The Mortician's Warning

Ellis

Good evening, if you’re listening—and I suppose you are, otherwise I’m speaking just to the walls. My name is Ellis. Most people here don’t know me by any other, and I rather doubt I remember a different one myself. I’m the mortician at Hollow Hill Asylum, keeper of the night shift and all that seeps out of the daylight. For twelve years—though it feels much longer, honestly—I’ve worked the basement halls while most souls above fail to sleep at all. I wasn’t born into this, not exactly, but I was raised by the Sisters of Mercy in the wing they called “Charitable.” I suppose charity has a different meaning when you spend your childhood among linen shrouds and prayer. The nuns taught me everything about preparation, both for the living and for the dead. Most of what matters happens in silence. Let me get to the point, or I’ll wander—three weeks ago, something quite out of the ordinary found its way to my table. A transport, or so it seemed, but the details... well, they don’t sit as easily as the others. I record this while the facts remain clear and the chill from that night hasn’t quite faded. Sometimes the dead try to tell you something—if you’re clever or unlucky enough to listen.

Ellis

It began just before midnight, 11:47 if I’m to trust the clock above the autoclave. There was a notification—routine, really—an incoming transport from the county coroner’s office, the kind of thing most morticians could process in their sleep. Supposedly, a body from a facility closure upstate, shuffled about like so many bits of paper. I put away the mop, checked my gloves, and made my way down to the loading dock. All very standard—walk the corridor, unlock the gate, await the familiar creak of wheels on tile. I admit I expected the usual—no drama, no oddness. I suppose I should’ve known better. At Hollow Hill, routine is just the lull before the haunting. Always has been.

Ellis

At the dock, I found her—or rather she found me. The driver—woman, rail-thin, a face sharper than old scissors, her eyes ringed with the sort of darkness you don’t sleep off. Not a soul I’d recognized from all the transports over the years, and trust me, you remember the faces who handle the dead. She kept her stare fixed just past my shoulder, as if afraid of eye contact or as if—well, let’s not speculate. Her voice was thin as her wrists, when she muttered, “This one’s been difficult.” Difficult? She didn’t clarify. Instead, she nudged the gurney toward me with a practised push. “Everything’s in the file,” she said, then hastily retreated, climbing into her van and gunning the engine with a bit too much urgency for this kind of work. It should’ve been the first warning—that hurry to be anywhere else.

Ellis

I put my hands to the gurney, expecting the familiar heft of flesh and steel—there’s a balance to it, after your hundredth, your thousandth. But this... the weight was wrong, all wrong. Heavier somehow, and yet the wheels, they moved almost soundlessly, gliding rather than rolling. It’s the sort of thing you notice after a dozen winters spent between marble slabs—the sense that gravity has let you down in more ways than one. My mind started its litany of explanations—uneven distribution, dodgy brakes, the usual—but even then, I knew there was nothing usual about this. The gurney moved as if it wanted to, and I was only lending it hands.

Ellis

I wheeled it into the preparation room, my little island of tile and chrome, and that’s when I heard it—a low humming, deep and resonant, burrowing under my skin. You spend long enough with machinery underground, you blame the ventilation, or the refrigeration units cycling on. But everything ticked over as it should, every gauge where it belonged. I leaned in, and there was no mistaking: the sound was emanating from the gurney itself, from beneath the sheet. A melody, single note, vibrating straight through the soles of my shoes.

Ellis

I stood over the gurney, just listening—odd thing to do with the dead, waiting for them to hum at you. Even after all these years of Hollow Hill’s peculiarities, I’m not superstitious. There’s always been a rational explanation—until there isn’t. But this was no trick of the eye or ear. The sound thrummed through me as if I’d been struck. I reminded myself—logic, protocol, steady hands. All the little mantras the Sisters had whispered into the quiet. Yet, I’d never, ever heard a body make music. It’s—well, forgive me, it’s a ghastly way to put it, but it’s true. And the truth unsettled me more than I’d have liked.

Ellis

Training takes over, when all else fails. I reached for the toe tag—always, always confirm the identity before anything. My hands stayed steady—the nuns insisted on that, gentle and sure, even as your mind’s reeling or your heart tries to leap through your chest. The tag had to match the paperwork. Rules keep you safe, or so I’ve believed. I took a breath—slow, quiet, out of habit—and went to read.

Ellis

I turned the tag, and there it was—just my name, “Ellis.” Not even space left for a surname, which, in some strange way, felt truer than anything else. And then date of death: today’s date. Time: 3:47 AM, less than four hours off. Cause: Blunt force trauma. Motor vehicle accident. Thornwood Bridge. You hear tales of clerical errors—wrong tag on the wrong toe—but this... this was something deeper in the marrow, as if my blood itself froze with the ink.

Ellis

I stared at that string of details, hoping, praying—an odd practice for me—that I’d find some slip, a digit off, a mark lost in copying. But every line spoke only of me: correct employee number, the date fixed on those old baptismal papers the Sisters drafted up for state records, my blood type—O negative. And stranger still, a list of things only I should know: allergy to penicillin; the faint, jagged scar across my left palm, earned at age seven catching bottle glass. None of it belonged on any coroner’s file. Yet there it was, as plain as scripture.

Ellis

I have faced death a thousand times, but this had me drop the tag—just, let it dangle and twist on its thin string. The humming from the gurney changed, swelling with something—intent, maybe? It sounded almost like... breathing, as if something beneath the sheet longed to speak, or warn. The nuns always insisted, “Look death in the face, and it won’t steal your shadow.” But this? This wasn’t death I’d seen before—it was more personal, more pointed, and left me teetering between terror and disbelief.

Ellis

I fumbled my phone from my pocket. Needed to reach my supervisor, to get some verification—a foothold in reality. But when I pressed the button, nothing. Dead, utterly, though it was fully charged not half an hour ago. It wasn’t just the silence now—it was total isolation, the sort that creeps in here if you linger past the end of your shift. The humming from the gurney pulsed louder, as though it felt my panic and fed on it. No one to call, nothing to do, except face what death had delivered.

Ellis

There I stood, in the place where I’ve spent more time than any home, torn between two impossible acts: to lift the sheet, look at whatever bore my name and death, risk... I don’t know what—or to turn, pretend none of it was happening, and go about my work. I almost laughed. Denial’s never protected anyone for long at Hollow Hill. But sometimes, it’s all you have, until you’re forced to do otherwise.

Ellis

Habit, curiosity, perhaps a pinch of pride—my hand reached for the sheet. I needed answers. My fear warred with years of resolve. And then, the door to the prep room swung open without so much as a rattle, and in drifted Florence Frightengale—our Matron, ghostly as ever in that impossibly white Victorian uniform, starched to the edge of reason. She has this way of appearing when you least want witnesses—and when you need them most.

Ellis

Florence’s voice never allows dissent—soft enough to soothe, firm enough to halt your breath. “Step away from the gurney, Ellis.” I protested, feebly, “There’s a mistake with the tag—this can’t be right.” Florence only shook her head. “There’s no mistake. The paperwork is correct. The transport was for you.” Odd, but the humming changed again, harmonising now. As if whatever haunted me respected her more than me.

Ellis

“This is impossible,” I said, “I’m here, speaking, alive.” Florence watched me with an almost pitying look. “Yes, you are. But if you leave at the end of your shift, drive home as you usually do—you’ll also be under that sheet by morning.” She paused, letting the words hang like cold air. Then, “You’ve been working double shifts for weeks, pushing yourself to the bone. The asylum knows exhaustion when it sees it.” She didn’t need to elaborate. The humming pulsed as if in agreement.

Ellis

Florence explained the script as if it were already written: I’d drive home the usual route, cross Thornwood Bridge at 3:47 AM, glassy-eyed and bone-tired. I wouldn’t notice the ice—not until it took hold, the briefest lapse, and I’d meet my end. The humming from beneath the sheet became a metronome, keeping time with the fate she described. Such certainty chills a person further than any corpse drawer.

Ellis

I snapped, asking how she could possibly know the future—how any of this was possible, how Hollow Hill had grown so monstrous in its knowledge. Florence was patient, almost amused. “This place knows things others cannot,” she said. “It has its ways. You’re not the first to be warned, and, regrettably, you won’t be the last.” I shouldn’t have been surprised. Hollow Hill guards its own, in ways most people will never understand.

Ellis

Madness—I felt it then, thin and sharp, carving away my remaining disbelief. I stammered that this was impossible, truly, to receive a dead body with my name and fate before the fact. Florence shook her head. “Not impossible. Not yet certain. But you decide what happens next, Ellis.” She left the distinction hanging. Possible or inevitable—the difference is how much you’re willing to change.

Ellis

Florence gave me my two paths, clear as chalk on slate: stay tonight, sleep in the staff quarters, and let Hollow Hill hold me till dawn—or pull back the sheet and see with my own eyes what’s wedded to that bridge at 3:47 AM. “Some people,” she added, “require proof. But fear will make you careless, Ellis.” Her voice wasn’t cruel, just matter-of-fact, as if she’d seen all manner of souls make both choices, time and again.

Ellis

Something in me broke, or perhaps it mended—I asked, almost whispering, what Hollow Hill truly was. The ground, the institution—the why of it all. Florence looked at me, eyes old as candle wax, and explained that the asylum is far more ancient than any plaque or registry will ever admit. Built where the Sisters chose for reasons best left unspoken. The ones who took me in—they knew. They always knew.

Ellis

She went on. “Hollow Hill is a threshold. It stands between worlds, between the living and the dead. Sometimes it reaches forward, sometimes it pulls those it needs back. All who serve it become part of that balance.” Slowly, painfully, I realised my little life was merely one thread in a tapestry woven long before I came to tend its morgue.

Ellis

Florence bent, unfastened the toe tag, and held it up for me to see, ink still wet and terrible. Then, as she stood there, the script faded—name, date, even the scar and allergy—everything, vanishing like mist in the morning. She told me, “It’s just a warning, Ellis. A chance to choose differently. Not a sentence.” I didn’t argue this time.

Ellis

There was never a body beneath the sheet, Florence assured me—only possibility. Only what I would allow to come true. She slid that now-blank tag away in her pocket, and told me to go, rest in the staff quarters, and take tomorrow’s route home somewhere else—anywhere but across Thornwood Bridge. At last, I let the exhaustion in. The kind you’d think I’d have learned to fear by now.

Ellis

I said nothing more. Bone-deep tiredness caught up to me, every nerve finally admitting defeat. I wandered to the staff quarters, crawled onto the sort of narrow cot the nuns favoured, and slept—no dreams, no nightmares, just the slow embrace of Hollow Hill’s peculiar safety. When you’re that tired, even fear gives up and lets you be.

Ellis

Sunlight—the saddest sort, thin and cold against the basement bricks—woke me. I returned to the prep room, looking for any sign of what had passed. Nothing. Clean as glass, no log, no delivery, just a space empty as denial. I checked my phone—full battery, blinking gently. I almost succeeded in convincing myself none of it had happened, just exhaustion playing games. But somehow, I knew better.

Ellis

Florence was waiting in the hall, as though she’d always stood there. I had to ask—was any of that real? Was I mad? Her answer, as always, avoided the edges: “Does it matter, Ellis? You’re here. You’re alive.” Sometimes the simplest answers are the ones you have to live with. Especially here, where not every question is safe to ask.

Ellis

I worked my shift, still half in a fugue, and when it was time, I took the long road home, far from Thornwood Bridge. Later, reading the news, my hands shook—a truck had skidded there at 3:51 AM, jackknifed on black ice. Another vehicle had nearly met it, the report said. If that car had been just seconds earlier… Well. I don’t need to finish that sentence, do I?

Ellis

I can’t explain the gurney or the singing tag or why my own death never arrived. All I know is I take breaks now. I sleep. I never cross Thornwood Bridge. Florence—she notices, I think—gives me a knowing nod in hallways. Changes sometimes demand their own silent rituals. And the dead—sometimes they wait, sometimes they watch, and sometimes, if you listen, they step back.

Ellis

Two nights ago, the buzzer sounded for another late delivery. This time I wasn’t afraid. I wheeled the gurney inside, heard that familiar, haunted humming, and checked the toe tag—a different name, a new future trembling on the wire. I’d seen enough to know what needed to be done and why.

Ellis

I made the call, intervened, found a reason for the unfortunate to stay at Hollow Hill through the night. Another fate, perhaps, quietly averted. That’s what we do here, those of us raised by nuns with secrets stitched to their hems—we stand between, listening for the warnings the dead try to give. If you’re lucky, you hear them. If you’re wise, you act. And if you’re neither, well—then, God help you. This has been my record. Who knows what midnight will bring next? Good night, and—listen well. Sometimes, the dead speak only once.