It was Mother.
And on Mother’s back, just above where her hip bone was buried in that crispy, black flesh, were the letters BH, and they were glowing a deep, scarlet red.
It was the brand that Benjamin Heath had used to mark Anne LaForet after raping her all those centuries ago.
BH. A brand; a marking, something to let others know that he had filled this woman with his foul seed.
Chapter 55
There was too much blood—the entire bathtub was filled with it. The thick substance had started to coagulate, making it difficult for Arielle to even raise her arms. It clung to her swollen belly like taffy; it dripped from her breasts; it turned her hands a deep scarlet.
It was on her lips, nose, mouth, in her throat—it tasted like old, rusted pennies. Her eyelids stuck together.
So much blood, everywhere.
“You need to get it out!” she heard her mother’s voice shout from somewhere behind her.
It.
Like the fetus inside her was a wine stain on a summer dress.
Get it out.
“Please,” came a voice as Arielle felt her lips move, “please don’t make me, Mommy.”
But the deed had already been done, and she would have to live with the pain and anguish that came with it.
A life for a life.
Something buried in the blood bumped into her leg, something hard. She moved her hand through the thick fluid like a fly through amber.
The object was round, or at least mostly round.
What is it?
With great effort, Arielle brought the thing out of the blood. As tendrils of the red liquid dripped slowly off of the object, revealing its soft pink form, a scream caught in her throat.
It was a small baby, not much heavier than a pound, a baby that she could easily hold in both hands, and perhaps even one.
“No!” she screamed. “No!”
As the blood cleared from the baby’s face, she felt a sharp, involuntary intake of air.
It was Hope, complete with patches of blond hair on her premature head. It had a face—it couldn’t possibly have a face this well developed, but it did. It had a face, and it was Hope’s face.
“No!”
Chapter 56
“No!”
Arielle tore the mask from her mouth, spraying milk all over her face and hair. She gagged and spat up the thick, offending substance that clogged her throat and windpipe, threatening to drown her.
Blinking the tacky liquid from her eyes, she was shocked to find that Mother had mounted her.
But it wasn’t Mother anymore.
It was that thing, the thing with the white eyes, the one with the slit of a mouth with crispy hunks of flesh for lips that looked like singed hamburger.
So lost in whatever ecstasy it was experiencing, the beast didn’t immediately notice that Arielle was awake.
But the girls did; the four of them with their blond braids had abandoned the knife and had all gathered around the metal gurney upon which she lay, their heads bowed, their eyes looking up at her.
They shouldn’t witness this.
“Hope! Get out of here, Hope!”
The smallest girl’s head popped up, and Arielle stared into her daughter’s wet eyes for the first time in what felt like forever.
Hope. I don’t care what this demon says, you are mine. You are my daughter and I am your mother.
It doesn’t matter if she birthed you and put you inside me. I am still your mother. This beast—this beast is not your mother.
Arielle reached up and grabbed the creature by the throat. The thing gasped, and the white orbs that were its eyes lowered and focused on Arielle.
“You can’t have her or me, you vile piece of shit!”
In one smooth motion, Arielle swept the thing over, surprised at how light it was in her arms. And then she was on top of it, her left hand still clutching its throat as tightly as she could manage.
Arielle felt a tingling sensation in her crotch, and glanced down just in time to see the black cloud exiting from beneath her gown and receding back up the demon’s dark robe. The sight—the thought—of that foul substance inside of her only made Arielle tighten her grip.
The creature was gasping now, and Arielle realized that the milk-mask had wrapped itself around the side of the gurney. A quick glance over at Melissa and she realized that the fat woman’s head had finally flopped forward and her wide eyes were staring at Arielle in fear, disgust, or both. The woman’s sausage-like hands tried to wheel away from the gurney when their eyes met, but the mask was still attached to her breast and would not let go.
The girls, all four of them, were staring up at Arielle, the expression in their eyes matching that of Melissa’s. They knew what she was going to do, but were helpless to prevent it.
Welcome to the club.
Arielle reached over and grabbed the mask with her left hand and unwrapped it from the gurney, all the while keeping the writhing creature pinned with her right. Then she reeled back, intent on smashing the mask into what had been Mother’s face, when Hope spoke and she hesitated.
“Don’t hurt her, Mommy.” The girl’s voice was light and airy, as if she were partly asleep.
Wait, what did she say?
It had sounded like, ‘Don’t hurt her, Mommy,’ but when Hope repeated the words again, they were different.
“Don’t hurt Mommy.”
Arielle snarled.
“I am your mother,” she spat, and then forced the mask down on the demon’s face.
Milk immediately sprayed from the mask with such ferocity that even Melissa called out in pain.
“Drown, you fucking bitch!”
And indeed Mother was drowning in the thick, sweet liquid that flooded her slit of a mouth and pinprick nostrils. The thing gulped and writhed, but with Arielle mounting her, no matter how much the demon thrashed its head, it was unable to wriggle free of the mask.
Until, that is, Arielle felt two large hands grip her shoulders.
Jessie! I forgot about Jessie!
Arielle froze, unsure of what to do next.
This is it. This is how I die. And Hope is lost forever.
The creature beneath her finally wriggled free of the milk mask and sputtered and coughed.
And then it started to laugh.
It was fucking laughing.
Arielle tensed, but the grip on her shoulders matched her movement. They were so strong, those hands, so impossibly strong, that they seemed to force her shoulder blades together until they were nearly touching. Another ounce of pressure and she feared that her arms would snap out of their respective sockets.
Tears slipped out of her eyes and dripped onto the thing below her. One landed near its mouth, and its leathery, pointed tongue darted out to quickly lap it up.
“You can’t kill me,” the thing rasped. “You can’t kill me because I am your mother!”
Then the laughing resumed.
The grip on Arielle began to tighten, like a ratchet or a vice slowly crushing her, causing pain to radiate from her shoulders all the way down to the ends of her ribs.
Her world was fading fast, and the last thing she was going to see was this maniacal demon beneath her, moments before it possessed her body.
No, this can’t be the last thing I see.
She tried to turn her neck, to find Hope, but the grip tightened and a jolt of pain coursed through her entire body. But she wouldn’t let this stop her. She kept turning her head, even as Jessie squeezed again and again, until she thought that with her arms folded behind her as they were, her ribcage would explode out the front, showering the beast beneath her in blood and gore.
Good, she thought, let this body be ruined… I will not let the demon have this vessel.
She finally found Hope with the other girls, having at some point during the struggle receded to a corner of the room. The four of them looked different now; whereas before they had looked angry, now they were just scared. Th
ey looked like four normal young girls again, all falling between four and eight years of age, all with wide, wet eyes and long blond braids.
They all looked like they had seen a ghost.
And just maybe they had.
As Arielle’s world faded, a smile crossed her lips.
I love you, Hope. I love you.
A split second before Arielle succumbed to unconsciousness, something happened.
Chapter 57
Martin watched frozen in horror as Arielle suddenly seemed to animate, and then in one fluid motion, his wife flipped the charbroiled corpse over and straddled her. His mind was a mess, trying to make sense of the shit he had seen over the past twelve hours. And it caused him to lock up, to not be able to move. It was as if his spinal cord had been severed, the signals screaming at his arms and legs—Move! Move, goddamn it!—never reaching their source.
But then the monster that was Jessie Radcliffe stepped forward, and his massive hands grasped Arielle by the shoulders. This act sent his mind into a panic, as twice now he had felt the strength of that grip—once around his throat and once around his shoulders. He didn’t need to hear his wife gasp in pain to know that she was being crushed.
Move!
And this time he did.
Martin slid into the cell, stepping directly behind the towering figure, his eyes desperately searching Jessie’s flannel shirt. Somewhere far away he could hear the demon sputtering on the table and Arielle wheezing, trying to take a deep breath, but he ignored it; he couldn’t rush this.
His aim had to be perfect. Martin had one shot—missing would not only mean that Arielle be crushed, but that he would be next.
He let a breath out when his eyes fell on the spot he was looking for: a dot of blood just below Jessie’s left shoulder blade where Woodward’s bullet had passed through him.
Shuffling to one side, Martin gripped the bed frame in both hands, gritted his teeth and lunged.
The end of the four foot piece of metal slid directly into the bullet hole on Jessie’s back. And this time, unlike when the bullet had struck and then passed through him, the hulking man made a noise, a grunt of sorts. But despite this outward expression of pain, he didn’t let go of Arielle as Martin had hoped.
Instead, his grip seemed to tighten.
“No!” Martin screamed, knowing that it would only be moments before Arielle’s chest exploded.
Keeping the section of bed frame firmly planted in the bullet hole, he moved to his left, twisting the other end so that the metal was aimed more towards the center of Jessie’s body.
And then he took a step forward, driving the metal deeper into the man’s chest cavity.
There was a popping sound, and from the side Martin saw Jessie’s mouth go slack. Although this time the man’s grip seemed to loosen, and he heard Arielle finally take that deep breath, Jessie didn’t let go.
“Let her go!” Martin screamed.
He planted his back foot on the ground, and for once the mud that covered his shoes seemed a blessing as it helped root him in place. Exhausted, Martin prepared himself for one last heave.
“Let her go!”
And then he pushed, driving the metal deeper into Jessie’s chest.
Where Jessie’s heart was.
Should be—where his heart should be—if indeed he had one.
For a brief second, time seemed to freeze; even the demon on the gurney stopped thrashing and laughing.
And then there was a gaseous release as something inside Jessie gave way. Martin stumbled forward as the metal seemed to now nearly effortlessly slide through the rest of his body. It must have exited the other side as when Jessie finally hit the ground, a metal clang preceded the organic thump.
Martin’s momentum kept him moving forward and he toppled on top of Jessie’s body.
A thick black substance like warm oil, bubbled and then veritably poured from the hole in Jessie’s back, coating Martin’s hands and wrists. He instinctively yanked his arms away and rolled off to one side. And then he looked up, searching for his wife again, hoping that he had killed Jessie before she had literally been torn apart.
Relief washed over him when his eyes met Arielle’s.
And his wife was smiling. Her lips were partly open, her breathing ragged, but she was smiling.
Chapter 58
The man that stared up at Arielle was older than she remembered, with deep lines around his eyes and mouth, and the familiar graying at his temples had spread to the top of his head.
It was Martin, and the sight of him after so long caused her to smile—she couldn’t help it.
“No!” Someone screamed, and for once, Arielle was surprised that it wasn’t her that uttered that fateful word.
This time, it was Mother.
Arielle turned back to the creature beneath her, her smirk immediately becoming a grimace. Her fingers reached for the thing’s blackened throat and she raised the mask high above her head with her other hand.
“No! No, no, no!”
Mother’s white eyes seemed to grow wider, until Arielle thought they might spill out, land on the floor and roll around like a child’s toy.
A child.
Her child.
Hope.
Arielle pictured herself lying in the rosy pink bathwater all those years ago, and tears began to spill down her cheeks.
“A life for a life, you motherfucker!” Arielle screamed, and then she brought the mask down again, showering them both in a spray of sweet, tangy milk.
Chapter 59
When it was over, when the demon on the table stopped thrashing beneath Arielle, Martin felt all of his energy seep out of him like a thin liquid.
It felt as if it had been days since he had last slept.
But there was still one more thing he had to do—one more act before he would allow sleep to take him.
Grunting, Martin pushed himself to his feet, doing his best to wipe the black muck from his arms on his jeans as he stood.
Then he made his way to his wife, helping her off the gurney all the while trying not to look at the burnt creature on the table.
Arielle felt light in his arms despite his aching muscles.
He carefully lowered her to the ground, and then collapsed beside her.
On the floor of the cell beneath 8181 Coverfeld Ave, Martin wrapped his arms around his wife and hugged her tightly. Both of them were crying.
Death was everywhere in this place. On the gurney, the demon that Arielle had murdered, and on the floor, the demented monster of a man that Martin had skewered with the bed frame, and Woodward—poor Woodward—lying dead in another cell. The place reeked of death.
And it was quiet, which felt strange to Martin, given the screaming that had echoed throughout the humid dungeon mere moments ago.
But this silence was short lived—no more than thirty seconds later a voice cut through the gloom.
“Mommy?”
There was death here, but there was also life.
Arielle pulled her head out of her husband’s shirt and looked up with rheumy eyes. Martin followed her gaze and his eyes fell on a cute girl with blond almost white hair and big blue eyes who stepped out of the shadows.
Hope.
Arielle opened her arms and the girl’s slow, hesitant pace changed; she started to run and then she buried herself in her mother’s arms.
Martin reached around and hugged the two of them, tears streaming down his face now.
Hope.
He sniffed and wiped his tears away.
There were other girls in the room, Martin soon realized, three other young girls that looked exactly like Hope.
‘…she sought out all the children she had helped conceive and forced them back to her home where she intended to raise them as her own.’
Arielle leaned back, gesturing for the other girls to join them. But then Hope whimpered, and she quickly embraced her daughter again. As she did, the back of her gown teased upward slightly, and Martin cau
ght sight of something on her lower back.
What is that?
Martin squeezed around Hope to get a better look.
It was something red, like marker—some sort of design.
A tattoo, maybe? Did Arielle get a tattoo?
Squinting hard, he struggled to make out exactly what it was.
The closest girl reached them then, and Arielle leaned forward even further, affording Martin a better view.
And his heart nearly stopped.
It wasn’t a tattoo; it was too red and swollen to be that. And it wasn’t a design either.
It was letters; two of them.
BH.
Benjamin Heath.
It was a brand.
Martin began to weep. As he sobbed, he subconsciously reached into his pocket and dug around, hoping that after everything that had happened it was still there.
The other three girls had squatted beside them now, and Arielle was struggling to embrace all of them—Hope, the three girls and Martin—at the same time.
Martin’s blistered fingers finally wrapped around something small and hard. He pulled his hand out of his pocket and held his palm flat to Arielle.
For a second, a look of confusion crossed his wife’s face, but then she smiled and reached out to grab the small, turquoise stone from Martin’s open palm.
Filia obcisor, filius obcisor.
She brought the rock to eye level, letting the bright light above them reflect off its smooth, oblong surface.
Then she surprised him by pitching it over her shoulder, where it skittered across the hard floor before disappearing out of sight.
“I don’t need that anymore,” Arielle said, her smile growing.
Mater est, matrem omnium, Martin thought, tears streaming down his face. Mother of one, mother of all.
“I’m Mother, now.”
Epilogue (Postpartum)
“This is stupid,” Gerry said, leaning back in his seat like an obstinate child.
“You said that already. What are you even doing here, anyway? She said to come alone.”
Mother Page 23
