Tender Meat

Here is my second round story for the NYC Midnight Short Story Challenge. We were divided into heats and given a genre, a character and an object. From that point, you have 3 days to write 2,000 words or less. My prompts were fairy tale, a warden, and a due date.

Catherine, Cat to her friends, looked at her reflection in the mirror, marveling at the body she hardly recognized. Her normally flat stomach protruded, a basketball beneath spandex. The full breasts filling her swimsuit looked nothing like the small mounds that they were a mere nine months ago.

“I love you, baby girl, but I can’t wait till I can see my toes again,” she said to her belly, rubbing it gently. Her husband laughed at her insistence that the baby was, in fact a girl. But, Cat had her ways of knowing.

Cat grabbed her phone and sent her husband a text as she headed to the backyard.

Going for a swim. Love u!

As soon as she stepped outside, the oppressive heat and humidity that defines summers in Louisiana enveloped her. Cat’s grandma, a woman full of old-world charm, used to say that the air was so thick in Chalmette, it could be served up on a slice of bread with some raspberry jam. At the thought of jam, her stomach rumbled. It seemed that she was always hungry these days.

“First a swim,” she said aloud.

Walking to the deep end of the pool, she jumped in, toes pointed and nose held. There was something magical in the weightlessness of her pregnant body in the water that amazed her. Cat crossed the pool to the stairs and sat, her belly distorted by the water line. As she relaxed, a shimmer from the other end of the pool caught her eye.

“What in the world?” Cat said, crossing towards the large glimmer.

She took a deep breath and slipped below to retrieve whatever had made its way to the pool floor. Unable to reach the bottom, she turned upwards, resigned, but found herself unable to distinguish up from down. There was an odd light shining from all directions.

Cat kicked frantically, desperately refusing the urge to inhale. Darkness began to creep in from her peripheral as she flirted with unconsciousness. Cat broke the surface and gasped. Looking around, she saw this was not her backyard, nor her pool. She had gone into the water at home, and now found herself somewhere unknown. She made her way to the shoreline of the large lake from which she’d somehow emerged.

Exiting the water, her hand instinctively shot to her belly. Sensing its mother’s panic, the baby shifted within her. Cat exhaled, her greatest fear put to rest, and looked around. Nothing around her was the least bit familiar.

Cat ran recklessly into the woods behind her. Panic numbed the pain as branches bit into her bare arms and legs. As she reached to deflect an annoyingly persistent jagger bush, she touched rough fingers. Frozen by fear, she quit resisting, temporarily resigned to the unknown captor. The haze of denial faded as Cat gawked at the hand that held her. It was large, grey and covered in wiry white hair. Cat looked from hand to face. A massive creature stood before her. If it weren’t for the pain she felt from her bleeding scratches, she’d have been certain this was a dream. Pus oozed from boils all over the mammoth, disgusting troll that held her.

“Eck will be so happy,” he growled, grabbing up Cat and throwing her over his shoulder.

Cat punched the troll as he carried her into the woods, but her blows went unnoticed. They came to a small, windowless stone structure. Before he could knock, another troll emerged, even larger than the first. Her captor set her on the ground and the new troll circled her, examining her closely. Cat felt naked, wearing just her bathing suit. He reached out his enormous, hairy hand and set it on her pregnant belly.

“Good work, Crone,” the troll grunted. “I’ll see to it that you get a double share of the panacea when its time.”

“Thank you, Eck,” Crone proudly replied, smiling broadly.

“When are you due?” Eck questioned her.

Cat stood silent. Crone struck the back of her legs, sending her to her knees.

“I will ask nicely one more time,” Eck pushed. “If you would like to make this difficult for me, I am more than happy to do the same for you.”

“Three weeks,” Cat mumbled.

If he was pleased or angered by this response, he gave no indication. Eck grabbed her arm and pulled her into the building. He opened a large steel gate and pushed her into a cell, slamming it shut. The cell had two stone slabs with blankets and a hole in one corner. A small mound began to stir on the far bed. Cat scrambled to the corner, ready to defend. To her surprised relief, a very pregnant gnome stood in front of her. The woman was short, with a long braid of red hair running down her back.

“Come sit down,” the gnome said to Cat. “My name is Kai. We don’t see many of your kind around here.”

“Where is here? Where am I and who are they?” Cat urged.

Kai told Cat that they were imprisoned by the trolls that terrorized the many creatures of Enderland. She had been captured two months ago while collecting berries. The trolls of Enderland survive on the tender meat of other creatures’ newborns, and make an elixir, known as panacea, from the baby’s blood and mother’s placenta. This gave the trolls everlasting life. Eck was their leader, overseeing the prison and preparing the feasts.

“I’ve seen several others come and go,” Kai explained, becoming upset. “I kept hoping I’d escape, but it is impossible. I’m due any day now. My poor baby will never have a chance. My husband will never see his child’s face.”

Cat put her arm around Kai’s tiny shoulders. Eck appeared, surprisingly quiet for a creature his size. He passed a tray into their cell. A piece of bread and mystery meat filled the two plates.

“Eat,” he ordered, walking away.

Kai ate without hesitation; a great relief to Cat, who was famished. Perhaps if she had listened to her stomach earlier and gone inside to eat a jam sandwich, she would not be in her current predicament. Although a part of Cat wanted to refuse the food, she knew for the baby’s sake and her own strength, she needed the nourishment.

As Cat bit into the meat, she saw Kai grab at her belly, a panic-stricken look crossing her face.

“No, Kai!” Cat commanded. “You cannot have that baby yet. I need more time to get us out of here.”

Cat finished her food, watching Kai closely. There had been no more contractions and it seemed as though she might get the time she needed to work this out. She gathered their plates and put them back on the tray. Cat set down the tray just beyond where Eck originally left it then helped Kai to the bed. Her plan would best work if Eck did not realize the gnome would soon give birth.

Once Kai was settled, Cat sat herself in between the tray and the door and began wailing loudly. Eck, hearing the racket, came towards his prisoner.

“Enough!” he barked. “I’ll give you something to cry about if you don’t shut up. Now give that tray here.”

Eck reached his hand into the cell towards the tray. As Cat reached with her right hand to push the dirty dishes towards him, her left hand shot out, plucking a single wiry hair from the troll’s gargantuan hand.

A great roar emerged from the angered troll. The sound terrified Cat, who jumped, dropping the hair. Eck entered the cell and grabbed Cat by the neck, pinning her against the wall. Just then, Kai screamed out as a contraction gripped her, unable to keep the labor pains secret.

The beast dropped Cat, no longer interested in revenge. She fell hard on the dirt floor. Eck sauntered over to the bed, an evil, eerie grin spreading across his already terrifying face. With his back turned, Cat scrambled to the fallen hair and held it tightly in her clenched fist.

“It seems I have some things to get in order,” Eck laughed as he stood over the frightened gnome. “It will soon be time to dine.”

Eck left them, the tray and his anger temporarily forgotten. Knowing there was no time to lose, Cat grabbed a spoon off the tray. In the dirt, she drew a rough sketch of Eck. She laid the hair in the center of the drawing and then traced a large circle around it.

“You see, Kai,” Cat explained. “Where I come from there is another kind of magic, voodoo magic. I am a descendant of the great Marie Catherine Laveau, the true voodoo queen.”

Turning her attention to the drawing, Cat began to chant softly. Her eyes rolled up in her head as she called for the energy of her lineage to be upon her.

“May the power of all my grandmothers be with me now. Let us use the gift granted to us by Bondye to strike down those who mean us harm. Throw the soul of my enemy into the deepest bowels of Hell.”

As Cat exclaimed this, she raised the spoon high in the air, slamming it down, piercing the heart of the drawing and driving the troll’s hair into the dirt. Eck, who was outside the cell, fell immediately to the ground as the spoon buried deep into the rough floor. Using the tray, Cat pulled in the keys that had fallen from Eck’s motionless hand.

“Is he dead?” Kai asked.

“I’d rather not wait around to find out,” Cat said, opening the cell door.

The pair cautiously crept out. Opening the door, Cat glanced around, checking for Crone or any others. To her relief, they were alone. The women took each other’s hand and darted into the woods, protected by the cover of a moonless night. As they crossed into the trees, Kai picked up a squirrel, whispering a message in its ear before it ran off.

“I can’t stay here. I still haven’t figured out how I got here in the first place,” Cat told Kai. “I was swimming at home and found myself in a lake.”

“Then we have to get you back to the lake,” Kai told her. “The portal will move when the sun rises in the morning.”

Kai led the way, Cat following closely behind. Twice they stopped when Kai was overcome by labor pains, but both women knew that they could not stay in one spot for long. Finally, they reached the rocky shoreline. Fifty yards out, a light could be seen on the surface of the water. It was as if the moon, absent in the night’s sky, had been placed in the water and was shining from below.

“What about you?” Cat asked Kai. “I can’t leave you here like this.”

As if on cue, several gnomes stepped out from the tree line, spears in hand.

“I’ll be ok. Now go,” Kai reassured her.

The two women hugged and Cat slipped into the still water. She kicked toward the light. When she felt the familiar feeling of indistinguishable direction, she let the water carry her to the surface rather than resist as she had before. She was relieved to find herself in her own backyard when she broke through to the night.

Cat exited the pool, rubbing her belly, in relieved disbelief that she was actually home. Her baby stirred inside of her.

“I think Kai is the perfect name for you, my little voodoo princess,” Cat said. “You will be my greatest adventure.”

Inside the house, Cat opened the fridge and pulled out the raspberry jam and a loaf of whole wheat bread. Time for that sandwich.