"In the Waiting Room" by Grace Daly

Carly shoulders open the ER doors; her hands are busy clutching her slim gut. Weary, wasting faces turn toward her, then away. The only gaze that remains is stony and belongs to the man behind the check-in counter.

“Please,” she gasps, “I need a doctor.”

“For what, ma’am?”

That should bother Carly. She’s too young to be a ‘ma’am’. But Carly, the Carly who cared about things like that, is gone, replaced by a desperate shell.

“My stomach… hurts,” she manages. “I’m dizzy. The worse it hurts, the dizzier I get.”

“Mmmm.” The man looks at his computer. “Have you suffered an injury?”

“No, it just… started.”

“Fill out this paperwork. I’ll have somebody with you as soon as I can.” He’s still looking down as he offers a clipboard.

She leans on the desk and notices her stomach has swollen enough to seem unfamiliar.

“How long will it be?”

“I can’t say, since we prioritize people based on the urgency of their condition. I would guess two hours.”

“Two hours?” she shrieks. The worn-down waiting faces sneak furtive glances her way.

“Well, if you’d arrived earlier, it might’ve been less. But this is a busy time of day, so, yes. Two hours.” The man is petulant, flattening his lips into a line.

“But… it hurts,” she begs, barely able to argue through the pain pounding on her abdominal wall. “Please.”

He jabs the clipboard at her. “Paperwork, ma’am.”

A nurse rushes through a set of double doors. Carly clings to her and feels her growing stomach brush against the nurse’s side.

She moans, “I need help.”

“Ma’am.” The nurse’s nostrils flare as she shakes Carly off. “You need to sit down and wait your turn.”

Carly admits defeat and lurches toward an empty chair. She nearly makes it, but she is weak; her abdominal muscles rip apart while skin tears like crepe paper from her navel outwards.

An uninteresting scream dies in her melodramatic throat. As her hypochondriac body flops to the floor, a pearlescent grub the size of a cat flops out from her burst midsection. It slowly unfurls, smearing milky, viscous fluid across the flecked linoleum. Six sharp, segmented legs tentatively explore this new world. Its pulsating midsection glows red with the host’s blood.

“Well.” The man sniffs. “If it was that bad, she should’ve said something.” 

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Grace Daly (she/her) is a disabled author with multiple invisible chronic illnesses. She lives near Chicago with her husband and pets, and spends most of her free time with her dog, who is a very good boy. Her cozy fantasy novella, “The Star of Kilnaely”, is forthcoming with Brigids Gate Press. She has also been published in anthologies by Ghost Orchid Press and Sliced Up Press, as well as in JMWW Journal, MIDLVLMAG, and with Timber Ghost Press. She can be found at www.GraceDalyAuthor.com, or @GraceDalyAuthor for Twitter/X and Instagram.

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