Baby Talk by Mike Wells Read Free Book Online

quick but agonizing motion, he yanked
his foot away from the metal object, letting out a grunt that
sounded more animal than human. He passed out for a few seconds.
What he saw when he opened his eyes, he would never forget. His
foot flung out a thick spray of blood that splashed across Annie’s
ashen face. She looked like someone in a horror film who had just
witnessed a slashing.
    But the image just beyond her was far more
disturbing. Over the top rail of the crib, two dark eyes were
watching him. He could see the top of Natasha’s fuzzy head and her
two tiny, paw-like hands gripping the wooden rail. The eyes seemed
completely vacant, yet there was a feeling that they conveyed in
that fleeting moment that Neal could only interpret
as...satisfaction.
    Neal screamed, screamed like he never had
before in his life.
    Annie clasped her hands to her cheeks,
smearing her face crimson, unaware that Neal’s blood had splashed
across it. She stared at his foot, her eyes wide with horror. There
was a puffy, gaping hole in its sole, about the size of a dime.
Blood was spurting out of it, forming a puddle on the floor.
    “Ambulance!” Annie blurted. “We have to call
an ambulance!”
    She leaped up from the bed and took a step
towards the night stand. Instead of the hardwood, she stepped on
Neal’s left hand and cried “Ow!” (something that Neal would later
remember and find darkly amusing) and began fumbling with the
telephone. But at that moment, Neal barely heard or saw any of
this—he was still in shock. He looked back over at the crib, but
Natasha had disappeared—her head and hands were no longer
visible.
    “What’s wrong with this damn thing!” Annie
said frantically. She was punching 9-1-1 into the telephone over
and over again, the receiver to her ear.
    Neal finally came to his senses. “It’s dead,
Annie. You left it off the hook. You have to hang up and wait
until...oh, never mind!”
    “What?” she said, rattled.
    “Just hang up, Annie. I don’t need an
ambulance. I’m not dying.”
    Annie hesitated, staring down at his
bleeding foot—it was still gushing blood. “But you have to go to a
hospital!”
    “Maybe I do, but you’re not going to get
anybody on that phone until you hang up for a minute and get a dial
tone.”
    Annie lowered the receiver, but did not hang
up. She was still staring at Neal’s foot. For a second, he thought
she would throw up.
    “Get me a towel, for God’s sake.”
    “You need to wash it out,” she said,
glancing at the blood-drenched trophy. It was lying on its side, a
few feet away from Neal, between him and the crib.
    “I know, but I don’t want to get blood all
over everything.”
    “But—”
    “Just
do
it, Annie!”
    She started to hang up the phone, then just
dropped the receiver on the floor and trotted into the bathroom.
This time, she was careful not to step on Neal’s hand.
    He eased himself across the floor, to the
bed, and propped his back up against it. As he did this, he did not
take his eyes off the crib. He wanted to put as much distance
between himself and the baby as possible.
    Annie came back into the room carrying a
frayed navy blue bath towel that his mother had given him for his
dorm room at college. Neal started to take it from her but she
pushed his hand away. She wiped up the blood on the floor, then
carefully took hold of Neal’s ankle. After patting the sole of his
foot dry, she began to wrap the towel around and around the
wound.
    Neal stared past her, at the bloody tennis
trophy. “How did it get on the floor?”
    “I don’t know.”
    “You don’t
know
?” Neal said, raising
his voice.
    “No, I don’t.
I
didn’t do it—don’t
try to blame it on me.”
    “I know you didn’t do it,” Neal said. His
eyes focused on the crib. “That goddam baby did it.”
    Annie gasped. “
What?
”
    “You heard me.”
    Annie stared at him. “You’re crazy.” She
finished wrapping the towel around his foot and tucked the end