Ad Nauseam (23 page)

The detective had a pleasant manner, but his eyes were sharp, scrutinizing her reaction. She hoped she didn’t appear nervous, and really had no reason to be since she didn’t know what he was talking about. Bits and pieces of her dream started creeping into her head and she felt a little ill.

“So what was in my garden, officer?” She tried to gain confidence by using her no-nonsense librarian voice, but inside trembled with fear. Alice felt detached from the situation, complex emotions warring within her, but surprisingly calm on the outside.

“Not was, Ms. Collins. There is a body in your garden.”

“What? You can’t be serious! How would a body wind up in my garden?” Alice felt as though she might faint.

The dream! Oh the damn dream! What have I done?

She stumbled and the young detective caught her arm, then led her into the living room and sat her on the couch as he disappeared into the kitchen for a glass of water. When he returned, his accusatory look was gone.

He must now believe that I had nothing to do with this. Alice knew she wasn’t out of the woods yet, because there would be an investigation, and she’d naturally be a suspect. The officer stood a few feet away, watching her sip her water.

“I’m sorry to have to tell you this news, ma’am.”

“Was the person murdered?” Alice asked, her eyes wide with wonder, certain that she had somehow wound up on the other side of the looking glass.

“Well that’s the weird thing,” the young officer shifted his feet, obviously uncomfortable. “He was murdered. But we already know who did it. This boy was murdered two days ago by his roommate in a dorm at the college.”

“My Lord!” Alice exclaimed. “I know what you’re talking about! That poor boy whose roommate slit his throat while he was sleeping. I heard about that! Dreadful business. I work at the college in the library; and, well, you know how young people gossip. So how did he end up in my garden?”

“That’s what we’re trying to figure out, Ms. Collins. His body was reported missing from the morgue last night. There were some legal issues with the family and we were holding him for an autopsy, but they didn’t want one performed. Then last night, he just disappears and shows up in your garden this morning.”

“Why my yard?” Alice was genuinely perplexed, though she had a terrible suspicion the cop was way off with his theory. She was starting to believe that something much more sinister had brought the corpse to her property.

“I don’t know for sure. Have you had any problems with a particular student?”

“None that stand out in my mind.”

“How about last night. Did you hear anything unusual?”

“No, I’m sorry. I was asleep.” Her eyes darted to the empty wine bottle and the cop looked as well, a small smile curling his mouth in understanding.

Well, better for him to think I’m a drunk than a necrophiliac,
Alice thought.

Detective Dunlavy didn’t miss Alice’s nervous behavior or the signs of alcohol consumption from the night before. There was no surveillance footage from the morgue, though the technicians had yet to find any evidence that the cameras had been tampered with. He had a suspicion that this was some sort of prank played out by college students on the quiet librarian, but he remained alert as he questioned her, looking for indications that she may have been involved somehow. He was certain that the murder was solved, the roommate had confessed to the crime and the evidence didn’t point to any alternative, but he still had to investigate this disturbing twist in the case.

The detective stayed a while longer, interviewing her as to her whereabouts both last evening and the night of the murder, before taking an official statement from Alice. The coroner’s office took care of removing the body. She didn’t go look at it, didn’t want to see it and confirm her terrible suspicions. Detective Dunlavy left with an apology and a promise to be in touch soon. Alice watched him go, then locked the door behind him, her knees trembling so badly she collapsed right there in the foyer and wept.

Detective Dunlavy contacted Alice three more times over the next month, hoping she would remember some scrap of a detail that might help their investigation, but she could offer him nothing. The young man’s family buried him, and life went on. With no plausible leads on the case, it was soon put aside and mostly forgotten. The young man who killed the student had been diagnosed with schizophrenia and institutionalized. Alice didn’t care at all about the case or how the body had come to be in her yard. She knew the terrible truth. She had more important things to worry about.

That month she missed her period.

***

Alice ignored it at first, figured that maybe she was beginning menopause, though she’d been showing none of the usual signs that her menstrual cycle was winding down. This had to be some horrible dream.

Corpses do not walk into your garden with the intent to copulate, and they certainly don’t knock you up in the process!

She considered calling to make an appointment with her doctor the next day, but she didn’t. She was afraid of what they might find, certain that within her remained evidence of her vile indiscretion and they would lock her away forever in some asylum. Once she was forced to divulge the horrendous details behind the conception, the obstetrician’s next call would certainly be to a psychiatrist. She couldn’t go to a doctor, or rather, she knew on some level that she
wouldn’t
go to the doctor. She prayed the symptoms would go away.

During the earlier part of the pregnancy, Alice had spent a good deal of time researching abortion on the internet, ordering countless herbal medicines that promised to terminate the child “gently and naturally”. None had worked.

Bouts of severe nausea and cramping left her weak for days, but the child still seemed to thrive. It was hopeless. She would have to see this to the end or die trying. Alice wondered what the cops would say if they found her body. Oh, the horror this would create within the community when they discovered whatever monster she gestated in her diseased womb.

***

She spent the next couple months trying to do her job, ignoring the morning sickness and fatigue, pretending she just had the flu. When her swelling abdomen became too much to cover with clothes, Alice took a hiatus from work, claiming mental exhaustion after the stress from the prank in her garden. After decades of working at the same college, she had reached tenure, and with no family and simple tastes, her savings were more than enough to support her. With no friends and her sister so far away, there were no visitors to check on her, which was just how she liked it.

Alone in her house, Alice could no longer pretend she wasn’t pregnant. There had been no test to confirm it, but she had all the usual symptoms. She grew larger every day; and, at around six months along, the thing within her began to squirm, making her want to tear her belly open and rip it out.

There were other symptoms, as well. Patches of dark bruising appeared on her abdomen that spread fast, forming mottled patterns all over her torso, resembling some kind of fungus. Her teeth began rotting nearly overnight, turning dark and mossy before falling out of gums which bled almost daily.

And there was her appetite. Alice knew that expectant mothers often craved strange foods, sometimes even inedible things like soil or egg shells. She was still pretty sure her cravings were over the top. She became sick when eating fruits and vegetables, so she was stuck with dairy, meats, and breads. Then she could only drink milk that had long since curdled. She would wait for the mold to grow on her cheese and bread and relish in its musty green flavor as if it were the sweetest ambrosia.

The worst, though, was the meat. She often left raw steaks and hamburgers on the counter for days, gnawing on them once they changed from a ruby red to a greenish grey. These things should have poisoned her, should have at the very least made her quite ill, but they tasted better to her than a pint of rocky road ice cream.

As terrible as those things were, they were nothing compared to her odor. By the time she reached the seventh month, Alice could no longer go out in public at all. Her horrible pallor and nearly toothless mouth looked bad, but her stink was unbearable. She gave up on trying to find different soaps and deodorants to control it, and douching was useless. No matter what, she always smelled ripe and gamy, like a dead animal. She thought she might be dying. Alice ordered her necessities online, instructing the deliverymen to leave it all on the porch. She wondered if they could smell her through the door.

Perhaps driven away by the smell, even her cats wanted nothing to do with her, half of them having run off and never returned. The remaining three spent most of their time hiding from her, and only ventured out of their hidey-holes to eat. They’d abandon dinner completely and scamper away when she tried to touch them.

***

Alice broke down and made an appointment with an obstetrician. In the waiting room, the other women shied away from her, clearly trying to hide their disgust, but failing miserably. Even the receptionist turned her head away from Alice when they spoke, attempting to escape her pungent body odor.

The doctor flinched when he saw her, and Alice thought she heard him gag during the pelvic examination.

“Alice, at your age and given the lack of prenatal care, I would suggest an ultrasound and genetic testing.” The doctor said.

“I will take the ultrasound for now, but I need to think about further testing.”

Alice’s palms were sweating and her mind raced, wondering what the testing would reveal. She lay back on the table and closed her eyes as the doctor spread a thick jelly on her stomach, pressing a round instrument against her and squinting at the image on the screen of the mobile ultrasound machine. He shook his head and grunted, going over the same spot multiple times. When he had wiped her belly and helped her back into a seated position, he looked at her sadly, obviously unhappy with the news he was about to give her.

“Is it alive?” she asked, her blunt and emotionless manner taking the doctor by surprise.

“There is a heartbeat, but it seems irregular. There were also, some . . . abnormalities . . . structural abnormalities that I’m concerned about. I feel that it would be in your best interest to proceed with genetic testing and amniocentesis at this point.”

Alice was silent for a moment before nodding curtly. “I understand your concerns doctor. You have given me a lot to think about. I will need a day or two to decide what I want to do.”

Leaving the doctor with a promise to call within the next day, Alice drove home and sat on her couch, a carton of spoiled milk on the table before her. She imagined herself undergoing the testing. The long needle puncturing her womb to draw forth a black, viscous fluid. As if it could read her mind, the baby kicked. She rubbed her belly, soothing it unconsciously. The baby responded to her gentle touch, ceasing its restless motion.

Alice felt a pang of unexpected affection for the creature. She didn’t know what it would be, but despite its paternity, it was hers. She began to feel a begrudging respect for the little creature that refused to be destroyed. As her mind started to go, that respect turned into affection.

Fearful of what the tests might show, Alice called the doctor’s office the next day and said she would be seeking treatment from a different obstetrician. It was a lie. She now knew that she would deal with whatever lay ahead, alone. Taken by surprise by the developing love she felt for the baby, she would let no one stop her from seeing this through to the end.

***

Alice threw herself back on the bed, cords of tendons sticking out on her neck while her clawing hands tangled in the bed sheets. Greasy sweat coated her body and bloody milk dribbled from her nipples as she choked back screams, terrified one of the neighbors would hear her and call the cops.

She dug her heals into the mattress. Her legs opened wide, pushing with all she was worth. She was going on pure instinct now, an animal reacting to the pain of birth. The agony was overwhelming and became her whole world as she struggled to expel the infant, fearing she would split right down the middle and bleed to death on her own bed. This excruciatingly long process sapped her strength.

Hearing her own flesh tear, Alice wailed, all thoughts of her neighbors calling the police pushed from her mind under the pressure of the unbearable pain. Unable to restrain herself, she pushed with every ounce of strength left, expelling the creature, the product of her dead lover’s foul seed, onto the sodden, soiled bedding. She let her head fall back against the headboard and wept with relief, not bothering to tend to the newborn until she heard it’s growling cries. She felt the sheets pull as the beast began to make its way toward her, and what must be claws pricked her gory thigh.

She leaned forward to collect her baby, but the gnarled umbilical cord hung, still attached, trailing up to disappear into her ruined vagina. Alice tugged to free it, and a burning pain flared inside her, as the stubborn placenta refused to be dislodged. Unable to get the scissors from the vanity drawer, she instead held the sinewy purple tether up to the thing’s mouth, allowing it to gnaw through the cord with its tiny, sharp teeth. Careful to avoid the biting mouth, she tenderly brushed his cheek, dislodging a maggot that had stuck there from the slime of the birth.

It was a boy.

THE HAND THAT FEEDS

“Hey, Papa? Will you tell us the story about when you were in prison again?” The boy rested his elbows on his knees, his eyes sparkling with mischief.

“Now, Bud, I wasn’t
in
prison. I just worked there.”

“Yeah, Papa. Tell us the story about when you and Nana worked at the prison.” The girl set down the fashion magazine she had been flipping through and smiled. “It’s my favorite.”

“I don’t know. Your mama doesn’t like it when I tell that story.”

“Mama’s not here,” the boy stated sensibly.

“What she doesn’t know won’t hurt her. We won’t tell.” The girl chimed in.