by Stuart Keane
Roy squeezed harder. "You can do this."
"We can do this," she said. Again, her regretful eyes found his. "I'm so sorry."
Roy shook his head. "No need. A new start, eh?"
Kim nodded.
"Again, Ms Palmer."
"Okay. Okay." Kim breathed in, and poised for the contraction.
More movement down below. Kim chuckled once again, almost relieved that the process was coming to an end. The sound put a smile on Roy's face, and she noticed. For the first time, she saw her partner as a human being, not a punching bag. This child would change their lives, for the better. The thought warmed her insides, and gave her hope that she could finally live a normal life, one that didn't rely on the abuse to satisfy her violent urges.
I have a child.
We have a child.
We can finally be a family. I'm nothing like my father…
No.
I'm better.
We have a future.
She smiled at Roy, and gave it one final push.
An arcing geyser of dark blood and amniotic fluid discharged into the doctor's face, and knocked him to the ground, spraying the room and its windows a bright, viscous red. A low, throbbing gurgle emitted from Kimberley as she groaned in immense pain, and for a moment, her bulbous stomach deflated inwards, like a balloon with the air escaping. Roy flinched at the impossible reaction and shot to a standing stance. The nurses were frozen in shock, flabbergasted by the unexplained events that were unfolding.
The doctor stumbled to his feet, leaning against the wall, and slipped on the soaked floor, oozing slime and blood dripping from his masked face. He staggered sideways and tried to find purchase on the glass, smearing it with a gaudy swirl of messy hand prints. His eyes widened as he stared at Kimberley, and her exposed genitals, in utter disbelief. "Ms … Ms Palmer, you need to stop … stop pushing…"
But it was too late.
Kimberley's body ratcheted in the chair and malformed as she submitted to another sudden contraction. More blood and fluid gushed from her vagina, soaking her inner thighs and the floor at the doctor's feet. The crimson liquid cascaded over the tiles, deluging the room with a chilling splashing sound. Kimberley bucked and screamed as, once again, her stomach deflated. She flopped back in the chair as the flow of bodily fluids finally ceased.
Roy gripped her hand, unsure as to what was happening. As he did, his hand slipped away and he fell forwards, hitting his head on the side of the bed. He noticed her entire hand was drenched in oozing sweat, as was his. Kimberley was fading fast.
The doctor slid forward, and tried to maintain his footing on the blood-soaked floor. He steered clear of Kimberley as she moaned and groaned, her feet gliding sideways, unwanted prisoners in the stirrups that rooted her to the bed. He motioned to his nurses. "We need to get the baby out of there."
The doctor finally found his footing, and for a second time, he observed that Kimberley was sweating uncontrollably. Every inch of exposed flesh was slick with coursing perspiration and glimmered unnaturally beneath the lights above. Sweat oozed and dripped from her feet, adding to the bodily fluid collage on floor beneath. It dribbled from her toes in tiny waterfalls. The doctor shook his head at the sight. "Impossible."
Roy looked up. "What?"
"Nothing. We need to get the baby –"
The doctor was halted by a shrill, childlike scream that suddenly filled the air. He took a kneel, his knees splashing in the blood, and glanced between Kimberley's legs. Pushed his face in as closed as he dared. He gulped, and almost threw up. "Jesus."
A small, malformed arm had breached Kimberley's vagina. It waved and bobbled in the air, stranded and trapped between the bloody lips of the labia, lost and alone, searching for anything or something. Four tiny fingertips dripped with mucus and blood, and much like its mother, the arm gleamed in the brightness above. The doctor took a deep breath, looked to the left and collected a pair of tongs.
"Ms Palmer, I need you to be brave. Fight the contractions for a moment, please!"
Kimberley said nothing.
With delicate precision, he placed the tongs between the labia lips and gently parted them, in an attempt to allow the baby some air. He pushed on her inner thighs to give the child some more space. A soggy squelch broke the tense silence as the swollen lips slicked and parted and opened the world to the new-born baby within. Some excess blood and mucus oozed and dribbled from the vaginal introitus, slathering the vulva and the perineum, and pattering the floor.
The doctor manoeuvred his hands into the breach position, and tried to coax the child into the open. He delved a little deeper, felt the familiar shape of its torso and held firm. With sweat slathering his own forehead, and a smile easing onto his face, he slowly eased the child into the opening.
"There we –"
Kimberley's body bucked and thrashed violently, spraying him with more blood.
The doctor lost his grip and slipped from his steady position. Her legs tried to close and clipped the doctor in the temple, knocking him off balance and toppling him back to the ground. He fell onto his rump in a spray of crimson and watched as the baby slithered from the vagina, hovered in the air for a long moment while suspended by its spinning umbilical cord, and fell to the ground below. Its miniscule head shattered on the tiles, and cracked open like a tiny egg. Fragments of pink brain and shards of tiny bone spewed onto the floor as the tiny body came to its final rest. The doctor shook his head, in both revulsion and anger.
"Doctor?" Roy asked. "Kimberley isn't breathing."
The doctor struggled back to his feet and shook his head at the nurses, before he noticed a loud dripping sound. He glanced at Kimberley's feet and saw the mini waterfalls that cascaded from them.
But he noticed something else.
Her toes were gone.
As was the surface layer of skin, on both feet and legs. He could see pulpy pink muscle and slick bone beneath the now translucent skin. Skin that was disappearing as fast as the water spattered the floor. As if the skin was literally melting away.
"That's not possible."
"Doctor, what's happening?" This time, from one of his nurses.
The doctor surmised the events before him. Glanced at his dripping hands, and flicked his weary gaze in Roy's direction, before studying the grotesque scene that decorated the floor beneath him. Pints of blood, bodily excretions, vaginal discharge. He needed to take action – he'd never seen anything like this, which was his main concern, and he had to follow protocol.
"Nurses, I need you to leave."
Both stared at him, incredulously.
"Now. As per protocol."
A shift in their demeanour indicated that they understood. They found the exit and left the room without a word. Once outside, they sealed the door using the handle on the exterior and disappeared. The doctor nodded.
"What's happening to Kimberley?" Roy struggled to say. He watched in confusion as her stomach deflated for the final time. He looked at her chubby face, but it wasn't chubby anymore, it was streamlined as the edges were now distorted and dissolved. He watched as her closed eyes slowly collapsed in on themselves. Her entire face shifted sideways and melted away, the wide cheekbones beneath turning to liquified pink pulp. The skin and features dissolved to nothing as they joined the multiple torrents that sluiced to the floor.
The doctor shook his head. "I don't … I don't know. But … it could be contagious."
Roy stared at the doctor in disbelief. "What?"
"We have … whatever it is, on us. We could have contracted it."
Roy continued to hold her hand. "Why do you think she's sick?"
"Trust me when I say this, Mr Knight. This is not a usual part of the birthing process. I've never seen this before … never."
Roy nodded. The remainder of Kimberley's skull turned to jelly and wobbled off the bed. Roy, paralysed by absolute terror at the events unfolding before him, closed his eyes and felt a sudden shift in his grip. He opened them agai
n and saw that he was holding Kimberley's hand … and nothing else.
The arm was no more; the flabby appendage now ended at the wrist. As if confirming this, the clink of her watch sounded as it toppled to the floor below, and Roy found himself asking if the doctor should have removed such an item from her anatomy before beginning the birthing process. Another shift within his palm indicated that her hand was following suit. It became weaker, softer and malleable in his frail grip and it too dissolved to nothing.
Roy dropped his trembling hand to his side, his emotions frazzled and stunned by the horror, the last remnants of Kimberley dripping from his trembling fingertips.
"You did this," Roy spat, accusing the doctor.
"Did what, Mr Knight?"
"You killed her … you did … did this…"
The doctor shook his head. "I'm sorry, Mr Knight, but what just occurred here was a medical impossibility."
"You didn’t take her watch off, or her jewellery –"
The doctor shook his head. "And you think that caused this?"
"I'll sue you –"
"Sue me?" the doctor screamed. He placed his hands on his hips and laughed. "Go ahead. What do you hope to achieve?" He held his hands out beside him, hiding nothing. "If I could explain this, I would, right now. I'm as baffled as you, Mr Knight. Take my word on that, please."
Roy shrugged but kept quiet, clearly trying to find reason or blame for the unexplainable horror that literally filled the room. He lifted a drenched foot and heard a sharp splash as he placed it back onto the blood-soaked tiles, and then he realised he was stepping on the liquid remains of Kimberley, his beloved. His eye twitched and he felt his inner sanity slip a little, felt his insides lurch as his mind processed the unfathomable, the human dissolution.
"So, what do we do now?" he asked.
The doctor shook his head, unsure of how to answer such an awkward question. He wiped his dripping face, stared at his slick hand, and realised what he had just done. He attempted to wipe his palm on his side, but found only soaked clothing. He found no respite from the horrific wetness. He reached for a towel, and then thought better of it. He wanted to keep it – whatever it was – contained as much as possible. He looked at the pooling floor and considered his previous thought moot, before answering the lingering question, "We'll be quarantined. It's protocol in incidents like this. We'll be stuck in here until we are declared healthy or … or until we follow Ms Palmer there. Down the drain."
Roy shook his head. "I loved her, you know? Despite … despite our differences.
The doctor studied Roy with an alarmed gaze. "You realise what I just told you, right?"
Roy nodded. "I try not to dwell on the…" he trailed off.
The doctor nodded. "Sometimes – the differences? That's how it works. Humans are a funny bunch. Compatible and incompatible, in equal measure."
Roy chuckled. "You got that right."
Silence filled the room. The bitter, acidic smell of bodily excretion probed the nostrils of both men, who watched as a host of doctors began to file to the windows, curious about the sudden quarantine. Some studied the ground, and some backed away. One female nurse projectile vomited onto the glass at the bloody sight of the molten mess. Roy pulled up a stool and sat beside the doctor.
"So, we wait?"
The doctor nodded.
"For how long?"
"Not long," the doctor responded. He held his quivering hand into the air. The fingers were now dripping profusely, the rivulets saturated into his blood-soaked sleeve and he could feel them gushing down his glistening wrist. The doctor swallowed. "Not long."
ELEVEN
Hannah opened the door to her chosen locker and bundled her bag into the confined space. She placed the children's small backpacks on top, neat and concise, as she had many times before, and tucked their shoes beside them. She coiled the sprawling shoe-laces into their homes, checked everything was in place and closed the door, slipping the plastic red wristband key from the lock. She secured the locker and latched it onto her wrist. Happy, and with a smile on her face, she finally turned to the children.
And noticed two of them were missing.
She sighed. "Mia, where did Hayley and Distin go?"
Mia raised a dainty arm and simply pointed to the exit; a wide arch comprising of rich cream stone and a shallow, floor indented foot bath that preluded the walkway to the pool. Hannah glanced up and noticed a swathe of bright blue lights coming from the space beyond, a combination of the pool's exquisite reflective surface and the basking sunlight that sluiced through the vast glass roof of the large, domed emporium.
Hannah gently ushered the kids forward and followed them to the poolside. They splashed through the small foot bath and scuttled through the archway. Mia narrowly avoided the water as she leapt over it and sprinted ahead, but Cayden and Aria enjoyed splashing in it and soaking one another, which resulted in piercing screams from both parties. Hannah chuckled, found her footing, and stepped over the foot wash herself – despite its cleansing properties, she didn’t trust the bacteria content and dodgy chlorine within.
The Pentwyn Leisure Centre pool hadn't changed in nearly twenty years. Ageless white tiles lined the exterior of the glistening pool itself, and its vast canvas was punctuated with white deck chairs, an array of multi-coloured sun loungers, sunglasses and upended bottles of sun cream, discarded and well-placed beach towels, and a plethora of people going about their business. Some read books, others conversed or sunbathed beneath the patient gaze of the blistering sun, and many supervised their children as they happily frolicked in the range of swimming facilities at their disposal; the jacuzzi, the intricate water flumes – some of which veered out of the building, looped around and came back through a different hole in the ceiling –, the tropical cave emporium, the main pool itself, and the beginner pool, where young people and first-time swimmers, under the watchful gaze of lifeguards and swimming coaches, were obligated to wear armbands and assistance gear.
Cayden and Aria made a beeline for the tropical cave pool, a mass of glistening green water submerged beneath a grand plastic cave. Hannah recalled her previous stints in there, and remembered that the water was very shallow. It wasn't about the swimming, it was a more luxurious step up from a jacuzzi, with heated lights, shimmering reflections and masses of fake foliage to lend simulated beauty to the relaxed eye, hence the name. As Cayden and Aria entered, she felt comfortable knowing that they would be safe in its shallow waters. Still, she would try to keep an eye on them anyway.
Better safe than sorry.
Hannah averted her gaze and searched for Distin and Hayley, and found the twins sulking on the edge of the pool, right in front of the cafeteria with arms folded and frowns on their faces. She knew that sign, she'd seen it a dozen times before – they wanted chocolate. She walked over to them, sighing as the blissful sunlight caressed her bare legs. Her wish to relax and sunbathe, uninterrupted, for half an hour, would never be realised, not while she was looking after five active children.
It could wait.
You might get lucky.
She ambled over, sat down on the edge of the pool beside Distin and Hayley, and dangled her left foot in the cold water. She shivered as the coolness of the liquid first prickled, and then eased her skin into its immersive grasp. Within seconds, she was kicking at the glorious water. She turned to face Distin and whispered, "Let me guess … you want chocolate?"
Distin immediately smiled.
Another head turn. "And you too, Hayley?"
The girl grinned too, and nodded furiously.
"Well … let me tell you a story. Have you ever heard of cramp?"
Distin's young face crumpled with immense concentration, which punctured his soft cheeks with cute dimples. Hayley nibbled her lip, simply shook her head in response and, seconds later, her brother joined her, his search for that vital answer and remembrance of the word not a possibility in his yet undeveloped brain.
"Well, cramp is someth
ing that can affect you while swimming. If you eat before you go swimming, you can get stomach cramps and it makes swimming very difficult. Do you enjoy swimming?"
Hayley and Distin nodded.
"So … how about you swim first, and then we get some chocolate, afterwards. I'm getting some food then, because we'll be hungrier after the swim. Sound good?"
Both children paused, considered the offer, and nodded.
"Excellent. Off you go, the beginner pool is over there."
Distin and Hayley stood up and ran for the pool. Hayley paused and turned back to Hannah. The babysitter realised the girl was wearing her flip flops, despite her advising the child not to. She ignored it, and listened as Hayley stared at her. "That wasn't much of a story."
Hannah frowned, but couldn’t refrain from smiling. "Oh?"
"Yeah. At least put a monster in it. Or a cat. Make an effort."
"You want a monster?" Hannah asked, as she removed her foot from the pool. With a smirk on her face, she stood up and lunged towards Hayley, her hands raised like claws, and roared. The young girl screamed and laughed as she scampered away. Her chirping giggling could be heard as she rounded the corner of a rock precipice and headed to a stack of orange life jackets. Several concerned adults lowered their sunglasses and looked at Hannah in mild derision, but she ignored them.
Worry about your own children, dickheads.
Hannah turned and sat down on the pool side, using her towel to wipe her foot. She stared at her bare toenails for a moment, wondered if they would suffice with a coat of colourful nail varnish, stretched on the warm tiles and stared at the glass ceiling. A deep sigh escaped her lips as she placed her arms beside her.
Maybe, just maybe, she would get twenty minutes to herself.
And then Mia's face came into view.
"Hey, Mia."
The young girl's mesmerising eyes flicked back and forth, studying the prone woman with innocent curiosity. "What are you doing?"
