Life With The Boy Next Door

The following day, Alice woke up to horror. She naturally slept with her hands on her stomach, and now her abdomen was more swollen than it had been the day before. Her grey eyes widened and she stared at her stomach.
“Oh no, no, no” she moaned unhappily, able to feel the swift kicks from within.
Cale sat up beside her and she screamed and fell over the side of the bed. Her weakened limbs quivered as he leaned over the edge and looked down at her. The wedding band was already loose on her finger; the baby was sucking everything out of her. She didn’t feel sick, but her own weakness disgusted her and she wanted to run away forever.
“What’s wrong with you?” Cale asked her, his tone not unkind.
Alice stared up at him, a dark expression on her face and storms in her eyes.
“Don’t you come near me” Alice spat, her words whipping him in the face.
She covered herself as best she could with her arms and shuffled away from him on the floor. Her back painfully struck the hard, sharp edge of their giant mahogany dresser. Alice stopped moving and remembered what sat on top of the chest of drawers. Her mirror, bought when she turned thirteen and her mother deemed it appropriate for her to have one in her room. And now it sat atop that chest. Slowly, her eyes on Cale, Alice stood up, inching her way backward up the front of the dresser. She could feel his green eyes burning into her back as she turned round and grabbed the mirror. She weighted it in her hands for a second before hefting it high and throwing it straight at Cale’s face. Alice didn’t wait to see what happened, instead choosing to wrench the bedroom door open and sprint as fast as she could in her terminally weakened state out of the room and down the stairs.
In a panic, her frazzled brain barely functioning, Alice headed for the front door and wrestled with the lock until she could get outside. She slammed the door shut behind her and ran as best she could down their front path, the hard cold shale cutting into the unprotected soles of her bare feet. She suppressed the slight whimpers by pressing her fists against her trembling mouth, and just kept running. She veered away from the comforting arms of the forest, knowing that it was Cale’s element. Instead, Alice began the run a mile long to her parents’ house.
Panting hard, an agonising stitch piercing her left side, Alice arrived on her parents’ doorstep and tried the door handle. It was locked. She pounded as hard as she could on the door and shouted, her tears leaking into the notes of her voice.
“Alice?”
She almost collapsed on the stoop in relief and pain at the concerned sound of her mother’s voice.
“Mommy, I need help” she cried, her arms locked tight around her abdomen.
Annabelle threw open the front door and knelt down in front of Alice. She urgently grabbed her shoulders and shook her slightly.
“Honey?” she asked worriedly, glancing over her shoulder at Jared when he appeared behind her in the hallway.
He dropped down beside her and stared in shock at Alice.
“Ally?” he said softly, placing a hand on the back of her neck.
Alice raised her head and lurched forward, throwing herself into Annabelle’s arms. She rocked back on her heels, but managed to hold the girl upright and stroke her long hair.
“What’s the matter, Alice?” she asked quietly, pulling back slightly to try look her in the eyes.
Alice shuddered and struggled to stand up on her own two feet, leaving streaks of her blood on the concrete doorstep. Jared looked at the blood and stood up with her, his wife next to him. He leaned forward and lifted her over the threshold and into the house. He carried her into their lounge and lay her down on the couch, settling a puffy cushion under her head. Alice wrapped her arms over her stomach again and retreated to the very back of the sofa, facing out.
She knew that her parents were gazing at her protruding tummy, their eyes wide and completely disbelieving.
“Alice, is that…” Annabelle asked, her eyebrows raised and voice wavering.
Alice choked and nodded. Tears streamed down her pallid cheeks, flooding from the corners of her tightly closed eyes. The sobs racked her body, sending harsh spasms rocking through her shoulders.
Together, her parents watched her silently, unable to help her and not knowing what was going on. Annabelle’s eyes suddenly opened wider in horror and revulsion as she noticed movement in Alice’s body. The span of a tiny hand pressed up against her taut skin and Annabelle shrieked quietly, her hands covering her mouth. Alice groaned where she lay and pushed the hand away, back where it had never belonged.
“What is it, honey?” Annabelle finally got the courage to ask.
Alice grimaced and opened her eyes, at long last looking back at them. She swallowed hard before opening her mouth.
Both man and woman jumped back at least a foot when the thick, viscous torrent of blood and something black spilt from Alice’s open mouth. Annabelle screamed again, this time a lot louder, and Cassi ran into the room. She took one look at her sister, and hurried out at once. Alice couldn’t sit up, and so the bloody gush kept coming out of her, because she couldn’t stop it. She clawed at her stomach, trying to tear the ugly thing out of her body. She crying and gulping, trying hard to breathe and cry at the same time and failing. Finally, she sighed softly and drifted sideways down onto the sofa she was on, sinking even deeper into the cushions.
Annabelle and Jared stared incredulously at the dark bloody patch soaking their snow white carpeting, purple black globs sticking to the carpet fibers. Annabelle gagged and Jared patted her back, looking away from the mess on the floor. They could smell it now, overpoweringly metallic and sour, filling their noses until theere was no way they could smell anything else but that scent of death and decay. A slight trickle of blood lined Alice’s lips and her eyes flickered occasionally, visible beneath her eyelids.
“Oh, that’s disgusting” Annabelle whispered, turning her pale face into Jared’s chest.
“Shh” he murmured, stroking her hair and hugging her to him. “Don’t say that, Anna. She’s our baby.”
“Look at what she’s got inside of her! Whatever it is, it is not a baby!” Annabelle almost yelled, stricken.
Jared sighed and pulled her down with him to sit on the other couch. They glanced over at Alice, then away once again. Cassi didn’t come back in.
Then there was a loud knock on their door. Alice heard it and sat bolt upright, fear taking up all the room in her eyes.
“No, don’t let him in!” she cried urgently, blood bubbling over her lips and sliding down her chin.
She choked again and looked worriedly at her parents.
Annabelle wouldn’t meet her eye, and she and Jared walked to the door together. Cale was standing on the other side, a neutral expression upon his handsome face.
“Is Alice here, by any chance?” he asked politely, his eyebrows raised.
“Yes, she is. Come on in” Annabelle said stiffly, her eyes set on his face.
Cale nodded and stepped past them both efficiently, heading straight for their lounge. When he saw Alice lying on the sofa, his expression changed instantly. His mouth twisted and his eyes were full of pain and frustration.
“So this is what happens when I tell you everything you want to know, wife. Well, anywho, I’ve come to take you back home. Where you’re needed” he said coolly.
Cassi raced back into the room then, and glared up at him, her eyes darkened and feral.
“She is needed here, you demon! I need her! And I love her! Why don’t you leave us all alone?” she screamed at him, her hands clenched into small fists by her sides.
Cale calmly observed her, then bent and lifted Alice up. She couldn’t fight any longer; the bleeding had worn her out and she could feel the thing growing inside her at a more rapid pace; he was going to kill her, she was sure of it.
Cassi ran after them and threw stones at Cale’s back, but he didn’t flinch nor turn around.