Serial Ambulance
Part 1 — The Last Call
The rain had swallowed Bandung for hours. Streets shimmered under the pale glow of broken streetlights, and the sound of the siren was the only thing slicing through the darkness. Inside the ambulance, Arif kept both hands tight on the steering wheel, his knuckles pale. The tires hissed against wet asphalt, and the air smelled of rust and rain.
Next to him sat Joko, his partner for the past two years—older, heavier, a man who’d seen too many dead faces to still believe in ghosts. But even Joko was unusually quiet tonight. Something about this route felt wrong. There was no other car on the road. Not even stray dogs were around.
The radio crackled to life, hissing through static. A faint voice from dispatch came through:
“Unit 7-4, respond to a call at Bandung General Hospital. One patient—critical condition. Pickup for transfer.”
Joko frowned. “Wait... what did she say? Bandung General?”
Arif nodded slowly. “That hospital’s been closed for years.”
The voice on the radio repeated the same message, mechanical and cold, before fading into static again.
Arif’s pulse quickened. He hadn’t heard that hospital’s name since the fire—five years ago. His sister, Nadia, had worked there. She never made it out.
The ambulance turned off the main road, climbing into the misty hills. The GPS screen showed nothing but a blank map, yet the signal marker moved on its own—leading them straight ahead. Arif’s wipers smeared the rain more than they cleared it. Then, through the fog, a silhouette appeared: the burnt remains of Bandung General Hospital.
Charred walls. Broken windows like black eyes. A faded red cross still hung crooked on the front wall. The entrance gate was half open, creaking slightly as if moved by breath, not wind.
“You sure about this?” Joko muttered. “There’s no way dispatch would—”
“We got a call,” Arif said. His voice was flat, almost hollow. “We answer it.”
He parked near the entrance. The siren died, leaving a suffocating silence behind. The two stepped out, flashlights cutting through the haze. The air smelled of damp concrete and ash. Every step echoed down the empty corridor as they entered.
“Feels like the whole place’s holding its breath,” Joko whispered.
They passed a collapsed reception desk, an old wheelchair rusted to the floor, and a half-burned patient chart still clinging to the wall. The deeper they went, the thicker the air became—like breathing inside a grave.
In the old emergency ward, a single gurney stood in the center of the room. Clean. Untouched. A white sheet covered a body underneath it.
“That can’t be real,” Joko muttered, his light trembling in his hand. “That sheet’s clean. No dust. No burn marks.”
Arif stepped forward slowly. He could feel something behind the thin curtain of silence, something awake. He hesitated, then reached out and peeled the sheet back.
He froze. His breath stopped.
It was Nadia.
Her face was pale, peaceful—untouched by time. Her lips were faintly parted, and her eyes were closed. Her nurse uniform was crisp, as if freshly laundered.
Arif stumbled back, heart pounding. His throat burned with disbelief. Joko moved closer, shaking his head. “No way, Arif. She’s gone. She’s been gone—”
The radio in the ambulance outside came alive again. A faint voice echoed from down the hall, through the metal and the rain.
“Arif... please, don’t leave me here again.”
Joko spun toward the sound. “That’s not— That’s impossible.”
The lights above them flickered. The white sheet began to twitch, rising slightly as if something beneath it had taken a slow, deep breath. Arif’s flashlight shook in his hand. Then, a drop of water hit his wrist—cold and metallic. It wasn’t water. It was blood, falling from the ceiling in steady rhythm.
He looked up.
There was nothing. Just the dark imprint of burned beams and a hole in the roof. But the sound of dripping continued.
“We need to go,” Joko whispered. “Now.”
They turned for the door, but the corridor had changed. It was longer now, darker. The way out had folded into itself. The only light came from behind them—the flickering red of the ambulance beacon outside. But when Arif turned, the hospital’s front gate was gone. The ambulance was still there, engine running, lights spinning silently like a heartbeat—but there was no road, no rain, just black fog surrounding it.
“This isn’t real,” Joko said. He ran forward, but the ground shifted. His boots sank slightly into the floor—like the tiles had turned soft. He screamed, and Arif grabbed his arm, pulling him free. His leg came out slick with something dark. Not mud.
Blood.
The voice came again. Louder. Closer.
“You promised you’d come back for me.”
Arif turned toward the ER room. The gurney was empty. Only the sheet remained—soaked red. He staggered back, his eyes darting across the walls, the ceiling, the floor. All around him, faint outlines of bodies began to appear—nurses, doctors, patients—standing in silence, each with skin blistered and charred, faces frozen mid-scream.
Joko raised his flashlight and caught sight of a sign above the doorway: Morgue.
And below it, scrawled in fresh blood, were three words:
“SHE NEVER LEFT.”
Something moved in the dark behind them. A shuffle. A whisper. The cold air pressed in like hands on their backs. Arif turned and saw her—his sister—standing under the flickering light, eyes open now, black and glassy. Her lips parted slightly, and she smiled.
“You kept your promise,” she whispered.
Then the ambulance siren roared to life again outside. But when Arif looked through the broken window, he saw another version of himself sitting in the driver’s seat—eyes empty, hands gripping the wheel, the red lights spinning wildly in the rain.
The entire building shook. Glass shattered. The floor cracked beneath their feet. Arif tried to run, dragging Joko with him, but the hallway seemed to stretch infinitely. Every turn led them back to the ER. The same bed. The same blood-soaked sheet.
Joko’s breathing turned ragged. “We’re not getting out. We never came in.”
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Before Arif could answer, the gurney rolled forward on its own. It hit his knees and stopped. Beneath the sheet, something breathed again. And then—slowly—the sheet fell away.
There was nothing underneath.
But in the distance, the ambulance door slammed shut on its own. The engine revved once, twice—and drove off into the storm, sirens screaming into the night.
Arif and Joko stood there, drenched in blood and rain, as the echo faded.
And then the radio in Arif’s hand whispered one last time:
“Next call... confirmed. Location: Dago Hill. One patient—female. Still breathing.”
To be continued...
