The Baby

by Al Sarrantonio, Keith Minnion (Illustrator)

Detective Bill Grant has seen it all in Orangefield -- and always around Halloween. For that is when Samhain, the Celtic Lord of the Dead who has made this pumpkin-growing upstate New York town his home, plies his trade. But this year when Autumn rolls around, Grant is confronted with something brand new -- and even more horrifying than anything he has seen before. For when Marianne Carlin finally gets the gift she has been waiting for, a child from her husband Jack, it turns out that the baby was conceived after Jack's sudden death in an automobile accident. Which means the child may not belong to this world at all....

Genres: Horror, Fiction

125 pages, Hardcover

First published October 1, 2006

About the author

Al Sarrantonio was an American horror and science fiction writer, editor and publisher who authored more than 50 books and 90 short stories. He also edited numerous anthologies.

Reviews

[Jakob J. 🎃 · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Sick of the questions I keep asking you,
They make you live in the past.
But I can count on you to tell me the truth
When you’ve been drinking and you’re wearing a mask.”
—Phoebe Bridgers, Halloween

Melancholy is the harvest in Orangefield; the former glory of a small town pumpkin capital of New York beset by Samhain, The Lord of Death. But what is this wraith in Sarrantonio’s mythology? A harbinger, a servant, an intervening spirit with intent? It gets a little muddled as this is not alcoholic, widower sheriff Bill Grant’s first encounter with the pale-faced entity. Did it manifest in Orangefield because the town was dying, or did it kill the town? It is the natural course for crops and people alike. The decaying remnants of a formerly thriving community carry bittersweet memories; a reminder of scourge:

”Riley Gates’ farm was, now, one of the saddest places on Earth. In its prime, when Gates…had been alive, it was a place Grant always looked forward to visiting. When they had both been married…there had been many parties at Riley’s place…
But now…
Driving past the long-closed farm stand on the main road, with its faded sign RILEY’S PICK YOUR OWN PUMPKINS, and then through the broken front gate over the rutted road and up to the blackened, gutted, burned house, Grant felt nothing but hollow.”

Samhain is a kind of ghost of Halloween past, present, and future; a trinity made manifest by the lingering, untended citizens represented by the few withered, sallow gourds on Riley’s desolate farm. But what sort of reaper warns its victims to abscond, giving them a chance lest they share their town’s fate?

Marianne is with child, conceived as a last conciliatory and determined act by the spirit of her husband just after his death. A life born of death, which Samhain greets with hope, but to what end? More death.

A line of Jack-O-Lanterns along the railing, first one frowning, gradually, a growing smile, or is it the other way around?

Until next Halloween…

[Tom · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 Stars rounded up to 4 Stars.

[Jen · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars

[Serenity · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good read! I liked the version in Halloweenland better though.

[Benjamin Uminsky · Rating 2 out of 5]

Well, this was far from Sarrantonio's best work. I much preferred his shorter pieces from his collection TOYBOX.

I understand that "The Baby" is another one of his strange stories that takes place in Orangefield. Perhaps I would have benefited from reading some of these other stories as this novelette made references to past strange events involving our protagonist (Detective Grant) and also antagonist (Samhain/Death).

The basic premise of this brief novelette is that a a dying man is so desperate fulfill a promise he made to his wife (that he would give her a baby) that upon his tragic death in an automobile accident, his incorporeal spirit leaves his cadaver to have sex with his wife one last time, improbably impregnating her. Well... what then ensues is Orangefield's own spirit of Death jealously desires this child and hounds the poor woman till her pregnancy comes to term.

I like the basic idea of life coming from death, however, the supernaturalism in this story is largely unexplored and we are left with a quasi-noir mystery involving our Detective Grant in search of answers as Samhain begins picking off characters who get in his way.

Our characters are fairly banal and lead very mundane small town lives that simply don't appeal to this reader... I had a complete inability to connect with any of them.

Likewise, I found Sarrantonio's portrayal of Samhain as fairly ordinary, even farcical at times. Whatever menace he attempted to build throughout the story was largely muted by such an unassuming antagonist.

I think I may just stick to Sarrantonio's short stories and skip over his Orangefield stories.

[Amy · Rating 3 out of 5]

This novella can be found in another novel by Al Sarrantonio, Halloweenland. If you have already read Halloweenland, you only need to read the last two chapters of The Baby. Up to that point, the two versions are identical. In Halloweenland, the story leads into more of the weird stuff that we know occurs in Orangefield around Halloween. Whereas, in The Baby, the story ends. I preferred the story which lead into the novel, Halloweenland, which was probably my favorite of the Orangefield novels.