Shrouded in fog, I set my back against a wall of the house, watching the village twinkling in that ghostly vapor. A window blurred bright orange from over my shoulder, so I shuffled nervously toward it. I wanted to heat my hands over the hot glass, but voices beyond those hanging red curtains snapped me from the lure. There were long, distressing moans and desperate panting breaths followed by a terrible, high-pitched wailing.
"Push! Push!"
On tiptoes, I stretched to the windowsill for a look inside, and squinting past curtains, I witnessed the back of a wide woman bent over a bedside. "Push!" she cried again. "Time to push, dearie!"
My guts, or humanity maybe, told me to forget the spy game, to haul ass inside and offer what help I could. I listened to my instinct, ran up the white porch, and pulled back the main door with not a squeak from the hinges. It was an open living space lit beautifully with candles, and that wave of heat caused me to tingle. My presence went unseen at the door as the chill thawed from my face. I saw simple but comfortable furniture before a modest fireplace, and the back of Madam B and another over a bedside, aiding a screeching redhead in labor.
My creak on a floorboard alerted Madam B, who turned, flustered, her two hands hanging like dog paws in front of her. "Is there anything I can do?" I asked, sincerely.
She watched me there for a long second, as if wondering what to do with me. A pale and congealed liquid oozed like fat from her fingertips, and the other women passed her a towel to dry them. "I asked you to stay in the shack!" said Madam B finally, more desperate than angry. "Go back now, Mr. Fox. Before it's too late!"
The redhead’s moaning intensified to guttural, as if a shank was twisting in her lower belly.
"Here it comes!" cried Madam B, positioning herself between the girl's bare legs. "One more push, J! One more! Almost…over!"
Madam J was the redhead who earlier had set up the dinner table, who giggled when Kat shoved me to the shit. She let out a final, excruciating groan before her head rolled back in absolute exhaustion. The wailing of a newborn baby came next, and utterly drained, Madam B exhaled and sobbed. The three women had a union of tears and laughter; and during this overwhelming miracle, I was forgotten at the door.
A weary smile grew on my face too, and keen to see the new arrival, I wiped the damp from my brow and approached the back of Madam B, who passed the newly wrapped baby into its mother's arms. I peered over B's shoulder for an eyeful of the boy or girl and saw a thing so unnatural, so abhorrently alien that it caused me to jolt back as if punched full in the face.
"Mr. Fox!" hissed B. "You'll frighten the child!"
Covered in spunky slime, the baby's bald head was crisscrossed with a network of purple veins. It had jelly drooling out of snouty nostrils, beady yellow eyes turning over, gills squirting juice from the neck, and a mouthful of dribbling gores. Madam B left the mother's side and came at me with a temper and an unbecoming hunch over her shoulder. "I told you!” she yelled. “Warned you, didn't I?"
The redhead wiped the ghoulish face of her baby, its moan revealing one serrated tooth between its black lips.
"Leave this village, Mr. Fox!" demanded Madam B. "Forget everything you've seen here! Run, run, and never look back!"
"This is how you buy your protection?" I said, stumbling back. "This is sick, a sick fucking nightmare!"
Suddenly, a heavy stamp came from the floor above. "He's awake!" whispered the redhead, her face pale and voice terrified. "Oh my God, he's awake!"
The women’s brief delight turned to dread, and the purest kind of fear made up their sweat. "He's coming!" panted B, pretending to wipe down surfaces. "This is your last chance, Mr. Fox! Your last! I won't be held responsible! Stay and die!"
I paused, perplexed in my spot, the baby’s bawl increasing, and the thudding footsteps, too. THUD, THUD, THUD
"Go!" B urged, returning to the bedside and waving me, begging me out the door.
Scared out of my wits, I positioned myself halfway between the main door and outside wall, watching the staircase to the upper floor. I wanted to haul ass, but had too, needed to see it! The staircase creaked from some huge load whilst the women busied themselves, fixing bed covers and their own appearances in the mirror.
THUD! A mighty weight put its strain on the first descending step. THUD! Thick black feet and fat yellow toenails. THUD! Taking the final steps, the giant stood before the anxious women and newborn thing.
"Grutas!" said Madam B, swallowing. "Your son…is born."
***
Haphazardly, I stumbled, splashed, and not once looked over my shoulder. The fog threatened to lose me, but I did not care or stop until, POUF!
Head spinning, I removed Sir Isaac Newton's dagger from its pouch and slashed at whoever knocked me down, at whoever pressed on top of me now. She cried out, and I opened my eyes to discover the blonde-haired Madam L recoiling from my cuts. "You alright?" I gasped and wheezed. "Fuck! Tell me I didn't cut you? Shit! Tell me I didn't?"
She scrutinized the slashed cloth at her arm and found no blood or scratch. She was okay. Searching behind me for the first time, there was only the sitting mist, its churns concealing the white house.
"I am so sorry!" I said, assisting her. "I thought you were…"
"They call him Grutas!" she said, in a hurried whisper. "Madam B said he plans to feed me to his bogs in the morning. Had enough of my excuses. Will you help me, mister? I've no one else to turn to…."
Without another thought, I snatched her wrist and sprinted for the shack.
There was a hefty collision when I barged through the door, breaking it into flimsy bits and pieces. Covered in splinters, I grimaced and crawled to wake Kat, but the samurai was alert already. He pressed his weight down onto my back and held a blade across my throat.
"Don't kill me!" I yelled.
Kat bent for a better look of my face, then grumbled, somewhat disappointed. Relinquishing the sword from my throat and his grip on my hair, I recovered against the bed. Wearing a sour grimace, Kat looked over the breathless and beautiful L, loitering at the door-less doorway. "What is this?" he said.
"She needs our help, Kat. We're in danger!"
The samurai complained under his breath as L carefully passed him to sit on the bed.
"Your harlot stays here," he spat, clearing nasal mucus. "The burden will jeopardize our mission."
"Then the burden is mine," I said. "Grutas will murder her if she stays."
"No purpose…" the girl droned.
"Where is the giant?" asked Kat, preparing his fists for a fight.
"The white house," I answered. "Saw him there myself just now. I figure the wizard uses these women like some kind of assembly line. They are not human beings, but machinery categorized in his fucking alphabet. It's Scarfell who protects this village, Scarfell!"
"It's true," L said. "We are prisoners, brought here by the wizard for our purpose. All women must produce for him."
"You see, samurai?" I said, moving to comfort her on the bed. "I don't know why we're even allowed to stay here, but we're dead if we hang around much longer!"
"Calm her," he said, squinting through the shed cracks. Holding L's frail form, I doubted she or I would be strong enough for a trek up the mountainside.
"Something stirs outside," whispered Kat. "We move now!"
"And the women?" asked L, sniffling. "We collect them, too?"
Kat shook an ill-tempered head, his answer an unsympathetic and unquestionable no.
"We can't leave them to be raped!" I argued, facing him. "That's the reality!"
"Shut up!" he moaned, callously moving for the door.
I took him by the arm, and Kat's response was ferocious. He turned, and picking me up by the legs, he threw my body back to the wall.
"I told you to shut up!" he growled as he tightened a hold around my jugular. "When I tell you to do something, you will do it!"