He closed his eyes and tried not to let his claustrophobia get the better of him. Tobias had warned him not to submit himself to the procedure so many times—they didn’t know what kind of damage it would cause. They had no idea. Tobias had done it three times already, and that was enough, he insisted. As a matter of fact, he claimed to be able to continue his work without the aid of the machine. “I am the machine,” he told Will, which on the face of it was absurd.
Now he lay very still in a cone of light, his mind casting about for small, neat answers. He wanted to hold the key to the past in his hand. The contraption was too big, too loud, too bulky, too complicated. Tobias thought the machine had transferred its power to him, and there was no need to go back inside. But Will needed more assurances than that.
He toggled the switch, and the machine roared to life. He felt the hairs rising everywhere on his body. His blood slowly warmed as the machine began to chug and pulse. Will felt an electric current pass through him—it was happening. This was it. He held his breath. Maybe this time it would work.
*
October 20, 1966—Boston, Massachusetts
Tobias loved how big and round his wife had become, how pleasingly full her breasts were. She had an appetizingly plump face with big wide innocent eyes and a red bud of a mouth. She was fun to kiss—it made the babies kick.
He couldn’t help working ridiculously late hours at the lab, and then crawling into bed and falling dead asleep. He set the alarm so that he would wake up early enough to be able to spend some time with his wife. The pink of early morning matched the pink of her cheeks.
The leaves blazed for a time, then faded and fell. Wood smoke braided from the chimneys. Estelle took her heavy Norwegian sweaters out of storage and walked around the house smelling faintly of mothballs. She put fresh cut flowers in the front foyer. She made popcorn balls in anticipation of Halloween. She knitted a pair of orange booties.
One day, she called him at the lab. “Tobias?” she gasped. “I’m having contractions.”
“That can’t be,” he insisted. “It’s too soon.”
“I can’t move. I’m going into labor. Come home!”
He took the fire stairs out of the redbrick building, too impatient to wait for the elevators. He drove home, cursing all the red lights and speeding through the yellow lights. The clouds were bunched along the horizon. It had been sunny all morning, but now it looked like rain. It looked like impending doom. The wind was blowing the yellow leaves off the trees. He veered to a halt in the driveway, hurried up the walkway and pushed through the front door. “Estelle?”
A pot of tea was steeping on the kitchen counter.
He heard her moaning upstairs.
He took the stairs two at a time. She was sitting up in bed, her entire frame shuddering. “Estelle?”
She looked up, startled by the sound of his voice. “I’m having them, Toby. They’re coming.”
He ran to her side, grasped her around the middle and held on tight.
She wore a greasy, tired look. There was a pearly translucence to her skin. She rested her weight against him, her voice breaking into fragments. “I’m having… contractions, Toby. What are we… supposed to do?”
“Everything’s going to be all right,” he promised. He looked across the hallway at the baby’s room. Estelle had chosen the curtains herself and had sewn matching crib sheets and valances. She’d purchased the baby’s brand new toys from Sears Robuck—a musical jumperoo, a carousel with colored lights, a peek-a-boo mobile. “We need to get you to the hospital.”
She sat forward abruptly, shivering and rubbing her arms. The change in her was palpable. She became so drawn and pale it frightened him.
“What’s wrong, Estelle?”
She clenched her hands into fists to keep them from trembling. Her eyes were glazed with fever. “I’m so cold all of a sudden.”
He draped his arms loosely around her and kissed her and said, “I’ll get you another blanket. I’ll be right back.” He got off the bed.
“Oh no,” she said, clutching her belly. “Oh no.”
“Estelle?”
Her forehead grew pinched. She pulled the quilt up to her chin and curled herself into a ball. A luminous hush filled the room. It began to rain. He listened to the rain falling in a steady downpour.
“Toby, something’s wrong,” she wailed.
“Estelle? Estelle?” He sat down next to her and held her while she writhed and groaned. He rubbed her back and felt the little prickles all over his skin. “What’s is it? What’s going on?”
“I’m having them!” She stared at him, incredulous. “They’re coming!”
The rain swelled. A collective shiver ran through them.
And then she went into convulsions.
She kicked off the covers as if she were burning alive. She screamed, and suddenly there was a pool of blood.
“Oh my God!” He jumped up. He didn’t know what to do.
She pulled off her panties, pulled up her nightgown, raised her legs on the bed and started to push. She screamed and writhed and pushed. There was so much blood between her legs that he thought she was dying. And then he saw something else—some form, some small oozing shape coated in gelatinous slime.
“Toby!” she screamed. “Do something!”
“What?” he shouted back, as if she were asking the impossible.
“The babies! Don’t let them die!”
He went over to the little mass that plopped out onto the mattress and scooped it up. It was like holding a small pile of hot bloody innards. The baby had a crumpled face and strangely pointed ears. The eyes were closed tight to the world. It wrapped its little fingers around his thumbs and clung for dear life. Its toes were like miniature peanuts. It had flawless legs. It had a tail. Fear rained through him—it poured through him like water.
“Oh Estelle,” he said softly, apologetically.
“Is it alive?” she gasped from the bed.
“Yes. Oh my God…”
“What is it, Toby?”
The thing squirmed impatiently in his arms, burning to live; trying to stretch and grow. It wanted life, he could tell. It opened its eyes, and all he saw were two fierce yellow irises embedded in deep sockets. It blinked furiously at him. And then it did something so unexpected, Tobias almost dropped it. The little creature growled at him. He held it away from his body, anxious to put it somewhere. It twisted in his arms, trying to escape, but he couldn’t let it go. What was it? What the hell was it? “Oh God.”
“Toby, what is it?” She gripped the edges of the mattress. Wonder and horror washed across her face simultaneously.
The baby stirred in his arms. The smell of blood was unmistakable.
“Oh my God,” he said, backing away from her. He couldn’t let her see it.
“What’s wrong?”
He looked around the room, then heard another scream. Estelle was having the other baby.
“Toby, the other one’s coming!”
He looked around for a place to set the creature down, this thing, this poor deformed child. He looked around the room, and then it bit him, and he shouted and dropped it. He dropped the baby on the floor! He gasped. He went to reach for it, but it made a rabid barking sound, the sick sound of a wild dog, its wretched voice like a hot wire threading through his heart. Oh God. How terrible. He stared at the thing—it was writhing on the floor, having seizures and rasping, hissing, barking. He could see the little tail and the pointed ears, and he remembered his wife’s wish just then… and he looked at her in horror.
She was staring down at the baby on the floor. She looked up at her husband with utter despair on her face and asked, “What is that?”
He couldn’t respond. How did you find the words?
She gaped at him. And then she screamed, and the second one came out.
Tobias went over to the bed and scooped up the little girl, the other twin, thinking it would be the same, only it wasn’t. This one was tiny and weak. No pointed ears, no tail. Bloody all over, so he lifted the hem of the sheet and used it to wipe away the blood from her face so that she could breath. She curled like a cat in his arms, nuzzling against him for warmth. So different from her brother. Like night and day.
Oh Toby. Two babies, of course! A little devil and a little angel!
The revelation hit him full force. Very carefully he turned the baby over and saw that she had wings growing out of her back, small useless appendages with a few wet scraggly feathers. The child cried out weakly, and this triggered something in her brother. The creature on the floor started barking in a hoarse angry voice that sent chills through Tobias and his wife. So horrifying it was. And it watched them with menace in its eyes, and now it was trying to crawl across the floor. It was unbelievably frightening.
“Oh God… oh no.” Estelle, pale and wan, pointed at the baby from the bed. “What is it, Toby? What’s wrong?”
He knew what he had to do. He held the little girl baby, the newborn angel, smoothing the soft spot on the back of her head with his finger. He glanced across the hallway at the baby’s room—stackable donut rings, a plastic push-toy that went
pop-pop-pop
. He carried her into the other room and could feel the heat coming from her tiny body. He was astounded at the way she moved and fought her discomfort. It was a lot of resistance from such a tiny little person. He stood among the brand new toys and diapers, the crib and bassinet, breathing softly from some hopeful place. Maybe things would turn out okay? Maybe they could get through this?
He moved slowly toward the crib, while the baby fussed and clutched at him, and Tobias held onto her moist little hand for as long as he could. Very gently, he released it onto the bedding.
Then he turned and went back into the room, hope draining slowly from his soul. There it was on the floor. His body began to tremble. He drew his breath in hitches. His legs barely held him upright. He studied the creature for a moment. It seemed to be in terrible pain. Writhing and screaming. Tobias knelt on the floor next to it and tried to console it, but it snapped at him again. He glanced at Estelle, and they locked eyes, and they both knew what had to be done. They were out of options.
Estelle whispered, “It’s what I asked for, Toby. Just what I asked for.”
“Shh. Lie down.”
“A little devil, I said.”
“I know. I’ll deal with this. Then I’m taking you to the hospital.”
“Oh no, Toby,” she cried, horror-stricken. “What did we do?”
“Lie down. Close your eyes. I’ll be right back.”
As he rounded the side of the bed, she grabbed his wrist and squeezed. “Where are you going?”
He held his wife still by the shoulders. “I’m doing what I have to do.”
“No.” Her eyes widened with outrage. “All our hard work.” She blinked furiously at him.
“Stay here. Don’t move. I’ll be right back.” He hurried out of the room, tripped down the stairs, shot out of the house and stumbled into the back yard. He let the rain pour down on his head—he didn’t even feel it. He’d been chopping wood for the coming winter, and he yanked the axe out of the rotten log and went back inside. He took the stairs one steady step at a time, adjusting the axe in his hands, searching for a better grip, and then he walked into the room and just stood there watching it struggle. Watching it crawl across the floor. Watching it growl and spit. Watching it suffer.
“What’s
wrong
with it?” his wife cried. “What is it, Toby?”
“Shh. Lie down and close your eyes.”
She stared at him. She was so pale. “I love you,” she rasped before collapsing back against her pillow.
“Close your eyes, sweetie,” he told her. “This will be over soon.”
He went over to the thing, and tried to think of a reason not to kill it. Any reason at all. The creature was writhing around in a pool of its own vomit, hissing and choking for breath. It could see him. It understood what was happening—Tobias was sure of this. There was a spooky intelligence in those strange yellow eyes. He was going to murder his own son. He bent down and held out his hand, hoping one last time that none of this was true. Perhaps a mistake? Perhaps a dream? Maybe it wasn’t actually happening? Maybe something could change his mind?
The creature lunged for his finger and snapped its jaws. It had ragged little teeth. Bloody mouth. Veined yellow eyes. Unlike any baby he’d ever seen. Real babies didn’t look that way. They didn’t act like this.
He jumped to his feet and swung the axe. It only took one blow. He sliced the thing in half, and it was over. The creature was dead.
*
August 17, 1966—Hope Hollow
The sky at dawn was platinum. The sun’s rays flattened her most ambitious intentions. Charlotte instinctively hid from the daylight. She huddled inside the house she had bought with the money she’d squirreled away, along with the inheritance from her grandmother. She was curled in a fetal position on the floor. Inhaling a resin-and-pine-needles smell. Sticky. Gummy. Nothing was more disturbing than the invisible crawl of insight—revelation upon revelation. Whatever her husband had been doing all those years was inside of her now. Pumping through her veins. Perhaps it was better not to know. Better to ignore the things she could not help. She had been lied to. Deceived. And now here she was. Alone.
It felt as if a door had been pulled shut. The world had become fuzzy. There was a slow blurring of reality, a gradual distancing and diminishment. She looked at her own slender hands, at the dimming away of herself.
She was not human anymore. Could it possibly be true?
Twins, the doctor had said. Two girls.
She was overcome with grief. She sobbed so hard she wondered who was making all that noise. Her stomach was in free-fall. She dreaded the end of the day, when the sky bled red, and twilight descended, and the stars came out. She looked out one of the curtainless windows and spotted the first star of the evening and made a fervent wish—please make me human again.
Why did she think she was no longer human?
Because she knew. She just knew.
Whatever her husband had been doing had gotten into her. Through the children.
Her body was no longer hers.
The children were his—despite all the vicious things he’d accused her of.