Baby

Lights flickered in the distance as the girl walked along the shoulder of a dark, country road. She was still in her underwear and was glad for the warm air.

The sun was rising. She could feel the heat intensifying on the back of her neck. Tiny pinpricks of pain that traveled down over her shoulders and her head ached. Master had made sure she stayed out of the sun. He said it would burn her, that she was made for the night, then he put the flame of his lighter to the underside of her arm so she would feel the pain of burning. Running her finger along her arm, feeling the scar, she quietly thanked her Master and wished he was there to guide her now.

She needed to find a place to rest out of the sun.

An old barn sat off the road at an angle next to the charcoal remnants of a house. White paint was peeling from the rotting boards and it smelled of mildew, but there was a bit of dry hay in the loft and plenty of hiding places, just in case.

Dust motes danced in the light shining through the broken window glass, slowing time with their lazy movement. The girl reached her slender arm toward them and waved her fingers in their midst. She thought that touching them would be like touching time itself.

Time. How much time had passed since Master took her from her room and all of its comforts into the woods?

Her room had been dark, too dark at first. She had been so afraid then, huddled in the corner of the room crying until she was covered with drool and snot, then she would fall asleep. It went that way for some time until she learned that there was nothing to fear from the dark. Bad things did not happen in the dark, in fact, the darkness was safe, secure. It was the light she learned to fear. The light and the shuffle-step-shuffle that eventually gave way to the light, deliberate step of Master. Even when he was a young boy his step was sure.

Crates and boxes were stacked in the corner of the barn farthest from the girl. She decided to move some of the dry hay behind the boxes rather than sleeping in the open where she could be seen by whoever the barn belonged to or wandered by.

Cobwebs clung to the boxes and hung from the ceiling. She brushed them out of the way and arranged the boxes so they would create a barrier around the pile of hay. They weren’t heavy, but she struggled anyway. She was weak. Finally, with what seemed a pure act of will, she had a space that felt safe enough for her to sleep.

As she climbed behind the stack, one of the boxes thudded to the ground, spilling its contents over the hay. Clothes. Mercy of mercies, clothes. The girl spread the clothing out creating a barrier between her weary body and the hay then lay down, falling into a deep, fitless sleep.

The sky was the blue-purple of twilight when she woke. Someone was in the barn.

Holding her breath, the girl peeked through the spaces between the boxes and saw a woman sitting on a crate untying her shoes and muttering to herself. “Whew! That’s right, Stella, get those shoes off. My dogs are barkin’.”

Stella’s white hair was a mess of curls and tangles poking out in all directions. Her eyes darted around and her dry, cracked lips moved constantly, spittle pooling in the corners of her mouth and running down her chin. She spoke so quietly the girl couldn’t hear much. Occasionally, she would let out a sharp cackle, having apparently amused herself.

The girl desperately wanted out of the barn. Her eyes were wide with fear as she looked for any way to escape unseen, but saw none. She would have to wait until Stella left or fell asleep to make her exit.

The girl waited quietly for some time as the woman worked to set up a makeshift camp in the barn. She too made a mound of hay the girl assumed would be a bed. She used a second crate for a table and took something wrapped in a piece of foil out of her dirty bag.

Even from her place in the corner the girl could smell that it was food and her stomach growled. Loud.

Stella’s head jerked toward the pile of boxes shielding the girl. Narrowing her eyes, she got up slowly and made her way to the corner to investigate the noise. “Hello?” she said.

The girl clamped her hand over her mouth and pushed the fist of her other hand into her stomach hoping to keep it from rumbling again. She had often done this when her Master refused to give her food and was angered at the rumbling sounds her stomach made.

“Hello?” Stella repeated. She came closer to the boxes and the girl scurried into the corner knocking several over as she did.

She curled her body in on itself to become as small as possible and squeezed her eyes shut. “I am not here,” she whispered to herself. “I am anywhere but here.”

Stella grabbed an old handle, probably from a rake or shovel from the roundness and length of it, and pointed it at the girl. “Get outta there!” she spat.

“I am not here. I am anywhere but here.”

Laughter spilled out of Stella’s mouth. “Oh, but you are. You’re here! In this shitty ol’ barn in a shitty little town with me.” She jabbed the handle toward the girl and laughed. Her laughter soon turned to wheezing, which turned to coughing. At the end of the coughing fit, she spit yellow mucus onto the ground in front of her.

“Now stop hidin’ and get out here, stupid girl.”

Keeping one eye on Stella, the girl slowly uncurled herself and crept out from behind the boxes. She kept her distance from the old woman, unsure of how she would react.

Stella walked back to her makeshift table and sat down. She opened the foil and revealed half a sandwich.

The girl's mouth began to water and her stomach growled loudly. She looked at her stomach, embarrassed, then at the sandwich.

Stella’s eyes turned hard and flashed brightly. “You’re not getting my sandwich, fool. I ain’t eat in two days and this here sandwich is all I got,” she said. “You just keep over yonder.”

The girl watched as the woman leaned the wooden handle against the wall and picked up the sandwich.

“What’s your name, girl?” Stella asked.

The girl stared at her.

“What? You deaf?” Annoyance began to show on Stella’s face. She put the sandwich down and gesticulated in front of her face as she asked slowly, “What is your name?”

“Baby,” the girl answered.

“Your mother hated you,” Stella said, pointing a crooked finger at her and shaking her head. “Terrible name.”

Tears sprang to Baby’s eyes. Even this horrible old woman knew her mother hated her. Master was right.

Baby, whose transformation had only completed hours prior, whose legs had been weak and shaky, whose only nourishment had been dirt and worms, leapt forward and grabbed the handle. She knocked the woman off the crate she was sitting on and planted one foot on either side of Stella, straddling her. Stella’s eyes opened wide and her mouth hung agape showing several rotten teeth and a pale, dry tongue.

It felt as though her arms were operating of their own accord when, screaming, Baby plunged the broken handle into the old woman’s chest. There was some resistance, so she pushed harder, ignoring the mewling coming from Stella. Blood gurgled from the old woman’s mouth and her body lurched on the ground as she flailed her arms about, reaching for help that would not come.

Once the flailing stopped, Baby removed the handle from Stella’s torso. She was still breathing, though barely, and the blood oozed out at a steady rate. The smell permeated the room and Baby’s stomach screamed for attention, who gently kneeled next to the body and began to lap up the fresh blood pouring from the old woman’s wound.

She drank the sweet, metallic fluid until she fell back on her heels and laughed, satiated at last.

Later, she rummaged through the clothes that had made her bed during the day searching for something she thought would fit. She decided on a long white dress with tiny purple and yellow flowers and a string of small white buttons up the front.

The dress hung loose, but served its purpose. A pair of once white canvas sneakers would protect her feet. She found a well behind the barn and used the spigot to wash the blood from her face and hands and to fill a bottle she had found in one of the boxes. She stuffed a change of clothes, the bottle, and the sandwich in a tattered barn bag and set out along the road.