Anna and I weren’t ready for kids. Not yet.
The plan, if you can even call it that, was to enjoy each other’s company for a few good years and then we could discuss family. I was open to the idea of having kids of my own one day, but I wanted to really enjoy time with my new wife. I knew how my own mom had struggled with raising me and my brothers at a young age due to an unexpected pregnancy and winding up a single parent because my dad walked out on her.
I didn’t want to repeat those same mistakes.
Anna, however, became swept up in baby fever when she met a woman named Bridget at a local park. I think that the two hit it off playing tennis or something and they became friends. We had just moved to this little town and Anna was always a social butterfly. Anna explained after getting to know Bridget that she had been practicing to become a midwife, something that in this day and age was hardly common anymore. And once they became closer friends Bridget even told her she would be there to help Anna during the birth.
I didn’t think much of their idle talk. I figured that it was all conjecture as long as Anna was on birth control.
Then one day she showed me the results of a pregnancy strip. Positive. I was floored. I thought this would never happen to me until I was ready.
She announced she had to call Bridget immediately to tell her the good news, but my mind was spinning about how difficult this pregnancy was going to be for us.
First there was the matter of finances. I knew that taking care of a newborn was no small task. The hospital bill alone would put us into bankruptcy. And then there was the pandemic. Everything was uncertain and even going to a medical facility seemed like it was akin to signing your death certificate.
Bridget had a solution that seemed to resolve both of my concerns: home birth. Admittedly it had never even crossed my mind.
“We didn’t always have fancy doctors that charged us an arm and leg for birthing. Mother Nature took its course and we learned how to handle things as they came,” she explained.
I had my concerns, but she had already convinced Anna. This would not only save us money, but be safer for the baby as long as we did what was necessary to prepare.
So we began to watch every video on the subject online, read any google article we could and Anna even joined chat rooms to see how other women did it.
Bridget told us though that none of that would really apply to our situation, especially since we didn’t know very many people in the area.
It would literally be just me, my wife and her. “If you’ll have me there, of course. I don’t want to impose,” she said with the softest of smiles.
“I wouldn’t dare try to handle this on my own. You’re the expert,” I told her.
I did try to contact my parents to see if they could come and stay while I worked during the second trimester because Anna became bedridden, but Covid interrupted those plans too.
“Your dad tested positive and we would never forgive ourselves if something happened to the baby… by the way do you know if it’s a boy or a girl yet?” Mom asked.
I shook my head and laughed. “Mom, I already told you, we didn’t do an ultrasound. It’s going to be a surprise.”
“I’m sure there must be some way to make sure that the baby is doing all right though, completely healthy I mean,” she said.
“Bridget has offered to come stay with us until the birth. I think I might take her up on the offer so she can attend to Anna,” I told her.
Mom wasn’t too keen on that idea.
“I don’t know Ryan, I mean you don’t really know her that well do you?”
“It’s been a good few months since we moved here and she’s really the only friend that Anna has made,” I told her but something about mom’s tone worried me. My mom was an excellent judge of character, so I told her that I would consider carefully Bridget’s proposal.
But all of that was tossed out the window about a week later when Anna became very sick. I was sure it was Covid and I wanted to rush her to the hospital emergency room.
“Doing that would compromise her immune system and the baby,” Bridget told me, and added, “I can brew something up. I have a remedy for everything.”
An hour or so later she came back with a bowl of broth; some sort of oils and a vaporize along with other homeopathic remedies I wasn’t too familiar with.
“Ryan, I know you want to watch after her but I think a few days of isolation will do her good,” Bridget told me.
Of course I trusted her judgement and checked on my wife from a distance. Her condition didn’t sound good. Either Anna was shaking from a seizure or throwing up as Bridget worked tirelessly to cure her. Often she would mumble under her breath how the baby was draining Anna of life itself and I tried to inquire further but she insisted it would be fine.
“This is just a test. We shall see it through,” she responded. I wanted both my wife and child to be fine, fearful that I would soon have to choose one or the other. Thankfully though that nightmare never materialized and I had Bridget to thank.
Now I was in her debt and felt obligated to let her stay.
“I couldn’t bear to have something happen again and you not be here,” I explained.
She agreed and moved in right after the third trimester, converting our master bedroom until a birthing pod for the newborn.
According to the majority of the studies we had seen, having Anna give birth while submerged seemed like the smartest move so I wasn’t surprised when Bridget told me that I needed to purchase some kind of wading pool.
“Shouldn’t we wait until it’s almost due?” I asked her. Anna still had a few months to go, and I hated to think of my bedroom being transformed so drastically.
“We need to do what is best for the child,” Bridget told me. And my wife listened to any request she made, so I soon felt powerless in my own home.
Bridget also brought trinkets, items like dream catchers and other superstitious stuff that she told me would provide us good fortune for the birth. It was beginning to concern me that anything she said Anna would do.
I tried to talk to my wife about it several times during those weeks leading up to the birth, but Bridget was almost always within earshot. And the few times when we were alone, Anna was so weak from morning sickness and other pregnancy complications I didn’t want to stress her out any further.
Truth be told I was beginning to worry about this home birth idea altogether.
Screw the cost, I wanted to be sure my wife would live through the process. It was clear that this was going to be the hardest thing she had ever done.
My mom kindly reminded me that I still didn’t really know Bridget. “What is her track record? She says she is a midwife but how many successful pregnancies has she been a part of? You need to make sure Ryan. This is your child we are talking about.”
One afternoon I managed to slip into Bridget’s purse while she was busy handling another bout of sickness from Anna, but I couldn’t hardly find anything substantial there that told me who she was.
I tried to do a bit of internet research too, but the woman hadn’t a digital footprint, or in other words if she was online I couldn’t find it.
The doubts I was having started to intensify when I came to check on them and heard Bridget chanting something. Alarm bells in my head told me it wasn’t some kind of sacred prayer and I confronted her about it.
“We need all the help we can to make sure the birth is a safe and healthy event for the child… Mother Nature is the one that is causing all of this to happen so we must appease her,” Bridget told me in the most serene voice.
She was making some kind of incense that was designed to heighten senses and relax the soul, or so she claimed. Honestly I was beginning to feel uncomfortable around her and wanted to know what her motives were. I needed to convince Anna to get to the hospital before I lost her entirely.
“The time of the birth is nearly here. A child will come into this world. I must make final preparations,” Bridget said unexpectedly one night. It was the first time I had been even in Anna’s room for about a week.
It was now or never to make my case and get her to the hospital.
Opening the door, I was struck with the most awful of sights. My wife no longer looked like the healthy vibrant woman I knew.
Her skin was sagging, hardly able to attach itself to her bones as though she had hardly had a bite to eat. And there wasn’t any fat, nor muscle to be seen. A brief image of starvation that I had seen once on television flashed across my mind, but even that wouldn’t be an apt description.
There were boils and sores across her body, some open and others festering with puss. Like a burn victim that had constantly been scratching at their sores, everywhere I looked she was but a shell of a human. All I was suffering… except near her swollen belly.
Veins snaked across her stomach like vines that were choking on a once vibrant tree, pulsing rapidly as she took a breath in and out. Slowly, painfully. And whatever was under her skin would writhe, pushing itself out like it was trying to snatch one more morsel of food as it prepared to rip its way out of her body.
This couldn’t be natural. My wife was sick and desperately needed help. I didn’t care what her wishes were, so I decided to storm out and call an ambulance. I would ask for forgiveness later.
“Hello? Ryan Delmint here….” I began as I rounded the corner and stopped dead in my tracks. Bridget was standing there, watching me the way a predator does whenever they corner their victim.
Or like a mother bear trying to protect her cub, a feral instinct was taking over her when she saw what I was trying to do.
Before I could even bother to speak to her, she grabbed the phone out of my hand and tossed it to the wall with so much force that it shattered into a dozen pieces.
“And what do you think you are doing?” she snarled.
“Anna needs to get to a hospital or our child will die,” I insisted, suddenly angry and defensive and frightened. I had never seen this side of her. It was like a bottle bubbling over that couldn’t be stopped.
“That isn’t your decision, it’s her body. And you are disrespecting her wishes!” Bridget declared.
I opened the door to where Anna was wearily trying to stay awake. Or to stay alive, I wasn’t sure which. Every breath sounded as though it were strained.
As though it might be her last.
“Can’t you see that what she wants and what she needs are two different things right now? She needs to get to a hospital or we will lose them both!”
Bridget laughed. It made my hair stand on its end. She didn’t care about my wife.
And then, behind her I saw three dark figures in the door. All female, all holding what looked like ropes and straps, ready to tie Anna down the way a stock animal would be.
All they cared about was the birth of this child. Then I heard Anna begin to scream as a contraction came and rippled through her body.
“Your faith has no place here. All that matters is the child. This life is sacred and you will not interfere,” Bridget declared, a darkness covering her face. The three women were surrounding me before I could object. Grabbing my arms and pushing me back out. I tried my best to fight, but they were stronger than I anticipated. They easily could have broken my arms I think, but instead I think they wanted me to watch.
They wanted me to see what unnatural creation was about to be made.
And it was that moment of realization I realized that there was no way this could be my child.
And as the screams of my wife filled the room, I realized it was too late. I was thinking I was going to now watch her die.
The women pushed down hard on my shoulder blade enough to bruise as I saw that Bridget had brought several other strangers to my home for this event. All of them shielded me from entering the room as I frantically tried to call out to my wife. I had nothing to defend myself with. And all I could think of what the ungodly sight I was witnessing. It mesmerized me as they strapped and stretched her legs apart, pulling down her clothing and exposing her naked body as if her pride and her dignity was of no consequence.
The dead look in their eyes made it all too clear their only objective was the task of birthing this child, which even now was pushing its way out of her body.
I saw long claws that were as dark as ash scratching at the walls of her thighs, spindlely and covered with the same wretched sores I had seen all over her. There were at least five of them, the kind you might see were this a trapdoor spider emerging from its hideout.
There was a low hiss that revealed two misshapen heads, bent and broken skulls that were neatly meshed together at the neck, one slightly human and the other the face of a devil.
It looked as though the latter had affecfively been devouring what little was left of what might have been my child. It’s eyes were the strangest part, clearer than the blue sky and double irises, twitching and roaming the room in search of something.
They fell upon me and the strange abomination let out an inhuman shriek. I heard Anna’s bones break and her skin tear apart as the women around her moaned and held her down. They all had scalpels and short jagged knives, cutting at their own body and letting their blood dribble down to the carpet.
The unformed body that was pushing its way out of Anna opened its jaws wider than any animal I had seen, lapping up the blood like a newborn would milk with its grotesquely misshapen tongue. It reminded me of a charred cactus, and beyond it, in the belly of this newborn evil I could see rows and rows of teeth that stretched down its esophagus.
Using every last bit of strength I had left, I pushed one of the women away and grabbed at a chair, using it as a line of defense for these insane women. They immediately blocked the birth, waiting as Bridget finished carving some ancient rune in my wife’s forehead as I managed to reach our hallway closet.
A gun was hidden there, one I swore I would never had needed for and yet today I was thankful Anna had insisted we buy it. I used the chair to prop the closet open and retrieved the gun from behind a few old albums, aiming it toward the group of women.
I had no idea how much ammo might be in it but I swore it would have to be enough.
Bridget was humming to the strange creature that lurched and slipped onto the carpet, it’s legs covered in mucus and leftover afterbirth that was gelatinous and festering with poison. It followed and obeyed her the way a lamb might a Shepard.
“We are done here. They are of no consequence. Our kind may live on now,” she declared as the women suddenly began to scatter like cockroaches. The spider like child pushed itself over top of me, it’s twisted features a ghastly sight to see so close to my face as it licked across my cheek like a dog.
Yet this was no sign of affection, for as it finished the task barbs as sharp as needles pierced my skin and I instinctively dropped my weapon, hardly able to do anything except seize in pain.
Bridget was last to leave, looking down at my prone form with pity.
“For a body is needed for a life to be given in the Summer Courts,” she declared ominously, her eyes glimmering as bright as gold.
Then she stepped out and my vision became as dark as night.
I don’t know how long I was out, when I came to I heard the softest cries coming from the room.
Anna. Her body torn apart and her soul equally shattered, but somehow she clung to life.
I scrambled to find her own cell phone and this time made the successful call to 911.
It’s been about a month now, enough time for me to compose these thoughts and for Anna to begin seeking counseling and therapy. She is still but a hollow shell, hardly able to move or act without my assistance. And even though she is beginning to resume her normal life, I can see that her eyes are as dead as the women that took this precious moment from us. She may never be the same.
I could hardly explain things to the nurses, some of whom thought I sought her harm and I even spent a few nights in a holding cell until Anna vouched for me, but then again I have hardly understood what happened myself. We never saw Bridget again, nor do we know why she came into our lives.
The scars and broken memories are enough to last a lifetime.