An Internet Legend

Laptop open, ice cream at hand, Lois sat down and shifted into research-mode. Familiar headspace, entering search terms, accessing databases. For a reporter, it wasn't so much about luck as it was about knowing where to look—and Lois was one of the best reporters on the planet. What she wanted to know was out there...it was just a matter of finding it.

A strange flutter went through her belly as she began the trawl in the archaeological and anthropological archives, searching scholarly databases for references to fertility idols, focusing at first on material around Metropolis. She could expand her search later, but Lois' instincts said that this was something local. It had the feel of street religion—the weird mythology that builds up among homeless kids and the meanest parts of Suicide Slum, like the Church of Superman a few years ago...but this felt darker. Weirder.

Browsing through the anthropology articles, Lois' eyes suddenly lit up. An article for a local university blog, titled "The Dark Mother's Gift: An Evolving Urban Legend." The article was by Tonya Wong—one of the missing women, a business student minoring in anthropology. Maybe a coincidence, but... the reporter clicked through, opening the article.

Lois' spoon scraped the bottom of the ice cream container, and she set the empty carton aside. Suddenly thirsty, Lois got up while the webpage loaded, headed to the fridge. Staring at the contents, the reporter hand reached for the bottle of wine and then hesitated, drew her hand back. Shrugging off the change of mind, she switched, grabbed the half-gallon of milk. Popped the cap and drank straight from the carton on her way back to the table, suddenly greedy for it.

Back in front of the laptop, she licked the milk from her lips...and read.

Wong had been tracing a series of stories that had started appearing on the internet the last few weeks. Teenagers or college students, all female. There was a statue or idol; sometimes the girl would take it on a bet, or just find it while out somewhere. She would always take it with her. That night 'the victim' as Wong put it would experience an anomalous, rapid pregnancy, and traumatic birth. The stories often included pictures—amateur webcam photos of young women, not pregnant and then with growing bellies, webcam showing them only minutes or hours apart. There were videos too, visible growth, girls freaking out, unable to contact anyone or even leave the room, but still recording.

Typical NoSleep horror stories, old tropes with a modern focus: Rosemary's Baby, The Seventh Seal, Aliens 3, Inside. Lois rubbed her own stomach, remembering her momentary panic with the pregnancy test earlier, and polished off the last of the milk. She scrolled down, to see where Tonya Wong had been going with this.

Crossreferencing. She had been tracking the stories, when and where they were posted, who did it. Used the images and video to tie specific stories to specific young women—some of whom had disappeared. Others... Lois clicked open links in new tabs. Local news, too small to make it to the bigger papers: unexpected uptick in birth rates among highschool seniors, women coming to the ER claiming they hadn't been pregnant but holding newborns, local gynecologist Dr. Blaze explaining how pregnancies can be unexpected, unrecognized...

There was a geographic locus. Wong had mapped it out. Lois frowned at a mishmash of red dots, all over Metropolis. Some of that would be noise, but there was a blob, a concentration...right around the club.

At the end of the article was a gallery—stills from the videos, bits and pieces of the photographs uploaded with the stories—sometimes little more than a shadow. Wong was trying to find images of the idol, which were described in their stories but never seen—except here and there, in shadowy half images. Lois clicked through, feeling an instant pang of recognition at the familiar whirls, the gravid belly, the fat lumps of the breasts—and looked up at where the idol stood on the table. She swallowed hard, throat suddenly dry.

"Could be just a coincidence. A hoax, made up by somebody that read too many of these stories on the internet, planted down there to scare their friends. Things like that don't happen in real life..."