Preggers — Joseph Monninger

When Dale and Ellen Swasey attend a Rescue the American Child convention outside of Boston, they hear a doctor describe something called hatching. Passionate right-to-lifers, the Swaseys decide they must kidnap a young pregnant woman and keep her safe until the child is an inevitability. Dale and Ellen fantasize about their plan:Strange as it sounds out of context, we named this imaginary girl Cindy. Again, it was just make-believe. It became a code word between us, one we could use with other people around. Do you think Cindy will like this? Ellen asked when we bought a lamp or table. She'll love it, I said. I sure hope she does, Ellen said. It goes with the dresser. That's how it all got started. Afterward I told Ellen, you give a name to something and it becomes real.Set in a farmhouse in New Hampshire, Preggers is in the tradition of John Fowles's The Collector and Herbert Lieberman's Crawlspace. Terrifying and mesmerizing, this is a story of what goes on behind our neighbor's closed doors.