Cathy Overlee was not old. But she was old enough to have made mistakes in her youth, to have made the tough decisions and to have dealt with the consequences. She had not been much older than Sara when she had had an abortion. It was not something that she was proud of—having gotten pregnant by mistake—and having the abortion seemed to have been the least of all possible evils. She did not know what might have lain in store of her had she decided instead to carry the baby—but as she looked back, she could see that having the abortion had given her the opportunity to finish pursuing her career in education, and because of that, she was able to help teach and mentor so many youths, and to find fulfillment and achieve her personal dream, which had always been to become a teacher. It had been difficult, yes, and the failures had been many, but her successes were so valuable to her that it was as though they were a part of her, as much as her hands and arms were of her physical body.
But despite these successes, and despite having made peace about the abortion, doubts continued to nag at her. Cathy had studied piano performance as an undergraduate, and although she hated to admit it, she had dreamed of being a professional performer as much as becoming a teacher. The hope, of course, seemed more and more distant as the years flew by, but she would often drum on her desk with her fingers, practicing with her hands alone to keep herself in shape should the opportunity present itself to reenter her musical life. Her hands were wiry and bony. She would often look at the ugly things and think to herself, they were once—and should be still—such tools of beauty… but now they were being wasted…
When Sara had gotten pregnant, Cathy had thought to herself that aborting the baby would have been a smarter choice, but she hadn’t wanted to get in the way of Sara’s choices, which she respected even if she didn’t agree. Anyway, she had not been on personal enough terms with Sara to make a recommendation either way. She was still not on very personal terms with her. But she wanted to be, if only to share her own life story with the hope that it might inspire Sara and enable her to find greater fulfillment later in life, perhaps even greater fulfillment than herself.
Her thoughts were interrupted as the intercom speaker, positioned directly above her desk, buzzed to direct attention.
“May I have your attention please,” came a male voice over the intercom. “This is Principal Connolly. May I have your attention immediately. We are now going into lockdown mode. This is not a drill. I repeat, this is not a drill. We are going into lockdown mode. Teachers, lock your doors and draw your blinds. Please listen for further announcements.”
Cathy’s heart leapt at the announcement. She did not have a class in her room at the moment, which relieved a little of her anxiety. But then, she remembered Sara.
She ran to the door and opened it. Sara was still outside on the walkway.
“Sara!” Cathy called.
At that moment, she looked in the direction of the construction site. She saw that the construction workers had stopped work, and were walking together en masse toward the school. They were not running, which seemed somewhat reassuring. There was clearly no imminent threat. Her mind raced with the potentialities: a bomb threat? A threat against a student? An escaped convict in the general area? (They were near a women’s correctional facility.)
Cathy beckoned to Sara with her hand. “Come on inside, quickly.”
Sara stepped quickly up the stairs and into the classroom. Cathy closed and locked the door behind her.
“What’s going on?” asked Sara.
“I don’t know.”
Cathy drew down the venetian blinds and closed them, darkening the room.
Sara instinctively took her place at the back of the room, in the orange chair that had been specially designated for her. After closing the blinds, Cathy headed back to her desk and sat. She smiled up at Sara, who smiled back, clearly anxious. Cathy was anxious too, but she turned to the work she had in front of her, scoring essays where she had left off. More than likely, the lockdown was just something they would have to wait out—a bomb scare, or something like it.
She had not gotten far before there was a loud thump. She looked up at Sara. Sara had started in surprise and turned around—the noise had seemed to come from outside, behind her. It had sounded to Cathy like something striking the window—a bird, maybe, or someone bumping into it. She had heard the noise before, from students bumping into it carelessly as they walked by the portable. It seemed louder to her now, but she guessed that it was due to her anxiety.
Sara was pale. She looked alternately at Cathy and behind herself, at the blinded windows.
Cathy said, “We can’t look out. During a lockdown, we’re supposed to have the windows blocked.”
There was another loud thump. Sara looked at Cathy almost imploringly. Cathy gestured back to her with raised, open palms and a shrug. What can I do?
Another thump.
Sara grew even more pale, and her eyes began to water.
Cathy finally rose from her desk and crossed the room, observing that she could have reduced their distance to each other sooner.
As she approached, she heard another noise: a low murmuring sound, like human voices but with an animal quality, and then she understood why Sara’s fear had appeared more extreme than the situation called for. From the other side of the room, Cathy had not heard the noises.
Then came another thump, and this time, there was no doubt that something was striking against the window.
Cathy stood and Sara sat motionless, both of them staring at the blinds, transfixed at the strange murmuring sound that came from behind them. Cathy had to fight an intense urge to pry open the blinds and look out. She turned and looked at the intercom, although she knew that looking would do no good. She looked at the clock to its side. It told the time.
Cathy drew closer to Sara and sat lightly on the edge of Sara’s table.
The glass thumped again, this time seemingly right before their staring faces, so loud and forceful that it made them both flinch.
Then, her head clearing for a moment, Cathy thought, they should get away from the windows. They should get as far away as they possibly could, to the opposite side of the room, and shelter themselves however they might.
But yet she had no idea what was on the other side of the window. Perhaps there were people outside—the construction workers, maybe. Maybe they needed shelter, and they were pounding on the windows to be let in.
Then there was the fact that she didn’t know either way what was outside those windows. What had she to fear? Yes, that was it. A being can only fear a thing it knows, and she did not know what was outside of the room, so she deduced that she was actually afraid of something she was making up in her head, some sort of abstraction to fill in the void of knowledge. If she reacted in fear before knowing all the facts, that would not be sensible, nor would it align with how she wanted to live her life. She didn’t wish to live in fear, to be controlled by it. She desired to live her life freely. She decided that she would look. She would look because she refused to be controlled by fear.
She motioned for Sara to keep her place and remain calm by gesturing with the display of her open hand. Sara looked bewildered.
Cathy moved closer to the blinds, gently put her finger to it, and pushed it up, opening a slit through which she glimpsed—
But the sight was so terrifying that she was not even sure of what she had seen. She fell back and collapsed on the floor. The image flashed through her mind repeatedly, distorted and grotesque.
Sara looked down at Cathy collapsed in a heap on the floor when suddenly something struck the window again, this time breaking the glass and bursting through. The venetian blinds rattled and a hand reached through—a blueing, mottled hand, fingers arched and clutching outward, muscles tensed and trembling violently.
Sara toppled off of her chair. The desk pushed forward, and Sara dropped to the floor. Fragments of shattered glass littered the floor around her and flecked her hair and clothes like jewels.
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Then, in rapid succession, the other windows broke. The blinds shook and other hands reached through, all desperately clutching the air before them. The murmur of voices had ascended to an agitated chorus of growls and moans.
The blinds shook and bulged—they were trying to climb in, to find their way through the narrow frames.
Cathy screamed and grabbed at Sara’s arm, taking hold of her wrist, and pulled her away from the windows with all her strength. Sara assisted by crawling on her knees until she had drawn herself beyond the table. Cathy tipped the table over on its side. It was too narrow to cover the windows at all.
“Stay out!” Cathy shouted. She grabbed a desk and attempted to brace it against the window, but the writhing hands abruptly pushed it back. She fell again, the desk rolling over her and landing upside-down on the floor.
Sara had crawled back toward the window. She grabbed the table and pulled it upright again. Cathy got up, picked up the desk, and laid it on its side on top of the table. Another push from the hands slid the desk back on the surface of the table, nearly knocking it off. In desperation, Cathy laid her hands on a heavy metal cabinet against the wall next to the row of windows and pitched it forward. It landed with a resounding thud against the edge of the table, textbooks and notebooks toppling over heavily within it. The impact threw the desk off of the table, and the cabinet came to rest at an angle, leaning against the edge of the table. The hands from outside banged against the metal loudly, but the heavy cabinet did not move. Cathy then turned and grabbed another desk, moved it quickly against the cabinet, hoping that the extra weight might provide a little more resistance. Sara did the same, sliding one desk and then another against the angled metal cabinet. The pounding grew louder and more rapid, but the cabinet held.
Adjoining the classroom was a storage closet with books. Cathy indicated it.
“In there,” she said.
Sara shook her head violently, her face pale and sweating. Her lips were lighter than her face.
“Come on. It’s safer in there. They might get through.”
Sara shook her head, this time with an intensity that rattled through her body in a shiver. “Claustrophobic,” she said.
Cathy grimaced but conceded. She put her hand on Sara’s shoulder in a gesture of consolation.
Sara looked up at her with complete fear in her eyes. The metallic pounding persisted.
Then Sara grimaced.
“Oh my God,” she said. “Oh my God.”
Cathy withdrew her hand as though her touch were responsible for the outcry.
“What is it?” Cathy asked, even though she already had an idea.
“That was a contraction… I think it was a contraction…”
Cathy held out her hands to put them on her shoulders again, but stopped midway through the gesture and abandoned it.
“What can I do?” she asked.
“I don’t know!” Sara said, her voice straining. She grimaced and bent over again. She backed away and got on her hands and knees, hanging her head between her arms. She exhaled in relief as the contraction passed.
The hands pounded relentlessly on the metal cabinet. The door rattled.
Sara moaned, a deep, resonant, animal-like howl, and pitched her back down at an angle, her rear in the air, her hands stretched before her.
Cathy had been wringing her hands, and as she realized what she had been doing, she clutched each hand with the other to stop the absurd, useless motion.
Sara put her head on the floor when the contraction had finished, and breathed deeply. “It hurts,” she said. “It hurts… Oh my God…”
She rolled onto her back with what appeared to be great effort. Grimacing, she bent one leg up toward her and stretched her arm downward to remove her shoe. Cathy rushed to her aid and quickly removed the other shoe. Sara pulled her shirt over her mountainous belly and slid her pants down from her waist. Cathy assisted her, pulling the pants down and removing them. She looked about her classroom for anything that might be of assistance to them, but she did not really know what to look for.
The carpet was rough and dirty, digging into Cathy’s hand as she knelt to assist Sara, particles of dirt clinging to her sweating palm. She got up and went to the wall and began removing the posters from all around the room. She began with the fractal designs, and then moved on to the others—“Live life to the fullest”—“Star in your own life”—“Mistakes are forgivable”—
She brought them to where Sara was and spread them out on the floor, overlapping the edges so that they formed something of a smooth, clean surface. She wrapped her arm around the small of Sara’s back and assisted her, crawling, to the posters.
Another contraction came, and Sara writhed on the floor, now on her side, but this time, instead of a low moan, she emitted a terrible, high-pitched scream. Her breathing came faster. When the contraction had finished, she looked with terrified eyes darting aimlessly around the room. “Oh my God…”
Cathy rubbed her upper back in small, quick circles. “That’s it,” she said helpfully. “You’re doing great…”
The beating at the cabinet had only grown stronger, and the door still rattled. But now it seemed that the hands were beating all around the portable, not just at the windows—the thuds reverberated through every wall, filling the air with the sound of their pounding. Cathy realized at this point that whomever or whatever they were, they were never going to stop.
Sara emitted an abrupt scream as clear fluid gushed out of her.
“I think that was your water breaking,” Cathy said. “You’re getting there. You’re doing great.”
Sara’s breathing had continued to quicken. She took in short panting breaths like a dog, vocalizing a little on each exhalation. The vocalizations crescendoed into louder screams, and her body began to writhe violently.
“Oh my God, it hurts so much…” she said.
Blood oozed onto the posters, sliding over the slick surface.
Sara began to writhe almost uncontrollably. Cathy quickened the motion of her hand on Sara’s back, although Sara’s writhing made it difficult to keep her hand on it. Cathy shushed her.
Finally, Sara stopped. Through grit teeth, she screamed more loudly than she had yet. Her face flushed deep red and her eyes squeezed shut, tears rolling out of them. Cathy looked down and saw what appeared to be a sliver of the crown of the baby’s head.
“I can see the baby, Sara! I can see the baby!”
Sara stopped and looked at her, her dilated eyes bleary and bloodshot. “Really?” she panted.
“Yes, I can see it!”
Sara rolled onto her back, propping herself up by her arms. She screamed again. From Sara’s new position, Cathy could see the muscles clench in her belly. Sara’s arms shook, and her body trembled. The crown of the baby’s head seemed hardly to move at all. The blood was dripping steadily. It had flowed off of the posters and was pooling onto the carpet nearby.
“You’re doing great,” Cathy said.
Sara contracted again, immediately following on the previous one. She dropped back onto her elbows, pitched her head back, and screamed again. The baby’s head remained the same—in fact, to Cathy, it seemed almost to have shrunk in size.
“You’re doing great,” she said again.
Sara rolled onto her side, launching into another contraction. The flow of blood had increased from a steady drip to something more like a stream. The stain on the carpet had spread considerably. The amount was alarming. But Cathy knew that she shouldn’t say anything, so she continued to be encouraging.
“You’re doing great.”
Sara was exhausted and lay on the ground as though asleep. Cathy would have thought she were dead if it weren’t for her breathing. She looked pale again, although now some red blotches from burst vessels stood out on her face.
The pounding on the walls, the door, and the cabinet continued, but Sara seemed entirely unaware in her exhaustion. In the lull, Cathy realized that she was trembli
ng all over.
Then Sara seemed to awaken and threw herself into another contraction.
“That’s it,” Cathy said. “Push.”
At this encouragement, Sara clenched her teeth together and squeezed her eyes shut. She bellowed with the contraction, the force and volume of it shocking to Cathy. The baby’s head moved forward very slowly, despite the tremendous force with which Sara was pushing it outward.
Then suddenly, in the middle of the contraction, Sara yelped again with the same high-pitched scream as before and recoiled as if at some sudden, stabbing pain or shock. Cathy looked at her, bewildered.
“You’re doing great,” she said.
Sara shook her head. “No,” she said. “No. It’s not working. There’s something wrong.”
She collapsed, again assuming the appearance of sleep.
Cathy looked down. The crown had receded, now a barely perceptible sliver of flesh.
The pounding all around the room continued. Moans and growls filtered in through the windows and the walls.
Sara lay on the floor motionless for a long time. Cathy finally reached out to her, shook her gently by the shoulder, and said, “Come on, Sara. You can do it.”
Sara only shook her head in response, her eyes still closed. “It hurts too much. I can’t do it. There’s something wrong.”
“There’s nothing wrong with you. You’re doing great. Come on. You can do it.”
Sara weakly opened her eyes and peered up at Cathy from the red slits. She closed them again and said, “Okay.”
They waited. Then another contraction came, and Cathy said, “Go for it. Do it.”
Sara bellowed and screamed. Her face flushed again. The crown of the head, smeared in blood, moved forward.
“Go, go, go—” shouted Cathy.
The contraction subsided, but the head had moved forward considerably.
“You’re almost there,” Cathy said.
Another contraction followed, and Sara screamed and arched. The blood nearly squirted this time, and the head moved forward more quickly than it had earlier.
The Imminent Scourge Page 6
