The Light at the End of the Tunnel

by James W. Nelson

  “All right, dear.” Evan hurried to the kitchen and got the second bottle of formula heating. He wished he could share what he knew of the child with his wife, but she was upset enough with what she did know, so he would hold off for then. Maybe forever.

  A few minutes later he returned with the fresh bottle and handed it over.

  Leslie took it, put it to the mouth and he immediately stopped screaming and started sucking, again furiously.

  “He’s probably doing this so that he will get sick and puke on both of us,” Leslie said, quietly, “Wash the extra bottles, Evan, and mix up extra batches of formula, and we’ll take our own tap water, and pack us both three suits of extra clothes. And our winter coats! The farther west we go likely the colder it will get. We’ll probably be gone for Christmas—damn it! My sister was expecting us and our new baby, Evan, what can we tell her?””

  “We’ll think of something, honey.” Evan stared at his wife. She was speaking differently than he had ever heard her, so completely sure of what she wanted to do. He agreed; he just wished he had seen more of the baby’s antics then just that with the umbilical cord, but that should have been enough. And it was enough. You know what you’re doing, my darling, and I’m with you.

  Chapter 7 The Abandonment

  Just after dark, three days later they entered the small city of Wayne Ridge, Nebraska, about the center of the state, and pulled into a station. Evan started to get out. They needed gas, and something to eat.

  “Wait, Evan,” Leslie said, “Let’s do it first, then we can go back to that little town about thirty miles back.” She leaned over and looked at the gauges, “We’ll have enough gas.”

  Evan slipped back behind the wheel, closed the door, and glanced at his wife. Her gaze and demeanor were calm, her beautiful dark eyes shining. And she held the baby against her bosom as if she loved the child, but he knew she somehow was able to fake it, and in faking it, convince the child that all was okay.

  When out of the child’s hearing they had decided to never talk bad about him again—at least not in front of him—and that, both of them, especially Leslie, would feign love for him. Even while discussing it they had both felt foolish. A child just two months old could not understand speech, or could he?

  During the incident three nights earlier, they remembered that every word they said just made the child cry louder…and, seemingly, angrier, but when, through intense emotion on Leslie’s part, she had again taken the child into her arms and held him, and…loved him, and he had settled down.

  “We do need to know where the hospital is though,” Evan said, but even as he said the word ‘hospital,’ he noticed a change in the child’s expression. He had thought the child was asleep, “I’ll be right back.” He stepped out, hurried into the station, asked for and received a phone book—could hear the child crying, loudly and angrily again—wrote down the address—and almost without decision tore out the page with the city map—hurried back, and again slid in behind the wheel.

  “There, there,” Leslie was saying, rocking the child in front of her, totally acting the loving mother. She glanced at her husband. Her eyes snapped, but she said quietly and under control, “Let’s go!”

  As Evan drove and watched street signs he pulled out the phone book page from behind his shirt and handed it to, “Honey, look for Gardenia Boulevard, the hos—it, it’s 1430 Gardenia Boulevard.”

  Leslie took the sheet and said, “You tore out the page.”

  “I couldn’t exactly ask for directions, and give the clerk reason to remember me. We don’t need any witnesses that we were ever here.”

  “You’re right, dear.” She quickly scanned the page, then watched house numbers and signs “Here, turn left up here, go about six blocks and we should get to the right street. I’ll keep watching the house numbers.”

  A few minutes passed.

  “Is…he…all right…?”

  “I think so…one thousand…,” she began reciting, “Hard to see the numbers this time of day…1101…” Another moment passed. “1214…Gardenia, yes, keep going, a couple more blocks.”

  A few moments later they approached a large four-story building, with lights on every floor, but not shining from every window. “Right there, Evan,” Leslie pointed, “That must be the emergency entrance and it’s quiet, and dark.”

  Evan guided their car into the narrow lane, and began feeling warm in his chest area, not sweaty but much warmer than usual, like the inside of his body soon would start steaming. He felt a strained breath leave him, and another one—

  “Stop the car,” Leslie said, “But let it run. You get the basket ready, and I’ll….” She then flipped her door handle and said very quietly, “Hurry.”

  Carrying the basket Evan stopped at her door and waited. Carefully, Leslie swung her legs out and glanced at her husband. He looked back but said nothing. Hanging onto the child as a loving mother would, she stood, “I’ll carry him.”

  Together they moved to the barely-lit door. A barely readable sign said ‘Emergency Entrance’ so they knew they had come to the right place. Evan stopped. At the same time his head clanged. He had never before felt such emotions running through his body. When he leaned over with the basket he feared he would keep going and fall right onto his face. When the basket stopped he held on for a few seconds, then stood up and felt his head whirl, and looked at his wife only with peripheral vision.

  She stood holding the child and looking at it, her face emotionless, then she leaned and kissed the child’s forehead but left her eyes open—I’ve never seen anybody, ever, leave their eyes open for a kiss—then she leaned down and placed the child in the basket and tucked the blanket around him, then stood.

  For another moment they stood there. Then the child’s eyes opened, and it moaned. Evan heard his wife gasp, and saw her start to reach for him, “No!” He grabbed her arm and spun her around, then grabbed her waist and hurried them to the car. Her door was still open. He pushed her in, “Don’t slam it!”

  Evan then hurried to the driver side and thanked God they had left it running. Quietly they backed to the street, onto it, then back the way they came.

  “What if they don’t find him?” Leslie’s hands went up on her face, “Oh my God, Evan, what have we done?”

  “What was necessary, Leslie. They’ll find him!” Strangely enough, until that very last second, Leslie had been in charge, brutally, maybe, but in charge, the one leading the way and telling him—her loving husband—what to do, and he had done everything she said. But the child had begun acting like a normal baby again, but even so, Leslie had kept up her front…the inner strength that must have taken. He reached to her arm, “My darling, we did the right thing. They will find him, and take care of him, and he will act like a normal baby until their guard is down, and then….”

  “Then what?” She put her hand on his hand on her arm, “Then what, Evan?”

  “I don’t know. He won’t stay at the hospital, not for long, not once they determine his health, then he’ll go…to foster care, I suppose.”

  “Until the foster family doesn’t want him either, then another foster family, and another.”

  “Honey, don’t do this to yourself.”

  “I gave birth to him, Evan. He was our child.” Her hands went to her face again as she quenched a sob, “We even named him.”

  “But have you noticed, since the incident we haven’t called him by name. He’ll get a new name, and…he’ll go from there.

  Thirty minutes later they pulled into a gas station at that next town, got their gas, then to a diner, got a mostly-conversation-less meal, then a motel room, where they—furiously—made love.

  “What if the next child is like this one, Evan?” Leslie asked as they lay in each other’s arms.

  “Don’t worry, my darling, it won’t be. What happened was a once in a lifetime—once in ten or a hundred lifetimes, but it won’t happen to us again.”

  “The child was evil, Evan. It was bor
n evil. It will grow up evil, and will do terrible things.”

  “He already has done terrible things, my darling.” But I’ll never tell you what.

  Chapter 8 Meet Nurse Nicole Waters

  Les Paul lay in his basket with his eyes closed. He wasn’t having any real thoughts. He was way too young for having real thoughts. He still mostly depended on his body to just do what was necessary when something came up. He opened his eyes. Nothing there. Nothing but starlight. His mind went to what he last saw: two people standing over him, looking at him, with blank faces. He knew they were the people who cared for him, but…they weren’t caring for him.

  His body took over. He closed his eyes and opened his mouth and the most horrendous sounds began coming out. Crying had always gotten him what he needed before, and what he usually needed was attention, and all the extras that came with it.

  ****

  Only about a minute passed before a young nurse appeared at the door, and stepped outside, and immediately reached into the basket and grasped the squalling baby, and lifted it to her bosom, and then gasped when the small hand went into her top, and actually tried to get to her breast.

  Knowing the baby was probably hungry, for a brief instant she almost allowed the hand to do what it wanted, but then she stopped the hand, which brought an immediate rise in the level of crying. Then she put the baby back in its basket and slid the basket inside, just as an older nurse appeared and said, “Well, what do we have here?” The new nurse reached and grasped the baby, who then ceased crying, did not grab at her breast, and, basically, just began to act like a normal baby. The new nurse then held the baby next to her bosom, and patted him on the back, “Weren’t you even going to pick him up, Waters?”

  “I did, but….”

  “But what?”

  “He—it—tried to get to my breast.”

  “Goodness, Waters, the baby is probably famished. It didn’t know what it was doing.” The older nurse scowled, “Good Lord, I’m sure it wasn’t flirting with you. Did you see anything? A car leaving, or anything?”

  “No. Just the crying baby.”

  “All right. Just one more abandonment by some young girl who shouldn’t have gotten pregnant. Well, come on, we have some work to do. And you, sister, are going to do it. You need to learn some things about babies.”

  “I know. I will.” But young Nurse Waters was not so sure. She remembered the baby’s face as she picked it up, its expression. At the time she thought nothing of it, and even now she thought little of it, but couldn’t help still seeing that…expression. The older nurse laid the baby down, “Get him undressed, Waters, I’ll get a new diaper and other wraps, but you will do the work. Have you ever changed a diaper?”

  “No, ma’am.”

  “You didn’t? Not even in school? What’s this world coming to?”

  “We did in school, ma’am, but it was a baby-like doll.”

  “Very well.” The older nurse started away, “Get to it then.”

  Nurse Waters approached the baby, and first looked at its face. Now just a normal baby expression. She must have been imagining things earlier. She unwrapped the blanket and pulled off the baby’s top and bottom. The diaper itself remained. It looked clean, and had no odor. The baby must have received good care. She wondered what would possess a woman, young or older, to abandon her child. She undid the two clingy straps and opened the diaper and immediately a monstrous pass of gas, a huge dump of excreta, and before she could back away a yellow stream of urine in her face.

  She screamed, and could not believe the vision she was having of the baby’s face. That same expression as earlier had appeared just before the explosion of waste.

  The older nurse came rushing back, “Good Lord, Waters! What’s wrong?”

  Nurse Waters began wiping her face, “The baby peed on me!” She held off telling of the baby’s facial…expression. She was still having trouble believing it herself.

  “Well, that happens, girl. Consider yourself initiated, now get that child cleaned up and dressed, and at least now we know it’s a boy.”

  Yes, a boy, Waters thought, a girl would never do what that boy just did. Yet she continued having trouble with her thoughts, yet she felt sure the child’s bowel movement and urination had been planned, just like when it grabbed at her breast. But the child was only just months old, two or three at the most. It couldn’t possibly be having conscious thought. It couldn’t possibly have planned the two assaults on her…yet…

  The child lay quietly in its mess. Nurse Waters approached. The boy baby’s face now had just a normal baby’s expression. No smile, no frown, just…nothing. She dismissed her earlier thoughts that must surely have been imagination. She lifted the child from its mess and took it to a plastic-lined metal bowl in the sink, kept her hand behind its head and neck, yet thinking this child probably really didn’t require such careful care, turned on the water and adjusted to lukewarm, then took the sprayer and washed the baby off, causing it to make pleasant sounds.

  Nurse Waters smiled as she kept the water flowing, “Oooh, you like that, huh?” She shut the water off, then moved her hand over the water clinging to the baby’s skin, then sprayed again. The child appeared to really enjoy the attention, and Nurse Waters felt herself again trusting that the baby was just a normal baby, that the two earlier events were just that: vents.

  She toweled the baby off then carried him to where the older nurse had placed the new clothes and diaper and placed him on it, and immediately Les Paul let go with another powerful spray of strong-smelling yellow urine, and got poor Nurse Waters square in the face, again.

  She screamed again, louder and more hysterically than before because, again, she had seen the baby’s expression change, just before the discharge. She managed to keep her hands on the baby, though, because she didn’t want him to roll onto the floor and get her in trouble, although she wanted to punish him, somehow, and had trouble believing such a thought had even passed her mind.

  But it had.

  The older nurse came rushing back, “Waters! What on earth…?”

  “Take him! I’m through with him! I won’t touch that…that—she wanted to say that little shit!—that child again! He peed on me again, and he did it on purpose!”

  “You fool, Waters. Babies do that. They can’t help it!”

  “This one does it on purpose.” Nurse Waters removed her hands from the baby, “You take care of him. I won’t touch him again, even if it means my job.”

  ****

  The word spread fast. The hospital was small so that meant it could spread even faster. By the following morning, all other employees, all three shifts had heard and spread the news even to the media. Nurse Waters had finished her shift at midnight, went home, had a terrible night of horrible dreams of babies attacking her, awoke the next day about 8am, ate a fitful breakfast, went on her mobile phone and searched for any news of unusual babies, surprisingly found plenty of questionable information. But of course that’s what the cyber world lived for: questionable events of all kinds. Later she got cleaned up and dressed, and reported for work, and was met at the hospital door by a reporter from The National Infamies who immediately asked, “Ms. Waters?”

  “Yes?”

  “I’d like to hear of your experience. Could you give me a few minutes?”

  “Yes, I certainly will.”

  A half hour later, Nurse Waters ended with, “What got me the most, the worst, was the baby’s expression. I’ve seen and held a few babies…but I’ve never seen….”

  “Yes, what?”

  “Just before he tried to grab my boob, and both times just before he urinated in my face, all three times…!”

  “Yes…?”

  “He smirked!”

  Chapter 9 Alone

  Cassandra, also just two months old, lay in a bassinet at a foster care facility. The search, failed, had been made for relatives to take her. There were only very, very, distant, relatives, most of them young, and none were
interested in the responsibility of an infant. Sometimes a volunteer would come to the center strictly to hold young children, to love them, and talk to them. And the volunteers did a good job, but it seemed the same one never held Cassandra more than once. Every time she felt warm arms around her and opened her eyes she did not recognize the person. But then she was considered too young to know the difference, and no real attempt was made to see that the same volunteer ever held and loved the same child. And what difference could it make? The volunteers were volunteers, not possible adoptive parents, and management didn’t want even very young children to get…attached, even for a moment.

  Already it was noted that the little baby girl did not cry. It was noted, but no deductions were made. Evidently she was just a good baby, who didn’t cry and cause problems.

  Cassandra soon went to her first foster home. Even though she didn’t cry she was a fussy child, and underweight, and sometimes would turn blue for no known reason, so began a series of return trips. First back to the hospital, then back to family services—where volunteers again held her—then again to a new foster home—where her physical ailments continued to plague her—then back to the hospital to continue the cycle.

  The little girl needed someone to hold her close to a warm and loving body, continuously and regularly, for at least a little while, so she could begin to absorb at least a beginning of warmth from a familiar body, because without that warmth, that love—even though temporary—she would not grow strong emotionally. But that continuous warm and loving body never happened, so little Cassandra developed a shield, a protective coating that would prevent any one person from ever coming in and loving her. She would never feel love, so would become quite incapable of giving it

  Chapter 10 Lay-down Comedy

  After the execution of Les Paul, and loss of the book, which maybe had never even existed, the chaplain continued his work with the inmates on death row but no longer was his heart in it. Even so he stayed for another eleven months, read to the men, made sure their televisions worked, that they ate right, and spoke the verses at four more executions. Normal executions, murderers, yes, but none with the viciousness and remorselessness of Les Paul.