Surrogate

by David Bernstein

Jane knew the house’s layout like she’d lived there for years, memorizing where everything was located, from cereal in the cabinets above the countertop to the boxes labeled CHRISTMAS SUPPLIES in the attic.

  The basement was well-kept save for a few cobwebs. A wine rack stood against a wall. A washer and dryer sat at the bottom of the stairs, and off to the right was an old workbench where Tom kept his tools. The furnace was located in a back corner behind the staircase.

  Jane laid Rebecca on the worn workbench. On the back wall, hung on hooks above the table, were various tools—hammers, saws, wrenches, and clippers. Hanging off the corner of the workbench, where a vice grip was bolted, was a tool belt holding a claw hammer, a tape measure, a pencil, and a black magic marker. Jane disrobed Rebecca, staring at the large scar that ran across her abdomen. The incision was smooth and straight, and healed perfectly. After examining the wound, Jane carefully inspected the rest of the woman’s body for scars, drawing them on her own skin as she discovered them. Except for the large scar on her stomach, Jane would have no trouble duplicating the imperfections.

  Stripping off her clothes, Jane dressed in Rebecca’s floral patterned dress, bra, panties, and slippers, then put what she’d been wearing—jeans, T-shirt, and sneakers—on Rebecca. She guessed the woman would be out for another couple of hours, but decided to tape her up just in case. Using a roll of duct tape and a box cutter she found in a drawer, Jane positioned Rebecca on her side, taping her ankles and wrists behind her back, hog-tie-style.

  Not comfortable with leaving Anna alone upstairs for too long, Jane left the basement to check on the little girl.

  Jane stood at the living room’s entranceway, teary-eyed as she stared at Anna.

  “What’s wrong, Mommy?” Anna asked.

  “Nothing, baby. Can Mommy have a hug?” Jane asked, squatting down and holding out her arms.

  Anna hopped off the couch and hurried over to her.

  The two embraced, and Jane held her tight. She closed her eyes, feeling the warmth of her baby girl, the connection she had been missing for so long. Finally after a few minutes, Jane put Anna down.

  “Can I watch TV again now, Mommy?”

  “Sure. You can do whatever you want.”

  Jane went upstairs to the bathroom. She took the box cutter out of her pocket and placed it on the sink, then rifled around in the closet for a topical sterilizer. Finding a bottle of rubbing alcohol, Jane cleaned and disinfected the box cutter’s blade. After stripping off her clothes, she soaked a cotton ball in the germ-eradicating liquid and rubbed it onto the areas where she had drawn the lines with the black marker.

  Using the box cutter, Jane began slicing into her flesh. She didn’t cut too deep, knowing that as it healed, she would pick at the scabs, ultimately giving her the results she needed.

  When she was done, her skin stung. Using more alcohol, Jane washed the wounds, then used a Band-Aid on the smaller incisions and adhesive gauze pads on the larger ones. She’d simply say she cut herself after a glass had shattered when she was in the kitchen.

  Finished with bandaging herself up, all cuts completed, save the large one that she would have to add across her abdomen, Jane got dressed and headed back downstairs.

  23

  Rebecca awoke and found that she couldn’t move. She was confused, and a little groggy. Her shoulders burned, and her lower back felt like someone had stuck large sewing needles into it. A musty odor filled her nostrils. Her mouth was parched as if she’d been swallowing sand. She tried sitting up, but her arms and legs were pinned behind her. Panic seized her, dispelling the grogginess. Looking around, she saw that she was in the basement of her house. Then she remembered. Someone had attacked her from behind.

  Where was Anna?

  Rebecca was facing away from the wall of tools, straining the muscles in her neck to get a better look around. The basement lights were off, but the small window behind her allowed enough sunlight through so she could see the immediate area. Anna was nowhere in sight, and she wondered if that was a good thing. Maybe her daughter was upstairs, still watching cartoons, and whoever had attacked her had left the house after stealing what they wanted.

  The basement door at the top of the stairs opened, startling Rebecca. Bright light illuminated the staircase. A leg descended onto the first step, quickly followed by its partner. The person paused for a moment, before continuing down. The wooden steps whined with each footfall.

  “I see you’re awake,” a female voice said.

  “What do you want?” Rebecca asked, her voice hoarse. “Where’s my daughter?”

  The figure stopped at the bottom of the stairs.

  “Your daughter?” it asked. “You mean the child you stole?”

  The figure’s words felt like a slap to the face.

  “What, no answer?” the figure asked, continuing forward.

  Rebecca’s stomach churned with anxiety. She closed her eyes, thinking she was dreaming.

  “Look at me, bitch,” the person demanded.

  Rebecca opened her eyes and wanted to scream.

  “You look a little frightened, my dear.”

  Rebecca was speechless. How did she explain what she was looking at? She must be having a psychotic break, for she was looking at herself. Again, she closed her eyes, then bit her lip, trying to wake from the nightmare. But nothing changed except for the sharp taste of iron in her mouth as the broken skin on her lip bled. Opening her eyes, she saw herself again.

  “What the hell’s going on?” she asked, trying to sound angry.

  The figure laughed, sending a shiver down Rebecca’s spine, because it was her own laugh she heard.

  “You have no idea who I am?” the woman asked.

  Rebecca’s mind raced for an answer. And then something came to her. But it couldn’t be.

  “That’s right,” the woman said, seeing the realization on Rebecca’s face. “You can say it.”

  “You’re my clone,” Rebecca said, horrified.

  “Very good.”

  “But how…?”

  “Let me ask you something, woman to woman, mother to mother,” the last word spit out like venom. The woman’s eyes narrowed. “Wouldn’t you do anything to save your child, to get her back from the people that stole her?”

  “We didn’t steal Anna.”

  The woman shot forward, grabbed Rebecca by the throat, and squeezed, cutting off her air supply.

  “That’s exactly what you did, you fucking bitch.” Spittle flew from the woman’s mouth as she spoke, the blobs of saliva dotting Rebecca’s panic-ridden face.

  Rebecca struggled. She couldn’t breathe. It was no use, her attacker had her in a vicelike grip, and the binds were too strong. Finally, when her vision began to go fuzzy, the woman let go. Rebecca began coughing between gulps of air.

  “We had…no idea you…were awake. That you were…a person,” Rebecca said, still catching her breath. “Dr. Kotrich said no one…would be hurt, that my clone was just a husk to be used for giving birth.”

  The woman grinned, her face demonesque. “The good doctor and all his cohorts are dead. They’ll be no more lies.”

  “Oh my God. It was you. You killed them.”

  The woman nodded.

  “I don’t have a lot of time, and unless you want Anna to share the good doctor’s fate, I suggest you answer a few of my questions.”

  * * *

  Jane would never hurt Anna, but she needed to seem ruthless; use the woman’s love for Anna against her.

  Jane read from a list she had made during her time watching the couple. To pull off the ruse, Jane needed to become Rebecca.

  Jane asked a number of questions. What were Rebecca’s favorite foods? What types of meals did each family member like? Tom’s and Anna’s favorites? She asked about sexual positions. How often did they fuck? What types of movies and TV shows did they watch together? Jane went on and on, writing down the answers, taking notes. Rebecca had refused to answer some of the questions initially, bu
t Jane quickly persuaded her by threatening Anna’s safety.

  Finally, Rebecca seemed to have had enough, had gotten the picture. “I know what you’re planning to do and it won’t work. You can torture me all you want. I’m not answering any more of your questions.”

  “Then Anna dies.”

  “Bullshit,” Rebecca said, almost laughing. “She’s your daughter and you want her in your life. You want her to love you.”

  “Don’t test me,” Jane warned.

  “You’re a monster, and my Anna will see through your lies.”

  Jane backhanded Rebecca, drawing more blood from the woman’s mouth. “She’s mine. She came from me. And if it comes to it, it’s your lies that she’ll come to know and hate, and hate you for telling them.”

  Jane reached below the table, and picked up a rubber mallet, then smashed it down onto Rebecca’s right shoulder. It landed with a thud, followed by a cry. Jane hit her again, and again, relishing the pain she was inflicting. She wanted to hurt her badly, dislocate something, but had to make sure not to break anything. Not yet anyway. She switched it up by swinging the mallet like a baseball bat into Rebecca’s stomach, knocking the wind out of the woman—her cries momentarily silenced.

  “Now finish answering my questions, or I’ll start cutting.”

  “Go fuck yourself,” Rebecca managed to blurt.

  Furious, Jane rolled Rebecca over so that she faced away from her, leaving her hands and feet nearer. Taking a pair of pliers, Jane placed the woman’s left index finger between the prongs, and squeezed until the end of the digit popped, the bone crunching beneath.

  Rebecca cried out in agony.

  “Ready to answer my questions yet?”

  “Fuck you,” Rebecca spat.

  Jane moved to the next finger and repeated the action, but this time the digit’s tip burst open, and blood gushed out like juice from a squished grape. Rebecca screamed again, her body convulsing with the pain.

  The woman was tough, Jane had to give her that, and it wasn’t until the pliers were pressing against the fifth finger that Rebecca agreed to talk.

  24

  Rebecca awoke with a hammering in her skull. The fingers on her left hand throbbed as if they were resting on a hot curling iron. Opening her eyes, she saw that the digits were each wrapped in a bandage. She was lying on a floor. Sitting up, grimacing from the pain in her abdomen—remembering the punishment she had taken there—she looked around. She was in some kind of cabin, or shack. The whole place was one big room. The floor was made of wooden planks, worn and layered in filth from years of use. The air had a musty odor to it, mixed with the scent of decay, as if something had died there long ago. Moving her arms—her shoulder barking from the blow she had taken—she found her wrists shackled with chains leading to telephone-pole-thick posts on either side of her.

  The place had two windows, each one no more than four feet by four feet. They were nearer to the ceiling, about six feet up and at opposite sides of the shack. Sunlight fought its way through the grime-covered windows, illuminating the cobweb-littered, dusty, leaf-strewn cabin.

  To her left was a table and chairs, cobwebs stretching from the chairs to the floor, indicating the furniture hadn’t been used in some time. To her right, nothing more than a large spiderweb hung from a two-by-four, its weaver sitting in the middle, watching her.

  Rebecca went to stand, but the combined pain from her shoulder, hand and stomach made her fall to the floor, a plume of dust rising into the air.

  This couldn’t be happening. She had to be dreaming. But it was real, because she and her husband had done the impossible, the inconceivable, and had used unnatural science to create life. She thought there might be consequences, but nothing like this.

  Rebecca’s stomach felt like she’d swallowed butterflies and whiskey. Panic mixed with anger coursed through her veins as she thought of Anna and Tom. They were both in danger. She was the only one who could stop the clone, the only one who knew about her plan.

  Grunting through the pain, she used the wall behind her, and got to her feet. Her head felt woozy and she took a moment to steady herself. Feeling a little better, she gripped the chain on her left and pulled. When nothing happened, she began jerking it, tugging and pulling, giving it all she had, trying to see if she could loosen where it was bolted to the post. She continued to struggle, fighting through the pain, but the bolts wouldn’t budge. An overwhelming weariness fell over her. Rebecca collapsed to the floor, kicking up more dust. Taking a deep breath, she inhaled the particles and coughed, violently.

  Lying on the hard floor, she began to cry, until she fell asleep.

  * * *

  Rebecca awoke sometime later, her body in agony. Holding her stomach, she sat up and saw a Styrofoam plate with a sandwich and two white pills on it, a bottle of water, and a plastic mop bucket had been left for her. Her mouth was parched. She reached out and picked up the bottle of water, unscrewed the cap, and brought it to her cracked lips. Pausing, she wondered if the cap had been loosened, already opened by her captor. Maybe the liquid had been tampered with.

  Her throat screamed at her to drink, so she did. She gulped down half the bottle’s contents before some of the water entered her windpipe. She coughed for a minute, clearing her airway.

  Settling down, she realized drinking so much so fast was not a bright idea. She needed to conserve the water. Drink it sparingly.

  The good news was that her captor wanted her alive. The crazy bitch wasn’t done with her. One little chat in the basement was not going to be enough for her clone to become her. No, it would take time. But eventually the woman, the copy, would have enough information. And when that happened, Rebecca was expendable.

  She needed to figure a way out of her bonds, but for now, she needed to eat, save her strength. She picked up the sandwich and ate. Her mouth flooded with the taste of cheddar cheese and lettuce.

  She studied the pills, and could swear they were common painkillers. She popped both into her mouth, then drank the rest of the water.

  Over the next hour, she sat, listening to her surroundings, hearing only the occasional bird chirping. There were no sounds of a nearby road, no car horns, or anything else that indicated civilization. Yelling for help was probably a waste of time, but she had to try. So she did, for a time, but no one showed up or called out. When she was done, her head and body ached. She had overdone it, and her throat was raw again. Upending the bottle, she managed to get a few measly drops of condensation on her tongue.

  She leaned back against the wall, conserving her strength, and nodded off.

  * * *

  She woke up sometime later, ass numb, shoulders and lower back as stiff as a cadaver’s. Hoping to get the kinks out, she moved around, stretching. It seemed to be working, unlike the painkillers—her shoulder and stomach still aching.

  Getting to her feet, she rotated her uninjured shoulder, neck, arms and legs. She felt awful, as if she’d gone out for a night of heavy drinking and had been hit by a car.

  She needed to pee.

  The urge came on strong, as if she’d consumed a supersize cup of coffee. She couldn’t remember the last time she urinated. Her eyes landed on the bucket in front of her—her commode. She didn’t have any toilet paper, but that wouldn’t matter, not unless she had to… No, she wouldn’t be here that long. She wasn’t sure how she was going to escape, but she’d figure out a way. She had to.

  Using her uninjured hand, she pulled the bucket over to her, pulled down her pants, then squatted over the bucket.

  Looking up at the window, she saw the light was fading. Evening was settling in. She had maybe another hour of sunlight before darkness fell over her. She thought about the spider next to her, imagining others she couldn’t see, and cringed as goose bumps rippled her flesh.

  Her captor hadn’t returned since bringing her the food and drink. Would it be one meal a day? One bottle of water a day? Every two days? Three? The truth was, she had no idea, and needed to
act as if she’d never get another.

  Ready to pee, she decided on another option. Remaining over the bucket, she reached to her right and grabbed the empty water bottle. She unscrewed the cap and held the bottle beneath her.

  She released her bladder. The stream of urine splashed against her fingers and the side of the bottle until she adjusted the container, making her aim true—the bucket caught the runoff. The bottle quickly filled, growing heavier and warmer in her hand. When she was finished, she capped the bottle and set it down. With nothing to dab herself with, she used her piss-laden fingers, before pulling up her jeans.

  She sat down and picked up the bottle. Holding it up, using the window as the background, she saw that her urine was a light golden color, a good sign. The salt content was diluted—a tidbit she’d learned from watching countless survival shows. The key was to drink the urine immediately. The longer it sat around, the more likely it was that harmful bacteria would form, making the urine toxic and dangerous to consume.

  Looking at the bottle now, she swallowed the lump that had formed in her throat. The hosts of the shows had done it. People trapped in buildings had done it. Certain cultures still practiced it as a ritual for one reason or another.

  Yes, she thought drinking urine was gross. Disgusting. She wondered if she’d be able to keep it down.

  Anna and Tom needed her. If drinking a little urine meant saving them, then she’d do it. She’d do anything.

  Rebecca unscrewed the cap, placing it in her pocket, not wanting to set it on the dirty floor. Pinching her nose, she brought to bottle to her lips and pictured her family.

  The liquid was warm, like tea that had had a chance to sit a bit. She closed her eyes as the golden liquid entered her gullet, traveling down her throat.

  She hadn’t thought on how much to drink, but while she was at it and able, she kept on, guzzling the bottle’s contents.