The Birthing House Read online

  He found the light switch. The overhead Vita-Lites flickered and cold white filled the room.

  Jo turned, chest heaving, hair in her face.

  ‘This is stupid. I’m not going to hurt you,’ he said.

  Jo’s eyes shot to something on the other side of the cages. Her face contorted and the room was silent.

  ‘Jo?’

  Her scream erupted, an inhuman sound. He looked around, her screams fanning out as he tried to understand what, besides her stupid husband, was upsetting her so. She sounded like she was being impaled.

  He saw the cages. He saw the snakes, black and sleek. One stretched out across the branches he’d built into the walls of its home. Another, lower, coiled like a fire hose, its head resting at the center of the nest it had made of its own body.

  He saw the incubator smashed on the floor, the black vermiculite soil spread out in wet clumps, the leathery eggs destroyed, their slug-like contents oozed and congealed on the floor.

  Somebody had sabotaged the eggs.

  Oh, fuckers. Murderous motherfucking whores!

  Jo was still screaming.

  He turned away from Shadow’s ruined clutch. His eyes roamed across the cages and higher, to the corner of the garage where the hooks had been bolted into the wooden ceiling beams, the rubber hooks for hanging bicycles.

  A yard of cord came down stretched taut. There the hands were bound by the same black rope. The arms, stretched until the shoulders had dislocated, were bruised all the way down and into the milk-white skin of her naked torso. Can’t see shouldn’t see don’t want to see the face cover your eyes don’t let her see you with the black eyes. Her breasts were full, engorged. Not black eyes. Black around her head. She was blindfolded, and later, when he had time to process such things, he would realize that had been an act of mercy.

  Nadia’s belly bulged, and the gash ran from under her breastplate to the pubis. Her intestines were strewn about, leaving what he could only assume to be her womb, ovaries and the rest of her organs spread between her knees, the tops of which touched the blood-soaked floor. Her legs were tucked behind her, the feet like the hands, bound and swollen purple.

  He was walking in it. He saw his red sandals merge with the blood congealed and so thick the skin broke like the top of a Jell-O mold. To one side lay one of the stainless-steel gaffs for handling the serpents. It was caked with blood and more of her grue.

  Our Eden.

  Nadia’s mouth hung open, her teeth exposed. His mind shortcircuited and he knew that he needed to stop the screaming but he could not move. It wasn’t only that she was here and cut this way. A deeper part of him was not surprised to find her here at all. It was more the problem of how could it be, her insides all torn out like that, strung in this tableau pose, when she had seemed so alive just a short while ago and now he could still hear her screaming, screaming for the baby that had been so callously removed before its due date.

  37

  As her screams wound down and became whimpers and then one long chain of suffering breaths, he used the garden shears to cut the rope. The body slumped cruelly on to its face. He used the dirty plastic tarp to cover her naked back and buttocks. He knew that she deserved better, but there wasn’t time for any of that now. Whatever fate had befallen Nadia Grum was irreversible.

  His wife was here. Alive.

  Jo was on her feet, swaying. Her face was wet with tears and mucus. Her eyes were wide from shock and red, her skin gaunt. Her entire body was under siege, the cords in her neck like cables on a suspension bridge as the earth quaked and threatened to tear her asunder. Her teeth were literally clacking. He understood the next few minutes - maybe seconds - would determine the rest of their lives and possibly end one or both of them.

  He took a step toward her with his palms up, and she jerked back, slamming into the metal garage door with a nerve-jangling clatter. He stopped, but left his hands up high. He did not realize he was crying until he spoke.

  ‘Jo, I did not do this. Please, don’t run away. I swear to you, on the lives of our dogs, on my mother’s soul. I did not hurt this girl. This is the first time I have seen her since she was alive in our house two days ago. I am begging you to believe me one last time. I did not hurt this girl. I did not do this.’

  He was not sure she could even hear him. The way her eyes were roving around, he suspected she might be hearing him but not seeing him.

  ‘Joanna? Joanna Harrison. Joanna Keene,’ he said, using her maiden name. ‘I did not do this. A monster did this. I’m not a monster.’

  But did he know that for sure? The past weeks were a blur of nightmares and strange changes. Someone had brought the knife into the bedroom. Nadia had been talking in another woman’s voice. Alma’s voice. But she couldn’t have done this to herself - this required brute strength. Was it possible Alma had taken him over, moved him to act upon her cruel justice?

  No, he would not accept that. He stepped forward, reaching for her.

  ‘Stay away from me. You stay away!’

  He kept his hands at his sides. She began to shuffle sideways but could not bring herself to abandon the hard surface of the metal door against her back. She moved on shaking legs, inching across the garage, her eyes hot and accusing.

  ‘I won’t hurt you. Please don’t go. I won’t ever make you do anything again, but please listen to me before you run away.’

  She had reached the end of the wall and found herself in another corner. Rushing past him on either side would require passing within arm’s reach. It appeared to be a risk she was not ready to take.

  ‘Someone else was here. The mirrors. She came in and broke them like she didn’t want to be seen. She left a knife outside the bedroom door, Jo. She wanted Nadia to run away. She said it was her turn to be a mother. Alma! She said her name was Alma. I’ve seen her. She keeps coming back for the babies. I don’t understand what’s happening here, but you have to believe me, Jo. I didn’t do this. I didn’t do this!’

  Her eyes locked on him. ‘K-K-killed her. You killed her. You’re s-s-sick, a sick man. Don’t move or I will tell on you. I will tell them what you did.’

  She snatched a scrap of fence lumber from the floor. A plank of treated green pine perhaps three feet long and sharp at one end.

  His legs buckled and he sat down hard on the floor. Show no aggression, only compliance. It’s your only chance.

  ‘See? I’m not. I won’t do anything.’

  She lunged from the corner and stabbed the wood at him as she ran by him, up the steps, out the door.

  She’s going, she ran away, she’s going now, she’s gone gone gone forever now - forever -

  - unless you stop her.

  No. Let her go. It didn’t work.

  And you’re going to be in Hell eternal unless you make it work.

  He was out of plans, but he went after her just the same.

  38

  When he stepped into the backyard the sky had turned from blue to a darkening gray slate. He walked until he could no longer stand his thoughts - what is she doing, who is she calling, where will she go - and then broke into a run.

  He had crossed the deck and hooked around the back porch, halting when he saw movement down low. For an insane second, and they were all insane now, he thought the house was swallowing her alive. Her feet were kicking and shoving against the porch boards as her body was pulled through the dog door.

  Then he understood that she had no other way in but to crawl through. He could hear the dogs barking inside, but it was a hollow sound, buried behind the walls.

  He ran forward as her bare feet disappeared and the little plastic flap’s magnet snicked into place. He tried the knob and indeed it was locked.

  The gate. Why hadn’t she used the gate to let herself out so she could run to the car, drive to the nearest police station or hospital? Was she going for the dogs, or a weapon?

  He yanked the bolt on the gate and the wood screeched as it swung inward. He ran past the garbage cans
around the side of the house. He slowed in case the neighbors had one eye out the window. He was relieved to find no one in the front yard, no patrol cars arriving with strobing lights to take him way.

  The insulation. You insulated the garage to keep the snakes warm. No wonder everything was normal on the block; they couldn’t hear her scream. Yes, and you couldn’t hear Nadia screaming either, could you? How convenient. You were the one who ordered the garage insulated, just before you lured the girl next door into your twisted fantasy.

  Stop it! Stop that shit right now!

  He came through the front door. The dogs were barking from the basement. Jo was bent over the kitchen sink, retching herself empty. Again. He closed the door behind him and she turned around, snatching the same long serrated knife from the counter. The note that said ‘other mother must go’ was gone. Her face was pale, her mouth dripping water and a yellow trail of bile. Some of it stuck in clumps in her once beautiful hair.

  See what you have done? Turned your beautiful wife into a monster.

  ‘Jo, stop this. Someone’s going to get hurt.’

  She stabbed the knife out like a spear. ‘Don’t fucking move!’

  ‘I’m not!’ He stopped behind the threshold. ‘Your fingerprints are all over it now.’

  Her expression changed. Some new wave of disgust that he would try to implicate her. She lashed out with the knife twice more, but she was too far back to cut him.

  ‘What are you doing? Will you at least tell me that?’

  ‘Stay away from me!’

  The dogs whined from the basement.

  ‘You had to crawl through the dog door, Jo. Do you think I actually remembered to lock up before I chased you into the yard? And who put the dogs in the basement? Don’t be crazy. Someone was here. They could be here now.’

  She opened the basement door. The dogs scrambled out, and he knelt before they could get a handle on the menace building between mistress and master. They might sense danger, smell blood and take up sides. If they did, he had no doubt whose they would choose. Between his six-foot wife and the hundred pounds of street mutt, he wouldn’t live to see his way into a jail cell.

  He reached for them. ‘Alice, Luther, it’s okay now, come here—’

  ‘Don’t touch them!’

  The dogs jumped and pushed off her like she was holding Snausages instead of a knife.

  ‘God damn it, put that down, you’re going to cut them,’ he said, stepping in.

  She came at him with the knife waist-high, jousting. He sucked in his breath and leaned back on his heels. The knife swooped at his chest and the blade glanced off the doorframe. He fell forward and she brought it back. He thought she was breaking for the stairs, but her arm went forward once more and she put the blade into his belly as if she were trying to stop his fall. She jerked back and the knife was standing out of him like diving board.

  ‘See!’ she said, staring at the knife in him.

  The pain going in was like a punch, and then it was hot, searing him. Conrad hissed, glancing down. It was off to one side, but it was in more than halfway. There was very little blood.

  ‘Okay, it’s okay,’ he said, reaching for the knife. But when he touched the handle the burning shot through his guts and made it impossible to move.

  ‘Oh my God,’ she said.

  ‘Baby, I can’t . . . walk.’

  Her face was a mask of horror and shock, and then neither. She remained still, a dead calm descending over her, into her. Her features slackened, became blank. She wasn’t crying, he noticed. Not even breathing hard now.

  The dogs whined, sniffing something new, and then backed away, growling at her. Conrad stared at his dogs, their dogs. They had never been afraid of her before.

  Jo’s eyes had gone cold, dead-black as they had been in the tub. As they were in the photo from a century past. He remembered the figure in the backyard, dragging something on the ground. He remembered how confused she had been about coming home, how out of it she had been until after she left house to talk with the neighbors. The change that had come over her then, as if something was leaving her. She had vomited in the yard. How she’d come out of the bathroom a changed woman. Ever since she had come home, this duality had been inside her. One woman fighting the other. The red crusts under her fingernails were not from her miscarriage. Now, too late, he finally understood what had happened to Nadia.

  Jo had come home, and Alma had found a new home.

  ‘Jo. . . ?’ He coughed, and the tightening of his abdominals seared him all over again. ‘Aw, no, Jo . . .’

  She walked forward in three halting steps, her movements stilted. Her hand was steady and she placed it on the handle.

  ‘Comes,’ she said, her voice grown much older and much colder. ‘Comes the time Nah-dee join the red hair of fire.’

  ‘You didn’t,’ he said. ‘Please say you—’

  ‘Alma turn.’

  ‘Jo . . . ’

  ‘Alma git rid Connie’s lil’ whore . . . now Connie be righteous father.’

  She was smiling. Mother of God, this monster inside of his wife was smiling. He waited, pleading with her, searching for the woman he had known.

  She looked into his eyes, into his soul.

  He inhaled long and slow for one last attempt to reach her. The pain was glorious. Her face was inches from his mouth.

  ‘Joanna come back!’

  ‘Noooo . . .’ Alma’s voice cracked, and he could swear then that she was still there, fighting this thing inside of her until the one that wanted to keep him alive lost the battle to the one that wished him dead.

  And that was his mistake, because Alma did not wish him dead.

  Alma wanted a father for her behbee.

  ‘I won’t tell—’ he began.

  Jo blinked. His wife saw him for the monster she thought he was.

  ‘Murderer,’ she said and twisted the knife once, ruining something inside, then yanked it free. Blood poured, wetting his pants.

  He screamed but no sound escaped his lips.

  ‘Oh my,’ his wife whispered, backing away from him. She was still holding the knife as her eyes rolled back in her head and she turned away and stumbled up the butler stairs. The dogs followed close on her heels.

  ‘Don’t leave,’ he said, dribbling pink spittle.

  The pain was enormous, a star. He was on fire from his knees to his throat. Urine leaked out, hot against his leg. He didn’t want to die here. Not like this. Not at all. Not alone. He wanted to be with her. He knew he’d been bad, but she could help him die. She could do that. And though it blinded him, when he focused and bit through his cheek, he found that he could move after all.

  He began to climb the stairs. He could hear her stomping through the library. With the dogs in tow, thudding on the floorboards.

  She screamed. Once hard and sharp, followed by a second scream that went off like an air raid siren.

  He was halfway up when the second scream froze him on the landing. Even in his dizzy, searing state he was certain the first scream had not been his wife’s. Jo’s was the second, the one that was still going in a great winding wail.

  The first scream belonged to someone else.

  ‘Aw, no,’ he moaned. ‘Nah, nah . . .’

  The dogs began barking furiously and he lunged up, taking the six remaining stairs in two steps, snapping the handrail free of the wall as he hit the second floor and tripped, sprawling in his blood.

  Claws scrabbling on wood. Jo struggling, fighting Alma. More barking.

  A hoarse, animal voice. ‘Get out of my house!’

  ‘Leave me alone!’ his wife shrieked.

  ‘Alma save the behbeeeee!’ she screamed.

  The thump and crash of dead weight hitting the floor.

  He was on his feet again, halfway down the hall. He could see across the library into the slit of the other doorframe where she danced, into the hall where the black maple banister curled all the way around.

  The dogs have
gone into a bloodlust. They’re attacking her.

  He loped, his guts boiling. Seconds stretched into minutes.

  ‘Jo! I’m coming.’

  His shoulder hit a shelf, knocking books to the floor.

  Through the doorframe on the other side he saw a flash of gray skin. The curl of black cloth. The dogs jumping, gnashing. Jo’s pink sweatpants kicking out. The whole mass twisting, flashing out of view.

  Falling . . .

  ‘Jo!’

  He made it across the library but the dogs were pulling and pushing her in a frenzy. He had time to see the knife on the floor and her arm yanked back -

  ‘Justin Gundry Justin Gundry,’ the darker voice screamed. - as she slipped from between the dogs and he lunged, his fingers missing her shirt by inches as she fell over. He reached out but his hips connected with the banister and stopped him from going down with her.

  He was stuck watching, their eyes meeting for the last time as she arced back, her long body bowing as she tilted head first, sliding down in some gymnast’s move gone awry. For the next few feet she seemed to hover like that, sliding down in perfect balance, the banister pressed into the small of her back like a fulcrum while her body made up its mind which way to go. Gravity chose for her. Her upper body was where all the weight lived and it sunk first.

  The dogs raced after her down the stairs, but even they could not stop her momentum as she back-flipped head first over the banister and dropped the remaining ten feet on to the wood floor. He heard her neck. It was the sound of a sapling birch cracking in winter. Her body folded over itself and she came to rest looking up at him.

  The dogs went to her immediately, whining and licking her arms and neck and face.

  He stood motionless at the top of the stairs, then fell to his knees, peering through the spindles under the elbow of the banister. He watched the stain spread through the crotch of her pink sweatpants, her body releasing what it no longer needed.

  But for the sound of the dogs lapping at her skin, the house was quiet.

  ‘I’m comee, Baby,’ he said, his speech slurred. ‘I’m onna be with you.’