"For looking at your wife naked?"

"For putting that dead baby in her."

"I didn't do it," said Bag Man. "You think I got the power to do this? Drop dead, fool, this ain't my style." He grinned when he said it, but this time Byron refused to be placated.

"Get out of my house," said Byron.

"That's what I was planning to do," said Bag Man. "But first I got a question for you."

"Just get out."

"You want to forget this, or remember?"

"I'm never gonna forget you and what you did. If I see you in the street, I'll run you down."

"Oh, don't worry, you ain't gonna see me, not for a long time, anyway, but go ahead and run me down if you can."

"I told you to get out."

"So... one for remembering, the rest for not," said Bag Man. "Your order will be ready in a minute, sir." Bag Man winked and went back out the door, carrying the dead newborn in the plastic bag.

Is this where those dumpster babies come from? Not pregnant teenagers at all.

And those really fat women who give birth without ever knowing they were pregnant. Nadine once said, How can they not know? Well, what if it was like this? What if some voodoo man did it?

Or maybe he really was a hypnotist. Maybe none of this happened. Maybe when I wake up it'll turn out not to be real.

Except when he touched them, the sheets were wet with amniotic fluid and blood.

He got Nadine awake enough to move while he got the sheet and mattress pad out from under her. As he feared, it had gone clear through to the mattress. It was never coming out of there. They'd have to buy a new one.

And these sheets? They weren't going in the laundry. He got a plastic garbage bag from the cabinet under the bathroom sink and stuffed the bottom sheet and the mattress pad into it.

As he went back into the bedroom, Nadine padded by him toward the bathroom. "That's a good idea," she murmured.

"Washing the sheets. Time to change the sheets," she said. "Did you get dinner?"