Conceiving (Subdue Book 3)

by Thomas S. Flowers

  For Them.

  And the worming thoughts told her more, through her they’ll replace the ilk that had been taken from Them. Through her will be born a…

  Neville sat in boat on the sea. A tempest storm brought the twirling black waves up into a feverish purple-red sky and with a sudden surge, corkscrewing back toward the bottomless pit. Her stomach turned. Cramps pulling and squeezing throughout her midsection. And a smell, like burning wood. No. It was burning wood. A fireplace was nearby.

  The boat rocked.

  But her body felt stiff.

  Another pull, the pain rocketing through her lower abdomen.

  Was there silk sheets, comforting cold? Yes, yes, I can feel them!

  The boat dissolved in a lush bed. Neville was on her back, surrounding by ornate flowers and lace pillows and an excited murmuring hum.

  She opened her eyes.

  A crowd stood around her, faces unseen, hidden behind hoods and dark dirty robes. Neville tried to move, but couldn’t budge. She looked at her arms dumbly.

  Restraints?

  I’m restrained?

  Why?

  Neville looked around, panic sending cold spasms down her back. She was in a spacious room with a decadent vaulted ceiling with odd drawings in the mold. Closing her eyes, again she was pulled under the tide, peering through the water as if it were nothing but a sheet of glass, and on the other side thousands upon thousands of blinking, watching white orbs and red and yellow irises sneering at her with an inferno of hunger she could scarcely fathom.

  Opening her eyes, Neville clutched her round swollen belly. The pain was shooting through her sides, tickling the back of her throat with iron. A tall man was standing above her, as if raised somehow, gigantic and dressed in a strange wild robe made of animal skin and the head of some long fanged beast. Under the mask glimmered a face she knew, a face with large moose-like teeth and a square jaw and round glasses and a walrus thick mustache.

  “Mr. Bachman?” her voice was faint, but the man seemed to smile at her, knowingly.

  Her head fell back, swimming Neville fought against the tide, struggling with everything just to stay awake, to keep from the growing thunder on the horizon in her mind. The pain brought her back, like a lashing whip the darkness crackled and vanished. Only the room with the dozens of hidden faces remained. Pain that reminded her of the worse kind of menstrual cramps, stretching her insides. She sat up and doubled over. Contractions came rapidly. The baby was coming. She was going into labor, here of all places. And where was Boris? Where was her husband?

  Bachman stood above her, holding something vaguely familiar. A necklace, with a jewel of some kind. Black. Devoid of natural light, like a black hole consuming space. It was the black stone, her stone. Had to be. Neville was guided back to her pillows. The robed people touched her gently, but forcedly.

  Where am I?

  Who are these people?

  Boris—

  Neville tried to set up again, blocked by the man hands watching over her.

  “Boris…where is Boris?”

  The robes kept her down, but Neville was able to jerk her head wildly about. Her gaze darted from one shadowed face to another. Who are these people? I can’t have my baby here? I can’t? It’s too soon…too soon.

  “Where am I?” Neville clawed at one of the robes. “Where is my husband? Who are you people? What do you want?” she spat and tugged against the straps. Her innards knotted, but she ignored the pain, caught up in panicked temper. The contractions came more rapidly. Her lower abdomen burned like fire.

  “Where is my husband?” Neville whimpered, gritting her teeth.

  “Boris?”

  “Boris?”

  “Boris—”

  “It’s the best thing, hun.” The voice came out from the countless robes huddled around her.

  Neville froze, all but for the spasms. She watched the robes for movement, for any sign from where the voice came. One of the robes stepped out and came closer to her bed.

  “Boris?”

  The robe removed their hood. Her husband stood before her, eyes cast to the floor, hands jittering and folding with each other. His face seemed dark and pale white. Trembling, refusing to look at her.

  “Boris, what is going on? Who are these people? Where are we?” Neville reached for him, but Boris stepped slightly away.

  “We’re at the University,” he said morosely.

  “Baelo? Why? Why? Why, Boris?” Neville knew she sounded hysterical. But nothing made sense to her, nothing. Why was Boris acting this way? Why where they here?

  “So you can give birth.” His voice was stoic, but slightly pitched, as if he had an itch at the back of his throat. As if he was also struggling with an overwhelming urge to vomit.

  “Birth? I can’t have the baby here. It’s too soon, Boris. We still have a month…it’s too soon. Doctor Taylor said—”

  “The baby will be fine.” An aged and husky feminine voice came from the gathered robes. She pulled her hood back, revealing the wrinkled stern face Neville had come to know over the last several months. The obstetrician, the family doctor the Bachman’s had recommended.

  “Relax,” cooed the good doctor. “We’ll take care of things. The baby will be okay.”

  “Boris?” Neville looked to her husband, pleading.

  “We will have the…child here.” Boris removed his gaze from the floor. He looked to his wife, but only for a moment, before those grey marbles turned back to the floor. There was something there, Neville was sure. A look of…remorse.

  “Sweetie.” Neville reached for Boris. “Take me home, please.”

  Boris jerked away. “I can’t.”

  “You can’t? What do you mean, you can’t? I want to go home, don’t you understand? I want to go home, now. Please, Boris. Take me home.”

  Boris huffed. “We have to do this, okay.” He was shouting now. Boris never shouted, especially not at her. “They’ve given us so much, hun. Please understand. We’ve been lifted up. We’ve got a new life here. A prestigious career. A wonderful town. And we’ll be happy. We’ll raise a family here. This place is perfect, Nev. We just have to do this one thing…” He jolted to the bed, taking her arm. He shook terribly, reminding her chillingly of some black & white movie she watched with her dad a long time ago, some movie with Kevin McCarthy and Dana Wynter about a town being replaced by emotionless impostors.

  Neville swallowed hard. She shunted her gaze away from her husband, feeling hot and dizzy and perhaps even nauseous. Looking beyond the robes and her cowardly crazed husband, she took in her surroundings. There was a fireplace nearby, the flames bellowed over freshly placed logs. The smelling strangely like baked ham and walnuts. Near the fireplace sat a figure without robes, a woman, black as midnight with frizzy looking afro, as if she’d jumped out of bed and ran to this horrible place. She was struggling with something. Restraints. The woman was restrained as well. Being watched by one of the many robed heathens. The robe was taunting her. Hitting her. Why? Should could not grasp. On the other side of the large room was a sight that nearly made her scream. A man hanged, nailed to a large wooden beam in the shape of a giant X. She couldn’t tell if the man was alive or dead until he began to stir, his gaze seeming to motion toward the woman being assaulted. Her focus finally came back to her bed and the strangers gathered around her. One by one, they removed their hoods. Most of the faces were unrecognizable to her, though she had a funny feelings she’d seen them before, crossing the street or buying oranges at the grocery store. There were faces she did recognize. The entire history department was standing with odd expressions of glee: Weilder and Connors, the twentieth-century Europe professor, and Martin and Prystank, who covered medieval studies, and Phillips was there too, who co-taught Western Civ. And Marcy, the nice young secretary was there, standing next to group of older women, rocking a baskenette. Towels and blankets draped over their arms. Standing close to Boris was Charles, the pompous little toad from Ole Miss, smiling and
smiling, his gaze seeming to drift between sanity and madness.

  Neville held her breath, her body trembling with fear and pain. “What do you want?” she asked, though she really did not want to know. Deep below the icy panic thudding her heart against her chest, she knew what they wanted. She knew.

  Boris stared.

  “It’s the baby, isn’t it? They want our baby. They can’t, Boris. They can’t. This is our baby, our child. Our joy. Ours. Please, you can’t let them. Please.” Neville reached for her husband again. And like before, he stepped out of the way. His face seemed contorted with a look of disgust.

  “How could you?” Neville whispered hotly.

  “Because the child is not yours.” Bachman spoke above her, his voice bellowing throughout the expansive room. “What you have, my dear Mrs. Petry, is a wonderful gift of the highest honor. Your body has become a vessel, a doorway. And what you’ll give birth to, though delivered from your womb, will be our Queen. And you. You shall be Her mother.”

  “Queen…?” Neville seized. Jerking wildly, she grasped her restraints and squeezed. The pain was molten hot, excruciating, as if she was being stabbed by a blade made of pure fire, twisting into her lower gut. Spasming throughout her body, she tried to fight back the contractions, but they seemed to come at her every few seconds. The baby was coming and she could do nothing to stop her labor. Moaning, she clenched down on the straps again, arching her back.

  The robed faces descended on her. Boris disappeared among them. Some took her feet, hoisting them into stirrups and latching them into place. Neville gave no resistance. The contractions were too great. Sweat poured off her body, soaking into the lush fabric sheets. Her bowels shifted as if she was going to defecate. Wet and exposed. Legs lifted up, shuddering, dripping warmth. Opening.

  Without forethought but to rid herself of this horrible pain, she pushed.

  Her face was flushed and equally burning.

  Bachman chanted above her, holding the black stone. The jewel shimmered and pulsated, filling the room in a dazzling white light. It would have been a beautiful sight, but she knew, behind the heavenly hue, red bulbous eyes watched hungrily.

  Breathing heavy, Neville pushed again.

  The baby was moving, unnaturally.

  She screamed.

  Arching her back.

  Legs thrashing against the stirrups. God, it felt as if they were coming apart. Neville glared as Doctor Taylor took her position.

  “Push,” she ordered.

  “Push.”

  Flesh stretching, every part of her was on fire, burning, and burning.

  “Oh God!” Neville cried, clutching on to her restraints, wanting nothing more than to rid her body of this agony. Caring not, at the moment, what happened to the child nor if she lost control of her bowels. Nothing matter. Only the searing pain, the tight knotted ball in her stomach slowly inching lower in abdomen.

  Her pelvis pressed impossibly outward. Neville was sure something snapped. Some bone or tissue or muscle.

  Arching, she pushed.

  And pushed.

  Screaming.

  Crying.

  And pushed.

  Sudden relief flooded over her. The horrible mass was gone. Dreadful jubilation rushed over Neville. She was wet, very. Vision blurred; she could see what seemed like gallons of blood. Sheets crimson and dark in the roaring firelight. Boris ran to her bed, shouting something, she could not hear. Every sound sounded muffled, as if underwater.

  Why is he so upset? she wondered.

  Releasing her death grip on her arm restraints, she listened carefully for the baby’s cries. Please, if anything, let me at least hear my baby.

  There were no cries.

  No screeching agitation from being taken from its warm womb.

  Nothing.

  Panic seized her.

  “Baby…I want…to see…” Neville struggling against her own weakness to see.

  The robes shouted and murmured among each other happily. Some were dancing. Others embraced each other, kissing fondly, erotically almost. One robe was cradling a bundle of towels and bloodied blankets. Bachman stood above, raising his arms into the high, praising whatever god it was he worshiped. Boris stood by her legs, face frozen in a horrifying expression of sorrow and regret.

  “Please…my baby…give me…” Neville wanted to vomit, the room spun and her head felt cold. The robes continued their celebration, seeming not to hear her cries. Bachman smiled down at her and motioned to the one cradling the gory bundle. The robe nodded and quickly came to her side. Slowly the robe pulled back the blanket shielding the child’s face.

  Neville peered, as much as her strength would allow.

  Her motherly twinkle melted.

  She screamed.

  And screamed, pushing out her hands, as if to ward off whatever horrible sight lay in those blood soaked blankets.

  But the images would not vanish from her mind. Cradled in the carnage of blood and bodily discharge and dark red fetal membranes and purplish placenta, slick and wet and shining in the low glow of the fireplace, a large black worm, a larva of sorts, squirmed frantically, searching perhaps with glistening blubbery rolls for some milk to ease its growing appetite.

  “No. No, please God no. Where is my baby? Where is my baby?” Neville jerked away from the hideous thing. Shutting tight her eyes.

  “Why, Mrs. Petry. This is your child.” Bachman beamed at her from above. His face an expression of pure joy, a look of a man who had gone to great lengths to accomplish what transpired here tonight. His large moose-like teeth gleamed. The firelight reflected off his round spectacles. Walrus mustache bouncing as if he was…laughing. He’s laughing, the son-of-a-bitch is laughing.

  “Behold,” Bachman thundered, arms outstretched to the wrinkled squirming blasphemous obscenity cradled in the arms of the robed Doctor Taylor. “Our Queen.”

  Chapter 33

  The Return of the Houstonian Werewolf in Jotham

  Bobby

  Someone was screaming.

  The worst kind of pain he’d ever heard uttered.

  And cheering.

  Yes.

  There was cheering.

  Bobby felt small, pulled downwards into a large crimson room with velvet dancing curtains. Everything seemed huge around him, as if he was nothing more than a dwarfian version of his larger self, a man from another place, like that fellow Michael J. Anderson from that TV show, Twin Peaks, dancing around a red room, caught between the dream world and the waking world. And there were mannequins everywhere, white inhuman faces, yet somehow familiar, like the faces he’d seen in his chow hall dream. Some of the mannequins were missing limbs, others chunks of plastic meat off the ribs or chins. One mannequin was missing all its unnatural features. Fingers. Toes. There were those who seem to howl in pain. Many were laughing. Some were crying. Oh what a fool he’d been, to think he could come here alone. Alone. But he wasn’t alone, was he? Luna was here with him. Luna…

  —Luna!

  Oh God, wake up you asshole.

  —Wake up!

  “Luna…” Bobby’s voice was hardly a whispered, more like gravel dragged across sandpaper. His throat and lips were dry. Cracked. His breath a rustling sound, like a faulty carburetor. The world seemed blurred, the hues bled like rain on paint. The fireplace was burning brightest, with orange tall flames. The crowd of tarnished black robes huddled around some bed, whispering and cheering and shouting victoriously among themselves.

  Farther away from the crowd, near the fireplace, Luna was held to a chair, tied with rope and guarded. Her gaze went from whatever horrible thing was happening with the gathered robes and lingered on Bobby. Her eyes seemed on fire.

  (Bobby?)

  A thought bubbled up hot from the back on his head. Grimacing, Bobby looked back to Luna. Was that her voice in my head?

  (Yes, Bobby.)

  Oh Luna, I’m so sorry. Why are you—

  (Bobby…that thing they just birthed…)

&
nbsp; What? What thing?

  (It’s one of Them, Bobby.)

  Bobby looked from Luna to his Jake and Johnathan, both had turned their backs on him, joining the others in their awful celebration. Or…the bodies that had once been Jake and Johnathan, but whatever they’d been before, was now gone. Flesh remained, but the soul, if he could believe in such a thing, had been snuffed out.

  (Yes. One of Them.)

  Jesus…what…what do they want?

  (Me.)

  You?

  (Yes. They’re going to give my body to that…Thing.)

  No. No. I won’t let them.

  (How?)

  I don’t know…if I could get free…

  (Can you?)

  I might…but…if—

  (I know.)

  But…I don’t have control.

  (I’d rather die than have my body taken.)

  Luna…I can’t…

  (Please. Do it.)

  No.

  (Change.)

  Bobby jerked his gaze to the crowd of robes. They were holding up a crimson stained bundle of blankets, shouting and shouting with the worst kind of joy, both maddening and equally divine. One of the folds on the blankets slipped and he saw the horror in which Luna feared becoming. A worm, a larva-shaped monstrosity. Blubbery and wet and wiggling as some robed woman with grey hair cradled and cooed the damned creature.

  Luna shouted.

  Bobby whipped his gaze back to her.

  One of the robes who stood nearby was hitting her. Luna fought back, weakly He struck her again. Another whelp. “It’ll be easier this way,” the robed man had said.

  “No, I won’t. I won’t.” Luna was kicking out at him.

  Another blow.

  Luna seemed to go limp, head knocking to her chest.