Unholy Birth

by Andrew Neiderman

  “Look, what were we supposed to do, turn down the opportunity?” she snapped. “You know how long it would have taken us to get to this point? And we got it because we deserve it, because we have the capability to jump in with such short notice.”

  Her face was getting red again.

  “I didn’t say we should have turned it down, Willy, I was just pointing out…”

  “Okay, okay. This just isn’t a good time to talk about the good and bad in the world,” she said. “If you’re strong enough, check on things at the plant.”

  “I’ve already been there,” I said, but she was already walking away, looking for something else to steal away her attention.

  It wasn’t like her to be so short with me, I thought, and I can’t blame it entirely on the pressure of this enormous party. It frightened me. Were events quickly changing us or were the changes always in us, dormant, waiting to be nudged and brought out of hibernation? She and I had a conversation on this topic once, and Willy proposed that no one changes; he or she simply becomes whoever he or she really is. She called it the Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde phenomenon. “Mr. Hyde is always there, brooding under the surface, waiting to pop out like some kind of latent cancer.”

  Maybe he already had, I thought, and turned to leave. I was suddenly feeling very tired again, and there wasn’t all that much I could do here anyway. Trinity was at my side so quickly I had the feeling she was standing there all the time. She wasn’t exaggerating when she told me I’d feel like I had to brush her teeth. I knew I should be grateful, but it was becoming more annoying to have a second shadow.

  “Where to?”

  “Home,” I said sharply. “I suddenly need to rest.”

  “Understood,” she said, as if I had just translated from a foreign language. “You’ve been through quite a bit over the past twenty-four or so hours.”

  I didn’t want to talk about it. I walked faster. Just before we reached my car in the parking lot, I felt the ground turn and reached out for her.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “A dizzy spell,” I said.

  “Take it easy. I’ve got you,” she said, and led me to the car. She took the car keys out of my hand. “I’ll drive. Lucky, I decided to come along in your car,” she added. She opened the passenger side door and I slipped in and quickly lay back, closing my eyes.

  That damn quickening occurred again before she got in, and I held my breath. How many times had I seen someone put their hand on a pregnant woman’s stomach to feel the baby moving? I had done it a few times myself. It sure felt similar. Was I going completely crazy?

  “You all right? Want to go to the doctor?” Trinity asked. I guess I looked a little white in the face.

  “No, just take me home,” I said. “Wait,” I added.

  “What?”

  “Do me a favor. Put your hand on my stomach.”

  “What?” she smiled.

  “Just tell me if you feel anything.”

  She shook her head.

  “What would I feel?”

  “Could you just do it?”

  She shrugged and put her palm over my exposed stomach when I lifted the blouse. I felt the quickening again and looked at her face.

  “Well?”

  “It’s a very nice stomach, but I don’t feel anything unusual.”

  I lifted her hand away.

  “Okay. Take me home,” I said. I could feel tears under my lower eyelids threatening to spill over. I closed my eyes and swallowed back the tightness in my throat.

  When she started the car, I opened my eyes, and as we backed away, I saw Peter Teller step out of the convention center to light a cigarette. He watched us drive off. I closed my eyes again and dozed off, waking when I heard the garage door going up.

  I got out of the car quickly.

  “I’m going to lie down for a while,” I told her. She nodded and watched me go into the house. I heard the garage door close and her coming into the house behind me as I made my way to our bedroom.

  I was so frustrated with myself, with my fatigue, nausea, and dizziness. When would this stop? I was beginning to feel like an invalid, more like someone suffering a fatal illness. I should have asked more questions about the pseudocyesis, I thought. I slipped off my shoes and lay back, staring at the ceiling. My lower back was aching again. I was so uncomfortable I had to keep changing my position. I felt like screaming. Finally, I sat up and decided to go throw cold water on my face.

  Standing there at the sink and looking into the mirror, I felt a tightness around my bosom and unbuttoned my blouse to expose my breasts. I studied them in the mirror. They looked two sizes bigger and I saw the distinct stretch marks. How could anyone’s mind make such a thing happen? It literally took my breath away. I seized the edge of the counter and held it tightly for a few moments.

  Suddenly, I heard the sound of someone running in the house, chairs being pushed aside in the kitchen and the sliding door slammed open. Before I could turn to walk out to see what was happening, I heard the crack of a gunshot. I froze and listened. Then I charged forward out of the bedroom and into the kitchen. The sliding door was open. I peered out and saw Trinity walking back from the wall on the east side slowly. She put her pistol back into its holster and headed for me.

  “What was that?”

  “One of them was at your bedroom window.”

  “What? Oh, my god.” I pressed my hand to my heart. “Did you shoot him?”

  “He moved too quickly. He was like a gazelle. I couldn’t believe how easily he hopped over that wall. By the time I got to it, he was gone down the wash. Bold bastard,” she said. “You left that window open?” she asked.

  “I don’t think so.”

  “It’s open. Let me check your bedroom,” she said, and I followed her back.

  The screen on the window had been edged up. She studied it a moment and then turned and looked at the bed.

  “Son of a bitch,” she said.

  “What?”

  She walked slowly to the bed and, using a piece of paper, carefully lifted a dart to show me.

  “I’d better call this in,” she said.

  “They want to kill me!” I exclaimed. “But I thought…they would only try to intimidate me.”

  She wrapped the dart in the paper and then looked at me.

  “Obviously, they’re convinced you’re pregnant,” she said. “And they don’t think you’ll abort.”

  15.

  I WAS TERRIBLY CONFLICTED.

  Willy had to know what had happened, but if I called her now, I’d be calling her right in the thick of it. I knew she would be angry when she found out all this had happened and I hadn’t called, but I couldn’t pull her away from the convention center. I sat in the living room, dazed and still shaking. Trinity returned.

  “Okay, we’re going to have an additional member of the security team assigned to you so you’ll feel more secure. He’ll be here in less than an hour. He was pulled off another job nearby.”

  “That’s fine, but we should be calling the police,” I said.

  “I wouldn’t do that.”

  “Why not? Someone tried to kill me!”

  “We’ll have to explain what happened to Sterling, why you called us to take care of it…it’ll lead to all sorts of complications. We’re on this. Don’t worry.”

  “You’re on this? What did the killer miss me by, a few inches?”

  She stared at me as if I were being uncooperative and behaving like a spoiled brat.

  “It won’t happen again,” she said.

  I looked away, my heart pounding.

  “I’m glad you’re so confident. Maybe I should put an advertisement in the newspaper announcing I’m not really pregnant yet or put up a billboard announcing it on my front lawn. That way they’ll leave me alone.”

  I felt the strain in my voice. I was tottering on the balance beam of sanity and close to falling into hysteria.

  “Just try to calm down,” she said. “We’re di
recting more resources to you. You’ll be fine, but for now, please stay inside and avoid standing in windows or patio doors.”

  “Calm down? Stay inside and avoid windows and doors?” I started to laugh. “You want me to be a prisoner in my own home? What kind of a solution is that?”

  “I’m going to do another sweep of the grounds. You should go rest,” she said, not replying to my question and left. She has about as much sympathy as a Nazi SS officer with a hangover, I thought.

  My lower back started aching again. I decided I should go lie down and considered taking one of those pills. I rose and started for the bedroom when the phone rang. It froze me for a moment. After the third ring, I picked it up. It would go to the answering machine on four rings and if it were Willy, she would be upset.

  “Hello.”

  “Don’t believe them,” the raspy voice said. “You are pregnant and we’re not going to let it happen.”

  Just as he hung up, Trinity came rushing in through the open patio door.

  I stood there holding the receiver away from my body as if I believed the speaker could somehow poison or attack me through it.

  “What?” she asked, seeing how I was standing there. “Was it them?”

  I nodded.

  “Good.”

  “Good? Good?” My voice rose. “He threatened me. He was on all of ten seconds.”

  “It doesn’t matter how long he was on. Our devices will have picked him up.”

  “You were right. They think I’m pregnant. They say I shouldn’t believe what I’ve been told.”

  “Don’t listen to them. You oughta know if you’re pregnant or not,” she said. “They’re playing with you. I told you they want to make you crazy. I’m going to my car to check on what we just learned. I’ll be right out front and the second guard should be here momentarily. Go relax,” she told me, and headed for the front door.

  I realized I was still holding the receiver and cradled it as if I believed the caller remained connected. I stood there fighting back a more desperate urge to call Willy. I needed her, needed her strength, but it was only a matter of a few hours now until the big extravaganza began. I knew how busy she was at this very moment, coordinating it all, working with so many new people. I feel guilty enough about not being at her side. How could I draw her away, even after this?

  I stepped back and turned quickly to go to the bedroom. I closed the shades and, still trembling, looked for the pills. If I didn’t take one, I thought, I would surely not rest and I would only get worse and worse until my hysteria drove me to either run to Willy or call her. I was perspiring so much, I felt as if my skin had just been greased. Before I took a pill, I washed my face in cold water.

  Pausing, I gazed at myself in the mirror. Was it part of what I could only call my madness now? My face looked somewhat bloated, my features larger. The weight gain I had felt only in my breasts and stomach, and a little in my thighs appeared to have seeped upwards, thickening my neck and filling my cheeks. There was even a tracing of a double chin.

  Shuddering, I backed away.

  How could this be happening?

  How could my twisted brain be capable of affecting my body this way? Maybe, just maybe, I was imagining it.

  I glanced at the scale and then took a deep breath and stepped on it. It was as if I were in a church bell tower. The ringing echoed from one ear to the other and bounced around in my head.

  According to my scale, I had gained nearly twenty-five pounds!

  Was all this, could all this, even the reading on the scale be a figment of my imagination? Was I caught in some dream? Was pseudocyesis that powerful a mental aberration? I couldn’t have gained this much weight this quickly. I wasn’t eating as ravenously. If it were true, surely it was water retention, serious water retention. I need to see the doctor.

  As if to reinforce that decision, I felt that damn movement inside me, that quickening again. It was even more vivid causing me to gasp. A wave of nausea came over me and then another and another. I dry heaved for a few moments and then, feeling very dizzy now, headed toward the bed.

  I never made it. The room spun and the floor went out from beneath my feet. I felt myself falling and falling, but never hitting the ground. I was descending forever into the deeper and deeper darkness, accompanied by a horrendous howl, the cry of some prehistoric beast giving birth in a delivery so painful, it spit out her insides with the fetus and left her soaking in pain and blood, eagerly welcoming the embrace of Death.

  When I woke I was in bed.

  I had no idea what time it was, but I saw it was dark outside. After a few deep breaths, I turned and saw Willy sitting in the lounge chair, her feet up on the ottoman. Her head was tilted to the right and with the little illumination from the outside lights spilling in around the closed shutters, I could see she was asleep. Bracing on my elbows, I sat up and saw it was four o’clock in the morning. How could I have slept so long? How did I get into the bed? I was naked. Who undressed me? Had Willy come home and found me on the floor?

  I needed a cold drink. My skin felt clammy and my throat was so dry that I was afraid if I swallowed too hard, I’d scratch it. When I pulled the blanket completely away and shifted my legs to get off the bed, Willy opened her eyes and scrubbed her cheeks with the palms of her hands quickly.

  “Kate? How are you?”

  “Why are you sleeping in the chair? When did you get here? How did I get into this bed?”

  I fired my questions at her, but she just sat there staring at me in the dark.

  Then she leaned over and turned on the standing lamp. The brightness stung my eyes.

  “I came home about an hour ago. The party went on and on,” she said, “but Trinity found me and told me you had passed out and she had gotten you into bed. She said you woke and were confused so she was told to give you one of the pills.”

  “Trinity found me and gave me a pill? I don’t remember any of that.”

  “She said you were confused. I understand.”

  “Well, I don’t,” I said sharply. “Who told her to undress me and put me in the bed?”

  “Don’t be so upset about it. It wasn’t a bad thing to do for you at the time, Kate.”

  “You know they tried to kill me?”

  “Pardon me?”

  “The dart Trinity found in my bed…the poison dart!” I cried when she continued to stare. “Didn’t she tell you all about it?”

  “No, she didn’t mention any dart. All she told me was you received another one of those threatening phone calls.”

  “What?”

  “She said they traced it to a pay phone in the Palm Springs Airport.”

  “She didn’t mention any dart?”

  “They went to the airport but they didn’t spot any of the people they knew from the fanatic organization,” she continued.

  “Aren’t you listening to me? Someone blew the same kind of dart with this poison frog stuff that killed Sterling Plunkett at me through the opening in the window there,” I said pointing. “She found the dart inches from where I was and then she went after the assassin. They’re trying to kill me, Willy. They think I’m pregnant for sure and they vow they won’t let me have the baby!”

  “Take it easy,” she said, rising. “You want to go to the bathroom?”

  “No, I don’t want to go to the bathroom. Where’s Trinity now?”

  “She’s out front. She and another security agent are outside watching the house.”

  “Get her in here.”

  “Kate, it’s after four in the morning.”

  “I don’t care. I don’t see how she could leave out the dart story. If there was no attempt on my life, why did they send a second security guard, Willy?”

  She didn’t reply.

  “Well, why would they do that?”

  “She said you were quite hysterical after the phone call and she thought it would help.”

  “What? I need to talk to her now!”

  “Okay, okay, we’
ll talk to her, but let’s wait until morning when we’re all bright and alert and we’ll sit down with her and go over it. I’m exhausted,” she said.

  I settled back. Of course she was, I thought.

  “Do you want anything before I go to sleep?” she asked.

  “I need a glass of cold water. My throat feels like sandpaper.”

  “Okay. I understand. I’ll get it.”

  “What about Eve? Where is she?”

  “She remained behind to finish up. She’s still not back. It was an enormous job, but it went well for us,” she added. “We had many compliments on the food.”

  “Terrific,” I said, but without any enthusiasm. “I’m sorry,” I quickly added. “I’m not exactly in a mood to celebrate yet.”

  “I understand.”

  “Stop saying you understand.”

  “Okay. I’ll be right back with your water,” she said in the tone of voice of someone trying to placate a mental patient and left.

  I looked down at myself. My stomach was even more distended. Pseudocyesis or no pseudocyesis, how could it grow so large so quickly? Was I going to get to the point where I would simply explode?

  She returned with my water.

  “Look at me,” I said when she handed me the glass. I put my hand on my stomach.

  She stepped back.

  “Yeah, so?”

  “Don’t you see how big I’ve become?”

  “You’re bigger, yes, but Dr. Aaron explained it all to us. It’s not unexpected, right? It’s part of that psychosomatic condition, pseudo something or another.”

  “Pseudocyesis.”

  “Exactly.”

  I drank some water.

  “I can’t believe it.”

  “Stranger things happen,” she said.

  “Not to me. Did Trinity tell you what he said to me on the phone?”

  “Who?”

  “Aren’t you listening to anything? Them, whoever…he said I shouldn’t believe that I’m not pregnant. I’ve been thinking. Maybe…maybe I am. Maybe I don’t have pseudocyesis. Just maybe the report was erroneous.”

  Willy smiled.

  “You think that you could possibly be this far along in a real pregnancy in this short of time, Kate? Get a hold of yourself. You, yourself, told me you were having symptoms characteristic of a woman in her second trimester.”