WITCH BABY

Copyright (c) 2018 by Randall R. Peterson ALL RIGHTS RESERVED This is a work of fiction. All persons, locations and actions are from the author's imagination or have been used in a fictitious manner.

Witch Baby

Or … I dated a witch part 2

By R. Peterson

It had been almost seven months since my first and only date with Tabula Jones. The police had stopped looking for her and the word going around campus was that she never existed. I had more than forty fraternity brothers who had seen me bring the ravaging beauty to the Phi Sigma Kappa/ Delta Phi mixer but none of them knew her so they couldn’t verify who she was.

            The Delta Phi sorority had her name on a pledge list but no one seemed to remember her. Her university records were non-existent. If she was a student at Cloverdale Community College she attended no classes.

A wrecker pulled my 1967 GTO out of the bottom of Magician’s Canyon and after two months work and several visits to the salvage yards I had her running again. The cops didn’t have enough to go on to charge me with more than reckless driving. There was no report of a girl missing and a body was never found. I paid a fine, did community service … and life went on.

I hadn’t forgotten Tabula completely … how could I? As soon as my goat was running again I found myself standing on the banks of the Cottonmouth River for hours looking at the swirling water where she had disappeared. When I wasn’t doing that, I was driving to the end of Vineyard Road four miles north of Cloverdale where the road dead-ends just past State Hospital North and Black Rose Cemetery. I was drawn to the derelict house where I’d found the pregnant cat and had named it in her honor.

Each time I drove anywhere I constantly scanned the road up ahead and my rear view mirror for a certain primer-grey Chevy Nova.  Lemont Morris was still prowling the city streets and back-roads every night and he was looking for me. I outran him twice and hid from him once between a barn and a pig-pen with my lights off and a broken bale of hay scattered over my windshield and hood to cover the glare from the chrome. I was reciting the 23^rd. palm in whispers as Porky Jr. idled through a corn patch booming Danger Zone on his car stereo and blowing blue smoke out his exhaust. We both knew it was only a matter of time before I was caught. I found myself beginning to care less and less. More and more, the derelict house called to me.

The cedar and moss covered stone house was always just as I remembered. There were never any lights on. What had once been a lawn still looked like weedy swamp muck. On several visits, I spotted an oily looking salamander stared from atop a broken picket fence as I wandered down the stone path.  Rotted beams barely held up a sagging front porch that trembled from the weight of my boots on the nights that I ventured that far.

            About a month after the accident, Tabula (the cat) left my apartment and never returned. She was big in the belly and ready to have her kittens. The local animal shelters stopped taking my calls. I hoped the cat was somewhere safe and had given birth successfully. I missed her more than I knew and the next months seemed like years.

Finally I couldn’t stand it anymore. On my next trip to the end of Vineyard Road, I brushed away the spider-web covering the cast-iron Gargoyle knocker. This house was miles away from my apartment; but maybe Tabula had somehow made her way back here to have her kittens? The gruesome black figure was still crouched against the striking plate - ready to leap at any door-to-door salesman foolish enough to risk his life for a sale. I let the cast iron bang on the metal several times before I tried the knob. It wasn’t locked. I pushed the creaky door open and went inside.

It looked like no human had been inside since my last visit. The empty bird cage in the living room hung from a rusty chain. Black feathers, now greyed with age, dangled from the twisted wire door and littered the floor. The single bedroom was empty. A layer of dust covered a quilted bedspread like a second blanket. I turned and was about to leave when I heard a sound … a soft mewing? I thought it might be another cat, perhaps even Tabula if she was in some kind of trouble. No one was more surprised than I was to open the door and find a baby. Dark haired and staring up at me from a wicker basket with the same shade of khaki green eyes I’d fallen in love with. I searched the house from top to bottom even looking in a damp cellar crowded by an old coal furnace that looked like it hadn’t been used for years there was no mother lingering nearby … no one at all.

This was impossible my date disappears and first I find a cat and then a baby! There was nothing else I could do. I picked up the basket by two handles and carried it out to my car. The baby was not newborn but looked to be at least four to six months old, so probably barely old enough to crawl, dressed in a tiny pink dress with Winnie the Pooh embroidered on the front. She was old enough to squirm in her seat, turn her head, and watch me as I walked around the car after buckling the basket onto the passenger-side seat.

The Cloverdale police station was the only place I could think of to take her to. The cops were going to go nuts after my missing date fiasco and now coming to them with a baby at 2AM. I’d be lucky if they didn’t lock me up until they could sort out what was going on.

-------2-------

          The baby didn’t start to fuss until we were just outside of Cloverdale. There was no bottle in the basket and I realized she must be hungry. I parked right in front of the glass doors going into Stop and Go. I bought two half-pint cartons of milk and took a handful of straws from the fountain drink counter …. It was all I could think of. I stuck one of the straws in the milk and then put my finger over the end to suction it out. The baby made a face the first time I stuck the straw in her mouth and released the pressure but after three tries she sucked it down greedily. She began to play with the knobs on the radio … stations faded in and out as the pointer moved across the frequency dial.

           

          The streets in town were deserted … or so I thought. I was making a left turn into the parking lot behind the courthouse when a primer grey Chevy Nova came to a screeching stop blocking my way. Porky Junior was driving and there were three others with him. I recognized Eddy Poole and the two Hicks boys Ned and Glen. Ned Hicks leaned out the back window and threw a mostly empty bottle of Mogen David wine that bounced once off my hood and then made a spider-web break on the driver’s side of my windshield. Glen and Eddie were carrying baseball bats as they climbed out of the car. Porky Junior smiled broadly as he pointed a large handgun in my direction. “You’re going to the wrong place,” he laughed, “how about we follow you to Cloverdale General Hospital or better yet On a Cloud Garden Mortuary?”

His companions thought he was hilarious and laughed like they were getting paid.

            Glen and Eddie were almost to my doors when I jammed the GTO in reverse and stomped on the gas pedal. The goat burned rubber as it careened back onto East Garlow Avenue spraying loose gravel and broken asphalt from under the front of the car like vomit. It took precious seconds to engage the clutch and find first gear. Just as I started to lurch forward Eddie Poole broke out my driver’s side window with his bat. Plastic coated safety glass imploded wrapping around my neck and shredding my ear. I don’t know how the baby squirmed out of the seat belt but she was standing up in her basket. I tried to shield her face and hold her steady as I ran through the gears, tried to steer and tore out of town.

A distant pair of headlights in my rear view mirror grew larger and larger. I looked at my speedometer. I was going 110 as I slid wildly onto Canyon Road. The Nova had obviously been souped-up since our last encounter …. My pursuers were gaining fast.

-------3-------

            There was so much dust for a moment I thought I’d lost them. But then the Nova’s headlights suddenly appeared directly behind me like a monster in a horror movie. There was nothing else I could do. I buried the speedometer and hoped the dust would slow them down. The Comanche Creek Bridge loomed in front of me and I hit it just as Porky Junior leveled the pistol out the driver’s side window. I caught air and the bullet meant for my back window slammed into the trunk instead.

            I was still trying to steer and hold the baby in place at the same time. By now, she’d turned with both hands on the seat back watching as the car behind came within inches of my bumper. I cranked the steering wheel back and forth trying to make the tires throw up as much gravel as possible. The baby thought this was great fun and I actually heard her giggle.

            Porky Junior fired three shots in rapid succession. If I hadn’t seen the gun in his hand as he leaned out the window I might have thought they came from a string of firecrackers. He was aiming at my tires.

            The baby was standing up on the seat looking out the back window and doing a kind of dance. She grasped a milk straw in her tiny starfish hand and was waving it like a conductor’s baton.

The inside of the car was suddenly filled with the same khaki green glow as her eyes.

The steering wheel felt like it was being jerked out of my hands. We were sliding sideways in the gravel. I fought the wheel … but then a tire blew out. There was a bump in the road as we crossed a buried covert for an irrigation canal. We hit it hard almost sideways. The car was airborne - rolling over in midair … I grabbed for the baby and she was gone.

To be continued ….