Jennifer was having nightmares––terrible nightmares on a nightly basis. She kept thinking about Rosemary’s Baby, not the movie but the book. She had started reading it the day before she told Richard she was pregnant. She finished it forty-five minutes before the policemen gave her the news. Being the type of person that enjoyed Christmas stories in December and spooky stories on Halloween, she thought it’d be fun to read Ira Levin while pregnant. How unfortunate. Now her days were spent wondering if she’d find herself surrounded by doctors and nurses that were chanting “Hail Satan” after she gave birth to a child with a forked tail, little horns, and eyes that belonged to a goat.
When Jennifer finally found the courage to have her herself examined––a full week after she was sprawled out on the floor, kicking, screaming, and drowning in pain––the doctors were seriously concerned. Not just for the welfare of the unborn child but for Jennifer as well. For reasons they couldn’t explain Jennifer’s uterus had been torn in several places and she was bleeding internally. She also had bruises on her fallopian tubes, a pair of swollen ovaries, and a cracked rib. Needless to say, she was at risk of losing the baby. Worst than that, her life seemed to be in jeopardy as well.
Her stay in the hospital lasted for five days. During that time she had two minor operations. After that, Dr. P. Hollis, the head physician, made her promise that she’d return immediately if the abnormal pain started to flare up again. She agreed.
Earlier in the day the pain returned. And although she was afraid to have the baby examined while the aches were progressing, the fear of the unknown had taken control of the situation. She left for the hospital alone, informing Kate by phone hours after she arrived.
Kate swung the door open without looking through the window. Had she looked, things would have played out differently.
Richard was there, leaning a dislocated shoulder against the wall. He looked bad. Beyond bad. His back was twisted; his neck was broken. The top half of his skull had been crushed like an orange that had been stepped on by a very large foot. Both of his eyes were still in place, but one had turned dark and the other sat deep within its damaged socket. Parts of his brain bulged through a long crack in his face and his bottom lip had been torn free.
Kate stepped back, fingers on her mouth, eyes like baseballs. Her jaw dropped as her heart rate accelerated. She was going to scream––had to scream, because screaming was the only logical thing to do.
Surely, this couldn’t be Richard. It couldn’t be the man she considered a perfect match for her sister. Not him.
She looked away from his face.
Hanging from his shattered frame was a suit that must have been worn by the Incredible Hulk because it was tattered and frayed in ways that didn’t make sense. The pale, dehydrated skin on Richard’s hands seemed to belong on a living corpse. More so when he lifted those hands––hands that were covered in a thin layer of dirt, hands that were connected to arms with unnatural looking joints and elbows, hands that were reaching out.
Oh God, he was reaching out.
Kate’s mouth was still wide open, but the scream she was looking for was hiding deep inside. Soon she’d find it, and when she did she would set it free. She would––
“Wait,” Richard said. He tried to smile but with half his teeth smashed out he looked absolutely ghastly. “Please wait. Don’t scream. I’m still alive––so help me, Kate. For the love of God, help me.”
“Oh shit,” Kate said, staggering back another foot. Her hand remained on her mouth; her bottom lip began to quiver. “What the hell is this?”
“I’m not dead––I was never dead.” Richard dragged his left foot forward. His balance was reassigned and his right foot followed. The movement alone looked painful. “Help me come inside.”
Just like that, Kate started crying. She couldn’t help it. Her body was shaking and her knees trembled and full-sized tears were running down her cheeks. Had she not just used the bathroom she may have suffered an accident. To say Richard’s presence was making her nervous would be like saying a pitchfork in the face might leave a mark.
She babbled, “But––but––”
“Help me Kate, I mean it.” Richard slumped into the house and tossed a broken arm around his sister-in-law.
Kate screamed then. It slipped out before she knew it would happen. She screamed long and loud and when she was finished she screeched, “Oh, I’m sorry. Oh Richard, I’m so sorry. What do you want me to do?”
“Help me get to bed––and I need some water.”
Despite the way he looked, and despite the fact that he smelled worse than death, Kate helped Richard into the bedroom and assisted him onto the bed. Doing so made her skin crawl, but what else could she do? Running away was possible, but this was Richard. He was family and friend. And most of all, he was in dire need of help. Besides, the notion of running came with an unsettling side-thought: what if he chased her? What would happen then?
Once Richard was settled Kate turned away, planning to fetch the water. Mostly she just wanted to be somewhere else, away from him, away from the monster.
Richard grabbed her by the arm. “Where’s Jennifer?”
Still terrified, Kate said, “At the hospital. I was on my way to see her.” This wasn’t entirely true but in another thirty minutes it would’ve been.
“Why?”
“She’s having complications with her pregnancy.”
Richard mumbled, “I bet she is.” Then he looked out the window, sizing up the darkening sky. “Do you know what time is it?”
“Seven-thirty? Maybe eight?”
Richard groaned. “Listen, Kate. Listen to my words and hear me well. Don’t tell anyone I’m here. Don’t call the doctors; don’t phone the police. Don’t explain things to your husband and don’t go yapping to your father. It’s got to be our little secret, Kate. You understand me? Nobody can know I’m back.”
“But why?!” Kate’s emotions were getting pulled in every direction now. She felt like laughing and screaming and yanking the hair from her head in bunches. “You need help, Richard! You need medical attention right away!”
“No!”
“Are you serious?! Look at you, Richard! You look like––” She was going to say that he looked like a goddamn stiff but instead she asked: “What happened? I was at the funeral, you know… I was there!”
Richard coughed. Greenish-brown pus-like drool dribbled along the place his bottom lip should have been. He said, “Me too. I was inside the box, Kate. Inside that fucking coffin, unable to move, unable to scream.” Richard paused. His thoughts twisted this way and that. Suddenly he wanted to explain everything. He wanted to tell her that he was alive when they scraped him off the road, and when they brought him into the morgue and embalmed him. He wanted her to know that he was alive when they boxed him up and covered him in dirt. He wanted her to understand what type of man he really was, and that he couldn’t be killed in traditional ways. There was so much he wanted to say, so much he needed to explain. Choosing his words carefully, he said, “They thought I was dead, and I might have looked dead, but a car accident can’t kill me. Not ever. And in time I get better. I always get better.”
Kate couldn’t believe what she was hearing. It was impossible. It was insane. But she knew what she was seeing, and what she was seeing had to be some type of sick joke. She asked, “How can this be happening?”
“Doesn’t matter. What happened to Steven?”
“Who?”
“Steve, the––”
Kate realized what Richard was asking. She said, “Oh. He died in the accident.” As an after-thought, she added, “With you.”
Richard’s thoughts turned a corner. He wondered if Steven was still trapped in his coffin, scratching the silk, trying to get out. He pushed the thoughts aside and said, “You’ve got to call Jennifer… tell her to come home right away. Can you do that for me?”
“Of course, I’ll call her right now. But Richard, what in God’s name shoul
d I tell her?”
“Tell her to come home. If she wants to know why, say I need to talk with her. It’s very important.”
* * *
When Jennifer hung up the phone her face had become pale. Richard was back. He was alive. He wanted her to come home. It was important.
She couldn’t believe it.
Alone in her hospital room, she pulled herself from bed and dressed quickly. She ran her fingers through hair that no longer looked stylishly brave, but messy and without a hint of fashion sense. She made for the exit with her shoes untied, her skirt on sideways, and her travel bag hanging wide open. A car-ride later she shuffled through the front door of her home, sun setting in the west, moon rising in the east, clutching her belly with her fingers.
The child was kicking; the pain was getting worse. If it didn’t soon subside she was going to find herself buckled over on the floor, screaming bloody murder. Again.
As she staggered down the hallway towards (her late husband) Richard, the bedroom door blasted open and Kate stepped into view. Her eyes were entirely different now. They looked swollen and red, like she had been screwing her fists into her sockets for the last five years.
She grabbed Jennifer by the shoulders and said, “You need to brace yourself.”
“Let me see him.”
“No! Listen to me Jenn; you need to prepare for what you’re about to see. Richard is back, but he looks bad. He looks really fucking bad.”
Jennifer cringed. She hadn’t heard her sister use the F word since she was fourteen years old. She said, “I’ll be alright.”
“Brace yourself! I’m not kidding about this.”
Jennifer pushed Kate away forcefully and plowed into the room. She figured she’d be able to handle it. No problem. She was a grown woman, for crying out loud. Besides, how bad could it be?
Richard was on the bed. His body was angled unnaturally and his suit was covered in dirt. Chunks of brain were resting on the pillow. A large bug ran across the sheets as another scurried up the wall. To summarize, he looked like an embalmed corpse that had been smashed to pieces with a sledgehammer and pulled from the earth he’d been buried in. And Jennifer, truth be told, didn’t brace herself for what she was about to see; she didn’t brace for anything.
“Oh my God!” she shrieked, with eyes growing wide. “Richard, is that you?”
Looking like a zombie, he said, “Listen to me, baby-doll. This is critical.”
The thing living inside Jennifer kicked.
She staggered, clutching her belly.
At the same moment, Richard felt his spine expand. He said, “You need to kill the baby inside you. You need to do it right now. Get a clothes hanger; push it in. Abort the child.”
Kate stepped into the room, quite literally trembling and pulling at her hair. She said, “What are you talking about––abort the child? Now?! What the hell is happening here?!”
Richard’s knees popped and his shoulders buckled. His teeth elongated as his fingers turned to claws. “Hurry!” he managed. “Before it’s too late!”
Eyes on her husband, Jennifer groaned. She could feel something chewing her apart. Then her knees faltered and she dropped to the floor. Pressing her back against the nearest wall, her body convulsed. Not once, but three times quickly.
“My baby,” she whimpered.
She ripped open her blouse; buttons popped in different directions. Looking at her stomach, and seeing the strange way the child was moving beneath her skin, she almost understood. Almost. Then when she looked at Richard an important piece of the puzzle clicked into position. It felt like a hard slap in the face, and it was horrifying. She had a monster living inside her, a goddamn monster, trying to get out––Richard’s child.
And Richard was––
Gone.
In his place was something most people will never see: half man, half wolf, bones mending, muscles growing, nose becoming snout, arms becoming legs, hair morphing into fur, hands turning into paws, eyes still green, still the windows to the soul of a man that’s able to comprehend the situation. But his mouth was growing larger and more dangerous with each passing moment. Teeth seemed to be everywhere. Jaws opened far too wide and words escaped like hostages. They were hard to recognize, but much harder to ignore:
“Abort. The child.”
Kate, standing in the center of the room with her hands in the air, looked away from Richard in horror. She saw Jennifer leaning against the wall with her blouse pulled open and her skirt hiked up. Her knees were shaking and her pink underwear had turned red. She had one hand cradling her belly as blood leaked from a long tear in her skin, through her trembling fingers, over her wedding ring (a ring she couldn’t bring herself to remove), and across her unpainted nails. She said, “Please Kate, Richard’s right. Get a clothes hanger. Help me abort the child.”
Kate watched her sister endure two quick spasms before a mist of blood sprayed from her mouth. It ran a line down her chin and dripped onto an exposed breast. There was blood between her legs, a dark red puddle. It was growing larger. Kate didn’t understand what was happening and she didn’t understand why, but she knew one thing for sure: her sister was dying, being ripped apart from the inside.
Yes. They had to abort the child.
She looked across the room and her eyes locked on the closet door. In no time at all the door was open and she was standing in the doorway, pushing bags out of the way with her left hand while pulling shirts off hangers with her right. But there was a problem: all the hangers were made with plastic. She couldn’t see any of the old-fashion metal kind. She grabbed a jacket and a vest and threw them to the ground in a pile.
Jennifer screamed.
Richard growled.
And Kate, cursing under her breath, saw what she was looking for: a rusty old hanger, nastier than a snake. She snagged it from the rack and stepped towards her sister, trying desperately to keep her eyes away from the huge thing that was laying on the bed, covered in fur, snapping its jaws, eying her like a fresh meal after a long day.
She said, “We need to get out of here!”
“No,” Jennifer whispered. “Just hurry, Kate. Hurry!”
There was no time to argue so Kate bent the hanger this way and that, playing it like an accordion, trying to snap it. She didn’t think she’d be able to unravel it fast enough, and time was so important now. Oh yes it was. She thought about running for the second time that evening, but Jennifer was in no position to follow her lead, and she couldn’t leave her sister behind.
Richard growled, sounding like a grizzly bear.
Jennifer screamed again. And Kate screamed too, frustrated with the time she was spending. Her hands were working as fast as they could but it wasn’t fast enough. She didn’t think the hanger would ever break but suddenly it did. It broke right where she wanted. It almost seemed like a miracle.
Straightening the wire, she turned it into a long, narrow spear. Then she dropped to the floor, positioning herself between her sister’s legs.
Jennifer’s eyes widened. She looked desperate now––desperate and in serious pain. She lifted her knees, stretched her legs apart, and grabbed a hold of her blood-soaked underwear. She pulled the dripping cloth to one side, exposing her vagina. Gasping and begging, she said, “Do it, Kate. Kill it. Kill it!”
Kate caught a frightful glimpse of her sister’s belly before pushing her labia apart with her fingers and plunging the wire in. But one glimpse of Jennifer’s stomach getting ripped open was enough: skin splitting, muscles tearing, blood pouring to the floor in generous amounts. There was a coil of flesh that appeared to be growing and when Kate saw it her stomach clenched and she thought she might pass out. It was too late to perform a back-alley abortion. It had to be too late.
Looking Jennifer in the eye, Kate forced the wire deep inside.
And Jennifer, gasping her final breaths, writhing in agony, looked up. Not at Kate. Oh no. There was a monster in the room now, standing high above, gazing down at
the girls with its terrible green eyes, teeth like daggers, bloodlust boiling inside its brain.
Richard was gone.
And although Jennifer knew that her husband had become something entirely different––something bred without love or affection––memory of the man she married seeped into her heart and she managed to say, “I love you with all my heart, Richard Beach. You’re the best thing that ever happened to me. I’m unconditionally yours.”
ANNIVERSARY
JOHN EVERSON
Margaret looked at the calendar rune and tickled her lips with her tongue. Full moon tonight. She’d been pressing her thighs together in anticipation of this day all month long. Charles only came on the night of the moon, and though her body ached for his visits, she knew that once a month, realistically, was all she could handle. There was so much to prepare for––and so much to recover from, afterwards.
She made the bed, called in sick to work––did anyone notice her sick days always coincided with the phase of the moon?––and went to the closet to find what Charles called her “ice cream” outfit.
“Those guys all think you’re a cone waiting to be licked and caressed,” he’d grin, evilly. “But I know better. You’re a tigress. And I screeeeeem for you!” He’d howl as he said it and she’d strip out of the skin tight catsuit before letting him lay a hand on her.
“You don’t want to be licking the napkin around your cone, do you?” she’d tease.
Staring at herself in the mirror, she could feel her body starting to sweat and moisten, just thinking about Charles. Her average 34 A-cup breasts looked like 36 Cs in the immodest display of the sheer, deep blue suit, and she knew her butt jiggled tantalizingly as she walked, every dip and tuck bouncing. She was not a well-endowed woman, but she made the best possible use of her assets. One of which, she realized staring at her reflection, her hair was currently not. Charles forbade her a shower on the day of the full moon, and her hair hung in flat, lazy twists across her shoulders. She’d dyed it auburn this month for a change and prayed he’d like it. Running her hands through it in a useless attempt at styling, she decided she’d have to rely on her other allure tricks. Charles wouldn’t allow hairspray, either. Made him sneeze.
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