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Carnage House

– this is your trigger warning

Afterbirth

by Benjamin Kardos

THE HIGH-PITCHED WAILING of my infant son pierced my eardrums like a hot needle.

“Fuck,” I muttered.

I rolled over and switched on the bedside lamp. Maddie stirred beside me.

“What’s wrong with Tanner?” she asked groggily, squinting against the intrusive glow of the lamp.

“Fuck if I know,” I said, throwing the sheets off my body. Tanner’s cry hit an octave that could be used to torture dogs. It rattled my teeth and made my skin crawl. His crib was in the bedroom across from ours. Barefoot, I walked across the cold hardwood floor to his room and turned on the light.

Other than Tanner’s crib, the room was empty. The little gremlin was sitting up in his crib, his piggish face soaked with tears, his pink mouth open with unspeakable anguish. Three teeth poked out of his gums like bits of broken glass. For a second, I fantasized about shoving a handful of glass into his mouth to shut him up.

“What the fuck is it?” I crossed the room and picked him up. God, I hated the dead weight of his eleven-month-old body. It was almost as bad as the shrill sound of his fucking voice.

I sniffed and gagged almost vomiting, “Oh, fuck me…”

Grey liquid shit oozed out of the bottom of his diaper onto the floor. A thick drop splashed my foot.

“Goddamned shit bag,” I growled into his face. Tanner screamed as I shook him.

“What is it, Jason?” Maddie called from our bedroom.

“Tanner shit himself!”

“Ugg, gross.”

I plopped Tanner back in the crib and trudged to the bathroom where we kept the diapers. Tanner’s crying followed me. It grated my nerves, making me feel like I was being dragged across a bed of rough gravel. I was exhausted and annoyed. There was nothing I wanted more than to shove a fucking pillow over his face or squeeze his fragile neck until his head popped off. I sometimes laughed bitterly over the fact that the judge gave me custody over the kid instead of Charlotte. If only the judge knew the violent thoughts that coursed through my head every moment of the day she would have begged my alcoholic ex-wife to take him.

Walking back to Tanner’s room with a fresh diaper, baby wipes, and powder, I wondered why I hadn’t killed the disgusting little worm yet. It was a question I pondered frequently ever since I was given custody. Aside from the legal and social taboos surrounding infanticide, I suppose I clung to some small scrap of hope that one day I might learn to love my son.

Charlotte, my ex, didn’t drink much during her pregnancy. It was the closest she ever got to being a responsible parent. We never intended to get pregnant. Tanner’s conception was the result of a drunken one night stand at a mutual friend’s Halloween party. She was a party girl, and I was a 24 year old loner looking for an unattached good time. The sex took place in the front seat of my car. It was wild and meaningless, exactly how we wanted it.

When she texted me a month later with the news she was pregnant I felt as if my legs had been cut off at the knees --all of my life plans were shattered. I’d always dreamed of traveling the world, the open road my guide. I don’t know why the idea of travel appealed to me. It had something to do with the idea of constant movement, never staying in one place long enough for anyone to find me. Now, because of one stupid mistake with a drunken bitch, my dreams of the open road had rolled up and vanished.

Confused and afraid, we did what seemed the most responsible thing and got married. We briefly considered abortion, but living in an anti-abortion state it simply wasn’t an option unless we went the back alley direction, something Charlotte refused to do.

I was working at an insurance agency as a file clerk where I spent long days in a beige cubicle alphabetizing insurance forms. Countless hours were spent at my desk daydreaming about traveling. My cubical wall was covered with pictures of all the places I planned to visit once I’d saved up enough money to quit and hit the road. With a baby on the way, quitting wasn’t an option.

In the months leading up to Tanner’s birth, my coworkers offered a flood of unwanted parental advice and support.

“You’ll be tired,” said George, leaning against my cubical wall, “but it’ll be worth it. There’s nothing in life that brings more joy than a child of your own.”

George was the office’s professional parent. His desk was littered with photos of his little sperm monsters.

“What about cleaning their… you know…” I asked.

George laughed. “You mean poop? The first time I changed a diaper I was worried it would gross me out, but hey, when it’s your kid you don’t care. Don’t worry man, it won’t bother you in the least. The love of your kid supersedes bodily fluids.”

The first time I changed Tanner’s diaper I realized George had lied to me. My stomach roiled with nausea as I wiped milky shit off Tanner’s ass and back.

It wasn’t just changing diapers, everything about Tanner sickened me. The day of his birth I waited vainly for the parental love everyone talked about to kick in. Sitting next to Charlotte’s maternity ward bed I waited for that unconditional devotion to consume me, but looking at his wrinkled pink body nestled in Charlotte’s arms all I felt was emptiness. Charlotte may as well birthed a rock.

Over time, the nothingness morphed into loathing. Try as I might, I simply was incapable of loving my son. I went through the motions, I rocked him, changed him, and fed him hoping the parental instincts would magically appear. But with every passing day, my disgust grew.

At least I was trying. Charlotte was a shit mother. She began drinking again immediately following the birth. Over the following months, it was rare to see her sober. We fought often about her drunkenness, her lack of responsibility, but it didn’t stop her from attending parties every chance she got. She occasionally played with him, but that was the extent of her involvement in his upbringing. In the meantime, I continued working at my soul-sucking job to support her and Tanner. I knew it was unwise to leave her alone with our son, especially when she was drunk, but what choice did I have? We needed the money and I couldn’t take him to work with me.

I was at the office when I received the call. The police found Charlotte drunkenly pushing Tanner’s stroller through a red light at a busy intersection, almost getting struck down by a truck. She threw punches at the cops who confronted her and was arrested. I was disappointed neither Charlotte nor Tanner was killed in the incident.

I did what seemed to be the responsible thing, I filed for divorce and custody. The entire legal battle was over in weeks. I was given full custody of Tanner. It was an anomaly for sure, 90% of custody battles favor the mother. After reviewing the case, there was no doubt in the judge’s mind I was the only parent fit to raise Tanner. Hell, Charlotte was drunk during the court hearing. We quickly separated and Charlotte moved into a rundown apartment complex across town where her drinking and partying continued uninhibited. The divorce was finalized a few months later.

All this went through my mind as I changed Tanner’s shitty diaper. As I wiped away the grey-green shit smeared on his ass I found myself envying Charlotte. Her addiction was the perfect excuse to get out of raising him. Holding my breath against the rancid stench of Tanner’s runny bowel movement I wished I’d been as smart as her. What did I even pretend to care? Perhaps Tanner would be with a foster family right now, a family that would love him in the way I was inexplicably incapable.

Adorned in a fresh diaper, Tanner wouldn’t quit his fucking bawling. My head throbbed with pain from the noise.

“What is it, Tanner? What do you want?” I picked him up and held him close, patting his back and bouncing him gently. If anything, my actions made his crying worse.

“Why won’t he shut up?” Maddie called from the bedroom.

“I don’t know, Maddie! He’s clean but still crying,” I whispered to Tanner soothingly, “It’s ok, little guy, everything’s fine, daddy…”

I stopped myself before saying the words loves you. I just couldn’t coax the lie from my lips.

“Maybe he’s hungry, do you want me to get his bottle?”

“No, I’ll get it,” I told her as I carried Tanner into the hall. “You go back to sleep, baby.”

“Wish I could,” she grumbled. “That fucking racket could wake the dead.”

I met Maddie about a month after my separation from Charlotte. The connection we felt was immediate. I was pushing Tanner’s stroller through the park contemplating my dead end life. I was living in a dark tunnel with no end in sight with a child I didn’t love, working a job I hated, watching my dreams of world travel fading away like a tired sunset over a cemetery.

Wandering the park in a disillusioned state, I found myself by the river, standing at the top of a boat ramp, contemplating shoving Tanner’s stroller down the concrete incline into the current and out of my life. My jaw clenched as I gripped the stroller tightly, pushing it back and forth. It was tempting, so tempting…

“The river sure is lovely, isn’t it?”

I turned and saw her standing next to me. She was beautiful, tall, and shapely with dark hair and dark eyes.

I smiled at the young woman.

“It is,” I agreed.

We stared out across the water.

“I’m Maddie,” she said, offering a hand.

“Jason.”

I don’t know what attracted her to me, but we quickly struck up a conversation that turned into dinner and an eventual relationship. She was undeniably sexy, but what attracted me to her most was the subtle underlying darkness inside her. She’d suffered tragedy in her life.

“I used to be a mother,” she told me during one of our dates. “Both my husband and my baby son died in a house fire while I was visiting my sister. The gas main was leaking and a spark set the whole place off.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” I told her, although I didn’t feel anything. There was an emptiness in Maddie’s eyes I assumed came from the loss of her family. While I couldn’t empathize with her sorrow, I found the darkness in her eyes incredibly arousing.

We moved in together when Tanner was 9 months old. Maddie didn’t seem to have any more parental instincts than I did, but I was happy to have another person to help me endure the unending burden of raising a child. At least with her at home to watch Tanner while I was at work I didn’t have to dole out money for daycare.

In the kitchen, I found a clean bottle and filled it with formula. Tanner took the rubber nipple in his mouth. As the repulsive little monster sucked down the liquid, I basked in the temporary respite from his screeching. My ears were still ringing, but at least I got him to stop. Taking a deep relieved breath, I glanced at the clock --2:07 AM. With any luck, Tanner might sleep until 6.

As Tanner fed, I looked out the kitchen window at the empty street and the neighbor’s dark houses, everyone asleep in their beds. I envied them.

I wandered around the house holding Tanner. Maddie had been right, he was starving. He was halfway through the bottle when I heard a car pass. Glancing out the window, I caught the passing taillights. Who’s out this time of time of night? I wondered.

Yawning, I thought of all the things I would have done had Tanner not been born: traveling, rock climbing, boating, biking… all activities I didn’t have the time, energy, or money for because all I had went into keeping Tanner alive. As these thoughts went through my head, my body trembled with a low burning rage. My chest constricted. Through slit eyes, I glared at Tanner as he finished his bottle. He looked so much like his mother. It was all I could do to keep from throwing him through the window, letting him die on the lawn, eaten alive by raccoons and feral cats. The thought brought me a small spark of pleasure, soothing the rage.

I heard another car. I rushed to the window but didn’t see any headlights. Tanner’s eyes fluttered as he relaxed into my arms. My shoulder hurt from holding him. Setting the bottle in the sink, I slowly made my way through the living room toward the stairs.

There was a knock on the door.

My heart leapt to my throat. I spun around and stared at the door, holding my breath.

“Who is it?” I called. My skin tingled with apprehension.

“Is somebody at the door?” Maddie called from upstairs.

“Stay in bed,” I told her.

Cautiously, I approached the door. My body felt cold as the beating on the door continued like the pounding of a panicked heart. Was it a burglar? No, a burglar wouldn’t announce themselves.

Moving the window curtain enough to allow a sliver of visibility, I looked out on the porch. A dark shape stood there, obscured by the shadows. The figure was short, but I couldn’t make out the face. The porch light switch was on the wall next to me. I flicked it, but the outside light didn’t come on. I remembered the bulb was blown. Closing the curtain, I walked to the door.

“Who is it?” I called again, my hand on the doorknob. Blood throbbed in my fingers, making the knob feel like a living thing. The knocking stopped. I listened closely, I heard heavy breathing.

“I’ve got a gun,” I warned as I undid the lock to open the door a crack.

It burst open with an unexpected force. I jumped back as the stranger rushed in from out of the darkness.

“What the fuck! Get out of my house!”

My outburst woke Tanner. He began fussing.

The stranger stood in the hallway listing back and forth. I smelled alcohol. I flipped on a light switch.

“Charlotte! What the fuck are you doing here?”

My ex-wife’s eyes were red. She wore a jacket over a tight party dress. She stared at the baby in my arms. “Tanner, sweetie, it’s mommy…” she stumbled forward, arms out as if to take my son from me.

Stepping back, I snarled, “Get back, I could have you arrested.”

“I want to see my babyyy...” She kept coming for us. Reaching out, I seized her arm and pulled her toward the door.

“You got a lotta nerve showing your face here, you cunt. Get out!”

“Not… without… Tanner,” she slurred. “I wanna take Tanner with me, just for the night…”

“Like fuck you are. Now, get out.”

I tried pushing her out the door. She spun around and cuffed me on the side of the head with her fist.

“Ow! You fucking bitch!”

Charlotte ran into the living room. I chased her. Tanner cried the sound was needles in my ears. I realized I was squeezing him so tight he was having difficulty breathing.

“Jason, what’s going on down there?” Maddie cried, her voice high with alarm. I could tell she was in the upstairs hallway.

“Stay upstairs!” I shouted. I fixed a death glare on Charlotte as she wandered the house as if she still lived there. My face was hot, my breath escaped my nostrils like that of an enraged bull.

“Who’s down there with you?”

“Just stay upstairs, Maddie, I’ve got this!”

“Is that your fresh bitch?” said Charlotte. She hiccupped. For a moment she looked like she might puke on the carpet.

“Leave her out of this,” I warned.

Composing herself, Charlotte pointed a finger at me, “You never loved Tanner.”

Her statement shook me. I took several steps back as if struck with a punch. I scoffed. “What are you talking about? I take care of him, feed him, change him…”

Charlotte shook her head. “You keep him alive, but you don’t love him. I know it. I remember the way you looked at him when he was born. There was nothing in your eyes. You hated him then, and you hate him now.”

Blood pulsed through my head. My body shook with anger, but I couldn’t tell what enraged me more: the fact she forced her way into my home, or that she was right about my feelings toward our child.

“You’re full of shit,” I told her. “You don’t know what you’re talking about. Tanner’s my son and I…”

The words caught in my throat --my lie. It was like hitting a brick wall.

Charlotte sneered reproachfully. “See? You can’t even say you love him, you’re a fake father.”

“And you’re a worthless drunk.”

“Not anymore, tonight was it, no more drinking. I want to be with my son. He’d be better off with me.” She spit a gob of dark phlegm on the floor.

My skin crawled with hatred.

“You’re a fucking liar,” my rage was nearly blinding.

“You’re the liar,” muttered Charlotte, “a liar and an asshole.”

Pointing at the door, I spoke through gritted teeth, “Get the fuck out of my house, NOW!”

“Not without my son.”

“Bitch, GET THE FUCK OUT!”

Tanner wailed louder. My grip on his body tightened. I felt his ribs cracking against my arm. He shrieked as his bones fractured.

“You’re hurting him!” Charlotte cried.

Like a rabid dog, she lunged at me, arms out, ready to snatch Tanner. He screamed. At that moment, I saw my life, my mistakes, my frustrations, my anger all boiling over. I saw everything I hated about her, everything I hated about Tanner. Everything went red.

Throwing Tanner toward the ceiling, I snatched him by the legs and swung him like a battle axe at Charlotte’s head.

Their skulls collided together with a bone splintering crack. The force of the blow threw Charlotte backward. Fighting for balance, she stumbled over the coffee table, shattering the glass top. She fell to the floor, groaning in pain, holding her face. Blood oozed from between her fingers.

“Motherfucker! You broke my nose!”

Tanner’s cries were deafening. Still holding him by the legs, I glanced at his face. His forehead was caved in where it connected with his mother’s nose. It reminded me of a dented car hood. Blood flowed from a dark gash near his hairline.

Charlotte’s eyes went wide. “My god, Jason! You hurt Tanner! You hurt Tanner!”

She moved to stand, but with another swing of my infant son, I knocked her back to the floor.

“Stay down, cunt! Just stay down!” Spit flew from my mouth. I put a foot on her chest, pinning her. I felt bones and tendons pop in her chest.

Both Charlotte and Tanner were screaming. I barely heard them. Tanner writhed in my grasp as my fingers dug into his ankles for a better grip. I swung him over my head, bringing him down as if chopping firewood, connecting with Charlotte’s face again and again. Within seconds her face was smeared red. The hot scent of blood entered my nostrils, fueling my mindless rage.

Blood splattered the walls as I pulverized my ex’s face with my human club. Charlotte raised her arms weakly in self-defense. Tanner’s screams were wet and strange as if gurgling from a broken speaker.

“My baby… my baby…” Charlotte protested as I brought Tanner down for another strike. Spitting out broken teeth, Charlotte’s mouth looked as empty as Tanner’s.

With a wet crack, Tanner’s head split open like a rotten peach. Chunky grey matter exploded all over Charlotte’s obliterated face. Tanner’s crying ceased. More brains flew out as I continued smashing what was left of his head against his drunk cunt mother. Charlotte’s screams were reduced to choked sobs.

“Please stop,” she begged.

I couldn’t stop. Nothing could stop me. My anger, my frustrations, my hatred, finally found the perfect outlet. My system shook with adrenaline. Since the day of Tanner’s birth, I worked so hard to do right in the eyes of society, to play the role of a loving single father, ignoring my instincts, but at that moment, I was finally doing the only thing that felt right to me.

When I was done beating Charlotte, Tanner’s body was completely headless. My breathing was raspy as I stared down at the frightened bitch, coated in blood, brains, and shards of infant skull. My lips curled into a smile as she cowered at my feet.

“Please, don’t hurt me anymore.”

Ignoring her, I grasped one of Tanner’s legs in a tight grip and began to twist. The muscles tightened and split as I turned the leg further than nature ever intended. The little femur broke from the socket tendons snapped. The skin took on the look of a rung-out dishrag. I rotated the leg full circle several times until tearing it from his body like a turkey leg.

Dropping the corpse, I knelt next to Charlotte and forced her toothless mouth open.

“You want your kid, HAVE HIM!”

I forced the severed leg between her lips. Charlotte feebly beat me with her fists. With every blow, I felt her strength dissolve. Pushing on the bottom of Tanner’s foot, I forced the leg down her throat, watching with pleasure as her neck budged with the thickness of Tanner’s thigh. Her body convulsed and jerked as she gagged on the obstruction, weakly trying to pull it out, but it was lodged too tight.

As she choked, I twisted off Tanner’s other limbs. I lifted Charlotte’s dress and ripped off her piss stained panties.

“You want your kid back?” I said, “Have all of him.”

Spreading her legs wide, I crammed one of his arms up her vagina. The opening stretched to accommodate the arm. When I felt the bone butt up against her cervix, I pushed harder, spearing her uterus.

I took the other arm and shoved it up her ass.

“There you go,” I muttered as I worked, “Tanner’s right back where he belongs, all warm and cozy.”

Blood flowed from between Charlotte’s legs, spreading over the carpet like sticky syrup. By the time I was done, Charlotte was dead. Her eyes went glassy. Her body relaxed, making it easier to shove Tanner’s final leg next to his arm in her stretched and shredded pussy.

Satisfied, I stood up and admired my work. I started laughing like a madman. Charlotte looked so funny with Tanner’s limbs sticking out of her every orifice as if she were birthing twins from both ends. Next to her laid Tanner’s torso. Looking at the headless, limbless child, I recalled when I was nine years old tearing the legs and wings off a fly I found buzzing around my bedroom window. I remembered smiling as I watched the mutilated insect wiggle helplessly on my windowsill. A few months later, I did the same thing to a newborn kitten in a tool shed in the woods behind my house. The sound of the little bones cracking and the kitten’s high pitched screams was one of the highlights of my childhood. Looking at Tanner’s body, I felt like a kid again.

“What happened in here?”

Maddie’s voice jolted me from my euphoria. I spun around, my body cold. I stammered. “I… I…”

What could I say?

Slack jawed, Maddie walked across the room, wearing her oversized nightshirt. She examined my bloody work.

“My god, you killed them both,” she whispered.

“They had it coming, Charlotte, she forced my hand. She made me so…mad.”

Maddie looked at me with tender eyes. She walked over to me and touched my cheek.

“I know,” she said, bringing her lips to mine.

I pulled out of the kiss and stared at her in disbelief.

“You’re ok with this? With what I did?”

She glanced back at the carnage on the floor and chuckled.

“I never liked Tanner anyway. It was only you I wanted. I often fantasized about killing him. And you’re right, that bitch had it coming, forcing her way into our home like that.” She spat on Charlotte’s body.

I couldn’t believe it.

“You’re really ok with this?” I asked again.

Sighing, Maddie led me to the couch. We sat.

“Remember how I told you my son and husband died?”

“Yeah, in a house fire, the gas main blew?”

“There was more to it than that.”

I stared at her. “What?”

“Who do you think caused the gas leak?”

Gazing into her dark eyes I gasped. “You started it?”

She smiled. “I watched the house burn from the alley across the street. I listened to their screams as they burned alive. It was glorious, I was free.”

I felt euphoria rising in my chest. I beamed. “I think I can relate to that feeling.”

“It’s wonderful, isn’t it?”

I kissed her deeply, feeling as if wings had sprouted from my shoulders. The tremendous weight I’d been carrying since Tanner’s birth was lifted. Maddie was right it felt wonderful.

Our kissing turned into heavy groping which turned into the shedding of our nightshirts. With my hands on Maddie’s breasts, I turned and looked at my ex-wife’s body.

“We’re gonna have to clean this up,” I said.

“We will,” Maddie said, her voice full of desire, “but first make love to me, let’s celebrate our freedom.”

Pulling her to the floor, I removed her panties. Lowering my boxers, I revealed my cock throbbing with need. I fell upon her, kissing her neck and sliding into her body. She moaned as I filled her. I relished in the hot wetness of her pussy.

As we fucked, we rolled into the puddle of Charlotte and Tanner’s blood. Soon our bodies were covered in sticky crimson handprints. We were like two freshly delivered infants, covered in afterbirth. In the throes of lovemaking, I felt reborn. Charlotte and Tanner’s screams were the labor pains of a new life. With their deaths, my mistakes were severed from me like a cut umbilical cord.

“Fuck, I’m gonna cum,” I moaned into Maddie’s ear.

“Cum in me,” she pleaded, “make me pregnant.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, Jason, I want a child with you, I want it more than anything.”

Looking into her dark eyes, I felt truly connected to another human being for the first time in my life. I realized there was nothing I wanted more than to have a baby with Maddie. I was incapable of loving my first child, but perhaps with Maddie, my psychopathic soulmate, it would be different.

Burying my cock to the hilt inside her, I pumped her full of my seed. Maddie exploded with me, arching her back, rocking her head against the floor, her hair saturated with blood and brain matter.

“YES!” she cried.

In the afterglow of sex, we held each other in front of the fireplace, staring at the corpses before us. The air was thick with the smell of sex, death, and new life.

“So what do we do now?” Maddie asked as I softly stroked her arm, holding her against my chest.

“Destroy the bodies, dispose of Charlotte’s car, then clean the house. Nobody needs to know what happened here tonight.”

Maddie thought for a moment. “You know we can’t stay here?”

I thought for a moment, then nodded. “No, we can’t.”

“We should hit the road as soon as possible. Not tell anyone where we’re going, a couple of criminals on the run.”

“Like Bonnie and Clyde, huh?” I said, chuckling.

Maddie kissed me with her blood caked lips. “Why not? What’s holding us in this shitty town? A job you hate? The open road is before us, my love. Didn’t you say you always wanted to travel the world?”

At the mention of travel, I grinned. I felt the dreams I thought were gone forever return in a heartbeat.

“That I did,” I said.


About the Story:
Afterbirth is an examination of violent antinatalism. I’ve heard many parents say that the moment your child is born the love you feel for them is automatic and instinctual. But what if the exact opposite occurred? What if a parent absolutely hated their baby and only refrained from killing them because society frowns on such actions? This is the question that sparked the story.