July 2026

JS Apsley, Deliver Us

Ben was everywhere, and nowhere.

He was in the smooth grass of the park, he was in the wind rattling the thin branches of the trees and their neighbours’ chimes which enthralled him so. He was in the creak of the metal chains on the swings, which now jangled so emptily. His little voice was just out of reach, buried under the songs he loved playing on the radio. His hands were so close to her face, but never did they touch. His playful whispers were stolen away before they alighted upon her eager ears.

Ben was everywhere, but he was nowhere.

Penny was a ghost. A remnant, walking round in her own clothes as if a stranger, alien to her own existence. It seemed to have been easier for Stu to move on from the death of their son. She hated how jealous she felt at times, seeing him capable of flashes of joy here and there.

How could there be any joy in a world without Ben?

They had tried to have another baby. Stu had encouraged it at first, to help them move on. They were both still so young, he would say. Our whole lives ahead of us, Penny – let’s live them. And if Benny was to have a little brother or sister, then they could teach them all about him and remember and celebrate him all over again.

Penny had resisted at first. How dare Stu think Ben could simply be replaced? But then, as time moved on and they had tried, as her monthly visitor arrived time after time, and then later when they sought medical advice and took certain steps, and then later when they fell back on IVF, and then later when they paid for private healthcare and specialists in London, her desire to fall pregnant again became all consuming.

Her initial reluctance gave way like the force of a river which had burst a dam. Now she was the river, turning and churning, furious in her thrust towards the glory and bountiful seas of motherhood.

Penny’s quest to be with child, to be mother again, drove all else in her life to the deserted outskirts of attention. Even Stu, the one person who might understand her, had fallen down her list so far that she allowed herself the revelation that she didn’t even need him anymore.

All she needed was his seed. For that matter, anyone’s seed would do.

The whole world had moved on. Moved on without Ben. How dare they. How dare they. But now, Penny had an off-ramp. She had an escape pod from which to jettison herself from everything and anything.

All she needed was her own baby, to be with child. Her child.

And so, after all the flights to London for the fertility experts and after trial after trial, she found herself in the passenger seat with Stu, driving to their (her) last hope.

Thirstain Manor.

It was the most exclusive private fertility facility in Europe, and had been referred to them “off market”. They had just about bankrupted themselves to cover the fees. It was a two-week residential stay and, according to the video interviews they had conducted with Dr Speer, they guaranteed results. Thirstain Manor was not listed online; not part of the NHS, and not even registered on Google maps other than as an old stately home in the wild Highlands of Scotland.

As they drove into the grounds, Stu cleared his throat.

Penny turned to look at the grounds, away from him, in order to roll her eyes. It was a sure sign he was going to say something awkward.

“Before we go through with this, Penny…”

“You mean before I go through with it. Not much you have to do really, is there, Stu.”

“We’re in this together, Penny. If this works, we need to be in it together.”

He looked at his wife, heart-broken with the wraith she had become. Ben’s death had broken them both and they really had no business being together anymore. He had loved her, loved her even more after the loss of his boy, but since she had become so fixated on getting pregnant again he had watched his wife morph into something … something he couldn’t bear to describe.

They stepped out of the car together, the stones crunching underfoot and the chilled air gripping at their necks. Stu grabbed their suitcase, and walked in. Penny turned to look around before she followed Stu. The grounds of Thirstain Manor were impressive. It was a sharp late winter morning in the north of Scotland, and the trees had a slight touch of frost, but the skies were blue and beautiful. She saw a V-shaped flock of birds flying together, heading somewhere else to make a new life for themselves. That must be so … refreshing, she thought.

She hoped this snapshot of the world, one in which she was childless and barren and staring at the vastness of the skies would be her last of this life, and entering Thirstain Manor would be like crossing a cosmic threshold to her new self; her life as a mother, her life with the baby Dr Speer had promised.

She watched her husband drag the case inside, loveless and detached. She had no intention whatsoever of keeping Stu around. She would let him chew on that little morsel of reality after she was carrying.

Stu was a clamped spring of nervous energy. He had been deeply uncomfortable with how the referral to Thirstain Manor came about. It was all “off the beaten track”, outside of the formal processes. Penny had been approached by another woman at a clinic, her head swollen with self-importance, just like her very obvious baby bump. The woman had very flushed skin, like she was thoroughly embarrassed, though her behaviour suggested otherwise.

“You must take yourself to Thirstain Manor,” she had whispered conspiratorially, and so began their journey.

She had given Penny a mobile number and an interview had been arranged. Stu ignored the obvious warning sign that this had occurred not in a medical facility or even a business premises. Instead, after some initial to-and-fro on emails and calls, they had met Dr Speer in a private hotel meeting room in Edinburgh. The doctor having satisfied himself that Penny was a suitable candidate, and the couple having signed so many NDAs, and the (significant) funds being transferred, he had given them the location of the facility.

“Thirstain Manor is not merely exclusive. Not merely private. It exists on the absolute fidelity and loyalty of our guests. It is imperative that you tell no one where you are going until after your stay with us.”

His face was ruddy and oily, but his command of his operation (and over his two newest clients) was impressive. He imposed a formidable, vital confidence upon Penny. This man is going to get me pregnant, she thought. She was left with no doubt. Money was irrelevant. All else was irrelevant. Stu had bristled at the pace at which it had all come together, but Penny was signed, sealed and delivered.

Perhaps some small part of her still longed for the love of her husband. Perhaps some small corner of her mind still loved Stu, was still in love with Stu, and perhaps her body still felt yearnings of attraction. But none of that mattered. When Ben died, his loss made her mind snap. Now, her heart, her mind, every sinew and every waking thought and dream had wrapped itself around a single focus, and Penny was entirely governed by a single thought. I must have a baby.

The receptionist was incredibly beautiful, and she gazed at Stu with such allure that Penny thought she might even be part of the process, to get his blood pumping. They were asked to wait a moment whilst an attendant took their bags to their room. The man, looking flush from activity, appeared and whisked himself away again within moments with a bow.

Stu paid the attendant little heed, as he gazed at the receptionist (how could he not?). Penny caught her eye and noticed she was red-faced, perhaps from having been snagged staring at her husband from her desk. The receptionist took out a fan and waved it at her face. Her eyes never left Stu, sultry and inviting.

Dr Speer appeared. Ignoring Stu, he shook Penny’s hand. “Welcome, Penny. Today is the first day of the rest of your life. We are so pleased to have you join the Thirstain family.”

There was a curt nod to Stu in there somewhere, but the doctor’s focus was clearly on fussing over Penny, and took her, with Stu in the rear, on a little tour. They spent little time in the clinical facility itself, and more in the guests lounge, where they came across a woman standing to stretch her back as a waiter served her tea. “Welcome,” she smiled at them. “You’re in such safe hands here. We are all one big family, and with Dr Speer’s help, the family is getting bigger,” she said, patting her obvious bump.

Alone at last, in a sumptuous room with the most delicate tartan hues and what appeared to be original oil paintings of stags atop glorious purple hills, Stu bedded down. “Don’t you find all this …” he ventured, but Penny cut him off. “Stu, if you ever loved me at all, then for Christ sake grow a pair. This is my last chance and I’m damn well taking it.”

And then, she hissed at him. “I’ll do whatever it takes to become a mother again. Whatever it takes.”

Doctor Speer had ordered an early night for both of them, so with a low-key “good night,” she turned off her lamp and settled down, making it clear she was not for further chat.

Stu lay there, breathing deeply, his eyes closed. His mind was a walled maze and he was running through it. All around him, the crying of babies. He ran from the noise at first, then, thoughts of Ben glimpsing here and there, he ran toward it to help. He called out to them. Where are you? Let me save you! And then the babies appeared through cracks in the walls, crying, bawling, their faces red, a deep crimson, unnatural and inhuman.

The next thing he knew, it was morning, and the door was knocking. It was one of the attendants. “Doctor Speer would like Penny down first, if you please,” he had explained. She showered and made her move downstairs with an uneasy, unnerving haste.

In the room alone, her absence nipped at him. But he knew, somehow already knew, that she had been absent from him since Ben’s death. He had barely been able to mourn his son; how could he mourn his marriage?

Room service arrived for him; scrambled eggs he had not ordered. The tray had a little note. You must eat everything. Every little bit. After, please come down for 10am.

His stomach was still turning from the awful screams of the baby in his nightmare, and he passed on everything. The eggs looked tempting, but had a very strange, sulphurous smell. He had a long shower. Dressed, he made his way down. The main reception was empty. He wandered through to the lounge. Also empty. So strange. “Doctor Speer? Penny?” Nothing.

He ventured down the corridor towards the treatment and clinical rooms. As he did, a chill ran down his neck. Something was terribly wrong. He came to a door. It was marked VIEWING ROOM. As he lifted his hand, he noticed it was trembling. His whole body was trembling.

He opened the door. Three women, all extremely pregnant, were sat up on beds facing him. One was the lady from the lounge last night, who had been stretching her back. Each had proud, pregnant bellies exposed. But their skin! Their eyes! Stu felt his bowels clench in terror. The women were not human. Couldn’t be. Their skin was flushing red, cycling back and forth like a sea creature warning a predator.

“You didn’t eat the eggs!” one shouted at him, pressing an alarm button. The others looked around at each other in fear – in fear of Stu. “He hasn’t eaten the eggs!” they cried.

He saw the skin of their bellies squirm and his eyes were drawn to the screens. They were, all of them, watching a live feed of their own babies. But the things jerking and moving on the screens were not babies. At least, not human babies. They were … they were something else.

The monstrous infants were wriggling and kicking on the screens, but as Stu gasped in horror, they, each of them, all came to a stop. Now, each foetus was completely still, as if watching him.

And he thought he heard two words clearly in his mind. Two words and no more.

“Deliver us.”

It was an instruction: an order his mind reeled from.

One of the pregnant women reached her hand out to him, sitting up to stretch out. She opened her mouth, her skin changing colours like a kaleidoscope before him, and as he thought she would cry at him to save her from the wretch in her belly, she instead screamed at him, pointing an incriminating finger which changed colours from peach to red to pink to crimson. The others joined, and he stumbled back against the wall. He looked up at the screens behind him and – dear God – the babies were screaming at him too, screaming and pointing their undeveloped hands at him, and he somehow knew they all had red skin, red like the babies in his dream.

Was this all still a dream? “Penny!” He screamed. He fled the viewing room, banging through door after door to find her. “Penny!”

And then; she appeared at the end of a corridor. “Stop running, you idiot,” she scolded. She then, very calmly, turned away and walked into one of the rooms.

“We have to get the hell out, Penny! They’re not human! Do you hear me? They’re not human!” he cried after her. He reached the door and his eyes threw a wild look at the nameplate. DOCTOR SPEER.

He banged against the doctor’s door, again and again, jarring his shoulder.

“Stu,” Penny said from behind the door. He sensed no fear, no terror. If anything, it was a tone he knew so well. A tone of boredom.

“Please stop all this, Stu. I’m fine. Just come in and talk to me.”

He took a step back and found himself leaning against the wall rubbing his shoulder.

It was Dr Speer who spoke next. “Stu, I’m going to open the door now. Penny is in no danger. The baby is in no danger.”

“The baby? What baby?”

Then, a click. The door opened. The doctor stood, his ruddy neck and face pulsing, beating a deep crimson red, just like the pregnant women. He’s not human. They’re not human! Next to the doctor stood the receptionist. Her face, flushed with florid beauty, now also pulsed red. And then they both parted, and Stu faced terror. He faced the true fear of the unknown, of the unknowable, as his wife emerged from behind them, and he saw that she too had pulsing red skin.

She was one of them! Penny was one of these … invaders! His mind flew in different directions, unable to comprehend it all, and he sobbed. “Penny, what’s happened to you? What’s happened to us?” he cried.

“It’s all rather beautiful, actually,” she said.

“They’re much like us, quite a lot like us in fact. But they need our help to bring their children into our glorious world. They’ve given me this chance, Stu. They’ve given me one of their own red children. They have so many of them, all sleeping here; don’t you see? They’ve been sleeping as they travelled here to find their new home, waiting for their new mothers to bear them into this world. And now, Stu, I have been chosen, I will be a mother. I will be this child’s mother, Stu. All the women here will be allowed to be mothers … mothers to the red children they bear.”

“What are you saying, Penny? They’ve put something in you! That’s not our child! It’s … not even human!”

“That matters not. Not anymore. It’s my child, Stu. I am its mother now. You wouldn’t understand. You never could understand when we lost Be- … when we lost our son. What that meant to me; what it did to me. He was part of my body, part of me. And then, he was gone. How could you truly understand? Now, they have given me a chance to be a mother again. They have blessed me with one of their precious, precious red children. My little fellow grows inside me now, and I will be his mother … for all time.”

“Penny, Penny, no – for God’s sake, no!” he moaned.

She stepped forward, and ran her hand over his craggy, broken face.

“It’s a boy,” she whispered.

And he saw in her eyes that she had accepted it, accepted all of it. Tears came, and he mewled her name. He saw that his wife was gone, replaced by a monster who had allowed herself to become the mother of something inhuman, if only to be a mother again. And he saw that she had lost herself, that he had lost her, they had lost each other.

As he forced himself to look at the pulsing skin of Dr Speer, he realised he himself was lost. There was no way he could be allowed to leave, knowing what he knew and seeing what he had seen. Knowing that these babies were not human, but from some other place, was knowledge he could not take back to the world.

Penny stared at him and her eyes were devoid of humanity, and as he watched her he could already see her petting and rubbing at what was inside her. Whatever they put in her was now controlling her, speaking to her like the voices he had heard in the Viewing Room. But it was more than that; it was much worse than that. He realised with shame and terror that … that she wanted this. To be a mother again, at any and all costs.

Attendants appeared from behind, flanking him. As they held him down and Dr Speer placed a needle in his veins, Penny approached, both hands rubbing her stomach.

“Won’t you at least be happy for me now, Stu? I’m going to be a mother again.”

His struggling ceased and he forced out his final words before the injection robbed him of the last of his life, and he was forced to stare at her preening monstrousness, and at these others around him and on top of him, with their scowling, red faces full of condescension. But then another face came to his wandering mind. A happy, friendly, loving face.

“Oh Penny, you’re lost. But I’m going to be with him. I can see him now. He’s come for his daddy, to welcome me. But you won’t have him. You won’t ever have Ben. But I’m going to him now. He and I, we’ll be together.”

“Then go!” she spat. “I don’t need Be- … Be- … him anymore. I have my little red fellow, now. He’s all I need.”

And as his lungs burned, as his brain died, as his heart liquefied inside his own body, he knew then that she was no longer Penny, no longer human. She could not even say her son’s name, and her face pulsed red with the rest of them. Perhaps, he thought, the change in her had happened long before they ever came to this place.

But he could say Ben’s name. He would say it now, at the last.

With his final ounce of strength and sentience, he whispered his son’s name aloud. And it was his son he thought of, that beautiful boy with the cheeky laugh. Ben had been nowhere, but in Stu’s final thoughts, he was everywhere. Stu heard his son’s laugh, heard it curling down the deep well of his own vanishing consciousness, and it comforted him.

And then, he heard no more.

Author biography:

JS Apsley is the pen name of a Glasgow based noir and horror author. He won the Ringwood Publishing short story prize in 2024 with his debut fiction submission and has now placed over fifty short stories in journals and magazines around the world. You can uncover his work at http://www.jsapsley.com.