There is No Such Thing as Unplanned

TRIGGER WARNING: Contains themes and scenes of sexual violence, gore, and abuse.

"If a parasitic alien laid its eggs in your womb, would you willingly host their offspring, or get that shit vacuumed the fuck out of you?" Was my first thought as this pro-life bannered minivan pulled onto the shoulder.

Of course, this would be the only person to pull over in the 6 hours I'd spent waiting on a lightless backroad in Buttfuck Nowhere New York. More than ever now, I had to keep the truth to myself. Who on Earth would believe something so ridiculous, let alone an anti-abortionist?

"Where are you headed, dear?" She rolled her window down. Her eyes were dark like soot, bead-like. I could barely see the whites.

"I'm sick," I held my breath, "and I'm meeting a doctor in Rochester who can help me."

She reached over to the passenger-side door and fumbled it open. "I'm headed to the Planned Parenthood over there. You must be freezing. Get in!"

My fear of this middle aged woman didn't come close to my fear of baring an alien child. I stepped into the car and slammed the door behind me.

A cheesy country-pop song thumped out its chorus from the speakers like little kicks from the womb.

As long as my God holds the world in His hands,

I know that there is no such thing as unplanned

The music swelled to the generic singer's overly reverbed voice. I felt the music in my stomach. Was it my womb?

I placed a hand on my belly. My heart pumped a little harder. These weren't kicks; they were slow, calculated drags against the walls of my insides, like a snake's body writhing against the glass of its terrarium. Only 80 miles away from Rochester. It could be done. As long as I kept my mouth shut. Just as long as this woman didn't--

"So, tell me, what's a pretty young thing like yourself doing on the roadside at such an hour?" Her accent was Southern, but the twang was clumsy. Her eyes were focused on the road. I gulped.

"I-I..." What bullshit story could I make up? These people are notoriously unreasonable and hide behind a guise of benevolence. What would she do to me if I lied? The truth stripped to its barest bones would be the safest bet.

"I was attacked." I choked. I remembered the tentacles, like gashes of deep black ink. I pulled down my sleeves. I felt her glance over at me.

"Are you alright? Do you need po-lice?"

That took me aback. I snickered at her pronunciation of the word.

"No, no need for..." I stifled a laugh, "...po-lice."

The woman glanced over at me again. To my surprise, she laughed with me.

"Po-lice." She mumbled under her breath, smirking. "Pretty silly talk, hunh?"

"Mhmm." Still smiling a little, I nodded and folded my arms over my belly. All the more comedic was the thought of a small town cop trying to gun down the inconceivable creature that had impregnated me. The smile died down.

A couple minutes went by.

"I'm not from around here." She said. "My home is a long ways from here, I can tell you that much."

"Texas?" I threw at her.

"Something like that, sure."

The song came to and end. The woman didn't say anything else for a while. I looked out at the trees, whizzing by like flies. Like deep gashes of black ink. I felt a stab in my stomach. I screamed.

The minivan swerved, heading toward a tree, a tree coated in the blackest ink. The woman regained control and swerved back into the lane. The ink, some anti-Newtonian liquid, seemed to evaporate in an instant, jumping and latching from tree to tree, following us. A deep croak crackled from the car's speakers.

The woman beat her fist against the stereo.

"Dang broken crap!"

The parasite inside me was writhing, tentacles seemingly toothed with razor blades. I curled into a ball. While the woman was focused on driving, I hiked up my crewneck a little. The skin on my stomach was darkening, like mould on bread. I could feel the panic setting in.

"We need to hurry the fuck up. Hurry up!"

Without protest, the woman floored it. The engine roared, and the momentum forced my spine into the worn leather seat. Positioned like Jesus on the cross, I failed to hide my protruding belly. One well-timed glance was enough to expose me.

"By golly, I didn't know you were with child!"

My insides felt like they were being shredded by a blender. I wrapped my arms around my torso, feeling it pulsate. "This isn't a child!"

"That's just it, you've got a little miracle cookin' in there, don't you? You're so lucky. I've tried for a baby time and time again. I'm barren in here." She waffled, placing a hand on her beer gut.

I looked down at my seat. A jet black, foul-smelling liquid was oozing from my vagina and seeping into the leather seat. A smell of death, rot, despair. I gagged and retched.

"How far are we from Rochester?" I whimpered. I barely heard myself over the sound of the struggling old engine.

"At this rate, maybe 45 minutes. Are you going into labor, girl?"

"No!" I shrieked. "No labour! I'm getting this thing out of me!"

At that, the woman's jaw dropped. In one swift manoeuvre, she slammed her foot on the brake and the car screeched to a halt. The speakers crackled deeply, ominously. The woman took her hands off the wheel.

"You're not giving up that baby."

I jutted my chin at her. Teeth gritted through the pain, I hissed, "It's not a fucking baby! It's an alien!"

"It's God's will, you fool!"

"This is not God!" The parasite wriggled its sharp little tentacles, willing the cries of pain from me. She twisted her mouth into a tight anus-like circle, "You are a fool and you will be left behind when the Rapture comes."

Not saying another word, she shifted gears. The car moved in reverse.

"No... No! Where are you taking me?!" I wailed. I was completely incapacitated. At her mercy.

She slammed her foot on the gas again. My belly ballooned from beneath my shirt, like a marshmallow bubbled and disfigured by fire.

"We're going to the Midwife, he'll get that baby delivered and placed into the hands of people who want him."

"No!"

"Yes ma'am!" Her face was stern like a schoolteacher's. I wanted to rip her throat out. I went for the door handle, and through the window, I saw the black ink morphing and breathing through the trees, following us. At least this obstinate woman was a familiar human being. I swallowed my pride and fear. I moved my hand from the door handle. Plagued by pain and utter disgust, I couldn't help myself. The words left my mouth with froth.

"Fuck you, you sociopathic Jesus freak."

A beat of silence.

Like an owl, she twisted her face away from the road to look at me, smirk at me. In slow, eerie rasp, she muttered: "Who said anything about Jesus?"

In what felt like no time at all, she made a turn down a gravel road tucked between two large pines. The crunching of the tires against the little rocks reverberated through me, agitating the parisite. The car reeked of decay, sulfur, musk. The uterine ooze became sludge. It gushed onto the seat and into the carpet. My stomach was so big and full, I couldn't do anything but lean back into my seat and watch. My vision blurred. I barely noticed the woman hopping out of the van.

Through the windshield, I saw a dimly lit cabin. The outside was littered with pro-life vans similar to this one, and outlines of hooded figures. They turned to me.

A tall man- he must've been at least seven feet tall- led the group to me. I counted twenty, including the woman, who was at the tall man's side like a golden retriever. The car speakers began garbling, gurgling. Black liquid dribbled from them. I was too tired and shocked to move.

Towering over the van, the tall hooded man approached the passenger side door. His voice was animalistic, animatronic, like roaring TV static personified.

"This is Host Zero." He bellowed, turning to the woman. "Great work."

I heard a click. He opened the door.

"Don't you fucking touch me!" I yelled.

"You've been more than touched." Chortled one of the hooded figures in the crowd. I twisted my face in awe and disgust, but I doubt he saw it.

"God chose you to bear His first child." Said the leader. This must have been the aforementioned 'Midwife'.

"And now we can carry out His will." The woman's soot-black eyes were now eerily similar to the ink seeping into her carseats.

The hooded men grabbed me by the legs and began pulling me out of the car.

"No! You crazy fucks! Leave me alone!" I wailed and sobbed, but they laughed and skittered about like excited schoolchildren at recess.

They dragged me through the gravel, pulling off my pants, my underwear. I saw all the marks that the tentacled creature had left behind. All the slashes, wounds, gashes littering my body. The hooded men saw it all. And they carried on, dragging me to the cabin, and ripping my sweater off, too. My pain was a means to an end.

The woman and the Midwife watched this unfold, expressionless.

"Thanks to the vehement misguided wills of our human sacrifices," the woman waved a hand at the myriad pro-life vans parked about the property, "we can breed and raise all of God's children. And without all that talk of abortion, we won't have any obstacles."

"And what God is this?" I grunted. "You plan on filling the world with this disgusting sludge pollution? Raping people with tentacles? What for?"

"The liquid is made up of byproducts. Simulata iustitia, complacentia, the key ingredients to obtaining control of the Earth's resources without resistance. So long as the humans keep busy thinking they're fighting for justice, they won't stop us."

"You should be proud, bitch. You have the Alpha inside you!" One of the men hollered.

I spat, "Go fuck yourself!"

"If we could do that, we wouldn't be here!" The woman snickered.

The Midwife chuckled along.

A symphony of cackles and laughter ensued. The group bundled to pat themselves on the backs for their comedy gold.

I looked at my belly, which now resembled a flesh beach ball filled with angry boa constrictors. The skin was blackened, necrotic. I gazed upon the thickening black slime trailed behind me. What would they do to me in that cabin?

I didn't want to find out.

I was not going to become their extraterrestrial baby factory.

The brush was thick, the trees heavily branched. One branch in particular caught my eye. It was sharp, spear-like.

Get up and run. Run as fast as you can, I told myself.

Before any doubt could set in, I hobbled to a stand.

"Hey, watch it!" The woman yelled to the group.

"She won't get very far. Look at her!" They laughed again.

Accounting for the weight in my stomach, I leaned far back, held my breath, and sprinted. I sprinted toward that tapered point. I let it pierce me. Right in the belly.

The initial pierce felt like a punch. I heard the sudden clobbering of footsteps. The deeper the branch went, the more violently the tentacles writhed. I leaned into the branch, reaching out my arms to hug the tree. It wasn't enough.

I pulled the branch from my belly. A tentacle had wrapped itself around the spear, threatening to snap it. I grabbed the alien appendage with my fist, placed it between my teeth and crunched down on it as hard as I could. Black ink squirted into my eyes. I thrusted my lower half toward the tree, over and over again, the branch penetrating me deeply, repeatedly, all over and inside my belly. The sludge seeping from between my thighs gained redness, life, humanity. It coated my wounds, hid them from me. I didn't feel pain anymore. Only relief.

"Wouldn't it have been nicer as a pill or surgery?" I slurred and laughed into space. The weight inside of me was dead. I knew it.

The Midwife eclipsed me. He was so tall, his head looked tiny from where I was kebabbed. "Stupid girl. God will find someone else to breed."

"I don't care. At least I can say he didn't do it to me."

His face twitched. An involuntary snarl, perhaps. He turned away. The group sat around and watched the life leave my body. They seemed bored.

"...if we all fight to the very end, no baby will become a vessel for God's will." I murmured, looking into the empty, black sky.

And I drew my last breath.