Optional Extras
The receptionist glanced over the top of her glasses and took in the man, or at least his bright blue uniform, in an instant. She sighed audibly and lowered her eyes back to her computer screen.
‘Deliveries go to the west side door.’ Her voice sang out coldly over the plastic punching of her resumed typing, barely denting the quiet of the lobby.
‘Oh. Um…’ Gregory began, meaning to get her attention again, but quickly deciding against it. ‘Yes, of course. Thank you.’
Gregory turned and started back toward the door. Back, across the pristine marble floor. Back, towards the sunlight, gleaming in through the ceiling-high windows, filling this surprisingly empty foyer. Back, past the glass shelves housing rows of awards for achievements in pharmaceutical developments for more diseases and conditions than Gregory knew existed. Back, past the huge LCD display playing its silent, multi-coloured show-reel of the GRP Corporation’s excellence.
As he passed beneath the giant screen, a familiar commercial caught his eye. Three cartoon animals, a rabbit, a mouse and a turtle, were happily dancing in a field. He didn’t need sound to remember how the famous jingle went. He could hear it word for word in his mind.
GRP is good for me! Making great solutions that are cruelty free!
Gregory shifted the soft, warm bundle he was carrying gingerly, and swallowed hard.
Yeah. He thought to himself, his heart racing. No animal testing at all.
‘So you were a car salesman? Fantastic, really excellent’ the head of HR was a slightly plump woman with far too thin stilettos that clicked in angry rhythm as she walked Gregory through the Nyubon Fertility Centre. ‘We find consultants with prior experience in sales always do better with us.’
The pair had reached a code-locked door and the woman looked expectantly at Gregory. ‘Oh, right, sorry!’ He fumbled with the bright blue folder he’d been given and found the code key. This tour was meant to be part of his induction, but it felt more like the last test of his hiring. With unusually clumsy fingers, Gregory punched in the code and the lock popped open with a hydraulic hiss. The HR woman gave a small, tight smile, pushed past and continued speaking.
‘I think you will find that what we do is actually very similar to car sales,’ the sound of her heels gave sharp punctuation to every other word. ‘I mean, in car sales, you would have your customers make choices, right? Automatic or manual. Leather interior or cloth. And of course, the colour of the paint. Ah, here we are.’
They had rounded a corner and now stood in a catwalk-like hallway crossing the back length of a state-of-the art laboratory. The hallway was enclosed, isolated from the lab itself, but with glass windows running the full length of it. In the lab beyond were workers, at least 30 of them, all dressed in uniforms of the same bright blue as Gregory’s folder. Closest to the window were the smaller workstations, simple bench-tops with test-tubes and petri dishes. Further away, Gregory could see the incubators, in neat rows, with flashing monitors attached to each.
‘Just different options.’ Gregory’s voice sounded far-away in his own ears.
‘Beg your pardon?’ The HR woman was looking at him with genuine interest for the first time.
Gregory turned and met her gaze.
‘Just different options’ he repeated, more firmly, for his benefit more than hers. ‘Options for the customer to choose. Just like paint colour. But now, it’s eye colour. And hair colour. And if it’s a boy or a girl.’
The HR woman’s expression was stony. ‘Is that a problem?’
Gregory looked away from her. Back to the lab. He thought of the over-due bills on his kitchen table. ‘No,’ he said firmly. ‘No, not at all.’
Gregory stepped out into the sunlit afternoon and shivered, despite the warmth in the air. He glanced around and spotted a large signboard with a map of the GRP complex, complete with a helpful red arrow and text confirming that all deliveries, indeed, needed to go via the west side door.
It was a long walk around the towering main building, longer than Gregory had expected from the map. He began to wonder if he’d missed the door, but no one was around to ask. Finally, a large loading dock came into view and Gregory walked up the concrete stairs. A green metal door with the word ‘deliveries’ stencilled in white paint sat closed on the desolate platform.
Gregory only intended to give a light rap, but his knock echoed off the metal and bounced about the loading dock as if he’d tried to beat the door down. In his arms, Gregory felt the bundle shudder slightly.
With a metallic groan, a small hatch opened in the door and through it a pair of coal-black eyes stared out at him, his uniform, and the packet in his arms.
‘I aint got no new deliveries from Nyubon scheduled for today’ the voice was as cold as its owner’s eyes, sharp and untrusting.
‘No, I know, but’ Gregory stammered. ‘It’s actually not, er, not a new delivery.’
‘What is it then?’ The voice had taken on the pitch of annoyance and Gregory knew the hatch would soon slam shut in his face. In a rush he blurted out what he’d been dreading having to say since he’d realised the mistake early in the morning.
‘It’s about yesterday’s delivery. There was a mix-up.’
For an awful moment following this statement, nothing happened. Then, with a rush, the door flung open and slammed into the back wall with a jarring crack.
The bundle in Gregory’s arms quivered and gave a sound not unlike a cry.
From the shadow of the doorway stepped the owner of the voice. He was a thick, harsh-looking hulk of a man who towered over Gregory. But for all his size, the man looked afraid.
‘What do you mean, a mix-up?’ He demanded, glaring daggers down at the swaddled lump in Gregory’s arms. ‘What EXACTLY do you mean?’
The bundle had become a wriggling mass, and both men stared as the blanket fell away from a small, round face. The baby’s eyes opened and the blood drained from the big man’s cheeks.
Tremoring, Gregory reached out and gently pulled the blanket back across the tiny creature. It squirmed for a few moments, then once again lay still. So small and warm and terrible.
The two men stood motionless, drawing laboured breaths. Finally, Gregory said quietly ‘I think you know what I mean.’
The big man swallowed hard. ‘They said they don’t…’ he mumbled, half to himself, half to Gregory. ‘I never… looked at one before.’ His face had gone the sick-sad grey of overcooked potatoes.
The open door creaked on its hinges, making both men jump.
The big man glanced again at the bundle, then quickly away, catching Gregory’s eyes and staring into them with earnest, naked fear.
‘Is it true?’ he asked, his voice on the edge of begging. ‘They don’t have…?’
Gregory felt his throat go tight and the moisture evaporate from his tongue. Nestled in its cocoon of blanket, he could feel the tiny, rapid heartbeat of the sleeping infant.
‘I’m not sure.’ His voice was barely a whisper.
The big man had done all he could, Gregory knew, but still he wished against reason he could have done more. He’d given Gregory the internal shipping docket with placement details of yesterday’s delivery and a copy of the building’s key-codes. He’d even drawn a crude map of where he thought Gregory needed to go.
‘You don’t know?’ Gregory had asked when the man apologised for his limited knowledge. But the big man just shook his head and explained that placing shipments wasn’t his job. Gregory got the sense he had a new found appreciation for the limits of his role.
Now, Gregory and his bundle were alone in a dimly lit corridor, heading still deeper into the guts of the building.
Gregory’s mind raced almost as fast as his heart. His uniform was a dead-giveaway that he had no business here. But after 10 minutes following the wall signs towards the coordinates on the shipping docket, Gregory still hadn’t seen a single person. The building seemed dead save for the constant high-pitched whine of old fluorescent bulbs that followed him through the maze of hallways.
Eventually, Gregory found the right sector and a minute later he was standing outside the door to the room he needed.
Row 2, Slot J he read to himself for the fifth time, then folded the paper away in his pocket. He stared at the door. Come on he chided himself, attempting to bolster his nerve. Open the door. Go inside. Find Row 2, Slot J. Get the McIver baby and swap it back for… in his arm the bundle seemed to stir. He tried to swallow but his throat was too tight. You can do this. You HAVE to do this!
The door had a small window, the kind with wire laid between the sheets of glass, making it even harder to peer into the gloomy room behind it. Gregory could just make out the flat shapes of a row of hospital ward bassinets.
Gregory stepped back from the window and put his hand on the doorknob. Like ripping off a bandage he told himself and with a quick jerk of the wrist he twisted and pushed.
As soon as his foot crossed the threshold, the hairs on the back of his neck stood on end. Slowly, gently, he let the door shut behind him, keeping his hand on the handle, waiting for his eyes to adjust to the dingy half-light.
The air held the faint odour of talcum powder and something sweet. Lavender. Gregory realised. It smells like lavender. He could make out the contents of the room more clearly now. In the centre was the row of plastic bassinets he had seen through the window and on either side of these, against the walls, was a row of cribs.
Row 2… Gregory tried to focus solely on his task. Slot… He walked down the aisle, taking care to keep his eyes locked on the labels alone. He reached the final bassinet. J… He forced his gaze into the contents of the basket.
Inside lay a tiny, round-faced baby, sleeping soundly. It looked so very like the creature he’d carried in his arms all afternoon.
But he had to be sure.
Bright blue eyes. He could hear Mrs. McIver say. Really bright. The same colour as that uniform of yours.
Gregory tried to swallow away the panic threatening to seal his throat completely. He reached a trembling hand out and gently shook the baby.
It startled, made a small gurgling sound, then began to wail.
‘Come, little one, shush now, just open your eyes’ he pleaded with the crying infant. ‘Please, just a glimpse… yes!’
Bright blue. Like his uniform.
He picked up the crying child with his left arm, laying down the other as he did. As quickly as he could, he tugged away the blanket, trying not to look at what he uncovered.
But there were those eyes.
Those empty, terrible, colourless eyes.
And they were fixed soundly on him.
He clenched his own eyes shut and heaved on the blanket, jerking it away. Quickly, he wrapped it around the still whimpering McIver baby, and clutched this new charge to his chest.
‘Just different options,’ He sobbed, rocking the baby with the bright blue eyes. ‘Options.’
From all around the room, Gregory could feel them, staring at him, boring through him, grasping for what they lacked.
‘Brunette or blond.’
He fell to his knees, cold fear draining his strength, while from every cot dead eyes peered far too deep inside him.
‘With… or without…’
His voice had gone husky. A mere whisper in an empty shell.
‘A soul.’
Contest details:
Contest: NYC Midnight Short Story Challenge 2015, Round 2
Genre: Horror
Subject: An accidental baby swap
Character: A car salesman
Score: none