No Exit part 1: Rising Water

"My, my, my, another dear coming to pay me a visit. Why, it must be my birthday.”, a raspy voice croaked out, echoing, as a misshapen silhouette bobbed over to the occupied slab. Clever, long fingers wrapped around the clipboard laying gently atop the white sheet. "Ah, but where are my manners? What is your name, pet? Mmmh. Natalie Vinzant, female, age 38, human, history of insomnia and high blood pressure. Well, I have what you might call a bit of a hunch that a family history of high blood pressure isn't what brings you hear." His tortured spring of a back uncoiled smoothly, only to curl tightly into another pained helix as he leaned in closer to the slab. His lips cracked in his leathery face as he smiled in a co-conspiring manner. "Now you see, you're far from the first client I've had today. I've been noticing a bit of a trend among my clientele as of late."

Clipboard now thoroughly forgotten, those same clever fingers snaked up the white sheet to delicately pull down the flimsy barrier separating him from his quarry. "Now, now, no need to be shy.", he cooed as the sheet hit a snag, "You hold just as many wonderments to me as all of who've come before you...Come, come, now. We'll do it like a Band-Aid, quick, and you'll see there's nothing to have worried about."

At last he pulled fully back the sheet, revealing the woman's face. "There. See, nothing so bad after all. Why, look at what you've been hiding from me; those high cheek bones, that strong, Roman nose." An arm that had slowly been crawling towards the woman's face shuddered to an abrupt stop. "Ah, but there I go; forgive my enthusiasm." The figure shambled to the other end of the slab. "I shall, of course, leave the best for last."

His hands at last fell on her then, fingers crawling and darting about like insects, examining her feet far more intimately than any person ever had while she was still living. "We shall simply start at one end, and work our way to the other.", he stated with an academic nod.

And it certainly didn't take him long to find something.

A sharp intake of breath rang out. "Ohhhhhh...Oh, my. You spoil me, my dear. We've but only just begun, and you greet me with this." As twisted as his body was, the man's fingers displayed all the flexibility of an insect's antennae as they weaved in, out, and around the contours of toes.

"Ah, beauty, beauty!", he choked in rapturous tones. "I know these toes. Such strength, such form...Clever and worn, yes, but also abused." The skin of his long index finger contrasted harshly with the smooth, mellow dark of her skin even in the lowlight gloom clinging to the room. Covered in blisters, warts, and bumps, it had all the appearance of a half melted candle as he ran it down her sole. "Fractures kissed ever so lightly up and down here once. You pounded them in so diligently, such a hard worker. Yes, a dancer you were, poppet. Oh, and you worked so hard, yes, yes, I see it. It was no mere passing interest, no, a blinding passion." The man's bizarre soliloquy halted to a stop. He lurched back to the head of the slab, bones creaking as he leaned down until his face was parallel to to hers. He brushed a lock of hair from her face, tucking it tenderly behind her ear as he rasped, "I can relate."

"But now what's this, I wonder?" He punctuated his query with a particularly enthusiastic squeeze of her thigh. He murmured to himself for a moment while his groping became increasingly more intimate. "Hmmm...Ah! Yes, I see it, the missing piece of the puzzle! You see, I've been asking myself just why I'm examining a reporter today instead of a dancer." He limped over to a desk adjacent to the slab and began to rifle through it. "Feel free to tell me if you've heard this one before." His voice stayed surprisingly even, even has his rifling became more frantic. "There's this ballet dancer, see, a little young, a little rough around the edges. But she's good, not great, but good." The man suddenly paused, any transition from his prior frantic state jarringly nonexistent. "But then, then, tragedy strikes." He jerked back around and began stumbling back over to the slab. With each step he became more increasingly animate, flailing his arms about as his speech quickened and ran together to be nearly incomprehensible.

"The girls dreams lay out before her. She can hardly be blamed for trying to cut a few corners off the travel time. She can hardly be blamed at all with the way the world was dangling her goal in front of her. The girl gets cast a role in the new production. By no means the lead, but certainly a good part for a little unknown like her. Practice, practice, you certainly took those words to heart. Un, deu, troix! Un, deu, troix! Again, again, you cried. Your partner at his poor wits end. Exhausted. Desperate for a break. He can hardly be blamed. Such a ruthless taskmaster. Again, again! You jump. You fly. Majestic in vision. Awesome in form. Synaptic firing. Burning. A brilliant cavalcade of white-hot light expressing more coherency in less than a second than a poet's whole life. Muscles taunt but flexible enough to be played a trill with Devilish fingers. So much red meat pulsing with steaming life pumped by a frantic heart. But mind proves master to meat as controlled breath plays puppet with the body. Bones grinding, Limbic acid burning. Only for a moment, the melded art of form and functionality forever remaining ephemeral. But then."

He threw his disfigured hand to his oily brow in one well practiced motion, his eyes hidden melodramtically behind his fingers. "You fall. You're partner too slow, too late. You hit the floor. Hard. And then your dreams die." His other hand rose then, revealing a scalpel in its waxy grasp. In one fluid motion, he sliced the woman's leg down to the bone. He splayed the fingers on his face and looked down, a coy smile forming around his bloody gums. "And there's the break. Looks just as fresh as when it happened. You age well, my dear. I-"

*Brrrrrring*

"..How rude. To break up this valuable time we have togethe-"

*Brrrrrrrring*

"Oh, very well..Dr. February speaking."

"Good. You've had ample time to give the new check-ins a once over. Your report."

"Dr. Albrecht. Always a pleasure to here from the big cheese wheel himself."

"I really don't have time for your asinine attempts at conversation. Report your findings immediately.

"Patience is a virtue, doctor."

"I'm about out of spyrochete-ing patience. I have a hospital in crisis to run, February. Report. Now."

"Well, if you simply must. One moment." The ghoulish man turned around towards the slab, quickly running a bulbous eye up and down its contents. "Yes, I can now for certainty say that they’re the same as the last. Each dead from massive, and frankly a bit messy, spontaneous internal hemorrhaging.

"I figured as much...You know we could really use as many hands up here as possible, February."

"Ah, ah, ah, Al. The terms of my hiring were very specific. I've learned all I can from the living, only the dead contain what I seek. Ta."

---

"Useless." Dr. Albrecht growled as he hang up the phone. He turned back towards those seated around the table before him. "Now, where were we?"


(THIS GUY...He never shuts up. Had to shoe-horn the call, the actual important part in. Also, this guy has really distracting speech mannerisms. Ugh, this is so late...I meant to have this done much sooner. More to come.)