When the Dead Cry

Bright lights tare through the man’s eye lids, the steady beep of a heart monitor sounds by his ear. Someone is crying, somewhere, but the man is still blinded by the lights. The heart monitor increases its pace. The man suddenly finds himself infuriated, and lashes out in the direction of the sound, hitting the machine with his arm. The machine falls to the floor, and suddenly the man is pulled with it, down to the ground. The crying is louder now, it is defiantly a woman. She is saying something.

         The man begins to see his surroundings, harsh reversals of shadow define his world, and past a few feet the objects blend together into white. The woman is crying somewhere past the white, louder and louder.

         Shut up! Shut your fucking mouth, bitch!

         The sobbing increases in intensity, filling the room. The man stumbles, drunkenly, into the haze, towards the sound. Finally he sees a bent over figure, moving with the sobs.

         Fuck! Fuck! Shut your fucking face, cunt!

         The man falls, his legs move from under him, and he hits the floor. He lays there for some time, possibly he was even unconscious, but when he rises he can see clearly, and the woman still sobs. She’s a nurse, but the man still finds himself infuriated. He walks with an uncertain aggression towards her and kicks her in the stomach, hard. The sobs hardly change; she pays no attention to him.

         Bitch shut the fuck up! What the hell is wrong with you?          
The man kicks her again, and again. She still doesn’t react. Finally he grabs her by the shoulders, and throws her violently onto her back. He opens his mouth to scream at her again, but stops himself, stumbles back and falls to the ground.

         The women’s skin is pale gray, and her teeth are falling from her mouth, dangling by nerves. But her eyes are what place fear in the man, for despite her sobbing and crying, her eyes are a sickly yellow-white, deformed, deflated, and oozing pus. Her stomach is torn open where the man’s foot hit her, but no blood flows, and the wound looks like that of a corpse. The nurse continues to sob, the man dry heaves.

         Shit, what the hell… What the shit… Where the fuck am I? Where the fuck am I?

         The man walks unsteadily around the room, avoiding looking at the nurse. He finds a door, but it’s locked. He looks reluctantly at the nurse-thing on the floor. A ring of keys are attached to her belt. She is also in front of a locker, a locker that might hold clothing other than his hospital robe. Gingerly the man loosens the keys from the belt, but the nurse only sobs.  The man tries to push the nurse away from the locker, but his fingers and palms push into her gray flesh and open more strange wounds. The man decides to open the locker door and force her away. The nurse falls on her face, with not a crack or thump, but more like the sound of mud hitting the floor. The sobs become muffled.

         Inside the locker the man finds jean pants, a dirty white tee-shirt, socks, boxers, military boots and a leather jacket. Underneath the jacket is something that the man doesn’t recognize: An old, leather clad book. Upon opening it he sees the words THE HOLY BIBLE. The man almost throws it back in the locker, but something, something that grew in him after he saw the nurse, stops him and makes him keep it, putting it in his pocket. The man dresses himself, unlocks the door to the room and leaves, closing it behind him.