Zach wrapped his arms around her from behind, rubbing his fingertips over her bulging belly. “I think you look cute, especially out of the jeans.” He pushed against her buttocks.

“All I feel is fat. Fat and tired.”

Disappointed, Zach released her and grabbed his guitar from the case on the floor. “A lullaby, then.” He began at a moderate pace, finger-picking a gentle tune that soon faded into a slow, quiet rhythm.

Courtney crawled into bed and pulled the comforter around her neck. The house was silent save for the slow vibration of guitar strings. Dark too. She wasn’t used to that much darkness. After tonight, he’ll be ready to go, she thought. She tried to think more, but the trip had worn on her, the music rang too sweet, and she slipped into sleep.

She was in the driver’s seat of Zach’s Civic with her foot smashed against the accelerator. The needle on the speedometer had already crested eighty-five, and now flickered at the bottom of the gauge. Her eyes were stone. Her hands stone upon the steering wheel. Her foot was stone too, crushing the gas pedal.

I shouldn’t drive this fast — the baby. She glanced down at her flat stomach. The baby?

A flash, she lurched, found herself lying on her back, facing the stars. Faces surrounded her, grey, leering faces. They smiled, opened their mouths, and rats writhed out, crawling down dark limbs, pouring toward her —

Courtney woke, sweating, under the pinching discomfort of a Braxton-hicks contraction. “Shit,” she muttered. Zach was gone. When the contraction subsided, she slipped from the bed, bristling at the icy air in the farm house. The place reeked of dirt and mud with years of farm work floating in the air.

She found Zach in front of the picture window in the living room.

“It’s so quiet out here,” he said without facing her.