Chapter Two

Alba Theodora Ross had awoken shortly after her son left for work. She sat up in bed and adjusted the nose piece that fed a constant stream of oxygen into either nostril and mentally cursed the infernal machine. When she had been in the hospital, the doctors had arranged for a humidifier to be placed between her personal line and the nozzle on the wall that tapped into the main supply. Her home setup, however, lacked this amenity and, as a result, the flow of air tended to dry out her sinuses to the point that flecks of blood dotted her Kleenex each time should blew her nose. It also made the back of her throat feel inflamed and itchy and she found herself swallowing more often in an attempt to moisturize the raw feeling patch of tissue.

She snatched the remote control from the beside table, toppling over the miniature cityscape of pill bottles in the process and sending them clattering to the floor. For a moment she felt anger blossom inside her like the mushroom cloud of an atomic explosion: she wanted nothing more than to throw the remote with all the force she could muster, to shatter the perfect, expressionless face of one the dolls that watched the scene play out with unblinking eyes.

Instead, she kicked away the sheets with a flurry of her feet and gritted her teeth so tightly the grinding seemed to vibrate through her cheeks. Her eyes narrow as she scowled and she pressed the little rubber buttons on the remote so hard that she could feel them burrow into the pad of her thumb.

For what must have been the millionth time, she found herself thinking how unfair this all had been. She was only sixty, for God's sake. She should still be out in the garden, tending to the cucumber plants she had been renowned for back home; she should be able to cook her own meals without fear of the gas range bursting her oxygen line into a ball of flames. Not tethered to that damn contraption like a dog at the end of a leash.

Though she would never admit it, not to him at least, she knew this was all Albert's fault. He'd taken her away from everything she had ever known: he had thrown a lifetime's worth of possessions into the back of a rented truck (breaking God knows what in the process) and drug her to this little hick town in West Fucking Virginia of all places. If he wanted to live like an inbred redneck that was his business, but to subject her to the same thing? What kind of son would do that to his mother? Especially when he simply could have paid her house payment for her her and left her where she was.

But she knew what he was up to. He was being spiteful, just like always, and this was all some elaborate scheme so that he could control every little aspect of her life. He decided when they went to the store, he decided what type of milk they would buy . . . he knew damn well she only drank whole milk but insisted on buying two percent. He claimed it was because that watered down shit was fifty cents cheaper, but she could see the truth glimmer in his eyes when he said it: it was the same cold delight her brother had when he'd held her down as a child and twisted her nipples through her shirt until he'd tired of her screams and tears.

“Fifty cents my ass.”

Albert made good money. She knew because she had found one of his pay stubs lying on the entertainment center a few weeks back. She'd opened it and was surprised to see how well his company took care of him. Besides what she thought to be a rather generous salary, there were matched 401K contributions, health insurance, bonuses, paid sick leave and vacation time . . . he certainly had them fooled, didn't he? She didn't care if he pooped gold nuggets and pissed Dom Perignon: there was no way Albert was worth what they were paying out for him. But, since they obviously were, it wouldn't drive him to the poorhouse if he shelled out that extra half dollar so she could have her whole milk. She gave him life damn it . . . certainly that was worth, if nothing else, fifty cents.

But then again, he'd always been a difficult child. Always demanding attention, always wanting money for field trips at school, or crying because he wasn't allowed to play little league or basketball; he never stopped to think that maybe there was something she wanted to watch on television or that she needed to finish the quilt she'd been working on. It was always about what he wanted, the selfish little brat.

Alba had hoped when her son married Melanie that she would be able to make a man out of him. But look how that turned out. The woman spent all of her time in the basement, sleeping all day most likely, and only coming up to use the bathroom or get something from the refrigerator. Hell, most days she didn't even bother to shower, allowing her blond hair to become so stringy and dirty that there was more oil in it than all of the Saudi desert. And if she couldn't take the time to groom herself, do you think she ever left the house? No, was perfectly content to let Albert take care of all her needs like some sort of shameless, kept woman.

Of course, Albert made excuses for her since he didn't have the balls to do anything else. He claimed that she was depressed, that they just needed to give time for her pills and counseling to work, that it was something wholly out of her control. But, as far as Alba could tell, all the woman really needed was a swift kick in the seat of the pants . . . not mollycoddled like some spoiled child. Hell, Alba had been depressed plenty of times in her life; who hadn't? Everyone gets sad, but they just don't lie down and wallow in it. No more likely than not this whole depression thing was just an act, nothing more than way to get out of doing housework or going out and finding a job. Hell, maybe if she did get a job Albert would be able to find the kindness in his heart to start buying whole milk.

But, being at their mercy, she had no choice but to continue using the two percent in her morning cereal. She just wouldn't drink anything that was left over in the bowl, that was all. She would rather pour it down the drain than gave them the satisfaction of knowing she had given in to their tyranny and, as an act of defiance, she found herself pouring more milk into her bowl with every passing morning. Maybe if they had to start being two or three gallons a week they'd realize that whole milk would last a hell of a lot longer and, in the end, be ultimately cheaper after all.

Snapping out of her thoughts, Alba came to the realization that she had stopped thumbing through the channels and come to rest on one of her favorite shows. She could never remember the name of it, but it was on one of the true crime channels and was about women who finally had all they could take and ended up taking matters into their own hands. Most often, the program painted the portraits of these female killers in the worst possible light: ominous music played in the background and the narrator used words like heinous and cold-blooded to describe their acts. Even the photos they showed were probably the most unflattering ones they could find: it seemed their hair was always in disarray, their jaws set so tightly that their mouths were thin, hard lines . . . . The producers also did something that made the women's eyes look as unfeeling and dead as the men they had killed and Alba always suspected they were getting a bum rap. People just don't go around killing other people without a damn good reason. But would the program ever show that side of it? No. She had watched the credits roll countless times and had noticed the vast majority of the people working behind the scenes were male. So it stood to reason that they would do everything in their power to ensure that their fallen brothers were portrayed in the most sympathetic way possible and the evil that smoldered in the hearts of all men remained a closely guarded secret.

“Just like Albert.”

Her thoughts turned again to the various pieces of paperwork she had found lying around the house and, specifically, to the life insurance policy her son's employer had taken out on him. Fifty-thousand dollars. Such an exuberant amount for someone who had wet the bed until he was ten. So much money . . . hell, if she had that type of cash she would be able to go back to South Carolina, perhaps buy her old house back from the bank or simply set herself up in a little apartment where she could spend her remaining years in relative peace and comfort. Regardless of which option she chose there would be whole milk, you could bet your sweet ass on that. Maybe two or three gallons in the fridge all at the same time.

Fifty-thousand dollars.

Alba drifted away into her own thoughts like a balloon that had slipped from the hand of a small child. She imagined the type of life she would live with that type of money: how people who hadn't spoken to her for years would suddenly show up and tell her how good she was looking and ask if there was anything they could do for her; in her heart she would know that they were simply looking for a handout, so she would have no problem stringing them along with tiny little loans here and there. As long as they paid her back and continued performing these token acts of kindness, she would keep them in her good graces. She would have all the power for a change and no one would dare so anything bad about her.

She had closed her eyes to better imagine this alternate life and, at some point, her daydream had faded into the darkness of sleep. Still sitting up in bed with her head lolled to one side like a ragdoll, she was just as unaware of the remote control sliding out of her hand as she was of the narrator on the television who continued to prattle on.

“And from this dark seed, the vines of evil began to grow . . . .”

Chapter 1 (Part 2): Hatchling

Every day at 5:30 am, the alarm clock function on Albert's cellphone burst into a little song that was more upbeat and perky than anything had the right to be at such an ungodly hour. He fumbled for it in the darkness, wanting nothing more than to smash it into bits of wire and circuitry but instead simply rolled out of bed with a yawn. Flipping the phone open allowed him to silence the annoying ditty and provided just enough light from the LCD for him to dig out his clothes for the day.

After dressing, he stumbled up the stairs and made his way toward the bathroom, taking care not to trip over the tubing that ran from the oxygen concentrator in the living room to his mother's bedroom. In the dim light, the tubing reminded him of a transparent serpent neatly camouflaged against the threadbare carpet; for a moment he clearly pictured it coiling around his legs, constricting tighter and tighter as it undulated up his body.

He had always been the type of man who allowed his imagination free reign, but lately it seemed as if the little movies that had once entertained his mind had taken on darker tones. There was a new director in town and gone were the days of screwball comedies and thirty second slapstick; no more did The Farce of Daily Life play to an audience of one in a sold out theater. Now the most mundane of objects seemed to don sinister masks and lurked in shadows with blades that gleamed in the moonlight; they clustered in darkness, breathing heavily as they peered through oval-shaped cutouts at the victim who glanced over his shoulder as if he sensed he were being watched, as if he could feel the contempt and hostility radiating against the back of his neck like the breath of some invisible fiend.

Albert shook his head as if he could somehow throw off these thoughts like drops of water from a wet dog. Things were just tight right now, that was all. Here in a couple months they would be on the other side of this financial mountain and everything would smooth out. The stress of the new house, of his mother's ailing health, and Melanie's depression . . . all of these things would just melt away and things would go back to the way they had been before. It was just a matter of time, that was all. Time and patience.

As if he had been moving through the hall on some sort of autopilot, Albert suddenly realized that he was standing in front of the bathroom sink and staring at his own reflection in the mirror. His face was still puffy and pale from sleep and the mop of strawberry blond hair looked as if birds had been making nests in it. He was only thirty-nine, but somehow the doppleganger staring back at him seemed so much older, as if the mirror were some sort of portal between dimensions that allowed him quick glances of things to come. The way the shadows fell across his face made it all to easy to picture the bags that would soon droop beneath his brown eyes and he could see creases at the corners of his mouth which would deepen into full blown wrinkles before long. No matter how hard his mind balked at the idea, it was irrefutable: he was getting old.

Reaching forward his fingers gripped the edge of the mirror and pulled, revealing the shelves of toothpaste, combs, Band Aids, and peroxide hidden within the wall. When the medicine cabinet was halfway open, he caught site of his mother's bedroom in the mirror's reflection. He could see her curled on her side in the bluish glow of the television, looking much smaller in the large bed than what she actually was; she was also as motionless as the porcelain dolls that cluttered her room and probably twice as fragile.

For a moment Albert was frozen in place as he studied her back, watching for the slight rise and fall that would indicate her lungs had lasted through another night. Was that a breath? Or had the ceiling fan simply rustled the thin sheet draped over her?

He listened to the lull of the infomercial that drifted from her television, to the steady hum of the oxygen concentrator in the living room . . . the steady plink, plink, plink of the tub's leaky faucet. And he listened the way a jungle predator would: body entirely motionless, head cocked slightly to the side, eyes peering into the shadows as he waited.

Did her foot just twitch? Or was it nothing more than a trick of light and shadow?

The Discovery Channel said a predator can sense the weak, can hone in on the sick and frail, and cut them away from the rest of the pack.

But that was ridiculous. Why was he thinking about nature documentaries when there was a good possibility that his mother was lying dead in the next room? And, if she truly had passed away during the night, what was the next thing to do? Should he call 911? It wouldn't really be an emergency though, so he couldn't imagine that would be an appropriate response. Who do you call when you wake up one morning to find you've slept through the night under the same roof as a corpse?

But then she yawned in her sleep, the sound a thin rattle from within a chest clogged with phlegm, and rolled over to face the opposite wall.

For a moment, Albert felt his as if his stomach were sinking and tears began to blur his vision as his shoulder's slumped.

“Son of a bitch . . .”

His hands immediately slapped over his mouth as if he could somehow push the words back down his throat and his eyes grew wide. His face felt hot and stomach acids churned in his belly, threatening to erupt through his esophagus like a volcano of guilt.

She was his mother, for God's sake. What kind of son wishes the woman who gave him life dead? She was another living being, a person with thoughts and feelings and hopes and dreams. Not some stray animal that had dragged its carcass off the streets in search of a dark place to die. What kind of monster looks at another and thinks that they would be so much happier, that their life would be so much easier, if that other person simply was no longer among the living?

Albert slammed the medicine cabinet shut a little more forcefully than he meant to and he heard things topple over from within. He tried to look at himself in the mirror so that he could brush his hair, but his reflection's eyes seemed to be hard and accusing. His gaze dropped again and again to the toothpaste spattered spigot on the sink, to the tips of his toes, to the tile floor . . . anything but what he saw in his own eyes.

The hairbrush clattered to the floor as he placed both hands on the sink and leaned forward. The room swam in and out of focus and his breath escaped in quick pants. His legs felt weak, as if they could no longer support the weight of his own body, and every muscle in his body seemed to tremble.

His own mother . . . .

His teeth were clenched together so tightly that his jaw was beginning to throb in time with his racing pulse.

What kind of monster must he be?

Warm tears trickled down his face and he struggled to regain his composure, forcing himself to take long, slow breaths through a nose that was just beginning to clog with mucus.

Get a grip, Albert. Just pull yourself together, man.

After what seemed to be an eternity, he was able to slow his breathing and the world no longer felt as they it were spiraling into the vortex of a black hole. His neck and shoulders were so tight it felt as if the muscles may very well snap at any moment and pinpricks of pain shot through his temples, but - for the most part – Albert felt as if he were in control again. Opening his eyes, he found that he could hold his own bloodshot gaze without a moment's hesitation.

He looked at himself in the mirror for several minutes while the same thoughts continued to echo through his mind.

She's your mother.
But now the words didn't seem to carry the same power as they had before, as if the venom that had coursed through them had become diluted and impotent through his tears.

She gave you life . . . .

Albert slowly became aware that he was drumming his fingers subconsciously against the edge of the sink as he studied his own eyes. The rhythm, however, was far from random and seemed somehow strange and familiar all at the same time.

Three quick taps followed by three slow ones.

Three more quick ones.

What kind of monster are you?

Chapter One: Part 1 - Hatchling

Albert Ross laid in bed while a boulder balancing on toothpicks loomed in the darkness overhead; he could feel its gravity tugging at him, tightening the muscles in his chest and arms, making the act of drawing a breath an act of will. He didn't really fear that the fragile supports would fail and send the boulder crashing down upon him. Somehow, he knew this wouldn't happen. No, it was much more likely he would no longer be able to resist it's pull, that he would cross some invisible event horizon and smash into the jagged surface like a meteor pummeling into a planet. He would shatter into a thousand tiny shards amid a plum of dust and debris; once settled, there would be no more trace of him. Everything that made him who he was would have disappeared into the crater and only a warm indentation on his pillow would remain to prove he'd ever existed . . . and even that would cool in time, the pillow slowly regaining its shape as it forgot the weight of his head.

He reached up into the darkness and stretched his fingers until he could feel the grainy surface of the boulder beneath them. Tracing along the bumps and valleys, he gradually began to realize that something was written upon this stone. No, not written really . . . more like carved or chiseled. He followed the contours of the individual letters like a blind man and soon they began to string together into words: responsibility, honor, commitment, duty, obligation.

With this realization, he also noticed something else. What he had originally mistook for a boulder actually seemed to a be a large, round egg. He could sense something moving inside, could feel the vibrations tingle through his fingertips as an unseen beak tapped away at the interior walls. Far from being random, however, the pecks seemed to follow a definite pattern: three quick raps followed by three slow ones and then three more quick ones. Almost as if the creature inside were testing the strength of the barrier that separated it from the outside world.

Images flashed in Albert's mind like snapshots from the dreams of a madman. He could see the beast within the egg: sparse, white feathers that glistened with slime jutted out from a body as shriveled and dark as mummified flesh; where its side should have been was only a jagged hole through which he caught glimpses of curved bone amid a sea of murky, green jelly that oozed and bubbled with the creature's movements; spindly legs were pulled beneath its body in a manner that seemed to suggest the thing was coiled tightly, waiting to pounce when a chink had been chipped away from the shell.

Albert's heart hammered within his chest, seeming to match the rhythm of the bird-like creature's pecking, and the sheets beneath him suddenly seemed moist and warm. He wanted to yank his hands away from the egg, to cover his eyes with his palms, to pull himself into fetal position and lay as still as the dead in the hopes that the monstrosity wouldn't sense his presence beyond the albumin. But it almost felt as if his flesh had fused with the shell, as if he could pull until his biceps quivered with exertion and still not separate his hands from the egg enough to even slide a piece of paper between the two.

Inside the sphere, it was almost as if the creature had been whipped into a frenzy by the drum-like pounding of Albert's heart. It still pecked out the same rhythm but it's head was nothing more than a white blur, the sickly yellow beak smashing again and again against the interior wall like a jackhammer.

A sheen of sweat now covered Albert's body and his mouth was flooded with the metallic tang of fear. He knew that if the creature managed to break through, it would launch itself directly at him. He could clearly picture its wings battering the sides of his face as webbed feet scrambled for purchase on his neck; the empty eye sockets would be so close to his own eyes that he would gag on the stench of rot and decay wafting through them, would feel the sticky plop of maggots raining down on his cheeks and lips as the beak stripped away ribbons of flesh.

“Please God, no, oh please, please, please . . . .”

He wanted to cry, to release the pent up pressure in his chest with hitching sobs, to scream his wife's name until Melanie bolted upright in bed and flicked on the lamp.

How could she not hear the pecking? How could she simply continue sleeping on and not, on some level, perceive the danger lurking just feet above their mattress?

The entire egg was shaking from the force of the attack and shock waves traveled along Albert's arms, tingled like an electrical current in his neck and shoulders; how much longer until he heard the first crack, until little bits began falling away like plaster from a crumbling wall? How much longer until the hatchling's head poked through hole and he heard a sound like the screech of a tortured demon erupt from its disgusting mouth?

Please . . . .

How could he defend himself against a creature that, by all laws of nature, simply should not exist?

Please, God, no . . . .

How much longer?