The Last Inventory

The call button in Room 112 had a mind of its own. Every night at 3:15 AM, it would buzz—a low, insistent hum that crawled under my skin. The room had been empty for years, the bed stripped bare, the monitoring equipment long since unplugged. The hospital was too cheap to rip out the wiring, so the button remained, a dead tongue in a dead mouth. I always thought it was the building settling, the old pipes, the ghosts of past patients. But that night, as I walked my final loop of the basement, the buzzing was different. It was faster, more desperate, like someone slapping the button over and over, trying to summon help that would never come.

I was a security guard at St. Agnes Memorial, a sprawling hospital that had seen better decades. The basement morgue was my least favorite spot, not because of the dead—I’d long since made peace with them—but because of the acoustics. Every footstep echoed like a drum, every breath hissed like a snake. The fluorescent lights flickered, casting the tiled walls in a sickly green. It was a place that made you feel like you were being watched, even when you were alone. But alone was the rule down there. The morgue was a quiet, sterile purgatory, staffed only by the dead and the occasional janitor who didn’t want to make the trip back up.

My responsibility, along with checking IDs at the ER entrance and dealing with the occasional junkie who wandered in from the street, was the morgue inventory. Every two hours, I’d take the metal clipboard from its hook, count the drawers, and pull out each tray, verifying the toe tags against the list. There were nine drawers in the main wall and a walk-in cooler they called the ‘meat locker’ that held up to four more bodies on gurneys. It was macabre, but after a few weeks, I’d gotten used to it. The dead were my coworkers, in a way. They never caused trouble.

But that night—the last night, the night before my college interview—I was running behind. My supervisor had let me off early because of the interview, so I was making my final morgue check at 11:30 instead of midnight. I half-jogged down the stairwell, the metal door clanging shut behind me with a sound like a gunshot. The basement was empty, the corridors dim, the air cool and still. I could hear the hum of the ventilation, the drip of a pipe somewhere, and that buzzing from Room 112, now a frantic rhythm.

I ignored it. It was probably just a wire short. I walked to the morgue, swiped my badge, and pushed open the heavy door. The room was cold, the air sharp with the smell of antiseptic and something else—something faintly sweet, like old flowers. The inventory sheet was where I’d left it, clipped to the board by the door. I checked the count: nine body bags, four in the cooler. I started with the drawers. Number one, two, three… each one slid out smoothly, revealing a body bag with a toe tag. I verified the names, the dates, the times of admission. All present. All accounted for.

Then I got to the cooler. I pulled the handle on the stainless steel door, and it swung open with a hushed puff of refrigerated air. The interior was dim, lit by a single bulb that flickered like a dying heartbeat. Four gurneys lined the walls, each with a body bag strapped down. I did a quick scan—one, two, three, four. All tagged. I started to close the door when my eye caught a fifth gurney in the back, pushed against the wall, half-hidden by a stack of empty boxes. I frowned. There shouldn’t have been a fifth.

I stepped inside, the cold biting through my uniform. The gurney was occupied by a body bag, but it looked different—the plastic was a yellowish, older shade, puckered in places. The toe tag was faded, the ink smudged. I leaned in, trying to read the name. It was a woman’s name, something like ‘Eleanor V.’ But the date of death was six years ago. I looked at my inventory sheet—no such body. A mix-up, probably, a leftover from a previous contract. But the hospital had been using the same inventory system for years. There was no way a body could be unaccounted for.

I reached out to touch the tag, to get a better look, and the bag shifted. The outline of a hand pressed against the plastic from the inside. I yanked my hand back, my heart hammering. I stared at the bag, waiting for it to move again, but it was still. I told myself it was just my imagination, the cold, the stress of the upcoming interview. I was tired. I hadn’t been sleeping.

But then the call button in Room 112 buzzed again—right above me, in the ceiling of the cooler, the wires running through the hospital’s old PA system. It buzzed long and low, like a funeral bell. And in the silence that followed, I heard a rustling. The body bag on the fifth gurney was moving, slowly, the zipper straining. A hand emerged—pale, with long fingers and chipped nail polish—and it waved, as if trying to get my attention. The voice that came from the bag was dry, like autumn leaves, but clear: ‘You’re early. The shift doesn’t end until midnight.’

I stumbled backward, hitting the wall of the cooler. The door swung shut behind me, and I was trapped in the dark with the dead. The light flickered, and I saw the bag on the gurney was now propped up, the zipper open, and a face was looking out—a gaunt, blue-tinged face with milky eyes. It smiled, showing yellowed teeth. ‘We’re all here,’ it said. ‘But you’re not supposed to leave yet.’

I fumbled for the door handle, but it wouldn’t budge. The body sat up, shifting the bag, and the other four gurneys began to stir. One by one, bags unzipped, and the dead sat up, their heads turning to face me. They were all wearing blue scrubs, like they were ready to work. The first one, the woman, gestured to a clipboard that appeared in her hand. ‘Inventory check,’ she said. ‘Count them again.’

I couldn’t speak. I just stared as they rose from their gurneys and shuffled toward me, their feet making soft scraping sounds on the tile. The lights were now fully on, and I could see their faces—some were peaceful, others were torn, injuries visible. But they all had the same expression: patient, expectant. The woman held out the clipboard, and I realized it was my clipboard, the inventory sheet. At the bottom, in fresh black ink, was a line I hadn’t written: ‘Security Guard #4, 11:30 PM, Michael H., confirmed.’

‘You’re on the list now,’ she said. ‘When you leave, you can’t leave. We’re a family here.’

I screamed, but no sound came out. The dead closed in, and the last thing I saw was the woman’s face, inches from mine, her lips whispering, ‘Welcome to the night shift, permanently.’

I must have blacked out, because the next thing I knew, I was standing outside the morgue door, my hand on the handle, my clipboard tucked under my arm. The inventory sheet was still there, but at the bottom was a new name in my own handwriting: ‘Michael H.’ I looked at the door, and the call button in Room 112 was silent. But I could hear them on the other side—soft, rhythmic breathing, like they were waiting for the next check.

I walked away, my legs shaking, and I went to my supervisor’s office to quit. He looked at me strangely, then said, ‘What’s wrong? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.’ I told him I was sick, that I couldn’t do it anymore. He shrugged and said, ‘Suit yourself. But keep that clipboard. It’s yours now.’

I left the hospital at midnight, just as the shift was ending, and I never went back. But sometimes, before I drift off to sleep, I hear the call button buzzing in my ears, and I see the woman’s face in the dark, her finger pressed on the button, saying, ‘Check again. You’re on the list now.’

I got the college interview. I got in. But every quiet moment, I feel something tugging at me, like a thread tied to my soul, pulling me back to that basement. And I know, one day, when I least expect it, I’ll wake up in that freezer, on a gurney, with a toe tag around my ankle, and the inventory sheet will have my name on it again. But this time, I’ll be the guest, waiting for the next guard to come down and check.