Thriller: Horror: Conceived (Mystery Suspense Thrillers) (Haunted Paranormal Short Story)

by Stephen Kingston

  Whispering Wind walked around the table a few times, a look of utter satisfaction spreading across her face. She was really taking in the view. Kira wasn’t sure what was creepier; Whispering Wind or Clearwater.

  As if being summoned by the thought, Clearwater was beside her now as well. He was holding a dagger over her body. The blade was wide and long, at least eight inches. It looked like a ceremonial dagger that she had seen in an antique store once. The peak of the blade looked so sharp that she could hardly make out where it ended. The tip of the blade was only a few molecules thick. It was uncanny and surreal to the point that she almost forgot to be afraid for a minute.

  Kira held her breath waiting to see what the old man was going to do with the dagger. Was he going to stab her? What was his end game? He said he wanted to help them, but it appeared that he was just going to kill them. Was he going to put her out of her misery? Was that his thing? Did he fancy himself as some sort of Angel of Death?

  Whispering Wind moved away, disappearing from Kira’s sight. This made her nervous. That woman could not be trusted. A moment later she returned with a small sack in her hand. The bag was moving indicating something alive was inside it and trying to get out. Whispering Wind opened the bag and produced a small chicken. She grabbed it firmly by the neck and held it up about six inches over Kira’s chest. She could feel small flakes of feathers falling to her breasts as the chicken went nuts, trying to get free.

  The old man grabbed the chicken from her and in one swift motion sliced its belly open. Dark red blood gushed out of the wound initiating a waterfall of blood falling down on to Kira’s chest. She felt the squeal erupt in her throat as every cell of her body lurched, trying to get free.

  The ropes refused to cooperate and instead just dug deeper into her wrists cutting off her circulation. She was not going to be able to get loose. It was too late. She was terrified of the thoughts and the images that were swirling around inside of her head. Her life was going to end; she was certain of this.

  Clearwater began to recite some incantation in his native tongue. His voice echoed in the large room in a loud monotone as he continued. Whispering Wind was amused by it all as she held the chicken in place, occasionally squeezing its body to pump more blood out of it. A satisfied smirk was plastered all over her face.

  Kira could hear the other women squealing at the sound of the old man’s voice. She could see them struggling to speak and scream, but their mouths were all gagged as well.

  The blood oozed over her body, slick and slimy. It was already starting to congeal and clot in places. It smelled disgusting, like death. The chicken’s blank stare was accusing and wicked looking. She tried to turn her head away, but it was still roped in place to the table. Struggling to resist this was completely useless. She was at their mercy. The feeling of defeat set in and she quit her struggles.

  As the old man’s voice continued to swirl around inside of her ears, pounding on her ear drums over the echoes from the thud of her heart beat pounding in her temples, she felt the room start to spin around her. She was getting dizzy. It was nauseating and she knew she was going to vomit into the ball gag and probably end up choking to death. She didn’t care anymore. Death was upon her already. She knew that she was going to die at that moment.

  Chuck’s face was the last thing she saw as her eyes closed and everything went silent.

  Chapter Two

  Kira stumbled out of her car and almost fell to the hard pavement of her driveway. She reached out and steadied herself against the door. Her knees buckled, but she shot out with both arms to hold herself up against the side of the car. She tried to lift her head but became so dizzy and lightheaded with that movement that she feared passing out.

  How had she even gotten home? She didn’t remember getting behind the wheel. She didn’t remember driving at all. It was like she had just woken up as she fell out of the car, but she knew that couldn’t be. She was alone and somehow she had driven herself home.

  She shut the door of the car after assuring herself that she was going to be able to waddle into the house. Every sound was like a cacophony of noise inside of her head; the door shutting, the birds chirping, cars passing by on the road, kids playing in neighborhoods a block away even.

  The sun was hot on her face. She tried to look up and became instantly dizzy and nauseas. She caught herself on the railing of her porch, lurching herself with flailing arms and hoping she caught something. The instant her hands grabbed the railing her stomach emptied its contents. She vomited over the side into the bushes that she kept so neatly. She and Chuck had devoted so much time to tending to the needs of their property so they would have the most beautiful lawn on the block. She realized it was just another thing they did to keep their minds off the miscarriages and the problems that were happening in their marriage. It was an easy and pleasant distraction that they both took pride in.

  She reeled back from the rail, feeling the dizziness wearing off. She fumbled in her pocket for her house key, found it, and opened the door. The cool air inside of her home felt amazing on her sweaty and clammy skin. It was so nice to be out of the Arizona heat for a bit.

  The house was dark which helped block out the nausea that stemmed from the pain burning in her head. Somehow Kira stumbled over the living room carpet and collapsed on her couch. She took several deep breaths trying to get a bearing on things.

  What had happened to her? The last thing she remembered was the blood and the sound of that crazy old man’s voice chanting in her head. She grabbed her chest remembering the blood that had been dripping over her. She had been cleaned up. There was no blood there. She had been naked but now she noticed she was wearing the same clothes that she had gone there in. That was both alarming and comforting. How in the hell did this happen to her?

  What happened to her when she passed out? Why had she passed out? Was it just from the fear and the anxiety? Did they give her something? What did they do to her?

  The thoughts were coming rapid fire into her brain causing her head to hurt. She felt pressure like someone was squeezing her temples with a vise-like grip. She lay back and closed her eyes. She needed some rest. That was all. She just needed to get some sleep so that she could think it through. She had to find out what they did to her. She would contact the authorities as soon as she could, but first she just needed to get some rest. She wasn’t sure what time it was but Chuck would be home soon. She wanted to get some rest before she had to get up and make dinner. Sleep would make everything better.

  Six Weeks Later

  “I’m pregnant?”

  Kira had to ask the question three times to be sure she had heard the doctor correctly. Chuck squeezed her hand firmly in a reassuring manner. She glanced at him. He was practically beaming with pride and happiness. She wanted to give him a child so badly, but the thought of actually being pregnant again filled her with anxiety of bad dreams and reliving past trauma. What if she miscarried again? Would they be able to bear it? They were both so damaged by the loss of their first two children. She could not stand to lose a third. She knew that if it did not work this time that her marriage was over. Chuck would walk away even if it did violate his religious code. Kira wasn’t sure how she knew this, but she guessed there were just some things that a wife knew.

  “Yes, you are. I’m positive,” the doctor replied. Dr. Ian Phillips had worked with them before with their other two children. He was a kind man and the number one OBGYN in the city. Kira knew that they were in the best hands that they could have found, but it still filled her with a panic that was a form of civilized torture.

  “Wow, that’s fantastic!” Chuck beamed. He held Kira tightly in his arms and kissed her on the forehead. She was a little shocked and embarrassed. He loved to kiss her on the forehead and it always made her feel like she was six years old. It was creepy and she hated that he did that always in front of other people.

  “I’m very happy for the both of you,” Dr. Phillips replied.

&nbs
p; “Are you sure the baby is healthy?” Kira said.

  “Well, as of right now everything looks OK. But we can’t tell a great deal for a little while yet, but I would say so far, so good.”

  The doctor’s response did little to comfort her. She took several deep breaths and tried to keep a smile on her face for Chuck’s benefit. He was practically jumping up and down. He probably would have been except he had one arm draped around her still.

  “It’s going to be OK, honey. The Good Lord has blessed us with another chance. I know it’s going to be fine this time,” Chuck said. He took her face in both hands and kissed her softly.

  Kira wanted to share Chuck’s optimism, but secretly she was terrified and she knew he was too. She knew that Chuck was in a state of denial and he had talked himself into believing that everything was going to go fine with this pregnancy because he wouldn’t have been able to live with the thought of something tragic happening this time.

  On the ride home Kira was silent. Chuck was a non-stop chatterbox, talking about everything that they needed to do to get ready for the new arrival. Kira’s thoughts were a million miles away.

  She knew why she was pregnant. It had been the ritual. After she had come home dizzy and confused about where she had been or what had actually happened to her she had begun to piece together bits and pieces of what was involved. She remembered leaving in a semi-zombie state and driving home. Then she had awoke as if from a dream and she felt really sick for a while.

  While she was making dinner that night Chuck came home and he suddenly grabbed her and yanked her dress up over her waist. She had been at the sink peeling potatoes and he had taken her completely by surprise. Before she knew it her underwear were yanked down around her ankles and Chuck was deep inside of her, pumping her harder than he ever had. It was like an animal had taken over her husband and turned him into some kind of a nymphomaniac. He had acted almost as if she wasn’t there. He was using her body for his own selfish pleasure and he was done within minutes.

  Afterwards he sat down at the table to read a paperback he had been leafing through that week. He engaged her in polite conversation as if nothing had ever happened. She went about business as usual and continued making dinner, but the look in Chuck’s eyes had haunted her since then. He had never taken her in such a rough animalistic manner before. It was like he wasn’t even himself.

  That must have been when the conception happened, but she knew that the old shaman had been instrumental in the pregnancy taking hold. She wondered if she should have felt grateful. After she had finally started to recover from her dizzying blackout she had thought long and hard about going to the authorities. She had no intention of telling Chuck about it. She knew that he would never have understood her decision to do that and even now that it had worked she wasn’t so sure that she would want to dash his belief that God had been the key.

  She wasn’t sure how to feel. Kira knew that she should have been happy and she was, but a part of her felt violated. She felt like this child should not really be here. What had the old shaman done to her? How was he able to make this happen? There had to be some dark magic at work here and she wasn’t so sure that she could ever love a child that had been created by darkness. She wanted to scream at the top of her lungs. She finally had a child; their prayers had been answered, but she could not stop thinking that God was going to punish them for doing this. The child was an abomination. Would it even be real? Would the child be a good person? Or was it destined to be some tool of the Devil?

  A tear rolled down her cheek and she swatted it away. She guessed only time would tell.

  Chapter Three

  Kira woke up to darkness. The clock on her bedside table read 3:14 AM. It was the third day in a row that she had awoke at this time. She had been going to bed earlier and earlier too. She was exhausted all the time, but she was unable to sleep more than a few hours without waking up. She had actually gone to bed at nine tonight, but she woke up at eleven and again at one. Now here she was at 3:14.

  She knew that she would not get back to sleep. When she awoke at this time she was up for the rest of the night until the sun rose. She began to feel drowsy and overwhelmed with a need for sleep as soon as the sun came up high in the sky. She had always been a fresh morning person, so it was odd for her to commune with the dark hours and live them as if this was her normal sleep cycle.

  Kira got out of bed, careful not to disturb Chuck sleeping peacefully beside her. He had been sleeping better since her pregnancy. Before they had received the news he often fell asleep in his recliner in front of the television after staying up until two in the morning. He was chronically sleep deprived and now the tables had turned.

  Kira was glad that she no longer had a day job. Since Chuck had been promoted to manager he now earned enough to support them fairly comfortably. If she was still working all day as a Law Clerk she would have had to miss way too much work with this pregnancy.

  She still couldn’t believe she was at three months. The time had flown by somehow while still remaining a struggle. The morning sickness was constant and lasted until late in the afternoon, her feet and ankles were swollen and sore, and her back hurt so bad she was often cringing on the couch in tears. She was not sure how she was going to survive six more months of this torture.

  Kira walked into the kitchen and put on a pot of coffee. She knew she was going to be awake, so might as well get this day going. If she was lucky she was often able to get in two or three cups of coffee before the morning sickness really kicked in.

  But today was not one of those days. Kira no sooner flipped the switch to begin the coffee when she felt her stomach lurching, trying to crawl out of her body. She ran to the bathroom and made it just in time. She spewed her guts out in the toilet for what felt like the one thousandth time in the past few months. She and the toilet were becoming very good friends and bedmates through this thing.

  When she felt that the worst of it was over and the heaves had stopped she went to the vanity and cleaned herself up a bit, splashing cold water on her face and rinsing her mouth out.

  She looked at her reflection in the mirror. She felt like she was going crazy but her complexion seemed to be changing from day to day. It was taking on an ashen gray color, but it was restricted solely to her face. The skin on the rest of her body was not experiencing this issue. She looked like a damn corpse and she felt disgusting.

  Kira hated wearing makeup, but she was thinking about investing in some. She wasn’t sure she had a choice anymore.

  There was someone behind her.

  Kira gasped and spun around leaping against the vanity and pounding her head on the mirror.

  There was no one there. She was staring into an empty shower.

  She was not hallucinating. She had seen someone behind her. It had looked to be a teenage girl with long black hair, sunken eyes, and blood dripping from her lips. The girl looked dead, but she was staring right at Kira.

  She spun back around staring at the mirror and then back to the tub. There was still no one there. It had to be a dream. She must have been still a little bit asleep or she had slipped off to sleep for a minute. One of the bad things about waking up at three in the morning was that if you turned on the TV all you saw were horror films. She had probably seen something there that had lingered in her subconscious.

  But it had been so real. It didn’t make any sense. She had seen someone.

  Kira did not tell Chuck about what she had seen. She was sure that he would not have believed her and he would have told her that she was crazy for thinking such garbage. Then he would have given her a lecture about the benefits of pregnant women continuing to engage in light exercise and a healthy diet. She felt like she was doing something punishable by death at times when she indulged her cravings for cookies. She had always had a sweet tooth, but with the baby it was insane. Everything she saw that had sugar in it made her want to eat it. It should have been fun, but Chuck did nothing but look down on her abou
t it.

  Kira knew that she had not been sleeping well and that she was probably hallucinating, but she could not shake the feeling that there was something going on. This was the first time she had actually seen something with her own eyes, but the past few weeks she had been feeling as if there were eyes on her. It was the strangest thing. But when she moved around the house during the day when Chuck wasn’t there it felt like the air was thick and heavy and it was moving around her. It felt creepy and she was constantly feeling like she was being watched. She found herself looking over her shoulder constantly.

  She had also been hearing strange things. She thought they were remnants of dreams at first, as if she was still half asleep, but it had been getting stronger. At first it was just a sound or a noise when she was napping in the afternoon, like a voice that would wake her up. She would be startled awake but no one would be there.

  Then she thought she heard footsteps in the night. The first two times it had happened she thought it was an intruder and she woke up Chuck. He had taken it seriously and wandered downstairs to see what was going on, but he had found nothing and no signs of an attempted break in. Chuck did not believe in guns, but he had been carrying a baseball bat at Kira’s insistence.

  The second night it happened he had not taken the bat and had given the whole house a much more cursory glance over before deciding that Kira was crazy, going back to bed in a pissy mood. He had told her to knock off the shenanigans and get some sleep. The third night she had heard the footsteps clearly moving up and down the stairs, creaking the boards as if placing a heavy weight on each step. She thought she could hear the sound of breathing as it came closer to the door. She clearly heard and saw the doorknob moving and as she reached for Chuck to shake him awake, expecting the door to come bursting open, it all stopped and silence gripped her.