by Fawn Bonning
“Asked her what?”
“You know,” he said with his back still turned and his head still down, “if it would be all right…in her condition.”
“Well…I wouldn’t call it a condi—”
“She said it would be…that it would be fine, but, I don’t know. There was a little blood.”
“Well, yeah,” Cat chimed in. “That’s pretty normal.”
“No,” he said, shaking his head. “No, it’s not. I’ve had some medical training and I’m pretty sure that’s not normal.”
“Okay, hold on,” Deb broke in. “What condition are we talking about here?”
“Come on,” he laughed, shaking his head, “you think I don’t know now. I mean, I admit I was completely shocked at first. She hides it well. I didn’t—”
“Whoa, whoa, wait a minute, slow down,” Debra broke in. “You’ve completely lost me. What does she hide well?
He turned to face them, studying their baffled expressions, and wearing one of his own. “Oh…maybe I wasn’t supposed to say anything,” he said, looking down to the floor. “I just assumed you knew.”
“Knew what?” Cathy exclaimed. “You’re really scaring me. What are—”
She was cut short as a scream sounded from down the hall.
~~~~
“Jesus,” Debra whispered from behind the hand she’d thrown over mouth.
“OH, GOD, GET IT OUT OF ME! GET IT OUT! GET IT OUT! GET IT OUT!” Clawing at a swollen stomach, Melanie sprang to a sitting position, her breaths coming in harsh gasps.
“Okay,” the ranger spoke up from where he stood behind Debra in the doorway. “I’m going for help.”
Melanie’s head snapped up at the sound of his voice, her pain-filled eyes insane with hatred. “Monster!” she spat at him. “Filthy fucking monster! Oooooh, God!” Doubling over, she began to pant as she clutched at her knees.
“Be back as soon as I can,” he said, and spun on his heel, leaving Cathy and Debra to gape at Melanie.
Finally breaking from her stupor, Debra rushed to Melanie’s side, helping her to lie back down. “My God, Mel, what’s going on?”
Melanie grasped a fistful of Debra’s shirt, pulling her close. “Listen to me, Deb,” she gasped, her bloodshot eyes haunted and pleading. “If I die…you have to kill it.”
“What?”
“You have to, do you hear me! Do you hear me!”
Debra could feel her friend quaking. “Melanie—”
“It’s not human! Listen to me,” she begged, clutching tighter when Debra tried to pull away. “It’s not precious! It can’t live!” With a tortured moan, she released Debra’s shirt to claw at her stomach, her nails raking raw welts.
“Mel, no!” Debra screamed. Grabbing at her hands, she struggled to subdue her. “Stop it! Stop! Cathy, help me!”
Snapping out of her shock, Cathy ran to help, attempting to hold one arm while Debra wrestled with the other. “Mel, please…please stop,” she pleaded, immediately in tears. “You’re scaring me.”
Melanie tossed her head, her eyes rolling back and fluttering. “Yes,” she huffed, “be scared. Be scared!”
Outside, they heard the engine of the snowmobile whirr to life.
Melanie clenched her restrained hands, squeezing her eyes tightly shut as the sound of the whining engine faded into the distance. “He did this to me! He’s a monster! A monster!”
Deb and Cat locked frightened eyes. “God, Deb,” Cathy whispered in a frightened voice, “what are we supposed to do?”
Debra swallowed the lump in her throat and looked down at Melanie. It made since now, why she’d argued so hard for the skiing trip instead of a week in Brazil. The baggy clothes.
She shook her head weakly. “I don’t know, Cat.”
Melanie fell silent, her struggling ceasing as she seemed to fall into a fitful sleep. Grasping the opportunity, Cat and Deb scurried about to gather up supplies—towels and sheets, pots of water, anything that they could think of that might come in handy.
When Cathy shuffled back into the room lugging a pot of hot water, she found Melanie awake, lying deathly still, her dark, sunken eyes open.
She approached her tentatively, trying to fight the welling tears. Leaning over the bed, she reached for her hand. She was surprised when Melanie gave her hand a weak squeeze and attempted an even weaker smile. “Cat,” she breathed weakly. “I love my Kitty-Cat.”
“Hush now, everything’s going to be fine. Just fine,” Cathy assured her, brushing sweaty dark curls from her brow.
“Cat,” Melanie sighed, a long shuddering sigh that seemed to originate from someplace impossibly deep, a fathomless abyss of misery. “Cat, listen,” she whispered, every word seeming to take a tremendous effort. “I need you to help me, Cat, please.”
“I’m here, Mel. I’m going to stay right here by your side,” she promised, rubbing her hand. “Me and Deb, both. You’re going to be fine. The baby, everything.”
Melanie’s face twisted. “It’s not a baby, Cat.”
“Mel, please don’t.” Cathy began to cry.
“Cat, help me, please.”
“No, Mel.”
“It’s evil,” she said, squeezing her hand tightly and beginning to squirm as another wave of pain crept upon her. With a moan, she pushed her head back against the pillow, and a thin trickle of blood made its way from her nose, dribbling over the thin line of her drawn lips.
“Debra!” Cathy yelled in a panic.
They sat with Melanie on the bed—an hour, two—swabbing her forehead with a wash-cloth dipped in warm water, holding her hand, attempting to console her during her contractions as she screamed and raged and pleaded with them to help murder her unborn child.
Finally, much to their relief, she fell into a fitful sleep.
~~~~
Debra picked up the phone, listening for a dial tone, before slamming it back into its cradle. “Damn it! Where the hell are they?”
Fumbling through her purse, she pulled out her key chain. It was a gag gift from an old boyfriend, a lone cigarette enclosed in a glass case with, IN CASE OF EMERGENCY, BREAK GLASS embossed on it. Setting it on the kitchen counter, she crushed the encasement with the frying pan and quickly lit it on the stove. Taking a long drag, she closed her eyes to savor it.
“Thought you quit,” Cat mumbled numbly.
“Cat! I told you to stay with her.”
“She needs a fresh blanket. Hers is…soiled. I thought you quit smoking.”
“Oh, I did, I did,” she said, barely able to hold the cigarette between her two trembling fingers. “But…I don’t know about you, but I would consider this an emergency, wouldn’t you? Yes, I think so,” she said, taking another deep draw as she paced nervously back and forth. “Definitely. Definitely an emergency. Oh, yes. I think that’s a safe bet.”
“She’s going to die, isn’t she, Deb?”
“Jesus, Cat, don’t even say that!” Throwing the cigarette into the sink, Debra rubbed her hands wearily over her face.
“I’ve never seen so much blood,” Cat whispered, the words releasing a fountain of tears. Standing stoop-shouldered, she buried her face in her hands.
Moving to her side, Debra embraced her, rubbing her back warmly. “We need to stay strong,” she whispered. “Mel needs us. Mel needs for us to stay strong.”
Cat nodded and sniffled, and then gasped at the sound of a door slamming.
Rushing to the bedroom door, they rattled the handle. “Melanie!”
Only an eerie silence answered from the other side. Pressing her ear against it, Deb held her breath, listening for movement.
“Deb, maybe we should—”
“Shhh! Listen.” Debra detected the sliding of sheets…the creaking of bedsprings…a strange whimper…mewling, faint and muffled.
Dropping to the floor, she tried to peer through the crack, and then put her ear to it, straining to listen. She heard movement…a sticky, wet noise, and panting…Mel panting…a soft moan.
She and Cathy screamed in unison as the front door was thrown open, sending a blast of frigid air rushing through the cabin, along with Ranger Wilkens and two other men.
“Michael!” Deb screamed, jumping up. “Melanie—”
That was all that she got out.
Barreling down the hall, he hit the locked door with his shoulder, sending splinters flying in all directions as the wood disintegrated.
She was kneeling naked and bloodied on the bed. Wet, stringy hair was obscuring her face as she leaned all her weight into a blood-soaked pillow.
Surging forward, the ranger flung her aside with enough force to send her sliding across the floor and slamming against the dresser, sending bottles of perfume and makeup and lotion raining down upon her.
Snatching the baby from the bed, he cradled it to his chest, it immediately letting loose angry wails of protest.
While the four onlookers stood dumbfounded in the doorway, a bloodied, screeching Melanie sprang to her feet and lunged at him.
He turned instinctively, shielding the infant, and she leapt onto his back, shrieking and flailing, trying to snatch the wailing infant from his arms.
Clutching the child to his chest, he twirled in an attempt to dislodge the clawing creature, but she was undaunted, clinging tenaciously to his back, her face set in a snarling grimace.
When she went for his eyes, clawing at his face, he flung himself backward, slamming her against the wall and forcing out a loud grunt.
The macabre scene unfolding was too overwhelming for Cat, who crumpled to the floor.
This seemed to spur the two strangers into motion.
Rushing forward, they pried Melanie from the ranger’s back and wrestled her to the floor where she kicked and bit and clawed and snarled, her lips pulled back to reveal teeth stained with blood.
At last, her struggling ceased and she lie naked and motionless, pinned firmly to the ground by two stunned strangers bundled in thick winter clothes.
“Nooo,” she moaned. “You’ll be sorry. You’ll all be sorry. It’s a monster,” she sobbed, her body convulsing. “A monster.” Rolling her head slowly from side to side, mangled moans sounded as shivers shook her. “I’m so sorry,” she whispered weakly.
Her lolling head came to a stop so she could stare vacantly toward the ceiling.
“Go radio for Trauma Flight,” one of the pale-faced strangers said as he moved his fingers to different positions on her wrist. “Her pulse is barely there. She’s lost a lot of blood.”
As his partner jumped up and scurried from the room, leaping over Cat in the doorway, Debra crept forward to kneel by Melanie’s side, her best friend of over fifteen years. She saw a glint by her head. Picking up the cross and chain, she placed it in one of Melanie’s palms, folding her cold fingers around it.
But Mel was gone, her eyes someplace far away as she mumbled she was sorry over and over, her words barely audible above the infant’s healthy wails.
“Oh…jeez,” Cathy moaned, stirring groggily from where she lie just outside the bedroom door.
Debra watched Melanie’s eyes flutter shut. “For God’s sake, do something!” she pleaded to the man still searching frantically for a pulse.
Clutching Melanie’s cold, lifeless hand to her lips, Debra began to weep.
▪
Part II
It was hard to believe a year could pass so quickly.
Peering across the cell, Melanie scanned the pictures taped to the wall. He was darling with those dark, unruly curls framing his sweet fair face.
Her eyes shifted to one of her favorites. Her mother was holding him, with Cat on one side and Deb on the other. He was giggling and his smile seemed to light up his entire face.
That face…so breathtakingly innocent.
A different face formed before her mind’s eye, one hairy and deformed with a snout and a slobbering mouth and a lolling tongue.
But that face wasn’t real. It was a figment of her imagination concocted by a troubled mind, a mind fraught with guilt, a mind searching frantically for some way to make herself the victim. That’s what all the doctors told her, and she’d come to the conclusion that they were right. She hadn’t been raped by some wolfman creature from hell. It had been consensual sex with Michael Wilkens, just as it had been consensual sex with a different stranger ten months earlier, one she’d known less than thirty minutes after sharing a few bloody marys with him in a seedy bar. That’s right. Melanie Russo was a promiscuous lady who slept around. A slutty whore, really. She’d confessed everything. The whole world knew it and she didn’t care. She would tell them whatever they wanted to hear. She was on a mission to get home. She needed to atone for what she’d done, to set things right.
Rising wearily from the cot, she went to the wall to closely study an eight by ten. He was alone in this one, his six-month photo. He was sitting up and clutching a stuffed green bunny as if it was the most marvelous thing in the world.
Reaching out, she ran a finger down his ivory cheek, and a lone tear slipped from the corner of her eye. Taking a deep breath, she pulled her hand away and straightened her shoulders, feeling a strengthening of her resolve as she did so. She mustn’t be fooled by facades.
She reached for the crucifix at her throat, forgetting yet again that it was no longer there. It was waiting at home, along with her beautiful baby boy. Her precious gift.
~~~~
“Look at him go!” Debra cheered. “How can this be? Wasn’t he just born, like, yesterday?”
Where she was seated on the couch, Cat felt tears well as she watched the unsteady toddler lurch through the room on his newfound legs. “Come on,” she coaxed. “Come to Aunt Kitty.”
“Aw,” Debra crooned. “He’s adorable. Even with a snotty nose.”
A look of surprise crossed his face as his knees buckled and he crumpled to the floor.
“Uh-oh, Boogie-nose, did you go boom?” Cat teased.
Undeterred, he maneuvered back to his feet to stumble the last few steps to the coffee table, his face flushed and his eyes wide.
Cat clapped her hands. “Good boy. Wait till I tell your mommy. She’s gonna be so proud.”
Holding onto the coffee table, he bounced and babbled.
“Oh my gosh,” Debra laughed. “Is that a victory dance?”
“I think so. He’s proud of his accomplishment, aren’t you Boogie. Hellz yeah!”
“Look at that face. He is precious. I hate that Mel’s missing this.” Debra frowned frumpily. “I feel guilty.”
“Yeah, me too,” Cat said, though she knew the guilt was going to be ten times worse when she told Melanie about his newest feat. It always was. Yeah, Mel tried to hide it, but Cat could hear the tears over the phone. But Mel insisted upon hearing everything that was happening with him, every new thing he ate, every new expression, every new accomplishment. Whatever strange hormonal imbalance had occurred during her pregnancy had evidently remedied itself and she now appeared to be of sound mind and eager to be reunited with her son.
Deb shook her head. “You’ve done such a great job, Cat. Look at him. Even if his nose is terminally snotty, he’s healthy and happy and handsome and bouncing. Cat Shaw, a practicing nanny. I never thought I’d see the day.”
“I never thought I’d see the day.”
“I must say, you’ve gone well above and beyond the call of friendship. I’m proud of you, Kitty-Cat. You stepped up.”
“Damn right. Girlfriend owes me big time.”
They both laughed.
Cat sighed. “Are you sure you have to leave? This week went by so fast.”
“Gotta go back to work. Back to sunny Florida for me.”
“Bitch.”
Deb patted her back. “One more month, honey.”
“Yep. You hear that Boogie?” she asked the bouncing baby boy. “Mommy’s coming home in one month.”
Letting out a squeal, he pounded the coffee table with his tiny palms and bounced as if excited by the
prospect.
Cat was just as excited. Raising a snot-nosed bouncing baby boy was exhausting. And Mel’s poor mom was having a hard time with her arthritis. It was gradually getting worse, and her medications didn’t seem to be helping much anymore. Melanie was desperately needed.
Sweet Mel had done her time. She didn’t belong in prison. Sure she had problems. Because of her piece of shit father. She’d been searching for the love she never got from him, and in all the wrong places. But none of that was important. She had a beautiful, healthy booger-nose to raise up proper, and that’s exactly what she needed to be doing.
She watched as he worked his way around the coffee table, carefully side-stepping, a look of deep concentration on his handsome face.
He was truly a beautiful child.
When he lunged at her, she caught him in a hug, giving him a kiss on a head covered with dark, silky curls. “Big boy,” she crooned, and he giggled, brandishing his face for the nose wipe he knew was coming.
Cat tissued his nose, then kissed his cheeks, laughing as he squealed, his chubby hands only halfheartedly attempting to push her away.
Pulling back, she peered down into the most beautiful eyes she’d ever seen…and felt a feathery tingle tickle her spine.
They were like emeralds.
Like sun-kissed emeralds.
▪
▪
The Trophy
(Thing Onboard)
He ran his hands along the boat’s railing, reveling in the smooth texture of the teak. The beauty on display before him was breathtaking, the amber sky streaked with silver clouds, the ocher sun blazing on the horizon, the shimmering cyan of an ocean that stretched forever. He stood transfixed by her grandeur. Her vastness made him feel small, a helpless newborn babe. Only it was the salty breeze that caressed him, and gentle waves which rocked him. His was the mother of all mothers, Mother Ocean herself. And he was completely content within his sturdy crib of polished teak.