The Horror at the School Morgue. Part 1

“One more thing”, I said as we took the narrow short cut through the bush track to the Anatomy Department, “can you describe this cadaver that you’ll be working on?”
He turned briskly and said that he had not yet seen the cadaver. As he turned his head to reply me, I could swear that I saw something far down the curved lane run by. It was like a black shadow but it moved rather too fast that I even began wondering if had seen anything at all. I kept that to myself and within two minutes we were at the low walled gates of the Department. In solid and bold letterings made of solid brick were the words ANATOMY DEPARTMENT, COLLEGE OF MEDICINE, UNIVERSITY OF NIGERIA ENUGU CAMPUS on both sides of the gate. They were brown and eroded with age. I could see behind the walls wooden buildings or rather buildings constructed with log woods and for no reason at all my mind flew back to the native Indians of America who lived in log houses.
The whole environment was as usual, silent and deserted. There was no one in sight. Far down the lane where the tarred road ran on was the staff quarters but that was about twenty meters down although I could still make out the silver roofs of the buildings rising out of the thick foliages from where we stood.
We were in our lab coats and so when we came to the gate, a frail looking sun burnt old man in faded black T shirt with the school logo on his shirt pocket and faded green trousers with a heavy black boot asked us to produce our ID.
Richard produced his as well as the CDIP which was duly signed by authority –his lecturer Dr.Anthony Ekonogie.
The guardsman waved us in and bid us be careful as he handed us the key to the laboratory section of the morgue and of course also key to the morgue itself.
“We have only the key to this part of the morgue,” Richard explained as we trudged along into the annex, “the school administration keeps the other key for the general morgue. I heard from a senior friend that long ago, there had been a mix-up and a corpse had been used for experiment when actually in fact it had been deposited for embalmment. A month later, the owners had turned up but the corpse was gone.”
“So what had happened?” I asked
“I don’t know but the guy said that the school had paid dearly – in court and in cash and since then no messing around the other side of the morgue. As a matter of fact, I heard that it is directly under the charge of the office of the DVC.”
Though I was listening to Richard, the truth was that I was becoming somewhat nervous. I was beginning to feel a bit scared myself. Even the re assurance that there was an old buddy at the gate couldn’t do much to assuage that eerie feeling –you know that feeling you get when you walk into the cemetery or where there is a corpse and you’re supposedly the only person in the room; it was more or less like a serious pulling at the back of my head. I tried to hide it with all my nerves and so was surprised when we came upon a low green painted building with a long verandah stretching far back into a vanishing point. It had rusty poles along.
It had a yellow corrugated roof that was somewhat triangular at the front and then extended back to the end of the building. In front of us was a little low two storied building and in between the two building was a narrow tarred pathway that ran way back.
Now Richard was following that path explaining as he went that the long green building was the laboratory, and that at the end of the route which we were now taking just behind the green building was the morgue.
I swallowed, took a deep breath and kept following along. As we moved along the path, I could observe clearly the front the building. It had flowers planted in pots on the verandah, there were window panes in the window and though I tried, I couldn’t see inside because it was covered in black curtains but high up about eight feet up just before the roof began were tiny square openings, probably for ventilation.
At what seemed to be the middle of the long building was a wide double door –large enough for a car to drive through. In all there were about eight windows before the door and about eight more after the door. At the end of the path, we took the curve that turned left behind the building and before I saw it, I heard Richard say, “There it is - the morgue.”
The building was damn impressive. In fact, it was far from what I had in mind. It was quite wonderful. It was constructed in an oval shape and impressively large that about twenty cars could conveniently be parked within the building .It was two storied and was painted white. In black lettering were the words THE DEPARTMENT OF ANATOMY MORTUARY, UNIVERSITY OF NIGERIA ENUGU CAMPUS emblazoned at the side of the white building.
“So it’s a storied building,” I asked finally finding my voice.
“Yes it is.”
“How then do they bring down the bodies from the top floor?” I asked.
“Come on,” Richard offered with a twinkle in his eyes, “I’ll show you” and with that he turned away and walked inside through an entrance wide enough for three cars to comfortably drive through at the same time.
When we moved in, it was as if we were entering into another world, a world of silence and serenity. There was a fountain in the midst of a flower bed sprouting out clear white water. Flowers decorated the small circus with the fountain and up ahead I could make out a flight of stairs.
Inside the building which was made in the shape of a concentric circle, I could see that all the rooms were arranged in a concentric circle so that each was slightly curved. The doors which were made of thick brown paneled wood were all shut. Each had numberings above on the white wall in black plaques. One read 101, the next 105 – further, 111 and so on and so forth. I couldn’t understand it and so turned to ask Richard why they weren’t serially arranged and that was when I was suddenly horror struck- that was when I discovered that I was alone Full stop.
Instantly my head increased about a hundred times in size and I felt my legs become rubbery. For once the world swoon round and I nearly lost my grip on the metallic railing of the spiral staircase.