June 5, 1989

“Are you saying you weren’t raped?”

“No…I mean yes, but not at first.” She closed her eyes and the tears she fought so hard to hold back finally escaped and flowed down her face. “I chose to have sex with a man, but he wasn’t. You’ve got to believe me, he wasn’t.”

With rough fingers he gently wiped the tears from her face. “Just, tell me what happened.”

“I had… we had sex or we were having sex. At first it was okay, normal; I even liked it. He didn’t want anything special, no Greek, no BJ. I should have known when he turned that down. What man turns down a blow job without a condom?”

“Yes, what man indeed? You said it was normal, at first?”

“He was on top of me; in me and then it felt…wrong. He came in me, and it burned. It hurt so bad. It felt like fire was being pumped into me. I tried to push him off but I couldn’t.  He was so strong and then his eyes.”  She paused as fresh tears flowed freely down her cheeks.

“What about his eyes? Denise, what did you see in his eyes?”

“They…they changed, like a cat. They flickered like a cat’s eyes and then he let out this cry. It was unlike any sound you've ever heard. I felt something snake its way into my stomach. I started to scream, and then he put his mouth over mine and…and everything went dark. I passed out. When I woke up, he was gone. That’s all I remember.”

He had more questions. Things that he wanted to know, but one look at the woman’s distended belly told him any useful leads were long past being considered cold. If only I had gotten to her sooner? He knew being a rape victim wasn’t an easy thing for woman to go through, even a hooker.

“I’m sorry, Ms. Rohamm, but I have to ask this.”

The woman pressed on her pregnant belly with both hands and started breathing faster. He wasn’t a doctor by a long stretch but knew she was close.

“Ask what you want, and then get that stupid doctor. I think…I think it’s coming.” She reached over and began pressing the call button again.

“Why? Why did you wait so long before reporting this?”

She looked at him, rolled her eyes and shook her head from side to side.

“No one believes me, not the doctors or the nurses.” She let out a primal scream. “Not nine months ago.  I met him…I fucked him last night. Oh… it’s time.”

He stared at her in disbelief as she began panting. “Sit tight, I’ll get your doctor.”

Samuel left the woman in her room and sprinted down the hallway. It was late and the maternity ward was mostly deserted. He passed one man coming his way, but as the guy wore regular clothes he paid him no mind. Samuel was so focused on finding a doctor that he ignored the vibrations coming from within his coat.

On the other end of the wing he found Denise’s doctor.

“Doc, Denise, the girl in room 13 is going into labor.”

“Your girlfriend is not going into anything. I examined her two hours ago and she’s barely into her third trimester.”

“What?”

“Look, I may only be a resident, but no offense, dude; she may need some psychological help. Maybe you didn’t know. She’s a pretty girl and lots of guys don’t ask questions, but she is clearly off her meds or needs to be on them… Ah!”

A sharp pain in the doctor’s wrist cut off the rest of his scholarly comments. Even if the man wasn’t a doctor he would not have any trouble identifying the source of his pain. The large dark hand bending his fingers back at a 90 degree angle was a good clue.

“She is not my girlfriend and she is not seven months pregnant.”  Doctor Martin opened his mouth to protest but shut it as his fingers went back a few more degrees. “You can walk back with me or…”

A soul curdling scream echoing off the smooth green and white walls interrupted his threat. He released the poor man’s hands and turned towards him.

“Was that?”

“I don’t know what that was,” the doctor began quickly walking and then running down the hall, “but it’s not anything good.”

The two men sprinted back towards Denise’s room, dodging startled nurses and terrified mothers entering the hall to investigate.

They burst through Denise’s door and froze. Doctor Martin served two tours in the Peace Corp in Bosnia and had witnessed, he thought, every horrific sight a medic could, but he was wrong.

In the days to come he would leave his post at Mercy General. He would never practice medicine again, not legally.

The men at the door were not the only ones to freeze in that moment. The ‘man’ responsible was standing over a bloody and semi-conscious Denise. In his hands, attached and greedily suckling at one of her enlarged breast was what vaguely resembled a blood soaked cross between an infant and kitten.

“Oh my God,” cried the doctor.

“Krisstoff,” said the other reaching into his coat.

“Bounty Hunter,” was Krissoff’s only reply.  He quickly tried to pull the hungry newborn away, but its tiny fang-like teeth dug deeply into its mother’s flesh causing her breast to stretch with the baby.

In a flash the Hunter drew his Colt. His mission was to kill Krisstoff. The Bounty on the once-man issued by Azazel left no room for interpretation, and the Hunter intended on sending the creature to whatever hell his master had in mind. But as his sharp eyes took in the abomination chewing on the woman’s tit his hand, on its own drifted.

In the enclosed room the Colt sounded like a canon. That sound was immediately followed by the hollow pop of the infant’s head bursting like an overripe melon.  The bullet not only shattered the baby’s head but also the window beyond. Krisstoff screamed in agony as he held his headless child. The scene was too much for Doctor Martin; dazed he stumbled into the Hunter.

Seeing his chance, Krisstoff tossed the lifeless body at the Hunter and then dived for the open window. The Hunter swatted the corpse aside and fired again. His aim was off, but still true as a second round destroyed Krissoff’s right foot.

The Bounty Hunter watched his prey sail through the window and then raced after him. Hunting was in his blood and there was no greater prey to pursue than a wounded one. Just as the Hunter prepared to leap the three floors to the ground, he heard the frantic yells of Doctor Martin.

“Code Blue, code blue, she’s gone into cardiac arrest. Damn, she’s lost too much blood, she not going to make it.”

Samuel looked over his shoulder at the child-like face of the girl he had spent the last hour speaking with. He didn’t even know her age. He never thought to ask. He was so focused on getting any information that would lead him to Krisstoff that he had forgotten she was a real person, an innocent woman caught up in a sick and evil game. He looked down to the street below and saw his prey hobbling down an ally. If he jumped at that moment he would easily overcome the monster in seconds, but that meant turning his back on her.

Samuel pressed the Colt close to his lips and whispered, “He won’t get away, we’ll catch him I promise, but first I need you to do this for me.”  The gun glowed dimly in his hand.

“Step aside.” Doctor Martin and a female nurse who had just entered moved away. Samuel laid the glowing pistol between the woman’s naked breasts. The light from the Colt flared once and then subsided. The woman’s eyes fluttered and then opened.

“You’ll be fine now, a little hungry but okay.” He removed and re-holstered the gun.

The last sight the people in the room had of the stranger was him leaping from the window to the street below.

Doctor Martin moved next to Denise Rohamm and laid a comforting hand on her head.

“Don’t ask me what just happened or how, but I think everything will be just…”

Just then the woman began screaming again. She grabbed the doctor’s already sore hand and squeezed with all her might. “Help me, help me. God, help me!”

The nurse standing at the foot of the bed ripped off the bloody sheet covering the woman’s lower body.

“Dear Lord, she’s crowning. It’s…It’s another.”