Robin Writes

Thought you all might enjoy an older WIP I came across this morning:

Prologue

POP!

The sound was distinct, yet unnerving in the context of a nearly empty room. The lone occupant, an overworked, underpaid freelance graphic designer, slumped over his keyboard. The desk, the walls, the ceiling were spackled and dripping with rivulets of red, interspersed with bits of gray.

POP!

In another city, another state, a solitary accountant became immobile in the space of a second, a miniscule amount of time, and landed, reposed, in the same manner.

POP!

Chapter One

Nick looked up at the sound. He was alone in his office, desperately trying to keep his mind on his latest manuscript as he carved out a rare half-hour to actually write. He shook off the tension racing up his spine, speeding like an inchworm on meth, and tried to ignore the screeches and squeals from the hallway.

After a short moment, he slammed his hand on the desk and jumped to his feet. He was going to explode if he didn’t get out of there, move around, run in circles, anything to stop this feeling of exasperation and imminent explosion.

As he jerked open the door, he stopped dead in his tracks. His boss lay on the floor, gray skirt soaked red, pale blue blouse wet and clinging, dripping with unidentifiable something . . .

Nick rubbed his eyes. Not unidentifiable. Not at all. What the—

A scream echoed down the corridor. Nick ran. He crashed into the far wall, failing to negotiate the turn into the large room that housed the administrative staff. He clawed desperately at the slick wall to remain upright, and kept going, sliding to a stop.

In the far corner, three secretaries huddled together, eyes wide, gaping at the mess. The youngest, a pretty, dark-haired girl, was the screamer. She was gearing up for another round when Nick approached and grabbed her by the shoulders.

“What the hell is happening?” He roughly shook her as her head bobbed back and forth. She gasped for breath, but made no discernible sound.

Nick glanced at the others. Susie, he knew her name, and another woman, older, who seemed the most calm. “What’s going on?” he repeated, still holding the girl.

Martha took off her glasses and squinted as she wiped them on her blouse, leaving pale red streaks on the cloth. She took a deep breath.

“We heard a . . . a pop, I guess you’d call it. And then blood and . . . and stuff . . . just spattered. Everywhere. The first one was Jane, the desk right next to me; and then Harold. And it just kept . . . happening. All of them.

“Except us.”

Susie reached for the dark-haired girl and put her arms around her, shielding the younger woman’s face from the dripping mess all around them. “This is only Maggie’s first week,” she explained, as though this . . . whatever it was . . . would have been okay had it just happened, say, during Maggie’s third week on the job.

Whatever. Nick shrugged. No time to worry about Maggie and her employment history at this point in time.

POP!

Dammit. Now what? Nick turned toward the sound and heard three more in rapid succession. He pointed at the three women. “Stay here. I’ll be right back.”

He made his way gingerly through the room, trying to avoid headless bodies and more gore and gunk that he’d ever seen in one place. Well, to be fair, he hadn’t actually seen a lot of this, but he did write about it. His imagination was pretty active, but this—

He opened a door and peered inside. Same mess. He went to the next door and the next, ditto.

He came back to the admin room. The women were still huddled in the corner, but Maggie was standing on her own now and seemed to be taking in the whole scene, minus her earlier hysterics.

“I haven’t checked all the offices, but the partners are, well . . . dead. Yeah, pretty sure of that.” Before anyone could react to that bit of news, Nick continued. “We need to get out of here, for starters; I suggest we go down the stairs and at least to the lobby. We’ll call the police from there.”

The four of them moved as a unit to the stairs and shakily descended. They were alone in the stairwell, but when they reached the main floor, all hell broke loose.

As one, they stopped and stared at the chaos.

Back when Cody and Cavalry first arrived here, adopters were told that most of the mares were pregnant—made sense, since no colts were ever gelded and the stallions ran with the mares 24/7. Now, Cav was about five months old, or thereabouts, which meant Cody could foal as early as mid-June. Or, really, as late as November.

Since I was sure she was pregnant, I started reading up on mares in foal and foaling in general. This is what I found:

A mare’s gestation is on average 340 days but it can go well over 360 days or as early as 315 days. There is no such thing as a “Due Date” for mares unfortunately. But most mares give signs of approaching labor to help us out in this area. Some of these signs are:

Waxing
Relaxing of the pelvis and vulva
Filling of the udders
Drop in mare’s abdomen
Attitude may change Appetite may change
No resistance in the tail
Texture of udders

Several mares from Cody’s herd were foaling over the course of the spring, and I watched that mare like a hawk. In February, I started feeding her alfalfa so there would be no worries about fescue toxicity and pregnancy complications. In March, I checked her ‘round the clock, even sleeping in the camper a few times so I could watch, just in case.

Nothing. She showed numbers 2, 4, 6, and 8. I took pictures from every angle, daily, sometimes twice a day. I swore she was going to foal any minute.

Nothing.

Now, here’s the important part regarding that list. There is a disclaimer:

Some mares may display all of these signs, and some may not display any of these signs.

Well. Isn’t that special.

It’s almost November, and that mare STILL looks pregnant from the rear. But I’ve pretty much given up on having another Catnip baby. Cav’s going to have to be an only child . . .

Then, in July, I had a new vet come out to give the girls their shots and do pregnancy checks. Nickel was suspiciously big for a young horse who’d been fighting for hay in South Dakota. Then again, she’d shown signs of estrus and had let Cav mount her a few times—although we can’t be positive he was fertile, and actually, most of the time he wasn’t exactly sure what he was doing.

Nicky’s pregnancy test came back positive.

All it showed was that she was at least 120 days into gestation, which means she was covered before mid-March; she arrived here mid-February. Cavalry could well be a teenage dad . . .

Of course, he may not, and all the numbers suggest is that Nicky will have a foal sometime between the middle of November and the middle of February.

In late August, Nicky’s back end started to soften and sag (numbers 2 and 7); this means she’s about four weeks or so from delivering. This was also two months ago. Remember the disclaimer? She’s also a maiden, never had a foal before best we can tell, and maiden mares tend not to follow any so-called rules. Sigh. The vet also said she likely wouldn’t have any milk until delivery or right after. Or not. Who knows?

So I wait . . .

Enter Charm. I was told she was pregnant on her arrival in August. Having gone through all that mess with Cody, I wasn’t sure about anything. I thought she was probably just saggy and overweight. A few weeks later, her udders started to fill; that was a month ago.

She got bigger; in fact, so much so that more than one person has mentioned twins. The vet, however, said she’s just stretchy because of her age and likely having had at least 15 foals previously. Good thing one of us is experienced with foaling!

Now, as I write this, she’s showed all the signs—for a good week, at least. Some of it is hard to tell, like her attitude; she hasn’t been here long enough for me to judge this. And she’s not a fan of touching from her belly on back, so no, I’m not going to poke her butt or try to move her tail . . .

Also, I did a double-take when looking at Valentine one day a month or so ago. She did gain a lot of weight pretty quickly, which has slowed down, but something about her shape looks familiar. And she’s just a baby, two years old. Surely I’m imagining this, but the vet looked at her and said, and I quote, “Hmmm.”

Uh-oh.