The Crone

(500 words)

The car slewed, tossed gravel and detritus into the dark foliage that lined the dirt road. She gasped and clutched at her swollen stomach and slid across the back seat like a sack of apples.

“I don’t get it!” he shouted as he glanced backward. His momentary look sent the car slewing again across the other side of the hard packed road. A quick correction brought them barreling down the hill after pattering through shrubs and newly planted saplings that dotted this side of the quiet road.

“I’m working on it…” Simon quietly muttered through gritted teeth as he jotted notes, which became scribbles as the car caromed wildly. “But, you’ll need to drive STRAIGHT!”

“I’m FREAKING here, man!” the driver retorted, though he seemed to calm slightly. “All I was supposed to do was DRIVE you there. What the HELL is this?!” He motioned with a thumb to the back seat. His gesture brought her screams and wailing back into focus and he gripped the steering wheel like a lifeline. Though he no longer spoke, the driver continued to mouth words as though to utter them aloud would bring them into reality. He looked down into his lap where a pistol sat askew and covered in blood.

His mind numbed as momentary flashes of the previous events came into sharp focus, while the entire setting remained blurry. A flashing image of something crouching in the corner of a ruined hotel room blinked through his mind, followed by words that could be seen as they flew from a crone’s mouth.  Jimmy’s body twisted as though castigated by a vortex from within drifted into his mind’s eye.  His mind ripped through pinhole glimpses of the events: a flash of metal and the decapitated head of the crone sprouting spider legs from its mouth and scampering up the wall.

His mind snapped back from other memories too abstract to fully comprehend and he eased off the gas as they reached an abandoned house. The driver and Simon pulled the wailing woman from the back seat, who began heaving and gasping as they struggled to the house.

Once inside, Simon continued, through muted sobs and thrashings, to jot notes and page through an encyclopedic manual. After several moments, the woman sat bolt upright and vomited blood and what appeared to be live spiders as she hunched on all fours.

The driver let out a savage gasp as she retched and wailed. Simon finally looked up at the driver; his eyes wet glassy orbs, “Her womb has been defiled.” He slowly turned toward the woman who sobbed and vacantly stared at the pool of blood and spiders.

“There is a demon in your oven.” He mutely stated as he closed the encyclopedic book. A peaceful calm washed over her waxen face and she slowly collapsed onto her back with a final phlegm coated sigh. A wet slapping noise emitted from her swollen belly as the thing crawled through the hole it had chewed through her.