“Cameron? You’ve got to get up,” a woman said, doing her best to drag me from the ground.
“I need help,” I begged, clawing at her shirt. “He’s after me. Please.”
The woman didn’t react. She put a finger to her lips. “The new editor is here,” she said, pointing behind me. “And he’s not taking no for an answer.”
“She’s right, you know,” I heard Rick say.
Spinning in place, I found Rick walking toward me. The ax was gone, and he was holding a folded newspaper in his left hand.
“Please, no,” I sobbed, backing away again.
“You need to stop running, Cameron,” Rick said, and held up the paper so I could see the headline.
Cameron Torres and Rick Masters Welcome a New Bundle of Joy.
The picture below the headline caught my attention: me smiling happily, holding a swaddled baby in my arms. The baby stared up at me with a twisted, grimacing smile, sharp teeth stuck out from the thing’s lips at odd angles. I was naked,my left breast a mangled and bloody ruin. Streaks of crimson painted the baby’s cheeks, fangs, and lips.
Unsure what else to do, I stumbled backward, turning and running away again.
“You need to be careful,” Rick called. “For the baby.”
The Chroniclewas different than I remembered. New doors had appeared, along with extra hallways and stairs where there had been none before. Rick continued to follow me, chanting the word “baby” over and over again.
Up ahead, I spotted an office I knew. Brent’s office. My real editor. Maybe he could help me? Rushing forward as fast as my legs could carry me, I grabbed the knob, turned it, and hurried inside.
Instead of Brent’s desk and framed newspaper stories, the walls were covered in pastel-colored animals frolicking in meadows and forests. A giant mobile turned lazily above a crib.
“You’re going to make a beautiful mother,” Rick said from behind me.
I turned slowly, my horror and fear so strong, I couldn’t run. Not anymore. There was nowhere to go, anyway.
Rick stood there in a three-piece suit, his hair slicked back and a pipe sticking jauntily from his lips. He looked like a stereotypical ’50s TV father.
“You and I will lead this pack,” Rick added, puffing on his pipe before using it to point at my stomach. “And that little one will be our pride and joy.”
My stomach suddenly felt heavy. Looking down, I gaped in shock at the massive, swollen belly. Deep inside, a fluttery movement sent a horrified thought through me. An alien was growing within me. Rick’s baby. The thought made my skin crawl, and I tried to take a step back.
The floor of the nursery held my feet like glue. The wood had softened, turning into putty. My feet sank into it as if it werequicksand. No matter how hard I pulled at my feet and legs, I sank deeper. I jerked my head from side to side, looking for someone to help me, but all I found were the painted animals on the walls. The creatures looked back at me, menacing smiles on their faces, a deep red glow in their eyes. The smiles became leers, and soon every creature had morphed into a wolf.
Rick knelt beside me, watching placidly as the floor started to swallow me up. “When the baby comes, you’ll be able to quit your silly little job. You can stay home all day. Cooking and cleaning, and changing diapers.” He flapped a hand at me. “All this dumb writing and researching will be a thing of the past.”
Sliding ever deeper into the thick and gelatinous floor, I screamed for help. But there was no one.
Finally, I called out for Nate.
Rick chuckled. “Nate? Oh, he won’t be any more trouble for us.”
He snapped his fingers as the floor swallowed me up to my chin. A woman in a maid’s outfit appeared, rolling a huge, brass room service cart. Atop the cart, a wolf was trussed up like a Thanksgiving turkey. Steam billowed lazily up from his roasted and blistered skin. An apple sat in the dead wolf’s mouth.
Nate’s wolf.
A gut-wrenching sadness enveloped me, and I opened my mouth to scream, but before any sound could come out, the floor slipped up across my lips, filling my mouth. Right before I slipped fully under, the last thing I saw was Rick standing over Nate’s dead body, a carving knife in hand. An instant before the ground covered my eyes and ears, he smiled at me.
“White meat or dark meat, Cameron?” he asked, then threw his head back and laughed.
53
Cameron
