Thicker Than Water

Mary lives in what was once Pittsburge, Pennsylvania. The Earth has been scorched by war, the buildings crumble to ruins, and unknown creatures lurk within the darkness.

(this is an excerpt)
 

 

As bad as the world had become, the Ticks and Leeches made it all the darker. They sit in the shadows and unknown places. Themselves being unknown and unnatural. Of those who have known of their existence, I am all that is left. Or so I believe. The others are dead now…I am the recued demon, a heathen saved by chance: or by grace.

I am Elisha Payne.

 

[PREAMBLE]

 

(THICHER THAN WATER)

 

“It’s a boy.”

The Father’s voice whispered through the cold air. The words were quiet, no more than a trail of warm fog escaping from his thin white lips. He was relieved. He knew they would have to be quick; knew that He would soon be here. He held the newborn child in his careful hands as he wiped off the blood. The child began to cry. He prayed to God that the chap would keep quiet. They’ve tried so hard to stay unfound. The child’s mother exhausted from her strains brought a weary hand toward her mouth. She grasped the leather strap of the Father’s belt she had clenched between her teeth to stifle her pain and dropped it to the floor.

“My baby? Is it all right?” She sighed. “Is it Ok?”

 

* * *

[MARY]

Mary Payne had lived in the remains of what once was Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (or at least that's what the signs say). The overgrown buildings, the dirt filled streets, and the neglected cars left rusting all along their curbs yielded little sign of the former city. And those who would remember the old times were long gone. She was making her way down a sand covered road that was marked by crooked and rusting signs that read 3rd Ave. In the failing light of a late summer day the ancient signs were barely readable, but she knew her way more by the buildings and landmarks that spotted her path. She passed through the twilight shadows underneath the towering glass structure that marked the corner of 3rd and Stanwix. Most of its glass had shattered or fallen off. Twinkles of fading light glinted off of the remaining panes. It loomed over the surrounding buildings: an unearthly, skeletal phantom of its former self. She had several more blocks to go before she was home. Ahead of her a young couple (the only other people she had seen on the road that night) turned onto the road and walked down the narrow street hand in hand. She gazed down at her swollen middle threatening the unyielding fabric of her nurse’s scrubs and smoothed her left hand over its surface. The tarnished circle around her third finger glinted. She lost Jim only weeks after the child within her began to form.

“He was barely a daddy.” She whispered to the sleeping baby inside her. “He wanted so much to see you.” A few tears came. “You were his favorite dream and�".” And then she began to weep.

A few blocks later her tears began to dry. She was alone now. The young couple had drifted off down an alleyway; most likely headed home, ready to drown out the rest night enjoying each other’s company. She wanted to get to her flat on the corner of Smithfield and Forbes before dark. She didn’t know what it was but the feeling was there. It had been for the last month and it grew every day. The foreboding sense of wrongness surrounded her during her long walks home. She normally would have dismissed it as just nerves and her recent widowing, but the sensation was physical just as much as it was mental. ‘Nerves couldn’t leak over into reality and play tricks on your senses, make you see things and stuff, could they? Maybe they could, but not like this,’ she thought, this felt too real. It was too real. A deep chill always accompanied it, not that the weather was cold. It was still summer. It was something inside of her that made her skin crawl and make her neck and arms all prickly. There was also a smell. What it was she couldn’t quite describe. The best she could do was death: a horrible mixture of cinnamon and rotting onions… maybe a hint of garlic. Something like death she guessed, and that upset her strongly. A few times there had been voices as well. Soft whispers. She couldn’t understand them, but somehow she knew they concerned her. She didn’t know if they came out from the dark alleyways or if they were just in her head, she hoped strongly for the later. But about a week ago she had seen the thing that had�"more than the cold, more than the smell, and more than the voices�"frightened her the most. It was the eyes. She had been late coming home that night. She was almost there, but the sun had already set. The chills began and the stench of onions hung around her head like a putrid wreath of fog. In the dark alley beside her she first saw them: two dark red spots of light hanging in mid air. There was nothing eyelike about them except the faint silhouetted form that encased them. It was the shadow of a man blending into the dark alleyway behind him. Features smeared by the blackness; everything but those eyes. She had seen them one other time since then. And that night, as well as the first, she wasted no time getting to the door of her building. But tonight there was nothing. No biting chill, no intoxicating smell, no whispering terrors, and most of all no eyes.

She arrived at her building just as the last rays of daylight spilled over the city’s skeletal skyline, covering the world in that vague and strange realm of twilight. The door was in need of repair and opened stubbornly on its rusted hinges. Once inside she strained against its unwillingness to close again and when it refused to move an inch further than half-shut, she decided to yield to its stronger will and admit defeat. She turned into the dusty fire-lit lobby of the William Penn, where the soft slow tune of a distant record being spun somewhere filled the air. “…never got over those blue eyes. I see them everywhere…” It was Johnny Cash singing ‘I Still Miss Someone’ (not one of her favorites). She started towards the elevator at the other end of the dark room.

“Senora Payne, Senora Payne.”

�"Misses Espinosa, who lived on the second floor, was a quiet woman of about fifty-three. She kept mostly to herself and her knitting and also her three cats, Jose, Pedro, and Bonita. Many of the other folks living in the building probably didn’t even realize she was even there. And Mary had decided to slip past her when she noticed her sitting in one of the wood chairs by the lobby’s fireplace along her basket of yarn and knit work, but�"

“Senora Payne, a man in black came calling for you this afternoon.” She said briefly lifting her head from her working hands. “I didn’t much like the looks of him myself.” She added. The woman’s cat, Bonita (or was it Jose? Mary didn’t know or hardly care) stretched from its laying position, mewed, and weaved its way around the old woman’s legs, before hopping up to her lap. “You shouldn’t be associating with that kind of crowd if you ask me, a nice young lady like you. And in your condition.” The last part she added with another brief look up at Mary’s six-month swollen mid-section.

“Did he leave a name? When did he stop by?”

“He said his name was...umm...Markus.” She paused to see if the name rung any bells with the girl. It didn’t. “He came by about an hour ago. It was Bonita who first saw him.” She pet the cat on her lap softly. “I came down here to do some knitting, but I couldn’t find her. The sun was getting low and I didn’t want her to be out, so I went to the door to call for her, and there she was. Crouched in front of the door, ears back and hissin’. I went over to see what was the matter and at first I didn’t see him, but there he was, just standin’ there. Hands in his long trench coat pockets and starin’. I asked him what he wanted, and he said, ‘Mary Payne’. I told him you were out and if I could ask who was calling. He just said ‘Markus’ and claimed he was an old friend of yours. Said he would try back later. I told him that that would probably be a good idea.” She looked at Mary. “Do you know him?”

“No. At least I don’t think so. Maybe a friend of Jim’s, but not mine.” Mary thought a bit. “Was that it?”

“Yes, my dear. He just left right after that.”

“Well thank you Misses Espinosa. If he calls again would you please let me know?”

“Sure, dear.”

“Thank you.” She turned and headed back toward the elevator.

“Awful smell, that one, too.”

Mary stopped dead. And for a brief moment a chill took over her body. “What did you say?” she stared at the old woman in the wood chair.

“Smelled bad. The dark gentleman who came calling, he smelled bad. It was like really strong onions and something else I can’t quite say. I could smell it through the door it was so strong.”

“What about his eye’s?” was all Mary could think of to say.

“Blue…I think. Why?”

Not red…but Mary didn’t feel relieved at all. “No reason, I guess. Thank you again, misses Espinosa.” She tried not to show her fear, but she felt like she wasn’t doing a very good job.

“Is everything all right Senora Payne?”

“Yes.” She lied. “Everything’s fine.” She left and boarded the elevator. The elevator jerked and bumped as it slowly rose to the ninth floor: its ancient pulleys and cords straining against its weight. The slow droll of Jonny Cashes voice faded behind the closed doors and into the floor beneath her�"“…there’s someone for me somewhere, and I still miss someone. And I still miss…” It was quiet, but for the rusty crank of the old machinery carrying her.

‘BING’

The doors opened on the ninth floor, well mostly (ninth floor rested at about waist high and she had to climb out, minding her small swollen front), to a dark and narrow hallway.

She unlocked room 919 and the door swung open, releasing a warm summer breeze. Her dark shoulder-length hair was swept back by the sudden gust. A pair of dusty worn drapes fluttered away from the wall in the shadows. ‘Damn, it. The window. I left it open again.’ She had just finished cleaning up after the last time she had forgotten. The air was always so filthy this time of year. It was the time when the sandstorms blew in from the east, blasting away at everything in their path. It was neigh on the end of the season now but during the day windowsills could still accumulate so much of the stuff. And a windy afternoon was all it took to send it spilling all over through a carelessly opened window. She hurried over to the window, trying to avoid, but unavoidably kicking away some of the sand mounded up around it as she went. She shut the window with a slam and the drapes rested to their place against the wall. She found the switch on the wall and flipped it. The shadows scattered and amassed as the soft fluorescents flickered to life. They were dim, just like every other electric-light in the city, and flickered constantly. Her meeting with Misses Espinosa downstairs put her a little on edge and before she would go to bed she would conduct a quick search of her suite. She checked the kitchen and then the pantry, grabbing a bit of something to snack on in the process. She transferred the small loaf of bread from hand to mouth and then back to hand as she passed down the short hallway and into the bathroom, searching behind the damp shower curtain first. Last she came to the bedroom; checked the closet, looked under the bed. No boogiemen there. She felt safer. Her room was clear. She finished her bread as she sat at the foot of her bed and wondered who the man that had stopped by earlier had been. She had some thoughts that she threw out of her mind almost as quickly as they had popped in. After all, she wanted to sleep tonight and such thoughts made for a night of nightmares. After brushing her teeth she undressed and slipped into bed. Despite all her curiosities sleep was still the stronger, and she drifted off without any difficulty. Although her sleep came easy it was riddled with dreams of pain, worry, and suffering.

She woke in the dark of midnight scared and in a cold sweat. She grasped at her enwombed child greedily. The dream that still lingered in her mind was fresh and was one of the worst. When she recovered she felt exhausted and in need of a glass of water. She made her way barefoot to the kitchen across the sandy floor. Coming back from the kitchen with a full cup she stopped by the window and looked down at one of the tiny dunes of sand there. In it lay what appeared to be the print of a boot. A boot much larger than any that would fit her. But the track was smudged and disturbed by the sand she had kicked up earlier during her flight to shut the window. ‘Had that been there before?...Yes…Had to have. But who left it?’ Her heart sank and the chill set in. She dropped the glass as her arms prickled up with the cold and it shattered by her naked feet. Onions. It was strong. She turned.

“Hello, Mary.” Said the pair of red glowing eyes staring back at her.

Mary screamed and tried to run but the arm that extended out from underneath the eyes caught her and threw her to the floor. She turned and landed on her side sparing the orb of life inside her. She could feel something slimy and sticky on her back where the arm had grabbed her. “Your child is special, Mary.” She began to scoot backwards scrambling from the voice on her hands and bottom. The man in front of her was walking toward her; following.

“Stay away!” Mary screamed again. “Leave us alone!” She got to her feet and the figure in front of her swooped over faster than she could follow with her eyes and grabbed the back of her neck. Mary screamed some more. She was spun around and pressed hard against the chest of her attacker. The stench was very close now.

“Be still, Mary. Nothing you can do. I need your baby. But first, your baby needs me.”

At this Mary burst forth a new scream of pain and horror. She wouldn’t let this intruder have anything to do with her child. She fought. She swung her arms, violently striking the face that now rest with its chin atop her head, smacking and splattering more of, what slimy, sticky stuff she had felt on her back, from the man’s face. Droplets rained down and dotted her terrified expression. The arm around her only squeezed tighter. She continued to flail and squirm as the man raised the other arm up to her face. She felt his wrist smear against her lips with the same warm sticky slime and she thrashed her head from side to side. A hand grasped her face and a pulse of the warm liquid spilled down her chin. She screamed again and cried out for help. His strength was too much and nobody heard. His wrist pressed into her gaping, screaming mouth and the fierce taste of rust and metal spilled down her throat. She sputtered and the blood sprayed out from between the gaps and ran down her neck staining her white t-shirt and cotton panties with blotches of dark thick red. The intruder’s blood pumped in and Mary’s gurgled screams rose. She jerked and the crimson spray blew out of her nose. The hand on her face moved and pinched it shut. She struggled and struggled. No use. She swallowed.

Mary awoke in the darkness. A cool midnight wind swept through the open window, sending the light curtains away from the wall and spraying her face with a soft rain of sand. She felt cold and oddly sticky. And for a moment she had no memory of what had happened to her. Then, like a flash, it came. She drunkenly got to her feet and spun around, looking for those blood red eyes. But she was alone. She felt sick and the taste standing in her mouth was rot. She doubled over and vomited. But no amount of purging would suffice. The stink of death was inside her now, and there was nothing left for her to do, but wait and pray. She stood alone amidst the tiny dunes of sand that covered the floor of her ‘hotel’ room. Her face smeared and crusted; thick red. Her would be white, cotton T-shirt clung to her swollen belly and likewise swollen breasts with the sticky, foul smelling liquid of the creatures red blood. The memory of what had happened left her in hysterical shock. She roamed around her rooms thoughtlessly, mostly quiet but for the short soft sobs that occasionally left her quivering lips. She mindlessly began cleaning things up, wiping the sand off the table, straightening the chair, picking up the lamp whose tipping was caused by the struggle of earlier, all the while grabbing at her stomach and fidgeting with the blood soaked shirt which covered it. She was so lost in her own mind that she didn’t hear the knocking. Louder now. Now stopped. She was staring out the window with both hands on the sill and her back to the door. A shattering of splinters exploded from behind her as the door jerked ajar and off its hinges. The shower of splinters that spilled around her feet was silent to her and she took no heed to the man now standing in her broken doorway, nor the gun in his hand, nor the silver cross glinting upon his chest.

 

 

 

[NOW ENTER THE FATHER]

            Father Jake Donovan was awakened by the muffled screams of a woman. The moonlight flooded through his cracked bedroom window, played with the curtains that shuttered at the draft’s appeal, and casted vague shapes across the walls. The startled priest sat up in his bed and dropped his head into his hands. The occasional midnight shriek is by no means an uncommon thing these days. The world has become a tough place to live in. You simply survived or you died, and there were creatures in every dark corner awaiting the one who has let down their guard. And Jake Donavan knew this. For even he, a good man of the faith, keeps the reliable insurance of the solid steel of a handgun tucked underneath his pillow at night and underneath his left shoulder in a Dockers Clutch by day. There was another scream. This time followed by a thud. He could tell, now, that the disturbance was coming from directly above him. That was… He tried to think. A woman, yes, of course. She’s the one who screamed, but who. He couldn’t remember. He believed that as a priest�"or any other form of leader for that matter�"you should always make a habit of remembering the names of those around you. But he couldn’t remember. He made the sign of the cross through the air in front of him and said a little prayer for the screaming lady above him. More than that, he felt, it wasn’t his business. He decided he was thirsty, and since he was up he would quench that thirst with something from the kitchen tap. On his way back from the kitchen he remembers the woman. She was the one with child. He thought of the screaming. Couldn’t be that. He thought, and in truth was a little relieved that the prospect of possibly having to deliver a child single-handedly tonight was swept so swiftly from his mind. To early for the baby. She was what…four, five, maybe six months. She was widowed and lived alone, right? And he never saw her with any men. Damn! He’d have to be the ‘Good Samaritan’. Couldn’t leave a pregnant lady screaming all alone. There was some more scuffling in the room upstairs along with another thump. Then clattering like the opening of an old window. He turned towards his own window, following the sound, just in time to witness a figure rush past, falling to the ground. OHSHIT! Not her…not her. He didn’t hear any more noise from upstairs. Please, GOD, not her. He ran to his bed. Swaying with his motion and catching the moonlight, his cross glinted and trailed behind him. He felt under his pillow and gripped the Ruger in hiding: silently waiting. Never mind the Clutch. He flew out his front door in not but his blue striped pajama bottoms, and headed for the stairs at the end of the hall. Too much hast for the elevator. He pressed through the door of the stairwell and rose up the cold grey corridor to the next floor. Where is it, where is it?  The father ran down the hallway. How many feet to her doorway? Three hundred? Four hundred? On his left passed door 916, then 917, 18. Here! 919. The soft blue shutter of a Pepsi machine wrapped his body and the door in front of him in its glow. Next to it laid a snack vendor. Its glass door shattered and its contents all but in their specified coiled spots.

            “Ma’am?” Donovan banged on Mary Payne’s door. “Is everything all right?” There was no answer. He tried the knob. It was locked. “There was screaming, Ma’am. Please, let me in.” There was a little shuffling past the door. “I’m here to help. I’m coming in. Get back from the door.” Father Donavan took a couple steps back and raised the Ruger in his hand. He pulled the trigger and blew off the door’s top hinge. A shower of splinters and metal bits rained down onto the floor. He rushed forward and broke down the door. Inside tiny dunes lay across the sand covered carpet. In the middle of the room several large pools of blood reflected the midnight moonlight filling the room with a red bleeding glow. Standing in front of the window was the woman. The curtains wavered softly about her, framing her stained body in white silk.

            “Ma’am, are you ok?”

 

[A CHANGE OF FATE]

            Ma’am, are you ok?

The words bounced around in her dazed head unheeded; a jumble of echoes and alien sounds. She was lost and confused within her shock and terror. The wind whipped her black hair away from her pale white face. A tear streamed from a wide and wonderful, scared eye; an icy river of the palest blue spilling over her smooth cheek and mixing with the smeared flower of blood that caked (defiled) her beautiful lips and jaw. The Father approached her. He laid a hand on her trembling, night-darkened (and blood-darkened) shoulder. The sticky redness felt like glue to his fingers. The touch did what his words could not. It pierced her world: her solitary shell. She felt it, and knew she wasn’t alone. She wheeled around in a fit a violent fear. Father Donovan, who wasn’t expecting the sudden outburst, was caught by surprise when her first flailing swing caught the side of his jaw. He shook his head and stopped her second wild blow she served. Her free arm connected with his shoulder. Donovan shoved the gun into the waistband in the of his striped pajama pants. With both hands now free he silenced her swinging arms.

“I’m here to help you!” he yelled at her, giving her a single little jerk. She burst into tears, and wrapped her arms around his neck. Her breasts pressed coldly against his chest through her soaked cotton T-shirt. Her face dug deep into his neck. He could feel her warm tears and the cold blood smear onto his skin. Her hot breath broke through the swell in her throat and flowed down his chest in long pulses.

 After what seemed like hours, Mary’s sobs finally begun to lessen and her hold on Jake Donovan slipped and released slightly. He was able to pull back a bit and look at her. Her tears had mostly been for the unnatural, unholy act committed upon her that night, but some were spilt for the simple feeling of just having someone else: the feeling of security: a chance to finally be able to let her guard down. And when she did her relief came flooding out like a river breeching a fallen dam, and control had been beyond her grasp. He could clearly see that she was exhausted. Her face; he guessed was beautiful underneath the moistness of her tears mixed with blood and the mask of pasted sand clinging to her left cheek. And the Father did find her beautiful, even while washed with the bleeding (blood) mascara, which he wiped gently away from her trembling cheeks with both his thumbs.

“Are you hurt anywhere?” He asked, and he held her a bit farther back so he could look over her whole body.

She shook her head slowly pondering the question. “I don’t think so.” She was still kind of ‘not all there’, still in shock. She caressed the little swell beneath her shirt, almost unknowingly. The Father watched her as she did so and tried to read her thoughts. He prayed in his mind that the child would be fine, but now he would focus on its mother. He cautiously moved his hands across her arms feeling for breaks, as she stared vacantly out the open doorway behind him. He quickly checked the rest of her body and found that she hadn’t suffered much physical damage, so far as he could tell, from her encounter with whoever it was that had done this to her. She stood in front of him shivering. The window was still open and still permitting a steady breeze to enter. She wrapped her gooseflesh-covered arms across her stomach. Above them, her n*****s were standing clearly visibly through her crimson stained shirt, and Father Donovan shifted a likewise crimsoned face to the side.

“You’re cold. We should probably get you cleaned up and warm.” He stood there a while, looking anywhere but at the woman, to which he was talking, standing in front of him. The woman who he found strangely beautiful despite the foulness spilt all over her. And now he was slightly embarrassed by the thought. He walked around her towards the window, and shut it. He shuffled around on the walls until he found the switch for the lights. With the lights on and the complete carnage of the scene now illuminated the Father raised a silent hand to his mouth. He had never seen so much blood and he struggled with his stomach to settle. When he got control of himself once more he turned to her. She was still mostly unresponsive and bobbed around the room slowly with glassy eyes, all the while caressing her belly. “You have a bathroom, yes?” He asked her. She raised a bloody finger in the direction of the hallway. The Father laid his hands on her caked shoulders and gently led her to where she had pointed. The buzzing lights in the small washroom blinked and sputtered in a never gaining strain to hold back the darkness. They finally overcome, but only to a dim and un-boastful compromise. Father Donovan located a small and dirty rag, the only he could find. He turned the handle on the spout and doused it in the hot flow. He used the wet cloth on her face. The blood smeared clean and her pale face underneath, still somewhat vacant and unaware, emerged with striking beauty. She began to lift the hem of her crimson T-shirt. The Father (his cheeks once more stained with their own crimson roses) turned and started the water running in the small shower. It clunked and groaned till it managed a spattering uneven spray. He looked back over his shoulder and saw the woman’s naked back. Not meaning to stare he blinked and noticed her eyes looking back at him through the mirror. She turned to him and once more he showed her the back of his head.

“Uh…the water’s warm now.” He said taking a dripping hand from the spattering spray.

 

“I’ll give you some privacy. Um…I’ll just be down the hall if you need anything else.” A bit nervous he wiped his damp fingers on his blue-stripped pajama pants. “Um…ok…just call.” He slipped out of the washroom, clumsily bumping into the doorway as he exited.

“Thank You.” It cracked out in an almost forced fashion and sounded urgent as if she thought he might disappear forever and she would never get the chance to thank him proper again. It meant more to her than the simple words could express and she knew he had gotten the message; sensed the slight pause that stilled his movement as he left.

He waited awhile on the other side, leaning against the wall and listening to her shuffle around in the shower’s scattered downpour. He tried to take his mind off the image that danced just on the other side of the door. Then he left back into the room where the blood and mess still lingered.

It was about one O’clock in the morning when he heard the bathroom door open and her steps drift off unseen into the bedroom. A few minutes later she came walking back down the hall wearing fresh clothes and still rubbing her head down with a soaked and torn old towel attempting to dry her wet black hair. She looked around the room. Jake had been busy cleaning up most of the mess. He had found her scraggly push broom and had swept most of the sand up. The carpet still retained a lot of it but there was nothing to be done about that. The old lamp that had been sitting on the table in the corner was in pieces, which he had gathered into a pile. The blood was spilt mostly on the sand but here and there, where the biggest pools had collected, the faded white carpet was stained with its crimson horror. He was tossing the last pan full of sand out the window when she came in.

“You didn’t have to do this.” She said.

She was a little better, He thought. “Do what?”

“Any of this.” He turned and raised his eyebrows in a questioning look. “Don’t get me wrong, I’m extremely grateful for everything you’ve done. But why? You didn’t need to risk yourself to save me. Nobody else would have.”

“That’s exactly why I did it.” He turned and shut the window. “To be honest I thought you might have been thrown out.” He sat down on her couch. “My room is directly below yours and after being awakened by your struggle, which I first thought might have been just a harmless domestic dispute, I saw a body pass by my window. I feared it might have been yours.”

“I’m embarrassed, you’ve obviously seen me around the building, but I don’t even know your name.”

“My name’s Jake Donovan.”

“The symbol ‘round your neck? Are you a priest?”

The Father clasped the silver between his fingers. “Of a sort.” He said with a smile. “No flock. Just me and the Big Man now.” He looked at her again. Yes, she’s calmed down. I don’t blame her. What happened here? “I still don’t know your name though. To me you’re still the pregnant lady in 919.”

She dropped the wet towel on the arm of the couch and sat down beside him. “I’m Mary Payne and thank you again for everything you’ve done.” Her face twisted in pain and she pressed a pair of fingers against the soft spot of her head just in front of her left ear. She was pale.

“What happened here, Mary? Where did all the blood come from?” She threw a dazed and confused look at his questioning eyes.

“I…I don’t…I can’t…”

“I checked you over, Mary, and you have no wounds; at least none that would yield so much blood. Who’s blood did I just scrape from your floor?” He looked at her intently. She continued to press against the side of her head.

“I can’t remember.” She dropped her head into her palms and begun to cry.

“I’m sorry. I don’t mean to prod. I just want…”

Inside, Mary felt something stir. Her baby shifted and wiggled. Her hands drifted quickly from her puffy red eyes to meet against her small, round belly. “The baby.” She said, quickly changing the mood with a slight smile. “He moved. He’s never moved. I was beginning to worry…” She laughed and grabbed the Father’s hand and pressed it against her. “…but he moved.” Jake sat concentrating, forcing all of his nerves in his left hand to awaken. He thought once more of this woman, as she was earlier in the bath: her back bare, and her dark green eyes piercing through the mirror and staring deep into his own. He shook the thought from his mind. He waited for movement, but there was nothing…nothing but stillness.

“I don’t…” He began. And then there it was; the minute shuffle of life deep within her womb. She giggled and once again he was inclined to shift his mind away from her beauty. “Maybe all it needed was a little excitement.”

(Your baby needs me)

The smile melted from her face with the memory.

“Your nose.” Said the Father as he grasped the damp towel from behind her and mopped the fresh stream of blood running from nose to lip.

“He was after my baby. He wanted my child.”

“Who?”

“Markus.”

 

She told Father Donovan everything that had happened to her, starting with the odd feelings that would overtake her during her walks home shortly after the death of her husband. She told him of the horrible eyes she had seen peering out from dark alleyways and the voices she had heard whispering her name. She told him of her talk with Misses Espinosa earlier that night. And She described to him with some difficulty all she could remember of her bout with the creature that calls himself Markus. The Father listened attentively, completely taken in with the woman’s story. When she was done they discussed the situation they were in. Jake told her that he would help her as much as he could. And she was glad to hear him say so as she had desperately hoped he would. He believed that it was dangerous here and she agreed with him. If this ‘Markus’ wanted her baby he would be back.

“What will we do?” she asked.

“We’ll find some other place.”

The clock on the wall read three hours after midnight and Jake had suggested that she should try and get some sleep and that they could pack up what they needed and leave tomorrow or perhaps the day after if it was to soon for her. She had protested and said that she couldn’t sleep tonight, but after he had sat with her for a few minutes she was already deep in it. He dragged a chair to her room then carried her and laid her down on her bed. He sat by her bed the rest of the night and when morning light came he rose to look out her window. In the early morning glow he could see that the sand nine stories down was clear with no sign of the body that had rushed passed his window in the night. Jake wasn’t sure how the sick pervert was able to survive a fall like that and with all that blood drained from his body, but still he had done it somehow. Mary’s story had set his skin crawling. He couldn’t remember the last time he had been so scared. But as she told her account of what had happened he couldn’t help feeling a familiarity. Like he had heard it all before. He slid the splintery old frame back down it’s rails and engaged the lock on its top. The glass let through a bright and healthy glow. It’s cheerful yellow square hovered across the horror-stained carpet and was cast onto the peeling wall behind him. He felt it was safe to leave Mary for a while.

In his room, room 819, he pulled three of his shirts out of the door-less closet, slid his arms through the blue one with the grey pinstripes, and stuffed the other two into a brown duffle bag. He didn’t own much and most of what he did own fit inside that little brown bag. He went around the room quickly, but carefully choosing, packing up the things that would really prove themselves useful. He found his old knife along with a compass that he’d owned since his early childhood and a maglight in the small dresser by his bed. There was the soft taping and scraping of a cockroach scampering across the tile as he emptied several cans of beans and tuna and various greens from the cupboards in his small kitchen. The sandy yellow light of mid-morning bathed the room revealing the golden specks that hovered listlessly through the dusty air of room 819. Father Jake Donovan would never return. He hoisted his pack and closed the door behind him.

Back in 919, Mary was waking up. Jake’s pistol lay on the nightstand beside her. Sitting up, she looked around the room, nothing but an empty chair from the living room; Jake was gone. She heard the front door open. She fumbled for the gun and pointed it toward the shadowed hallway.

“Jake?” she asked the adjacent room.

The door opened and The Father stepped through then quickly stepped back at the sight of the gun. Two hands, one holding an apple, emerged back through the doorway; they were followed soon after by the rest of Jake. In his mouth was another apple. Coming fully into the room he grabbed the apple in his mouth and bit through.

“Breakfast?” he said between chews.

She lowered the Ruger and sighed. “Thank you. I’m starving.”

He tossed the apple and it bounced on the bed in front of her. She grasped it and bit into its crisp redness. “I’m glad I left you the gun.” He said with a smile as he took another bite. “Almost lost my nose though. Next time I’ll remember to announce my arrival.” He gave her another wide mouthed grin as he chewed.

“Sorry.” She returned his smile. They talked only a little while they ate.

It was close to nine O’clock when they finished and Mary shooed Jack out so she could change her clothes.

They decided that this was the day they would leave. Jake helped her pack. She rummaged through her closet and found an old backpack. She packed a couple shirts and a change of pants. They filled the rest up mostly with more canned foods.

They stepped out into the dusty road that gridded the dead city. Jake pressed the door to the building, straining on its rusty hinges, shut. The harsh wind whipped the sand blindingly into mindless eddies. The Father pulled a couple pairs of aviators from his pack and gave the pair with the left ear hook still intact to Mary. They shaded their eyes and knotted masks of cloth over their mouths, shielding their faces from the spray of sand. They put the sun and the wind behind them, and began their journey.

The months passed and they traveled from city to city. Never stopping, never resting. Only staying in one place long enough to pound in the last stake before uprooting once again and moving on. At the end of the first month they began to get sloppy and let their guard down. They set up in a small village town on the outskirts of a larger city. The mammoth remains that pricked the skyline of the dead city loomed upon the horizon and shadowed the dusty town. He came upon them once there: in the dead of the night. After that they reassumed their guard and set back to the road. Much took place between the exodus of room 919 and the night of birthing, but the story urges me forward: the rest may be saved for another time. The child now must come.

 

* * *

[THE CHILD]

The soft bluish glow and sporadic winking of the ancient fluorescents gave the rundown hospital an eerie and ghostlike appearance. Overhead many of the tiles that lined the ceiling had rotted and fallen loose of their frames, littering the dusty floor with their moldy remains. It was a remote place and hopefully safe from the terror that searched for them. It was late January and the chill and the bite of the outside cold pierced the walls of the hospital ruins like a knife. The dimly lit and freezing room that had minutes ago been drowned with the screams of life’s forth-bringing was now deathly silent. ‘The calm before the storm,’ you might say. For it was; a moment of quiet before the screams would start again and afterward death would fill the room once more with silence. Father Jake Donovan held the now cooing child out to his mother. A thin fog of steam arose from his tiny form as the winter air sucked hungrily at his living warmth. The Father wrapped him as best he could, attempting to shield the little chap from the bitter cold outside his mother’s warmth. A little bundle of clean, faded-yellow bath towel wrapped around a tiny peeking face.

“He’s fine. Healthy, I guess. I’ve never done this you know.” He handed the child to his mother. Mary carefully but greedily took her baby from the priest. She held him close and he pressed against her chest.

“Jim, he’s beautiful,” she said with a tear.

“We must move on quickly, Mary. Do you think you can?”

“His eye’s, Jake. What’s wrong with his eyes?”

“Mary, please we have to get…” A violent gust of wind ripped through the broke-in door behind him and swallowed his next words almost before they had even left his lips. The Father’s right hand made it’s way quickly to the gun holstered under his left shoulder. He turned drawing. A flash of red flame burst from the hip of the shadow standing in the doorway. The Father jerked as he felt the fire pass through him and the cross he wore ‘round his neck bounced free of his collar. The thunder of Markus’ gun and the screams coming from behind him were distant in his ears. He fell and crumpled to the side of Mary’s bed. With her face and clothes spattered with Jake’s fresh and hot blood, Mary watched as the man she had grown to love fall beside her.

“Jake! Jake!” She cried.

Markus started toward her and she slipped off her bed holding her baby tightly across her chest. Only one door and that one lie behind the monster approaching her. She ran to the window. Half-way there, her head jerked back. Pain streamed over her scalp as the creature whose blood she had once been forced to swallow caught a handful of her hair. The yank of it was almost enough to pull her to her back. Her forehead felt warm and the world began to swim through the water and salt that drowned her eyes. She felt the child in her arms began to be softly pulled from her grasp.

“No! No!” She grasped and clasped and screamed and cried. The bundle of faded-yellow (now sprinkled with red) reached her fingertips and lingered a while as her fingernails dug into the soft towel and then slipped free. The pull on her hair released and the blood of her struggle ran down from a crescent like a red veil over her forehead. She fell to her knees ashamed and deprived. A cry of pain and anger cut her lips and she stumbled to her feet toward the devil separating her from her child. The sound of thunder blasted through the small room again. There was a brief smell of powder as the flash of red fire scorched Mary’s brow. The Mother, head slack, toppled over landing with her face atop the dusty boot of her attacker.

Markus glared at his failed victim, knocking her head off his boot with a vicious tooth filled grin. The child in his arm cried vigorously. He raised the child (his child) closer. He holstered his gun and removed the edge of faded-yellow towel covering the baby’s face. The revealed face was wrinkled in fear and wet from so many tears. The baby’s eyes, hidden behind his tightly sealed lids, are what the monster needed to see. And his strong need accompanied by the sound emanating from the child’s maw of a mouth was so intense in the quiet night that he didn’t hear the rustling on the other side of the room. With a finger and thumb he split open the seal of the child’s right eye. The starburst of red splayed across the child’s eye was that of the creature holding him (His father’s eyes). The grinning Markus transferred finger and thumb to the child’s left eye. With the lid split Markus’ grin began to fade. The tiny eye gazing fearfully back at him was that of the purest white centered with the brightest blue (Jim, He’s beautiful). The creature began to shake softly with frustration. He screamed a loud, guttural, roar of a cry. His face seemed to transform (or had only the shadows hidden his true features?). What seemed a normal mouth appeared to split wider. His grin, which had seemed to display an ordered set of normal teeth, was now that of a shark: rows of fangs jutting every which way threatening the ability of a properly closed mouth. He raised the screaming bundle of faded-yellow up above the gorge of tooth-like daggers. He started to lower the child toward his tooth-filled gullet when a burst of fire pierced both his arms. The faded-yellow bundle fell to the floor and the creature screamed as he fled back out the door, which he had arrived. The Father lay on the floor with his gun raised above his head and a hole in his gut. He crawled his way over to the screaming dropped bundle of faded-yellow. He pulled the chap close to him and lifted the edge of towel from his face.

“You’re ok.” Said the Father. “You’re ok, Elisha.”