Silver Babies
by Deborah Hunt

Nora leaned over the railing of the Star Princess as it toured the Charleston Harbor. She thought she'd seen a dolphin. It looked almost gelatinous in the nickel colored water, but the dolphin disappeared in the waves. After its departure, the waves seemed to become more animated as if they were caught a bizarre mating dance of sorts.

    A child ran toward her.

    "Man overboard," he yelled.

    "Billy, stop," his mother cried.

    It seemed like a harmless enough prank, until he knocked into her legs and knocked her off balance. Nora slipped and went over the railing.

    Two men from a near by tug boat pulled her out of the water and helped her back on board the Star Princess. Someone handed her a blanket. Drenched and shivering, she waited for a crew member to fetch her a cup of coffee. She pulled the blanket closer, thinking about the horrible water.

    The dolphin had returned and bumped repeatedly into her. Afraid, she kicked it. The shape broke apart. It made her wonder if it had been a dolphin at all.

    After her cup of coffee and apologies from the captain, Nora returned to her hotel in Charleston, where she was staying until her transfer at work was complete. She trudged through the lobby, still dripping water. The concierge gave her a surprised look, but she didn't stop to explain. She wanted to get to her room and take a hot shower.

    Nora stood beneath the hot water of the shower until the smell of the Charleston Harbor was washed away. To her surprise, the inside of her thighs were bruised. Had it happened going over the railing? She couldn't remember. Everything had happened so fast.

    Wrapping herself in a robe, she went into the bedroom, slid under the covers and closed her eyes. During the night, she woke. She had been dreaming about waves. Sitting up, she noticed she had left on the bathroom light. Her hands looked swollen. She couldn't see the bones or veins. It was odd. Even on her worse pms days, she hardly retained water.

    In the morning, Nora saw her hands were still puffy and her ankles had joined them. She went to a drug store and bought a package of water retention pills. Taking two pills, she stopped at the historic marketplace for lack of anything else to do and wandered until she came to a silver shop where she saw a ring she liked.

    It was a dolphin that circled the finger. Without thinking, she slipped it on her finger. The ring stuck. The sales clerk had to help it off her.

    "I'm sorry," Nora apologized.

    She glanced at herself in a mirror. Even her face was puffy now. Something was wrong.

    At the hotel, she waited for the concierge to get a recommendation for a doctor when a man approached the desk. He wasn't bad looking with dark curly hair and doe like brown eyes, but he reminded her of the boy next door type
who happened put on the hotel's blue blazer for the day.

    "Can I help you?" he asked.

    "I was waiting for the concierge," she said.

    "Betty has the day off," he said. "My name is Joe. Usually, I'm the night manager, but today I'm filling in for her."

    "I was going to ask Betty for a recommendation for a doctor."

    Nora showed her hands.

    "Something is wrong. I never hold water like this."

    "It might be the humidity. A lot people swell up when it gets this hot."

    "Is that true?"

    Joe looked at face.

    "You're Nora, aren't you? The girl who took the dip in the Charleston Harbor."

    Nora blinked in surprise.

    "How did you know that?"

    "Betty told me. She said she saw you walk dripping wet through the lobby so
she called the Star Princess. She really felt bad."

    "It wasn't anyone fault," Nora said. "It was an accident."

    A thought came to her.

    "Do you think something in the harbor could make me swell up like this?" she asked.

    Joe laughed.

    "Except for some smelly fish, I don't think so. I think it's the heat, but I'll give you the name of a doctor. If you need anything else I'll be here."

    He patted the desk. Nora smiled.

    She took the doctor's name and went to her room. She thought about calling the doctor, but she hesitated. Could it be the heat like Joe said? What if she hadn't given the water pills a chance? She decided if she wasn't better in a few hours she would call the doctor. Until then, she was going to relax and take a nap.

    Nora dreamed about waves. They splashed over her like ice water. She woke, groaning at a pain in her stomach. She touched her waist and gasped. She was swollen enough to be six months pregnant.

    Thinking it was her bladder, she stumbled to the bathroom, but her balance was off. She had to grab the doorway to keep herself from falling. When she made it to the toilet, she fell to her knees on the cold tiles. Pain writhed through her. She cried out.

    Water burst from between her legs, but it wasn't coming from her bladder. Nora screamed as something threatened to push out of her. She felt it, almost like jelly, squeezing out onto the tiles. It was a baby of sorts, but it was far from human, more dolphin like, although two of its fins looked like arms. It mewed and gurgled as it tried to move on the floor.

    Nora seized a hotel towel, grabbed the creature and flung it in the bathtub. It broke against the tub like a water balloon. The gelatin ran down the drain.

    Crying, she crawled to the phone. Joe came immediately. He used his pass key to get in the room.

    "What happened?" he asked, helping her to the bed.

    "It was awful," she sobbed. "Something came out of me in the bathroom. I flung it in the tub."

    "The bathroom?" he asked.

    "Go look."

    He did. When he came out, he wiped off his fingers on a wash cloth. "Whatever it was most of it has gone down the drain," he said. "Why don't you tell me what happened?"

    Nora told him. They called the doctor. He made a house call as a favor to Joe, but upon examining her, the doctor said he couldn't find anything wrong except some water retention. He suggested it had been diarrhea.

    "That was the strangest diarrhea I ever saw," said Joe.

    "She's in a new city, eating new food, plus the excitement," the doctor said.

    He wrote a prescription for a stronger water pill and left.

    Nora closed her eyes. It hadn't been diarrhea. Joe sat in the chair by the bed.

    "Why don't you get some sleep," he said. "I'll stay with you to make sure you're all right."

    She nodded.

    When she woke, she saw Joe had spent the night in the chair. He opened his
eyes and looked at her.

    "Morning sleepy head," he said. "How do you feel?"

    She touched her stomach. It was almost flat again. Only her fingers and
wrists felt puffy.

    "Better," she answered.

    He ordered room service. As Nora changed in the bathroom, she looked at the towels in the tub. It all seemed so surreal. Had it really happened?

    Joe had the coffee poured when she came out.

    "All of this started after I fell off the boat," she said.

    "What are you suggesting?"

    "I don't know. I'd like to go to the harbor and look."

    "Well, I've got the morning off," he said.

    The day turned out to be another humid one. At the harbor, she and Joe watched the waves from the dock.

    "What did you expect to see?" Joe asked her.

    She turned away.

    "Something like a dolphin."

    "You saw a dolphin?" he asked. "I've lived here ten years and I've only seen a few."

    A chill came over her as she told him what she saw and she saw his expression.

    "That doesn't sound like a dolphin to me," he said. They're supposed to look quite black in the water."

    She nodded, remembering the shape in the water. Joe glanced at his watch.

    "Whatever happened to you," he said. "I think it's over. I've got to go
home for a few hours, but I'll be back. The front desk has my home phone
number if you need me."

    "Thank you," Nora said.

    The maid had cleaned her room. The towels were gone. Was Joe right? Was it over?

    A few hours later, she looked up from the book she was reading. Something occurred to her. She had yet to go to the bathroom since yesterday. Putting down her book, she touched her stomach and frowned. It was becoming swollen again.

    Nora called the front desk for Joe's number. A clerk said he had phoned that he was on his way to work. She hung up the phone and examined herself in the bathroom mirror. She tried to flatten her stomach, but couldn't. It seemed to be swelling before her eyes. Was she going to give birth to another awful creatures? She tried to turn to leave the bathroom, but she never made it. She collapsed onto the floor, writhing in pain.

    "Help me," she cried out.

    Her stomach rippled and convulsed. She screamed in terror as her body betrayed her.

    The pipes behind the wall of the shower began to clank. The tiles cracked. Something began to gurgle in the tub as another gelatin creature poured out from between Nora's legs. The first creature tried to pull itself over the tub to greet its sibling. The first one hadn't been destroyed at all. It had traveled down the drain and waited.

    Nora knew she had to move fast. They were already touching each other, shifting together like waves. Grabbing a towel, she seized them. They squirmed beneath her grasp as she struggled to carry them to window where she flung it open. If they splattered, they might never reassemble, but as she began to throw them, a horrible sound came from the bathroom.

    Water gushed from the sink and tub. A larger gelatinous creature rose on the tiled floor. Nora recognized it. It was the dolphin creature from the harbor, but it wasn't a dolphin at all. Its basic shape was one, but the rest of it wasn't. Its bottom was ribbed with tiny holes. It looked at the water babies in her arms with longing. Nora knew what was happening. It had mated with her in the water. She was bearing its offspring.

    "No way," Nora cried.

    She flung the water babies out the window.

    The towel sailed into the air. The water babies fell. The dolphin creature crackled and screeched in despair. Someone pounded on the door.

    "Nora?" Joe hollered.

    "Help me," she cried.

    He burst through the door.

    "Holy Shit," he said the moment he saw the dolphin creature.

    He leapt toward it trying to protect her.

    The dolphin creature expanded and engulfed him. It was drowning him. Nora tried to pull him out, but the water poured over her as well. She felt it pouring down her throat into her lungs. Joe's body fell next to her. She tumbled onto him. The dolphin creature reassembled into gelatin, leaving her sputtering as it pounded against her.

    "No," she sobbed. "You killed Joe. I'm not having anymore of your babies. I only want human ones."

    The dolphin creature stopped. It looked at her, turned back into water and absorbed into Joe. He opened his eyes and coughed out the water from his lungs.

    "Nora," he gasped.

    Nora grabbed him crying. He was alive.

    Months later, Nora sat in the hotel lobby, waiting for Joe. Sometimes, she saw the dolphin creature looking out of his eyes, and she knew that she'd unknowingly struck some bizarre deal with it on the bathroom floor. But Joe was alive, and if the dolphin creature couldn't have babies one way with her, then it would have them another.

    Joe came around the corner, kissed her on the neck, and patted her on her slightly rounded belly.

    "Let's go, sweetheart," he said.

©2001 Deborah Hunt

Deborah Hunt has contributed over eighty stories to publications such as Aberrations, Space and Time, Story Rules, Heliocentric Net and Outer Darkness.