DISCLAIMER: The following tale is from a book of short stories titled “Of Lark” (there were once more words to the title, but they are now unreadable). I discovered the book in the bowels of the McClaire Branch of the Essex County Library System located in Lark, Massachusetts. There is no named author. I asked around town to see if anyone had heard of the book, but the population of Lark is private, eclectic, and on principle suspicious of outsiders, so my questions went unanswered.
Until I met a teenager here, Amethyst, who said they knew the history of the book. That history, which I’ve since compiled into a book, is the final stages of drafting. I plan to publish it shortly. In preparation, to give you a sense of what awaits in the town of Lark, I have decided to publish the strange stories in the book “Of Lark”.
Despite their fantastic nature, I am not certain how much, if any, of these stories are fictional. If what Amethyst has to say is even remotely true, I would not be surprised if they are more truth than fiction. Proceed with caution. The more you understand, the more responsible you become, the bigger the target on your back becomes. And if you find you relate to these stories or Amethysts’s too much, I implore you to put the book down. Walk away. Because once you know the truth, you can never unlearn it.
Brace yourself.
No. 1: “Goode Riddance”
THE YEAR WAS 1966. It was the middle of July and the heat bore down on the quaint New England town of Lark, Massachusetts. It was the type of heat that boils the ocean into a frenzy. An inescapable kind of heat, that lingers in the air like a crush and sends storms hurtling toward the coast.
That night, Billy and Bella Goode went out to dinner. As it happened, it was the night of their second anniversary, a full moon, and Bella’s due date for her pregnancy. They hadn’t planned for things to line up like this, but they couldn’t say they were surprised. Alignments like this had happened to the Goodes so often over the years it had become a bit of a family joke. Some families have curses, the Goodes seemed to have coincidences. Lucky them.
Even though the baby was due any day now, Billy had wanted to do something special for the anniversary and, being the attentive and supportive husband he was, he knew that from the beginning of her pregnancy, Bella’s most consistent and intense craving was for roast beef so he’d asked around town and, after much sampling and canvassing, Billy determined that the best roast beef in Lark was not actually in Lark, but just outside of it, in a small, quaint butcher shop about twenty minutes from the Goodes’ one-story home.
Last week, Billy had driven out to the shop and made a reservation (the sandwich shop didn’t usually take reservations, but the wife of the owner, who was working at the time Billy came in, had a soft spot for dashing young fathers-to-be) and now, here they were, on the night of their anniversary, splitting the most divine roast beef sandwich Bella thought she had ever had. Sitting across from Billy, who’s razor-sharp jawline and James Dean hair was accented by the candlelit table, Bella wondered if she might be the luckiest girl on earth.
That thought had only just crossed her mind when all at once, she felt a great wetness on her chair and the baby squirmed and Bella knew that her water had broken. A tremor of fear went through her, mixed with excitement and love. Her eyes widened and she looked at Billy.
His green eyes, hazy and romantic, sharpened when they saw her’s. “What is it?”
“The baby is coming,” Bella said. Her voice sounded strange in her ears.
“Now?” Billy asked.
Bella nodded and her face contorted in pain as another contraction pulsed through her body. “Now!” she said through gritted teeth.
Taking a very pregnant woman to an unfamiliar part of town the week of her due date, Billy realized, was perhaps not the wisest decision. The butcher’s shop was, Billy estimated, at least a 45-minute drive from North Shore Medical, where their usual doctor operated from. Based on Bella’s squirming, she wouldn’t make it 15 minutes, much less 45.
Billy looked around, frantic. The owner of the shop had to be around somewhere, but the front of the butcher shop was abandoned. Billy was about to walk into the back to hunt him down when he caught sight of him out the window, smoking a cigarette in front of the shop.
“I’ll be right back,” Billy said.
“What?” Bella said. “Where are you–”
Billy rushed out of the shop, the bell jangling as he left his wife at the table.
“Excuse me,” he said, approaching the shop owner. The owner met his eyes and despite his distress at the circumstances, Billy couldn’t help but notice how strikingly blue his eyes were. “Where’s the nearest hospital?” he asked, unable to keep his voice from cracking.
“Up the hill,” the owner said with a jerk of his head. “Left at the stump, right at the Academy. Just follow the signs. Everything alright?”
Billy shook his head, already turning away. “Wife’s water broke,” he said.
The owner’s eyes narrowed. “Inside?”
The bell jangled and Bella hobbled out of the butcher’s shop, her lips tight with discomfort and frustration. Billy rushed over and pulled her arm around his neck.
“Thank you,” Billy said to the owner, too preoccupied to notice the owner had stamped out his cigarette and was glaring at the couple who, as far as he was concerned, had just peed all over the floor of his shop and were about to be on their merry way.
Billy guided his wife to the car and helped her in, where she sat and took deep breaths. In the sky above them, the clouds began to cover the full moon.
“Hold on,” said Billy as he slid into the driver’s seat. “Just hold on.”
৺
Billy found the stump easily and made the left, then the right at the entrance to the Academy, then followed the signs for the hospital through the heavily-wooded campus. Through the trees, Billy could see dark masses he assumed were academic buildings during the day. As he pulled into the bumpy, gravel driveway leading up to the massive, sharp-edged building labeled HOSPITAL, Billy couldn’t help but think that this was one of the strangest hospitals he had ever been to.
From Billy’s point of view, the hospital was a pointy mansion. It was old-timey in a grandiose sort of way and everything seemed to have been turned up a notch, from its soaring triangular roof to its massive stained glass windows, and, of course, the twenty-foot oak doors that dominated the main facade of the building. As their car approached, tires crunching against the gravel, one of the doors cracked open and a man walked out, dressed head to toe in full butler garb. Billy pulled to a stop at the foot of the steps leading up into the hospital. Beside him, Bella squirmed in pain. Billy gave her a worried glance, then threw open the door and stepped out of the car.
“Greetings,” the Butler said.
“Evening,” said Billy. “I’m sorry to bother you, but we were told this is a hospital. My wife, she’s pregnant and–”
The Butler raised a hand, cutting Billy off. Behind him, the doors to the hospital opened and two nurses rushed out, carrying a stretcher between them. “Rest assured,” he said, his voice reedy and comical with its transatlantic accent, “we’re here to help.”
The nurses opened the passenger door and began to help Bella out of the car. Some internal alarm began to ring in Billy, but he shoved it down. This was a hospital. Maybe it wasn’t the most conventional looking hospital, but Bella needed help–help that Billy couldn’t give her.
“Hold on a second,” he protested as the nurses began to roll Bella into the mansion. “Let me come with you.”
“Of course, Mr. Goode,” the Butler said. If Billy hadn’t been so preoccupied with the imminent birth of his child, and the even more imminent suffering of his wife, he might’ve considered how the Butler knew his name.
Thunder rumbled in the distance as the clouds rolled over the moon like the lid of a coffin. The Butler stepped forward and offered Billy his hand. Billy took it, and together they walked into the hospital.
৺
Billy was right. This really was the strangest hospital he’d ever been in. The ceiling in the foyer soared thirty feet above the marble floors. A dark cherry staircase dominated each side of the foyer, leading up to a landing lined with doors that stretched around the entire perimeter of the second floor. The pieces of the room fit together to create a room Billy had only ever imagined existed in the movies, with one exception: the smell. Beneath the smell of wood and marble, there was the soft, ripe, unmistakable stench of horses. Billy had grown up on a farm, spent his entire childhood in the stables. He would recognize that smell anywhere, even here, in a swanky mansion where it didn’t belong.
The Butler led Billy straight across the grandiose entrance, beneath the massive mobile that doubled as a chandelier and through a set of double doors into another room that Bella and the nurses had disappeared through a moment before.
When Billy entered the room beyond the doors, he couldn’t help but gasp. The entire wall directly in front of him was made of glass and looked out over a sprawling hedge maze. The floor and walls of the room were made of white-washed wood that contrasted with the darker tones of the entrance so harshly, it almost seemed like they belonged to two different houses. The center of the room was dominated by a sunken conversation pit lined with a white leather couch. In the middle of the pit was a fireplace the likes of which Billy had never seen. Blue flames licked outward from a bed of glass, stimulating Billy’s interest in pyrotechnics. Had Billy not had more pressing concerns, he might’ve stopped to ask about the mechanics of the fireplace, but as it were, there were more important things to focus on.
The room was a flurry of activity, with doctors and nurses rushing in and out. Bella was set up on a state of the art hospital bed in front of the wall of windows. Caretakers checked her vitals and took readings, preparing for the birth. Bella made eye contact with Billy across the room and Billy could hear her voice in his head: Get over here, now. Billy hurried across the room and took her hand.
“Billy,” Bella said through gritted teeth. “Where are we?”
Billy had been wondering the same thing. The hospital was beautiful, the nicest Billy had ever been in, in fact, but it didn’t exactly scream ‘hospital’ to Billy. For one thing, where were the other patients?
“They’re going to help us,” Billy heard himself say back. He might not have fully believed it, but he had read enough about giving birth to know that now was not the time to voice doubts or concerns or be anything but confident and supportive.
Bella cried out and squeezed Billy’s hand so hard his bones seemed to clatter against each other. At the other end of the bed, the doctor poked his head out from between Bella’s legs. “Okay, Bella,” he said, “I’m going to need you to push on the count of three. Can you do that for me?”
Bella whimpered and set her jaw. “Mhm.”
“Excellent. 1, 2, 3!”
Bella threw her head back and roared. All at once, the storm outside broke open in the way that summer storms do. Sheets of rain pounded against the window wall, while thunder and lightning cracked across the sky like a whip. For God knows how long, Bella fought her body, screaming, until finally there was release and she knew it was over. She collapsed into Billy’s arms and he cradled her, nuzzling his nose against her sweaty brow. For a long moment, they stayed like that, eyes closed, whispering. Then Billy realized the room had gotten quiet.
Too quiet.
A chill ran down the length of his spine. After giving birth, the baby is supposed to cry. Why wasn’t the baby crying?
He lifted his head to ask and his voice died in his throat. What he saw, he couldn’t quite comprehend. The Goodes were not in the hospital anymore, but a filthy, abandoned barn. The hospital bed Bella had been in a moment ago was now a dirty mattress propped up against the wall, which was no longer the grandiose window wall of the hospital, but rather the dirty stall doors of a stable. Her hair was wild, her entire composure thick with exhaustion. The mattress was stained with too much of her blood.
“Honey,” Billy said slowly.
Bella was pale, her breath a flutter in her chest. She opened her eyes slowly, then bolted upright. Before she could talk, she doubled over and clutched her stomach. The stain on the mattress was getting bigger. “My baby,” she whispered weakly. “Where is my baby?”
Billy rushed out of the stable and through the barn, searching for anything that might make the scene make sense. He burst out of the main doors and stopped short, unable to process what he saw. Their car was parked out front, on a gravel driveway. Open farm stretched for miles in each direction. But there was no sign of the hospital or the Academy. No movement at all.
The Goodes were alone.
And their baby was gone.