Short Story: “Mother”

The rainy season left a depressing outlook on the travellers down highway 55. Kevin Reese was not immune to these feelings of loneliness and depression. He had been on the road for eight hours straight and was feeling the strain of the long arduous day. The road had sucked the life out of him even more so on this trip. His work had no sympathy in congruence to his personal life. Thoughts of his unfaithful wife were his only companion. Even the voices on the radio seemed to only sing songs of lost love and despair. He struggled to keep his mind on his destination running over the scripted sales pitch of his product. It seemed to be a futile notion.

A truckstop entered his vision as he pulled over to regain his senses. The diner was no different from most of the hole in the wall places he had seen before. It was late into the night so the usual residents were present. The truckers were in attendance catching a bite to eat before their slumber. A drunk mumbling to himself at the bar left to his own. Some younger kids still vibrant and full of life from a late night on the town. Kevin himself sat in a booth away from the others lost in his thoughts. He wondered if he would ever find comfort in another woman’s arms again. Then he saw her.

She was an attractive burnet out of place from the other regulars. The mere fact that she was all alone in this place at this time of night sparked his curiosity. She shifted in her seat and upon his examination he noticed the woman was pregnant. He searched around for the absentee father, but nobody else seemed to be with her. The rest of the patrons were lost in their own company, but this patron seemed undistracted with anyone else. He began to believe that there was no one else here with her for some reason he was sure of this. His eyes examined in [sic] her in longing. There was something about her that he couldn’t draw himself away from. A waitress moved in his line of vision and for a moment he snapped back to reality.

The night continued on as he sipped his coffee and ate his meal. The woman had disappeared and he was no longer enchanted by her trance. Life continued on as he made his escape back to his car and his life on the road. He might of completely forgotten about the pregnant woman and continued on his way until he saw her on the outside of the diner. Every instinct told him to not get involved. After all a woman at this time of night in her condition, the negative possibilities were endless. Still he wondered if she needed his help. What if he had misjudged the whole situation and she was merely a single mother to be in peril. Either way she looked distressed and in a daze. He realized that he couldn’t live with the idea that he could of left a pregnant woman alone at truck stop at four AM.

He startled her at first as he inquired her need for help. There was reluctance at first, but the pain she seemed to be in forced her to go along with him. He was glad he had made the decision to approach this woman. It seemed obvious that she was going into labor. She screamed out in pain before he could get her into the car. A few people walking out of the truck stop seemed to notice for a second, but left them alone.

Kevin got her inside his car and buckled her seatbelt. He started asking the frantic woman questions and tried to settle her down to no avail. Her eyes rolled in the back of her head as he tried to coax her back into consciousness. He raced off onto the highway frantically hoping to see a sign for a hospital or a police officer to assist him, but there was no luck. If he didn’t get this woman to talk him soon or have a stroke of blind luck there was going to be a bloody mess and a crying new born in his passenger seat. The amount of pain she was in detoured him from any rational idea. He had to pull over the baby was coming whether they made it to a hospital or not.

He didn’t know anything about child birth and generically commanded her to take deep breaths in and out. His ex had never bared any children on his account. She had him convinced he was the one with bad swimmers, but for some reason he knew she had no merit for her hypothesis. His wife had been rotten on the inside. He knew that now as he watched this beautiful woman ready to give birth to a child right before his eyes. In that moment he felt like he was in love with this stranger. Even in this moment of utter pain and distress he thought she was the most precious creature he had ever seen. He didn’t know how but he was going to deliver this baby for her.

The woman was propped back in the passenger seat as he cautiously made his way to her birth canal. Something under her dress began to move up and down. He reached his hands underneath to find the baby inside. What he found was a sharp pain in his fingers. He lifted them from the woman’s cervix to find that two of his fingers had been bitten off. The shock of the situation left him stunned. An inhuman cry began to come from beneath the blood soaked dress. It sounded strange to him unlike any child he had ever heard before. The creature coming from her began to reveal himself. It was indeed a child, but unlike anything he had ever seen before. Its teeth looked as if they had been sharpened with a file and it’s eyes were bloodshot with hunger.

The thing latched out onto Kevin’s neck as he began to curdle a scream. It was too late. The monster had sunk its teeth into his jugular and was tearing away at it while still attached to its mother’s umbilical cord. The woman began to relax as its offspring chewed away at its kill. It fed as mother began to relax. Her baby’s appetite had been suppressed for now and all was well for the time being. After a short while the nourished beast crawled back into its mother’s womb and went back to sleep. She eventually composed herself and exited from the car. The sun was rising and she needed to find a place to rest. The baby would be hunger again soon. It was always hungry and it was momma’s job to feed her growing boy.