Page 12 of The Delivery

Rebecca’s breath has quickened, shallow gasps. Her vision starts to dot, and she reminds herself to draw full inhalations. Ever the stalwart engineer, Mark proceeds, steady on his feet.

His hand on the doorknob, he hesitates. Looks back at Rebecca.

She gives him a quick downward jerk of her chin, the best version of a nod she can muster.

He twists the knob.

The door opens with a faint squeak of hinges.

It takes a moment for them to comprehend what they are seeing.

The lid of the prism is lifted.

The inside, shadowed.

Spots glimmer wetly on the floor.

Puddles?

No—footprints.

The marks of bare feet, outlined in translucent goo.

The footsteps lead across the laminate floorboards to the bathroom. The door is slightly ajar, steam from the shower sheeting through the gap.

Mark breathes more than speaks: “What the actual fuck?”

She has never heard his voice this way. She tries to respond but cannot.

They draw close to the open prism, peering over the lip, holding their weight back on their heels as if they are gazing over the edge of a cliff.

The first thing Rebecca notices is the bed of goo, viscous and clear. It reminds her of the ultrasound gel applied liberally across her pregnant belly, the primordial sludge that accompanies the emergence of life. The bed is indented in the middle, like a body impression on a well-used mattress. The goo is lit a futuristic blue from beneath and both sides by what look to be microchips lining the casket’s interior.

“Circuit boards?” Mark says in that same breathless voice.

Once again they track the trail of footprints leading to the bathroom.

Rebecca can’t help but notice the heavy-handed stagecraft of steam turning the room into a science fiction landscape. Without dropping her eyes from that gap in the door, she reaches for Mark’s hand, which finds hers halfway between them.

His palm feels cool against hers, which has gone clammy with fright.

They stand there frozen, unsure.

And then the shower shuts off.

Then comes the purr of the shower door rolling back on its modern-by-way-of-Restoration-Hardware barn track. It thuds to a stop.

Rebecca’s ears are suddenly and acutely attuned. She can hear the sound of water dripping onto the bath mat. The whoosh of a towel pulled smoothly from the rack. Fibers drawn across . . . skin? The pad of a footstep. Another.

And then the bathroom door inches outward.

A form stares there in the doorframe, backlit and naked, bath sheet hanging from one hand at its side.

For a moment, Rebecca thinks it is Mark.

“ Hello ,” it says.

Rebecca’s throat is too dry to use.