All American Horror of the 21st Century

The Albright Sextuplets. Norman Prentiss-2

Shoving the proof in Mosley’s doubting face would be a nice side benefit, too, I admit.

He could laugh about conspiracy theories all he wanted, say that too many other people would know—photographers, marketers, executives at Diamond, Health Mart, or Baby Town. Too many to keep a secret, Mosley argued. But I still say it’s in their best interest to stay quiet: they’re making money off the “sextuplets,” as much as the family is or more. So I’ve answered Mosley’s only objection, but he never made one dent in the case I’ve lined up here. Clear facts, with pictures and televised video as documentary evidence.

I decided to get more evidence, since that’s what Mosley seemed to require.

Think I couldn’t just waltz right in? There was another photo shoot scheduled at the Albright house: I knew, since they always placed a special lunch order for the crew. Those photographers eat a lot, let me tell you. Between the crew, and a week’s worth of groceries for two adults, a housekeeper, and however many of the sextuplets aren’t too ill for solid food (don’t think they really eat that canned Health Mart crap, do you?)—well, that’s a lot of trips back and forth from my delivery van.

That big house, I knew it shouldn’t be too hard to get “lost” in some hallway after I set down the last of the grocery bags.-6-

When I brought each bag into the kitchen, the housekeeper unloaded items into the cabinet or refrigerator. She also started to lay out a few sandwich plates for the photo crew, and emptied a one-pound bag of potato chips into a clear plastic bowl.

Next to the bowl of chips, a baby monitor stood upright on the counter. A red light shone beside the speaker’s volume control.

Through the sliding glass doors, I had a decent view of the cement patio and parts of the back yard. Photographers positioned tripods and held up light meters, while assistants emptied Hefty bags of “autumn leaves” into an artful pile beneath a lush, green oak. (Another bit of camera trickery: ads need to be placed and printed several months before magazines actually hit the stands, so they need to falsify the seasons, scratching over fresh leaves to uncover stiff bark and barren limbs). Mr. Albright sat with the toddlers in the garden gazebo, but I couldn’t see well enough to get a clear count. Jean-Marie spoke to one of the photographers, an angry finger alternating jabs at the gazebo, then at the pile of leaves. From her expression, it was clear she was yelling.

None of the outside noise registered on the baby monitor. If all the kids were in the gazebo with their father, the other monitor should be with them, broadcasting the commotion to its paired speaker on the kitchen counter.

The other monitor was somewhere else.

I mumbled at the housekeeper, a vague “I’ll let myself out.” She barely responded, busy spooning Cole slaw onto each sandwich plate.

Easy enough for me to detour up the staircase instead of out the front door. My feet tread silently on plush carpeted steps. I ducked into the first room at the top of the landing, a darkened bathroom that faced the back of the house.

My heart was beating pretty fast, and I took a second to catch my breath. I reached for the plastic rod to twist open the mini-blinds covering the small window. Through the slats I saw the yard below, Jean-Marie still yelling directions at the main photographer. Four kids were now carefully positioned in the pile of artificial leaves. I unhooked the latch and lifted the window a few inches.

Her voice carried: “I’m not bringing Alice or Andrew down from their nap until you set this shot up right. I know the best angles for them. That’s Adam, you i***t! Amber, smile for mommy. Good girl.”

Four kids down there. I wondered if my count had been a little off, if Amber was still healthy and presentable, unlike her two “napping” siblings.

Was that how Jean-Marie operated? Did she maintain the pretense of six simply with a constant stream of references to Alice and Andrew—perpetually off-stage in the nursery, but never, never ready for their close-up?

I knew where to find out. Last November’s Home Decorator Digest did a spread on the Albright nursery. The accompanying story explained how they’d knocked out walls between three adjoining bedrooms to create a wide-open colorful space for their sextuplets. The boys’ cribs were evenly positioned in one end, the girls’ cribs in another, with a large, carpeted play area separating the two. In the pictures, mobiles of butterflies and birds and ladybugs hung from the ceiling; wooden chests, overflowing with toys, were parallel parked against the long wall. In keeping with the family name, the color scheme was bright pastels, from lime sherbet wallpaper to a dreamsicle orange sofa and lemon end tables.

According to the article, the nursery was upstairs in the south-west quadrant of the house to maximize exposure to natural light. I slipped out of the bathroom and turned left.

All three doors were closed, but I didn’t hear anything when I placed my ear against them. I slowly opened the door on the right—the girls’ section of the nursery.

The bottom of the door whispered against the tufts of carpet, then hit a dull thump after I’d barely opened it a crack. I peeked inside to check if anybody was watching the kids, but the room was mostly dark. I nudged the door with my shoulder, and heard the muffled scratch of wood against cardboard. I pushed harder, and something buckled, giving me barely enough space to slide inside.

I thought I’d blundered into a storage closet. Boxes filled the room, some of them open, bubble wrap and gift bows tossed aside to reveal stuffed bears or rattles or tiny sets of matching clothes. Others boxes were stacked, unopened, in perilous towers.

Between these towers I saw familiar butterflies and birds and ladybugs. I brushed the closest mobile away from my head and stepped carefully into a make-shift aisle between boxes. I shut the door behind me, losing the faint illumination from the hallway. Eventually my eyes adjusted.

The center play area was clogged with junk—although I saw a thin trail that might eventually connect with the boys’ side of the nursery. Cardboard towers blocked most sections of window, but a few patches of sunlight filtered through. Next to the doorframe I found a panel with three switches, and a metal rod with a missing dimmer knob. The middle switch powered a faint bank of overhead lights on this side of the room, and by twisting my fingernail into the end of the dimmer rod I was able to get a little extra wattage.

Enough to help me locate the cribs. I counted five on this side of the room. Three were the same size, and empty. Another was missing its front legs, as if abandoned before the assembly was complete. A wooden rocking chair sat near the foot of the fifth crib, and a long low box served as a coffee table holding two issues of People magazine, a Kleenex box, and the missing baby monitor.

I reached down and clicked the monitor to “off.”

The fifth crib was the largest, its sides reaching nearly to chest height. Dark cloth padded the support bars, pressed so close together I couldn’t see through the sides of the crib. I had to step closer to look over the rim.

Then I discovered what must have made Alice and Andrew sick. I felt like throwing up, myself.

Because something else had come out with the six. Something awful ...-7-

Septuplets.

Even more miraculous a number, of course. But having seven perfect babies is almost astronomically impossible. Openly claim the six. Six is enough to amaze and charm the public. Better to hide the other one.

Couldn’t tell if it was a boy or a girl. The thing had dark hair where it shouldn’t, on its neck and on the crescent of stomach where its T-shirt lifted slightly above the waist. Its arms and legs were hairy too—if you could call them arms and legs. More like flat, ridged paddles of flesh.

The head was too large, the size of an adult’s, and oh God, its face ... Staring into its concave face was like looking down into a big bowl of rotten strawberries. Lots of pulpy bumps, a pinched newborn redness aged and spoiled into mush. Dotted with yellow-white seeds, black bristles, leafy green mold. And a juicy wet shine over the whole nasty bushel.

I cupped my fist over my mouth to hold back a scream.

A wilted leaf fluttered, and something like a filmy, pink eye blinked open beneath.

In that instant, and I knew what I had to do to help the other children.

I reached into the crib and grabbed the creature by the throat. That single eye bulged, and a line tore open and hissed from the side of its head, awful grey teeth gnashing. Hairy limbs flapped at the air in angry circles.

Near the end, that thing tried to trick me. It showed me Alice, cute little Alice struggling sweetly beneath me. The trick was fake, though, like in a low-budget ‘50s movie when a dead werewolf dissolves cheaply into human form.

I concentrated on my tightening hands instead, the way my forefingers turned white and red, and how my thumbs overlapped and pushed into the fake smooth neck the monster showed me.

I heard a muffled baby’s cry. Andrew, I’d guess, wailing across the maze of boxes from the boys’ side of the nursery. His cries gave me strength. I thought of how the Albrights must have allowed this monster to play with its siblings, terrifying the weakest of them, or infecting poor Alice or Andrew with some awful contagious deformity.

I put a stop to it.

The housekeeper came running in. Maybe she got some kind of warning beep when I turned off the baby monitor. Didn’t matter. She was too late.

She took one look in the crib, then ordered me out of the nursery, out of the Albright house—and you can bet I didn’t wait around for Jean-Marie or her fireman husband to show up.

Never did get a glimpse of Andrew or Alice.

This would be what you call a confession, I guess. Except nobody’s ever come to ask me what happened.

Which goes to show you, all along, the Albrights have only cared about money. No need for them to have the police hunt me down and charge me with trespassing. No need for the family to hold a funeral for an inconvenient, monstrous baby that the public never knew existed. The Albrights covered it up. All they ever cared about was keeping the advertising deals.

Another bit of new proof I had, for Mosley, is that the Albrights stopped having groceries delivered from our store.

And one more update. The Albright sextuplets just landed an account with Toy Castle. Six toddlers are pictured on a huge new billboard they slapped up over Route 83.

I can’t bear to look at it.

* * *

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