Then Baby was screaming and the light fell from his hands and rolled on the floor. He ran. He clamored up the steps one at a time and the wooden door above slammed.

She screamed for a few minutes. Through Baby banging on the door, above, and his screaming and crying. She screamed into the silence that followed. She screamed for a little, and then she was quiet again because she knew Mommy would come.

Mommy came later that night. And that was the last day she lived. Before Mommy reached her Erin began whispering, telling Mommy she was really bad and she would never make another sound ever again. She wouldn't really, really wouldn't. She didn't sit by the door of the cage; she drew as far away from it as she could. She knew it was bad, but she was afraid.

Mommy was quiet, coming. She wasn't saying Jesus's sake and f.u.c.king Christ and G.o.dd.a.m.n rat. She walked down and picked up the flashlight that had gone dark on the floor in the hours since Baby'd been down to see where rat lived.

She clicked the dead flashlight and put it on the bench behind her. She came to the cage and unlocked the gate. She got on her hands and knees and reached inside. Erin pressed against the farthest corner, saying, "no Mommy, no Mommy, no Mommy," but Mommy squeezed further and further in, caught her leg, and drew Erin forth.

Erin whimpered. She whispered no, no, no, no, no, no. She would never ever ever ever say anything again.

Mommy picked her up. She looked at her. Mommy was so big, so much bigger every day. Now she was the biggest thing in all the world. And Mommy put her hands around Erin's middle and pressed. Erin took a last breath and tasted Mommy's perfume and said, no, no, no. Then Mommy pressed more and more and Erin felt herself break inside, felt herself crack, felt sharp things stab her and stab her. Then she couldn't breathe, not even a little and in a short time, held close to Mommy, in Mommy's hands, she died.

That wasn't too bad, Erin remembered. There had been worse. When she'd spilled on the new dress from the Sears. That'd been worse. That had been a day! A whap, whap, whap, picked by the feet and spun, day. A wheee, and her face went wham-bong against the metal pole that held up the house from down in the bas.e.m.e.nt day. That day, Mommy'd dropped her, "little f.u.c.ker," Mommy'd called her, "crawl out of me, will you," she said. Then she'd shoved a rolled up newspaper down her throat until she nearly choked.

"You'll wear that thing until you wear it out," Mommy'd said, letting her go, letting her pull the paper out of her mouth.

Mommy sat on her for a while and hit her with a piece of coal from the bin. She hoped that showed her, Mommy'd said. She'd have to learn, Mommy said. And hit her. Learn to take care of things I give you. And hit her. Cost good money, these things. And hit her. She'd wear that dress. And hit her. Wear that f.u.c.king dress until Christ Jesus took it off her. Oh the dress was a wreck after that.

And Mommy had left Jaw to watch out what she did down there.

Then Mommy was gone, the door slammed and she didn't eat ever after. She didn't make any more fuss after that. Now that was a day.

Except Baby'd come down and she screamed and Mommy came and Erin died. That was another day.

Mommy took her body and put it outside with the trash. Just like she said, except she buried her where the rainspout poured. n.o.body knew. n.o.body had known she ever was; they knew less of her now that she wasn't.

Erin stayed in the bas.e.m.e.nt. After a while she got used to being dead.

People came later, living people whom she could hardly see. They took all the things out of the bas.e.m.e.nt. They took the dog cage and Erin had no place to be. In a little bit, Mommy came down and stood in the dark.

Erin wanted to cry, but the dead didn't do that. Mommy looked so beautiful. She was dressed for going. Erin knew it. Mommy looked around the empty bas.e.m.e.nt. Finally she found Erin after looking long and hard, looked right at her.

"You better stay right here, young lady," Mommy said quietly. "You stay here or I'll be back for you. You hear?"

Then Mommy was gone.

How long ago?

Now, every day, all days alike, Erin came into the world, sat in the pain and waited.

The bas.e.m.e.nt filled, then emptied, more people came, more things went.

One day, the bas.e.m.e.nt was gone. Big machines rumbled through. The house fell. The machines rolled right through her. Light pounded down, dirt filled her and she rose to the surface. All her pains remained, pieces of her hung to the iron, to the men who walked right through her in daylight. She watched as her body was unearthed. She watched as people came and looked. She watched, sitting as close as she could to where he little dog cage had been, as people lifted her from the ground and put her in a bag.

"Bye-bye," she said as her body went away. "Bye-bye."

Night. She waited.

Day. The living came with more machines. They dug out her bas.e.m.e.nt again and she found the old spot where she'd lived and waited the years for Mommy. The living built.

Days went along. All days, alike. The new bas.e.m.e.nt was bright. The ceiling was white and smooth. Bright tube lights lit the place.

The living came and went. They pa.s.sed through her like light through a window.

Then one night Mommy came.

Erin didn't recognize her at first. First, she was a shadow, something in the dark. The shadow was stick-thin, but Erin knew her Mommy.

Mommy was acting funny, too. n.o.body was with them here in the bas.e.m.e.nt but Mommy was struggling, fighting against something and losing the fight. Mommy never lost a fight. That was funny and Erin almost laughed. Somebody forcing Mommy! Despite her fear, Erin giggled a little.

Mommy screamed. Not words, a jagged something poured out of her.

The giggle dried up in Erin. She hid in the dark corner where the dog cage had been. The new bas.e.m.e.nt was different, but she knew where it had been all those years. It felt so good to be in this place with Mommy again.

After the scream, Mommy didn't say a word. Not one word. That was not like her, either. Erin heard noises crawling around down inside her Mommy. Sobbing snuffles and gulps burped out. Mommy came forward, dragged, shoved, pushed, one shaking foot at a time. She was not moving on her own. It was as though people invisible were moving her like a big dolly. Erin wanted to go to her, to help her, but she couldn't, just couldn't. Oh, Mommy! Tears formed in the eyes of the little dead girl. Tears she'd not been able to shed since her death.

As the Mommy shadow wobbled toward Erin, thin moonlight from the window touched her. It didn't brighten but cut right through her and she staggered on. When she reached the place where the old light bulb had hung overhead for so many years, so many years ago, a hard streak of yellow light poured across Mommy's face. Mommy was hard and solid. Her skin hung in spotty folds. Her nose was a hook, thin skin over thin bone. Her beautiful green eyes were milk-cloudy marbles bulging from her pointy face. ...and her hair! Oh, her hair was stringy, gray. Mommy'd never been like this. Mommy was pretty. Mommy'd always loved her hair, her thick red hair, and would never let it go like that. And she was scared. Mommy was never scared. Her eyes were big. Mommy's eyes were steady and cool. When she got mad, her green eyes went dark and squinty. But Erin had never seen them wide like this.

Ohhhh! Mommy is dead, Erin knew.

Erin looked and, oh my, dissolving into being above Mommy, there was the bulb, there was the electric wire from which the bulb had hung, there was the old ceiling, the boards, beams and pipes. It all faded into being above Mommy and spread out above them both, spread to the corners. Then down the old walls flowed, down from where the ceiling ended, the old bas.e.m.e.nt ran like spilled honey, oozing, covering. Erin remembered. Oh Mommy was mad when she had spilled honey at breakfast. Mommy had showed her! Face pressed to the pancake griddle showed her. She never spilled that G.o.dd.a.m.ned honey again, no sir.

The old bas.e.m.e.nt reached the floor and crept across the new concrete, under Mommy's feet; the change washed over to where Erin cuddled with the corner's darkness. It rippled under her and when she looked again, there it was: Home. As it always had been and was always meant to be. Like loving arms, the cage spread up and around Erin, embraced her in its cool metal bars.

Erin peeked between the fingers she held over her eyes. Beyond the cage, there was Mommy and she was, oh, G.o.d, real as always and growing younger and younger. The red steeped through the grey hair that hung like weeds from Mommy's head. In a few moments, she was as Erin remembered. The thin body filled, became round and firm. Her face molded itself into the old shape Erin had always, always loved. The wrinkles around her eyes, above her lips, the loose skin tightened, fleshed the bones. She was growing pretty all over again.

Crunches came from Mommy, like tiny twigs breaking, like little bones snapping. Erin knew those sounds. And there were slurpy squishes as the old beauty blew her up like a beautiful Mommy balloon.

Mommy screamed all the while, then it was done. All done. All done and Mommy stopped screaming forever. The dead didn't scream.

Erin wondered. Had she been a bad little f.u.c.ker again? She wasn't sure. Mommy was hurting and when Mommy hurt, it was Erin's fault, dirty little c.u.n.t.

Mommy stood under the old yellow bulb. Erin skittered toward the cage door, remembered what Mommy'd done the last time she'd come looking and her bad little b.a.s.t.a.r.d had tried to keep away. Erin waited by the door now, waited for Mommy.

"I was good, Mommy," Erin tried to say. Her mouth was broken though so she could only whisper. "I was good. I waited," she whispered.

Mommy tried to scream, but couldn't. Above the gurgles that she could get out came the sound of tearing cloth. Swish, swish, rip, rip, rip. Mommy's beautiful blouse, her skirt, everything she wore shredded and flew to pieces and she stood naked under the bulb.

Mommy's pretty little t.i.tties were all big now and sagging full. Her belly was swelling just like before Baby had come.

Oh, Mommy's going to bring home another Baby, Erin just knew it. She hoped, this time, she'd be allowed to hold Baby and kiss him and give Baby his bottle. Now that she was dead and now that Mommy knew what a good girl she could be.

The invisible people dragged one Mommy foot forward, then the other, then the first. They walked her like a rag doll, a beautiful, beautiful big rag doll, toward the cage in the corner.

Mommy pressed back, as if leaning against the people who weren't there, the ones who were dancing her out of the light and toward the cage. Her t.i.tties flopped; her hairy dirty-parts went open and shut, open and shut, open and shut as her legs quivered into the shadows.

Then, wham! Mommy slammed to her knees in front of Erin, the invisibles shoved her face down on top of the cage. Mommy's looked big-eyed down on Erin from overhead. Mommy made a strangled gulping, burping sound again as her bones and skin tried to flow around and through the bars. Her t.i.tties pressed against the cage door right at Erin's face. And they were so pretty. So warm and soft, so rich looking.

Erin wanted Mommy to stop hurting, wanted the invisibles to stop making Mommy hurt. She reached out and touched Mommy's breast. Mommy moaned and the breast strained against the wire bars. The brown t.i.tty tip grew firm, swelled; it reached toward Erin.

Mommy tried to scream.

"No!" Erin yelled in her dusty broken-Jaw whisper. "Don't hurt Mommy!"

Erin leaned forward and pressed her lips against the straining t.i.tty and ohhh my, it felt so good to touch Mommy with her burning mouth. The nipple slipped so easy in between her shredded lips. Erin's jagged teeth ma.s.saged her Mommy's flesh and oh, her Mommy flowed, flowed so warm and sweet and thick into her, the Mommy milk surrounded her thick tongue, broken palate, shredded cheeks.

Erin closed her eyes. So good to suckle there again. She remembered. That's what she did, the little girl who was dead, she remembered. She remembered this very nipple from so many years ago. She remembered Mommy's hand supporting her heavy little head, cradling her body against her Mommy warmth and Mommy smell.

Erin's twisted little claws reached for the warm, fragrant breast. They closed softly around it. Oh, and it seemed so right for them to be there, the broken little fingers.

Erin wasn't aware, but now she leaned back. Mommy and her breast came with her. The little girl drew Mommy through the bars. The cold steel tore through the ghostly flesh, sending electric fires through every dead organ of Mommy's body. She tried to scream. Being dead, she couldn't.

Finally, the steel bars flowed through her and Mommy was in the cage with her little girl.

To Erin, the t.i.tty had a will. It knew how to feed and comfort her and her mouth bubbled with good milk, soothing, easing every part that ever hurt.

Soon, Mommy's arms embraced her once again. She felt herself grow smaller and smaller. That felt so good.

Erin's eyes closed. Through her lids the light bulb was red and sparkly black. Soon the light went away and all was dark. She felt mother heaving under her but that was fine. She felt her mother might be screaming, but no. Both were dead now and wasn't that nice? Both of them, mother, daughter, dead together.

The oozy things in Erin's belly, mouse chunks and thick bug jellies sucked from things in the dark, the nose snot she'd swallowed, the dirt, mud, the pieces of herself, the bone bits and teeth parts, the Baby's sock she'd taken one thread at a time, all that now flowed from her. When it started to come, it burned a little. But then the hurt stopped. It flowed and flowed and flowed from her from every part. For a moment, Erin worried that the stuff had gotten on Mommy. Then she stopped worrying. If it had, Mommy would have let her sure as s.h.i.t know about it...

When it stopped, Erin was clean inside. Just Mommy's sweet, sweet milk still streamed into her from that pretty, pretty t.i.tty.

Mommy stiffened, then began to buck like a wild thing. Erin's eyes stayed shut and she soothed Mommy with her little hands and mouth.

"Mommy's dead. Mommy's dead," Erin said quietly to the invisibles making Mommy do these dumb and twitchy things. "She can't cry. Don't make her cry!"

Erin was still hungry. Erin got smaller. She felt herself snuggle so close and warm to Mommy, Mommy's flesh felt so nice and soft and warm. Erin pressed her mouth fully around the big, big nipple then she flowed inside. She flowed inside her Mommy where it all was dark and soft and warm and smelled so like food and goodness.

Erin laid her head on a softness in the dark. It was sooo easy. It didn't hurt to breathe anymore because she didn't have to breathe. Mommy breathed for her. Erin sighed so sweet and felt her mother try to scream again "No, no, Mommy. It's okay. We're good. We're good."

Even then, Erin was hungry. A good hungry because food was there. She pressed her mouth to the fragrant Mommy flesh by her cheek and she kissed it, kissed it and licked it. With the kiss she felt her belly fill. It felt so much better. Later, she'd eat and eat and eat some more, eat until forever was over.

Mommy tried to scream.

"No, no, Mommy, we're together now. And this is heaven." Mommy tried to scream.

Erin had always loved her Mommy. That's why Erin was here for her now. Because she loved her Mommy.

Mommy tried to scream.

Erin slept. Soon she'd be awake and the rest of forever could begin.

A VERY BAD DAY.

Later that afternoon, the world nearly came to a burnt toast kind of end. It did not, not just then. And that was a shame, because at that moment that was just the kind of thing Leslie would have appreciated. At that moment she had just been dumped by her third (and, for her, that was it, he was the final, absolutely last, no, this time he was really the last) boyfriend.

When she walked past Chrysanthemum: Books-Used and Cheap, she knew just how the stock felt. She barely paused. Then she saw the sign: Going Out of Business. Chrysanthemum, going out of business, for goodness sakes, she thought.

Books had acc.u.mulated in there for forty years. They had lain on tables jumbled together in a mathematically mystical way. Horror fiction lay cover-by-cover with cooking, European economics muddled alongside fairy tales and other self-improvement books.

In back, on the farthest table in an improbable corner, lay three books. Separated, they meant nothing. Taken together, these disparate volumes would have proved with fatal certainty that for the past quarter-century Earth had been in the thrall of the vanguard of an alien invasion force. The force was biding its time.

Really. The truth was in there as inescapable and incontrovertible as, as... well, as the fact of Leslie's having been dumped. Again.

Had she entered, had she browsed, had she gone back there, picked up each book-had she so much as glanced at the t.i.tles-had she lain the ideas those t.i.tles would have sounded, one against the other, inside her soul's brain, the tumblers would have clicked.

"Oh my goodness, my word, THAT is what it all means!" she would have said aloud.

She would have gone to her chum Daryl from The Tribune. He would have caught on like/that. He would have broken the story. The world would have known. The aliens' hand (well, not "hands," but you know what I mean) would have been forced and the world would have come to a char-dog, burnt toast kind of end.

Leslie, in her I-don't-give-a-rat's-a.s.s mode, never went into Chrysanthemum. In minutes, a customer had picked up one of the three books, carried it for a half-hour then laid it on a table near the front. A second customer bought one of the others, took it home, where it would have ended inexplicably at the bottom of the hamper, below the stuff that never got washed. The third book? Who cares? It was pointless without the first two.

And, of course, Leslie's chum Daryl of The Trib was the p.r.i.c.k who'd ditched her. The world was saved.

On the other hand, Leslie wasn't doing at all well. She went home and screamed for a while. Then she went to the bathroom and took off all her clothes. She stared at herself in the mirror on the back of the door as Wellington purred and rubbed 'round her ankles.

The view: Leslie: Red hair. Okay, not bad. A lot of people liked red hair. She'd cut it herself. Not a half bad job. A little spiky on one side. The back? Well, who knew what was back there?

She sniffed her armpit. Not bad. She stared at it for a moment. Well, a lot of people didn't mind a little fur. She thought it was nice. Some found it s.e.xy. Not everyone, apparently.

She lifted each breast by its nipple. Not difficult. They were b.r.e.a.s.t.s in concept only; she could have gone topless even at Oak Street Beach and not gotten busted, so to speak. No one would have noticed. Well, a lot of people like small. "Or say they do," the mirror said to her.

Below, down there, she was bushy. That looked sort of pretty. Red, airy. She fluffed herself, peered close in the mirror. "Pouty. Now, that's cute," the mirror said to her down there. She slid her hand between and gave her l.a.b.i.al folds a little flub. Nice. The rest? She sniffed her flubbing finger. A heady cross-scent: sweaty b.u.t.t-crack, Fulton's Fish Market. Well, some people did like that sort of thing. "Think it s.e.xy." At the moment, she wanted to believe.

So did Welly, she thought from his urgent rubbing 'round her ankles. That felt nice.

The phone rang.

Leslie and the mirror had momentary jerks of the soul, an urge of the feet to get it. Might be Dar... Leslie thought.

"f.u.c.k him," the mirror said. f.u.c.k. HIM. No. Don't f.u.c.k him, they both thought. f.u.c.k'm!

She ignored the second ring and made an overall a.s.sessment of the woman in the mirror. Lithe. Muscular by miracle (she ate like a pig and never exercised). Youth and nervous energy accounted for that. She'd have to watch it in years to come. She gave a bitter, ironic little snort at the notion.

Okay, so that mirror-woman? A little bony. She has... knees, elbows. b.r.e.a.s.t.s? She lifted them again, gently this time, supported them underneath. Which gave the whole effect dignity. With a little help, a pregnancy or two.

Oh, cut it out!