Terror Tales

The Surrogate

She was, everything to me, my very reason for living and she was only fourteen. To everyone who saw us together I looked nothing more than like some creepy older man after someone at least half my age, but it just isn't so. They don't realize, I had to get into her head before it was too late. She had to see me for what I was, what I am, someone who loved her and has always loved her and needed her. I had waited so long. Her parents finding out we were spending time together had forbid her to evote any further time with me although she had told them it was innocent and that we were no more than friends. God how those words hurt?

The year was eighteen sixty-two when I first saw her, she was a girl of only twelve and I was fourteen. She was beautiful with lovely green eyes and she had a smile that warmed the world. It was after school on May twenty-third and I had stopped into William Paslay's Grocery for an ice cream and there she was stretching to looking over the counter at the ice cream and candy. She turn only for a moment and smiled at me before returning to her wanting. That was enough, I was lost forever. My family who were land owners had a large farm outside Butler and even had large sharecropper camps on our property. We unlike most during this time lived quite well, we lived in a large three story brick home on the prominent North Main Street, in Butler, Missouri. The girl well she was what my mother had called an unfortunate, being that her family wasn't doing as well as ours was. I just saw a beautiful girl that I had to know. I made several passes behind her, peering from behind the rows of items in the store until I finally mustered up the sands to talk to her and she let me buy her an ice cream. She was so easy to talk to right away, in fact she had such an outgoing disposition that it seemed she never stopped talking, and to me it was endearing. We took a long walk and talked all afternoon, standing I know for an hour out on the old wrought wood bridge that spanned Christy's lake and watched the well to do ladies of Butler out rowing in their boats all dressed finely with their large hats and parasols and the swells looking on from the shore line. I learned that her name was Ellie Johnston and her father was an out of work house painter and had been for nearly a year. Her mother took in clothing to wash and fold to help make enough for food and the four dollars a month for the one room place they were renting. I had seen people like this but never knew what they were really going through and yes I felt compassion for her and her and her family's plight. We began meeting almost every day, with the exceptions being the days she had to stay home and help her mother. I had spoken with my father about her family and he found work for her father which made the days she had to stay with her mother almost vanish and so we were able to spent every moment we could together. And did so for five years until she agreed to marry me. Her hand an item her father graciously gave to me, with my promise to always take care of her and to always love her. Not a moment has passed that I have not kept this promise.

We had a lovely life, we seemed to always be happy with the exception that she longed for a child, which it seemed I just couldn't give her. Then at the end of our seventeenth year being married she announced with much happiness that she was indeed with child, our blessings were full. She spent it seemed every waking moment getting ready for the baby, she knew it would be a boy, there was no question in her mind and so everything within the house slowly became shaded in blue. Then during her seventh month carrying a bundle of clothes she fell down the stairs, well not really the whole flight it was just two steps but she was hurt. When the doctor saw her he said she would be fine but for the baby's sake he had her stay in bed the remaining days of her pregnancy. This she hated this with a passion, but for the baby and for me, she would do anything. Two weeks past then suddenly in the middle of the night she awoke screaming, her water had broken and more there was blood. Blood poured out onto the sheets, I ran and sent for the doctor and once he arrived he ushered me from the room. He and his female helper worked together for hours, without a single word to me. I waited impatiently pacing the hallway outside our bedroom. Then finally he emerged wet with sweat and blood and not a word he just shook his head, he shook his head, what the hell did that mean. No? I ran into the room to her side and she was gone, the life in this angel was gone. I was later to find out the baby was lost as well. I just couldn't accept all of this, my whole world was put asunder. I didn't understand, I had money, everything should be fine, she should be fine.