Chapter 9

FILE NAME: MORGUE_CAM_03.mp4
STATUS: Recovered from St. Augustine Memorial Morgue Security Archives.
DATE OF RECORDING: October 17, 2019
WARNING: Footage partially corrupted. Viewer discretion is advised.

~~~~~~

The morgue was never completely silent.

People imagined stillness—white sheets, stainless steel drawers, the hum of fluorescent lights. But after fifteen years as a mortician, Elias Mercer knew better.

There were always sounds.

The distant rattle of ventilation ducts.

The buzz of old electrical wiring.

The drip of melted ice in the pathology sinks.

Sometimes, if he worked late enough, the building itself seemed to breathe.

Elias had learned not to let it bother him.

The dead couldn’t hurt you.

It was the living you had to fear.

At 11:47 p.m., he was finishing paperwork on an elderly man brought in after a heart attack.

Outside, rain hammered against the basement windows.

Inside the morgue, only four bodies occupied the cold storage drawers.

A teenage girl from a car accident.

An unidentified drifter.

A middle-aged woman awaiting autopsy.

And the old man on Elias’s table.

He signed the final line on the form.

Then his phone vibrated.

SECURITY CAMERA ALERT.

He frowned.

The morgue’s surveillance system was ancient. Motion detection only triggered if something substantial moved after hours.

Probably a rat.

He opened the security app.

Camera 3.

Cold Storage.

The image showed the familiar hallway of steel drawers.

Empty.

Elias sighed.

Then the footage rewound automatically.

He watched the replay.

Nothing.

Nothing.

Nothing.

Drawer 12 opened.

His breath caught.

The metal compartment slid outward by itself.

Slowly.

Like someone inside was pushing it.

The unidentified drifter sat upright.

Elias stared at the tiny screen.

“No,” he whispered.

The corpse swung its legs over the side.

Its movements weren’t jerky like movie zombies.

They were careful.

Deliberate.

The man stood.

His head tilted upward.

He stared directly into the security camera.

The replay ended.

Elias didn’t move.

The morgue around him suddenly felt very cold.

He checked the live feed.

Drawer 12 was closed.

The hallway was empty.

He laughed nervously.

“A glitch.”

The words sounded pathetic.

He stood anyway.

The cold storage hallway was only thirty feet away.

Every step echoed.

His rubber soles squeaked against polished tile.

He reached the door.

The security monitor mounted nearby showed all six camera feeds.

Camera 3 displayed an empty corridor.

Exactly as it should.

Elias opened the door.

The air smelled of disinfectant and refrigeration.

Everything appeared normal.

He approached Drawer 12.

His hand hesitated over the handle.

Then he pulled.

The drifter lay exactly where he’d left him.

Eyes closed.

Mouth slightly open.

Gray skin waxy beneath the fluorescent lights.

Elias exhaled shakily.

“See?” he muttered to himself.

“Glitch.”

He pushed the drawer shut.

CLANG.

The security monitor behind him crackled.

Static hissed through its speaker.

Elias turned.

Camera 3.

The live feed showed him standing beside Drawer 12.

Except…

The feed contained something else.

Bodies.

All four corpses stood behind him.

The teenage girl.

The old man.

The woman.

The drifter.

Perfectly still.

Watching him.

Elias spun around.

Nothing.

Only closed drawers.

He looked back at the monitor.

The corpses remained.

On-screen, the teenage girl’s head slowly turned toward the camera.

Her jaw unhinged.

Far too wide.

Elias stumbled backward.

The monitor flickered.

For one frame—

the bodies were closer.

Another flicker.

Closer.

Static.

Closer.

They weren’t moving in reality.

Only on camera.

The old man’s lips peeled back into a grin.

The woman’s eyes opened.

The drifter lifted one pale finger.

Pointing.

Not at the camera.

At Elias.

He ran.

His heart slammed against his ribs as he burst into the office.

He grabbed the landline.

Dead.

Only static.

The fluorescent lights dimmed.

Brightened.

Dimmed again.

His phone displayed another alert.

SECURITY CAMERA ALERT.

Camera 1.

Office.

Hands trembling, Elias opened it.

The live feed showed him standing at his desk.

Phone pressed to his ear.

Looking terrified.

Behind him stood all four corpses.

He whipped around.

The office was empty.

He looked back down.

The corpses hadn’t moved.

The teenage girl leaned close to the camera.

Blood trickled from her crushed forehead.

She spoke.

The security system had no audio.

Yet Elias heard her anyway.

“You leave us alone.”

The drifter stepped forward.

“You cut us open.”

The woman followed.

“You sew our mouths shut.”

The old man smiled.

“But you never stay to hear what we saw.”

Elias dropped the phone.

It hit the floor.

The live feed remained upright.

The corpses continued staring.

The teenage girl’s eyes found him through the screen.

“Watch.”

Every monitor in the office switched feeds.

Camera 2.

Camera 3.

Camera 4.

Camera 5.

Camera 6.

All displayed the same image.

Not the morgue.

Not the office.

Darkness.

Then shapes.

Hundreds of bodies standing shoulder to shoulder.

Some burned.

Some drowned.

Some broken beyond recognition.

Their dead eyes reflected camera light.

Every single one looking outward.

Toward him.

Toward whoever was watching.

One by one…

They smiled.

The screens went black.

Silence returned.

The fluorescent lights steadied.

The landline hummed normally.

Elias sat frozen until sunrise.

Police found him there the next morning.

He refused to speak.

He resigned two days later.

The official explanation blamed exhaustion and stress.

The hospital replaced the old security system within the month.

The footage from that night had vanished.

Deleted.

Corrupted.

Gone.

Except for one clip recovered by an IT technician.

Twenty-three seconds long.

It shows Elias alone in the cold storage hallway.

Staring at something unseen.

Slowly backing away.

Terror spreading across his face.

Then, just before the recording ends…

Elias looks directly into the camera.

His lips tremble.

He whispers four words.

“They only move…”

The footage cuts to static.

No one knows what he was going to say next.

But the technician who reviewed the clip swore that, in the final frame before the screen went black, there was a reflection in the polished steel drawers.

Not Elias.

Not the camera.

Hundreds of figures standing behind him.

Perfectly still.

Waiting for someone else to press play.