They Come by Night (2 page)

He’d made her a promise, not knowing if he could keep it. Something ran in his family line—in Maggie’s also, although she refused to acknowledge it—and when Maggie’s father and stepmother had learned of it, they’d forbidden her to see Ben ever again. But he’d loved her and made that promise, and she’d agreed to marry him.

He couldn’t believe how lucky he was to have her, to have their family, to have this wonderful life.

Thank God the kids were all fine. He knew with each birth the odds of that promise being broken grew, but they’d been fortunate and had escaped.

Tyrell hadn’t been planned, and the pregnancy had been a hard one, but already the little boy had Ben wrapped around his tiny, perfect fingers. Taking him out of the bassinet, holding him and breathing in the warm scent of a newborn—that was all it had taken.

This was the end, though. He couldn’t stand the possibility of another pregnancy. As soon as he could, he would make an appointment with a urologist and have a vasectomy. He wasn’t going to tell Maggie. Not that she would mind; they had the family they’d wanted, but there was no need to trouble her with the fine line they’d walked these past thirteen years.

He walked down the hall to the nurses’ station. Matt was keeping an eye on Sarah and Beth, his sisters, as they hopped from one floor tile to another, playing their own version of hopscotch. The boy was too responsible. Ben knew that made Maggie proud, but it worried him. An eleven-year-old shouldn’t be that mature. He should laugh and hang out with his friends and have fun, not worry about what other people thought of his antics.

Oh well, there was still time for him to do all those things.

Luke, his second born, was hanging over the counter. “Do you really keep dead bodies in a fridge in the basement?” he asked the ward clerk. Luke was going through a stage where anything related to death fascinated him.

“Yep,” the clerk answered laconically.

“But aren’t you afraid they might come out and try to get you?”

“Nope.”

“Why not?”

“Because they’re dead.”

“But suppose they really aren’t?”

“They really are. We make them sign a paper before we take them down to the basement.”

Luke’s eyes widened. “Whoa! That’s so wicked! But….”

Ben hid a smile. “All right, Luke, that’s enough. It’s time to—”

Screams cut off the rest of his words, and blood drained from his face as he realized they were coming from the direction of Maggie’s room.

He ran down the corridor.
Please don’t let it be Maggie!
She was alone in that room, even though it was a semiprivate.

Ben burst in, and was horrified to see Maggie throwing their baby away from her.

“Maggie,
no
!” He caught the baby just as he was about to drop to the floor.

“
Get that monster away from me
!”

His heart sank.
Monster
.
Abomination
.
Thing
. Those were the words he’d heard screamed over and over again as he ran to Maggie’s room.

“Sweetheart—”

“Don’t you call me that! You lied to me! You swore none of our children would have that curse!”

“It’s not a curse, Magdalena.” The baby’s blanket was undone and his tiny undershirt had been removed. The birthmark on the side of his throat was clearly visible.

“It is in my family, and you knew it! It’s got the birthmark! Did you think I wouldn’t recognize it? That you could get away with deceiving me like that? You promised me—” A nurse came running in, followed by an aide and a physician assistant. “My father was right, you couldn’t be trusted! Get out of my sight and take your monster with you!”

“Mrs. Small, what’s wrong?”

“Don’t ever call me by that name again!”

“Excuse me?” The PA exchanged glances with the nurse and hurried out of the room.

“Maggie, calm down! The children….”

“They’re
my
children. By the grace of God, they’ve been spared the horror of this… this… I want you to get away from me and never to see them again!”

He didn’t remind her they were his children too. She was too distraught.

“What about the baby?”

“I don’t care what you do with that thing. Throw it in a dumpster. Leave it in a landfill.
Sell it to the Martians
!” she spat.

“Magdalena, he’s your baby!” Ben could see she wasn’t thinking rationally. He had known the almost rabid fear his wife’s family held of what his own bloodline contained, but for her to deny her own flesh and blood like this, for her to be willing to condemn their tiny son to death….

“Oh, my God!” She tore at her hair. “I nursed it at my breast! It had its mouth on me!” She began scraping her breasts with her nails.

Ben stood there feeling helpless.

“Mr. Small, your wife is clearly upset. I’m going to give her a sedative. Diazepam.” The PA had returned with a vial and a syringe. “I’ve put in a call to Dr. Vargas as well. I think it might be best if you leave. She had a very long labor, and I… I’m sure she’ll be better by morning.”

Ben nodded dumbly and watched as the PA administered the sedative via Maggie’s IV line. Within seconds her words became slurred, until finally they stopped altogether.

“Mr. Small.” The nurse touched his shoulder. “Let me take the baby.”

He handed Ty to her. She redressed the baby with smooth, competent movements, and then hurried away to the nursery. Ty hadn’t uttered a single cry, although his eyes had been opened wide and his little body trembled. It broke Ben’s heart.

Shaking himself, he walked back to the nurses’ station.

“Daddy?” Matt stared up at him, his eyes huge. On each side was a sister, clinging tight to him. Sarah was crying silently, and Bethany, her head on her older sister’s shoulder, had her thumb stuck in her mouth, something she had outgrown when she was two.

Luke launched himself at his father and held on.

“Mom isn’t feeling well. Sometimes after a woman has a baby, she can react that way. She’ll be better tomorrow.”

“You promise, Daddy?”

“I….” The word caught in his throat, but he forced it out. “I promise.”
Oh, Maggie, don’t make me have lied to our children!
“Let’s go home, okay?”

III

M
ATTHEW HAD crept down the hall and stood in the doorway of his mother’s hospital room, unnoticed by the adults. Why was Mom so upset?

Was something wrong with their new baby brother?

The nurse’s aide spotted him. “You’d better wait outside, son.”

Matthew stared up at him and nodded jerkily.

He had heard enough to know whatever had happened, Mom blamed Dad. What had Dad done?

He joined Luke and their sisters by the nurses’ station.

“What’s going on, Matt?” Luke asked.

“I… I don’t know. I think….” He didn’t know what to think. Moms and dads were supposed to be in control; that was why they were the parents.

“Beth had an accident,” Sarah whispered, and she glanced toward the wet spot on the floor. A big orderly was mopping it up.

“I’m sorry!” Beth said in an agonized little voice. She looked like she was going to cry. “I got so scared.”

“It’s all right, Bethie,” Matthew assured her. “Hospitals can be scary places. Oh, look! Here comes Dad!”

Matthew understood why Bethany had wet herself. He was afraid he was going to have an accident himself. Dad was pale and his hands were shaking; he looked like an old man.

In spite of his position as the oldest, Matthew found himself reverting to the childhood name: “Daddy?”

“Mom isn’t feeling well. She’ll be better tomorrow.”

“You promise, Daddy?”

“I….” For a second, Dad looked like
he
was ready to cry. He gathered Sarah and Bethany into his arms, reached for Luke and himself. “I promise.”

M
ATTHEW LAY in bed, staring up at the ceiling. Something was very wrong.

Dad was lying.

But what was the matter with Mom? It had sounded like she hated Dad, hated the baby.

And if she did, might she start hating him too?

No, he couldn’t believe that. Mom loved them all, but he knew deep down she loved him best.

He wouldn’t worry about it. He was the oldest; he had to be strong.

But he was only a little kid, he thought resentfully. He shouldn’t have to be the strong one. That was Dad’s job.

This was Dad’s fault, his and the baby’s! If the brat hadn’t come, everything would have stayed the same; everything would have been fine.

Matthew slid out from under the covers and knelt beside the bed, his hands folded. “Dear God, please don’t let Mom hate us.” He thought for a moment. “And please make the baby go away.”

He wasn’t completely satisfied with the prayer, but he didn’t know what else he could do.

No, wait a second! There was something else! Mom had told him once, “If anything happens to me, you call your grandfather.”

Dad’s father had always been “Grandpa,” and Matthew had known she meant her own father. They’d never seen him, but Mom had told them stories about when she was a little girl, and he sounded like a man who would know what to do.

Mom had given him a piece of paper with a phone number on it and made him promise not to tell Dad. “This is only for emergencies!”

A glance at the clock told him it was 3:05 a.m. Everyone should be asleep. He tiptoed to his door and cracked it open.

Everything was dim and in shadow. The nightlight in the hall was the only source of light. All the bedroom doors were opened a little bit, even Dad’s. Matthew remembered from when Sarah and Bethany were born, Dad did that in case any of them had nightmares while Mom was in the hospital.

He slipped out of his room and down the stairs to the kitchen. Pepper, the shelter dog Dad had brought home one Saturday—and boy, had Mom been unhappy about that!—raised her head from the dog bed.

“Shhh. Go back to sleep.”

She gave a soft woof and lowered her head to her paws.

H
E FELT better once the phone call was made. Grandfather hadn’t minded he’d called, even though Matthew had woke him up.

“I’ve been expecting this,” he’d said in a deep, rumbly voice. “You did the right thing by calling me, Matthew. Now you go back to bed. Your uncles and I will be there in the morning, and we’ll take care of everything.”

“Yes, sir. Thank you.”

“Good night, Matthew.”

“Good night, sir.” He didn’t call Grandpa or Dad “sir,” but somehow, with this man, that felt appropriate.

He went back to bed, certain between God and Grandfather everything would be back to normal.

IV

T
HE NEXT day, shortly after the kids had finished lunch and were putting on their fall jackets, getting ready to visit their mom, Ben opened his front door to find his father-in-law standing there.

“Mr. Crist.” He hadn’t seen this man since he and Maggie had returned from the justice of the peace who’d married them, and his fury had been overwhelming. If Ben’s father and brothers hadn’t been there, who knew what Crist would have done? “Uh… Maggie had our fifth child last night. I was just about to take the kids to the hospital to see her.”

“I’ll take them. Magdalena doesn’t want to see you.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Did you think you could keep her sedated forever?”

“What? Of course not!”

“I’ve spoken to her! She told me all about last night.”

“She was so upset. Last night—”

“I knew you were no good,” Crist sneered. “You, your family, the entire—”

“You’d better leave. I won’t have you talking like that in front of my children.”

“You lost the right to call them yours when you gave my daughter that thing!”

“Don’t you call the baby that! He’s an innocent child!”

“He’s an abomination! He should be exterminated like so much vermin!”

“You’re insane!”

Dark gray eyes, so much like his wife’s, like his children’s, glittered. “Do you think so?” He gave a signal, and men Ben hadn’t even realized were there came forward.

Ben swallowed. He’d last seen Maggie’s seven brothers thirteen years before, but time hadn’t changed them. They were still big, bulky, and numerous.

“Daddy?” His baby girl clung to his pant leg, while the other kids hovered around.

“I’m your grandfather, children.”

Beth looked at him in confusion. “No, you’re not! We know Grandpa, and you’re not him!”

“I’m your mother’s father.” He frowned at her, and she stuck her thumb in her mouth. “I’ll be taking you to see her.”

“Mr. Crist, if you’re going to the hospital, you’re welcome to follow us,” Ben lied. He’d much prefer if the man would return to the Pennsylvania town he’d come from. “We were just about to go.”

“You don’t get it, do you, Small? I’m taking the children, I’m taking my daughter, and we’re all leaving this town.”

“What are you talking about? Maggie is my wife!”

“Not for much longer. You were able to keep her away from her loving family for all these years, but she’s come to her senses and she’s leaving you.”

“You can’t do that! Besides, Ty is too small to leave the hospital yet!”

“Who?”

“Your youngest grandson.”

“These are the only children of my daughter Magdalena. That abomination is none of ours! Boys!”

It should have been ridiculous hearing grown men referred to as “boys,” but Ben was too shocked by the enormity of what was happening to laugh. A few of his wife’s brothers surrounded the kids and started herding them toward the minivan parked at the curb.

“No! You can’t do this! You can’t….” The kids looked back at him, scared and confused. “These are my kids!”

“Dad’s got a paper that says otherwise. Magdalena signed it, giving him the right to take them.” Simon-Peter, Maggie’s oldest brother, sneered.

“That’s not—She had no right!” Oh, Jesus, this couldn’t be happening!

“Y’know something? I’m tired of hearing your yammering.” Simon-Peter grabbed his wrist and twisted it high behind his back.