The Deep Beneath (2 page)

“Then you are more fit to birth a child than most women in America,” she said. The woman’s lips pulled back in a thin-lipped grin that revealed a row of perfectly straight, overly white teeth. But the smile did not reach the woman’s steely eyes.

If Lucia had met only with Dr. Sturgis, she likely would have said no, taken her thousand and run from the place without looking back. There was something about the woman that she didn’t trust.

But Dr. Randall had reached out his spotted grandfatherly hand, patted hers with it and smiled warmly at her. “It’s a chance for a better life. What do you have to lose?”

Lucia had no family, no property save for the $9.82 in her pockets, and only a few acquaintances like Melina that she’d met on the street. All she had to lose – all she had to give – was her freedom. Ten months of freedom traded for a life of financial ease. She’d buy a house where she and Melina could live. She’d be able to go to the market and buy enough food that she’d never feel hungry again.

Lucia pushed herself up from the couch and waddled to the bathroom for a washcloth. She padded to the small kitchen, filled the cloth with ice and lay down again, resting the ice pack on her forehead. The ice brought instant relief from the heat.

For nearly ten months Lucia tried to find the catch. But the only catch she’d ever found was the requirement of secrecy. She’d signed a paper promising that she’d tell no one anything about the surrogacy. The fine print stated that the penalty for blabbing was life in prison. Once it was all over, she’d be relocated and given a new identity. “Like a witness protection program,” Dr. Randall had said. The secrecy and relocation didn’t bother Lucia. Who was she going to tell? Melina was her only friend, but she’d only known her for a few months. Yeah, Melina would worry for a while, but Melina would forgive her when she showed up with wads of cash. And like she’d argue with being relocated from living in the streets to a place with a ceiling and four walls?

The doctors had answered every question she’d put before them. All except for one.

“Who’s the mother and father? I mean, for this kind of money, it must be someone famous, huh? Like will I carry the president’s secret super baby or something?” Lucia had never succeeded at anything, and she had to admit a strange thrill at the idea that she could be a part of something important.

“Or something.” It was the only answer given.

Without a straight answer from the doctors, Lucia’s imagination tried to come up with its own answer. She imagined she carried a clone baby made with JFK’s DNA, or maybe a super baby that was part Arnold Schwarzenegger, part Madonna.

But no matter how many scenarios she worked out in her head, they all felt wrong. For a reason she couldn’t explain other than to say it was a mother’s intuition, Lucia felt sure that the being inside of her wasn’t human. Or at least not entirely human. While the medical doctors that Lucia regularly saw had assured her that the severe morning sickness she’d endured would end when she started her second trimester, the horrid sickness continued, month after month. She’d also suffered horrible stomach cramping that Lucia thought for sure were contractions but which the doctors said weren’t. Lucia felt as though her body was trying to eject the baby out of her. Like it was a foreign object that her body wanted to expel. Lucia knew it was probably silly and irrational, but she was afraid of the baby inside her.
Like what is a tiny baby going to do to you, Lucia? Worst it can do is spit up on you
, she chastised herself.

Lucia had taken to referring to the baby as ‘the little monster’. She rubbed her swollen belly again and the being inside her kicked. The little monster kicked hard, or at least it seemed hard to Lucia. She’d never been pregnant before, so she had nothing to compare it to.

It kicked again, and Lucia drew her hand away.
Just a few more days, little monster.

The ice had helped a bit, but still rivulets of sweat dripped down her sides. The little monster kicked again, but this time straight up into her rib cage. The kick was hard enough to force air from her lungs.

Lucia thought of the quarter million, and it eased the pain a little. Considering the lifetime pension relieved the discomfort quite a bit more.

Though she doubted the being she held inside her was normal, she could not deny the maternal feelings that nature had given her. She had no desire to try to keep the little monster, that was sure. But she didn’t wish it harm either. Whatever it was, she hoped it would be well taken care of.

With nothing else to do, Lucia had time to think. Maybe too much time. She thought about the ever-present armed guards milling around outside her door. When she first started her job as a surrogate, the guards had been all business and rarely talked to either her or each other. And at first, she thought they were stationed outside her door to protect her and the baby she carried.

But as the months wore on, they’d loosened up quite a bit. She heard them outside chatting with each other and laughing throughout the day. And they said ‘hello’ and ‘good morning’ to her when they saw her. One day she had moseyed outside to get fresh air, and she hadn’t gone more than ten feet when one of them came after her.

“Where ya’ going?” he asked.

“Just taking a walk. Need to get some air and stretch my legs.”

The guard looked back at the other and shrugged. “I’d like to let you do that, but we’ve got orders to keep you here.”

She’d thought about continuing her walk anyway to see what he’d do. But he tapped his rifle, and she returned to her apartment. She then knew that the guards weren’t there to keep her safe, but to keep her from running. And with the military component of the whole thing, maybe what she carried inside her was somehow dangerous. And if it was dangerous, what would they do to it?

But she wouldn’t be there to protect it. As soon as it was born, it would be taken away, presumably to its adoptive parents. And she, Lucia, would be relocated and given a new identity so even the little monster could never track her. Sometimes she was a bit sad that she’d never see it again. Never see the baby she’d taken care of for so long grow up. Never know what became of it. But then the little monster would thrust its tiny body against her belly, and her feelings of maternal concern for it would abate.

The ice was nearly melted. Her thick hair was wet with the cool water. Lucia tried to sit up but was wracked with a sudden sharp, shooting pain throughout her core. She’d been told that labor pains could be sudden and intense. But no one had warned her that she’d feel like she’d been split open like a gutted fish.

Lucia rolled off of the couch and managed to push herself up. She called out to the guards, but they didn’t come.
My luck the one time I need them, they take a coffee break.
She stumbled to the kitchen where the cellular phone they’d given her was on the counter. Another round of spasms seized her. Liquid ran down her legs as she reached for the phone. Lucia opened the phone, her fingers unsteady. She hit the sequence of buttons they’d made her memorize to call the doctors. She hit the wrong number more than once and cursed the tiny buttons. It seemed to Lucia that it would have been quicker to just dial a regular wall phone than mess with the cellular.

While she waited for an answer, another powerful contraction hit her and she screamed. Lucia fell to the floor, still clutching the phone. She landed in a pool of hot, sticky liquid. Blood. Lots and lots of blood.
No one warned me about the blood.
Her hand shook, but she managed to hold the phone to her ear. A voice on the other end said, “Yes, Lucia?”

“It’s coming!” she screamed. She let the phone fall as she grabbed at her stomach and writhed in pain.

Within a few minutes, a paramedic crew arrived. Lucia thought it odd that they wore surgical masks, and flimsy white papery suits covered them from head to toe. She could see only their expressionless eyes, their faces a literal mask. It was like they were dressed to handle toxic waste or something.
What the hell is inside me?
The sight of the medics in hazmat suits made her shake with fear.

They swept her up onto a gurney, wrapped a blood pressure cuff around one arm, put an oxygen mask over her face and stabbed her other arm with a needle to start an IV. They did all of this while rushing her out of her apartment and into the hot sun.

Lucia’s eyelids became heavy, her mind fuzzy.
A sedative
. Before she slipped off to sleep, she heard helicopter blades and a hot wind swept over her body.

Lucia’s eyes fluttered open. There was no way to know how long she’d been out or where she was, but her pain was gone. She blinked, but at first saw nothing but a very bright, white light overhead. She blinked again and through the slits of her still-heavy eyelids, she saw that doctors surrounded her. They wore the same paper hats and masks that the paramedics had worn. The steady beeping of a medical machine droned over the murmur of the doctors.

How many docs does it take to deliver one baby?
Though her vision was blurry, she counted at least five. She didn’t know much about having babies, but she was pretty sure it didn’t usually take five doctors to deliver one. Panic seized her at the thought that perhaps her life was in danger. Maybe the little monster had finally ripped the hole through her belly that it had been working on for so many months.

Though only their eyes were visible, Lucia tried to focus to see if Dr. Randall was among them. He had seemed so kind. Surely he wouldn’t let anything bad happen to her. But she didn’t see Dr. Randall. She did, though, recognize one of the doctors. It was Dr. Sturgis with the steely blue eyes that Lucia had met all those months ago. Dr. Sturgis looked right at Lucia while the rest of the doctors had their eyes on her abdomen. Lucia wanted to see what they saw, but there was a drape stretched across her body, hiding her stomach from her view. Lucia wanted to ask if it was going okay and was the little monster healthy and would it be all right and go to a good home. But her mouth was as dry as a cotton ball. When she tried to speak, all that came out was a croak.

“She’s awake. Push more Brevital, stat,” said Dr. Sturgis.

Within seconds, Lucia felt herself being pulled down as if a hand of darkness had hold of her. She was helpless with drowsiness at a time when she wanted to be awake and alert to what was happening to her. The room was filled with the bloodcurdling screech of the infant the doctors had pulled from her womb.

They didn’t lift it over the drape to show it to her like they would have done if it had been a normal pregnancy with a normal birth of a normal child. Lucia didn’t need to see the thing to know it wasn’t normal.

Ordinary babies didn’t sound like that. Before Lucia fell wholly into the drug-induced darkness, she had time to form one last thought.
I’m glad that little monster is out of me.

“Courage is being scared to death but saddling up anyway.”

2015, Arizona, U.S.A.

Erika pulled back the throttle and urged her dusty machine to go faster. Her long, dark hair flew behind her, twisting and twirling in the hot wind. It would be ratty by the end of the ride, but knots in her hair were a small price to pay for the feeling of freedom.

She slowed only slightly to round the wide curve in the center of Ajo and kicked it into a higher gear as soon as the road straightened. Erika savored the feel of the motor’s vibration beneath her. She shifted gears only when the whine of the engine threatened to pierce her eardrum. It was nearly sundown, but still the road was like liquid tar, shimmering like black glass from the day’s heat. As she rode, Erika imagined following the straight line of the asphalt east. She’d ride until the road gave way to the ocean. Erika had spent her life landlocked in the desert. She yearned for wet sand instead of sunbaked dirt. Thoughts of her future always included tide and waves.

But Ian expected her, so she steered her bike to his small, slump-block house, passing boarded-up businesses and at least a dozen empty houses on her way. The gravel crunched beneath her tires as she pulled into the semicircular driveway. Erika stayed put on her bike and honked her horn. The tinny sound still hung in the air when the screen door opened.

Ian allowed the door to slam shut behind him. His short, dark hair was wet and his deeply tanned and rippled torso glistened with water. Whether it was sweat or water from a shower, Erika couldn’t tell. While most of the girls at school openly drooled over Ian, Erika was not the least bit attracted to him. She preferred a guy less concerned with his own looks. And even if Ian had appealed to her, he was more interested in the players on the opposing football team than in girls.

Ian pulled a heathered blue T-shirt over his wet head as he walked toward her. “Ah, my fair lady has come to rescue me from doing more manual labor for my dad.”

Erika smiled and thrust a helmet into Ian’s hands. “Yeah. I’m your knight in shining armor.”

“Why do I have to wear a helmet and not you?”

“Because I’m not going to be responsible for the star quarterback’s brains oozing out all over the pavement, that’s why. Passengers wear a brain bucket.”

“I don’t want to see your brains splattered over the tar either.”

Erika knew it was reckless and probably stupid of her not to wear a helmet. She hoped she wouldn’t regret it some day. But she could not stand the constraint of the heavy plastic around her head.

If her dad were still alive, he’d have grounded her permanently from riding if he’d seen her without a helmet. But he was dead, and there wasn’t anyone besides Ian to chastise her for her foolhardy behavior.

Ian strapped the helmet on and tried one more time, this time taking a different approach. “Do you want me to sweat to death?”

Erika rolled her eyes but otherwise ignored his argument as she had ignored his complaints about her helmet rule countless times before. “Where to?” she asked.

“Everyone’s meeting over at big rock tonight.”