“Like to my chest?”
“Yes,” I say in exasperation. “Like an actual baby, Huxley.” Judith wails again, and I catch sight of Heaven walking toward us. “Oh shit, Heaven is coming in this direction. Quick, coddle her. Coddle her, damn it.”
“Ugh, okay.” Huxley brings Judith to his chest and holds her, but that doesn’t stop her wailing. “She’s still acting like a wretched crotch.”
“Then pat her.”
“Pat her?” he asks.
“Yes, you know. A light tap to the back. Soothe her, Huxley.”
Awkwardly, he pats Judith, which only makes her scream more. “It’s possessed. It’s because she’s missing an eye, there’s no other explanation.” He hands me the doll, which I hold out in front of me. The plastic doll wails, blinks, and wails some more.
“I don’t like this thing.”
“You’re not coddling it,” Huxley says as Heaven draws closer.
“Because I’m afraid Judith is going to suck my soul right from my body if I bring her in closer.”
“Here, I’ll pat her while you hold her.” Huxley reaches out and pats Judith on the back a few times.
After the fourth pat, Judith stops crying.
“Oh my God, we did it.”
“Did we?” Huxley asks, unsure. “Would she just stop like that?”
“I think so. I think we soothed—”
Before I can finish my sentence, I’m sprayed in the face with some sort of milky liquid.
“Oh fuck,” Huxley says, jumping back to avoid whatever hellish liquid the doll is spewing.
“Get it off me, get it off me,” I yell as I run in place, holding Judith as far away from me as possible. “Oh my God, why does it smell?”
“I have a wash—” Huxley makes a gagging sound. “Jesus fuck, it smells so bad. What is that?”
“I don’t know, just get it off my face.”
“Everything okay over here?” Heaven’s voice cuts through the chaos.
I pause my theatrics and try not to vomit from the putrid smell on my face. “Judith is experiencing an exorcism,” I say.
“I can see that. It seems as though she’s not feeling well. Is that how you’d hold a baby who’s not feeling well?”
“This is how I’d hold a baby that just sprayed sour milk all over my face. She’s lucky she’s not rolling on the ground by herself.”
Huxley wipes my face with a washcloth, and I allow myself to take a deep breath once most of the liquid is gone.
“Why does it smell?” I ask Heaven, who’s standing in front of us with a judgey look on her face.
“We try to make the experience as authentic as possible, which is why I’d ask that you treat the baby like a real one.”
“I am. I was just caught off guard, I wasn’t expecting for—”
Judith gurgles.
Judith makes an odd sound.
And then, to my horror, Judith starts leaking something brown.
Without even thinking, I screech, drop Judith on the table, and step away as a fresh round of putrid stench comes from Judith’s plastic bottom.
And of course, because she’s Satan’s baby, she wails so loud that everyone is looking at us now, even Dave and Ellie, who are coddling Enoch.
This is not going well.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper as we sit outside of the building, cleaned up, thankfully all remnants of Judith wiped away.
“Don’t be, that doll was possessed.”
“Yeah, but I got us kicked out of the class.”
After Judith had another “upset belly,” as Heaven liked to call it, I swore at the doll, which caused our eviction from the classroom.
I’m sorry, but if that was a real child, I probably would’ve reacted the same exact way, except the whole dropping the baby thing. But I doubt there’s one parent out there who would’ve been able to keep their cool as they were being blasted by their baby from every hole. Please show me one parent who would’ve been able to handle that situation with dignity and grace.
None.
“Kicking us out of class was aggressive,” Huxley says. “Just because of your litany of swear words? Frankly, I thought it was a colorful combination.”
I lean against him and press a kiss to his cheek. “I appreciate you appreciating my ability to combine swear words.”
The door to the building opens and Dave and Ellie step out, holding hands. When they spot us, they smile with apologetic looks.
“We weren’t sure if you two left or not,” Ellie says. “That was a bit of a rough situation in there.”