They'd just cleaned up the wedding party when Samantha went into labor. The guests had all left and Jules was asleep. Up until that point, it had been the most romantic day of Gabe's life. If it weren't for those last few horrific moments, Gabe would have died the happiest he'd been in years.
Samantha had two babies, a boy and girl. The labor was fast, so she had them at home. The whole was over faster than Gabe could load a dishwasher. He wondered if Jules had been born that quickly, but couldn't remember. Samantha had given birth before, so after a few cries of pain, she calmly left the babies in the kitchen and went to the bedroom to plan a new outfit.
Gabe looked at the twins. What was wrong with their faces?!
"What do think of this dress?" Samantha skipped back into the kitchen, watching the skirt swish back and forth. "It's kind of retro, but I think it's really cute."
"You're... you're babies." The twins were on the floor, wrapped in blankets. They weren't crying. Just staring. Samantha was acting like they weren't even there, but all Gabe could do was stare right back at them.
The boy, Ethan, had a face twice as long as Emma's, his twin sister. His mouth looked like it was about to drop off his chin. Emma's cheeks were sunken in so far they were almost touching on the inside. Both of them had brown eyes that bugged out too far and blinked too often. Gabe struggled to understand just what he was looking at. Hadn't he heard of a rumor of a woman, out in some desert town, that had a baby with Death himself? No, that's ridiculous, he told himself. He'd met Samantha's ex-husband. These babies were human.
He took of his glasses and massaged his temples. Everything flooded Gabe's mind at the same time. Alexandra gone one morning, a cryptic note on her pillow: "I'm a pirate now. Arr." Jason's wild plant-wife, Rose. With leaves for hair and near constant thirst for water. And Daisy, Gabe's niece, at least sort of. A giggling human flower Rose claimed she spawned. And now these twins babies, barely human looking. It was all too much to handle.
He looked into Samantha's blue eyes. She was smiling, waiting for a compliment on her dress. He remembered the day they met like it was yesterday. Actually, it was yesterday. She had waddled into his office at the school, her first day teaching second grade. Pregnant, poor, and heartbroken from her recent divorce. She was trying to talk between sobs, something about "Peter's trampy whores" and "poor little Tommy," but Gabe was lost in her blue eyes. Blue like Alexandra's, but darker and sadder. They were living together by the end of the day, married the next.
Gabe wanted to tell her the dress was beautiful, that it brought out the blue in her eyes. But when he opened his mouth to say something, one of the babies started to cry. And then Gabe was eaten alive by a swarm of flies.
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