The Unwelcome Child

by Terese Pampellonne

Genres: Horror

Synopsis

Bundle Of Evil. . .

The old Victorian home stands at the top of a hill overlooking Martha's Vineyard, nestled in a forest of green pines and a rainbow of wildflowers, just a stone's throw away from the beach. It was Jan Hostetter's dream to convert the three-story house into a bed and breakfast, but she gladly surrenders that dream when a miracle occurs: she becomes pregnant. For years, doctors told Jan she was incapable of conceiving, but now she and her husband have been doubly blessed with a child on the way and the perfect place to raise a family.

Annie Wojtoko is in Martha's Vineyard to help out and share in Jan's happiness, but as the due date draws nearer, Annie's concern for her best friend grows. The pregnancy has left Jan frail and without an appetite. She has become superstitious, covering every mirror in her home, and refusing to leave under any circumstances, fearing her baby will die if she does. And as Annie learns the violent history of the house, she comes to realize that what is growing in Jan's body isn't a miracle at all--but a mother's most terrifying nightmare. . .

"Sharp and smart, impossible to put down, The Unwelcome Child is a genuine chiller of a ghost story."--Tamara Thorne

Release date: March 1, 2012

Publisher: Pinnacle Books

Print pages: 320

Sample

New York City, 1995

As I fiddled with my keys, he ground his pelvis into my ass, pinning me against the door and squeezing my breasts, in and so far up they almost reached my chin.

“You’ve got some tits,” he whispered, blowing his hot breath, rank with bourbon and garlic peanuts, into my ear. I held my breath.

“Thanks ...” I couldn’t remember if his name was Chad or Brad. “You want to let me open the door?”

“Oh. Sure.” He pulled away. “Cool.”

I unlocked the door and gestured for him to enter. What was I thinking? Penny’s orders. She was my covictim on Bloodfest IV, Corridor of Hell. We’d just returned from a six-week shoot in the Catskills, and had been at the Dive bar on the Upper West Side having a drink before heading home. What was supposed to be a drink turned into five, so when this kid started hitting on me, I was game. “You haven’t been laid in so long you probably have amnesia, but believe me, if anyone can bring your memory back, a twenty-two-year-old can,” Penny had said.

As he stumbled past me into my apartment, I was doubtful. Richie Cunningham in leather. I didn’t think this faux punk could rock my world. Take away the nose stud and wild hair, the motorcycle jacket and storm trooper boots, he’d pass for any of the other clean-cut preppie kids from the suburbs who slummed in the city on the weekends. I let my bags slide off my shoulders onto the floor. He hadn’t even offered to carry them.

“You live here alone?” he asked.

I flicked on a light. “Just me and the roaches.”

My small studio was still the pigsty I’d left it in. Clothes all over the place, empty soda cans on the coffee table. A thick coat of dust made everything that much duller. He went to the couch and flopped down, plopped his boots up onto my coffee table.

“Hey, there you are,” he said, pointing to a poster hanging over the fireplace.

There I was. Boobs popping out of a leather bustier, kneeling next to a mad scientist sitting on a throne while I stared out with the vacant gaze of the living dead. Above our heads, letters dripping in blood spelled out ZOMBIE LOVE. Chad, Brad, whatever, leered at me.

“I should tell you, I like my women brain-dead,” he said, and then laughed. I hated it when people laughed at their own jokes, especially bad ones, but I was the host and made a halfhearted attempt to laugh with him.

“No, really,” he said, reaching into his jacket pocket to pull out a bag of weed. “Zombie Love was one hot movie. I liked the idea of that crazy doctor dude turning all you CEO chicks into his sex slaves. You especially rocked.” His face went serious. “Except the ending. That was a real downer.”

I kicked off my shoes and shuffled past him to open the window that looked out onto Columbus Avenue.

“What’s the matter, you didn’t like the part where we rebel and castrate Dr. Love?”

“No way,” he said, pouring weed out onto my coffee table. “That was way too cruel.”

I pushed the window up and looked down onto the street. Summer in the city. One in the morning and the streets were still alive. A bunch of teenagers were hanging out in the courtyard of the housing project next door. Salsa blared from an open window, and a group of old men were sitting at a fold-up table underneath a streetlight playing dominos. Somewhere far off an ambulance wailed like a diva hanging on a note way too long. I sat on the windowsill facing the kid, who was intently sorting the seeds from the weed. Now that I had him here, I wanted him to go.

He sat up and looked at me, eyes hopeful. “Hey man, can I see it again?”

I cursed Penny to myself. All these Bloodfest fans were alike. I walked over to my duffel bag, reached in and pulled my souvenir out by its wild, black hair. In the movie there was a hot tub scene where Psycho Bob, serial killer extraordinaire, decapitated me. I held my severed head out in front of me. Its blue eyes were wide with surprise, and the full cheeks were pulled back into a silent scream. It had Styrofoam brains with a lead weight medulla to give it that dead thud sound when it hit the ground. We weren’t supposed to take the props, in case any retakes were needed, but I didn’t want to leave my head in anyone else’s hands. I tossed it to Chad.

“Awesome,” he said with a big grin on his face. “Fucking awesome. I can’t believe I’m here with you. The guys are never going to believe it.”

Then he placed the mouth to his crotch. “Hey Annie,” he said, pumping his pelvis up and down. “I’ll bet you give good head.”

“Yeah, but I have this tendency to bite down.”

The smile dropped off his face.

“Just kidding,” I said, disappearing into the kitchen. I took a bottle of Stoli out of the freezer, held it to the side of my face. Right now my idea of foreplay would be to rub it all over my body.

Chad joined me in the kitchen. “You think you might introduce me to Psycho Bob sometime?”

I looked at him, his eyes all bright with excitement, and wondered if he’d rather screw Bob than me. If they only knew. Underneath the mask Bob, a.k.a. Ralph, looked as harmless as Gomer Pile. He was married with five kids and lived on a farm in upstate New York where he bred hamsters as a hobby.

“Want a drink?” I was already pouring two shots into juice glasses.

“You know what I like about you?”

“Besides my tits, what?”

He took a drag on his joint, making his biceps grow into one large, veiny hump. “I never seen a girl slam back so many shots and still remain standing. You can really party.”

“I’m a Pollack. Vodka’s like milk to me.” I handed him his drink. “Cheers.”

I clicked my glass against his and knocked it back, savoring the oily burn down my throat. He set his glass down. “Open your mouth and close your eyes.”

“Why?”

“You’ll see,” he said with a dopey smile that I think was meant to be seductive.

I closed them just enough to see through my eyelashes, and watched him take a huge hit off his joint. A second later his mouth clamped onto mine and he was blowing smoke down my throat. I began to cough like crazy as my head and focus went all fuzzy. I didn’t find this sexy at all.

“Cool, huh?”

“I’m not much for pot,” I wheezed, and then refilled my glass with vodka to clear my throat. Just as soon as I set my glass down he asked, “So, you want to fuck?”

Did I want to fuck. Not really, but like Penny said, it was time to get back on the horse.

I shrugged. “Yeah. Why—”

Chad clasped me behind my neck with one hand and shoved his tongue down my throat, while his other hand worked its way under my skirt and between my legs. I couldn’t breathe and tried to push him away, but he was like a boa constrictor: the more you struggled, the tighter his grip got. Finally I pinched the inside skin of his thigh, a trick I learned in a self-defense class.

He squealed and pulled back. “Yo! That hurt.”

“What the fuck!” I yelled, wiping his spit from my lips. That clueless look came over him again.

“What’s the matter? I thought you wanted to get it on.”

My hand was shaking. I dropped it so he couldn’t see. “You know what?” I said, trying to steady my voice. “I’ve had too much to drink. You, I want you to go.”

He stood there, rubbing the inside of his leg. “I can do it easy if you like,” he said, breathing hard. “I just thought older chicks liked to get down to business.”

Adrenaline had cleared my head enough to notice for the first time how completely he blocked the doorway to my kitchen. I tried to look sorry.

“It’s not you, Chad,” I said. “I just ... had a long day.”

He still wasn’t moving. In my peripheral vision I could see his hand resting near the butcher block that held an assortment of carving knives.

“Maybe we can go out another time,” I said, all the while calculating if I should throw the blender at him or the cast iron frying pan.

“Yeah, right,” he said, sneering, and then backed out of the doorway. I swallowed hard and crushed out the butt of his joint, which was smoldering in a dirty plate.

In the living room, he whipped on his Harley jacket and smacked my dummy head to the side, which had been resting on his baggie of dope. Guess he was no longer a fan.

“You have my number,” I said, only because I’d had the foresight to give him a bogus one.

He ignored me and stuffed the weed into his pocket before stomping to the door, only he couldn’t figure out how to unlock all the dead bolts.

“Here, I’ll do it. It’s confusing.”

I undid the locks and opened the door. He stood there frowning at me, and for a moment I conceded that maybe I had overreacted. He seemed more disappointed and hurt than mad. I tried to match his dejection, but couldn’t, so I looked down.

He pushed past me. “And by the way, my name’s not Chad. It’s Brad.”

I closed the door and listened for the sound of the elevator opening and shutting, and then the clanking of the ancient motor as it descended six flights down. I rebolted all the locks and went back into the kitchen. In the junk drawer I rummaged among the rubber bands, unused Nicoderm patches, and candle bits until I found my emergency packet of Camels. I’d been good for the last two months, but now my hands were shaking so bad from the nicotine heebie-jeebies I could barely open the pack. Soon as I got it lit I sucked in the smoke deep, as if my lungs were in my toes. When the shaking quieted to a tremor, I poured myself another shot to get his taste out of my mouth. I could still feel the touch of his tongue on my molars. Older chick my ass. My eyes rested on the Kitchen Aid blender I’d been ready to bash him over the head with.

I needed some air. I gathered up the vodka and cigarettes. On my way to the fire escape, I turned off all the lights and then climbed through the window, but instead of fresh air I was met with the stench of garbage from the alley below. I took a drag off my cigarette and leaned my elbows on the railing. The domino game had broken up and the cluster of teens had gone home. The street was empty, and only a few lights were on in the surrounding buildings. I scanned the dark sky. No stars, no moon. I might as well be on the bottom of the ocean.

I might as well have another drink.

I tipped the bottle to the glass and missed. I’d lied to the kid. I had my limit, it just didn’t show. Most people didn’t know I was shit-faced until I passed out. One minute I could be perfectly lucid, and the next ... Just in case, I sat down on a step with the least amount of pigeon shit. I’d worked too hard on this body to splatter it like a watermelon. Besides, with my luck I’d survive, a cripple. I poured myself a shot and held my glass up in a toast.

“Here’s to dying intact.”

I knocked the vodka back and closed my eyes. The liquor seemed to burn through my veins. I felt them expand, and imagined the vodka dissolving everything inside me until I was just a sack of skin filled with hot liquid. Nice feeling. My cigarette had burned down to the filter. I bent over to crush it out, but then glimpsed a pile of colorful rags down below where the streetlight partly illuminated the alleyway. Had to be Tessa, a rag of a woman who sometimes camped out there. Sometimes I stopped and talked to her, let her bum a few cigarettes (when I used to smoke), and a few bucks whenever I could spare it. Sad story, that one. She told me she’d been a famous actress in her day. I didn’t believe it until she showed me the newspaper clippings of reviews she kept tucked in her bra. They smelled like B.O. and were stained, but still readable. I remember the words promising and luminous beauty. To think those words had once been used to describe the toothless woman sleeping on the garbage-strewn concrete below.

Luminous beauty had never been used to describe me, but promising had. And didn’t I have a deal with myself that if I hadn’t made it by thirty I’d either kill myself or get out? I brought the sweaty bottle to my sweaty forehead, too hard, and winced because it hurt and because I’m thirty-fucking-five and still here. Jan, friend numero uno, once reminded me there was a time I would have been insulted if an agent sent me to audition for the kind of films I now did. “You’re a classically trained actress, Annie,” she’d said. “You should be doing Shakespeare, not Schlock horror.”

Fuck Shakespeare. I’d just be happy if I were doing a sitcom, but Jan has had faith in me ever since we were kids. Our families lived next door to each other in Fall River, Massachuesetts, and in our carport she and I would reenact the soap operas our mothers used to watch. Jan thought I was so good, she used to tell all the neighborhood kids to come and watch us. We billed our show As the World Crashes and Dies. A group of ten or so kids would sit around and watch as Jan and I screamed and threatened one another, usually over a fictional man. Jan was always the honest and true character, I the scheming devil. She’d always been my biggest fan, and used to joke that if I were ever discovered, she had a finder’s fee coming her way.

Then came the Bloodfest series. She never saw I and II, her excuse being she didn’t think she’d find it very entertaining to watch me being dismembered, but I finally talked her into coming to a screening for Bloodfest III. Most of them were shit, but number III, Carnival of Blood, was pretty good; there was actual character development. So she came, and sat poker-faced throughout the whole movie. Not one laugh, not one scream, not even when I was fed into the wheat thresher. Afterward in front of the theater I asked her what she thought, even though she looked like she was going to be sick. “When are you going to stop punishing yourself, Annie?” I asked her what the hell she was talking about. She shook her head and said, “Do you really think it’s a coincidence you started doing these films soon after the rape?”

I slipped another cigarette out of the pack and glanced into my apartment, where light from the building next door streamed in, igniting the glass eyes of my prop head still resting on the couch. Thinking how that Chad had slapped her with the back of his hand made my blood pick up some speed.

“Fuck you,” I’d almost spat at Jan, because I never used that word rape. I’d convinced myself that as long as I couldn’t remember anything, I didn’t have to deal with it. All I remember was sitting at a sleazy bar in Alphabet City talking to a man old enough to be my dad. Actually, he kind of reminded me of Dad. The kind of guy who called you a broad to your face and told off-color jokes. We were talking about the Super Bowl, and the next thing I know I’m waking up naked in my own bed with a headache so bad it felt like a concussion. I had the sense something had happened. I kept seeing his red, oily face over mine, but that was all. So I told myself that’s what happens when you drink cheap vodka and tried to forget it. Only, one month later my pregnancy test came back positive.

I leaned my forehead against the railing and stared down into the alley below. As much as I tried to justify that it was better than waiting tables, I noticed I’d coast just a little bit longer after each movie. It had been ages since I’d been on an audition I actually had to prepare for, and last year I was disturbed to find I had a favorite in each category for the daytime Emmys. It wasn’t like I was depressed or sad. Shit, I would have loved to be sad. I’d love to be able to wail the way my mother said I did when I was born. She said at first I didn’t want to come and they had to use a forceps to pull me out, but once I was, they still had to slap my ass something like ten times to wake me up. Then all hell broke loose. I was told I screamed so hard I turned purple. “It wasn’t a cry of surprise, it was a cry of fury,” Mom said. Well, I’m not called the Queen of Scream for nothing. Who knew I’d put those lungs to such good use one day?

I let my unlit cigarette fall from my lips; it disappeared, a brief flash of white in the darkness. Then I emptied the whole pack because one day that could be me down there, clutching my Zombie Love poster in a dirty, tightfisted hand, the only remnant left of a burned-out life. I hoped they landed right on top of Tessa. Last time she tried to bum one off me I told her I’d quit, and she accused me of just being cheap.

“Sweet dreams, Tess,” I said, and sat back to take a long swig from the bottle.

The next morning I woke up feeling like a wet rag that had been left, twisted and caked with dirt, to dry in a hot sun. I squinted up at the clock on the wall. Eight o’clock and already my skin was clammy, my hair sticking to my scalp. Outside, the sun was evil; even the gray film on my windows couldn’t dim its glare. I looked at my air conditioner. Normally she sounds like a terminal asthmatic, but now she was suspiciously quiet, as if her antifreeze soul had departed overnight. I sat up and held my hand in the path of the airstream—time to pull out the electric fans.

I flopped back down. The ceiling was slowly turning clockwise, leftover magic from the vodka. What to do now was the question. I could lie here all day and watch the lint coating my eyeballs float back and forth. There’s something zenlike about tracking the lint in your eyes. It’s there, but you don’t see it until you really look for it. But I was in no mood for introspection. What I should do is go to the gym. Last August was hot like this, and I spent the month holed up in dark movie theaters scarfing a dozen Krispy Kremes at a time. By September my ass was lumpy as a tub of large-curd cottage cheese. It took me six months to smooth it back out.

The lint stopped floating. I blinked hard to set it back in motion. I should call Peggy, my agent, to see if she had anything for me, but lately that seemed to be an exercise in futility. Just thinking about her made me clutch my sheet in my fists. Last spring I had a long talk with her. I told her I wanted her to start sending me out for work that was more “elevated.” Next audition she sent me out on was for a Raid commercial. “Young mom battles giant cockroach,” was the breakdown. The entire audition consisted of looking terrified and screaming. I should have been a shoo-in, but I didn’t get it because I was supposedly “too sexy” for a young mom. Will someone tell me why a woman with a kid can’t be sexy? Ever since, there’s been nothing, except for the occasional audition for “buxom victim.” I needed to find a new agent.

I sat up and felt around for my eyeglasses. I found them, and as soon as everything came into focus I almost had a heart attack. Then I laughed. I’d left my head on the coffee table last night when I folded out the sofa bed, and it was staring right at me.

“Jesus. That’s got to go.” I said it, but I knew I wouldn’t give it back. It would feel like a betrayal.

I showered, put my head in a box that held old LPs, and chugged down two glasses of strong iced coffee before calling the Leona Helmsley of agents. I sat in my kitchen nook and listened to her pitch a commercial for Dr. Scholl’s orthopedic inserts.

“They want crippled waiters,” she said. “Practice walking around like you have sore feet.”

It wasn’t the Public Theater, but it was something. She was almost on my good side until she reminded me to send her commission for Corridor of Hell to her address in the Hamptons.

“August in the city is for the flies, doll. You really should get out.”

I wanted to say maybe if I were a blood-sucking leech like you I’d have the money to get out, but I wished her a lovely time instead, and hung up. It burned my ass because she had absolutely nothing to do with my getting cast in the Bloodfest series. Psycho Bob had been an old friend from acting class, he recommended me to the producers, but because she sent me out on the audition she still gets her lousy ten percent. I listened to the soft whir of the two little electric fans I’d dug out of my closet. Beads of sweat trickled down my chest and pooled in the crease of the tummy roll I’d developed from all the bagels, hot dogs, and pizza I’d been eating on the set for the last six weeks. What little money there was certainly didn’t go toward keeping the actors healthy, though I’m convinced the real reason producers of low-budget movies served such shitty food was more out of a need for control than any monetary concerns: keep the actors on a carbo high and maybe it’ll keep their minds off how below scale they’re being paid.

I began to sort through the pile of mail on my kitchen table. Two Val-Paks, enough Chinese menus to wallpaper my entire kitchen, and the August issue of Modern Maturity. One of my friends had taken out a subscription for me as a joke when I turned thirty-five. I looked at Paul Newman’s wrinkled face. It must be hard for old actors. Everyone compares you to how you looked when you were young. At one time, I actually used to worry I’d be one of those has-beens that people stop and stare at on the street and wonder, My God, she must have lived some hard life.

I threw Mr. Newman into the garbage. Next, there was a thin-papered envelope through which I could see what I thought was a chipmunk. It was that stationery you get whenever you donate five bucks to some charity, like the Humane Society or the Wildlife Fund. My dad. A month late and too cheap to buy an actual birthday card. I didn’t need to open it. It always read the same: Happy Birthday, Dad. He should just get himself a rubber stamp. I tossed it off to the side and turned my attention to a light blue, pressed-paper envelope peppered with flecks of gold. By the return address, Provincetown, Massachuetts, I knew immediately it was from Jan’s sister, Ryan. I tore it open.

Isn’t that terrific. The godmother misses the baby shower. Under ordinary circumstances missing a best friend’s baby shower is disappointing enough, but this one would have been particularly special. Ever since I can remember, Jan has wanted a baby. In junior high we had to carry around a sack of flour for our sex ed class. It was supposed to give you an idea of the responsibility a baby would be. I left my sack in a dressing room at the mall the second day, but Jan held on to hers for two months, a record, until Richard LeClair drop-kicked it out the window. She had even given it a name: Sackary.

I picked up the phone and dialed Jan’s number. As it rang, I ran my fingertips over the raised calligraphy. Plus, this baby was considered a miracle. In her twenties, Jan had a bout of clamydia that left her sterile. She and her husband, Kevin, had spent a small fortune on in vitro, all for nothing. They were just beginning to entertain the idea of adopting when Jan got pregnant three months after moving into their new home up on Martha’s Vineyard. I would have given anything t. . .