He offered a sheepish smile. “Well, you’re sitting.”
“This place never ends,” she said.
“But it does. In fact, you haven’t even started walking.”
Marigold looked back and saw the open door was right behind her.
“How? I’ve never stopped moving.”
“Exactly! You never sat to think what you were actually walking for,” he said. “You had a purpose for coming in here, and an instinct to do so. You imagined what could be beyond this world, and the logic to think that it would eventually end, as all things end. You also did it with love. But you forgot one thing.”
“What?” she asked, staring into Aiden’s green eyes—her husband’s green eyes.
“That you were never alone. I was always with you.”
“What?”
“You’ve carried this burden of trying to bring life into the world all by yourself, but never stopped to think that maybe, an even greater force was there to help you all along. You just never allowed it to.”
“Like God?” Marigold asked, squinting into her child’s eyes. “Are you talking about God?”
“Interpret me as you will. The only thing I am certain of is that you’ve focused all your attention on what you personally could do as a mother and wife, but you never thought to just let things take their course. Until now, when you actually sat down. You realized you’ve done all you could as a human, and what you did would have to be enough.”
Marigold cried. It wasn’t fair. So the answer this whole time was to sit down and give up? It seemed so…so…inhuman. It didn’t make sense.
The baby shrugged.
“Perhaps it doesn’t,” he said. “But who said that it had to make sense? Sense is for humans. You’re way beyond that now.”
“I don’t understand.”
“And you don’t need to,” he said. “Not anymore. We can go on together now. Is that what you want?”
“Yes!” she croaked through chapped lips. “I’m so tired.”
“Well, why didn’t you say so?” The transparency of the ground gave out beneath her. She fell toward an open ear hole. It was large enough to fit into if she kept her legs straight. But it was smaller than many of the other ears she had passed.
Compared to the other ears, it was about the size of a baby’s.
Chapter Forty-Seven
Aiden was terrified when he opened his eyes. Where was he and why was he so hot? He rubbed his hands down his body and found that he was nestled in a white blanket. He tried to kick it off, but his legs were tired and clumsy. He didn’t understand. Only seconds ago, he was being carried up by one of the storks in the Landscape, and now, he was…well, where was he?
He blearily looked to his left and saw a fuzzy shape, wiggling about. He looked right and saw the same thing. On both sides, there was a blurry mass. And both masses shifted behind what looked like these strange, shiny handles. There was wailing everywhere. What was going on?
Were his eyes sewn shut before? How had they been opened? Somewhere deep in his mind, he thought he saw people—and somebody blue—but the image receded.
He felt his mother’s embrace, and still heard her telling him over and over again that she loved him. She shouted it above the static of a loud wind. But that was receding, too. He saw a reflection of himself but older, looking down at him with cautious, green eyes. He had stiff hair and wore glasses, but that disappeared, as well. What was happening to him? What was this place?
He was forgetting everything about the Landscape.
He turned over in his—what was this, a crib? No. This was glass, not wood. This room was white and sterile. He was starting to see it now. But the more he saw it, the more he started to forget…but forget what?!
He looked about with wide eyes and this whole world didn’t make sense to him. Giants in bright, colorful tops walked around quietly while other…babies? Other babies cried everywhere and he didn’t know what was happening. He was so confused.
Just then, he felt something deep and unfamiliar in his chest. It was strong like a tidal wave. He couldn’t hold it in any longer. He opened his mouth and cried as the purple tunnel receded entirely. He wailed as high as he could and started to feel sick.
Everything he ever knew of the Landscape or of the world of man was lost to him in that cry. It all came out of him. It was gone, just as it was with all of the other babies in the nursery.
One of the giants, a dark skinned woman with short black hair and a large bosom picked him up and put him to her chest.
“Shh, shh, shh, shh, shh,” she said as she rubbed his back and head, “It’s okay,” she whispered. “This world ain’t so bad, darlin’.”
Aiden continued to cry, but then, after a time, he settled down at her warmth and words.
She laid him back down and he yawned.
Before he drifted off to sleep, he heard one last thing.
“I love you, my Aiden.”
He didn’t cry the rest of the night.
Coda
“Is that him?” Adam Tulino’s wife, Sue asked. Both of her children, Jasmine and Amy, wore the same, yellow floral dress. Sue wore mom jeans.
“Yeah,” Adam said, staring into the glass. “That’s the newest member of our family.”
“He looks healthy,” Steve said. It was the only thing he could think of saying since they got the news a couple of hours ago that Marigold died giving birth.
“Yeah,” Adam said again. Steve offered a wan smile, and then, looked over at Sue. The three of them had gotten close, especially in these last few weeks.
“Mom, I’m hungry,” Jasmine said by her mom’s hip, and Amy, while older, agreed, tugging on Sue’s mom pants.
“I’m going to take them to the cafeteria,” she said.
“I’ll go, too” Adam said. “Did you want to come, too, Steve?”
Steve nodded before he looked in the glass. A large black, Jamaican nurse hugged Jeff’s child to her bosom and swayed with him, cooing into his ear.
It was so strange, seeing the baby alive.
Even stranger—and he didn’t know if he believed it, or if he wanted to believe it—but Adam told him that the doctors said that Marigold died smiling, which made him shiver. The woman had been brain dead for months. Life was strange sometimes.
And then there was the question about what were they going to name the kid. Steve suggested Jeff, but Adam declined it and said that he wanted to name the baby Aiden. He said it was because of a strange dream he had the other night. It involved his sister in this long corridor of ears, whatever that meant.
Steve followed Adam to the cafeteria and looked one last time at the child being put back in his crib.
He wished him good night and then left.
Jeff Haunt was on his mind.
Help me!
Hello, this is your author speaking.
I’m an independent novelist, and I write, promote, and do everything I can to sell my books to the general public. I have a full time job as a teacher and as a father, and I write these stories in my spare time, which is rare, as you could imagine. I’m driven to do this because I love writing, and I want to give you good stories that can entertain and make you think. I hope I’ve accomplished that with this tale.
Leaving a good review on Amazon is the best favor you could do for me if you enjoyed this story. If you follow this link, you can find the Amazon pages for all of my novels: http://www.amazon.com/Richard-B.-Knight/e/B00DJTGSMI/ref=sr_ntt_srch_lnk_1?qid=1439044544&sr=8-1. All of my books will be free if you have Kindle Unlimited.
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Alright, thanks so much for reading! I really appreciate it!
Now, here’s the first chapter of my second book, A Boy and His Corpse. I hope you enjoy!
Alan
James Krompholz grunted and tightened his grip around the n
eck of the corpse. Alan Chandler watched as the semi-rigid neck began to stretch as James flexed his pudgy bicep.
“Yo, loosen up on him, man,” Alan said. The basement walls grew fuzzy before his eyes. “You’re starting to give me a headache.”
James looked over at his friend, but didn’t release his hold.
“Yo…chill!” Alan demanded. His thick brow began to furrow.
To say the ladies didn’t love Alan was an understatement. He was flabby and pimple laden and insisted on wearing baggy clothes that only made him look fatter because they were comfortable. The distinct funk of an ill-kept afro and deodorant-resistant BO always proceeded and trailed his movements. And he wasn’t an intellectual heavyweight, either. His grades made him look slow, at best. Alan Chandler was the kind of mouth-breather most people wouldn’t even want to sit next to on the bus, let alone be their friend, and he knew this. Good Lord, did he know this. If not for one discernible talent, James probably wouldn’t even want to be his friend.
But Alan did have a special ability—he could control a corpse with his mind. He could even feel what it felt when it took damage. Alan’s father, Herbert, could do even more than that. Alan had seen it with his own eyes.
“Stop being such a punk,” James said with sweat glistening on his beet red forehead. “If we’re ever going to get corpse wrestling off the ground, you’ve gotta get stronger with controlling Mort. Now, come on, man, break my hold.”
“You’re pulling too hard,” Alan said. His shoulders dropped and tears welled up in the corners of his eyes. “I can’t breathe!”
“If you can talk, you can breathe,” James said. He raised his right eyebrow and smirked. “You also need to be able to take a blow. Like this!” He put his leg behind the dead man’s and fell backward with him. The blow of the corpse’s head hitting the ground made an audible chock sound on the cold cement.
Alan screamed as he stumbled forward. Purple splotches popped behind his eyes and his chest felt like it had been slammed by a battering ram.
“Alan,” James said. His voice sounded like it was underwater. “Relax, man. Just take a deep breath.”
Alan closed his eyes as he collected his bearings. He took long, deep drags of dusty basement air before counting backward to himself. When he reached “one,” he re-opened his eyes and waited for the purple blobs to dissipate. When he regained his vision, his eyebrows shot up to his afro.
“Dude! What the hell!”
“Ok, calm down,” James said. “I’m sure it’s not as bad as it looks.”
“You broke him!”
“He’s not broken. Calm your tits.”
James pushed himself up and dusted off his jeans. Alan rushed over to his pet corpse and stiff armed James. He kneeled, raised the dead man’s head and inspected it. There was a wound on the back that looked like the dent in a cantaloupe.
“Why the hell did you do that? You know my dad inspects him every weekend.” Alan dug his fingers into his hair. He shook loose a dusting of dandruff. “He’s going to kill me!”
“Dude, relax,” James said, kneeling and turning the corpse by the shoulders. “That ain’t even that bad, man. He’s fine.”
“Shut up! I can’t even feel inside him anymore.”
“And I’m sure you’d like that, huh?” James said, smiling wolfishly. “Well, how about now?” He pinched Alan’s fat arm and twisted.
“YEEOOWW!” Alan howled, and the corpse sat up, wide-eyed and alert as if he’d just been given a shot of Epinephrine.
“There,” James said as Alan rubbed his fresh bruise. “Good as new. You worry too much.”
“What about this bruise, James? You think my dad ain’t gonna notice that?”
“Just tell him that Mort fell down the stairs or somethin’.”
“You gotta stop being so rough with him, man. My dad’s never gonna give me another corpse to practice with if I keep messing up Mort like this.”
James shook his head. “I don’t see why we don’t just dig up another one ourselves.”
“I am not digging up a corpse,” Alan said. “You know how bad they stink? No, of course you don’t. You wouldn’t know the first thing about that.”
“Well, we could just spray ‘em with that lemon stuff you got upstairs.”
“That’s my dad’s spray. We can’t just take it. He’ll know.”
James rolled his eyes. “What, does he weigh the can or something?”
“Just drop it, James.”
James groaned. “Well, why don’t you just ask the government for a new corpse yourself then? I’m sure they’re dirt cheap. Get it? Dirt. Cheap!”
Alan scowled. “It doesn’t work like that either, James. So stop asking, alright?”
“Yeah, well. It just seems like you’re making excuses for—”
“Alaaaaaan!” a loud voice shouted from upstairs. The sound of his name echoing through the house made Alan and the corpse jump in tandem.
Even James cringed. “What’s he doing here?” he mouthed to Alan.
Alan’s brown eyes darted around the basement as the door creaked open upstairs.
“You down here, boy?” Alan’s father asked from the top of the steps. As he walked down, his heavy boots made the wooden steps creek and pop. James turned left and right, but Alan shook his head. There was nothing either of them could do now. They were trapped.
Alan watched his father’s boots, then his dirty jeans, then his black Army shirt, and finally, his face, descend the stairs. When he reached the bottom, Alan saw his father’s steely eyes survey the scene.
“Krompholz,” Herbert growled. He inhaled heavily, forcing his barrel chest out.
“Mr. Chandler,” James said, staring at the imposing, black man who stood a full head shorter than him, but was tougher and scarier than his size suggested. “I can explain.”
“I thought I told you to stay the hell out of my house,” Herbert snarled. “Did anybody follow you here?”
“No, sir,” James said. “I was actually, uh, just on my way out.”
He tucked his head and tried to rush past the military necromancer, but Herbert grabbed his arm above the elbow and squeezed.
“Look, boy, I don’t like you hanging around here. It’s bad enough that my dumbass son told you about our abilities. The last thing I need is for some other jackass finding out about us. Do I make myself clear?”
“Clear as day, sir. I won’t tell a soul.”
Herbert flared his nostrils.
“You better not, boy,” Herbert growled. When he released James, his wide handprint glowed red on the teen’s freckly, white arm. “Because if you do, then you might end up being a corpse yourself. And I better not see you wrestling with government property again, either. This is your last warning, boy. Next time, I’ll have you put away in juvie. I don’t care if your dad’s a cop.”
“Yes, sir,” James said, rushing up the stairs.
When the door slammed, Alan winced. “Dad, I can explain.”
“Get-down!” Herbert roared. Alan did just that with legs extended and his hands spread apart in push-up position. He knew the drill.
“No! Diamonds!” Herbert ordered.
“Aww, come on, dad. Please!”
“Diamonds, dammit! Or I swear to God!—”
He didn’t finish the threat as he didn’t have to.
Alan moved his arms closer together until his thumbs and index fingers touched, forming a diamond.
“Get Mort in position, too,” Herbert said, and Alan shook his head.
“Dad, you know I can’t! My head.”
“You think I give a damn about your head, boy?”
Herbert grabbed his son by the back of the belt and lifted him up with one hand. He then dropped Alan face first on the cement and leapt down right in front of him, his stomach touching the floor, and his own hands in diamond position.
“Get your fat ass off the ground now!” Herbert shouted, looking at his son eye-to-eye, “Mort, too. Diamonds!”
It strained his brain muscles to do so, but Alan mentally sent a signal to Mortimer’s brain and made him pick himself up. He moved into the same front-leaning rest by Alan’s side. Both of them were ready to do diamond push-ups, but only one of them ready to endure pain.
“Now, down!” Herbert shouted, going down himself.
Alan and Mortimer went down in sync. Alan’s thick arms began to shake. He felt pressure push at the front of his forehead and his ears rang like a fire bell. Controlling a corpse mentally was already hard, as he had to fill Mort’s brain with his own memories to get him to move. In doing so, Alan felt like he was inside the corpse’s rotted, lemon-scented flesh. He and Mort were one. It was an out-of-body experience, and he did everything in his power to stay connected.
But since Alan didn’t exercise his brain muscles enough—“It’s like lifting weights in your head,” his father always told him. “Up the weight and lower the reps, and push, push, push.”—he had a low threshold for pain and couldn’t make Mort move very well. Whenever Mort walked, he hobbled about like a hunchback, as Alan had to control each limb individually.
Simply moving Mort was hard enough, but controlling him AND exercising at the same time was nigh impossible for Alan. It was like patting his stomach and head while riding a unicycle backward. The melding of the two actions made Alan feel like he had to puke, but he dared not do it in front of his father. Herbert would make him do push-ups nose deep in vomit.
“One!” Herbert shouted. “Say it when you go down! One!”
“Oooooooone,” Alan repeated as he struggled back up. His legs and arms felt reversed, and a dull throb by his ears made his head feel like it had floated all the way to the top of the staircase. Mortimer opened his mouth wording “one” but no words came out.
“Two!” Herbert shouted, and Alan and Mortimer repeated him. They did this twenty more times.
“Now, give me five more!” Herbert said. He got up while his son had to remain in position.
“Come on, dad!” Alan moaned as salty sweat stung his eyes and dripped into his mouth. “Please.”
The Darkness of the Womb Page 17