my r/nosleep favorites | volume one

They came back when she died. (Update about the three girls.)

They came back when she died. (Update about the three girls.)
by somenurse193433

I've been getting a little wordy with these posts, but I don't have time for that right now, so here's a quick list to update you on the past few days:

Laura's oral surgery did not go well. And by that I mean, it didn't happen. The oral surgeon said that the dental x-rays were inconclusive at first, but I cornered him and browbeat him into telling me. "It's weird," he said. "To me, I'd say they were being pushed out from inside, like a baby tooth giving way to the adult tooth." When I asked him what would've pushed them out, he got really quiet and excused himself. Then left the damn hospital.

I brought Laura back to her place and got her inside and into bed. At that point, I just curled up on her couch and took a nap. I've been trying to ignore it, but I've been getting really tired lately. I'm a little pale, too. I'm trying not to freak out and jump to any conclusions.

And then I woke up.

You know that weird feeling you have when you wake up from a nap in a strange place and you don't know where you are or what time, or even day, it is? Imagine that, but amplified by like a million and that'll give you some idea of what I felt when I woke up and saw Laura standing over me.

"Claire?" The fact that she sounded more confused than I felt was not a comfort. She had something in her hands, stretching out toward me, and then the headlights from a passing car lit up the room enough for me to see what it was.

Hair. Skin. Blood.

Scalp. It was her scalp.

"What's happening?" she kept repeating, while I jumped up and tried to think of something to use to bandage her head. There should have been more blood, but it's only this pink goo, dripping from the back of her head.

"What's happening?" as she fell to her knees. As she coughed, a hacking body-wracking cough that produced something black and viscous that splattered onto the floor, the size of a golf ball. It wasn't the only one she spit up, while I tried to decide what to do first.

As she coughed, hacked and spat and died, the back of her head cracked open like an egg. Part of me expected something to crawl out, some primordial creature or alien or something that looks like it should live on the bottom of the ocean but nothing came out. Only more of that pink goo, seeping around the edges of her cracked skull.

It was too late, I realized, looking in horror down at her body. It was smaller than it should've been, like she'd wasted away to nothing in the span of a few hours. From the moment she woke me up until now, it had maybe been two minutes. Two minutes for her to fall apart and die.

I sat on the couch and hyperventilated for a little while, I don't know how long. I know I'm a nurse, have been for years, but this was too much. After I calmed down a little bit, after I could get up and move, I started for the door. I was worrying about who to call - police? Ambulance? The FBI? - as my hand closed over the doorknob and turned, but when I opened the door all those worries left me.

There were four of them. They pushed their way inside and past me, like I wasn't even there. Three of them were the girls and the fourth... I don't know what the fourth was. Human, maybe? Or at least once they had been human. Now they were something else; tall and thin, with scraggly black hair barely peeking out from underneath the cheap, dollar-store knit winter hat they were wearing. One of the ones made from coarse yarn with one of those pom-poms on the top. They were gaunt, pale, and hiding most of themselves underneath an enormous black hoodie and baggy pj pants.

They looked like one of those junkies you see in a sweater in the middle of August, or like someone shopping at Wal Mart at four in the morning. I couldn't even tell what gender they were, much less any details about their body.

"Who the fuck are you people?" I somehow found my voice to demand. The four of them seemed to look at me at once - their heads snapped at precisely the same second to stare in my direction - and dismiss me just as quickly and just as synchronously.

"She was a miscarriage," the fourth one said, bending over Laura's body to look at her.

"She had a miscarriage?!" I repeated, pissed off and confused. Which isn't the best combination. "Having a fucking miscarriage doesn't do that-"

"She was a miscarriage," came the exasperated reply. "You need to stop worrying, Claire. Once the procedure is further along, you'll understand everything."

"What procedure?" I asked, but my question fell on deaf ears. The girls turned to leave, with the stranger following behind. "Where are you going? What's going on? What's happening?"

I must've repeated it half a dozen times. "What's happening?" One of the girls gave me a long look over her shoulder and I swear she smirked before the four of them went right back out the door, pulling it shut behind them.

I swear I got to the door a second after they shut it. They didn't even have time to get down the hall, but when I opened that door again none of them were there. They'd practically disappeared into thin air.

I left Laura's body on the floor, and went to the diner across the street to figure out what to do and who to call. I ordered coffee and sat there, raking my hands through my hair the way I usually do when I'm nervous.

I wasn't even surprised when clumps of it started coming out in my fingers.