Being a house husband was never something I sought. It's just that I took the easy way out, and it was easy to do because it was logical. It all started with my wife, Dr. Kleidance, completing her archaeology degree and landing a job as an assistant to an influential art broker. We suddenly had a lot of money, and she was making roughly eighteen times more income than I was as a truck driver. Suddenly my CDL was about as impressive as a food handler's permit, compared to her new degree.

Me going back to school, at fifty, was her idea. At first, I felt out of place on campus, but somehow, I became immersed in the lifestyle. I had nothing to do but sit through lectures and write papers. Since I no longer had to worry about pissing clean, I could even own a bong. I'd finish my homework and spend half the day playing in the backyard. It was like an early retirement.

I'd give anything to go back to those days.

For me, it started while watching television. I was about to change the channel because I didn't want to see more atrocities committed against helpless villagers, with their farms burning in the background and their families and neighbors in a mass grave. That's when I saw the idol, a stack of skulls carved from solid rock, with red sacrifices dripping from it. I blinked, feeling a chill.

I recognized it, but only from my dreams. Somehow it wasn't something far away. I knew it well.

My wife, Dr. Kleidance, was abroad. I looked at my copy of her itinerary and shuddered. She was just across the border from the insurrection. I calculated it would be early evening over there, and called her hotel. "No, this is her husband. I'm trying to reach Dr. Kleidance." I had to say several times before the phone was handed to someone who spoke English better.

"I'm sorry for the confusion, Mr. Kleidance. Your wife was taken to hospital. There is a message from her associate, Professor Hujon. It is for you to call directly. She didn't have your number, so you'll have to call. Are you ready to write it?"

I went to the whiteboard on the fridge and wrote Professor Hujon's number.

"What happened to Camile?" I asked when I reached her. Professor Hujon apologized for not having my number ready and expressed relief that I had called.

"She's having the baby." Professor Hujon told me.

"What baby?" I asked. I'd seen my wife just six days earlier, she wasn't pregnant.

"What do you mean?" Professor Hujon sounded confused.

"My wife wasn't pregnant." I stammered. "How'd you not notice?'

"I haven't seen her in six months. She was pregnant when I arrived yesterday at the excavation. I must admit I am confused." Professor Hujon sounded bewildered.

"There must be some misunderstanding." I complained. "We are talking about Camile Kleidance, right?"

"Yes, and she's giving birth right now. The embassy has sent someone here, at my request. You have nothing to worry about." Professor Hujon tried to reassure me.

"I'm worried about my wife. She wasn't pregnant. Is there some way you can check and make sure there wasn't some kind of mistake?" I worried.

"There's no mistake, Mr. Kleidance. Everything is being handled correctly. I just worry that it's a little early, I mean why else would she come here if she was due?" Professor Hujon sounded a little admonishing.

I slowly, with trembling hands, hung up the phone. I sat down, quite confused. The thought of the soaked altar of skulls kept coming to my mind.

For the next couple of days, I paced in worry, unable to accept the reality of what I was told over the phone. I tried calling to reach Camile, but somehow my calls never made it to her. Instead, I was left waiting for her arrival.

When she came home her dark hair had turned brittle and white, and she looked aged and tired and weak. She carried no baby, and the sunken look in her eyes haunted me. She wouldn't speak or respond to me, and I worried about what had happened to her.

It was a quiet morning and a gentle snowfall had begun. I'd helped her out of bed and sat her at the small table in our dining area, kitchen adjacent. She just stared at nothing, as though she had never really come home.

"I love you." I said quietly to her. I had no idea how to bring her back, but my heart was breaking, seeing her so traumatized.

Somehow hearing me say that finally got a reaction out of her. She started crying and looked at me. It took a few moments but she said:

"I'm just glad to be home. It was awful."

We worked on it. She slowly started a recovery, and after some time, just before New Year's, she was holding a warm mug between her hands and said to me: "I suppose you want to know what happened."

"Only if you feel you could tell me." I tried to be reassuring, but I really did need to know.

"It started when I uncovered the idol of Dwimbhith. It was an old legend, to prove it was a real cult, that was quite the find. There was an accident, one of Professor Hujon's students, she - she fell on it. It was my hand that held the rag to clean the blood off the artifact. That night I experienced terrible pains, and by morning it was like I was four or five months pregnant. By the second day, I was ready to give birth. It was horrible. You see, Michael, the legend is true, and I am damned."

"The statue of skulls? I asked, shivering in dread at her morbid tone and slow diction.

"Dwimbhith was a demon born of seven brides, a bloodthirsty creature. The monks fought it to the last, and managed to behead it of all seven of its heads. Piled together, they turned to stone. That's the legend. Only the blood of believers could ever revive it, and so it was buried, to prevent such a thing. It was just a legend." Camile shook her head.

"What happened, at the hospital?" I asked. I regretted it when she just sobbed and shook, unable to say what had happened to her at the hospital.

Our home was silent, grave like and under an oppressive atmosphere. My wife spent most of her time in bed, leaving me to my worries and questions. It wasn't long before Dawn Caldwell was trying to reach her, leaving messages of condolence and questions about selling the idol. Was it authentic - or not?

Finally, I was on the phone with Ms. Caldwell. I could only tell her my wife was in no condition to deal with her. I couldn't decipher my wife's recommendation for the acquisition, that it was both certifiably authentic and also that it could not be sold.

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"This is most unfair, Mr. Kleidance. I have several bids approaching six zeroes, and your wife has not signed off on the legality of the sale. This is very unprofessional, and I am unhappy." Ms. Caldwell told me she was unhappy like I should be most worried about that unhappiness. I hung up the phone.

That night I witnessed the beginning of the awful horror with my own eyes. My wife lay in our bed, wracked by some unseen torment. Then, as she quieted down, I watched as her belly grew, and was awake all night in unbelieving dread. By morning she had regained consciousness and looked at me where I had kept sleepless vigil and then to her stomach. She let out a distressed moan, her eyes watered in anguish and terror.

"Not again." Camile sobbed.

I called a doctor and took her to the hospital, but they found nothing strange about her pregnancy and didn't seem to believe us that it had happened overnight. The ultrasound brought a different reaction.

"There must be something wrong with our equipment." the technician apologized and turned off the monitor. I confronted them with the doctor:

"We need to terminate this thing. It's no child." I told them.

The doctor shook his head. "That's not possible. Your wife is already due."

Camile became hysterical, demanding a cesarean, but the doctors wouldn't budge. They insisted she could easily give birth naturally. It was like some kind of nightmare.

Within hours she was in labor, and then I saw the thing that had used her body as a gateway to our world. The doctor collapsed in shock and the creature just lay there in the birthing gore, looking up at me with a dark eye with a hellish red iris.

I stared at it, my body in a frozen mutiny of terror, unable to take action. It blinked once and then began to levitate, dripping. It was rotten, a fully grown skull with a bit of the spinal cord and the veins hanging raggedly from the loose skin of its neck. The bone showed through to sagging flesh, but it was impossible. My mind rejected it, and I couldn't recall what compelled me to throw a chair through the window, aiding its escape. It flew out into the snowy night, leaving its mother behind.

There was a requirement that I had to speak to the police. I didn't know what to tell them. I made up a story that the whole thing was a mistake, and she was never pregnant. I had no idea how the window got broken or how the delivery doctor went insane.

Somehow, we were both sitting there in silence at our table, not long after that awful night at the hospital. We just stared at each other and then there was a knock at our front door. It was Dawn Caldwell with a briefcase.

She sat with us and demanded answers from my wife, shoving papers in front of her and insisting that she wouldn't leave without a signature. We consigned someone, somewhere, to exposure to the evil artifact. Then Dawn Caldwell left our lives for good, or so I hoped.

Days went by and then one night I found Camile lying on the floor in our hallway, the steam from the shower making the air a moist fog. Something pressed upon her, torturing her. She cried out in agony and I rushed to help her, but there was nothing I could do except watch helplessly in terror.

Again, she grew pregnant, and it went quickly. I waited sleeplessly, leaving her in our bed. By the next evening, she was giving birth again, and our bedding and mattress was soaked in blood. The head rolled out onto the floor and looked at me menacingly. It opened its mouth, as though savoring the horror of its birth, and then it too floated out of the window as I opened it, letting it go.

I wasn't sure why I helped it escape. I was too afraid to move or react, but somehow, like a puppet, I moved to aid it. When it was gone, I closed the window, shutting out the coldness of the night air.

"What is happening to us?" I asked her. Camile just sat staring away without answers. She looked doomed and petrified. I felt a deeply unsettling anxiety that our problems had only just begun.

I needed something to do to resist the silent calamity of my home and set to work dragging the mattress and the bedding to our backyard and burning it spectacularly. When it was over there was a charred mess in a heap back there, but I hoped it was over and we could move on. None of it felt real, except it had happened. I wanted to forget, but every time I closed my eyes, I could see the stare of the things she had birthed.

When I went back inside, I found Camile against a wall, her face pushed into it. She was in great distress, something painful was ravaging her. She collapsed into my arms, and I dreaded yet another pregnancy. "I'm sorry." I told her weakly.

She refused to get up from the floor, so I made her comfortable there. Early the next morning she cried out in labor. Then the fourth of the beheaded horrors arrived. I obediently opened the back door and let it escape, unable to resist the urge to do so.

I found her notebooks and began to read about the legendary excavation site and the demon Dwimbhith. There was little more information than what she had told me. I did, however, see a sketch of the artifact, the altar, and noted it was composed of seven stone heads piled haphazardly. I recognized the awful stare of the demonic eyeballs in the skull sockets, staring with dreadful malevolence.

We were at its mercy, helplessly trapped in the cycle. Our days went on and on, awaiting the next pregnancy and birth, the next conception and the next. After the last one we sat in silence, praying wordlessly to no particular god that it was finally over. I asked Camile:

"Is that it, is the legend over?"

She shrugged, sipping her tea and staring out at the white blanket of snow outside. She said mysteriously:

"It lives again, through me. What have I, but to see it through?"

I had no idea what she meant, but despite the warmth of our home I felt as cold as the world outside. I shivered in fear, unsure what I would do when called upon. I felt like it somehow wasn't over.

It was then that we were again invaded by Dawn Caldwell. She was distraught and disheveled. She'd sold the idol to a museum, only to be forced to generate a refund, as the artifact crumbled and revealed it was simply seven rotting heads thinly mummified by a layer of mortar painted over them. The real artifact was supposed to be carved entirely of solid stone.

"You've ruined me, and now I'll ruin you!" Dawn Caldwell stood between me and my wife, acting indignant and throwing a tantrum.

"Where are the heads now?" I asked.

"What?" Dawn Caldwell asked.

"Reunited as one, they are bound to their priests. Those who made them, released them and moved them. Dwimbhith comes." Camile smiled weirdly, a crazed look in her eyes. Then she laughed. It was a shattering kind of laugh, of pure madness and horror.

Ms. Caldwell looked from us to the darkness over the white snow outside. Something behind the glass held her attention.

"A bride for the demon's needs, a father who sets the prodigy free. And a nurse who feeds." Camile said while she laughed darkly and with mind-rending clarity.

Suddenly, as I watched her, Dawn Caldwell's face became as utter fear, twisted into a silent scream. The climax of the contortion was a piercing shriek and to claw at her own face with her long fingernails. Whatever she was looking at behind us was unbearably horrible, and hungry.

Blood lactated through her power suit and she kicked the dropped briefcase. She ran around in a little circle, disoriented and unable to escape. Then she ran to the back door, somehow towards the menacing creature in our backyard instead of away from it.

I refused to look. I knew it was eating her because I could hear her shrieks of terror and pain as it consumed her whole, starting with her feet, and munching on her until her screams went inside it, wetly muffled. My wife stood up and stared at it.

"What a beautiful baby. It has its daddy's mouth, seven faces as lips and a single shining tooth from each chin. Indeed, it has one great mouth made of seven heads formed in a circle. It is a lovely one, you should see it." Camile described the monster in our backyard.

"No thanks." I told her, staring at the paperwork of the opened briefcase. In her desperation, the boss lady had brought a paper file on her most trusted assistant. She could have filled it out to fire her or promote her or anything. It was like a blank check. I picked it up and clicked the pen.

"You're going to run the Caldwell Art Dealership from now on. Somebody has got to keep things neat and tidy around here. We have the rest of our lives to forget this." I was muttering almost absently, ignoring the cooing of my wife to the thing in our backyard.

"He's leaving, he's got his own life to live now." Camile sounded sad. I heard a sound like great bat wings beating the air for takeoff and then whatever it was had left us there. I finished the paperwork and went and stood next to Camile.

I put my arm around her and held her close as we looked out at the pristine winter wonderland. The tracks of some clawed abomination had left a mark, but the snow began to fall, slowly erasing it. Camile rested her head on my shoulder and sipped her tea as we stood there watching the snow falling.

"Things will get better, I'm sure. We're through the rough. I think we will be alright." I told her, my eyes watering as I desperately wanted to believe in what I was saying. I felt some reassurance when Camile kissed my cheek and said:

"I know."