Smith’s eyes bulged. A good boy?
Hadn’t Donna said the exact same thing…
But before he could even reckon such a coincidence, Marie seemed to gasp, and her body seemed to… tremor.
Smith’s mouth remained locked at her sex when the septic stench rose. Marie gasped again, then her hips twitched, then—
Holy motherfucking SHIT!
Several hard, steady dolphin spurts of the stinking black sludge shot into his mouth. He wedged away in shock, paused to bend over and vomit, and when he raised his head again, a final pulse of sludge jettisoned right in his face.
Over the rise of her breasts, Marie’s eyes fixed on him.
“You didn’t, did you?” she gargled.
Smith stared, frozen in disgust.
Marie craned her neck further, her face wavering. “You weren’t ready, were you?” she gushed. It sounded like an accusation. “Goddamn you, you were supposed to be ready…”
Then her eyes rolled up white, and her head fell back.
Ready, Smith thought. His face dripped. Madness. The silence gaped at him as he tried to bring her back. No pulse. No breath. He straddled her. One, two, three, four, five, his thoughts counted off in CPR. With each downward thrust, more black slime eddied from each orifice. Popping black bubbles frothed at her lips, ears, and nostrils. Then the truth slapped him in the face as hard as the insanity of this entire situation:
“She’s dead,” he whispered.
It was too much, too fast. All rationale escaped him; his psyche felt stuffed, like a Szechuan squid stuffed to bursting. Marie seemed to be on the verge of bursting too. Movement churned beneath her pale, dead belly. Revulsion, shock, etc. cut Smith’s spiritual tether, leaving only his objective remains: Smith the Coroner, Smith the Man Who Autopsies Dead People For a Living. It was impulse now, in this moment of intractable impossibility. He went for his old med school bag in the closet, and his old CMS knife set.
Thoughts swarmed but he didn’t really hear them. The sharp bivalving blade flashed. “Aw, God,” he muttered, cutting. “Aw, no.” The incision stretched as he drew the gleaming blade from hip to hip, exuding a goulash of black lumps. She was a doll stuffed with beans. Out they poured as Smith watched, slow black lava sliding over the sides of the bed.
Lumps, he thought. The drum. The sludge.
The lumps began to dissolve, reverting to thin dark slime, upon their exposure to the air. They crackled, sputtering. The stench rose like steam from a corpse-pit.
Lumps, he thought. My wife.
Dead lumps.
I wasn’t a good boy. I wasn’t ready.
The door swung open behind him. The thin shadow played across the floor. “Oh, Daddy, now look what you’ve done!” sniped the irritated little voice of his daughter. “You weren’t ready, were you?”
“No,” Smith muttered, thinking of the dream. “No, I wasn’t. I’m sorry. I wasn’t… ready.”
“Daddy!” She scowled at him, arms crossed in her flannel pajamas. “You’ve been a bad boy.”
“I—I know.”
“Come on,” she huffed. Her little hand led him from the bedroom, down the quiet stairs, and outside. Crickets trilled. Legions of fireflies shifted their tiny lights against a sultry evening. Smith, naked, enslimed, followed Jeannie down the hill behind his house.
The woods, he thought. The ravine. But hadn’t Marie said that they’d taken the drum away?
“Hurry, Daddy!”
Branches scratched his face and chest but he didn’t feel it. Dappled moonlight lit their progress; the forest was a labyrinth. With each step came more and more of some throbbing revelation, like Marie’s abdominal wall before Smith had riven it open, and like the throbbing headache.
The ravine lay empty, save for crusts of the decontaminant foam they’d sprayed. Jeannie had to constantly wait up for him, like the time he’d taken her to the mall to see Santa. But it was not Santa that awaited him now. Smith could feel it, drawing on his brain, calling him…
The Father, came the strange thought.
“You were supposed to visit the Father first, Daddy. But you didn’t. And that’s why the Mother’s babies died in Mommy.”
“Yes,” Smith droned.
A hundred yards past the ravine Smith could see it. A drum, identical to the first, save that it was black instead of white. Black and white, Smith thought. Yin and Yang. Mother and Father.
He gazed down.
Male and female.
Smith knelt before the drum. Its lid came unsealed at his touch—a wet pop! and a sucking sound. Into his naked lap poured a slew of squirming white bilge. Smith grinned. He ran his hands through the meaty-smelling muck, fascinated. Between his fingers wriggled the fresh white collops, the seed of the Father…
“It’s still not too late, Daddy.”
Yeah, sure, Smith thought. Of course!
The moonlight raged.
Jeannie nodded.
Smith put his face into the lumpen white slop, and began to eat.
Jeannie lay on the carpet before the tv, her chin in her little hands. Star Trek was her favorite show. Thank God Bones had put Spock’s brain back in last night.
Upstairs, Smith thrilled. “I don’t believe it.”
“What, dear?”
“A black-throated blue warbler. Wow.” Ah, well. He set down the binoculars and lay next to Donna in bed. It wouldn’t be long now. She kissed him and smiled. Smith smiled too, and gently stroked the great gravid belly beneath the nightgown. It was bloated and lovely, stretched pinprick tight, and so warm.
He put his ear to it and listened. He could hear them in there.
Donna fell asleep in his arms. Smith stroked the precious belly. He couldn’t wait to see what came out.
THE WRONG GUY
“We sure made a mess of him,” Wendlyn remarked.
Rena cut a wicked grin. “Yeah. Neat, huh?”
Neither woman, by the way, wore panties. As they each leaned over the big opened trunk of the clay-red 76 Malibu, this fact would be obvious to any onlooker. Not that there would be any onlookers in proximity to the old Governor’s Bridge at close to 4:30 in the morning. Nevertheless, the further over these two women leaned, the more of their backsides, i.e. rumps, i.e. gluteus maximi, i.e. asses peeked out from beneath their shortish skirts. Rena wore tight blue leather. Wendlyn wore a more mature Ralph Lauren navy chino wrap.
“This one was fun,” Rena said.
“Yeah,” Wendlyn agreed. “A real scream, pun intended.”
Rena giggled, “One less pretty-boy motherfucker to affront the society of women.”
Moonlight dappled their well-lined backs and legs, wavering through high trees. An owl hooted. Below them, the gentle stream burbled over stones.
They both wore latex gloves as they tended to the corpse; just because they were impulsive didn’t mean they were stupid. They’d read all about the state police carbon-dioxide lasers and special resin treatments that could lift fingerprints off human skin. No way these two gals were going to get caught. Wendlyn couldn’t imagine anything more dreadfuclass="underline" doing life in the state slam, the dike wing. She was not adverse to the pleasures of a woman, but eating some 300-lb. cellblock mama’s crusty cooze every night did not strike her as a pleasure. No, indeed.
“Shit!” Rena suddenly fretted. “Where’s his—”
Wendlyn paused with the pliers, glaring. “God, you’re so careless sometimes, Rena! You better find it! Did you leave it at the house?”