Strange Baby part 3

Wow!

Angelica topples from the bed, fisting her way out from the sheets, sitting up in the gloom trying to get her bearings. Awake, sweaty, shivering, blurry eyed but, at least, on solid ground.
That’s certainly the most horrible dream I’ve ever had. God, I thought the first one in the operating room was bad enough, but that gruesome baby thing turning up again...a sort of nightmare within a nightmare. I must have had one too many last night, either that or Gail spiked my drink...no...she may be a bit dippy at times but never malicious. I must simply have indulged too much. Apparently the seance was even more God Awful than I feared. At least Gail footed the bill. What can it all mean?...homicidal babies and infernos...it just goes to show that even in the sweetest of natures (objectively speaking, of course) there lies a monster...in my case a Gin Monster. Perhaps Bacardi and Rum would be easier on the brain, or nothing heavier than fizzy lemonade for a while.
Christ! What time is it?
Angelica grabs the bedside alarm clock, blinking hard to focus. ‘Nine thirty,’ she reads aloud, ‘I’m late...no...wait a minute...it’s Wednesday today...my day off.’ Laying on her bed, she relaxes again into contemplation.
And why a baby anyway? I’m not even pregnant. No plans to be either, despite Toby’s promptings. For heaven’s sake, we’re not even engaged! That doesn’t stop him going soft when a baby appears on the television. Honestly, I’m the one who’s supposed to go all gooey not him. My mothering instincts can wait. If he thinks he can get me belly-bouncing down the aisle...
Her thoughts are interrupted - something is wrong. An unconscious doubt in the back of her mind shifts forward. She looks at the clock once more, scrutinising its information like a grizzled Swiss Watchmaker. The time is okay, so is the day, but the date?
Let me figure this out...yesterday I went to that crummy seance, had a dismal time and apparently got completely soused in the pub afterwards. Okay, that’s fairly clear. But yesterday was the second, I’m sure it was, so today should be the third...why is my clock calendar showing the tenth? Either I’ve slept a week or the damn thing’s broken. She examines it from all sides, shaking it, hoping to hear a rattle of confirmation.
Must have been a power surge, or maybe I knocked it on the floor in my sleep? Well, there’s one sure way to find out.
Angelica slides from the bed, slips on her dressing gown and walks to the living room. Switching on the television, she searches in the grey October light filtering in from the large window, for the remote control. A press of the Teletext button confounds her; the date reads ten...but that’s impossible. She switches channels - another stubborn ten. She sinks onto the sofa...that is at least rock steady. She had lazed and smooched and (only once) made love on its shiny leather surface. Now she trembled, not just from the cool air.
Impossible!
Phone up the television company. ‘They’ve got it wrong, it must be the third!’ she shouts to an indifferent hollow cheeked Norwegian, rapidly commenting, in starched English, upon the renewed vigour of
Anglo-Norwegian relations. With a dismissive stab of the remote she snuffs him out, then moves to the window, staring blindly beyond the small balcony at her sixth floor London landscape of slated roofs, stubby chimney pots embraced by drunken antennas,silhouetted against a grey cardboard sky. Below lies a muddy green island of grass amidst an uninspiring surround of concrete tiles. Angelica turns, dressing gown hugged tight around her. The living room seems normal enough; quite large with an open kitchen at the far end, sparsely furnished ( I don’t like clutter). A small dining table by the kitchen, the leather sofa with matching armchair and a low rectangular marble coffee table. Her Dali reproduction hanging above the television, a frog-belly table lamp with the tortuous pink shade that Toby had given her last year as a moving in present, everything just as she’d left it the day before.
There’s a perfectly reasonable explanation for this, it’s just a question of finding it. But first I have to clear my head and get rid of this sweat.

Half an hour later, Angelica showered, dressed, sitting once more on the sofa holding a mug of dangerously strong black coffee, deep in thought.
How can I have lost a week? What have I been doing? Working, walking round like a zombie, or was I so drunk that I’ve been in a coma for seven days? Oh for God’s sake, that can’t be it! I’m seeing things, still blurry eyed from the gin. Perhaps I should have my eyes tested...yes that it, I’m mixing up my numbers. I went to that sodding seance yesterday...yesterday the second...it was definitely yesterday!
Her foot stabs a pile of newspapers scattered on the floor. The newspaper! I always buy it on my way to work, from that kiosk on the corner; the owner’s got a straggly beard and a glass eye. If I’m right, the last paper should be dated the second.
She sifts through the papers carefully, on her knees like a student archaeologist at her first dig, but whichever way she sorts, the date of the last paper is always the ninth . She slumps back, sinking deeper into confused anxiety.
I must have bought this paper yesterday, but how? I don’t remember; I don’t remember going to work or coming home or...wait...I always collect my mail from downstairs and leave it on the dining table.
‘Yes,’ she cries. ‘There’s a whole pile...but I didn’t see them when I made the coffee, I’m sure...at least... no...I’m not sure of anything now.’
The harsh ring of the intercom hanging by the door makes her jump. She walks across the room, eyes still fixed on the letters. With a shaking hand she lifts the receiver. ‘Hello.’
‘Taxi,’ crackles a gruff voice.
‘Taxi?’
‘Yes madam, your taxi’s here.’
‘But I haven’t ordered a taxi.’
‘Bugger...must have pressed the wrong button; sorry...wait...I’ll just check....Miss A.Sanders?’
‘Yes, that’s me.’
‘Number 70 Colton Avenue?’
‘Yes, that’s right.’
‘Then you’re the one who ordered the taxi; 11.30, go to Alton Lane Crematorium.’
‘Crematorium?’
‘That’s right...or is this some sort of wind up... hello...hello?’
Angelica isn’t listening, eyes filled by one of the letters on the table; it is larger than the others, with a black border.
‘A bereavement letter,’ she whispers, letting the phone drop. It had been opened. Gingerly she pulls a stiff white note out, unfolding it, reading the neatly typed words without comprehending.
Taking a deep breath, she reads them once more.
‘Deep sorrow...tragic death...Gail Honeywell?’
The note falls from her trembling fingers. ‘Gail is dead. She really died in that fire with all the others...it wasn’t a dream...and that...that...creature really raped me!’
‘Hello...hello...you still there?’ crackles the phone irately.
Angelica can barely control her hand as she picks it up. ‘I...think you’d better come up here.’ It slips again from her hand, though she hardly notices. She is back inside that screaming inferno, horror tearing into her, shrieks of agonising death piercing her ears. ‘They all died...they all died!’ Tears course down her cheeks. One hand slides uncertainly down to her groin.
‘That...thing is inside me...inside!’

The doorbell startles her; she turns the lock, gulping down the sickness rising in her throat as the door opens. The taxi-man (fifties, tubby, square chinned and very upset) confronts her, wrestling with his keys.
‘Got it sorted have we?’
‘Yes,’ Angelica replies faintly. ‘I...I...must have forgotten,’ is the best thing she can think of. The stubby man huffs incredulously, wondering how anyone can forget a funeral, but says nothing.
‘If...you don’t mind waiting, I’ll get changed.’
‘Fine by me.’
Angelica presses her back against the closed door, needing desperately to feel something real and solid to counter the reeling of her thoughts. I’ve got to get a grip...get control again...how much control do you have when you’re going mad? I wanted a reasonable explanation for it all and this is it...I’m going insane...or is it shock...that letter...have I blocked out all the time since I read it...a zombie...working like a machine...that sick creature inside me...is that part of it...some sort of poison...why was I saved...or are its plans for me worse than what it did to the others?
She forces herself from the door to the bed room, pulling on clothes blindly, only realising,when looking in the wardrobe mirror, that she’s wearing exactly the same outfit as the night of the seance. As she stares, flames rise behind her, a sickening stench of burning flesh fills her head, the unbearable pain of that night crushing her heart.
Gail died in front of me...horribly...and I couldn’t help her...couldn’t save her...couldn’t even remember her funeral; sick, sick inside me, worse than cancer, worse than burning...why...why?