The Psyching: A Short Thriller (4 page)

“
Listen, can we focus,
please?” I snap. I don’t want to admit how disturbing Wendy’s dream
is, especially in a deserted cadaver lab on a Saturday night. Since
I started gross anatomy class, I’ve had many dreams that it was me
or a loved one lying on the table before me. “Our final is Monday
morning and I don’t want to fail, okay?”

“
I’m going to fail
anyway,” Wendy sighs. “I just can’t… focus.” She picks up the lab
manual and flips through it. “This is like gibberish to me. It’s
impossible.”

I hold up the musculocutaneous nerve between
my forceps. The nerve is thick and yellow.

“
I’m hungry,” Wendy
announces. “Are you hungry?”

“
You’re kidding. You want
to eat in here?”

When I’m in the anatomy lab, food is the
last thing from my mind. The smell of formaldehyde combined with
the image of lacerated flesh is enough to kill any appetite I might
have had. A few times, I’ve seen one of my classmates popping candy
in their mouth and I’m always in awe.

“
Of course I wouldn’t eat
in here,” Wendy snorts, even though it wouldn’t have been the most
ridiculous thing she’s ever done in anatomy lab.

I find it most bizarre that Wendy always
applies a fresh coat of make-up just before starting lab. Although
the uncomfortable heels Wendy wears to lab are a close second. I
always wear sneakers and haven’t put on so much as lipstick in
months.

“
I’m going to the vending
machines,” Wendy says. “You want something?”

“
No,” I say.
Take your time,
I’m
tempted to add.

Wendy hops off her stool and clip-clops out
of the lab. I hear the heavy metal door slam behind me and the room
is plunged into complete silence. It’s heavenly. I let out a deep
breath I hadn’t even realized I was holding.

Our final exam in anatomy is on Monday. It’s
the biggest exam we’ve taken so far in the short course of our
medical school career and I want to do well. I’m not as competitive
as some of my classmates, but I hope to land a position in a good
neurology program when I graduate. As part of our exam, we have to
go around this very lab, identifying labeled structures on
different cadavers. I have to know every identifiable structure
back and forth if I want to do well.

It’s not that Wendy is a bad person, but
I’ve always considered myself a loner. I prefer solitary activities
and I hate when solitary activities turn into group activities. I
definitely consider studying a solitary activity.

“
Now it’s just you and me,
Agatha,” I whisper. I add apologetically, “Although I know that’s
not your real name.”

I dig my fingers into Agatha’s forearm,
attempting to separate the muscles. When I tug on the muscle I’m
holding, Agatha’s fingers curl into a partial fist. I shiver
slightly.

I hear a loud noise and look up sharply. The
door to the anatomy lab is opening slowly. I glance at a clock up
at the wall and see that only a few minutes have passed. How could
Wendy be back so quickly? The nearest vending machine is all the
way across the building and Wendy always takes forever to choose a
snack.

I squint through my thick lenses and see the
unshaven face of one of my classmates. Wonderful. It’s bad enough
that I have to share the lab with Wendy, but now there’s going to
be yet another person here to distract me. Still, it’s pointless to
get upset about it.

“
Come to study?” I ask
him, forcing a smile.

He’s dressed in filthy street clothing,
which I find odd. Nobody wears anything but scrubs to lab. But he’s
dressed in jeans and his hands are shoved deep into the pockets of
his dark brown jacket. He walks towards me, his expression
blank.

“
Is it raining out?” I ask
him.

I posed the question because his hair is so
damp that it’s plastered to his skull. Then I reason that if it
were raining, his jacket would be wet. His hair isn’t wet from
rain—it’s sweat. As he approaches me from the other side of the lab
table, I see a drop of saltwater trickle down the side of his
face.

“
Mason, what—”

Before I can complete my sentence, something
dark obstructs my vision. I instinctively blink and take a step
back. That’s when I realize that there’s a gun pointed at my
face.

I feel my knees go weak and my bladder
trembles. I grab on to the edge of the table, trying to keep myself
upright. I lower my eyes and see Agatha’s mutilated corpse, clearly
unable to offer anything in the way of aid. The gun is inches from
my forehead and I can feel the heat radiating from it. Why is the
gun so hot? What does that mean?

Oh God. I don’t want to die like this. Not
here, not now. It can’t end this way. I know I’ve done some bad
things in my life, but I’m pretty sure I don’t deserve this…

All I can think about is
how pathetic it would be to die in anatomy lab on a Saturday night.
The janitor will probably discover my body tomorrow morning. Will
he even notice that I’m a medical student and not
one of the bodies
?

Wendy, where are you? Get your goddamn
cheese doodles and come back here!

Of course, maybe Wendy isn’t coming back.
Maybe he ran into Wendy first and she’s already dead.

“
Please…” I
whisper.

His eyes are as black and impassive as the
barrel of the gun. When he speaks, his voice is flat and toneless:
“Do exactly as I say if you don’t want to die.”