Title:           Horrors! 6 - And Baby Makes 13
Author:          Mr_Sympathy
Pastebin link:   http://pastebin.com/fEvAwewd
First Edit:      Tuesday 17th of February 2015 02:45:51 AM CDT
Last Edit:       Tuesday 17th of February 2015 02:45:51 AM CDT

And Baby Makes 13
by Del Stone Jr.
 
 
"So tell me", Dr. Harvey Radcliff said, coaxing a squeak from his chair, "how have you been taking care of yourself?"
The woman gave him an odd stare. Her name was Judith Bloome, and she was a thin-framed, moon-pale lacewing of a woman who did not wear her sixth months of pregnancy well. Her stomach swelled from her slender body like an insect egg grafted to a twig. Dr. Radcliff smiled inwardly at the image. The company, he knew, would not be amused.
"As far as I know, I'm doing all the right things,"  she answered warily. "Why do you ask? Is there a problem?"
Dr. Radcliff chuckled. "It's just my way of making sure patients stick to the regimen-especially my first-time mothers."
Judith nodded and patted her stomach tiredly. "I'll sure be glad when this is over," she groaned. "I feel like I'm giving birth to a bowling ball."
"First pregnancies are always like that," he said.
She groaned again. "I think this one will be my last."
Dr. Radcliff mentally seconded that notion. In his fifteen years as an obstetrician with Orthon Agricultural Applications, he had seen his share of company wives, and with a single office visit he could predict which ones would go on to have large families, and which ones would call it quits after their first pregnancy. Judith Bloome, he knew, fell into the latter category.
"Let me run a few questions by you," he went on, adding quickly, "just to make sure. Now. You haven't been smoking."
"Smoking by pregnant women may result in fetal injury, premature birth, and low birth weight," Judith answered, reciting the warning on cigarette packs.
"Alcohol?"
She shook her head.
"Drugs?"
"Nothing except Pepto-Bismol," she said.
"And you are continuing to exercise."
"I walk every day. And do housework."
"Sleeping well?"
She shrugged. "Sometimes not, but most of the time, yeah."
"Mood swings?"
"Not really," she shook her head. "Sometimes I get mad at my husband for not helping around the house more, but I try to understand. He works at the plant all day..."
"What division does your husband work in?"
"Hormonicides. They make growth regulators-pesticides that kill bugs by messing with their hormones."
Dr. Radcliff nodded. "How's your diet?"
"Lots of fruits and vegetables," she said proudly.
"Where do you buy your produce from?" He asked casually. "The company market?"
She blushed and did not answer immediately. He said, "It's OK," and she stammered, "Well, I get them from the grocery store. I think the produce tastes better than the stuff from the company store."
*So it's the husband*, Dr. Radcliff realized, nodding thoughtfully. But he said nothing about that. Instead, he told her, "Well that's all I need to know for today. You're doing fine. Come see me again in a month and we'll see how things are going."
Judith struggled from the chair and smiled wanly, an undercurrent of uncertainty in her expression. "You understand about the produce thing, " she said. "I mean, the company is so wonderful about providing medical care and subsidized groceries and all.... I almost feel like a traitor for shopping downtown."
Dr. Radcliff laughed and shooed her towards the door. "The company doesn't care where its employees shop, so don't you worry about that. Save your energy for carrying that extra load."
She beamed at him as she turned to go out the door, and for the first time that afternoon a bloom of health rose from her cheeks. Dr. Radcliff almost felt sorry for her.
Because there was no denying the X-rays. The real X-rays, not the substitutes he had shown her. The real X-rays revealed eleven tiny, oblong, chitinous skulls encased in her womb, and folds of multiple legs layered along pulsating thoraxes. Ants, or bees, or some horrible permutation of life that was never meant to be.
"The husband," Dr. Radcliff muttered, shoving Judith Bloome's paperwork into the special blue file in his desk drawer. There were four other folders in the file.
"He works around that shit all day, and it gets inside him, and voila! Dr. Harvey Radcliff gets another half million in hush money. Isn't that a gas?"
But the company, he knew, would not be amused.