The Useless Degree | Page 33

it and holding it shut.

The screams before were nothing compared to what came from the oven then, but they soon were broken up by sickening coughs. I feel pressure on the oven door but I hold it tight. The wind rages outside. The whole house feels like it's about to be uprooted. Somewhere in the house, a window shatters. "Bring Tommy back!" I cry over and over, like a mantra. Finally the coughs and screams weaken and then stop altogether. The wind starts to subside.

I open the oven door partway to peer in and I smell burnt hair and flesh as acrid smoke rises up from the oven...Just then, a hammer of wind smashes open the kitchen door to the outside and tosses me to the ground. In the wind I hear rage and grief and hatred. Just for a moment the wind seems to force the smoke from the oven back inside and the oven door flies open the rest of the way. The wind retreats and foul smoke pours out from the oven. Everything is eerily still. I look inside. There is an infant's corpse there. Staring back out at me with dead, beautiful blue eyes.

"Tommy?"

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