by Dipayan Chatterjee
As I held her in my arms one last time, she looked rather perplexed. I wondered if she could imagine what was waiting for her. She seemed sleepy, so I gently put her down in the crib, kissed her with all the love in my heart, turned the lights off and closed the door. I went to my bedroom and asked my wife if she was ready. She replied with fountains of tears gliding down her still glowing cheeks. She is still so beautiful. I am sure we will have an amazing future ahead. I knew as long as we loved each other, we can always start again. Come to think of it….
Creak!
I knew that it was closing in now. I softly tell my wife to hurry up and instantly see her heart sink in. You must be thinking I am a horrible…horrible person for doing this. But you have to understand, this was not an easy decision. Let me start from the beginning. Although I don’t know how to go through it all over again, let me try.
It all started 9 months ago. My wife was pregnant with our first child. We were perhaps the happiest couple on the face of the planet. But it brought its fair share of challenges along with it. Pregnancy is not easy. Keeping a pregnant wife happy and being productive at your day job proved to be more of a challenge than I expected. I think it’s safe to say that I was a total mess during that time. Little did I know it was about to get a whole lot worse.
I still remember the day it happened. I remember it all very clearly. If only I could take it back now, I would without an ounce of a doubt. But back then, it didn’t matter.
Crunch!
Crack!
Yelp!
As soon as I put my car into gear, the sounds pierced my ears like a deafening shriek. Three little puppies crushed to death instantly. The tiny little bastards didn’t even get the time to run from impending death. The bitch...um…I mean the mother dog started barking hysterically. People started running towards my car trying to save the little angels. Hypocrite motherfuckers! I sat at the wheel calmly thinking I didn’t deserve this shit. Fucking bastards couldn’t find any other place to sleep. Hundreds of cars parked in the parking lot, but no…they had to pick my car. It’s a good thing they died. I hate fucking strays. As more and more people started to move towards my car, I sped off and went home. My wife needed me.
Now I know what I did was wrong. The puppies were merely days old. When I got home, I saw my tires were still marinated with fresh blood and pieces of flesh. I would need to wash them off….again. You must be thinking I deserve what is happening to me now. In my defense, I didn’t know they were sleeping right in front of the tires. I was in a hurry; I had to run to my pregnant wife. She wasn’t feeling well. I was only trying to be a good husband.
Weeks passed and I forgot about the incident. To be honest, it was nothing to remember in the first place. It wasn’t the first time I hit something. But this time, something was keeping count. Almost after a month from the incident, my wife started having nightmares about…it’s hard to say without sounding like a total maniac….about a ‘Dog Man’. No not like a superhero. More like a half-man half-dog demonic entity. Well, at least that’s what she told me. This creature apparently came to our bedroom every night and silently watched us sleep. She swore that it was not a nightmare and this creature was real. Every time it came, she would wake up paralyzed in her bed, unable to move or scream and simply stare at its glaring eyes. It would simply stand in the dark in one corner of the room and stare at us lying on the bed…sleeping, occasionally moving its silhouetted spikey ears.
Night terrors. Sleep paralysis. Whatever you call it…it was just a god damn nightmare. Sure as hell I wasn’t going to believe all that crap. I knew she was going through stress due to the whole pregnancy thing and shit was going crazy inside her head. I refused to believe all this was due the dogs I crushed to death. Fuck it! All those pregnancy hormones were making my wife crazy.
The truth is I was shit scared about what was happening and refused to believe any of it. As the nightmares intensified, I started to stay up at nights and even installed cameras in our bedroom; but nothing. I knew it was all in her head.
Weeks passed and the due date was coming closer. We were excited, thrilled, happy and scared. Being a good wife that she is, my wife kept all the ‘Dog Man’ shit to herself lately as she knew I was already too much disturbed with my work and this whole pregnancy thing. I had no life. There were days I detested it all. All I wanted was my life back. But now it was too late. I drank a lot, tried to keep calm and just go through it. Kept reminding myself “only a few more days”.
Then that fateful night came. I was working late that night. There was this important project that I needed to deal with. My phone buzzed. ‘Wifey Calling’. She screamed through the phone. Her water broke. It’s time. It’s finally time. I told her to call a cab or an ambulance. But she was in too much pain to do anything. We lived alone in the city, so we had no one to help us. I told her to get her things ready and stand on the curb so that I can pick her up and rush to the hospital. My office wasn’t really that far from my home…20 minutes tops. Benefits of living in the city. I left from work immediately, got on my car and head home as fast as I could.
It was around 2 am by then. The streets were completely empty and I was driving the only car gliding through the streets at breakneck speed. I only stopped at the signals as I already had a few traffic violation cases pending on me. As I neared my home, I stopped at the last signal on the way. That’s when I saw it. At first, I didn’t really pay any heed. It seemed like a weird ass homeless guy was standing on the pavement on the other side of the road...parallel to my car. The street lights fell on him in such a way that I could barely see his face. It was only when his silhouetted body started to twitch that I took a good look at it. This ‘man’ started to twitch and move in all weird ways with its body distorting in inhuman ways. It’s only when this ‘man’ took a step towards me and stepped into the light, I got a clear look at it. It was not a man. It was not a ‘MAN’. It was a woman….a ‘Dog Woman’.
She stood there naked with not a sliver of hair on its body. Her body was coated with loose grey skin folded at odd places. She was bipedal with a slightly hunched posture…while certain joints in her humanoid frame were decidedly curved in ungodly directions. Her torso was filled with 8 fully developed teats…heaving lactating breasts. Her agonizingly long limbs kept scratching that hairless body while it stood there staring at me. However, my eyes were fixated on her face…a decidedly ugly human-looking face with a small muzzle protruding from where her nose was supposed to be while her eyes were too far apart than usual. A set of overcrowded sharp teeth peeked from what seemed to be hanging flaps of skin instead of lips. A pair of spikey ears pointed up suddenly at the distant sound of a car wheezing by from a nearby road.
I froze as an indescribable fear grasped me. I kept staring at it, paralyzed and unable to move. This ‘Dog Woman’ looked straight into my soul through my eyes and growled at me with utter hatred. I felt as if a thousand needles were stuck in my throat as my heart pounded like a hammer driving a nail into a coffin. Then suddenly, she leaped and covered the entire distance between me and her before I could realize anything, landing on top of my car.
Adrenaline kicked in and I hit the gas as fast as I could. I drove like a drugged maniac through the completely empty street and heard a loud ‘thud’ signifying that the bitch fell down and hit the tarmac. I drove fast and I drove like crazy until I was almost home. I could see my wife standing in the distance right in front of our home as I tried to calm down. I swiftly looked at the rear-view mirror to see if the demonic bitch was still after me, only to find out its glistening eyes in the back seat.
What happened next happened too fast for me to explain. But let me try. I felt like my heart was going to explode the moment I felt its claws on my shoulder. I lost control of my car. I hit my wife and ran over her until my car hit the nearby street light post. I got out of the car as quickly as I could, blood pouring down my head. My wife was writhing and wriggling, still underneath my car. The pavement was covered with blood that was coming out from my wife’s vulva as well as her almost smashed head. I went in and out of consciousness as she was taken to the hospital by paramedics.
I had a daughter that day. Couldn’t say it was the happiest day of my life. My first-born child was a deformed pre-mature baby. She had facial deformation that gave her canine feature. My wife survived, paralyzed below the waist for the rest of her life. She went in to a coma for the next three weeks. But we were a family. And we survived.
Things started to fall into place…well as much as it could…in the coming few months. My wheel-chair bound wife was back in the house in no time and we were nurturing our first-born daughter with as much love and affection as we had in our heart. But it was not meant to last. 'She' was back…again.
Every night, she stood there in one dark corner of the room, looking at us…looking at my child. My wife was now oblivious to the Dog Woman as it haunted me night after night. Then finally I realized what it wanted…what it needed me to do. An eye for an eye. A child for a child. I know you don't believe me. You might think that I am crazy or schizophrenic but this is the absolute truth. To be honest, it doesn't matter anymore.
As I held my daughter in my arms one last time, she looked perplexed, yet she smiled at me. I wondered if she could imagine what was waiting for her. She seemed sleepy, so I gently put her down in the crib, kissed her with all the love in my heart, turned the lights off and locked the door from the outside. Me and my wife are going to start our life fresh. I went to my bedroom and asked my wife if she was ready. She replied with fountains of tears gliding down her still glowing cheeks. She is still so beautiful. I am sure we will have an amazing future ahead. I knew as long as we loved each other, we can always start again. Come to think of it, I never wanted a daughter. I always as fancied a boy. Well, I sure do hope we get a son this time.
Creak!
I knew that it was closing in now. I softly tell my wife to hurry up and instantly see her heart sink in. You must be thinking I am a horrible…horrible person for doing this. But you have to understand, this was not an easy decision. If I have to sacrifice my daughter for saving my wife…and myself for that matter…then so be it. We can always have another child. But we need to get rid of this ‘Bitch' now.
I have to pay for my sins. A child for a child. I don’t know what it will do with my first-born child, but I like to think it will be a better mother to her than my wife, considering she looks a lot like it.
The cab is honking below. We need to leave now.
I love you child.
As I held her in my arms one last time, she looked rather perplexed. I wondered if she could imagine what was waiting for her. She seemed sleepy, so I gently put her down in the crib, kissed her with all the love in my heart, turned the lights off and closed the door. I went to my bedroom and asked my wife if she was ready. She replied with fountains of tears gliding down her still glowing cheeks. She is still so beautiful. I am sure we will have an amazing future ahead. I knew as long as we loved each other, we can always start again. Come to think of it….
Creak!
I knew that it was closing in now. I softly tell my wife to hurry up and instantly see her heart sink in. You must be thinking I am a horrible…horrible person for doing this. But you have to understand, this was not an easy decision. Let me start from the beginning. Although I don’t know how to go through it all over again, let me try.
It all started 9 months ago. My wife was pregnant with our first child. We were perhaps the happiest couple on the face of the planet. But it brought its fair share of challenges along with it. Pregnancy is not easy. Keeping a pregnant wife happy and being productive at your day job proved to be more of a challenge than I expected. I think it’s safe to say that I was a total mess during that time. Little did I know it was about to get a whole lot worse.
I still remember the day it happened. I remember it all very clearly. If only I could take it back now, I would without an ounce of a doubt. But back then, it didn’t matter.
Crunch!
Crack!
Yelp!
As soon as I put my car into gear, the sounds pierced my ears like a deafening shriek. Three little puppies crushed to death instantly. The tiny little bastards didn’t even get the time to run from impending death. The bitch...um…I mean the mother dog started barking hysterically. People started running towards my car trying to save the little angels. Hypocrite motherfuckers! I sat at the wheel calmly thinking I didn’t deserve this shit. Fucking bastards couldn’t find any other place to sleep. Hundreds of cars parked in the parking lot, but no…they had to pick my car. It’s a good thing they died. I hate fucking strays. As more and more people started to move towards my car, I sped off and went home. My wife needed me.
Now I know what I did was wrong. The puppies were merely days old. When I got home, I saw my tires were still marinated with fresh blood and pieces of flesh. I would need to wash them off….again. You must be thinking I deserve what is happening to me now. In my defense, I didn’t know they were sleeping right in front of the tires. I was in a hurry; I had to run to my pregnant wife. She wasn’t feeling well. I was only trying to be a good husband.
Weeks passed and I forgot about the incident. To be honest, it was nothing to remember in the first place. It wasn’t the first time I hit something. But this time, something was keeping count. Almost after a month from the incident, my wife started having nightmares about…it’s hard to say without sounding like a total maniac….about a ‘Dog Man’. No not like a superhero. More like a half-man half-dog demonic entity. Well, at least that’s what she told me. This creature apparently came to our bedroom every night and silently watched us sleep. She swore that it was not a nightmare and this creature was real. Every time it came, she would wake up paralyzed in her bed, unable to move or scream and simply stare at its glaring eyes. It would simply stand in the dark in one corner of the room and stare at us lying on the bed…sleeping, occasionally moving its silhouetted spikey ears.
Night terrors. Sleep paralysis. Whatever you call it…it was just a god damn nightmare. Sure as hell I wasn’t going to believe all that crap. I knew she was going through stress due to the whole pregnancy thing and shit was going crazy inside her head. I refused to believe all this was due the dogs I crushed to death. Fuck it! All those pregnancy hormones were making my wife crazy.
The truth is I was shit scared about what was happening and refused to believe any of it. As the nightmares intensified, I started to stay up at nights and even installed cameras in our bedroom; but nothing. I knew it was all in her head.
Weeks passed and the due date was coming closer. We were excited, thrilled, happy and scared. Being a good wife that she is, my wife kept all the ‘Dog Man’ shit to herself lately as she knew I was already too much disturbed with my work and this whole pregnancy thing. I had no life. There were days I detested it all. All I wanted was my life back. But now it was too late. I drank a lot, tried to keep calm and just go through it. Kept reminding myself “only a few more days”.
Then that fateful night came. I was working late that night. There was this important project that I needed to deal with. My phone buzzed. ‘Wifey Calling’. She screamed through the phone. Her water broke. It’s time. It’s finally time. I told her to call a cab or an ambulance. But she was in too much pain to do anything. We lived alone in the city, so we had no one to help us. I told her to get her things ready and stand on the curb so that I can pick her up and rush to the hospital. My office wasn’t really that far from my home…20 minutes tops. Benefits of living in the city. I left from work immediately, got on my car and head home as fast as I could.
It was around 2 am by then. The streets were completely empty and I was driving the only car gliding through the streets at breakneck speed. I only stopped at the signals as I already had a few traffic violation cases pending on me. As I neared my home, I stopped at the last signal on the way. That’s when I saw it. At first, I didn’t really pay any heed. It seemed like a weird ass homeless guy was standing on the pavement on the other side of the road...parallel to my car. The street lights fell on him in such a way that I could barely see his face. It was only when his silhouetted body started to twitch that I took a good look at it. This ‘man’ started to twitch and move in all weird ways with its body distorting in inhuman ways. It’s only when this ‘man’ took a step towards me and stepped into the light, I got a clear look at it. It was not a man. It was not a ‘MAN’. It was a woman….a ‘Dog Woman’.
She stood there naked with not a sliver of hair on its body. Her body was coated with loose grey skin folded at odd places. She was bipedal with a slightly hunched posture…while certain joints in her humanoid frame were decidedly curved in ungodly directions. Her torso was filled with 8 fully developed teats…heaving lactating breasts. Her agonizingly long limbs kept scratching that hairless body while it stood there staring at me. However, my eyes were fixated on her face…a decidedly ugly human-looking face with a small muzzle protruding from where her nose was supposed to be while her eyes were too far apart than usual. A set of overcrowded sharp teeth peeked from what seemed to be hanging flaps of skin instead of lips. A pair of spikey ears pointed up suddenly at the distant sound of a car wheezing by from a nearby road.
I froze as an indescribable fear grasped me. I kept staring at it, paralyzed and unable to move. This ‘Dog Woman’ looked straight into my soul through my eyes and growled at me with utter hatred. I felt as if a thousand needles were stuck in my throat as my heart pounded like a hammer driving a nail into a coffin. Then suddenly, she leaped and covered the entire distance between me and her before I could realize anything, landing on top of my car.
Adrenaline kicked in and I hit the gas as fast as I could. I drove like a drugged maniac through the completely empty street and heard a loud ‘thud’ signifying that the bitch fell down and hit the tarmac. I drove fast and I drove like crazy until I was almost home. I could see my wife standing in the distance right in front of our home as I tried to calm down. I swiftly looked at the rear-view mirror to see if the demonic bitch was still after me, only to find out its glistening eyes in the back seat.
What happened next happened too fast for me to explain. But let me try. I felt like my heart was going to explode the moment I felt its claws on my shoulder. I lost control of my car. I hit my wife and ran over her until my car hit the nearby street light post. I got out of the car as quickly as I could, blood pouring down my head. My wife was writhing and wriggling, still underneath my car. The pavement was covered with blood that was coming out from my wife’s vulva as well as her almost smashed head. I went in and out of consciousness as she was taken to the hospital by paramedics.
I had a daughter that day. Couldn’t say it was the happiest day of my life. My first-born child was a deformed pre-mature baby. She had facial deformation that gave her canine feature. My wife survived, paralyzed below the waist for the rest of her life. She went in to a coma for the next three weeks. But we were a family. And we survived.
Things started to fall into place…well as much as it could…in the coming few months. My wheel-chair bound wife was back in the house in no time and we were nurturing our first-born daughter with as much love and affection as we had in our heart. But it was not meant to last. 'She' was back…again.
Every night, she stood there in one dark corner of the room, looking at us…looking at my child. My wife was now oblivious to the Dog Woman as it haunted me night after night. Then finally I realized what it wanted…what it needed me to do. An eye for an eye. A child for a child. I know you don't believe me. You might think that I am crazy or schizophrenic but this is the absolute truth. To be honest, it doesn't matter anymore.
As I held my daughter in my arms one last time, she looked perplexed, yet she smiled at me. I wondered if she could imagine what was waiting for her. She seemed sleepy, so I gently put her down in the crib, kissed her with all the love in my heart, turned the lights off and locked the door from the outside. Me and my wife are going to start our life fresh. I went to my bedroom and asked my wife if she was ready. She replied with fountains of tears gliding down her still glowing cheeks. She is still so beautiful. I am sure we will have an amazing future ahead. I knew as long as we loved each other, we can always start again. Come to think of it, I never wanted a daughter. I always as fancied a boy. Well, I sure do hope we get a son this time.
Creak!
I knew that it was closing in now. I softly tell my wife to hurry up and instantly see her heart sink in. You must be thinking I am a horrible…horrible person for doing this. But you have to understand, this was not an easy decision. If I have to sacrifice my daughter for saving my wife…and myself for that matter…then so be it. We can always have another child. But we need to get rid of this ‘Bitch' now.
I have to pay for my sins. A child for a child. I don’t know what it will do with my first-born child, but I like to think it will be a better mother to her than my wife, considering she looks a lot like it.
The cab is honking below. We need to leave now.
I love you child.
Comments
Post a Comment