through her, into her mind and soul, past all pretension. It knew what
she was contemplating, and it hated her for that.
Its pale, speckled tongue slowly licked its dark, dark lips.
It hissed defiantly at her.
Whether or not this thing was human, whether or not killing it would be
a sin, she knew that it was evil. It was not simply a deformed baby.
It was something else. Something worse. It was dangerous, both less
and more than human. Evil.
She felt the truth of that in her heart and bones.
Or am I crazy? she wondered. No. She couldn’t allow doubt to creep
in. She was not out of her mind. Grief-stricken, deeply depressed,
frightened, horrified, confused–she was all of those things. But she
was not crazy. She perceived that the child was evil, and in that
regard her perception was not askew.
Kill it.
The infant screamed. Its gravelly, strident voice grated on Ellen’s
nerves.
She winced.
Wind-driven sheets of rain drummed noisily against the trailer.
Thunder picked up the night and vigorously rattled it again.
The child squirmed, thrashed, and managed to push aside the thin
blanket that had been draped across it. Hooking its bony hands on the
edges of the bassinet, gripping with its wicked claws, it strained
forward and sat up.
Ellen gasped. It was too young to sit up on its own with such
assurance.
It hissed at her.
The thing was growing at a frightening rate, it was always hungry, and
she fed it more than twice as much as she would have fed an ordinary
child, week by week she could see the amazing changes in it. With
surprising, disquieting swiftness it was learning how to use its
body.
Before long it would be able to crawl, then walk.
And then what? How big and how mobile would it have to get before she
would no longer have any control over it?
Her mouth was dry and sour. She tried to work up some saliva, but
there was none.
A trickle of cold sweat broke from her hairline and wriggled down her
forehead, into the corner of one eye. She blinked away the salty
fluid.
If she could place the child in an institution, where it belonged, she
would not have to murder it. But Conrad would never agree to giving up
his baby. He was not the least bit revolted by it. He was not
frightened of it, either. He actually seemed to cherish it more than
he might have done a healthy child. He took considerable pride in
having fathered the creature, and to Ellen his pride was a sign of
madness.
Even if she could commit the thing to an institution, that solution
would not be final. The evil would still exist. She knew the child
was evil, knew it beyond the slightest doubt, and she felt responsible
for bringing such a creature into the world. She could not simply turn
her back and walk away and let someone else deal with it.
What if, grown larger, it killed someone? Wouldn’t the responsibility
for that death rest on her shoulders?
The air coming through the open windows was much cooler than it had
been before the rain had begun to fall. A chilly draft brushed the
back of Ellen’s neck.
The child began trying to get out of the bassinet.
Finally summoning all of her bourbon-inspired courage, her teeth
chattering, her hands trembling as if she were afflicted by palsy, she
took hold of the baby. No. The thing. She must not think of it as a
baby. She could not allow herself the luxury of sentiment. She must
act. She must be cold, unmoved, implacable, iron-willed.
She intended to lift the loathesome creature, retrieve the
satin-encased pillow that was under its head, and then smother it with
the same pillow. She didn’t want to leave any obvious marks of
violence on the body.
The death must appear to be natural. Even healthy babies sometimes
died in their cribs without apparent cause, no one would be surprised
or suspicious if this pitiful deformity passed away quietly in its
sleep.
But as she lifted the thing off the pillow, it responded with such