"I don't know…" The boy paused. "I just feel fear… and… hate!" His eyes widened as the feelings grew stronger.
Then the woman heard the faint sounds of raised voices as the mob approached. Understanding jolted her into action. Without hesitation she sprang up from her chair, grabbed the boy, and pushed him into a small hidden recess under the stairs.

"Don't move or make a sound. Whatever happens, don't let anyone know where you are. After, if it's safe and you can't find me, go to Joe's, like I've always told you."

"But Mummy… "

"Promise me!"

"Yes but… "

"NO BUTS! PROMISE!" his mother shouted - almost a scream.

The boy seemed to know then that it would perhaps be the last thing he could do for his mother. A calm appeared to spread visibly over him like a huge, comforting blanket, at once engulfing and soothing him. Suddenly, he was very grown up. "I promise, Mother - I love you."

"I love you too … so very much. Always remember that." She kissed him and closed the tough metal screen across the recess. She just had time to glance at her work and feel satisfied that no one would know the alcove existed. She quickly placed a chair in front of it for good measure and was glad that she had, reluctantly at the time, paid doubtful attention to her friend Joe's paranoia, allowing him to construct the extremely secure, if very small, hiding hole. Next moment the front door crashed in and the house was immediately filled with what seemed and sounded like yelling and baying animals. The mob of fifteen or twenty frenzied men smashed everything in their path.

"Where's the freak?" the apparent leader snarled at the boy's mother as he grabbed her by the throat. He was heavy, fat and ugly, and the stench of body odour surrounded him like a disgusting cloak of evil.

The woman stared hard into the awful gaze of the brute, somehow suppressing, from both her face and her voice, all sign of the abject terror she actually felt. "What freak? What d'you mean?"

The brute leered. "You know! Where's the fuckin' freaky wierdo? The one you made all by yourself."

"Not… here." The boy heard his mother's voice struggling now against the man's grip. Through tiny holes drilled into the pattern of the screen he managed to make out how big and repellent the man was. The left side of his face was deformed somehow, paralysed, or nauseatingly scarred perhaps - whatever the cause, it twisted and distorted his features horribly, pulling his mouth into a natural and permanent snarl.

"Check upstairs. I want that friggin' cloned freak." Several of the mob fell over each other to obey.

A small rat of a man darted forward and pushed his way through. "I'll find it," he promised rashly in a nasal whine
The next few moments seemed like an eternity to the boy in his hiding place as he waited, breath held and straining to distinguish more from the melee of crashing and banging sounds that came from upstairs and the other rooms in the house. The cacophony of noise made no sense and fear tightened its grip on him more than ever. "Not up here," the rat called.

The leader stuck his face up close to the woman's and snarled once more, quiet and awful menace in his voice. "Where is it?" he demanded. His stinking breath was hot and disgusting as the boy's mother gulped for breath, and it made her want to vomit. In a fit of desperation and sudden fury, she clawed at the brute's face and struggled free. He grabbed at her and the pretty dress she was wearing tore away to leave her naked to the waist. The man stared. Then, with a vicious leer, he wrenched at the fabric still clutched in his hand, pulling the rest of the dress from her. He forced her to the floor, ripping away her delicate, feminine underwear as he did so. "I'll show you how kids are supposed to be made!"

Then, mercifully, because of the angle, the boy could not see what was happening, but he heard his mother scream and felt her pain as the beast entered her.

"Evil bastard," she yelled as she twisted one hand free from the man's helper who held her. Her fingernails found the brute's face and gouged at his eyes, blinding him temporarily in one and permanently in the other.
"Bi-i-tch!" the man screamed in rage and dreadful pain.

The boy's eyes widened in fear as the man's fists flailed at his mother's head...
 

© Copyright Adam Frayle 2011