Leah stared in pain and disbelief at the hands and arms emerging red-wetly from her body - hands and arms she had seen before, thin and grey and old - old though newly born. They stretched out from the bloody mucus of birth, with the head next, following, bobbing like a snake's, all wrinkled. Then the elongating body slithered out of her, swelling and swelling, pushing and squelching out, pushing and pushing toward the dead girl until skeletal hand clasped skeletal hand.
In a surge of tearing pain, Leah felt the thing pulled from her, and far faster than it had come upon her the pain subsided.
They stood, the thing she had birthed and the dead girl junkie, stood either side of her, looking down. Then as one they turned and looked up the street, their arms lengthening to point to what approached.
The dead baby toddled towards her, gurgling and giggling, little fat arms outstretched, unbalanced like a baby's first steps, the dead baby she had killed - No! The Stone had killed. Yes, the Junkie's Stone had killed the baby, she told herself. Not me! Not me!
But the baby came tottering on, smiling now with the gas of inner corruption, gurgling, "Leaaaaah ... Leaaaaah ..."
And like the dead girl junkie and like the not-man she had birthed, the baby's arms began to stretch.
"Leaaaaah," it said, its voice turning suddenly old and creaking, "do you know how badly I want to live?"
(Rick Kennett)
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