The Corpse Matron

Greene Memorial Clinic in Wingston was founded in the 1950s, and many cases of disappearance have occurred. Many residents say that a ghost known as the Corpse Matron wheels people away in the middle of the night. Many argue that it's just a rumor and that those missing patients passed away.

If they had, why wasn't the other staff on shift notified?

Yet somehow, the date and time of their passing were written in red ink in their files, along with the initials A.E. at the bottom of the paper. It was narrowed down to someone on the night shift when asked who they were. 

They were probably someone that the other co-workers didn't know well.

When Gael Davis was assigned to investigate the old disappearances, the record keeper took him to an old, small, dusty file room where patient records were kept from the clinic's opening to the changeover. Twenty years of records were stored here from the 1950s to the 1970s.

As Gael stepped into the room, he flipped on the light switch and exhaled an exhausted sigh. He hadn't even started pouring through the countless files. The record keeper, an older lady named Sylvie, handed over the key and looked up at Gael, hands on her hips.

"Now remember to lock up this room when you're done, and don't TAKE anything home with you." she wagged her finger at him.

"Yes, ma'am." he nodded, showing her a smile.

Sylvie tutted and made her way out of the room, leaving Gael to begin his work, who let out a low whistle as the door shut, looking at the stack of boxes and a single filing cabinet filled to the brim with files.

Pulling over a crate to sit on, he started going through the first of the three boxes stacked next to the filing cabinet. The police chief told Gael before he left that he would be looking for the initials A.E. for Miss Absinthe Esper.

She had been a suspect in the cases back in the 1950s but was never found guilty. Instead, Absinthe insisted another co-worker was framing her. When asked who could be trying to frame her, she made the excuse that it was probably an intern who had conveniently stopped working there when the police started to investigate.

Wingston police have suspected her for years but never had enough evidence to warrant an arrest. Now, years later, and Absinthe has long since passed away, they could no longer charge her with the disappearance of the patients.

Opening the first folder in the stack, Gael flipped through the pages, checking to see if there were any end-of-life papers in the back, along with a copy of the coroner's report. Setting it aside, he didn't see the initials A.E., so he continued skimming through the stack.

When he got to the next box of folders, he saw Absinthe's signature start to appear—starting with a young man named Theodore Jones. He was in for an Appendectomy. During the night, while he was recovering, his body went missing under the watchful eye of Miss Esper. Who had proclaimed that Theodore had left his room in the middle of the night when she was doing the nightly rounds to check on the patients.

What exactly did she do with the bodies?

There was a knock at the door, and Gael closed the folder, looking over his shoulder. "Come in," he said. 

The door swung open, and clinic director Holt Greene walked in. He was a short, stout man with a curly mustache. "Any progress, Mr Davis? The clinic will close soon, and only the emergency side will open."

"Yeah, I found where Absinthe started signing the papers on the missing patients," Gael replied, standing up on wobbly knees.

Holt nodded and looked around the room. "Sylvie gave you the keys, so go ahead and lock up." The director left the room, waving goodbye over his shoulder and heading down the hall. Setting the file down, Gael walked over, flipping off the light switch and glancing at the room one last time before locking it up and heading home.

Walking to his car, he looked over his shoulder to the clinic's second floor.

In one of the windows was a figure of a woman in a light pastel dress with an apron over the top and a cap with a nursing symbol. Her entire body is translucent. When she smiled at him, it stretched inhumanly from ear to ear, possibly stained with red lipstick. 

When Gael blinked, she disappeared. Rubbing his eyes, he narrowed it down to being tired. He got into the passenger side and turned on the engine, deciding to make his way home for the night. Gael saw things because he had been staring at paperwork for too long. This unsolved case must be getting to him.

The following morning, Gael made his way back to Greene Memorial. He walked through the front door, sipping coffee from a drive-through shop.

Digging into his pocket, he procured the keys, fumbled to get them into the lock, and let the door creak open. Geal stepped on foot inside and flipped on the light switch, looking around the room. It was cold, and a chill traveled down his spine, even with the warm disposable cup in his hand. He also noticed condensation on the walls, slowly dripping to the floor.

"Time to get to work," Gael said to no one in particular and sat on the same crate from yesterday. He opened a new file and set it aside if it had the initials A.E. 

As Gael began to have a pretty good stack, he stretched and took a break, sipping down the last bit of bitter-cold coffee. The sound of footsteps began to echo down the hall, and Gael figured it was either Sylvie or Holt, but when he walked over to the door and looked down the hall, he found it empty.

Gael chuckled, "It's just my mind playing tricks on me."

He turned and came face to face with the same woman he saw yesterday.

"Good morning." she smiled, her lips still turned upwards in an unnatural way. Geal nodded. "Mornin'." he returned the greeting, watching her look over at the small table he had placed the files onto.

"Visitors aren't supposed to be in here." Her gaze was back on him, and she tilted slightly to the side. 

"Oh, I'm not a visitor." Gael thought carefully before choosing his following words. "I was sent here by a client to check relatives' records since they're getting tests done. To make sure it's nothing genetic."

She crossed her arms over her chest. "Do I look like I was born yesterday? I know exactly why you're here."

"You do?" he blinked, confused but acted surprised.

Absinthe Esper pursed her upturned lips, making her look like a sweetlip fish. She wagged her finger for him to lean in closer, and he reluctantly complied. 

In a hushed whisper, she told him, "You know about the demon in the morgue, too." Gael cocked his head and furrowed his brows, watching her bare a toothless pitch-black mouth and place a finger to her lips, silencing him.

Absinthe nodded. "You must keep him fed, or he will swallow this place whole." He leaned back, standing at his full height. "And this demon told you this?" Gael questioned.

She nodded and looked around him, her eyes widening. Gael caught this and peered over his shoulder, seeing nothing; no one was there. Absinthe had seen something and disappeared. According to her ghost, there was a demon in the morgue.

Gael didn't want to admit it, but he would have to go down into the morgue. The place he knew would have to go down eventually, but not this soon. At this point, he didn't have a choice. Opening the filing cabinet, Gael looked for an old map to determine where the old morgue would be.

With the yellow parchment in hand, he exited the record room and shut it behind him, locking it with the key. Following the layout on the map, the old morgue was on the first floor, which now would be considered the basement. Gael would need to take the elevator down, but he would need a key to access that floor.

The only person to ask would be Holt Greene, the clinic director. As Sylvie walked past, he stopped her, asking if she knew if the director was in today. "No, he isn't in his office today. Why, what do you need?" she asked, giving him a questioning stare.

"I need the key to access the basement from the elevator," Gael replied.

"Why on earth do you want to go down there?" Sylvie pressed.

"I think there is vital information down there." he quipped.

She studied Gael and shook her head. "If it keeps you out of my hair, I will get it. Meet me at the elevator on the first floor."

Sylvie disappeared around the corner of the hallway, and Gael went to wait for her at the elevator. He didn't have to wait long before she showed up, handing over a tiny red key. 

"Make sure to return it when you finish."

"Yes, ma'am."

She rolled her eyes and went on her way. Gael entered the elevator, inserted the tiny red key, turned it on, and pressed the B1 button. She watched the doors close, and the elevator creaked and rocked, beginning its descent. The doors slowly creaked open, revealing nothing but complete darkness.

Taking out his phone, he turned on the light, stepped out of the elevator, and looked around. He used his free hand to cover his nose as he walked further in. A putrid, sour smell with a sickeningly sweet undertone was in the air. This was where Absinthe said the demon lived—the one she said she fed all those innocent people to.

Gael's foot bumped into something, causing it to clatter and roll across the floor. When he shone his light on the direction of the item, he saw a hand reach out and snag it away. What was that just now?

There was shuffling and the sound of crunching close by. When Gael found the source, he wished that he hadn't. Before him, he was a tall man, or could it be considered that? Their limbs were unnaturally long, their skin covered in grey scales, and their eyes glowed bright yellow.

Gael felt frozen in place. He scolded himself for not running back to the elevator and getting out of this place. Instead, he felt a hand on his shoulder to his left. When Geal turned to look, he saw Absinthe standing next to him, her form flickering.

"It was nice of you to come here without a fuss. My master is hungry and will soon need a meal." her face looked up at Gael's. She still had that awful, unnatural, upturned smile; her lips, which were stained red, were now smeared. She dug her nails into his shoulder, causing him to flinch and drop his phone. It bounced when it hit the ground, scattering across the floor, causing the demon to turn his attention to the two behind him.

The demon stood to his full height, leering down at them.

"Master, I've brought you another meal. Will he suffice?" Absinthe offered with a show of her hand towards Gael, who began to back away. It sniffed the air, and yellow eyes locked onto its new meal and roared. 

He began returning to the elevator with the demon on his heels.

When Gael got to the door, he frantically pressed the button. A scaled arm shot out and grabbed him, pulling him backward by the back of his head and lifting him. He kicked wildly into the air and pulled at the hand that suspended him in the air.

The demon leaned close to his ear, speaking some language he thought was Latin until he heard it repeat the words.

"Only death awaits you here." 

To confirm that he meant the words spoken, the demon sunk his fangs into Gael, drinking his blood and chewing his flesh. Gael tries to scream but is silenced by a piece of duct tape being slapped onto his mouth by Absinthe, who presses a finger to her lips, silencing him.

"Now be a nice sacrifice to the master, and don't make a fuss."

Her unnatural red-up-turned smile was the last thing Gael saw.