Face Of The Monster

Epilogue - Face Of The Monster

Pain, pain, pain, pain like fire on skin, like rock crushing bone, like poison in blood. Pain like stitches splitting open, like skulls breaking, like water filling a nose and a mouth and lungs, like falling from a mountain, like sinking in the sea. Pain like I've never felt.

No one understands. He's going inside of me. He's ripping into my body, burrowing into it right in front of them. Yet, all they can say is, "Calm down, Emma. Relax, Emma. It's going to be okay, Emma."

Ryan is driving the car, too slowly but too quickly as well. Every time we stop, my stomach jolts painfully forward and I scream out again. Beside him is Taylor, sending back concerned looks every few minutes. The only other person in the car is Lindsey, sat beside me with her fake-nailed hand resting on the bursting mound of my stomach.

Even she doesn't understand. "Keep it in," she's saying. "We're almost there."

But how can I keep him in, this awful intruder? I want him out. The boy, his awful face, his cold touch, his invisible aggressions, will not leave me. And now he is in me, in there with my baby, popping the protective bubble in which she lives.

I can't stop thinking of him hurting her. Tears burst out of me with a squeak like hinges squealing.

"Oh, honey," Lindsey says. She squeezes my hand, sweaty and sharp. "I know it hurts, shh shh . . ."

"My poor baby," I sob. I can feel his hands in my stomach, molesting her, ruining her before she's even had a chance to see the light of day. When I hold her, she will be a damaged product, a raped soul, already afraid of her mother's touch. Lindsey doesn't understand. She couldn't.

While her sharp nails dig into my palm, I close my eyes and, through the pain, beg whatever God is still listening to bring back my one true love, the only one who knows, who understands. She isn't here. She doesn't love me anymore.

"Your baby's going to be fine," Lindsey says.

"No it isn't!" I scream. Sharp pain grips my abdomen, pulling another shriek from my throat like a strand of yarn pulled from the center of the ball.

After that, I start to lose track of things. There's the hands inside of me, the hands on my skin, the hands in my hair, voices saying commands that I can't follow. There's smells: frigid February air, hospital antiseptic, latex gloves, Ryan's aftershave, something earthy and feminine, me, I suppose.

Well, I don't know quite what happened after that, but I do know that when my baby came out, someone said, "it's a girl!". Only it wasn't. It was the boy.

~

When the wreck approached, still and surreal as a painting, every limb in Lillian's body began to pulse with regret.

The stoic waves surrounding her ship sat still, caught in perpetual swell. The ship itself was alight, blazing noxiously from Gabriel's fiery breath. Dark sky, clouds hanging like puffs of cigar smoke in the night.

She knew that when time resumed, she would be bombarded by the terrified screams of her crew members as their lungs filled with water. She would be thrown into the heavy crackling of fire, tongues of it slapping against each other like anxious lovers.

Lillian sat back on her little raft, bag clutched tightly in her hand. Oh, Agatha, she thought. Why did I want to come back to this?

She missed her beyond belief: everything from her smell to her voice. The coin was still in her pocket, heavy and bouncing as she drifted toward the scene of her misery. She wanted to summon her, ask what to do now, but she felt certain that Agatha did not wish to speak to her now.