Sarah wanted her son to be called Jonathan or John, but never Johnny. She reinforced the idea often, correcting anyone who tried to emasculate her pending baby boy. When asked why this was so important to her, she would say that she was raising a man, not a child. Little did she know that she wasn’t raising a man at all.
Pregnant and manless, Sarah received scorn, judgment and bad advice from nearly every person she encountered. For a while she decided to just smile, nod and say something like, “Oh, thank you so much, I never thought of that.” But she had her limits. Pinheads. She was pregnant, not retarded.
“It’s going to be hard to raise a baby alone.” Really? Given what I know about most men, I hear it’s a breeze to battle your piece of shit husband to pull his lazy face away from ESPN for five minutes to change one God damn diaper. At least this way I don’t have to put up with some asshole sperm donor who I have to cling to like a life raft buddy that keeps trying to push me out of the boat.
“Are you sure you’re ready?” So, you’re offering what exactly? To adopt, or assist with the abortion? Do you have access to a time machine? The bun’s in the oven pal, the timer is running, being ready left the gate a long time ago. What does that question even mean? No, I’m not sure. Now what? I’m sure I’m not sure. Satisfied? Now go back to watching the yoga mom’s pick up their kids from daycare you creepy old fuck.
“Have you been to a doctor?” Does a Voodoo Doctor count? I found one online and he offers the sort of traditional childbirth I’m looking for. Do you know where I can get a gallon of fresh chicken blood and a candle was made from the bones of an unbaptized virgin?
She did feel a little bit foolish however. The father of her unborn son was a man she’d known for only a few weeks. He wasn’t particularly good looking but was charming and funny as hell. Working downtown in a busy coffee shop she saw plenty of beautiful and charming men and women. Occasionally someone would stand out in her mind for a day or two and she’d pretend that they would somehow get together. One of her regulars, a stunning woman in her middle-fifties always wore the perfect mix of fabrics, colors and textures complimented by just the right accents of jewelry. She was friendly, upbeat and unfailingly classy. Sarah spent hours fantasizing that they lived in a high-rise overlooking Central Park, enjoying martinis at the end of the day, discussing plans for their next vacation to Europe as their twin pugs snuggling with them in their luxurious bed.
There was also the attorney who Sarah assumed was a partner at a place like Handsome, Strongjaw and Wellhung. His white hair slicked back, contrasting against his tan skin framed by double-breasted suits made from fabric that would put the Queen’s fine linen to shame. He spent most of his day in the coffee shop entertaining young attorneys with coffee and cakes, discussing the law, their ambitions, their families and only occasionally talking about himself. He was the perfect mentor, teacher and friend to the young professionals. She imagined the two of them curled up on the deck of a boat, watching the sunrise and warming themselves before departing for the next leg of their yacht trip down the eastern seaboard.
But instead of these classy fantasies, Sarah found herself with Adam. Drip coffee, room for cream. He was skinny, with his hair seemingly making up half his body weight. It stuck out like a semi-afro, but blond with little golden highlights that shined like fine wire in the sun. He made her laugh hard, had a good eye for thrift-store clothing and a way of talking to her that somehow cut through the usual customer banter. His hazel eyes nearly glowed, which disarmed her, and she agreed to a date. The whole thing lasted six weeks, and she’d only seen him about half a dozen times. It was more like hanging out with a friend, instead of the pheromone-fueled trysts she was used to. They only had sex the one time, and she could barely remember what happened but had a warm impression of it, and was certain they had used a condom.
Sarah moved back to her parent’s suburban home once she had decided to keep the baby. She surprised herself with this decision, since she had never wanted kids and all her fantasies involved well-established men and women, which didn’t square with the solo tour she was about to start. Her parents were both thrilled and worried, but supportive and kept a respectful distance.
###
Sarah’s contractions started, and once at the hospital she learned her regular doctor wasn’t available. She met the stand-in physician, who was a prick right out of the gate.
“Where’s the father?” he asked.
“On the lam,” Sarah replied.
“Do you know who the father is? It’s important to know his health history,” he intoned.
“I thought it would be more fun to wing it; who doesn’t love a good mystery?”
“Have you considered adoption? Many stable families would love to raise a healthy baby like yours. The nurse can get you some pamphlets.”
“I’ve decided to go black market, doc” Sarah had to pause for a contraction. “What about an epidural? Can you do a working girl a favor?”
“You’re about nine months too late for the epidural. Maybe this way you’ll remember to be more responsible.”
In the delivery room things went smoothly, the birth was quick and Jonathan came into the world pink and slimy. Once the doctor cleared the baby’s nose and mouth, he let out his first cry. But it sounded wrong; more like the screech of a metal compactor than a baby’s wail. The doctor took a closer look at the baby’s mouth, and thinking that he had seen a tooth, explored Jonathan’s mouth with his finger. Jonathan opened his eyes and bit down. The sound of cracking bone filled the birthing room. Jonathan grabbed the doctor, taking additional bites out of his hand.
The doctor screamed as the baby jumped and bit his way up his arm like a rabid dog on a sausage link. Jonathan was still slick with afterbirth and the nurses couldn’t get a good grip on him and dodge his snapping teeth at the same time. The baby finally jumped onto Sarah’s belly, panting and staring at her. His eyes glowing hazel green, his mouth dripped with the doctor’s blood and bone, and smiled at his mother. He then leapt away scurrying around the delivery room, burst into the hallway and escaped into an air duct.
After interviewing all the witnesses the police finally believed the story that a wild baby was loose in the HVAC system. The hospital was locked down, a perimeter set, and Sarah examined and re-examined for any clues about the creature she’d made.
Sarah was confused but calm. When Jonathan paused to look at her, breathing like an overwrought pug, they made a connection. This was her son and she was his mother. The doctor’s arm was gone to the elbow, so she figured he wouldn’t be hungry for a while. She tried not to think about breastfeeding.
Recorded footage of the birth was of little help, like a Sasquatch sighting; jerky video of smocked nurses screaming and running after a streak of afterbirth, equipment crashing to the floor in their wake. Word leaked out on social media almost immediately, unconfirmed reports of a baby hyena loose in the hospital. TV stations set up film crews and the hospital administrator released a statement asking everyone to be calm. One by one patients and staff were moved out of the building, carefully screened by SWAT teams in full armor.
When everyone had been evacuated, the armored police went floor by floor, and found Jonathan asleep in a pile of laundry.
After a drawn out battle with the authorities, Jonathan was released to Sarah. The Hyena Boy story eclipsed even the Kardashians’ Internet footprint. Late night hosts made jokes, NPR offered breathless interviews with the parents of “special” children, and the Internet ran rampant with a million and one videos, memes, GIFs, photos and stories of every stripe. YouTube set up the Hyena Baby Channel to handle to choking flow of traffic to the site and BuzzFeed generated daily Hyena Boy related click bait: “17 ways to release you inner hyena,” “31 discipline tips for your difficult child; a circus trainer tells you how!” “Could your unborn baby be a hyena? 47 ways to tell right now!”
TV film crews and paparazzi set up permanent camp on the street. Sarah had refused all interviews, and her parents kept the windows drawn. Sarah’s father had turned the basement into a secure bunker for Jonathan, the windows barred and the ceiling reinforced so he couldn’t chew or claw his way out. But once he was with his family Jonathan behaved much better than while he was in custody. He kept a regular feeding schedule with his bone-in raw meats and mostly slept through the night, occasionally waking up confused and scared. But as soon as Sarah held him and he could smell her and hear her voice, he dropped back to sleep. And although he was partially covered in cheetah-spotted scales as hard as tooth enamel, he still loved it when his grandfather blew raspberries on his belly. A dremel was required to keep the claws on his hands and feet in check.
The basement quickly became too confining, so Sarah’s father converted the back yard into an enclosure like a tiger compound. Heavy chain link fencing buried fifteen feet underground and high enough to enclose all the trees gave Jonathan a safe way to run and play outside. But soon helicopters and drones hovered night and day trying to catch a glimpse of the monster baby.
Sarah, her parents and her baby were trapped in the house, and the world couldn’t stop talking about them, so she decided to give them all what they wanted, for a price.
She contacted a marketing agency to help manage her son’s talent. She and Jonathan were booked on daytime and late night talk and news shows, interviewed by popular YouTubers, did radio interviews in every major city, did the NPR trifecta with Morning Edition, All Things Considered and Fresh Air, released a cookbook, “Feeding Your Inner Hyena: Tips from Sarah’s Kitchen” had professionally managed websites, Instagram, Twitter and Facebook accounts all of which created a significant income stream and made it possible for Sarah and her family to move to a home with high walls and thick trees designed for privacy that had once been owned by Ringo Starr. There were action figures, comic books, and young adult literature all featuring Jonathan and his unique struggle to fit in and be accepted. In the hierarchy of media exposure, Hyena Baby was the king.
There were naysayers, who twitched on conspiracy pages about Jonathan as the first of many such “super babies” sent by another planet to turn earth into their person stockyard, #mancattle. Others felt sure he was the antichrist, growing stronger and more evil every day, needing to be stopped immediately to save humanity, #hyenadevil. But as Jonathan grew, his features softened. Normal teeth pushed out his vicious baby teeth, his scales softened into freckled skin and his claws flattened into finger and toenails. He still preferred his meat raw. Like so many other child stars, the public mostly lost interest in him. By the time he was in his late teens he was being featured on various “where are they now?” retrospectives. He attended private school with other celebrity children and children of celebrities, and was a good student. Sarah was proud of him, but was also struck by how much he looked like his father; almost like his twin.
On Sarah and her parents threw a big party for Jonathan’s eighteenth birthday. Afterward, while her parents were sleeping and Sarah was tidying up she noticed Jonathan in the living room texting on his phone. As she looked a bit closer, she noticed that although it was the size and shape of a phone it was more like glob of translucent cookie dough that wobbled slightly as Jonathan moved his fingers.
“Is that a new phone you got for your birthday?” Sarah asked.
“Sort of. It’s a gooey box. You interfaces with my nervous system, and I can just think about what messages I want it to send.”
“Wow. I’ve never heard of that before. It’s amazing what they can do nowadays.”
“Actually, it’s been around a long time.”
“It has? I must be getting old. I thought I was still pretty hip.” Sarah said with a mock frown.
“You’re okay mom, you can probably still have kids.”
“What?”
“Make babies. You know, your role in life. We need women who can make babies, and it turns out earth women are a great fit.”
“Okay, you’re freaking me out. What are you talking about?”
“I know this will come as a shock, but #mancattle was right. My people do come from another planet and we going impregnate any viable females and round up the rest of you for food. We need compatible females to carry our young since we’re all born as males. Sorry mom.” Jonathan smiled, revealing his perfect human teeth then grimaced as a second row of shark-like incisors slid out from under his lips meeting in a horrible jagged line.
“We needed to wait and see if I would mature normally, and ‘ta-dah!’ here I am all grown up and ready to conquer the earth.” Jonathan said.
“We’ll stop you! We won’t let it happen!” Sarah was reeling, but angry enough protest her only son’s threats to turn earth into a human cattle ranch.
“You couldn’t stop me when I was a baby. There are millions of us on our way. Just try to stay calm and accept your fate.”
Sarah started sobbing, and sat down at the dining room table behind Jonathan.
“Like that’s going to do any good. But if it makes you feel better, cry your guts out.” Jonathan smirked.
As she was hunkered over the table, Sarah reached for a marble statue of a globe and in one swift move smashed Jonathan over the head leaving a bloody dent. He slumped over and she grabbed the gooey box, feeling the rush of virtual reality as she connected to all the minds of all the other Jonathans. She put her son’s dead hands on the box, warning that if one woman with a chunk of marble could do this, then the whole planet could do much worse. The Jonathans called off the attack, deciding to find a more docile species.
Sarah’s mother walked into the living room and gasped at seeing Jonathan’s now dead body and bloody head wound. Sarah heard her and looked up.
“Men. You can’t trust any of them.”