THE BEGINNING

by Maeta

January is the coldest month in New York City, and this year it had been no exception. At 10 p.m. on one of the coldest days all year, Suzanne Roberts opened the door to her small apartment, turning on the overhead light before closing and locking the door behind her. She shrugged off her wool coat, hung it on the coat rack, collapsed onto the small bench just inside, and slid off her boots. It had been a particularly hard shift, lasting sixteen hours, and she was exhausted. Nursing was her calling, but someday it proved to be more than she could take. With her head leaning back on the wall, she closed her eyes, and reviewed the long, difficult day which had started at 6 a.m.

Working in the ER at St. Vincent Hospital was fast paced and always busy. One crisis after another. There had been the elderly gentleman who came in with severe heart pain who, once stabilized, they were able to send on to open heart surgery. Then the newly married couple with horrible rashes in the nether regions, the results of too much…well, let’s just say too much. That made her laugh to think about it. A mother came in with two children, both running ridiculously high fevers which turned out to be measles. That had required some isolation and attempts to lower the fever. She had heard that researchers were working on a vaccine to make measles obsolete, but nothing yet. Maybe sometime in the ‘60s or ‘70s. Around noon a middle-aged woman came in screaming in agony in the abdomen, which had turned out to be a ruptured ulcer. And finally, just before her shift was to end at 6 p.m., a three car crash with multiple injuries and one poor soul pronounced dead on arrival.

At 8 p.m. Maggie, the head nurse, said to Suzanne she should probably go home and get some rest. The floor had quieted down and they had plenty of staff. As she reached for her purse, the door to the emergency room slid open and an extremely pregnant woman lurched through, yelling for help. She was dressed in an oversized red dress with a very large wool coat over it. The only thing on her feet was a pair of bedroom slippers which had seen better days. Never had she seen a woman this huge in pregnancy. Her abdomen was stretched out much more than most, and she could almost see the form of the child within. Or rather, the children. It looked like that this was a multiple birth, and not just twins or triplets. She had seen women who were having multiple births, but this was over and beyond what she had seen before.

Suzanne quickly went into nurse mode, and helping the woman into the first open bay, yelled to Maggie for assistance. The woman, alternately screaming and moaning, allowed Suzanne to help her take her coat off. Maggie and Dr. Evans, the on-call obstetrician, came into the bay and helped Suzanne lay the woman down. When she was helped up onto the bed, the labor pains increased, as did her level of screaming. Grabbing Suzanne’s hand, she looked up at her and begged, “Get them out of me! Please!”

While Suzanne and Maggie began getting her hooked up to the necessary machines, taking vitals and preparing for an IV, the doctor tried to calm her down.

“I’m Dr. Evans,” she said. “What is your name? Can you tell me when the pains started?”

The woman took a deep breath and said, “Dorothy. Just Dorothy. Get them out of me!” Another strong pain hit and Dorothy rose up in an arch, trying to get away from it.

“Okay, Dorothy. We are here to help you. Breathe deeply and try to stay calm. I am going to have a look and see if you are dilated yet.” Dr. Evans reached under the dress and pulled her underwear off and eased her legs into the stirrups at the end of the bed. Maggie draped a sheet across her now bare legs, and Dr. Evans pulled it over her head to see underneath.

A few seconds later, the doctor pulled back, a look of disbelief on her face. She looked from Maggie to Suzanne, down at the sweat covered, groaning woman, and didn’t say a word.

“Doctor?” Maggie said. “Is everything all right?” She looked over at Suzanne, hoping for some help.

“Doctor?” Suzanne asked.

When she did not answer, Maggie decided to look herself. She pushed in front of the doctor and lifted the sheet. What she saw made her let out a little cry. In the birth canal, about halfway out, there were two heads, facing each other, one with his chin caught over the top of the other baby. The cords were wrapped around the neck of each one. A contraction hit when she looked, and the pressure of the labor pain pushed both heads almost out, but they both retreated back in when it let up.

Maggie turned to Dr, Evans, and grabbed her by the arm. “Doctor! Doctor! Get with it!” she shouted.

Dr. Evans looked up at Maggie with tears in her eyes. “Did you see them? Is it real?”

Maggie nodded. “We need to get this woman up to surgery. She needs a C-section.”

Dr. Evans agreed and stood to explain to Dorothy what was happening. Maggie went to the phone at the nurses’ station to contact the obstetrics ER. In the meantime, Suzanne ventured under the sheet to see what was going on. Another labor pain, which were coming closer and closer together, hit and the two heads tried to come out again. She looked closely and saw that both had full heads of shaggy reddish-blond hair, and she noticed something else. The head that was on top had a face covered with a fine down of blonde hair.

“Suzanne!” Maggie’s voice cut through the thoughts going through her head. “Help us get her upstairs!”

The three of them headed out of the ER, pushing the gurney as fast as it would go, and into the hall heading for the elevator. Dorothy continued to writhe in pain. Dr. Evans stopped the bed long enough to step into the drug pantry and retrieve a shot of morphine, hoping this would make the agonized mother a little more comfortable. On the elevator she gave her the shot, and for the first time Dorothy relaxed a little, until the next pain hit.

The doors to the elevator opened and they raced the bed down to the surgical suite. Two nurses and a surgical assistant who had already been alerted by Maggie’s call were standing by and moved Dorothy on into the suite. Dr. Evans turned into the prep room to get ready. When she came out, she looked at Suzanne and suggested she scrub in. They may need an extra set of hands.

When Suzanne entered the surgery, the room was unusually quiet. The nurses were moving rapidly around a now sedated Dorothy, making preparations for the delivery. The door to the Obstetrics Ward opened, and two orderlies pushed in two incubators. One of the nurses helped Dr. Evans into her gown, gloves, and mask, and Dr. Evans, looking around at everyone, said, “Let’s get this show on the road.”

* * *

The surgery had been textbook, with a few exceptions. Dorothy, the poor suffering woman, did not make it. Her heart gave out twice during the surgery, and even though they fought to bring her back, time of death was recorded at 9:45 p.m.

The children were another issue. Inside Dorothy’s womb had been two large fetuses, nestled very closely in each other’s arms. The cords were wrapped around their necks and had succeeded in suffocating them. They had been unusual babies, covered in fine hair much like fur. Their faces were deformed, with harelips that looked like the lips of a cat, wide noses, slanted eyes, and ears with fur that were pointed at the top. Their hands looked more like paws, with tiny soft claws at the end of each finger and toe. And they were unusually large, the girl weighing in at twelve pounds nine ounces and the boy weighing in at thirteen pounds six ounces.

As each little body was laid on the table, the nurses and doctors quietly examined them, whispering among themselves as to what had happened. Why were the babies so different? How had Dorothy come to carry such children? What would they have been like if they had lived?

No answers were available. Dr. Evans removed her gloves and mask, and asked the assistant to see that Dorothy and the two babies were taken to the morgue. “And,” she emphasized, “tell no one else about this. We do not need a circus around here. Understand? Not a single word.”

Suzanne asked if she could stay behind and help clean up the bodies, to which Dr Evan nodded. As everyone was heading out of the surgery, Maggie appeared and said she had not been able to find any proof of identity for Dorothy, and no one had come looking for her. If she had not told them her name, she would be a real Jane Doe.

Alone in the surgery, Suzanne stood for a few moments, looking down at the now peaceful face of Dorothy. She did not know whether to cry or be relieved that her ordeal was over. She reached down to pull the sheet over her poor ripped body and face when she saw something move. In the rush to get the babies out and the shock that followed, Dorothy’s body had been left open, which made sense for the autopsy. Suzanne moved the sheet aside and looked into the hole that had been her womb. There, at the very back, hidden by blood and tissue, stirred a small struggling body, its hands fighting against the wall of amniotic fluid that surrounded it. Without thinking about calling for help, Suzanne quickly reached inside, clipped the sac to release the fluid, and pulled out a healthy male, but a different type of baby.

He was tiny, only about four pounds, but he was alive. He had the same fur, facial anomalies, and “paws” as the other two had, but he was alive. His attempt at crying resulted in small mewling sounds, but he was alive.

After she cut the umbilical cord, Suzanne carried him to one of the incubators and cleaned him up, using the blankets inside to swaddle him. He kept making his little noise, but seemed to calm down once wrapped up. His mouth began making a sucking motion, like all babies wanting to nurse. Having nothing else to soothe him, Suzanne offered her finger as a substitute. Teeth! He was born with small sharp teeth. Fortunately her finger was not cut, but she was certainly surprised.

About a half-hour had gone by at this time. Trying to figure out her next step, Suzanne went to the phone on the wall of the surgery and dialed the ER. When Maggie came on, she seemed out of breath and upset.

“What’s wrong, Maggie?” Suzanne asked.

“Everything. Word is getting out about the staff of the deformed babies. People are arguing as to whether or not some sort of authority should be called. And that ignorant resident over in the Orthopedic Department wants to call the National Inquirer. He seems to think it has something to do with aliens. I don’t know what has gotten into people.”

“What does Dr. Evans want to do?”

“She would prefer to give them a quiet burial with their mother but is having arguments with the administrators over it. They are concerned about what the public will think if the news gets out.” She heaved a deep sigh. “I have no idea what is going to happen.”

Suzanne paused for a moment. “What do you think would have happened if they had lived?”

“I don’t even want to think about it. Those poor kids’ lives would have been hell, with all the people after their poor little bodies.” Maggie sounded even sadder than before. “Could you imagine trying to live a normal life with what everyone would want from them?”

Suzanne looked down at the little boy resting in her arms. Looking toward his future, she could only foresee trouble and suffering. He would be handed from person to person, experimented on, researched, examined, and eventually either put into a home for disabled people or work in the circus as a freak. He would probably never know the love of a home with parents, friends, or in later life, a wife. His life would be difficult, unless he were able to find a home far from all the craziness.

Realization of what she needed to do snapped firmly into her mind. She had to get him out of the hospital before anyone knew about him. She had to either take him home to care for him herself or find him a safe place to live and grow. But where? And how? She could not just walk out of the hospital carrying a baby, especially one making cute little mewling sounds like he was, and that were already wrapping themselves around her heart.

But she found herself wanting all of that for him. She wanted him to grow and have a family. She wanted him to learn and be a great man. She wanted him to love and be loved. And she had to make all of that happen. She may never learn how he came to be the way he was, or how his mother had conceived such a child, but he was going to have a life. A happy life.

As she walked back and forth with the child, slightly bouncing him to keep him quiet, she heard voices. The assistant and another man were coming back to get the bodies. Quietly, she exited the surgery into the back hallway. Heading toward the freight elevator, she noticed a laundry wagon sitting nearby, loaded with soiled linen. Placing the baby into the wagon, and pulling a few layers of sheets over to hide him, Suzanne pushed the down button on the elevator and waited for the car to come up. When the door opened, she quickly pushed the wagon in and hit the button to take them down to the maintenance floor. From there she pushed the wagon to the open overhead freight door and over to the side of the loading dock. She had forgotten how cold it was outside. But felt he would be able to last if covered up properly. She then turned and headed back upstairs to clean up and check out.

About twenty minutes later, Suzanne walked around the side of the hospital, bundled up in her heavy coat and boots. She had to step over a pile of old dirty laundry that was laying on the ground next to the loading dock. Climbing the narrow stairs on the far side, she froze when she saw the laundry wagon had tipped over in the wind, and all the contents were in that pile on the ground that she had just walked over. She frantically ran down the stairs and over to the laundry, flinging sheets about, looking for his tiny body.

He was gone. It was almost as if he had never existed. No baby blanket. No evidence that he had ever been there. She looked through everything and then went back up to the loading dock, turning the wagon upright and searching the area. Nothing. Had he been blown away? Had the cold night wind taken him back to wherever he had come from in the first place? His almost fairy tale appearance made her think the whole thing had been a dream. Maybe she was just tired, overworked, exhausted.

After a while, when the cold finally began to seep through her heavy coat and her brain fog, Suzanne silently turned and began walking toward the street. She walked slowly, like one leaving something or someone of value behind and not really wanting to go. She stayed in the dark alley as long as she could, knowing that the bright streetlights she would soon be under would erase the feeling of another world.

Had she turned around, even for a last look, she may have seen a strangely dressed woman carrying a wrapped bundle held close to her chest for warmth. She may have seen her disappear through an unknown entrance. And she may have heard a small mewling sound, saying thank you and good bye.