens of them, crawling from the shadows, their hollow eyes locked on Clara.

"You shouldn't have come here, Roger," Clara said, her voice now a twisted echo. Her face seemed to shift, her skin cracking and peeling away to reveal something beneath—something ancient, monstrous. "You should have stayed in the light."

Suddenly, the shadows surged forward, and Roger ran, his legs moving before his mind could process what was happening. Behind him, Clara's laughter echoed through the halls, a chilling, distorted sound that made his skin crawl.

He didn't stop until he burst through the exit doors, gasping for air as the cold night engulfed him. The hospital loomed behind him, dark and silent, its windows staring back like dead eyes.

But even as he stood there, trembling, Roger knew one thing for certain.

Clara wasn't human. She was something else, something far worse. And the hospital? It wasn't just haunted—it was alive, feeding off the bodies that disappeared, growing stronger with every soul it claimed.

Roger turned away, but the weight of what he'd seen pressed down on him. He couldn't shake the feeling that he hadn't truly escaped.

The next moment, he jolted awake, lying on a cold steel slab in the morgue. His breath came in ragged gasps as he sat up, his uniform neatly pressed, his flashlight resting by his side. The dim hum of the hospital lights buzzed overhead. Confused, he stood and walked toward the security office, his footsteps eerily calm.

As he sat down in front of the monitors, watching the same dark halls, the same flickering lights, a familiar chill crept down his spine. Somewhere, in the back of his mind, a memory stirred—the same memory of Clara, the locker, and the shadows. But it faded as quickly as it had surfaced.

He couldn't escape. He never would.

The night shift had begun again.