Page 8 of Into the Mist

“Nothing’s wrong!” Mercury spoke automatically. “He’s just coming a little early, that’s all.”

“Yeah, you’re going to be okay.” Jenny’s voice was calm, but her eyes were dark saucers in her face.

“Press your hands into her lower back,” Mercury told Jenny, who nodded and shakily complied. Mercury bent so that her face was near Amelia’s. “Breathe with me. You remember! You know how to do this!”

Amelia turned her head so that she could meet Mercury’s gaze. Her pale skin was shiny with sweat, and her eyes were wide and glassy. “No,” she moaned. “It’s never been like this. And he’s too early. It’s too early! Something’s wrong—something feels broken inside me.”

Panic made Mercury’s legs so weak that she was glad she was already on her knees. This was Amelia’s third child. The other twohad been born at home uneventfully with a midwife and a doula.She does know how to do this, but that also means she knows if it feels wrong.The thought flitted through Mercury’s mind, and with it her brain finally caught up with her body. “Just breathe! Everything will be okay. You’re a pro at this,” Mercury insisted. She panted with Amelia while her focus expanded. She looked around frantically for Coach Davis, who worked as an EMT at his second job for the Broken Arrow Fire Department. Mercury ignored the broken trees and crevasse-like gaps that had appeared in the ripped earth around them. “Where the hell is the coach?” she hissed under her breath when Amelia’s body relaxed momentarily between contractions.

“He was standing just over there, on the other side of Amelia when—” Jenny began, but her words broke off as her gaze rested on something on the ground not far from Amelia.

Mercury recognized the coach’s sweatshirt by Will Rogers High’s bold royal-blue, gold, and white colors, but it looked strange. Before she could think herself out of it, she lurched to her feet and staggered to the coach.

Mercury saw what was wrong and the sight made her body freeze in place. Coach Davis had… flattened. Blood and body fluids squished under her feet as a pool of liquid expanded from him. He lay on his back. His mouth and eyes were open as if in surprise. His eyeballs had turned red. Congealed blood leaked slowly from them, and as Mercury stood there with the back of her hand pressed against her mouth to hold in her screams, the coach’s body dissolved into a pancake of clothes, skin, bones, teeth, and hair.

The next contraction consumed Amelia, and her scream was a feral thing that tore from between her panting lips. The sound of it thawed Mercury, and she rushed back to the laboring woman.

Stella was there, crouched beside Amelia. Mercury joined them as Jenny shifted to allow her near, which gave Mercury a view of the back of Amelia’s maternity dress. The bright, happy butter color was now soaked with red, like a terrible rose that bloomed larger and more brilliantly scarlet with each contraction. Stella met her gaze and shook her head. Mercury swallowed bile.

“I have to push!” The words burst from Amelia. “Help me up!”

Mercury, Jenny, and Stella supported her torso as Amelia half squatted, half knelt. Her dress was hiked up around her waist. Her fingers scrabbled at her panties, which Mercury slid down herblood-slick thighs just as her body tensed and wetness gushed from between her legs.

Amelia slumped back in Jenny’s arms as she gave birth with a torrent of blood. Mercury caught the baby. Its tiny body was viscous and began to disintegrate immediately. It seeped through her fingers while the placenta poured from Amelia, followed by more and more blood that continued to pump from the young mother—a new tide of red with every beat of her heart.

Mercury bit the inside of her cheek and positioned herself so that Amelia could not see what was left of her son as she placed the little body on the grass between his mother’s thighs. She glanced over her shoulder at Jenny, who was sobbing as she cradled Amelia in her arms, and shook her head slightly. She saw in Jenny’s gaze that she knew—she understood—and the young woman held Amelia more tightly. Stella moved up beside Mercury.

“No! Oh no,” Stella whispered and then tore off her coat so that she could pull her sweater over her head and hand it to Mercury.

Mercury took the sweater and pressed it between Amelia’s legs to try to stop the flood. It only took moments for scarlet to soak through the sweater and slick over Mercury’s hands.

“Why isn’t he crying? Is he okay?” Amelia’s voice was barely a whisper. The spots of red had faded from her cheeks, leaving only chalky, damp skin. Her lips were tinged blue and her gaze was unfocused.

Mercury forced herself to sound normal—happy even—as she would have had the baby been alive and thriving. “He’s fine. He’s just small. I’m going to keep the umbilical cord attached for a little while yet, but you can hold him in, in a—” her words hitched to a stop as her voice faltered.

Stella touched her shoulder before she moved to help Jenny hold Amelia. “Yeah, just let Mercury dry him off and wrap him up, then you can hold him.”

“C-cold. Y-you’re right. It—it’s s-so cold,” Amelia’s teeth chattered and her body convulsed with shudders.

Stella wrapped her coat over her dying friend. Tears seeped down her face, but her voice was steady and her touch was strong as she held Amelia’s hands. “Right? It is really cold out here. That’s why Mercury has to be sure he’s warm. What’s his name?”

Amelia’s blue lips tilted up at the corners. “Daniel. After his father.” Her teeth had stopped chattering, and her body had gonevery still. She drew a breath that rattled strangely. “He’s our first boy. I can’t wait for Dan to meet…” Amelia released a long exhale and her body relaxed. No inhale followed. Her open, empty gaze looked surprised.

“Amelia!” Jenny shook her. “Amelia!”

Stella placed Amelia’s hands together over her deflated stomach, and then she touched Jenny’s shoulder gently. “She’s gone. There’s nothing we can do.”

Jenny stared at her. “The baby?”

Mercury shook her head and wiped her bloody hands on the grass. “He—he didn’t make it either.”

“Oh God! Jesus help us!”

The three women looked up to see Karen Gay standing just a few feet from them. Her face was bruised and her cardigan torn. Her hands were clasped in front of her, and she was panting as she repeated over and over the same words.

“Oh God! Jesus help us! Oh God! Jesus help us! Oh God!”

Mercury collected herself as she hurried to the history teacher.