Abysmal Tale Number Seventeen: Hemo Goblin

Hemo Goblin


Hospitals are creepy places, it doesn't really matter what time of the day you go to them. At least I've always found them disturbing. Places where sickness and death collect and once and a while people get better, sometimes its just to prolong the suffering. It only ever seems to me that the doctors are less concerned about saving lives, and more about winning the battle against death itself. It always worried me, but what ever. It was too bad that this time it was me in the damn hospital. I've been here for days, making the system tons of money and have these various beeping machines attached to me, to make sure everything inside me was still working right. It was a various list of letters and strange words when the ones in white talked like I wasn't in the room. I love when they do that. I am not a person, more to the point I am just a slab of meat that needs to be fixed, then pay them so I can keep staying alive. What is wrong with me, I am sure you are some how reading this so I suppose I can tell you. Something exotic and mysterious called Hemochromatosis. Confused yet, well don't be. I just got a bad case of metal overload, iron actually. It can be pretty deadly but don't worry, you cant catch it. It is mostly genetic and man, my genes are terrible. They want me to stick around, you know. Watch me and stuff like that. Run mysterious tests and other things like that. But this isn't why I am writing this. No, there is something strange here. I hear people talking. I have nothing better to do really then listen to people and lay here. Apparently the place has strange things going on , bloody things. More like blood shortages. Unexplained things seem to be going on at night. I am here all night long and, you know something, it's true.

No, I'm not up and about exploring the halls at midnight, but I do hear things. I could be going crazy but I don't think so. Strange scraping noises in the distance, things I've never heard before. The first night I was here I could hear them. Rhythmic and faint, metal against something else I think. But then again I am sick and on meds of, some kind anyway so I could be hearing things too. It is entirely possible I am just losing my mind, but the blood shortages and the night time noises had to be related. I'm sick, going to be sick forever I guess so waiting around in the bed wasn't my first choice. The day time passed on slowly. Nothing was on tv, and I was far more interested in the going ons around here. My nurse came in on the first day, but she, for what ever reason wasn't in uniform at the time.

I did my usual compliment thing and got a smile, I was sure that she heard this a million times a day because she was a nurse, but it was because of the nurse stuff. Me I didn't know she was a nurse and thought she just had the wrong room, it was fun destroying her logical approach she had. I'll keep her name out of this mess because anyone who reads this will want to know more, obviously. She had nothing to do with the stuff. She was my only outside contact really, sometimes we'd talk about nothing. Sometimes when she had to work the night shift she'd be afraid to venture out into the halls alone. I didn't blame her but she said it was in the last few weeks that something just wasn't right about the place anymore. Like something moved in, something dark. I could feel it I suppose, maybe it was my own paranoia or perhaps hope that not everything in this world was as meaningless and simple as it appeared. Maybe humanity wasn't the darkest thing in the world to be feared, that was a hope and a great fear that we weren't the worst enemy out there. But if this was the case, what else could it be. My imagination running away from me was all it was, all it had to be.

Two nights ago I decided that the walls in the room had slowly been closing around me. I'm weak but not helpless, it was dark and I decided that it was time for me to do some exploring of my own. The nurse wasn't here at the moment, maybe she was but no where near me at the time. I could hear the scraping noises from the distance, and I wondered why could nobody else hear them, it didn't make any sense to me. But I realized very quickly that most of the rooms in my hallway, were empty. The ones that were not had people who were in worse shape then I was so, it made sense now that I was the only one that could hear anything at all. I decided that if I ever wanted to sleep at this place again I needed it know what the noise was, most likely it was just some medical machine that was just too noisy. I crept down the hall and with every step I took I could hear each breath I was taking inside my head, it was so loud, but not loud enough to mask the other more pressing sound. I wandered around. I had no idea how to get around this place and it was confusing, I didn't live here and I didn't want to stay here forever.

It wasn't long before I passed through some declining type hallways and turned just enough corners to get lost. Here is where things get strange, and here is where you will stop believing me. That's perfectly fine but here it goes. The sound was coming from a monster. It's the only way I can describe it as, a monster. It didn't see me, it must have been at ease at what it was doing. It was black, not like a person, like a reptile almost but with shiny skin. It's eyes were bright yellow. It wore a lab coat of some kind to pretend to be some kind of doctor. Now that I wrote it down, don't the words doctor and monster seem really similar? Back to the point. The thing wasn't like anything I had ever seen on TV before. It was over six feet tall and had pointy ears, much like you would imagine an Elf would! Instead of doing the smart thing and trying to back out quietly and running back to my room and hiding, I decided to confront the monster. I made my presence known like an idiot. Yeah, if you are ever in this situation. Do the smart thing and just shut up and go back to your room. I had seen too many episodes of The Night Stalker or something else and was stupid. The thing turned it's head at me we made eye contact for what seemed like forever.

It was when it took the blood sack with the straw in it's mouth down and waved at me as it revealed it's blood stained razor teeth at me in a smile. Yes, it waved at me like it knew me and it was enough to break the spell and I did the sane thing thirty five seconds too late, I turned and tried to run away. What ever it was didn't follow me, at least I didn't turn around to look because I was sure the last thing I'd see would be two rows of teeth coming at me. Nope, didn't want that at all so just kept moving, retracing my steps the best I could, I only got lost twice before I found my room, it was empty and I never thought it look so great. I was out of breath. I climbed back into my bed and for the rest of that night my eyes never left the door. I was ready to attack at a moments notice, I don't remember when but eventually I fell asleep and invaded with dreams of black skinned monsters and oceans of blood.

I woke up to the rays of the sun coming through the window and layed there for a minute when suddenly I realized at I did fall asleep! I quickly checked myself for bites, but I couldn't see any at the time. I felt no relief though because I saw what I did. The next two nights would not be any easier or happier for me at all because as soon as the sun set and the random people faded away the terror of simply knowing was enough to inspire all kinds of waking nightmares in the dark. Sleep was not an option and if I told anyone at all, well lets just say a hospital isn't the best place to hear noises, or see monsters. My stress was indicated by the machines I was hooked up to, I suppose by now you are wondering how I escaped the monitors, well. I didn't. I just disconnected the wires and left. Nobody came to check on me, thinking back on that I do admit that was kinda weird.

I guess they were just too busy to worry about me. The two nights turned out too be simply too much. I had to tell someone so I decided to tell my hot nurse what I did and saw. She asked the whole battery of health related questions, truly I was feeling better besides the whole seeing the blood drinking thing. She seemed to believe me. I must have sounded hysterical, but I did ask her for a computer with an internet connection. I needed to do some research. This was driving me insane and my time at the hospital couldn't last too much longer. I needed to know what I saw. A blood drinking monster like nothing I could even begin to describe. She relented to my request and with in the hour I had a computer, and access to the net. Hours of searching revealed nothing to me. Too many fan sites and gaming sites. Mythological worlds had been invaded by the gaming world, it is a sad state of affairs I suppose. I did manage to find an index site though, it seemed old, even on the internet. It only had a G at the top of the page and a list of names of monsters running down the side. I started at the top and just went down it. They had incredible pictures of every beast. Eventually I got to the G section and hit the name "Goblin."

There was the beast, the monster and it's yellow eyes, black skin and all. I read about it in great detail and knew this was it. I never actually figured out the site name. Apparently the monster needed blood to live, any blood would do. Unlike the vampire it didn't need to be from an actual living host, and a Goblin's favorite snack was the blood of newborn children. This, to me was a monster that needed to be stopped. When my nurse came back I showed her the picture, the information and everything. She thought it was a joke site but still, the feeling of being watched and uneasy was still strong with her. She agreed to my insane plan of taking the monster out and last night we did it. My partner set up the trap and we hid ourselves. We waited for a long time in our place. If the monster was thirsty for blood it would surely come back tonight too. She was just about ready to give up the hunt when suddenly Dr. Well I can't tell you names and all but she was surprised at this! The man slowly shifted into the demonic form, the Goblin and she nearly screamed I had to stop her but the truth was I was just as scared. We watched the monster take the blood and stick it with a straw and begin to drink. Our plan wasn't anything so brave as to kill the monster with some kind of weapon. We just came out of our place and confronted it straight to its face. The thing looked at us both, I could tell it wanted to take us both down. It began it's advance and intended to tear us both to shreds or worse things I didn't want to think of.

The beast stopped in mid stride and fell to the ground in pain as it's skin began to boil and burn. The trap worked just as I hoped it would. The nurse had filled a bag of blood, with my own. To a Goblin, Iron is poison to them and now it infested it's insides like a virus. My blood had far too much iron in it and now it was dying a slow and painful death. It was only a matter of time before the thing started out on living people, children. It was the perfect situation of a monster like this and it had to end. When Goblins die they leave no body. They simply turn into nothingness. The two of us were simply stunned at this and really didn't know what to say about the whole thing. Well I didn't anyways. She smiled at me, said thanks for the help as if she knew what was going on the whole time.

I am getting out of this place in a few hours. I never saw the nurse again and the computer she gave me vanished with her. I'll never know who she really was. I titled this thing the way I did because I thought it sounded cool. Nobody is gonna believe this story but, well at least someday they will find this and have a good laugh about it. Me, a hero. Who would have ever guessed something like that. I just can't believe monsters are real. I'll never see the world in the same way again.