Estimated reading time — 10 minutes

Lakeshia was not sure of the time; she did know that it was very late, and dark according to the window. Rain came in a steady drizzle outside. Droplets which reflected orange colored light pelted the thick glass. The hospital, unusually quiet now. Her window displayed mostly darkness, aside from the rain, a distant parking lot, farther was a highway. Blackness was the rest of the world. A complete lack of moonlight made it appear as if nothing else existed. Dread and worry kept her from falling to sleep.

“Where… where is my baby?” Lakeshia quietly muttered. Hoping anything helpful will listen to her. Still wearing a tousled blue hospital gown that clung to her body. The sweat has mostly dried, yet some spots still showed dark wet hues. The bed needed changed; dried brown blood had stained a large area over the front of her gown at her crotch. Lakeshia’s legs felt like jelly as did the rest of her, even her soul was tired. Despite all her troubles, her thoughts were only about the baby. It was a very hard birth. Really, it was a very hard, lonely, everything for Lakeshia since the baby was involved.

The father left as soon as she told him. Her family didn’t want a bastard. Her sister told her to get an abortion. Latashia’s own mother ignored her calls when she went into labor. Sick every day, still having to work two jobs and quit her old happiness. It was a very miserable 9 months. Lakeisha always imagined her sister and mother would be right there with her when it came time to push. There was no one today, no sisterhood or family care. The loneliness of the hospital bed, stranger’s hands that touched wherever, needles, pathetic glances. Awkward moments when asked about family, and commands to push from strangers. It was so hard and so lonely. It would be worth it though, for the baby.

“Where… where is he?” Lakeshia didn’t get to know the gender before they took it. She wanted it to be a surprise, however it had been a boy to her since it came into her life. When the birth started, all she felt was pain, then relief as a small pathetic cry came into the world. She remembered a brief flash of a small pink hand raised into the air as the doctor left the room with him.

Lakeshia didn’t know how long she had been in this bed. With a deep breath of cool air. She raised herself up and wiped the sweat from her eyes. Seeing a room that should have been filled with family, still as desolate as she remembered. A shaking hand pressed a call button, summoning a plain look nurse and her doctor. A tall blonde wearing dark blue scrubs.

“Can we help you Ms. Nati?” The doctor spoke.

“Where’s my baby?” Lakeshia questioned, as both the nurse and doctor looked curiously at each other, then back to her.

“What baby?” The doctor asked.

“My baby, where’s my baby?” Lakeshia asked weakly. The doctor grew a sudden realized look, smiling at the nurse who left the room before looking back.

“Oh, you must be confused, Ms. Nati, you’re here because you had a traumatic head injury.” The doctor’s words flooded Lakeshia with confusion and irritation. She had a baby; she drove herself here. Why on earth would someone try to lie to her?

“Bring me my baby,” Lakeshia demanded, her tone almost begging more, as the thought of losing the last family she had began to grind her anxiety.

“You’re confused Ms. Nati,” the nurse reappeared and brought a wheelchair as the doctor explained.

“We’re going to take you to psych; you’re having some delusions.” The doctor and nurse quickly lifted Lakeisha into the chair and started to wheel her out.

“What? What are doing?” Lakeshia winced, her lungs weak and frantic, filling more with panic than air. Questioning her own sanity. Had she imagined an entire child? An entire year? Did she wreak and lose the baby? Was there ever one at all? Just before she began to cry, Lakeshia spotted a sign above a large door as they rolled her.

“Leaving Maternity, Entering PSYCH,” it read. There was a baby. Why else would she be in the maternity ward? They had stolen him, this doctor and nurse had stolen her baby and were trying to convince her she was crazy. Lakeshia felt a rush of adrenaline. Looking around she saw a cart of surgical tools sitting out. She waited, fainting a quiet shock until she could reach them. In an instant she grasped a scapple before turning it back on the nurse pushing her wheelchair. Thrusting the sharp end backwards hoping to cut at her hands or stomach.

“Ms. Nati what are you doing!” The nurse let go and stepped back with the doctor as the wheelchair slowed to a stop. Lakeshia tried to stand but couldn’t. Her body was too exhausted. Pure maternal protection and desperation kept her awake as she rolled the wheelchair around towards the doctor and the nurse. Holding the scalpel in one clammy blood stained hand.

“Where is my baby?” Lakeshia demanded. Staring towards the doctor. She kept her expression strong, focused, trying to hide her desperation and fear behind false bravado.

“Ms. Nati… you’re confused, you don’t have a child!” The doctor said, stepping forward, her own hand raised to show that she was unarmed.

“I did, I do have a baby, I didn’t wreak, I drove myself here! Why are we in the maternity ward then? Why does that sign say Leaving Maternity Ward?” Lakeshia demanded as the doctor stepped a little closer, her deep blue eyes locked on.

“We’re not Ms. Nati… this is the ER, we’re just taking you to psych. You’re having delusions. Please put the knife down, you must have misread the sign, look again.” The doctor flicked her eyes towards the door as Lakeshia turned her head slightly to check. Her eyes confirmed what she had read before, they were in the maternity ward. Lakeshia could feel the anger swelling as she read the same short phrase over and over again. What was going on? Was this some kind of human trafficking ring? Some pedophile group snatching children out of the hospital? All of these theories blazed around her mind like fire.

Lakeshia couldn’t decide which theory was worse, before, out of the corner of her eye the doctor was suddenly rushing towards her hand! Practically diving for the scalpel. Lakeshia’s hand seemed to move out instinct as she jabbed the scalpel forward and plunged it into the doctor’s outstretched hand. Jabbing between the middle and ring finger. Sinking the short blade into the soft flesh of the doctor. Causing the woman to jump back and scream. Clutching her gushing hand as if were about to fall off. As Lakeshia watched her scream, she thought about how strange it felt to stab someone with a knife. She had never stabbed anyone; she never had a reason to until today. She had never felt more justified in anything she’d done.

“Ah! You fucking bitch!” The doctor squalled, clutching her bleeding hand to stifle the blood which dribbled onto her white tennis shoes and splattered on the floor. The nurse ran into another room, leaving the two alone. Lakeshia breathed deeply and rolled herself forward. Knife clutched in a blood covered hand. Now with blood that wasn’t her own.

“Where’s my baby?” Lakeshia demanded again. Shaking the scalpel threateningly as she spoke.

“You fucking psycho!” The doctor darted towards a set of metal doors past the reception desk beside them. Plowing through like a bull in a China shop. Lakeisha rolled after her, only for a deep cramping pain to suddenly punch her in the gut. She stopped and winced, clutching her belly almost as tightly as the bloody scalpel. She was weak, gutted from the birth her blood stained gown began to redden anew with a new red flow on her crotch. Sweat poured from Lakeshia’s brow. She buried her pain and pushed on. Thinking of her scared little boy. Wondering where mommy was and if she was going to save him.

Reaching the twin metal doors Lakeshia pressed a button to let the door open for her. Inside was a long weird looking hallway. Clean hospital walls turned to grime and filth, working lights flickered as they stretched on, until they only worked occasionally. Some not at all. Clutter was around. Rusted instruments, old beds leaned against the walls, drawers, tables with forgotten equipment made well before Lakeshia’s generation.

Towards the end of the dank hall a flash of a tight blonde hair bun entered one of the rooms. Telling her where to go. She swallowed, not having time to think Lakeshia rolled forward, placing the scalpel in her lap she used both hands to push herself. It seemed the closer she got to the room the worse the environment was.

Reaching the door the doctor went through, Lakeshia could see small black tendrils creeping from under the door frame. Small evil looking roots had dug into the tile, and the plaster walls above and around the door. Her fear warned her not to go any farther, that something eldritchly unnatural was waiting behind this door. That to save herself she would have to abandon the child. However, motherhood urged her on and was more convincing. Using what little strength her drained body had, she opened the door.

With a small creak to look, Lakeshia saw the doctor still clutching her bleeding hand. Beside her were several nurses who wore all white. As soon as the sound of the door reached them, all in the room turned to Lakeshia, who now saw what horrible ritual her reality tried to avoid. An abominable creature of every demented idea one could concoct about motherhood. The abomination was a mass of red flesh with dozens of small infant heads around its blob like form. Focused in the middle was a gaping maw, devoid of teeth, above sat two large black eyes which reflected a dim light above. A lone light which barely illuminated the
room.

Along its hunch of small heads, were two bare chested nurses, who were breast feeding four of the small infant heads at a time on both sides of the abominations back. Alternating a breast to a new head every few moments. In front was the doctor and another nurse with a large red cross on her hat, who looked to be charge of the room. And finally, to Lakeshia’s horror, a bloody pink baby blanket was clutched in the hands of another nurse who kneeled in front of the abomination’s maw.

Lakeshia didn’t fully comprehend the horror before her. The only aspect she understood, was the bloody pink blanket. Which told her it was not a boy, it was a girl and she had been fed to the abomination. She would never know how much her mommy loved her. Lakeshia fell forward from the chair and laid on the floor as she stared at the bloody fabric. And as if out of some natal ring of hell.

“Ma Ma?”

The abomination gargled the cherished words in a deep demonic growl that had a layer of infant tone. Tears ran down Lakeshia’s face as her own screaming took over. The small room focused the sound into the ears of all who attended. The abomination began to stir, and its growls and tremors started to shake the ground.

“Shut up you’ll piss her off!” The doctor shouted at Lakeshia who continued to sob. The abomination quaked and shook before it erupted two arms longer than the doctor was tall from its mass of flesh. It roared a throbbing groan which shook the room and everyone inside before it attacked. First grasping the woman who held the bloody pink blanket by the neck and the nurse who appeared in charged at the same time. Holding them high in the air, the two gasped for breath.

Lakeshia didn’t see this chaos; watching the bloody pink blanket fall to the floor in front of her. She grasped it by the edge and pulled its soft fabric to her nose. Smelling the love-based aroma of a newborn. Before sobbing into the cloth as the abomination began wringing the two women by their necks, until an audible twin cracks of spine filled the room.

Along the abomination’s mass hunch, the bare-chested nurses screamed murder. Pulling away in vein as dozens of tiny infant arms sprouted from the hunch and gripped them with surprising strength. The infant heads they nursed grew sharp weasel like teeth and began to take chunks out of their breasts instead of milk. Leaving red exposed flesh which streamed blood down their bodies and into the thirsty mouths of the many heads. The tiny arms held firm and pulled them closer, allowing more heads with sharp teeth to sprout and gain a spot in the feast of their bodies. A mass of infants vigorously eating the woman alive.

“You’ve killed them! You stupid bitch why didn’t you just believe me!” Shouting at the sobbing Lakeshia. The doctor turned to run. However a long boney arm dropped the head nurse like a load of gravel and lunged for her leg. Pulling back with overwhelming force. Dragging the writhing doctor and dangling her in the air by the foot. Her incoherent begging falling on deaf ears just as the abomination lowered her into its gaping black maw and swallowed her in one gulp.

Lakeshia didn’t see anything except for the pink blood stained baby blanket in her hands. She held so tightly her knuckles had turned white. Lakeshia prayed for the first time in a very long time. She prayed for her baby, her girl, to know how much her momma loved her. The prayers inside Lakeshia’s head were louder to herself than the bodies being fed into the maw. One gulp after another. The hunch had finished the two bare chested woman and were gnawing on the bones until they too disappeared into the abomination. It and Lakeshia were alone now.

“Ma Ma?” The abomination guttered.

Making the stream of prayers inside Lakeshia’s head go quiet. The abomination’s black, alien eyes stared at her. It’s primitive, yet eldritchly ancient mind thinking, considering. It felt pain seeing her cry, as tears of blood began to stream down its long face. The abomination started to claw forward, towards the one it knew as “Ma Ma.” Lakeshia watched in fear. Having already accepted death, not wanting to live without her daughter.

As the abomination pulled its long sluglike body towards her. It began to lessen, to dissipate into an ever smaller stature by the moment. Its hunch receded; its gaping maw tightened on its face. The black eyes began to shrink and develop a milky white hue until it had pupils. It pulled and clenched and tightened until it was as small as a newborn baby. Fleshly skin turned typical, to a pink hue with the large arms being the last to resend into its back with no sign they existed. Leaving the abomination a small, vulnerable thing that laid on the cold tile floor. If one had not seen it before, they would assume it was just a typical newborn.

“Ma Ma,” the noise lost all structure and depth as the cry’s turned to the pitched whines of a baby who sobbed for its mother. Lakeshia did not understand what she saw. Watching the baby lay and cry on the cold tile floor. Her instincts told her to pick it up. Having nothing left to lose, Lakeshia did, clutching the babe in the same bloody pink blanket and wrapping it tightly.

“Hey hey, it’s okay… Mama’s here,” the crying babe started to quiet.

“Here, you’re hungry,” Lakeshia produced a dripping breast for the child, who latched right away.

“There you go, there you go… that’s my girl,” Lakeshia smiled. Love filled her heart while all the cruelty and suffering fell from her soul like an unlocked shackle. She enjoyed the feeling for some time until the infant unlatched, and Lakeshia laid it over her shoulder to burp. The knowledge of the abomination disappeared into the same pit of her mind that the pain of birth had as well. The child soon burped.

“Good job baby, I’m so proud of you,” Lakeshia checked inside the bloody pink blanket and saw that the babe was indeed a girl.

“Let’s go home,” Lakeshia said, as she uneasily rose and sat herself back on the wheel chair to go back to her room. The baby was fast asleep, resting in her lap. It stirred for a moment.
“Shush shush, it’s okay, you’re my baby, and I love you so much,” Lakeshia wheeled out of the dark room. Her baby asleep, thankful she and her child are together again.

Credit: Bryan Holly