The Last Winter

Saturday: In the Morgue (17)

Michal
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The farther we descend, the colder it gets. I can feel the skin on my forearms go numb, even though I'm wearing a coat. I can't really feel my fingers, and I have difficulty gripping Maggie's baseball bat. My breath hangs in wispy clouds in front of my face.

We descend more steps in silence.

The Howler. The Howler. What is the Howler?

I can't help but think of whatever is stalking the hall upstairs. A wild dog? A wolf? Did we hear anything at all? Maybe our terrified curiosity got the better of us. Maybe we ran for no reason, spooked by dark hallways and abandoned rooms.

Still, though.

The Howler.

We come across a pair of dirty glass doors, and with a hesitant step, I push through. We enter a large room with small steel doors lining the walls in two rows.

I've seen enough reruns on TV to know what is kept inside the metal boxes. Corpses.

We're in the morgue.

"Geez, what happened here?" Nolan finally says softly, his voice shattering the choking silence.

Slightly alarmed, I follow his gaze to a particular door on the right side of the room. The rusted steel door looks like it had taken an awful beating, dented and bent out of shape. It doesn't fit the frame anymore, or even close for that matter. I find myself approaching it.

"No, don't do it," I hear Vena mutter. "If we're in the zombie apacolypse, it starts here! I would not open that door!"

I ignore her. I tuck the bat under my arm and grab hold of the crusty handle, as cold as ice to the touch. It's much heavier than I thought, and it takes me a good tug to jerk it open.

A deafening squeal of rusty metal horrifies me, and I stop immediately. I turn to look at my brother with wide eyes, as if I'm caught sticking my hand in a forbidden cookie jar.

"That was too loud. Way too loud," he chokes out, clearly terrified at the possible repercussions.

Vena keeps a wary eye on the entrance, as if half-expecting a ghost to pop out.

After barricading the entrance to the stairwell earlier, I don't think she needs to worry about anyone or anything following us.

I focus my attention on the chamber in front of me again--a cold, empty gaping void. The dirty bed for the dead is darkened with some sort of stains. I hesitantly whip out my phone and shine the light down on it, and that's when I notice something else marking the inside of the storage fridge.

Scratches. Deep scratches, as if someone had been trapped inside alive against their will and had been desperately clawing at the sides. I trace the interior of the door with my fingers, feeling the dents. These are big ones, made from whoever had been inside. But these are very large, and I can't imagine anyone having the strength to do something like this, especially when confined to such a small space.

That's when it occurs to me that perhaps it wasn't a person who had been inside at some point.

My blood goes cold.

Somehow I lose my grip on Maggie's bat, and it crashes to the floor with a loud clank!

The Howler! my mind screams at me.

What if it's still here?

"We should go!" I hear Nolan tell me distantly, and I feel his hand on my shoulder.