October 4, 2016.

SPOOKTOBER STORY #3:

"The results of the test are in!" the host is shouting at me, spittle flinging from his slickly plump lips onto my cheeks. The audience brays for my blood, they gnash and howl like animals. I am feeling unwell. My hands feel clammy. I wipe them on my jersey but it seems to accomplish nothing.

"Are? You? The? Father?" shrieks my wife, directly into my face, before running around the stage, smearing herself with coconut oil and human hair. Of course I'm the father. I'm happy to take responsibility for the child. I remember conception and the nine months that followed. I'm financially secure enough to raise a child.

"Is he? Is he the father!?" hoots the audience, simultaneously, their faces feverish and pink. I try to tell them that yes, I am the father, but the board behind me lights up in screaming neon and drowns out my words. I turn to look at it, I can only read three letters at a time:

YOU

'RET

HEF

ATH

ER!

The screen explodes, confetti and sparks raining down on the stage. A PA, standing too close to the power outlet is set ablaze, she runs backstage, dying horribly. No one helps her, so excited are they at my diagnosis. My wife pisses herself and rolls around in it, laughing until she begins choking on her own tongue. The host kills himself with a ceremonial dagger he keeps in his tie.

I go to the cradle and pick up the baby, walking silently offstage as I gently burp it.