Loss

Loss
By Stephen A Abell

Number of Words: 1500



"Okay, I admit it. I did it. What now?"

“What NOW!” Beverly screamed; calling more schoolchildren to the fray as she leapt forward and grabbed Michelle’s hair in her fists. “You fuckin’ slut, how could you fuck Ben, you know he’s my boyfriend.” One hand snapped Michelle’s head back as the other slapped hard at her face, leaving behind a red welt.

“Shit,” she exclaimed raising a knee into Beverly’s midsection, winding her instantly, and bringing her angry friend to her knees with a heavy thud. “I told you my plans, so what’s your fuckin’ problem?”

“I don’t care,” Beverly coughed and panted, “if you want to live on the stinkin’ dole the rest of your life. My problem is that you chose Ben to get you pregnant.”

“Well, Bev, you did know I’ve always fancied the pants off him.” The girl’s eyes met and Beverly saw a meanness shift over her friends gaze, “and at the Christmas party, he was ALL over me.” A hollow smile formed on Michelle’s lips, “I know he, you, both blamed the drink. But, if he was kissin’ me don’t you think he wanted to?”

Beverly lunged from the floor into Michelle’s abdomen, carrying her through the doors of the maths block to the top of the stairwell, and fell back to the floor. Looking up she saw Michelle pin-wheeling her arms trying to keep herself from falling down the stairs. In a desperate plea, she held a hand out to Beverly with a look of shock and hope in her eyes. Quickly Beverly spun round on her bottom and kicked the legs from under her.

The seconds moved in excruciating slow motion. Michelle felt the blow and could hardly believe Beverly had it in her. The world was losing its axis as her legs flew behind her and the top metal raiser of the stair came up to meet her stomach. A new pain flared in her skull as she crashed down. Before she could cry out, her chin slammed into the floor and stars popped into vision. Beverly’s size six sole slammed into her face and she heard the pop as her nose broke on contact.

Her sight clearing, she saw her long-ago friend scurry past her. Then hands grabbed roughly at her ankles and aggressively yanked upwards and back. Once more, she was free from the ground, looking down on the dangerous landing ahead of her. She tried to twist in midair to lessen the blow to her belly. This resulted in two cracked ribs as she landed awkwardly on the right angle of the stairs. She rolled over holding her damaged side, in time to see Beverly jump up, using the banisters on either side of the stairs, and swing over her belly, where she let go and slammed down on Michelle’s stomach.

Lying stunned, battered, and bruised on the stairs, with Beverly towering above her, she felt a wetness slowly ooze from between her legs. Not needing to look down she knew her child’s lifeblood was spilling out of her. The tears sprang to her face, and the scream erupted from her very soul. She crawled into the foetal position and faded into unconsciousness. That was how the teachers found her ten minutes later.

The fight was legendary, it still resounds in the halls of the school today. Since the teachers never saw the fight, they could not pin the blame on anyone. Most of the on-looking schoolchildren kept quiet, others used it to blame enemies in the hopes of expulsion, and others told the truth. However, without Michelle’s testimony everything was hearsay.

----- x ----- x ----- X ----- x ----- x -----

"You've got to be crazy if you think that."

”I’m not crazy.” Tears flowed down Beverly’s face, “I killed my best friend’s unborn child,” she wiped her cheeks, making way for fresh tears, “and got away with it.”

“So, why are you telling me now?” Her husband Richard asked, taking her into his arms, “what can we do about it after all this time?”

“Nothing I s’pose,” she snivelled and pulled the duvet around her, as she settled into Rich’s loving embrace. “It’s just with being pregnant, everything’s coming back to haunt me. I don’t even know what happened to ‘Chelle; I left that town far behind at eighteen, and never looked back, until now.

“Sometimes, I think I see her, out of the corner of my eyes, hiding in the shadows. Not as she’d look today, but as she looked twenty years ago, when we were sixteen.” She looked deep into his eyes, “Rich, I don’t even know if she’s still alive.”

“Bev, there’s nothing you can do. Don’t let it get you down. Think about our baby. The last thing you need now is stress. It’s taken us so long to get pregnant…”

“I know, it’s just that… that…” Her vision twisted in her head as dizziness and exhaustion overtook her body.

----- x ----- x ----- X ----- x ----- x -----

Beverly’s cheek stung as her eyes fluttered open. “Wake up Bitch!” A slap on the other cheek brought tears of pain..

“What did you say?” She lifted her head and scanned her location. She was in a hospital room. An obstetrics room. She was in “The Chair.” Her legs spread wide and her ankles strapped in. Her midwife smiled down on her prone figure.

“I said, wake up BITCH,” the midwife slapped her twice; her smile grew.

She unable to move her hands to defend herself: They were strapped down too. “What are you doing?” She stammered and tried to hide the new fear in her voice.

“Well, you had a blackout and your dear husband Richard called me. He was very worried and concerned, lucky for you I’m closer than the hospital so I came rushing over. I made up some story of pre-eclampsia. He helped carry you to the car and we set off to the hospital. He’s following in your car.”

“Pre-eclampsia?” Beverly could not keep the strain from her voice.

“Oh, don’t worry Bev,” the midwife chimed merrily, “you’re okay.” She leaned over and patted the pregnant belly. “The medication I gave you was to enhance your senses and feed your paranoia and stress. Any bad dreams lately?” The midwife laughed. “Seen any ghosts?”

“What’s going on?” The fear crackled in her voice.

“Do you want to see my babies?”

In the back of Beverly’s mind the madness before her started to make crazy sense.

“My beautiful twins were taken away from me.” The midwife lifted up a doctor’s case and placed it on the bedside table. Opening it, she reached in and pulled out two tiny skeletons. “Here, they are.” Beverly could hear the tenderness in her voice and began to cry. “My babies”

“I’m so sorry Michelle.”

“Me too. Unfortunately my babies are still angry.” Michelle walked to the foot of the chair and Beverly shivered as the twins were inserted. Her stomach wretched as she fought to keep the bile down.

There was something wrong. She could feel something inside her. Something moving. She screamed, “Get Them OUT!”

“I can’t. Don’t my babies deserve their day Bev?”

They were crawling inside her. Crawling deeper. Deeper, towards her child. “NO!” She thrashed on the chair but the bindings held.

“NO!” Something else was moving. Bigger and alive.

“NO!” The skeletons were pulling her son from her womb. Closer and closer to reality the nightmare came. She felt tiny fingers dig into her inner thighs and climb onto her pelvis, so she could see the bone white bastards. Each held a length of umbilical cord in their hands. As the skulls nodded at each other, they pulled the cord.

“NO!” Her voice echoed around the room. Why wasn’t anybody coming to help? “God in Heaven, NO!” She could feel the head of her son crowning. The pain of her pelvic bone snapping went unnoticed as realisation sunk in. Michelle had retrieved a mirror from her case and held it over her vagina so she could see the devastation being wreaked. Her son’s head poked out of her, his face turning blue as he tried to cry out, as the Michelle’s babies strangled him with his own cord.

Beverly’s mind snapped, as did her restraints with the newfound strength of her madness. As she stumbled onto her feet, the twins fell to the floor where their mother quickly recovered them and placed them lovingly into her case.

As Beverly ran for the door and safety, her stillborn child dropped to the floor and dragged behind her, forgotten.

Michelle pushed past her in the doorway. “This is the old hospital, where I lost the twins,” she sighed as she strode over the detritus of a decade. Behind her, Beverly fell to the ground and cried; curling into the foetal position.

With a sad sigh, Michelle walked away and never looked back, "there's nothing more for me here."

Based on the prompt and for the "Invalid Item"   by A Guest Visitor contest - come along and have a go.