by Edward Lee
And it was a window in Joyce’s cottage.
Here we go again. A little secret moral malfeasance amongst my employees. Then she frowned at herself. And who am I to talk about moral malfeasance? I’m the one peeping in windows.
Clare knew it was wrong but she watched for a few minutes, fairly fascinated by the physical dexterity of her two guards. Joyce and Rick were both naked, of course, and they were using Joyce’s high poster bed for a sexual gymnasium, actively investigating every conceivable position—and some not so conceivable—through which their genitals might be joined. Joyce’s pretty face seemed wide open in the most intent bliss, her nipples gorged, her sweat-slick breasts heaving. Rick’s muscular arms and chest tensed to razor-sharp contours as he turned his lover every which way. Jesus Christ, everybody’s makin’ bacon tonight! Clare thought. It was almost a jealous complaint. This is one happy friggin’ island…
She lowered the binoculars, thought about it a moment, then put them away. I’ve been a bad girl long enough. Joyce really needs to close her blinds. She knew that on-the-job romances always had a big potential for trouble, but she liked Rick and Joyce too much to report them. Besides, they were good guards, and Clare also hoped they could all become friends too.
She couldn’t deny her own little crush on Dellin, but he was too distant, too wrapped up in his profession to regard Clare as anything more than an employee. Anything beyond a solid professional relationship was out of the question, and Clare felt absurd for even pondering a romance. In truth, she hadn’t had any real friends in a long time—for most of her college years and her entire stint in the Air Force—to the extent now that not having any social life seemed normal. In college, she’d made grades her utmost priority, and in the Air Force, it was her job performance. Now, so many years later, she was beginning to realize what she’d missed out on.
Well, I’ll work things out. It’s only my first day! She would just have to find a round about way of suggesting that Rick and Joyce be more discreet. And close their damn blinds when they make whoopie!
She decided to get back to work. She started the Blazer back up and headed off. A door-check at the clinic sounded like a good idea, and it wouldn’t hurt double-checking the main gate. The Blazer disappeared down the narrow road.
In a way, it was too bad she hadn’t stayed here a few more minutes—with the binoculars—for if she had, she would’ve seen the darkled figure lurking about the cottages, looking into windows.
(III)
The hand, almost tenderly, rubbed the bloated belly. Her navel had popped inside-out by now, a little knot of flesh protruding.
Machines hummed.
Something beeped rapidly along with her heart.
“Push now. Push.”
The name of the woman on Table 2 was Donna Kramer. She was fairly young, and could even be called attractive in her pregnancy. Pre-natal lactation filled her breasts, glazed her nipples. The steel stirrups spread her legs wide.
She couldn’t scream; she’d been gagged with an oral breather, a simple slab of rubber with an airway in it.
She couldn’t feel much either, and she could scarcely think, because, like Grace Fletcher—the woman on Table 1—she’d been radioactively lobotomized. Technically her condition would be called a PVS—Persistent Vegetative State. Less than technically, one could say that her brain had been messed with to the extent that it didn’t really work anymore.
“Twenty-eight days—it’s amazing,” the voice fluttered above her.
There were actually two figures standing in the room—two men—but that’s all Donna’s reduced mental functions would allow her to know. She didn’t even know she was about to give birth, at least not really. The concept was lost to her now.
“Push, push. Don’t worry. You’re going to be a fine, fine mother—a mother of miracles…”
It didn’t hurt. Between the spinal injections and the lobotomization of the prefrontal pain centers, all she felt was a great pressure. Perhaps it was instinct, then, or phantom memory, that enabled her to tighten her abdominal muscles whenever the man said “Push.”
She pushed and pushed.
“I can see the head! Push!”
She pushed and pushed some more.
“Yes, yes!”
The great pressure left her, as though it were being pulled from here. Her head lolled on the table and her plump, milk-filled breasts wobbled. Though she couldn’t understand what she was seeing, her sense of vision did still register.
She saw her tight shining distended belly collapse as quickly as a knife though a basketball.
Whatever had been inside was now out.
Some synaptic activity caused another phantom inkling of thought: Was she supposed to hear something now? A baby crying?
She heard nothing.
“Damn it. She didn’t take.”
“That’s too bad.”
“Don’t just stand there with it. Take it away. It makes me sick to look at.”
“Sorry.”
Donna Kramer had seen the small thing they’d taken out of her. Some man was holding it aloft in the bright light, like a sack of onions. The pink umbilicus dangled as though it were a loop of intestine.
Donna’s head turned involuntarily to one side now. Her eyes met someone else’s eyes. It was Grace, the woman on Table 1, whose eyes looked right into hers. The eyes were dead but somehow still alive.
A long sigh.
“Clean this up now.”
“What about—”
“Her? Leave her for now. We’ll continue with the intravenal feeding. And clean her up. I’m not sure what we’ll do with her yet.”
“Can I—”
“Just do as I say. I’ll let you know when I decide. Damn. We’re still getting those teratologic syndromes. I don’t understand it; we did a full screen.”
A pause stretched over the white room.
Then the same voice said: “Try, try again, I guess…”
Donna could decipher none of the discourse, so it didn’t really matter what was going on.
He’d said she’d be a mother of miracles.
Some miracle.
As close to clinically brain-dead as she was, even Donna knew it was no miracle that had come out of her.
It was a monstrosity.
— | — | —
Chapter Seven
(I)
“That’s quite a first day,” Dellin said. Steam from his coffee drifted upward. Clare sat opposite him in the clinic cafeteria where he’d kindly bought her breakfast, paying a princely $4.00 for both of their heaping plates of bacon, eggs, hash browns, and buttermilk pancakes the size of frisbees. Clare was briefing him on her shift.
“An abandoned rowboat that seems to have been hidden deliberately and a hysterical naked girl in acute refractory shock,” he said. “You had more action in one day than we usually get in six months.”
“Well then I sure hope that covers the next six months,” Clare tried to joke. But none of it was a joke; the woman from last night could just as easily have died.
To be thorough, she’d faxed a report on Kari Ann Wells to the local police, and got a case number in the event that she wanted any follow-up information. The boat she’d simply stowed in a storage shed on the property. As for the girl, though, Dellin wasn’t that surprised, citing much of what Adam had said about the local “meth-heads.”
“I’m off shift at noon,” Clare went on, trying only to nibble at her breakfast. It was so delicious, she would’ve liked to scarf it all down at once. Don’t make yourself look like a pig in front of Dellin! she thought. “Unless you object, we’ll go blank noon to four. Since it’s Friday, I want to double up the guards from four to midnight, in case any more of the locals decide to wander over.”
“Fine, fine. What ever you think is best. Your judgment is part of what we’re paying you for.”
“Do you know when the clinic director is coming in? I’d really like to meet him today.”
“Ha
rry? Oh, yeah. It’ll be Monday, for sure. Today he’s doing rounds with the oncologists at Tampa General. We actually need more patients because the first series are all cured.”
“That’s wonderful.”
“It sure is. In fact, I’ve only got two aftercare appointments today, then I’m out of here. I think I’m actually going to hit the beach today, if the UV index isn’t too high.”
Clare smiled at the thought. “Yeah, I guess cancer specialists aren’t too keen on lounging in the sun.”
“Just enough for a little color, that’s all. Care to join me?”
The sudden question seemed to ram Clare’s thought processes into a brick wall. Damn! He’s asking me to go to the beach with him? Should I-I-I—
“Oh, sorry. Dumb suggestion on my part,” he said before she could answer. “You just finished a twelve-hour shift—of course you’re going to be going straight home and going to bed. Especially after all the commotion last night, you must be exhausted.”
Crap… The only appropriate response was to agree. “Yeah, I am pretty tired. But thanks for asking.”
“Some other time, then. I mean, if you feel like it.”
Trust me, I feel like it. A tiny despair seemed to pat her shoulder. “That would be great.” She struggled to keep the conversation from stumbling. “I think Joyce told me that you have an apartment somewhere but you also stay at one of the cottages on occasion?”
“I have a condo downtown, that’s where I stay most of the time. But sometimes on weekends I stay at my cottage. I’m the one on the very end.”
It just made her wonder more about him. He’s got a condo downtown. Does he have a wife to go with it? Kids? Perhaps not, not if he just invited her to the beach. Does he have a serious girlfriend, is he a casual dater? Jeez, Joyce is probably right.
With my luck, he’s gay.
“Oh, and I signed in a delivery last night,” she said, “from Hodder-Tech Industries.”
Dellin merely nodded, mopping syrup with a forkful of pancakes.
“A magna-ferric carbon element assembly.”
Dellin nodded.
“Rick said it was for sterilization or something?”
Another nod.
“Would that account for the steam venting from the roof over B-Wing?”
“Yep.”
Jesus, help me out here. Just when she was starting to think that Dellin expressly didn’t want to talk about it, he finished his plate, gulping. “It’s called an industrial-grade dry-heat desiccator—a bit more complex than sterilization. The system is a lot more expensive but it keeps the EPA from harping at us. Most medical facilities get rid of their waste with an on-site incinerator. But these days? Burning that sort of stuff makes a lot of smoke and soot. Chimneys on a federal habitat reserve is a big no-no.”
“Oh,” Clare said. She still didn’t quite get it. No big deal. But she felt anxious now—he was done with his breakfast, and she had nothing else to report. She desperately wanted something more to talk about…because she didn’t want him to leave. But it made her feel totally unprofessional, like a little school girl with a crush on the teacher.
Dellin looked at his watch, then pushed his plate away. “Well, time for me to go.”
Figures, Clare thought glumly. “‘Bye…” Yeah, I’ve definitely got a thing for this guy. Hand in chin, she watched him exit the cafeteria, back to his office.
When the cafeteria had nearly emptied, she finished her meal and felt fit to burst as a result. She knew that it was the sudden melancholy that urged her to eat it all. Later, she moped around the clinic, logged tag numbers in the parking lot, finished her operating report. Just making busy work for myself. What she needed to beat the doldrums was a good solid block of sleep. Ten more minutes and I’m out of here, she thought when she looked at the wall clock.
Her attention snapped back when the fax machine suddenly sprang to noisy life. Hmmm… One sheet hung out of the roller like a tongue. She took it out.
DELIVERY VERIFICATION
HODDER-TECH INDUSTRIES, INC.
“OUR HEAT CAN’T BE BEAT!”
“You’ve got to be kidding me…” She read the full fax, which informed her to expect a delivery on Monday afternoon.
ONE (1) MAGNA-FERRIC CARBON ELEMENT ASSEMBLY INCLUDING
ONE (1) CONDUCTION HARNESS
AND
FOUR (4) MAGNA-FERRIC CARBON ELEMENTS.
We just got this last night. Confused, she push-pinned it to the cork board as a reminder. I’m just a security guard. Nobody tells me anything. Dellin had just explained what this assembly was for—a desiccator for sterile-waste disposal. Seems kind of off-the-wall that we’d need another assembly this soon, the thought occurred to her. She knew that Dellin was in his office now; she could go and ask him about it. I better wait on that; I’ll ask him about it Monday. I just had breakfast with him a little while ago, I’d just be pestering him.
Nine minutes later, she was about to lock up the office and leave, when the phone rang.
“Clinic security.”
“Hi, Clare, it’s me,” a voice responded.
Clare’s smirk twisted her lips. “Me who?”
“Adam, you know, the big bad insensitive park ranger.”
Not that jackass again… “What do you want, Adam? I’m off-shift.”
“I’m sorry to disturb ya, honey—”
“Don’t…call me honey—”
“—but you might want to get down here to Lake Stephanie and check this out because—and I hope you’ll pardon my French—there’s something here that is one-hundred-percent sure-fire fucked up.”
(II)
“What…what IS that?” was all she could say.
“A frog the size of a bag of fuckin’ groceries is what it looks like to me.”
Adam’s assessment was overstated…but not by much. Clare had never seen a frog so large nor oddly colored. Tan skin with black dots. And it had a tail.
The thing was dead, squashed along the shore. Its eight-inch-wide jaws were parted slightly, through which most of its innards had been squeezed.
She looked quizzically to Adam. “Did you run it over?”
“Yeah, an accident, of course. I just thought it was a pile of mud sittin’ there when I was drivin’ along the shoreline. Then I felt a bump, and heard a big splat.” He actually looked a little queasy now, gazing down at it. “Heard another sound too, almost like a bark.”
“A bark? You mean like a dog?”
“Yeah, sort of.” His eyes thinned in the confusion, then he attempted to mimic: “Rrrruff!”
Clare was baffled. She’d never seen anything like this. “It must weigh ten pounds.”
“Fifteen, I’d say.”
“Well, I’ve never heard of frogs getting this big, but you’re the nature guy, so… Do they?”
“Yeah, in fuckin’ Madagascar—pardon my French. And even the ones that do get this big…don’t have tails.”
Disgust pulled at Clare’s face when she peered closer. “They don’t have fangs, either, do they?”
“That they don’t,” Adam said, standing cross-armed with one foot up on an old felled tree. “All frogs and toads have teeth, but usually just two up front and they’re tiny. But fangs like that? I never heard of it.”
The rim of the creature’s jaw looked like a strange saw-blade, with overlapping fangs up front. Clare’s stomach hitched when she got a full view, and realized that if the animal chose to bite a human, it could do serious damage. Its brow seemed very un-frog-like, though, angling outward over the eyes as if emerging to points, and the feet at the ends of its pronated forearms were the size of a baby’s hand.
“It’s either some very rare species that I don’t know about, or it’s a mutation,” Adam said.
“A mutation? You can’t be serious.”
“Why not? Happens all the time. Long time ago I did a field stint at the reserve off of Lake Crotalus. Turned out that a solvent factory was dumping their dregs in the lake e
very night. It fucked everything up—er, pardon—”
“I know, Adam, pardon your French,” she said crankily. “Why bother even saying that if you’re gonna cuss? And are you telling me that industrial dumping could cause mutations like this?”
“I don’t see why not. The stuff they were dumping at Crotalus made salamanders grow six legs. All the pickerel and sunfish developed carcinogenic tumors, and the tumors were shaped like fish heads. Egrets and gulls would feed on the shore worms and then they’d lay conjoined eggs. The hatchlings were worms with beaks. All kinds of mutations can occur from something like that. It’s not uncommon at all.”
Clare knew nothing about it. She walked toward the woodline, looking around.
“Careful,” Adam said. “There might be quicksand.” Then he let out the faintest chuckle.
I wish I had some rope ’cos I would LOVE to hang him. Beyond the trees, she noted nothing out of the ordinary, but what did she expect to see? Another giant frog hopping around? Next she walked back to the shoreline, peering into the nearly motionless water. Her stomach hitched again when she thought she saw a snakelike shape—ten feet long—slip along beneath the surface. No, no, she thought. That was just a shadow or something. A ripple in the current…
Adam lived up to everything that Clare might believe of him now when he thumbed a ball of chewing tobacco into his cheek and began to spit. “You’re the security chief. What are your conclusions?”
It was a pertinent question. “I guess someone’s dumping something toxic into the lake.”
“Yeah. Like who?”
“How do I know?” She leaned over, hands on knees, to look again at the immense frog. This is just what I need to see after that huge breakfast. A mutated frog with its guts hanging out its mouth. The sight distracted her; Adam’s own gaze abruptly jerked away when she stood up and turned around. The pervert was staring right up my butt! “Get a good look?”