A Valiantremnant original
Pre-story notes: Have you ever driven through Nebraska to Colorado? If you haven't, let me set the stage for you. You have the interstate, a simple highway cutting through a vast empty expanse, and that's it. It's the only sign that humanity has ever existed. To quote James May, it's probably what the world looked like on page three of the book of Genesis. Exits are few and far between, and on more than one of them, the only thing at these exits is a single gas station, usually with no one there if it's after ten in the evening. As near as I can tell, it's the single most empty place to drive in the U.S., though I could be wrong. I found the isolation inspiring.
Elizabeth sighed as she rubbed her eyes. Years ago, when they'd first come out, she never thought she'd ever consider buying an electric car, but now, the one she had, whisper quiet and with an actually decent auto-pilot? She could recline a bit and relax. It was a car from a smaller, start-up company called Conduit, which overall was a nice alternative to any of the big names in that field. So she was able to recline comfortably back in the driver's seat of her little Conduit Accel as it whirred down the interstate. The sun had set hours ago, and she was still only about halfway through the mostly empty state of Nebraska. She didn't know why it gotten such a bad reputation for smell, because even at nine months pregnant, bloodhound nose and all, Elizabeth could smell nothing out of the ordinary for vast expanses of farmland.
"Eh, maybe it's seasonal," She decided as she adjusted herself in the seat.
Just because she had more options to get comfortable in a car she didn't have to drive didn't mean that she was having any luck find a position that wasn't uncomfortable. And as she huffed as she readjusted herself, she felt another discomfort.
"Spill detected," The pleasant voice of the car intoned, letting her know that a liquid had been spilled on the floor of the vehicle.
"Uhhh, no kidding," Liz said as she looked down.
She'd been trying to find a way she could recline without the pressure of her still high belly aggravating her when a small shift, maybe a bump in the road, maybe just a little too much pressure from her seat belt, or maybe it was just time, but her water had broken, and was dripping and pooling under her on the seat.
"Accel, where is the nearest hospital?"
"Searching… searching… signal low… searching… Adam's Memorial Hospital is Approximately one hundred and ten miles from your present location. Would you like me to reroute? "
"Shit… Accel, please reroute to that hospital."
"Rerouting… Please note, that maximum range at this time is fifty-seven miles."
"Goddamnit!" Liz shouted, shifting uncomfortably as she felt something massive seem to settle in her hips.
Normally, she was pretty easy going, but prolonged discomfort would take the smile off of anyone.
"Accel, is there a charging point on the way?"
"Searching… signal low… searching… Eco Mart Service Station is located forty miles on the selected route."
"Accel, go there."
"Accepted."
The car blinked it's signal and began exiting the interstate, headed to the service station.
Before she had gone more than ten miles, Liz had started having contractions. Her phone service had pretty much completely gone, and the car's autopilot was driving on it's own built in memory now.
"Ohhhhhh goooooddddddd," She moaned as the car drove on, the speed never wavering by even a single mile. Soon, the empty night of the drive was interrupted by the faint glow ahead of the service station. The car expertly exited the highway and drove to the station. Liz slowly sat the seat up, gasping as she changed position and drove more pressure into her cervix. Gritting her teeth, she looked through tear streaked eyes until she saw the charging station. It wasn't much of one, a simple post with a card reader next to it. Elizabeth figured that a quick charge, maybe a half hour or so should get her enough of a charge to make it to the hospital. If there wasn't much range once she got there, she would deal with the problem then. Pulling up to the post, Liz turned off the car and got out, gasping as the full weight of the baby suddenly lurched down. She paused, turning to lean on the roof of the car, swaying her hips as the contraction peaked and released her.
"Fucking hell, this is too fast," She panted, waddling over, her hips unaccustomed to the solid mass of a head nestled between them, and running her car through the reader. The Post lit up green and Liz grabbed the cable, popping the latch on the charging port on her car, plugging it in, and out of habit, flicking the trigger on the inside of the flap. As the car made a whirring and clicking noise, Liz froze and looked down with horror. Back at her apartment, she was in the habit of triggering the LockDown! setting to stop the kids in her building from unplugging it overnight.
"No. No, no, no, no, no, no, NO!" She cried, wrapping her hand around the cable and tugging at it.
It was no good, the car had locked itself around the cable. It wasn't going to release it.
Liz got into the car can turned on the onboard computer.
"Come on, come on…" She muttered, flipping through settings, stopping as she had yet another contraction.
This one drove the breath from her lungs, stopping her from doing anything other than hold a hand to her belly and freeze, waiting the contraction out. When it finally released her, she found the LockDown! settings.
"Great, now let's see…" She said under her breath as she tapped release. She didn't hear anything.
Frowning, Liz heaved herself out of the low slung car again, and checked the cable. Still locked in. Returning to the cabin, but this time just leaning in, Liz tapped the release again. Still nothing.
"What the hell?" She shouted, climbing back in and tapping the release control yet again.
This time, an error message scrolled across the screen,
'Sorry, the LockDown! feature cannot be manually disengaged until a minimum charge of seventy-five percent has been reached.'
Liz looked at the battery indicator. It was pulsing red, with a disheartening fifteen percent next to it.
It was warm enough that sitting in the car while it was off was uncomfortable, so Elizabeth waddled back and forth across the small parking lot of the service station. It wasn't completely shut down, with the big monument sign blaring the name across the landscape in neon letters, and the yellow bulbs of the canopy over the gas pumps providing enough light to see her surroundings. Outside of the yellow circle of light however, it was blacker than her car's tires. She paced back and forth, huffing and groaning through contractions as they came. She had already checked her phone and found that she had no signal at all. There was a payphone, but the handset was missing from it, and regardless, not only did she not actually have any change in her car, she doubted the thing was still connected, even if it was in one piece. The station itself was also not an option, the doors were all locked and the only lights from within were from the coolers. A sign on the door said that it would be open by six in the morning, a good seven hours away at this point. So now Liz was laboring, alone, and unable to call for help in the middle of nowhere. As she stopped her pacing and bent over as another contraction took her breath away, she checked her phone. She couldn't call with it, but it still told her the time. eleven-thirty. On some level, it pleased her that her contractions were not only staying at five minutes apart, but that they were on tens and fives on the clock. On another level, she found it hard to be pleased by anything as she groaned loudly in the quiet night. She had been pacing for thirty minutes now, and had waddled back to the car to check the charging progress. The display lit up and cheerily displayed a heartbreaking twenty percent. She closed her eyes and ran through the numbers in her head.
"So if it's been half an hour, added five percent… OW!"
Liz was standing outside of the car and leaning in, resting her hands on the driver's seat, and the new position was not comfortable. Her legs buckled and she thrashed, working her way out of the car. Elizabeth twisted and landed hard on the ground, gasping as she impacted the loose gravel that had been carried over the old cracked asphalt.
"OW! Holy fuck that hurt…" She whined, rubbing her belly.
The contraction passed as quickly as any of the others had, and she slowly got herself back up. It felt like her tailbone was bruised, and she had to wipe dirt from her pants, which were still damp from her water breaking. Waddling over to one of the gas pumps, she got a squirt of hand sanitizer from the only dispenser that had any in it and wiped her hands dry on a paper towel from one of the window washing buckets.
"Right… so if I got five percent in a half hour… It's going to be damn near six before I can get out of here!" She complained, working the numbers out.
"HUUUUUUAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!" Liz screamed an hour later.
She'd resigned herself to laboring here until her car would unlock. She made a note to talk to someone at Conduit, and see if she could convince them to change the LockDown! programming. But until then, she just paced back and forth, stopping only to scream her way through contractions. If nothing else, maybe she could get the attention of someone. Unfortunately, Elizabeth didn't think that was likely, since she hadn't seen a car since she'd pulled off the interstate two hours ago. So she paced, shouted and every few contractions, would check the charge level of the car. It was steadily creeping up, and she resolved to look at it less frequently, as she felt that every minute she could cut the charge time short on the Accel mattered. The contraction timing app on her phone had told her more than once that she should head to the hospital, and she had nearly thrown the damn thing into a field as a result. She knew she should be at a hospital, and if her brain hadn't been so fogged from her contractions, she might have gotten there by now.
"Oh god, here comes another one… HUUUUUUUAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRGGGGHHHH! AHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"
On and on her contractions went, never speeding up, but the pressure was getting worse. She had been leaking more and more amniotic fluid as she went, and every now and then would check the color. It was still pretty much clear, with light pink tinges through it. From the little she knew of birth, she assumed that meant nothing was wrong. At least it wasn't green. The temperature had gone up slightly, but fortunately it was still dry. Liz had a bottle of water in her car, but had been rationing it. She didn't know how long she would be laboring for, and didn't want to run out before she had a chance to get to a hospital. She had just paced to the far edge of the service station's parking lot and was howling her way through another contraction when she heard something. Something that sent a blade of ice into her heart.
'AWWWWWWOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO'
Liz felt her blood run cold as she heard the animalistic howl. She'd heard it on tv many times, but only once or twice in real life. It was a wolf. And it sounded close.
"Oh god," She whimpered, "Oh god oh god oh godddd."
Her panicked rambling cut off as she felt another contraction.
"HUUUAAAAAAnnnnngnggggggggmph," She groaned, clamping a hand over her mouth and stifling the howling screaming she had been doing, the sound that had probably alerted the predator.
When the contraction ended, she removed her hand, her breath sounding loud and rasping in her ears as she gulped in air.
"Maybe… maybe it's far away," She muttered to herself, feeling shaky from fear. She looked back and forth, and had just started turning to head back to her car when something caught her eye. Freezing, she slowly turned to look. Flicking her eyes back and forth, she tried to pick out what had caught her attention, but didn't see anything at first. Then, just beyond the glow of the service station lights, she saw a bright point of light. Two bright points, actually. Ones that never wavered, or moved. She looked at the glowing dots until they flicked, as if a pair of flashlights were turned off and on quickly. She blinked in surprise, and went numb as she realized. The dots didn't flicker. The EYES had BLINKED.
Elizabeth could remember what she had learned when she was younger about what to do if she saw a wolf. Afterward, she berated herself for her actions, remembering that she should ahve waved her arms, gotten loud and backed away slowly. What she actually did was stumble backwards, landing hard on her back and desperately scrambled to her feet, running for her car. She heard a deafening barking and snarling behind her, and she half waddled, half ran to her car, opening the door and scrambling in as fast as she could, slamming the door shut behind her, panting heavily. In the light of the canopy, she could see the wolf, for it was a wolf, slowing and howling in frustration. She heard it through the closed door of the car, and, more chillingly, heard answering howls. She began sobbing, regardless of the knowledge that there was no way a wolf could get to her in the car, terrified. She had been so close to… she didn't want to think about it. She collapsed against the steering wheel, her lungs hurting from her fear and her frightened crying. She didn't know how long she sat like that before she felt the next contraction.
"Oh…. AH! OWWWWWW! OH GOD!" She howled, wincing at how much louder her voice seemed to be in the enclosed space.
Liz had gotten a short break from the contractions as she raced to the safety of her car, but no more. They had returned, and seemed even stronger for it. The came faster now, and she could swear she could feel her hips splitting apart.
"I just want to get ouuuuuttt!" Elizabeth cried a number of contractions later.
The wolves, the first had been joined by a few others had kept trotting around the parking lot, keeping Liz trapped in her car. Her back was on fire, being force to sit in her car's seat this entire time. She had tried reclining the seat, but with the car off, she couldn't move the thing, and she found that as long as the car was plugged in, she couldn't recline it. The only features she could access were some basic settings and the charger indicator. She was sitting at fifty percent now, more than enough to reach the hospital, but still not enough to let the LockDown! feature disengage. So for now, she tried to labor in the bucket seat of the car she was now regretting buying. As each contraction came, she let herself scream as she put one hand on a door and the other on the center console, trying to lift herself up. Getting her hips free of the seat almost felt like giving them room to spread apart, which felt awful, but better than staying immobile. As each contraction ended and she would gingerly lower herself back into the seat, Liz would rock back and forth, trying to ease her back. It slightly helped, but the seat, which had once felt soft and comfortable now felt as unyielding as a metal folding chair. As difficult as dealing with all of that was, Liz felt like she could have handled it if it weren't for one problem. It was getting warm. With the AC off in the car, the windows were quickly fogging up as she labored, sweat pouring off of her as she panted. The air felt thick and smelled stale, the salty scents of her sweat, the heady musk of amniotic fluid, and some sort of earthy smell she couldn't place.
It got to the point where she had to take her blouse off, the long sleeved shirt proving to be too warm for what she was doing. And by now, the fog on the windows would have hidden her from view anyway. She checked the charge level, and was surprised to see that it was nearly at sixty percent. She considered putting the AC on, but felt that she was close enough to a full charge that she could last until it was time to unplug and head for the hospital. She could make it… she could make it… She could.
"HUUUUUUUAAAAAARRRRGGGNNNNNNHHHHHHHHHHHH!" She screamed, the full throated vocalization trailing off into a prolonged whining grunt as she felt something seem to slam into her cervix. All of a sudden, she felt like she was sitting on a bowling ball and she panicked. Was that the head? Was it out? She reached down and felt through her pants, but didn't feel anything. She knew her pants would be a problem, but she couldn't even bear to bring herself to think of that right at this second. All she knew was that she had finally felt an urge to push. Unlike from all of the videos and classes she'd taken, it wasn't a mild urge, one that would build over time. This one felt as unstoppable as her heartbeat. She was certain that not pushing would kill her if she tried to resist. Doing her best to hold her butt off of the seat below her, Elizabeth gave in, pushing as hard as she could.
"NNNYYYYAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRGGGGGHHH!" She screamed a few contractions later.
Each contraction, Liz would start by taking a deep breath, as if she were about to dive underwater, haul her body up off of the seat to give everything room, and would push. But after only a few rounds of pushing like that, she began to grow light headed and was feeling dizzy from holding her breath. Now she held nothing back, screaming until her throat felt raw, her ears ringing at the painfully loud noises she made that were trapped by the car. Her forearms felt bruised from the strain she put on them to keep her swollen frame up, but there were nothing compared to the vile stretching she felt within. The head moved down so slowly, it was like watching molasses drip into a new jar. Each inch of progress was hard won, and each little victory came with a stretching that felt like a thousand ants biting her vagina. She reached down and her eyes widened. Her pants were still on, high waisted maternity leggings. With her blouse off, Liz could at least grab the waistband without any trouble, but doing so meant she had to let herself sag back into the seat.
"Ohhhh, ohhhhh GOD! OW!" She screamed as she attempted to gingerly lower herself back into the seat to get the leggings off.
The head was low enough now that moving down at all felt like she was shoving a bowling ball up her vagina. She frantically tugged at the uppermost portion of the high belly band of her leggings, but had to quickly shove herself back off of the seat as she began seeing stars from the pain. Before she could recover, she felt another contraction crushing her belly.
"HoooooooOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAAAAGHH! HHHHUUUUUAAAAAAAAANNNNNNGGGGGGGGGGGGG!"
Liz's jaw hurt from how hard she was clenching, certain that if she held it for much longer she might break a tooth. Just as she ran out of the strength to continue the push, the contraction left her, and she sagged, her shoulders hunched and digging into her neck as she slumped as best as she could while not fully sitting.
"Gotta… get… them… off!" Elizabeth grunted, and began shuffling her legs.
Liz moved her legs, trying to hook one sleeve on the bottom of her shoe and pull it down, but every time it caught and tugged a bit, it would slip off. She began to feel the same sort of frustration she would if she had to use the bathroom, or was too hot while driving. A sort of trapped hopelessness that was made worse by her entire situation. She was trapped in this parking lot, trapped in her car, and now she was trapped in her own pants. She began to cry, each hitching whimper aching her already overworked belly, a sensation that got worse as she contracted.
"No…. no why? HAGH! HNNNNNGGGGGGGG….."
She pushed, and felt burning in her crotch. She couldn't free one of her hands to check, but she could tell. Her vagina was beginning to bulge out. But even as she felt it, the burning subsided, and she shuddered as she could feel her vagina relaxing back again, the delicate folds catching on the now seemingly rough material of the leggings. As the contraction ebbed, Liz let her head fall back onto the seat. She winced as the clip holding her brunette hair back poked at her head as she did so. She wanted to reach up to pull the offending accessory out, but was still too afraid to move one of her hands to do so. She reluctantly raised her head back up, letting it fall forward towards her chest, gazing through tear streaked eyes at her heaving belly. She wanted to do nothing more than to rub soothing circles on it, to ease the knots building in it, but all she could do was look at herself, wondering how things could have come to this.
"Battery, seventy percent charged," The Accel's voice said pleasantly in Liz's ear.
She groaned. The car was so close to being ready. Another half hour and she could be on her way to the hospital, on her way to help… if only she could get out of the car to unplug it when it was time. At this point, Liz could no longer see or hear anything outside of the car, though that could be because the window was too fogged up to see anything at all. But even if she knew it was completely safe to exit, she no longer believed she was able to do so. Her arms were trembling, locked in position, holding her body off of the seat as she endured and pushed through contraction after contraction. If felt as if the baby were trying to get around a corner, and she knew that once it made it, the rest of the birth would be fast.
"HUUUAAAAAAAAAA! AH, AH, AH… AAAAAARRRRRRRRGGGGGHHH!"
The ringing in her ears was constant now, but she couldn't stop herself from vocalizing with every contraction at this point. It felt like the baby's head was wobbling, tilting back and forth in her pelvis, but no matter how hard she pushed, it wouldn't stay in the center. She didn't know how else to visualize the feeling, but she could also tell that with each push, it seemed to be wobbling less and less, getting closer and closer to a center. And with this push, she made it. The head seemed to balance, sitting so, so low in her birth canal, that it felt like she could sneeze and it would come out. But what she felt wasn't a sneeze. What she felt building was raw, primal, and beyond anything she had ever felt before, or even thought her body capable of. The next contraction brought with it, not an urge to push, but an instruction, an undeniable DEMAND that she push.
"HuuuuuaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR! HNNNNNNGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH! OH MY GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOD!" Elizabeth howled into confines of her car.
She could barely hear herself as she… she wasn't pushing. She was pushing. Everything she was, was devoted to the single effort. The pressure was so intense she felt like her belly might simply crush down into nothing, her baby expelled instantly. But it didn't happen like that. The sturdy, comfortable leggings she had practically lived in for the last month or so caught and slowed it. Her single mammoth effort brought the baby down from her cervix to nearly a full crown in a matter of seconds, stretching so fast that the burning she felt was indescribable. But even worse than that was the feeling of impotence. No matter how hard she pushed, the leggings resisted and pushed back at her. She could feel the stretchy material pulling tighter and tighter around her hips as the head bulged out, farther, and farther. She could feel that she was close… But as the contraction ended after an eternity of pushing and screaming, her uterus eased, and she gagged, feeling nearly nauseous as she felt the head slowly pushed back in by her leggings.
"No! NO! OH GOD PLEASE NO!" She sobbed as she felt her progress lost just as quickly as it was made. More than ever, she wanted to pull the waistband down. As the head seemed to fully retreat, Liz sobbed. She had no choice. The leggings simply HAD to be removed. She slowly, SLOWLY lowered herself to the seat, shaking and nearly hyperventilating at the sensation. She knew the head had gone back in, but it felt like she was sitting on it. Liz panted as she grabbed at her waistband with shaking fingers. SHe had to move fast!
She had no more than started her work, when the next contraction ripped into her much, much faster than it should have. Elizabeth writhed, but found moving unbearable as the same, overwhelming push possessed her again and drove the head down.
"OH MY GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOODDDDDDD! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"
Elizabeth could feel the head grinding down, crushing her perineum flat against the seat as she squirmed, trying to make room. The sensation of sitting on the head grew worse, and she bucked, trying to get enough leverage with her legs to lift herself. The feeling of her legs moving even a fraction of an inch tighter made everything worse, and she felt her body sag back down, her womb reacting violently to the sudden push against her efforts and drove down harder. Howling, Liz made one final attempt to shove her leggings down, but abandoned it quickly and scrabbled for the console, trying to heave herself up once again. Before she could, the contraction faded as soon as it had arrived, and she collapsed, sobbing. The pain from that single contraction had been worse than the rest of her labor combined. She would rather go through another twenty hours of her earlier contractions than suffer another one like that. Liz could barely see through the tears, but she didn't need to in order to find the console with her right hand and push herself back upright. Her shoulders burned and were stiff from the effort, but she had no other options. She was still sobbing when the next contraction took her, no more than thirty seconds after the last one. She pushed furiously along, or tried to add her conscious effort to the tidal wave of a push that ripped through her, as she felt the head blasting down yet again, slowing as it stretched the material of her leggings. She grit her teeth so hard her head was trembling at her efforts while she pushed. She put so much effort into the push that she couldn't even breathe. When the contraction finally let up, she was seeing stars from not breathing for so long, the baby kicking in protest at the lack of oxygen. The frantic thrashing in her belly made all the worse from how sore it was from all of her contractions. But her silence had let her hear something glorious. As the head slowly retreated, pushed along by her leggings, she could hear strands snapping. Only a few at first, but soon she could hear the sound of dozens of strands popping and failing.
"One… more…. HHHHHHHHHUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHH!" Liz screamed as the next contraction drove into her like a truck.
The head, which had only barely begun to retreat was thrust forward again. This time, she could feel the head shoved forwards with the contraction, the head pushing through to a full crown in seconds. Up until that point, Elizabeth had assumed that the contraction she had spent half collapsed while she fought her leggings was the most painful thing she could have experienced. She was wrong. The head sat, keeping her lips open wide.
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAIIIIIIIIIIIIEEEEEEEEEEE! GET….. OUUUUUUUUUUUTTTTTTTTTTT!" She bellowed, and her hips bucked, The motion was so violent, she felt her belly collide with the steering wheel, and she nearly let go with one hand to clutch at the impact, only keeping her upright position by the barest remaining will she had left. As she thrashed, she felt the head, mercifully, burst through, soaking her leggings with a small flood of fluids from her vagina.
"Oh my god! Oh…. ohhhhhhhhh. Oh my baby," She wept, shuddering as she felt the body turning inside her own. The next contraction seemed to lack the sheer intensity and power of the last few she had felt, but it still shoved the rest of the baby out, and as soon as she felt the legs come free, she collapsed, sitting in a puddle of her own fluids as she frantically pulled the waistband down, pulling her baby free.
"I got you… I got you baby… oh my baby…" Liz cried as she held her son for the first time.
"Battery at seventy-five percent. LockDown! can be manually disengaged."
Elizabeth had spent the last ten minutes doing her best to clean and cover her baby, feeding him as she looked for something to tie off the umbilical cord. Once she had done so, and hit the manual override on the protection feature she swore never to use again, she rubbed her arm against the window. The first faint light of dawn was starting to turn the sky from a solid black to a faint gray. The lights were still on in the parking lot of the service station, showing it to be as empty as it had been when she arrived. No wolves. Cautiously, Elizabeth opened her door, listening carefully for the sound of anything moving. Not hearing a single thing other than the constant chirping of crickets, she slowly hobbled around the car, clutching her baby to her chest with one arm. Her legs felt rubbery as she nearly collapsed against the car as she unplugged it and, lacking the willpower to recoil the cable, simply let the plug fall to the ground. Turning, Liz limped back to the driver's seat and closed the door, still sitting in the puddle she had made, and pushed the power button.
"Accel, continue to… What hospital were we headed for?"
"Adam's Memorial Hospital was the previous logged destination. Would you like to continue?"
"Yes," Liz said, feeling relief in her chest, "And please use fragile mode."
"Understood, fragile mode engaged."
Liz barely paid attention to the world outside as she looked down into the face of her perfect baby boy as the car drove her to the hospital.
"I guess this thing isn't all that bad," She muttered to herself as she began to doze off.