Are You Expecting?

May 27th, 2030. 10:30 Am-10:35 Am.
The hum of the fluorescent lights, the smell of antiseptic, and the squeaking of chairs as men in white lab coats roll around the porcelain floors created an image in Abigail’s mind of sickness. This was not what she expected when she and her husband, Tom, came in for her appointment today. People in suits had rushed her down the elevator and told her to change into this hospital gown in such a hurry that she thought something was wrong. Now, as she listens to the heartbeat monitor they attached to her, she thinks she can hear the beeps increasing.

“How much longer?” She asks the man closest to her. He looks up from his clipboard and lets out the kind of smile a politician gives when they’re bullshitting.

“Not much longer. Blood results should be back shortly,” says the man.

“Can I see Tom at least?”

“He’s right there.” He says, pointing to the one-way mirror. Abigail waves a small wave, hoping Tom is there and not with those men in suits.

“Can I stand up for a little, at least? My legs are getting numb, doctor.” Abigail asks.

“I’m not a doctor, ma’am, but sure go ahead.”

There were a lot of “not doctors” making decisions for her lately. She sat up, the weight in her stomach ballooning more and more each day, hell, hour by hour now, making it impossible to lie down on her back with any semblance of comfort. Sitting up from a laying position has become a herculean task, and the heart rate monitor shows it, jumping from 70 BPM to 95 BPM.

She stands up on her sore feet, heavy and swollen as a brick. She puts her hand to her forehead to control the dizzy spells she gets whenever she does get up. Did the fact that she was having twins make all these symptoms worse? The people who had given her the IVF injection said their new treatment might create a more intense pregnancy, but lately, Abigail thought they undersold that statement. This was a pregnancy on steroids.

The only benefit, outside of finally being able to conceive, is the shortened time frame. ‘Deliver the baby in half the time,’ the initial trial coordinator had told her and Tom. Less time she needed to be an incubator which is what made her agree. That and the assuredness of the safety. ‘These are the final steps of this new treatment,’ the same coordinator had told them.

The first few weeks after the treatment weren’t too bad; the regular symptoms of tiredness and nausea had set in. Plus, Tom was so happy she sucked it up. After years of trying and thousands of dollars on other forms of treatment that went nowhere, money that could’ve gone to a down payment on a house, they were on their way to start the family they (he) always wanted. When they told her at the first ultrasound that it was going to be twins, Tom’s excitement doubled while her apprehension (fear) tripled.

She looks at her reflection in the mirror again. Her stomach protrudes out like a pale-peach-coloured balloon, with rotten veins running across the circumference. ‘All this in three months,’ she thinks.

Abigail bends over to a crashing pain, a punch on the inside of her stomach. Grasping at the swelling in her middle—the flesh below her gut curls in and then out like the rolling of a wave. A familiar feeling these past weeks.

“Ughh.” She exclaims, then sits back down. She reaches for a bottle of water, but her clammy fingers fumble with it, sending it off the desk onto the floor. Another wave of pain ripples from her belly button to her spine as though the space between the two is collapsing.
She tries to say Oh God. “Ughahh!” comes out instead.

“Let me get that for you.” The ‘not a doctor,’ says, grabbing the water, unscrewing it and handing it to her.

“Thanks,” she says in a breathless voice. She puts the water to her lips. She needs to go home, take a bath, and let this wave of pain blow over.

“Can I leave soon?” she asks. “Babies aren’t due for another month, according to the doctor. But you guys are acting like it’s going to pop out now.”

“Soon, very soon. We have to check a few things.”

Abigail looks around. She hadn’t noticed that the other men in lab coats have left the room. It’s her and this “not a doctor” alone.

“Where’d everyone go?”

“Out. Do you mind lying back down? I need to get a final read before we can send you off.”

Abigail does so, feeling more and more like a slab of meat. The sound of her heartbeat bouncing off the steel bed, makes a Thunk. Thunk. Thunk, sound, that matches the Beep. Beep. Beep of the heart rate monitor.

She closes her eyes, envisioning a time when she will be at home, her stomach and life back to normal.

Clank. Something snaps near her hands. She opens her eyes to see two metal bracelets squeezing her wrist.

“Hey, what–”

She tries to speak, but a wave of pain all through her lower half interrupts her. Not a punch, not anything she has felt during the entirety of this pregnancy. As though the babies are eating her from the inside.

“Graaahhhu!” she screams.

“Try and relax,” the man says. “It will all be over soon.”

Abigail looks at her stomach. The skin is starting to press forward.

“What’s going on?” she cries out.

“It will be over soon.” The man repeats.

—————————-

May 20th, 2035. 9.00 pm-9:16 pm
Dr. Jeremiah Stuart sits down at his cubicle desk with his seventh cup of coffee that day. It’s now 9 pm, and any hope of sleep decreases with every caffeine intake. Not that sleep has been forthcoming this past week.

He flips through the latest ultrasound photos. The real ones, not the ones he and his team have been giving the couple. Jeremiah thinks about how happy the couple were when he showed them the photo of their ‘twins.’ The man had almost bolted from his seat in excitement.

‘Of course it would excite them.’ Jeremiah thinks.

The initial credit check had shown the couple was north of $40,000 in debt for fertility treatment. When Jeremiah had told them that they were accepted as candidates for this new treatment and not only would it be free, but the two would be getting paid for it, the couple’s smiles could’ve lit up the dank office room Jeremiah now finds himself in.

Jeremiah can’t deny his elation when the insemination worked. Despite what he told the two, this process was far from a guaranteed success, and without the expedition and funding from the government, it wouldn’t be happening at all without people going to jail.

And it had all started with such promise. Hell, the initial scans, and tests verified all their theories. Gestation was speeding up, and for a brief period, it was twins. Now, however—
“One, two, three,” Jeremiah says out loud as he counts the pairs of arms? In the latest ultrasound photo, “Four, five….. Six? Christ.”

Jeremiah puts the photos down and puts his hands on his throbbing temple. He feels something fall on his shoulder, causing him to jump from his seat. He spins around to see his boss, Dr. Brown, with a broad smile across his face.

“Didn’t mean to startle you there, Jerimiah,” Dr. Brown says. “Burning the midnight oil, I see.” Jeremiah watches as Dr. Brown’s eyes drift toward the photos on the desk. Dr. Brown picks one up, analyzes it and lets out a sharp whistle.

“Woo boy. I told you if we used more than one type of animal DNA, outcomes would improve. Splicing with goat DNA alone could never have gotten us this.” Dr. Brown says with a grimace that causes Jeremiah to avert his gaze.

“The goal was twins.” Jeremiah says, “Goats typically have twins, and that’s what we promised them. That’s what we promised all the government bodies as well.”

“You’re right, we did,” Dr. Brown says in a matter-of-fact voice, “And the Chinese government told us when they gave us that 50 million dollar contract that twins weren’t good enough.”

“Why this way then? Why didn’t we use another mammal’s DNA, like a pig or something? It took us forever to work out how to crossbreed with an egg-laying creature.”

“Because I am the lead on this project. My research wasn’t on pig fertility, and I don’t trust that to give us the results we need.”

“Yes, but—”

“It’s like this son. China overcounted their population by 100 million not that long ago. They don’t have the workers they need. That country couldn’t be in a worse economic depression. The good ol’ USA isn’t much better. We can’t take in enough people to drive the economic growth that we once had.”

Jeremiah recognizes this speech; it’s the same one Dr. Brown gave Jerimiah’s team when he told them they were using different animal DNA, ignoring all the protests.

“Pundits will try to spin the economic downturn most of the world is facing on other causes, but it’s down to one reason—no one is around to replace the people retiring or dying. The world needs more kids, and they need them now. Do you know what happens to a civilization that doesn’t have kids? It dies. So what are we to do, Jerimiah? What are we as a civilization supposed to do? Let our world collapse because people want to live childless, selfish lives. I refuse to accept that, and I know you do, too. We are creating a world where the new norm will have the average birth be five or more children.”

Jeremiah finds himself cursing his boss in his head. His arrogance and his desire to play God should have got him fired, not promoted to head of this project. He hardly listens as Dr. Brown continues to speak.

“Besides, don’t you like a challenge? If this doesn’t work, they’ll always be the next time. Plenty of desperate people hoping for kids and desperate government funding us now.”

“But sir,” Jeremiah says, “These images, it’s not just the amount, it’s the form. It’s too big for this woman, it’s stretching to other parts—”

Dr. Brown’s smile doesn’t leave when he interrupts, “The most a person has naturally given birth to is twelve babies. TWELVE. All we’re asking for is six to seven. She’ll be fine. She’ll have to be.”

Jeremiah continues, “Part of the child, the thing that’s growing inside her, it looks like parts are leaking out. If we want any chance of the woman surviving, we’ll have to cut it out.”

Dr. Brown’s smile disappears, “We will not risk this child. Go home, Jerimiah; I will not have any more talk of this. What is done is done, and you should be proud of your work. I’m sure your wife is proud of the bank account you have accumulated from working on this.”

Dr. Brown turns and walks away.

“What about her husband? What will you tell him?”

Dr. Brown doesn’t stop walking when he says, “We will do what we have to.” Then he’s out the front door.

“What have we done,” he mutters to himself.

The idea of going to the news is there, but Jeremiah can’t see himself doing it. Government officials and agencies have been involved in this project from the start, ensuring no leaking of information. If Jeremiah becomes a whistleblower, his cause of death will read, ‘suicide via two bullets in the back of the head.’

He sits back down at his desk. The smell of the coffee turns his stomach into a war zone. He looks at the images. They told her another month, but this thing won’t wait that long. She’ll be lucky if it’s a week. And when it comes out—

—————————-

May 27th, 2035. 10:35 am-10:48 am
Abigail watches as the ‘not a doctor’ leaves the room and gets replaced by two people in hazmat suits.

“Aghhhh!” She screams as fresh pain explodes from her centre like a cramp with no end, making its way through her stomach and back. She tries to curl up and reach towards the pain but can’t. She can only flail her feet.

“Mrs. Oher, I’m Dr. Weisman; I will deliver your children today.” A man’s voice comes from the taller of the hazmats.

Sweat pours from Abigail’s forehead into her eyes, clouding her vision and darkening her surroundings. The two hazmat suits look like they’re shaking in a room with no lights. ‘I am going crazy,’ she thinks as a stabbing sensation erupts near her heart.

“Supposed to be a month away. Doctor said.” She says through gritted teeth.

“The table has moved up; you’ll have your children by the end of the day.” The hazmat suit doctor says. The shorter hazmat has rolled in a familiar-looking machine, an ultrasound.

“Epidural? Please. Please.” Abigail asks in gaspy breaths. Another explosion in her stomach, as though tiny razors are shredding her abdomen.

“First, we have to check the child. Make sure there’s no possibility it will interfere.”

“Please, stop the pain,” She mutters as she arches her back, but the hazmat doctor either doesn’t hear or ignores her.

The shorter one approaches Abigail with a white paddle, jelly gleaming off it. He puts it on her stomach. The second the paddle touches Abigail’s skin, she sees her stomach swell above her belly button in a misshapen rectangle, like something is trying to touch back.

Both the doctor and the assistant reel back, which sends a chill down Abigail’s spine, distinct from the pain.

“What’s happening to me?” she cries out. Both hazmats look at each other but don’t respond. The heart rate monitor is racing.

BEEP.BEEP.BEEP.BEEP.

The shorter one approaches her again, placing the ultrasound wand on her stomach. This time, her stomach doesn’t protrude, but a pain, unlike anything she has ever felt roars from her uterus down to between her legs. She thinks, no, she knows, she can hear a tearing sound on the inside of her.

She is about to scream, GET THIS THING OUT OF ME! What stops her is the stabbing in her heart, which has jumped to her throat. Something sticking to the sides and moving upwards, blocking the air from coming through.

“Help,” she says, but it comes out as a squeak. She’s ignored again by the hazmats as their attention is drawn to the screen. Abigail turns her head to the left to see what is taking their attention. Despite the burning and tearing in her stomach, despite the thing creeping its way through her neck, causing her breath to wheeze, it is the image on the ultrasound that makes her realize how much of a fool she was to have trusted this process.

All the other ultrasounds showed two babies, one’s head above the other. Abigail and Tom were going to name the boy Michael and the girl Robin.

What was on the screen now deserved no name.

A whirling ball of gray. Abigail, through her clouded vision, can see long arms protruding out. She can make out seven blurry circles, with a swirl of thin black and white lines moving around and up. Each time she sees those grey lines push up; her stomach explodes.

“That’s enough,” the hazmat doctor says.

The shorter hazmat retracts the wand.

“I will need some time to converse with my superiors.” The doctor says.

“What? Abigail asks, finding enough air to push out the words. “Don’t leave me.” She begs.
The two walk towards a phone next to the door they entered. The hazmat doctor takes off his helmet and picks up the phone. Abigail can’t see the man’s face, only the shine of his silver hair. She can’t hear anything either; the man is talking in hushed tones.

After a moment, the man puts the phone down, and both leave.

“Wait, don’t leave me.” She screams, “Please don’t—

She can’t finish her sentence as pain ruptures, now from her mouth to between her legs. She throws her head back, smashing it on the steel table, making an already dizzying world turn fuzzy.

She tries to look back, tries to see what is going on in her stomach, but can’t. Something is protruding out of her mouth, making her jaw open as far as it can and craning her neck back. A brief image of her lower jaw snapping off plays in her mind.

Her sight gets forced upwards towards the ceiling. A thing enters the space in between her eyes. First small, then closer, and she can see it more clearly. A thin, long tube that sways like a twig swaying with the wind. It’s the same colour as her skin and almost looks like an elongated finger. It drips a liquid that stings as it mixes in with the tears and sweat.
A pungent, sour taste coincides with the feeling of her jaw detaching from its hinges. The only thing distracting her from that pain is the ripping in her gut.

At first, she thinks the doctor has returned, changed his mind and is now performing an anesthetic-free C-Section. But no, this ripping in her stomach isn’t that of a skilled hand. It is the chaotic biting away, the tearing of her flesh. Wetness pools at her waist as something cuts through her abdomen and juts out of her. The liquid pours onto the floor, echoing in the empty room.

She thrashes her back upwards, trying to shake off whatever is coming out of her. She can’t see it, but there’s a weight on top of her. Not inside her anymore but sitting on top of her.
The table shakes with her movement, craning to each side till it tilts to her right, and both Abigail and the table slam onto the floor.

She stares into the one-way glass, seeing her reflection. She closes her eyes, unable to believe what is coming out of her. Convinced she has died, and the images that are appearing are that of some final dream. Or, her first day in hell. ‘That’s it,’ she thinks in what will be her last coherent thought. ‘That must be it. I’m in hell. Why is it so cold then?’

She keeps her eyes closed and lets the cold wash over.

—————————-

May 27th, 2035. 10:45 am-10:52 am
“Let me go!” Jeremiah hears the woman’s husband scream as the guards drag him away and out the door. “What did you bastards do to my wife?” he continues in the hallway. Dr. Brown closes the door once the guards have left.

Jeremiah returns his gaze to the woman, who is arching her back and giving birth in a way that reminds him of an old movie where an alien tears through some unexpecting person’s chest.

The bottom of the woman’s stomach has ripped open in jagged cuts that drench her torn gown and surroundings in pools of blood; two beige tentacles pour out from the, if she’s lucky, fatal wound.

The thing that had, up until now, only been a black and white photo pokes through the tear below her stomach like a jack-in-the-box. It’s not one head poking out, however. There are seven heads crammed against each other on a single body. The body has the shape of a warped light bulb; slime gleams in patches of its peach-coloured skin that aren’t covered in blood. It’s flaked with hair, a sign of the goat DNA at work. Jeremiah was hoping the goat DNA would provide a counterbalance, but that’s not what’s coming out.

It is pushing and biting through, widening the hole in the woman, but its body is too big or unwieldy to get through fully. It’s stuck in the crevices of the woman’s wound.

The woman’s screams get cut off by the tentacle protruding from her mouth.

The things lipless mouths crow open. With the microphones attached to the room, everyone can hear the child? children? let out a screech mixed with a cry that sounds like metal scraping. “Graaaaahhhh.”

Jeremiah doesn’t think about the fact that the tentacle out of her mouth means the baby has ruptured through her uterus and moved into her esophagus. Instead, he thinks, ‘Please, god, let her not see this. She can hear and feel it, but please, god, let her not see this.’

Then, the woman clatters to the floor, wrists attached to the table.

Jeremiah looks around. Many of the scientists brought in to observe and collect the data are staring at their monitors, avoiding looking.

Everyone, except for Dr. Brown. He stands there, watching like a professor watches their students take an exam. And is that the creep of a smile on his face?

‘Son of a bitch,’ he thinks. ‘You son of a bitch.’

“I can’t do this.” One of the doctors at the desk says, stands up and makes his way to the door. He’s stopped by the re-entrance of a security guard, who is at least twice his size and holsters a gun that was not there last week.

“Calm down, Dr. Grossman.” Dr. Brown says, putting his hand on the troubled doctor’s shoulder and leading him back to his chair. “Sacrifice builds science. Do I have to remind you of Marie Curie and her work? She saved countless lives, yet she died from her research. What we are doing is of a thousandfold more importance.”

Dr. Brown straightens his back, squares his shoulders and projects his most sincere and authoritative voice, “We are saving our civilization.” With that, he turns back to the creep show unfolding.

The table scraping across the floor draws Jerimiah’s attention back. The world gets a little blurry when he sees what is happening.

The child? is moving closer to the mirror, pulling the mother along with it as though wanting to see its reflection. The tentacles coming from the stomach look as though they are stuck between the woman’s body and its own mass— sticking out of the wound like little fingers. It’s the tentacles at opposite ends of the woman that are doing the movement. The tentacle from her mouth comes out as though she were vomiting it up, yet it refuses to leave. It thrashes out at least a foot and pulls her top half, the woman’s head banging on the floor as it moves. Jeremiah can see dark blood around her jaw. The tentacle protruding from between her legs moves her bottom half through a separate pile of blood and viscera, parting the bottom of the soiled gown. The arms make a thunk sound, followed by the tables scratching along the floor.

Thunk, thunk, screee. Thunk, thunk, screee.

It pulls itself closer and closer. Jeremiah can see the eyes of some of the heads closest to him looking around. They’re glassy, oval in shape and without colour, upon blood-stained skin that has a pinkish tint to it.

The heart rate monitor disconnects from the woman. A flatline now replaces the frantic beeping of the machine, which, unfortunately, does not symbolize death.

“Graaaaahhhh,” the child? wails, all the mouths opening to release the cry at once, revealing jagged, razor teeth. Jeremiah feels vomit emerge from his stomach and swallows it.

“How do we get it out?” he asks more to himself than anyone.

“We can’t right now,” Dr. Brown replies in a hurry. “We must monitor. Don’t you see what we’ve done?” He says, looking around the room, “We’ve created a being with seven consciousnesses. All we have to do now is figure out how to separate the bodies for the next host. My research in octopus fertility DNA was the trick. I told you. They have so many children; if we can get that into live birth, we will have saved the world.” His voice is ecstatic, filled with energy, as though he has been told he is envisioning his future scholarly acclamations.

Inside, Jerimiah’s thoughts scream, ‘What have we done? Please be dead. What have I done? Please, God, let her have bled out. Please, God, please.’

The screech of the child is replaced by the ghoulish, muffled scream of the woman. Jeremiah takes his hands away from his face to stare into the eyes of the woman, now close enough to the window to see the full extent of what is coming out of her.

At this point, Jeremiah faints.

—————————-

June 10th, 2035. 08:05 pm.
Jeremiah sits in his home office, crushing five prescription sleeping pills with his teeth before taking a long swig of whiskey. His phone on the desk buzzes—his wife.

The kids and I are here. Are you ok? Are you safe?

He replies before the pills can take effect.

Yes. I love you all.

He takes out the SIM card and crushes it under his heel. Then, he deletes the messages and crushes the phone the same way. They are at his sister’s in Boston. Maybe too much of a precaution, but he can’t risk their safety. There are rumours at the office that one of the doctors, one who protested at the post-experiment conference, has gone missing. Dr. Jones or James? Jeremiah doesn’t remember. He does remember when Dr. Jones or James called Dr. Brown the 21st-century version of Nazi scientist Mengele. That had turned Dr. Brown’s face sour.

All the blood money he has saved up from this hell, all 2.2 million, is with his family. He has told them he’d meet them there soon—a necessary lie. He doesn’t deserve to see them.

He swallows another four pills and takes another drink. His head is floating. He thinks about that money and his plans to retire at age 40, win a Nobel prize for his contributions to biology and medical science, and let the textbooks write about his heroic solving of what has come to be known as the “Great Fertility-Depression.”

How worthless that fantasy has become.

‘Then why didn’t you try and stop them?’ a voice he cannot answer asks.

He swallows another two pills. His handle of whiskey is three-quarters done.

He looks at his computer, and the screen sways left and right as messages start appearing—messages from various news agencies he has sent photographs, document evidence and even a video.

Would they believe what their eyes were showing them, or would they think it was the doings of some visual effects genius? That such creatures could exist for television and nowhere else. Perhaps. But some of them, some of the more low-brow news websites, would believe. Once people started researching who the information came from, however, seeing his accredited work, that he wasn’t some nobody-wacko, more would believe, and that would at least halt this company’s effort to try again for a while.

It’s hot where he is. He stands up to open the window but finds his legs turned to rubber. He slips and falls, having neither the will nor the ability to get to his feet.

Everything is getting dark now, and he’s tired. It’s time to go into the black, to wipe his mind from the world. His only regret is that he could not take that bastard Dr. Brown with him.

No, that’s not true. He also regrets not having the courage to put Abigail out of her misery. Even now, as he drifts off into nothingness, he swears he can hear Abigail and her child? scream, intertwined and forced together. Dragging along a padded room, hooked up to all sorts of machines feeding her and the child? Dr. Brown not letting either die due to “emergency research” purposes.

He closes his eyes and drifts off with those screams ringing in his ears.

Credit: Matthew Harrison

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