Chapter 4 - 3/3

             The Next Day. Jacob's.

"I'm on my way, now."

Iseult, Jacob's wife, the lady from the day of the truck accident, and a door-to-door nurse said over the phone, picking up her purse. Unlike the other night, the parlour was tidy and things in place. She live in a fairly new bungalow they recently saved their asses off to buy. 

"Jacob isn't home. He should be back anytime from now. I should talk to you when I get there, I think he's hiding something from me. I can feel it. And now he wants me out of his house. I'm staying here at the detriment of my life. Today's the last he gave me to stay."

She hurried towards the door still over the phone. 

The voice over the phone came,

"For how long will you take his abuse? Come stay with me till you save up for rent or stuff. Andrew won't mind."

"I love him, Kate. I do wish to run away, I should had. But he needs help. Everyone runs away from him."

Her hand on the door knob all these while. Something occured to her,

"Oops. I forgot something. Let me drop the call. Else I forget something else. Meet me at the grocery store in twenty."

She hurried towards her room and into it. She picked what she had to - a small bag she'd rolled up. She hurried towards the door again. 

As she opened the door, she felt a hand grab her leg suddenly. The force was intense and quick. 

"God..."

She flinched, screaming. She fell back. But as she looked, twas just a cute little baby. A giggling baby.

"You... it's you... from the accident."

She muttered, pushing her body up to her knees. As though she was addressing an adult. 

"What are you doing here, where's your mom? Where did you go that night?"

She watched the baby crawl in as she moved aside. 

"What do I do with you, you should go to your mother."

She picked the baby up. The baby cooed and giggle. 

"I'm going out, now. I have to get to the grocery store. I can't take you with me."

She thought out loud, matching up the baby's face to hers. And as her eyes locked with the babies, the snake in the baby began to crawl towards her throttle, up its larynx towards the opening of the trachea. 

And the snake crawled out of the lung, advancing on the tongue, the baby's eyes beginning to change, then...

"Oh shoot. Twenty minutes isn't up yet."

Her phone had buzzed in her purse. She couldn't open the purse let alone answer the call; baby in her hands. 

"Let's see."

She headed towards a room next to hers and entered. The room was filled with several baby things. She edged towards the baby bed and placed her in it. 

"I'll let you spend a few hours here. It's for my unborn child. I know I'll give birth too one day. I'm sure."

She realized she was speaking out of point. She added,

"I can't take you with me. When I get back, then we can take you to the right place."

She pulled the bulky left cheek of the baby and smiled,

"Stay put, okay?"

As she made to stand, the baby held her index finger. She smiled,

"I won't be long, okay. You'll be just fine."

She walked away and jammed the door. 

"What are you doing, Iseult? Shouldn't you ask the neighbors at least."

She argued with her instinct, walking towards the Parlor. 

"No. Devin isn't married. He doesn't even have a girlfriend. And Ella and her family are on a vacation."

She seemed to had arrived at a conclusion. She locked the door and left the house. 

Ten minutes after she left. In the baby's room, the bed where she had placed the baby was empty. The chandelier in the room was swinging and the baby...?.... seated at the top of a comic bookshelf. 

The door of the house opened and a voice began to come from outside the room, in the direction of the parlor. 

"Where's that bitch? Where's that goddamn bitch! God help her she's gone. God help her she has packed her load."

Jacob. He strutted towards their shared room and broke it open. 

"Where did she go?"

He hurried to her wardrobe and broke it open; He had a crowbar in his hand and a sledgehammer. 

He began to throw her clothes away, panting and yelling. 

"That good for nothing woman. She would neither give birth, nor leave! I'm done with you!"

After throwing all her clothes out, panting heavily like a crazed panther, he grabbed a sac and started squeezing the clothes in. Both suits and gowns and shirts and coats. He didn't care. 

He could see a suitcase few metres away from him but he didn't give a damn. 

After he was done with that, he fell backwards into the bed. 

"That bitch."

He breathed heavily. Then something suddenly occured to him. 

"Ah."

He admitted and stood up. The haste in which he was wrapped blinded him, he stumbled over the sac but rolled to his feet again. 

He walked out of the room without closing the door.

"I'll burn those fucking trash she gathered for a baby she would never have. Cursed bitch!"

He kicked the door to the baby's room open. 

Twas unusually dark in there. But every other thing was perfectly normal. 

"Why's it dark in here?"

He walked into it, searching for the switch. And as he pulled the switch, he heard a giggle from behind him. 

As he turned, there was a baby crawling up his legs. He was shocked. 

"Shit. Where did you come from?"

He looked down, at the baby, stupefied. 

"Chill, baby."

He did well to pick the baby up; the baby struggling to climb up his legs. 

"Did Iseult adopt a child without my consent?"

He quizzed, putting up the baby at the level of his face. 

"What won't this bitch do?"

His roughed face melted into a thin smile. His 5"8 frame reasonable for his shabby build. 

"Let's put you in the bed till your borrowed mother arrives. Then we can talk about what to do with you, whether to keep you or return you."

He made to move in the direction of the bed, but the baby suddenly grabbed his neck, rounding his nape with both her small hands. 

"Hey, you want to play? You don't want me to put you down?"

He smiled, as the baby's hands tightened around his neck. 

"I'm a bad guy, little one. And recently, I did something bad, really bad. And I don't want Iseult to be a part of it. I want her to go. But I can't do that without learning how to hate."

He tried to take off the baby's hands but it tightened even more. 

"You seem strong for your age."

He looked back at the baby, but then the silver eyes of the baby turned red. 

"What the fuck?"

His eyes keen on the baby's as he struggled to remove her small hands but he didn't even get close. 

"I don't want to hurt you, get off me."

He tried to improvise but then the snake crawled out of the baby's mouth and struck his mandible at once, drilling its way through into his mouth, then breaking the roof of the mouth into the nose region, soaking the cartilages in its venom and then killing all the neurons in his brain. His eyes turned black. 

He couldn't even use his voice. For the next seven seconds, he was just a breathing statue. 

And at the very seventh second, his head bursted without a warning, his skin, eyes, and other cells splattering everywhere.

His headless body fell  backwards, a hollow in his neck. 

The baby now lying in the bed, cooed and giggled. 

--------------------------------

~Iseult~

"Such is life. Some cry their eyes out to have a child but get nothing. While some gets without a plea and drops them at the doorsteps of a neighbor."

She opened the door and stepped into the parlor. It smelt fresh coffee and rose. 

"What is he up to?"

She headed for the kitchen and dropped the groceries by the freezer.

"Jacob?"

She called, heading towards their room. The smell of coffee and rose got stronger when she got to the door of their room. 

But as she opened the door, the smell waned out. She was distracted by the sac by the bed on the floor. 

"He didn't."

She walked over and opened. 

"No, he can't. Jacob? Where's he?"

She hurried out of the room. She was greeted by the smell again. 

"Where did he go. Did he see the baby yet?"

She hurried to the door of baby's room. But at the door, the smell waned out. There was no smell anymore. 

"Jacob?"

She opened the door and stepped in. Her eyes seemed to play too much. 

"Jacob!!"

She screamed seeing the headless cum lifeless corpse. 

"Oh my God... oh God!"

She began to wail as she fell on him. Then she remembered,

"The baby."

The baby's bed was empty and her husband dead. 

She couldn't help but wail continuously. Devastated. 

Eventually, one of her neighbors hurried in. Geared by the noise. He called the cops. 

But Iseult couldn't help but throw herself here and there in grief!