The sensible thing would be to return to your bed and lock yourself there till morning…that would be the sensible thing.'
Insolently, I knocked any nearby goblets or plates aside. 'I've been threatened before lady, and candy coated or not, they all sound the same to me! Just what the fuck is going on here? Stop the charade, cause it's making me sick, or is that the meal I just forced into my stomach?'
Consenting disgust filled the air, and all of the women, L included, left the table in a hurry. 'How about some honesty?' I yelled at their backs. 'What are you crazy people hiding?'
Approaching Kat, a hot-faced Madam B was the last of them left at a table of dirty plates. 'A length of rope seems to have gone missing from the supply shed, samurai. Sometime today, in fact. Have you come across it on your wanderings at all?'
Kat shook his head at her question or accusation, and Madam B wished him a pleasant night, but only him. Finally finished with his food, the samurai slid an empty plate to one side and scowled my way.
'What?' I shrugged. 'Can't I get a straight answer?'
'Can't you shut your mouth?”
7. Hell In The Barn
With the early hours came a fog swooning down from the mountain. His stomach full, a snoring Kat crouched in the corner of our shack, his right hand hanging like a dead weight over his katana.
Madam B said the sensible thing would be to lock myself here until the morning. I thought about it, and I knew I could walk away from this village, and forget their pregnant bellies and peculiar behavior; it wasn't my problem. Unfortunately, inquisitiveness flows through every detective's blood. The white house intrigued me most, and that is where I would start the investigation.
Getting up from the mattress, I pondered waking Kat, but the idea passed as soon as it arrived. The man cared only for himself, and I already could imagine what he would say: 'Remain where you are! Do not disobey me!' or something along those lines. Thus, with care and time taken over each step, I left the shack and a slumbering samurai behind.
Outside, a crystallized frost over everything reminded me of winter in Ontario.
Torches long burnt out, I moved fast, rubbing my arms and shrinking past shadowy hovels, unknowing if anyone was watching from those dark windows. Mud sank and molded around my footsteps as I arrived at the now-empty dinner table, cleared of goblets, cutlery, and plates, with morsels left to the rats. I had to erase the memory of that meal, the food, and company. Why did I have to open my damn mouth?
Creeping toward the white house, I could not stop my teeth from chattering, and felt for the expecting women over my trail. Safe, sure, but happy?
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
