Tammy went to a fraternity party with Ratt, her latest squeeze who loved heavy metal music almost as much as she. He would have been the bane of her parent's' existence had they seen his tattoos and body piercing. But, to avoid a confrontation, she'd had him pick her up on his motorcycle two blocks from her house. During the party, Tammy drank something Ratt had given her called "purple passion." That's all she remembered until she woke up the next morning with a severe hangover.
A month later, she missed her period and started feeling weird every morning. Fearing the worst, she went to her doctor, who confirmed her pregnancy.
Arriving home, she explained to her parents why getting pregnant was not her fault. She mentioned Ratt, the purple passion, and the frat party. She could tell from their skeptical expressions they didn't believe much of what she told them. Too many outlandish stories during the past year had damaged her credibility severely. For example, she had recently told them she'd driven her car into the ocean to avoid aliens. Tammy overheard her mother tell her father, "At least she didn't blame immaculate conception for her pregnancy."
Her parents, strict Catholics, adamantly opposed abortion. Consequently, they demanded she have the child no matter who the father might be. Tammy had given up on religion not long after starting college and had no problem with having an abortion. Regardless of what her parents believed,
she thought she should decide what to do with the baby, not them.
She asked several of her friends where to go for an abortion without her parents knowing. Pamela Primm had surprised her with an address. Had Pamela had an abortion before?
Tammy hated parallel parking on a city street so she decided to take a bus rather than taking a chance on wrecking her new replacement car from the ocean incident. She'd been saving tips to go on a tour of Europe, but now she would have to piss away the money she'd saved to pay the doctor one thousand dollar for the abortion.
As the bus drove deeper into the ghetto, she began to worry. She saw several unsavory hoodlums with their pants almost down to their knees, loitering the trash littered streets. She couldn't believe Pamela had suggested going to such a seedy neighborhood. She wondered what the doctor's office, and more importantly, the doctor would look like when she got there.
When she finally exited the bus at her stop and stepped into the street, she saw the street number of the clinic on the door of a spooky looking house on the corner. Jesus, how creepy.
She wasted no time climbing the steps to the porch. This was it. She saw a small sign on the wall that read, Dr. Victor Frank. She stood at the door, trembling with apprehension. The interior seemed too dark and the paint on the wall looked old and faded. It certainly didn't look like any prosperous doctor's office she'd been to before.
Tammy took a deep breath and pushed the doorbell. She heard a cheerful chime, which lifted her spirits slightly upward from rock bottom. She heard someone approaching from inside whistling "Jingle Bells," It made no sense for July, but the tune brightened her spirits more than if they'd whistled a funeral dirge.
The door opened and a middle-aged man with a stethoscope around his neck answered. He greeted her with a smile. "Tammy?"
"Yes. You’re Dr. Franken…? Sorry, I'm so nervous, I can't think straight, Dr. Frank."
"Believe me, Tammy, you’re not the first person to make the connection. Don't be afraid. I've done this so many times; it's like falling off a log. Come on in."
She didn't appreciate the inane log and abortion comparison but followed Dr. Frank inside. He led her to a door and a stairway to the basement. "Do you have the cash?" he asked nonchalantly.
"Yes, I have it." She wanted to make small talk on the way down the stairs, but couldn't think of anything more to say.
When she reached the lower level, she saw a well lighted, antiseptic white room where a woman dressed in scrubs and a surgical mask greeted her, "Tammy, please remove your clothes, place them on this chair, and put on this gown." The nurse pulled a curtain for privacy and stepped out. "Let me know when you're ready."
Tammy complied and after putting on the gown, she called out in not much more than a whisper, "I'm ready."
The nurse pulled back the curtain and found her lying on the hospital bed. "Tammy, I'm going to give you a mild anesthetic. You might doze off, but you probably won't."
No sooner had the nurse said this than the doctor entered the room with a humongous syringe. Tammy swooned at the sight of it, and her world turned to black.
Later, when Tammy awakened and opened her eyes, she found herself in the same room as before, surrounded by a closed curtain. She saw her clothes folded neatly on the chair beside her. She immediately felt a severe pain in her abdomen. Lifting the sheet, she discovered bandages across her abdomen. She cringed from the realization she'd apparently had a C-section, which made no sense to her at all.
How could this have happened? Now she probably couldn't wear skimpy bikinis in the future. How could she find a man if she had no sex appeal? Could she sue? The baby had only been eight weeks old. Why on earth had the doctor delivered the fetus rather than aborting it? Complications, she assumed. The story of her life, just like the frat party. Wrong place, wrong time.
She saw call buttons on the side of the bed and pushed the one for the nurse. An intermittent beep loud enough to wake the dead began to sound. In spite of the annoyance, no one came to see about her. She hesitated to move for fear she might pull out her stitches. But, after waiting for what seemed like an eternity, she grabbed the edge of the curtain and pulled it back.
When it parted enough for her to see more of the outer room, her eyes grew wide and she tried to stifle a scream. Beyond the curtain, she saw Dr. Frank sprawled on the floor in a pool of blood. His eyes stared blankly toward the ceiling. There was no doubt, he was dead.
She pushed the button on the side panel to raise the bed higher behind her head. Sitting more upright without using her stomach muscles, allowed her to grab more of the curtain with the tips of her fingers. She pulled it back, clearing her view along the right half of the room.
Tammy let out a small scream when she saw the nurse lying dead on the floor not far from the doctor. Someone had twisted her head around like Linda Blair's in the movie, The Exorcist.
Who could have done this? A right-to-lifer? Some screwball against abortion? She saw a wheelchair not far from the bed. If she took her time, she thought she could reach it. She had to get out of this bed and get help before the maniac set the place on fire or came back to kill her.
She carefully scooted around in the bed to face the wheelchair. She slowly rose and steadied herself, relieved she had not torn the stitches loose so far. She turned and eased into the wheelchair. Lifting her feet into the stirrups, she wheeled it toward the door leading into a larger room.
This time she let out the loudest scream she could muster. Strewn about the floor, Tammy saw several more young female bodies, probably women who'd come to have an abortion.
Who would do such a horrible thing? Probably a righteous maniac who thought they were doing God's will had killed everyone… that is, except her.
"Why had she been spared? Could the lunatic still be here?"
She heard movement behind her. Uh, oh! She'd be next. How could she survive, confined to a wheelchair in a basement with no elevator? She also felt weak from the C-section and knew she couldn't move fast enough to defend herself. She was at the mercy of the madman who had slaughtered at least six innocent people.
Something metal hit the floor with a boom behind her. She heard a weird gurgling sound coming closer.
"Who's there?" she cried.
The killer had to be close enough now to wield whatever weapon he'd used on the others on her. She cringed at her impending doom and closed her eyes. She waited for the ax to fall, but heard only more gurgling and shuffling behind her.
"Please, don't kill me," Tammy pleaded, still sobbing hysterically. "I beg you. I'm too young to die." As soon as she said this, she thought the killer would certainly remind her she had come here to let her much younger unborn baby die. What was the psychopath waiting for?
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw something red pinwheel into view. Tammy sat glaring at the horrific thing, sucking his thumb in front of her. A two-foot tall, nude dwarf of a man covered in blood stood swinging his ample penis back and forth across the ugly green linoleum. He had a goatee, a pointy chin, pointed ears, two tiny horns protruding from his head, and a short stubby tail with a crook at its end.
"God, you're ugly. What are you?” Tammy croaked hoarsely, stupefied by utter loathing, her eyes bulging with fear.
The diminutive thing looked at Tammy and started to cry in bursts of piercing shrieks that rattled the scalpels in a metal tray on the table. Then, he gurgled pitifully, and in a squeaky, baby voice, he uttered his first words, "Mama, don't you know me?"
This story is from my horror collection, The Dark Has Teeth.
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B01BX8663M
