I am sure you will agree with me that the morgue is the darkest and most terrible place imaginable.
Lots of stories and anecdotes about the mortuary. And you don't know whether to believe them or not!
But with my neighbor there was a story related to the morgue, confirmed by both facts and witnesses.
My neighbor, Pyotr Mikhailovich Sirotkin, lived an ordinary old man's life with his wife Katerina. Mikhalych did not think about death, did not like to talk about it, and it seemed to him that death was something abstract and of little concern to him. But death comes to a person unexpectedly, when he does not expect it and does not think about it. So death came to Mikhalych unexpectedly!
One morning, Katerina wakes up her husband, but he does not wake up and does not show any signs of life. Katerina was frightened: the old man died in no way! She called an ambulance, and the doctor who arrived confirmed Mikhalych's death. A corpse truck also came and took the old man to the morgue for an autopsy.
Katerina grieved, lamented: “And why did they take it away, and why open it, because it’s so clear that Mikhalych died of old age!”
And everyone sympathized with Katerina and agreed with her. “Before, there was no such fashion to open old people!” - some said, while others reproached Katerina: “You should not have allowed the corpse truck to take Mikhalych away, because in the morgue they will gut him, and even demand money for it!”
Katerina sent telegrams to her son and daughter (they lived in other cities) and began to prepare for the funeral.
Meanwhile, Mikhalych's body lay on the table in the morgue and was waiting for the autopsy.
Mikhalych was supposed to be opened during the day, but the pathologist did not come to work: either he was ill, or he was severely hungover. This saved Mikhalych from premature death, but he had to go through terrible trials in the morgue.
Mikhalych doesn't like to think about the morgue, but somehow I managed to get him to talk, and not without the help of vodka.

Mikhalych's story

I woke up, opened my eyes and didn’t understand whether it was still night or already morning: it was dark, a dim light was breaking through from somewhere, and it was very cold, and it was somehow hard to lie down. I turned my head to my wife, I wanted to know if she was sleeping or already awake. And I see: next to me, instead of Katerina, an old woman lies, unfamiliar to me and for some reason naked. She lies on her back, her eyes are closed, and her arms are crossed on her chest. I got scared, I felt myself - and I'm naked! Where am I, I think, is it not in the morgue! I looked around and realized that we were not alone here with the old woman: in the distance on the table I saw a few more human bodies, naked and with arms crossed on their chests.
Well, here I have and all doubts have disappeared - I'm in the morgue!
I jumped off the table, as if scalded, and rushed to the doors, but the doors turned out to be closed.
I started knocking, screaming to let me out! Then I found out that the orderly on duty in the remote room was asleep and could not hear my cries.
I sat down at the door and burst into tears like a child. And so I sat at the door on the floor, shivering with fear and cold. I tried not to look at the dead, and kept thinking: and how it managed to get me, and I was not drunk, and I remember how Katerina and I watched the evening serial and went to bed. And here you are - in the morgue, naked and with the dead!
And in the morning, I had another test! I hear, the old woman, with whom we were lying next to, began to make some sounds. I was afraid, but I looked at the old woman. And what happened next, I remember like a bad dream! The old woman suddenly trembled all over, wheezed and ... sat down! She is sitting on the table, her arms are crossed on her breasts, she is shaking her head, and her eyelid has lifted in her right eye, and with that eye she is looking at me. I wish I could take my eyes off her, but I feel like I can't control myself. And I notice: the old woman's lips began to twitch somehow, her mouth parted, and she wants to tell me something ... And I was seized with such horror that I lost consciousness. Then the pathologist explained to me: sometimes it happens with corpses, when they have not yet completely stiffened - some kind of muscle contracts in them and sets the body of the deceased in motion.
Well, I won’t tell how they found me in the morning on the floor at the door to the preparation room, stiff and in an unconscious state - I don’t remember well, and it’s not interesting to anyone.
And the pathologist turned out to be simple and cheerful person. When I came to my senses, he laughs and tells me: “I would open you, Mikhalych, and wouldn’t blink an eye if I went to work that day, you were lucky that I was with a strong hangover!”

And in the house, in anticipation of the arrival of Mikhalych's body from the morgue, preparations were underway for the funeral. We bought a coffin, wreaths, spruce branches, ordered a hearse. The son came from out of town. Everyone is crying, crying. And suddenly a phone call, they ask relatives to come to the morgue for a living Mikhalych and bring him clothes - it’s not for him to return home naked! At first, they didn’t believe it, they thought that it was someone’s prank. And then they believed and went after Mikhalych.
I don’t know how it was with them there, how the relatives met with the living Mikhalych - I was not a witness to that meeting.
Mikhalych, after the shock that he experienced in the morgue, somehow quickly recovered. He didn’t write a complaint about the ambulance doctor and didn’t scold Katerina for not being able to wake him up that morning, only slightly enlightened him.
And still Mikhalych does not think about death and is not afraid of it. He is only afraid of getting into the morgue alive and even wrote a will, in which he asks in the event of his death not to take his body to the morgue and not to open it. And for greater certainty, he legalized the will, assured it at the notary's office and put it on the bedside table in a conspicuous place.
So I’m thinking about whether to write such a will for me - somehow it will be calmer.

I was surrounded by corpses. As an undertaker in the morgue, I'm certainly used to it. It scared me a little when I first got the job. But eventually you get used to it and it just feels like being in an office. After a while, I began to talk to them as if they were living patients, which is also normal for my profession.

You might think it's stressful to work with dead people all the time. After all, so many scary morgue stories everyone heard in real life. But I really enjoy it, in fact I find it quite peaceful. Yes, it's much better than dealing with the wild emotions of some of the living. The dead have no complaints, they all behave like exemplary patients.

My name is Mark and I have been doing this for almost ten years. I work at a funeral home, at a mortuary. The cemetery has graves with dates dating back to the eighteenth century. The building itself is an old Victorian mansion, refurbished in the early nineteenth century. The architectural elements of that time appear in the old masonry, giving the place itself special atmosphere earlier time.

Our scary tale pro morgue starts at the end of December. During the winter, when the ground freezes, you will have to wait until next year to bury the bodies. So until then, the coffins will be temporarily placed in the old mortuary building in the cemetery for storage until spring. It was my job to roll them out and put them in their temporary home. We usually tried to do this in the evening, as the sight of the coffins being moved made people feel a little uncomfortable.

I remember how cold it was as I pushed the coffin cart across the road to the cemetery. I hated this time, it was always so cold and the cart was heavy and never wanted to go through the snow. I would have reached the old building exhausted and out of breath, with only the strength left to place the coffin on the rack and make my way back.

Sometimes, when I was loading coffins into the old mortuary building, I would hear a loud creak of old planks, accompanied by the feeling that I was being watched. The dead never bothered me, but there was something about this old building... It had no windows, and the air inside was rotten and musty. The smell of mold was so strong it was almost unbearable.

Seems I'm not the only one who didn't like this place. I was working on embalming one of my patients. As I said earlier, talking to the dead is normal for me, although it is a one-sided conversation. When I worked on the dead man, I explained to him what I was going to do with him, that he would wait in a special room until the earth thawed. And that was the first time my imagination got the best of me, because I swear to you, I heard him tell me not to take him there. I laughed to myself because, after all, what difference does it make to the dead where they rest. And in general, being buried in mud is better than lying in an old building.

Then spring came, and with it the earth thawed. This meant it was time to start moving the coffins to their permanent location in the cemetery. It was a grueling task, despite the fact that the obstacles of ice and snow had disappeared. These coffins and their gruesome contents weighed heavily, and moving them around on your own was hard work, no matter the weather.

But the most scary morgue story just starting…. It was early in the morning at the end of March, I don't remember the exact date. It was still quite cold, despite the misleading sight of fresh green grass. I grabbed a cart and started the long walk to the storage building next to the cemetery. I trudged along the path, silently indignant that I had to complete this terrible task. I had another job, but I needed to get it over with.

When I opened the iron door, it gave a loud creak, and I pushed the hearse inside. I hesitated for a moment, not wanting to go in, for the building still gave me an uneasy feeling. I put the hearse next to the rack and began to move the coffin. The old building creaked loudly when I worked. First one end, then the other, I finally put it back in place on the hearse when my imagination ran wild again. I thought I heard a whisper saying, "Get out." Looking back, I saw nothing there and brushed it off. It was then that I heard a voice loudly shouting “go.”

As fear replaced rational thinking, I quickly pushed the cart out the door next to it. I felt better just by being back outside, and everything I heard quickly became unimportant. Maybe I thought it was a ghost and they just wanted to be left alone. As I was thinking these thoughts in my head, I heard another loud creak followed by a loud crash.

At first I was afraid to return. It was so loud, it took me a few seconds to realize that I was fine. As my heartbeat began to calm down, I finally looked around. The old warehouse building turned into a pile of rubble. All that's left now is a shapeless mound of broken boards, glass, and nails. If it had happened a minute earlier, I would have died right there and now. Then I started thinking, is that why I heard that voice? My dead friends tried to warn me that an old house is it going to collapse? I think about it a lot, and there are too many coincidences to come to any real conclusions. But one thing I've learned for life is that if a place is creepy and gives me goosebumps, I stay away.

This terrible mystical story happened back in Soviet times, at the end of the 20th century in one of the morgues. The dissector Gerasimov, who was performing the autopsy, was accidentally pushed by the orderly Chugunov, an old alcoholic who had been expelled from the university for drunkenness.

Having finished the autopsy, Gerasimov suddenly discovered a small cut on the right glove. Apparently, when the orderly pushed him, he injured his hand with a scalpel. Not attaching any serious importance to this, the dissector treated the cut with an antiseptic and after the end of the working day he calmly went home.

And the next morning it became known that Gerasimov died suddenly. Gerasimov's widow reported the following details about her husband's death: "I came home from work, felt ill and died in terrible convulsions."

An autopsy determined the cause of death: infection with pathogenic microorganisms or "cadaveric poison". They buried poor Gerasimov with the whole team.

And a couple of days after the funeral, strange things began to happen in the morgue. At night, in the silence of the deserted building, the watchmen heard the sound of someone's steps and the creak of doors being opened. One day, the dozing watchman Brichkin was awakened by a heavy knock. The source of the knock was found in the adjacent corridor, next to the duty room. On the threshold lay the corpse of a homeless man, who had previously been on a gurney, standing a few meters from the door.

Soon, talk of night events reached the head of the morgue, Kupriyanov. On this occasion, he spoke at the general meeting.

Comrades, we are all well aware that our collective is participating in socialist emulation," boomed Kupriyanov. - So, as a leader, as a communist, I finally demand to stop spreading superstitious rumors that can lower the authority of our team and cause fair criticism from higher authorities!

But soon an event occurred that caused a scandal.

One night, the inhabitants of the surrounding houses were awakened by terrible screams. Tumanyan looked out the window and saw such a picture. On the deserted street from the side of the morgue, screaming heart-rendingly, ran a person in a white coat. The social worker identified her as the orderly Chugunov, a well-known drunkard and brawler in the microdistrict. Someone was chasing the worker.

Tumanyan, trembling with indignation, dialed 02 and rapped out to the duty officer:

Extremely cynical disorderly conduct, take appropriate action.

The detachment that arrived at the scene found the doors of the morgue wide open and the absence of the orderly Chugunov, who had replaced one of the watchmen that night, at the workplace. Kupriyanov was notified about the incident and immediately went to the scene.

In the morning it became known that Chugunov had been caught by the guards and sent to the nearest "foolhouse". Kupriyanov managed to find out that Chugunov, bulging his eyes, was talking about a certain Gerasimov, who had risen from the grave, who was trying to destroy him. “All slimy, stinking, pulled his rotten hands towards me!” - conveyed the words of the subordinate to the boss.

Returning to work, Kupriyanov found an unhealthy and disturbing atmosphere in the team. Employees frightened discussed the night incident. In a rage, Kupriyanov called his subordinates donkeys and announced that that night, in order to dispel all superstitious fears, he intended to personally be on duty in the mortuary building. Further events are known from the words of the watchman Brichkin, with whom the chief remained on duty that day:

At midnight Kupriyanov decided to make a tour of the premises. I followed him, but he told me to stay on duty. Well, he went, I hear him going up to the second floor. So I'm sitting, rustling with a newspaper. And suddenly it seemed to me that someone quickly slipped past the open door of the duty room in the corridor. What the hell, I think? He looked out: the front door was locked, there was no one in the corridor, and only at its far end, where there was a turn and a staircase leading to the second floor, some obscure silhouette flashed by. And on the stairs they heard the steps of Kupriyanov going down. I became uncomfortable. And then there was such a terrible scream, from which the blood froze in the veins! Kupriyanov shouted. Apparently, he ran into someone who passed by the duty room and managed to turn into a corner before I looked out into the corridor. I fainted from fear. When I came to my senses, there was a ringing silence in the morgue, it was already dawn outside. I gathered my strength and looked around the entire building. Didn't find anything suspicious. Kupriyanov was also nowhere to be found.

This story of the watchman made the most depressing impression on the morgue employees who came to work in the morning. However, they failed to discuss the situation. In the mourning hall, from where relatives take their dead to bury, indignant voices were heard. A crowd of angry citizens burst into the room.

Why did you put some face on our grandfather?! they murmured.

In fact, in one of the coffins, two dead men lay in a "jack". One is a bald old man, the other is the head of the morgue Kupriyanov, with a face distorted by a grimace of horror ...

It was established that Kupriyanov's death was the result of a stroke. It was said that his cause was the strongest fright. But it was not possible to establish who or what frightened Kupriyanov to death. The scoundrel who put the dead boss in the coffin of the old man remained unknown. However, some people said that the ghost of dissector Gerasimov was to blame for a series of terrible events. At first they believed them, but in the future nothing terrible happened, the morgue lived its own ordinary life, and such conversations were gradually forgotten.

We have a medical examiner. A good uncle, we are friends with him. Yes, we often meet. Sometimes we drink cognac, sometimes we drink vodka. So, he is a good storyteller, and for this case he tells wonderful stories. I do not claim authorship, nor do I claim authenticity. A loose retelling in the first person.

History first. "Refrigerator".
It was either on April 30, or even before what holiday. Our refrigerator is broken. Unit, I mean. Looking for a refrigerator and in our city at that time there was only one "refrigerator", Igor Ts. - so short, strong, bearded. Morflot.), found. He came in the evening, at five o'clock. We took him to where the machine was, and I went to my office. And he also asked: "Just don't leave me here, otherwise I'm afraid." Okay, let's not leave. As a result (the day off is just around the corner), the girls all went home, and I was left alone. I sat, wrote papers, wrote, then someone called, quarreled, and I, I think, will spit on everything, I will go home. Imagine (still uncomfortable) I really forgot about this refrigerator! He went, closed the doors, and went home.
Then I’ll tell you from the words of the girls. In general, he finished working at nine o'clock in the evening. ( a small digression: from the room with the refrigeration unit there is an exit to the sectional hall, from there - a foyer, from which there are three doors - to the refrigerator itself, to the street and towards the offices. In the evening, the passage to the offices is closed, because. at night, the ambulance brings the dead. And, accordingly, the door to the street is also closed). I poked my head in one door - it was closed. The street is closed. Through the third door - where citizens take a break from life ... There were no cell phones then, there was nowhere to wait for help. He climbed into the window in the aggregate ( the window is covered with a metal mesh) to ask someone to help. He looks - a couple is walking, a man and a woman, solid, under 50 years old. And the time is evening, it is already getting dark. And so, they pass by, and he shouts something to them from the window, well, they say, wait, you can. Wow, this guy sucked! Behind the clinic, he ran around the corner, and looks out from there - his wife was saved, or not. In general, the refrigerator frightened two more, then despaired. Went to the foyer, sat down on the couch there, and waited. And now, at night, after 12 already, the ambulance brings the corpse. The carrier opens the door from the street, comes in, and taaaam: there is a kind of bearded square man, hands on his chest, looking askance. The driver yelled in a bad voice and ran away (he walked away for a long time). And the refrigerator silently left and went home. Before that, he was offended, the girls then found him again themselves, he did not want to take money, he did not want to talk to them at all. But then somehow they cajoled him, told...

The second story. "About souls".
Somehow, the police pick me up from the house, at night, at three o'clock, to kill me. They sent the car, I go out, I say - I need to go to work again, take gloves. Let's go. We drive up, I go, I open the doors, I go in, and then - "frrrrr" - the air is so neckless from behind, the breeze. I was afraid! Night, and even such an institution, I think - damn it, really, really, souls fly! On wadded legs, I reached the switch, turn on the light - a sparrow, a bastard! How did he get there in the middle of winter?

History the third. "About the nose."
We stand somehow, we perform an autopsy. It was summer, the window was open ( the window is covered with a mesh, as I already said, but it is visible through and through from a distance, and a little from a distance it already looks like a solid). And then, soooo, my nose tingled - no strength! I turned to the window - "Pchhi!" ( he sneezes notably, I must admit)))) And there, outside in the shade, men are squatting, six people, respectable, 50-60 years old, talking something ( that squatting is not convicted, this is such a local flavor, but there are no chairs in the steppe). And so, I, therefore, sneeze, and these men, like sparrows - piss! on both sides. And they stand - their eyes are frightened, they look at each other, they cannot understand anything.

Well, in addition, the fourth story, hunting, from him.
We went on a hunt. Well, I went, the head of that one, the head of that one, that one, that one. And so, we arrived, shot, then let's cook, have dinner. And one boss Imyarek) was immoderate in alcohol and "drove". I started drilling, I’ll fire everyone, I’ll put everyone in jail, etc. And he is a Kazakh, a healthy one, 110 kilograms, large. And he came with a driver. Drove - Russian, a young boy. Well, we are healthy men, we twisted it, stuffed it into a sleeping bag, fastened it, and put the driver on it - yours, they say, is the boss, you are the watchman. The driver asks - "How to calm him down in Kazakh, otherwise he stumbles in Russian when sober, but here it’s a duck in general ..." Well, I, a fool, take it and blurt out: "Zhat, Auzyn sondyramyn" ( Lie down, otherwise I'll tear your mouth)
Well, that drunk lies, slowly begins to come to his senses, to hang in there. And this was what you should have seen: the driver, in an unbearable voice, says to him, like a child: "Zhat, Auzin sondiram." He roars, starts to gallop like a bull in a bullfight under this carrier, swears, but his strength quickly runs out and he calms down again. Then, after about ten minutes, it starts to wobble again - and the same thing happens again. And here is such a circus - several times. Every time we roll around, and the carrier, the unfortunate one, keeps trying to persuade him: "Reap, reap, Auzin sondyram." Then he moved away a little, they removed the carrier from him, let him out of the bag. The driver ran away, and he was still offended by us.

===========================
More stories tagged "work"

Somehow I had to get a job as a night watchman in one of the morgues. The work is not dusty, after three days, the clientele is accommodating, without any special complaints.

At first, of course, it was scary and disgusting. Then nothing, I got used to it. One day I go on duty. Mitrich appeared in the evening. He probably worked in the morgue for twenty years. Comes and says:

“You close yourself in the duty room tonight and don’t come out, no matter what happens there. The night is bad. The first night of the full moon, anything can be a site.

Here, of course, I broke through. No matter how many epithets I gave Mitrich. It seemed insulting to me that the poorly educated watchman was planning to scare me, a person with a higher education.

Mitrich listened in silence and said:

“As you know, I warned you,” he turned around and left.

By the end of the working day, I probably would not have remembered this incident, only one detail alerted me: Mitrich was sober and spoke quite seriously. After work, the senior dissector lingered with me to talk about philosophical topics, we sit in the duty room, arguing, but this detail - Mitrich is sober and calm - does not give me rest.

Late in the evening my interlocutor left. I locked the door behind him and was left alone. I checked the freezer, saw if everything was in order in the dissecting rooms, put out the light and returned to my duty room. It's like this: the front door, next to the duty room, the site and a long T-shaped corridor, at the end of which there are doors leading to the corpse storage, dissecting rooms and other rooms. Several lamps are lit in the hallway all night. In the duty room, the light should also be on, but the watchmen, if they go to bed, always turn it off. Doors, except for the weekend, do not close anywhere, just tightly closed. There is a latch on the door in the duty room, but the door was always left wide open. As it was that night. Quiet on the face: no wind, no noise of cars. There is a low moon in the sky. I read Grimelshausen, but no, no, and I listen to the silence.

At midnight, I was drawn to sleep. Decided to lay down. And then I hear the door creak in the corridor. Carefully, almost inaudibly, but creaked. He looked out of the duty room, in the corridor the light was dim, diffused, where the doors were, it was dark, nothing could be seen. Somehow it didn't feel right. However, I think, I'll go and see why the door to the site opened. I went, and in order to give myself confidence, I step firmly, the steps resound with a dull echo. And then I notice, no, even rather I feel - ahead, in the darkness, some kind of barely perceptible movement. I clearly remember: “Close up and don’t come out, no matter what happens!” I slowly retreat to the duty room, slam the door and click the latch. Along the corridor, the rustle of quick steps, breaking off at the very door. Then outside the door is strongly pulled by the handle. It lends itself to a few millimeters, the valve does not let it go further. An indistinct dark silhouette flashes through the gap, and a distinct sweet smell of a corpse seeps into the duty room.

The next moment, I grab the doorknob with wild force. And from the corridor, something insanely creepy is trying to get to me. He scratches the door, pulls the handle, rummages around the jambs and walls, and all this happens in complete silence. Not even heavy breathing can be heard. Only the site pulls from behind the door with the smell of formalin and cold. Along with the dawn in the corridor comes deathly silence. Nobody scratches, breaks through the door anymore. But for a long time I still can’t let go of the pen: I just stand there, clinging to it with fingers that have turned white from tension.

The insistent call brings me back to reality and forces me to open the door. The corridor is ordinary and empty: that is why it seems that everything that happens at night was a wild, nightmare dream. The lock, as always, is stuck, and I cannot open it for a long time. Finally, I succeed. On the porch, the changer rolled merrily.

- Well, you're healthy to sleep! I'm calling all the time! he wonders.

I mutter indistinctly that I had a great drink of alcohol, that I didn’t hear anything, and that it’s better not to touch me today.

The work day is in full swing, and I just can't bring myself to go home. I nervously smoke on the porch of the service entrance site and desperately try to understand what happened at night - reality or a dream. A senior dissector is smoking nearby, he asks me something, I answer him something, and I myself have only one thought in my head: “It was a dream, this cannot be!”.

Here an intern comes out on the porch:

- Andrei Andreevich, a strange case. I am preparing the corpse of a drowned man for autopsy, well, the one that was brought the day before yesterday, and he has a lot of white paint under his nails.

- What's so strange about that? the senior dissector asks lazily.

- The paint is dried, old, but the fractures and breakdowns of the nails on the hands of the corpse, in my opinion, are posthumous, fresh.

They leave, and I go to the door to the duty room. At the height of human growth, on a smooth white surface, semicircular scratches and uneven chips clearly appear.