Bad Stacks Story Collection Box Set by Scott Nicholson Read Free Book Online

powder. The muscles in her stomach ached from pushing. The child inside her squirmed toward the world, toward the light, toward the land of pain and promise.
    Kelly's eyes squeezed closed, tears leaking, the same saltwater that had filled the amniotic sac. The water of life. She pushed again and something tore free down below. She was going to pass out, die without ever seeing the flesh of her flesh, without ever connecting.
    She forced her eyes open. The ghost hovered again, settling down upon her in the dark corner of the barn. She had no air to scream. Her final breath would be stolen by this thing of mist and dreams.
    Except, as the ghost wafted over her, gentle as lamb's wool, a warmth flooded through her. This time, its touch was soothing. The pain lifted, vanished like a spirit in sunshine. The ghost pressed against her, embraced her, bathed her in whatever energy and life it was able to give back. She rose to meet it, like a lover or a penitent surrendering to a force of faith.
    Kelly felt strong again, and she pushed, grunted and pushed again. The baby slid free, and she reached down between her legs. He was slick from her fluids, warm, but still. Too awfully still.
    She sat up and clutched the child to her chest, wailing, all rain and thunder. The child's skin was blue. She rubbed him, shook him, pinched the tiny nose and blew into his mouth. Even though he was already dead, she admired the beautiful face. He was Stamey, all right.
    “Don’t leave me,” she cried, the limp umbilical cord tangled across her thighs. She rubbed its chest and shared her heat. She half-crawled, half-wriggled toward the cemetery, the chill of the infant’s flesh reaching deep into her soul. Blood oozed from her birth channel and her scraped knees and palm as she tugged herself over twisted roots and jagged gray stones.
    Her muscles were gone but she tapped faith for fuel, dowsing for some hidden wellspring. The pale outlines of the grave markers appeared through the foliage. She continued her crippled crawl, compelled herself forward to hallowed ground, pushing over the scrabbled turf until she collapsed before the slab of etched marble.
    And the ghost was there, forming again, smaller this time, its effervescence less bright. The milky threads of the ghost settled over the baby, swaddled him, gave to him that same strange energy that had revived Kelly.
    The baby coughed weakly, shuddered, and then the cord pulsed. The small heart pumped, unevenly at first, then more steadily. His lungs got their first taste of air, then he let loose with the first of many complaints to come. He breathed.
    Kelly hugged him, wiped the stray fluids from his mouth, smoothed his slick wisps of hair. She clawed a scythe from the barn wall and severed the umbilical cord. Then she wrapped the baby in the folds of her shirt, pressing him against her warmth. When the cries died away, she gave him her breast, and he fed.
    She lay in the hay until the placenta was delivered. She looked around for the ghost, but knew she would never see it again. Not as a ghost, anyway. The child blinked up at her. In his brown eyes, those strange Stamey eyes, were those silver and white threads. As she watched, the soft threads dissipated, but not completely.
    The Stameys had always taken care of their own. From the cradle to the grave, and back again.
    She named him Lewis Kelly Stamey.
    And it named her Mother.
     
    THE END
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    SHE CLIMBS A WINDING STAIR
     
    Outside the window, a flat sweep of sea. The ocean's tongue licks the shore as if probing an old scar. Clouds hang gray and heavy, crushed together by nature's looming anger. In the distance is a tiny white sail, or it might be a forlorn whitecap, breaking too far out to make land.
    I hope it is a whitecap.
    Because she may come that way, from the lavender east. She may rise from the stubborn sandy fields behind the house, or seep from the