Chapter 6: The Double Heart.
She lay on her back, her hands resting limply on her swollen stomach, her lifeless eyes staring up at the ceiling. John sat down on the edge of her bed. She didn't look at him.
"Maureen."
No answer.
"Sweetheart," he said.
Her eyes moved slowly over and their gaze on him was cold and unknown. It was the creature in her, he thought, she didn't realize how it controlled her.
He leaned over and pressed his cheek against hers. "Maureen?"
A dull, tired voice, hardly audible. "What?"
"Can you hear me?" he said.
She didn't reply.
"Maureen, about the baby."
There was a slight sign of life in her eyes.
"What about the baby?"
He swallowed.
"I . . . I know that . . . that it isn't—"
For a moment she stared at him and turned away. He sat there, hand gripped into tight fists, thinking. But then her head turned back. There was something in her eyes, a tremulous questioning.
"What?" she said, taking her hands from her stomach and pressing them against her cheeks. Her wide blue eyes began to glisten as they looked at him.
For a moment he hung suspended, then threw himself against her, "I'm sorry, Maureen." Her arms slid around his neck and held him. He felt her chest shake with inner sobs. Her right hand caressed his hair.
For a long time they remained there, silent and at peace. Then she asked, "John, what do you know about the baby?"
His throat moved. He didn't know how to tell her or if he should tell her. He looked at her without the answer.
Maureen became alarmed, pulling away from him, "John, you have to tell me. There's something wrong! John, answer me!"
"Well . . .I . . ." he couldn't form enough words to express anything to her.
She was becoming upset and angry, "John, you haven't told me anything!"
"Now, Maureen don't get upset."
She was almost yelling now, and her face flushed, "You've been talking with Dr. Smith. What have you two discussed! What have you discovered that I can't know about! Something about your biological assurances?"
Remaining calm for Maureen's sake, John answered, "I simply know things I didn't know before."
"What things? I know you're keeping something from me."
"Maureen, don't get so excited."
"I'm not excited!"
"You're shouting. Now stop it," he shouted back, grabbing her by the shoulders.
"I will not stop it! You want me to be calmly rational! Well, I won't be! I'm sick of it. You're afraid that can't handle what is really happening to me. The truth is I have a suspicion about this whole baby . . ."
She lurched on the bed, the color drained from her face in an instant. Her eyes were dazed and shocked.
"Maureen!" John yelled, gripping her tighter.
"My insides," she gasped. "It doesn't like when I'm angry," she informed John. He tried to steady her on the bed.
"It must be on to us," John said aloud, but Maureen didn't hear.
"I can't stand it," she said through clenched teeth. "I can't stand it."
Then, as abruptly as the attack had come, her face relaxed utterly. Not so much with actual relaxation as with a complete absence of all feeling. She looked dizzily at John. "I can't . . . feel . . . a . . ."
Slowly she sank back on the pillow and lay there a second with her eyes open. Then she smiled drowsily at her husband.
"Good night, John," she said. And closed her eyes.
Dr. Smith stood beside Maureen's bed. "She is in perfect coma," he said quietly. "More accurately I should say under hypnotic trance. Her body functions normally but her brain has been . . . frozen."
"And we can't wake her," John said.
Dr. Smith shook his head and went on, "She might be better off this way. Her body will function painlessly, effortlessly."
"The alien must have done it. To protect its . . . home. I shouldn't have upset her," John said in sorrow. "Are we helpless before this . . . this trespasser?"
xx
The next night, Maureen writhed in unconscious labor while John and Dr. Smith stood by her side, their eyes fastened to her sweat-streaked face. She'd been like this for twenty hours now—twenty hours of twisting, teeth-clenching agony. John reached down with trembling fingers to hold her damp hand. Her fingers clamped on his until the grip almost hurt. And, as he watched in numbed horror, he saw passing across his wife's face features—the slitted eyes, the thin drawn back lips, the white skin pulled rigidly over facial bones. Then her face suddenly relaxed and she shivered. Looking at John, Maureen said, "The light, John. The light that struck me that night when I went to find Will and Penny—"
John knew.
xx
Dr. Smith patted the Professor's shoulder, "Maureen's well, and in stable condition."
"And . . ." John started.
Removing his mask and gloves, Dr. Smith looked down, "You were right. The double heart was too much for this atmosphere."
THE END.