STORY OF THE WEEK: The Man That Ate Newborns

 

by
Al Bruno III

Don't squirm so much my wee one. Don’t struggle. Let me hold you close while I work up my nerve. Only a day old and you're fighting to live, well so am I. Isn't that what we all want in the end? Life, a warm place to sleep and a full belly. Well, that's what you've got and what do I have? Nothing I'm just a middle aged man, used up and waiting to die.

Just like you, not that you realize what's coming next of course.

Then again maybe you do understand, you may be blind and confused but maybe you do know somehow. Is that why you keep trying to get free?

This is all because of Eve. We had known each other since college. She was already halfway towards becoming a lawyer and I was a well respected graduate student. You should have seen her. She was so damn beautiful with creamy skin- just like yours. I first saw her in the college library, I was so smitten that I followed her home. Just to see if she was married or living with a boyfriend or something like that. I spent the next few days tracking her, learning whatever I could and once I was sure I knew enough to pass for her soulmate I made my move.

I played my cards just right and won her heart. It was a whirlwind romance, the kind of thing you'll never know my wee one. Maybe that's just as well, maybe if you could you'd thank me for sparing you the heartbreak.

Even now I don't know what went wrong. Was I too agreeable? Too clingy? It doesn't matter. She found someone else. The breakup was an ugly thing, uglier than you my wee one.

She tried to be gentle, she told me we could still be friends. I was so angry, I said terrible things but in the end I took her up on the offer of friendship and hoped she might come to her senses.

I'll never understand women. They're called the fairer sex but everything they do is unfair. How is it time and time again they're drawn to the wrong men? Why couldn't she see that her new boyfriend was all wrong for her? And why for God's sake did she marry him.

Now don't get me wrong, I tried to move on. There were other towns, other girls and no matter how much I learned about them before I made my move I never got as far as I had with Eve.

Was that why I kept coming back to my home town? Was that why I stayed her friend even though the sight of that ring on her finger left my skull pounding with rage?

Calm down now my wee one. I might drop you if you keep struggling so. Is that what you want?

I stayed her friend, I prayed for her to divorce but then it got worse. They were tears of joy in her eyes when she told me she was pregnant. I smiled at the news but in the back of my mind I was calling her a bitch. She never cried for me but she had a fountain of tears for a baby that wasn't even born yet. A baby that at this point was just a lump of cells no better than a tumor.

Some say life begins at conception but I don’t think it begins until you have your first real thought. Until then your just a thing that eats and crawls mindlessly.

It was during her final trimester that I decided something radical needed to be done. I would steal her little baby and I would keep it away until she promised to leave her husband and love me forever.

We would raise the child together. Even though it was another man's I would raise it as my own.

Thanks to things like email and her husband's Facebook page I knew when Eve started to go into labor. I waited about twenty-four hours, and then made my move.

As always I had done my homework, I knew the hospital's routine. I went at night, wearing stolen scrubs and an official-looking ID badge.

I made my way to the nursery convinced that no suspicious eyes would turn my way. I suppose love blinded me in that respect. I barely had the baby in my arms before someone raised an alarm. Escape wasn't easy but I managed to get out of the building. Then I found myself in the middle of a car chase. I knew I could evade the police if I made it to the state park and drove with my headlights off.

The crash was a directionless blur, I thought I was running parallel to the ravine but I ended up careening right into it.

Now here I am, pinned in my car with broken bones poking through the flesh of my legs. I had dared everything and I came away empty handed. Doubtlessly Eve and her husband are cooing over their baby and cursing me for what I had tried to do.

I'm not sure why no one has found me yet, I mean they must be looking but it's been two days and I'm still waiting alone.

Well, I was waiting alone until you came along. The flies must have laid you while I was drifting in and out of consciousness but now my wounded legs are crawling with maggots.

This isn't cruelty, it's just that I'm so hungry and you’re all I have. I'm going to eat you first and then once I’ve gotten the taste for it your brothers and sisters will be joining you by the handful.

I'm going to live through this, and somehow I'm going to get my Eve back.

Somehow. Somehow I'll do it.

Just don't squirm so much my wee one. Don't struggle.