The Other Kind (The Progeny of Evolution Series)

by Arsuaga, Mike

  “We’ll deal with it if it happens,” I replied, as if she had finished the sentence aloud, picking up the phone to call for emergency services. In the back of my mind I created the picture of a bright operating room and Sam surrounded by green-smocked medical staff, their eyes wide in astonishment above the face masks, as our little monsters popped into the world. I lurked in the background, preparing to make good our escape and leave no witnesses.

  “Jim,” Sam said, barely above a whisper, “Bertie’s right. I’ll be okay.” Her eyes rolled in her head and, as she started with the short, fast breaths, squeezed out the following, “Here comes another one!” She clamped my hand in a bone crunching grip as if drowning and I represented the lifeline, which in a way I guess I did.

  By morning Sam’s ordeal ended. My clearest memory centered on the remarkable amount of blood. It gushed out with each birth, so much I thought she might bleed to death, but Bertie reassured me nothing was wrong as the pile of used blood soaked sheets and pads grew on the floor at her feet. My heart pounded with excitement as each little head crowned, entering the world with a last, determined push. The head, its path lubricated by blood mixed with strong smelling thick fluids, slipped out, followed by tiny shoulders, and then the rest. I marveled at Sam’s elasticity, remembering how much my penetration opened her when we made love, but a baby’s head pushing from the inside was gigantic compared to me on my best day.

  The male emerged first. We decided to name him after Ed Myers who wanted so desperately to be remembered. Anyway, I hated “juniors.” Baby Eddie came out covered in Sam’s blood, battered by his trip down the birth canal. A string of flesh tied him to the inside of her. Bertie turned toward Sam and held him aloft for her inspection.

  “He’s lovely,” she pronounced, dreamy with exhaustion.

  “Buck up, dearie,” Bertie said cheerily. “It won’t be long now.”

  Bertie cut and clamped the umbilical. She handed the little squalling red thing to me for cleaning and wrapping. Through practice I knew this part of the operation well. From here on out Bertie kept me too busy to think of anything but my assigned tasks. As I cleaned little Eddie I noticed he appeared to be a perfectly normal baby, to the eye, no different from newborn humans. Certainly not a blend of lycan and vampire as Dr. Ortiz feared. I wrapped the tiny naked body in a blue blanket, placing him in a bassinet with matching color.

  No sooner did I finish when Bertie presented a second mewling package dripping with blood and mucus.

  “She will be Claire,” Sam’s voice rose faintly from the pile of damp pillows. “Of all in my family she showed the most kindness. I think the last one should be Cassandra after the mother you never knew.”

  I didn’t regularly think of my mother. Occasionally, it took a second to remember her name, but Sam never forgot. For her thoughtfulness, I loved her more than ever.

  I attended to little Claire while Bertie coaxed the afterbirth out, placing it next to baby Eddie’s in a bin on the side of the bed opposite from the bassinettes. The two looked exactly like a pair of raw beef briskets, which forever destroyed my appetite for the cut.

  “Just like spitting watermelon seeds,” Bertie commented, as baby Cassandra unfolded from Sam and entered the world.

  Suddenly it was over. I glanced at the blood darkened ruin that used to be Sam’s beautiful vagina and the slack skin of her stomach. It was like seeing the bombed and ransacked temple of a great love goddess. I wondered if it could ever be the same. I didn’t care for me, but for Sam and her feelings regarding herself.

  In that moment I believed more than ever Sam on her worst day is better than no Sam at all.

  To be a junior partner in the miracle of the continuation of our kind gave me sufficient satisfaction. I sowed seed onto Sam’s eager salubrious womb and she did the rest. Thinking back on the experience of our pregnancy, the pleasures of seeing the final product touched a higher plain in me than the one connected with planting them.

  I stood over the bassinettes studying the newborns as Sam dozed off. Each squirmed weakly, wrapped in its blanket like a large pink, somewhat bruised, larvae. Bertie covered them with yet another blanket. “Can’t be too careful,” she explained dutifully. “Spring time chills can be treacherous.”

  The outside thermometer read eighty-five degrees.

  Sam stirred. “How are they?”

  I beamed down at her. “Beautiful and healthy.”

  Bertie moved in. She excused me from the room. After cleaning Sam, giving her a sedative, and changing the linens, she called me back in. The bright lighting from earlier gave way to tranquil dimness. A single night light plugged into a wall socket provided illumination. The room smelled like clean linen with crisp white sheets on the bed.

  “She’s all yours,” Bertie said, carrying the soiled bed coverings from the room. “Not for long though. I gave her something to make her rest.” She departed for well-deserved sleep of her own.

  A minute later Sam stirred. “Jim, remember when you promised we could bring the babies to visit our families’ graves?”

  I patted her cold hand. “Yes, I do.”

  “I thought more about it. I know it’s asking a lot, but can we include David? He’s not a relative, but seeing them would make him happy.”

  I didn’t see that coming. I inhaled deeply. “I suppose so.” I tried to sound enthusiastic and supportive. I truly did.

  She sighed as the sedative kicked in. “You are a dear. You really are,” she slurred and slipped away.

  For a long time I sat disconsolately in the dim light, holding Sam’s hand, listening to her breathing, and the babies’ faint movements. The feeling of a revelation lurked beyond the hurt feelings over Sam’s request, a revelation strongly felt but not reducible to identifiable thoughts. Suddenly, in a heart stopping epiphany, it all jelled within my consciousness. All of our lives—Father, the village of Maison Blanche, Carole, the war, Lois, David, Sam in the library on a rainy spring day, and everything in between—was part of a vast and complicated sequence of events designed to bring us to this moment. We’ d go on, whether as a predator of humans or as their partner no one could say, but it would go on.

  In this great enterprise, we were specks of silt a in a river, conveying us and all creation inexorably toward a destination beyond our understanding. There might be eddies and undertows. They might push in other directions and even confuse the ultimate end, but were small and temporary distractions compared to the compelling main current. We needed to experience every second of each event in our lives in order to be in the right frame of mind to take advantage of the opportunity that placed us together in the library. I had to endure Vampire Menopause to learn later Carole was victim of a curable syndrome so I did not do something foolish when Sam’s behavior became similarly and as mysteriously bizarre.

  Sam needed to achieve what she and David believed was perfect love because he possessed the wisdom to reconcile her with sad little Jeanne in order to prepare the way for the greater love and commitment children and a family would demand. Loss of Lois’ love and Sam demonstrating it needn’t have happened taught me to have faith that Fate had carefully and properly placed me in the scheme of things. The current, an expression of the primary continuum propelling the Universe forward, commanded the length and breadth of friends and family as well as the depth of all generations. It carried us to personal fulfillment and promise of a purpose for all of our kind. Sitting in the dark room with Sam and our family I learned what I needed to know. With the knowledge, I felt total contentment and sense of purpose for the future.

  If David’s name was still the one she wrote in her secret diary, I could live with that. Having as much of her as I did was enough for me.

  Chapter Eighteen

  The Man Who Lifted the Final Veil

  For the first three days, Ed spent all of his free time at our place, hovering over his namesake, the squalling little pink face bundled in blue.

  “Here’s my boy,” he repeated inc
essantly to us and anyone who visited. “If I died tomorrow I would not complain. Through him I live on. We all do.”

  He missed Thursday because of overtime. Feeling tired, Sam said she planned to lie down while Bertie took the triplets to a nearby park. Since Cynthia was in town, Sam invited the gang over for dinner and wanted to rest so she could help Bertie prepare the meal.

  “It’s not often we can get all of us together anymore,” she said when I suggested maybe she shouldn’t take on so much. “You go on to work. You have things to do.”

  Shortly after lunch Sam phoned me on the verge of hysteria. “You have to come home right away,” she sobbed.

  She met me at the door, pale and shaking. “What happened?” I took her into my arms.

  Without a word she led me inside. On the floor of our bedroom by the dresser lay the body of Detective Borden. “What happened?” I repeated.

  I remembered something with regard to Detective Borden wanting to talk to us about Laura Teague’s disappearance, but we shunted her over to Oscar. We were in the middle of settling our affairs in preparation for a relocation and change of identity.

  Sam sat down on a dinette chair. “She came around eleven. I told her to go away. I said Oscar didn’t allow us to speak with her unless he was there. She asked to use the bathroom. At first I refused, remembering how she treated me the last time as well as Oscar’s warning about not being alone with her, but she said it was an emergency. What could I do? I let her in. When I noticed she took a long time, I went to check. She was in our room, putting one of Papa’s knives into a plastic bag. I demanded to know how she thought it was right to walk in and take things from our home. She said since I invited her in and she found the knife in plain view she could take it. Then she flipped out that smug little smirk and claimed it carried blood on it which linked us to at least one victim. It had a lot more than one victim’s blood.”

  Sam paused as she dabbed at the tears in her eyes with a trembling hand. I pulled out a couple of tissues and took over. When I was finished she calmed and resumed.

  “I said finding a knife in a box at the bottom of an underwear drawer isn’t exactly in plain view. Borden became angry and grabbed me. She screamed, crying we were all guilty but nailing me would give her the most satisfaction. She pushed me face down on the bed, pulling out handcuffs. I let her put them on, knowing they couldn’t hold me, while I decided what to do.” Sam stopped and giggled weakly. “You should have seen the look on her face when I threw the cuffs back at her and morphed. At least I was smart enough to break her neck and not make a mess with bloody gore.” She turned back to the detective’s body. Remembering the trouble we faced, she grabbed the front of my shirt with those strong little hands. “Oh, Jim, what will we do? She’ll be missed and they’ll come searching for her!”

  “Let me get Ed over here. He may have some ideas. Where’s Cynthia?”

  “I called her. She’s on the way.”

  I moved Detective Borden to the front room. We sat at the table. With her head twisted around from a wrung neck, her dead eyes stared blankly at us. After a few minutes Cynthia covered the face with a dishcloth. “There, much better,” she said with a tone of accomplishment.

  After Sam retold the story, Ed studied the body for a minute or so before turning back to her. “You must not be involved in this. I have an idea. You two stay here. Cynthia can help me.” He wore a fresh uniform from work and a new after shave. He did it for Sam, I think. His appearance reminded me, as at the baby shower, how with clean clothes, combed hair, and a shave he passed for a man of forty-five.

  “What are you going to do?” I asked.

  “Something I probably should have done a long time ago. Don’t worry. Everything will be all right. Come on, Cynthia.” They put Detective Borden’s corpse into a body bag and left in his company van.

  Two hours later Cynthia came home in a cab, alone.

  “What’s going on?” I asked, but she only sighed cryptically.

  “We need to know,” Sam added sternly.

  “He made me promise, but I swear it was a wonderful unselfish thing.”

  “Please tell me he is not trying to get blame away from me,” Sam said.

  “Well,” Cynthia sighed, “you might as well know. It’s too late to stop it anyway.”

  I thought how foolish of Ed to expect her to keep a secret. The chances of a colander holding water were better.

  “Ed used me to lure little Mister Yellow Junk over to his place. I held my nose and took him to bed. When we got it going good, Ed sneaked up behind and bashed his head with a tire iron. He has both Jethro and Detective Borden at his place. He will take blame for the murders and do the time.”

  “No, he won’t.” I remembered what he told me regarding not having the reserves to last in jail. “He’s planning something else. You two stay here. I’m going over.”

  I entered through a back door of Ed’s building. The property manager locked all exits to the outside except for the main entrance, but Ed kept this one jimmied open for those times when he needed a fast exit, such as when he was late with the rent and the property manager’s collector was on the way.

  The door to his apartment was closed but unlocked. I let myself in. He sat in a wooden chair, naked. He faced me with Detective Borden’s pistol in his hand. The bodies of the detective and Jethro sprawled on the floor at his feet, also naked. Ed did a blood feed on Borden and made quite a mess. He attended to all the details, including the ancient symbols written in blood on the butt cheeks, used to inspire fear in less enlightened times.

  “Don’t come any closer,” Ed ordered. “There mustn’t be any trace of you here.”

  “Why are you doing this?”

  He stared solemnly at me. “You couldn’t stop her. The lawyer couldn’t stop her. So I had to do it. Sam and the little ones must be protected at all costs. They’re our future.”

  “No. There must be another way.”

  “There is nothing else to do. The police know Borden put you and Sam in her sights. When she goes missing they’ll be all over you. I have to do this or they’ll hound you forever.”

  “We can talk to them. Explain…” I was talking out of my head, in desperation, making no sense.

  “And tell them what? Maybe you can say, ‘hey we hunt humans for food but it’s a part of our nature. Can you please try to understand?’” Ed laughed derisively from his chair. “No, my friend, this is the only way it can end cleanly.”

  For the next minute or two we stood in silence, me in the doorway and Ed planted in the rickety wooden dinette chair, part of a set Sam found at a yard sale, surrounded by the butchered corpses of Jethro and Borden. Jethro’s saffron colored body still showed an erection. I watched blood and brain ooze onto the floor from his skull where Ed laid it open. The smell of violent death and unfulfilled sexual desire saturated the room.

  “How does this all end, my friend?” I finally asked.

  “Someone will call the police when they hear the gunshot or, if nothing else, when the landlord shows up tomorrow for the rent. They will find the bodies as well as material in my freezer to make DNA identification of all the prey we took. They will assume Jethro and I did it. The symbols on Borden’s butt will show us to be students of the occult. Wannabes, if you will. The scene will explain the real connection between the missing people and the group is not through you, but Jethro and me. You will be cleared. It’ll close the case. With Jethro proved to be a murderous fraud, his book will be discredited.”

  I accepted he was going to die and I was powerless to stop him. “Can I do anything for you Ed?”

  “Tell Sam I love her and the babies. Tell Cynthia she was wonderful. All I dreamed she would be.” I glanced at the seat of Ed’s chair. Observing the small blood spots there, I realized Cynthia’s mark was on him. “Be happy for me.” He continued, “I die knowing we’ll survive. Not many of our kind who has ever lived can say such a thing. Naming your son after me was the greatest gift I could
imagine. Try to remember me.”

  “You will never be forgotten,” I said, choking back tears. “In the history of our kind you will live as one of the greatest heroes.”

  My statement pleased him immensely. “I die complete.” An expression came over him like the martyr before he steps into the flames and I thought he’d lifted the final veil from whatever it was he loved. “You should leave now. I have work to do.”

  I backed out of the apartment, careful to wipe my prints from the door knob, slipping out the way I entered.

  It happened pretty much as Ed predicted. Several hours later, two police officers visiting his apartment looking for Detective Borden discovered the scene. The next day the leading news story related details how a part-time delivery van driver named Ed Myers and accomplice Jethro Lee committed twelve murders, including a police detective and son of a prominent politician. The angle of cannibalism enhanced the lure and duration of the story.

  Cynthia took Ed’s death hard. For the next week she moped around the apartment or spent hours in her room at the Weston crying inconsolably. Sam and I missed her risqué wit and cheerful—if often overwhelming— spirit.

  “He was such a sweet man and I never noticed it,” she wailed, burying her head in Sam’s ample breasts.

  “It’ll be all right dear,” Sam replied, the words muttered soothingly with motherly pats on the back.

  Frequently Cynthia remembered how Ed was. “He was not bad looking when he cleaned up” or, “He owned really good junk for an old guy.” Then she went into a description of how his “junk” had a “cute little crook on its end and it felt so yummy when he put it in.” Sam simpered but I thought it was more information than I needed to know.

  “You know how Ed was always around and I never thought much about him,” Cynthia continued. “He was old and that was all the reason I needed to write him off. There are people like that all over, like ciphers drifting through your life. Suddenly out of the blue one of them does or says things you never expect, causing you to see them in a different way. You ask yourself why you never noticed or appreciated this person before. When he dies you regret all the opportunities you lost.”