Wail

***TW: Abortion, Horror, Gore***

The doctor, his creased surgical coat looking yellow under dim fluorescent lighting, ran his fingers through greasy hair as he locked the door, removing the key and slipping it into a pocket.

“Is that necessary?” Sayuri said, watching a strap tighten around her ankle.

The nurse at the foot of the gurney snorted, her thin fingers feeding old leather through a tarnished buckle.

“We've had patients lash out,” she replied. “Or try to keep their legs closed.” Saying this, she sniffed and looked at Sayuri. “Very inconsiderate, when they didn’t think of doing that before.”

“I don’t mean the straps,” Sayuri shot back, feeling her face redden, suddenly conscious of what the nurse could see up her skirt with her legs in the stirrups. “I meant locking the door.”

Her words echoed around the room longer than they should have, bouncing around damp concrete walls. There were no windows. Only a ventilation grille near the ceiling, breathing in damp air that smelled of iodine, disinfectant...and something metallic Sayuri didn’t want to imagine a source for.

A rumble from somewhere beyond the ‘clinic’ in the mountains reached her ears as the nurse–Tanaka it said on her badge–busied herself with the second strap, securing the patient fully to her prison.

“I’m sure it’s fine,” Mother, seated at the head of the gurney, said, flicking through the pages of a two-year-old magazine she’d brought from upstairs. “Don’t question, Sayuri. Dr. Ayase is doing us a favour. Do as you’re told for once and be grateful.”

“Just a precaution,” ashen-faced Dr. Ayase said, with a smile that was no more reassuring than the forceps and cutting implements she’d seen on a trolley. “My side-operation has a tendency to upset sensibilities. We’ve been discreet but word got out and we’ve had backlash from…what would you call them, Tanaka-san? Moral Arbiters?”

“Something like that,” bespectacled Tanaka agreed, as Ayase took up position at the foot of the gurney, making eye contact with Sayuri after a quick check between her legs. “Self righteous hypocrites.”

Ayase chuckled while a second nurse, not much older than Sayuri by all appearances, wheeled the instrument trolley across torn linoleum, the polished objects on its steel surface shaking. Her badge announced her as Emi and she seemed as nervous, if not more, than Sayuri.

“We’ve had procedures interrupted, smashed windows. That’s why I’m calling it quits. You’re lucky you caught me. Now…how are we feeling? Comfy?”

“She’s fine,” Mother said, before Sayuri could complain the straps were too tight. “Are you going to give her something to relax her?”

“I don’t want anything,” Sayuri said, as Emi arrived at the gurney with the trolley. “I don’t think I want to do this. It’s a mistake…”

“A mistake?” Mother blurted, slapping the magazine into her lap.

Sayuri winced and looked at Emi, hoping the young nurse might offer support. When their eyes met, Emi offered a cold smile. “It will be okay. It’s easy. I know….”

“What did I tell you, Sayuri?” Mother snapped again. “Stop arguing! You made the mistake when you let that boy have his way. Doctor’s going to fix it!”

Ayase had fitted a mask to his jaw and was pulling on a pair of surgical gloves. Nurse Tanaka had located a pale pink privacy screen and was attaching it to the bed frame over Sayuri’s waist. It had been torn and patched so much it looked like sutured flesh.

“Oxygen,” Ayase said, nodding at Emi, who bowed again, much lower. “She can have oxygen. I don’t believe in using nitrous oxide. It complicates matters.”

“Mother, please,” Sayuri said, pushing herself up on her elbows and turning to the rigid-sitting woman in the long skirt and wool cardigan buttoned to her neck. “Don’t make me. I’ll be good. Nobu promised to support me. He’ll get a job, we can move to the city to spare you and…”

A clatter at the head of the gurney as Emi dragged an oxygen tank into reach, free hand holding a discoloured mask at the end of a length of rubber tubing.

“Speculum,” said Ayase, and Tanaka snatched it from the trolley. The sight of it sent fresh waves of terror through Sayuri.

The gleaming instrument passed from gloved hand to gloved hand. The foul-smelling mask from the oxygen tank swung into Sayuri’s face.

“Ridiculous,” Mother said, standing and stepping away to face the wall, throttling her rolled-up magazine. “A job. That boy can’t tie his laces! Coming from that family. No prospects. How dare you put me in this situation, Sayuri. You should be ashamed.”

Ayase pulled an extendable lamp down from the ceiling, positioning it so it beamed like a searchlight on Sayuri’s legs. Legs she could no longer see. Legs and everything else below her waist.

Mother wasn’t going to relent. Nurse Emi, securing the mask to her face, wasn’t going to speak. Ayase, staring between her legs while testing the thumbwheel on the speculum, wasn’t going to delay. Tanaka, who’d joined the doctor with a mask over the lower half of her face, wasn’t going to hide her cruel delight.

I’m in Hell, Sayuri thought, letting herself lie flat so she could stare at water-stained ceiling tiles. Beside her, Emi turned a wheel on the tank and it started to hiss. Sayuri let her head roll to the side as Ayase dropped out of sight. She winced as something cold touched her thighs.

Glass jars lined a shelf against the far wall, each filled with cloudy, yellow liquid. The fluorescent light tubes flickered. Water dripped into a bucket in a corner, from a dark, damp patch on a tile.

Another deep rumble sounded, this one shaking the room. The operating lamp illuminating her there swayed. Scalpels, suction devices and knives on the instrument trolley rattled. The bottles of stuff on the shelves clink-clinked.

Emi looked up as rivulets of dust fluttered down. Tanaka straightened and turned towards the door. Sayuri felt pressure inside as the metal probe widened.

“A truck on the mountain road,” Ayase said, behind his screen of flesh-like fabric. “Don’t worry, Tanaka-san. Your ‘self-righteous hypocrites’ won’t make so much noise. They’ll be tip-toeing around, trying to set us alight!”

He chuckled as though he’d cracked a joke.

“What?” Mother said, turning her head from the chipped crimson paint on the wall. “Someone threatened to do that?”

“Swab,” said Ayase, extending an arm past the privacy screen towards Emi, who bowed deep and returned to the trolley. “Something like that. I’m old enough to know when I’m not wanted.”

“I’m sorry,” Mother said, bowing lower than Emi. “You were so kind to my mother in her final days. I’m…glad you can help Sayuri too.”

Beside her, hands shaking, Emi uncapped a brown bottle, dampened a yellow sponge with sweet-smelling antiseptic and passed it to the waiting hand. A second later, Sayuri experienced a sting that made her legs buck.

“See?” Tanaka said, leaning closer.

“Mother…” Sayuri’s speech was muffled through the mask. She turned, hoping to catch Mother’s eye, greeted instead by the tight black bun at the back of the stiff woman’s head…and a flicker of movement behind the ventilation grille.

“Suction,” said Ayase, and Tanaka handed him a stainless-steel wand attached by a tube to a device at the foot of the gurney. When the doctor took it, she flicked a switch and the device chugged to life and started to whine.

Or was the whine coming from the vent?

The hiss of the oxygen tank, the buzz of the lights, the drip-drip-drip in the bucket and now the whine of the…the whine of the...the…

Thing with red fingers in the vent.

Sayuri pressed one hand against the spongey surface of the mattress and sat up, tugging the oxygen mask to one side.

“Mother!” she cried, making Mother jump. She stabbed her hand forward, finger pointing. “There’s something there!”

“Stop that!” snapped Tanaka, hurrying between Mother and the gurney to grip Sayuri’s shoulder and force her down. “Too much oxygen, Emi!”

“Sorry!” Emi spluttered, crouching by the tank to make an adjustment while Tanaka replaced the mask over Sayuri’s mouth. “So sorry!”

“Oxygen,” Mother repeated, flinging the magazine to the floor. “Just oxygen, Sayuri, please! We don’t have time for…”

Sayuri wasn’t listening. Her eyes were fixed on the vent. Whatever she’d seen was no longer there. What was it? Some kind of animal, a rat? No. It had a hand. A small hand with fingers curled through the grille, a tiny hand like that of a…

The whine from the machine–vent?–machine!--became a hum. The light tubes flickered aggressively, chasing crooked shadows around the room. Another ‘truck’ thundered along the mountain pass, making the room vibrate, knocking over jars and sending instruments clattering to the floor.

A loud bang, somewhere beyond the door, plunged the room into darkness. The suction machine stopped humming. Mother yelped. Tanaka pressed her hands on the mattress and tutted. Emi bumped against the instrument trolley. The oxygen continued to hiss. Ayase chuckled.

“Nobody panic,” he said, feet shuffling. “Just the generator. It will restart in a moment. The electricity bill is paid til the end of the month.”

“Are you sure it’s not the people who sent those threats?” Mother.

“Yes, Doctor.” Tanaka, feeling her way towards the foot of the bed. “Maybe I should check? Can you pass the key?”

“Tanaka-san.” Emi, close to Sayuri’s ear. “What’s that sound?”

What sound? With the oxygen hissing, Sayuri couldn’t hear. She pulled the mask over her head and tossed it aside.

“Mother, I think we should…”

That sound. A wet, slithering, flopping sound that seemed to come from under the gurney.

It wasn’t that sound that extracted the scream from invisible Emi. It was the sudden, deafening wail, like that of an infant, rising up from below and echoing throughout the chamber.

Sayuri sat bolt upright as Mother, Tanaka and Ayase cursed or shrieked in unison, and a sudden crash of metal drowned out the cry.

The cry and Nurse Emi’s scream.

“Sayuri! What did you do?” Mother.

“Emi? Emi! Answer me!” Tanaka.

“Emi-san, are you okay?” Ayase, voice closer.

Sayuri couldn’t speak. In the dark, she listened for squelches and whines. Felt the arms of the speculum holding her open. The straps clutching her legs like calloused hands.

“We have to leave,” she said, voice a whisper.

Then a series of sounds made her jump. A clunk, a buzz, the insect-like clicking of fluorescent tubes blinking back to life.

Dark-light-dark-light-dark-

Light.

Tanaka, by the door, gasped and pointed, one hand going to her mouth; Ayase, level with the privacy screen, staggered and took a step back; Sayuri, looking down where the trolley lay beside Emi, who had a dripping, red smile on her throat, tensed and shrunk back from the sight, kicked her legs, slapped her hands on the mattress.

“Mother! Get me off this bed!”

Mother had stepped back to the gurney, to peer over it, to see what had happened to Emi. When she did–saw the girl’s eyes rolling back, the scalpel protruding from her chest, the red rose blossoming on her gown–she screamed and tottered back on polished heels, lost her balance, fell against the wall and slid down, flakes of red paint shedding behind her.

“Get me off!” Sayuri demanded again, eyes moving from Emi to the small red paw prints circling her body and trailing away under the bed. No, not paw prints.

Prints made by small bloody hands.

Ayase had recovered, moved to Emi, crouched beside her, was reaching towards her throat with trembling hands. Tanaka ran to the gurney, arm outstretched. “Doctor! The key!”

“Something’s under the bed!” Sayuri cried, grabbing the privacy screen and wrenching it roughly to break it free. Why was nobody helping? Why could nobody hear that horrible slurping? “Untie me!”

A bang, a crash, a movement to her left and Sayuri turned to see the air vent’s grille clatter to the floor by Mother’s legs. Mother was still screaming, hadn’t stopped, didn’t stop, when the wet, red rope dropped from the shaft and landed in her lap, staining her cardigan, smearing her face, drawing her eyes to the thing attached to its end, the small, fleshy lump with the spasming digits.

Sayuri watched as the bloody arm hopped to life, scrabbled up Mother’s chest, crawled onto her shoulder and ran around her neck again and again, tightening its cord around her throat as her eyes bulged out.

“What’s that?!” Tanaka screamed. The lights started flickering again and the sound of smashing glass tore Sayuri’s gaze from choking Mother. On the other side of the room, the jars on the shelves were exploding, dumping their contents to the floor, thick yellow liquid and lumpy grey things.

Another loud rumble shook the room, now with the strength of a quake. One fluorescent light bulb exploded. Ceiling tiles dislodged and fell to the floor. Sayuri took a breath and bent forward, wincing at the pain caused by the instrument inside, grabbing the strap around her right ankle with both hands.

“Help!” she shouted, as that horrible, hair-raising baby-cry issued again. “Nurse Tanaka!”

Tanaka was there but showed no interest. Instead she darted forward, crouched by Ayase, dipped her hand into his pocket and retrieved the key while the doctor tried to help Emi.

“Please!” Sayuri cried, sweat-slick hands slipping on the leather of the strap as she struggled and tugged.

Tanaka shot her a disgust-fueled glare as she passed on her way to the door.

“Evil child!” she spat. “Lustful immoral Devil’s spawn! What did you bring? I hope…”

It was unclear what she hoped because then she fell, face forward, hit the floor like a plank, burst her nose, broke her glasses, split her lips. Sayuri, looking over the edge of her bed, saw the sinuous red cord around her legs, the small bloody arm drumming pudgy fingers on her back.

The infant’s wailing increased as the rope grew taut, dragging Tanaka out of sight beneath the gurney.

The room key was all she left behind.

“Fuck fuck fuck!” Sayuri yelled, as Tanaka’s blood-curdling scream rose up through the mattress and the gurney started bouncing and shaking. The rush of adrenalin helped her ignore the pain in her abdomen and gave her the strength to undo the first strap. One foot fell from a stirrup and she turned her attention to the other.

The room was sliding in and out of darkness. Another bulb blew, spraying glass and sparks through the air, a stray shard cutting her cheek.

Ayase was up, flickering in and out of view, stooping to gather the key, giving the gurney wide berth as he stumbled towards the wall that held the door.

“Doctor!” Sayuri cried, straining and working her fingers. “Help!”

He reached the door, turned his back, fumbled with the key and the knob.

“Don’t leave me!”

Tanaka was no longer screaming but the wailing and thrashing continued under the gurney. A final, violent lurch made Sayuri scream as her world turned on its side. She crashed to the floor, one foot still strapped in, crying out as the specululm gouged her.

Dazed, she lifted herself up on one arm and came face-to-face with Mother, tongue lolling, eyes white, the baby arm on the length of dangling muscle tapping her face.

Sayuri didn’t feel anything. Mother was dead and she should have been sad but she wasn’t. Even though it was all her fault. She was evil. Immoral. Devil Spawn. If only she’d been able to live like Mother and Grandma. Hadn’t enjoyed the attention of boys. Hadn’t wanted to feel like she could be loved.

This was her punishment, she deserved to die with…

Her left leg was lifted then dropped, free of the bed and the strap, which Ayase had undone with a single tug. Ayase, who bent to haul her to her feet as the third and final light tube exploded.

The room didn’t lapse into darkness. The door was open and light from the hall flooded in.

“Run!” Ayase mumbled, pushing her ahead towards the exit.

With the thing still inside she struggled to run. A stinging cramp made her drop to her knees beyond the threshold. Turning, expecting to see Ayase slamming the door, she found him instead still in the room. Held in place, as if frozen, by two red hands on two red arms, bloody cords trailing back from them, one to the neck of Mother and up into the vent, the other to the body of Tanaka then into a second, smaller vent she hadn’t noticed before, this one set close to the floor behind the gurney.

Inside that vent…was the horrible, twisted visage of a tiny head. A mutilated head that opened its mouth and wailed as the hands explored Ayase’s face, leaving red marks on his skin.

“Go,” he said, and a moment later Sayuri had pushed herself to her feet and was hurrying down the hall towards the stairs, doubled over, hands between legs.

It wasn’t Ayase’s word that got her moving. It wasn’t the wail of the thing in the wall. It was the other thing she saw, standing past Ayase’s shoulder. A girl who shouldn’t have been there, pale skin, long hair, white kimono stained between her legs. She’d been rubbing her stomach before Sayuri saw her. She’d raised her hand and pointed down the hall as soon as she did.

Sayuri heard the basement door slam shut.

She didn’t look back or stop moving.

Three hours later, long after she’d gone, the Moral Arbiters of the village firebombed the clinic.

Four hours after that, Sayuri was rapping on Nobu’s trailer door with a backpack full of belongings and every last bit of Mother’s savings.

By daybreak, they were on the road, running from home towards a brightening dawn.