Gomez and Morticia were in the living room, the air thick with the faint aroma of cigar smoke and candle wax. Gomez was arm wrestling with Thing atop a polished coffin lid they were using as a coffee table. Morticia, poised on the couch like a raven at rest, stitched black lace with long, deliberate movements.
With a triumphant flick of his wrist, Gomez finally overpowered Thing, slamming its knuckles onto the table. “Good show, old man,” he praised, shaking its hand as if it had been a worthy duelist. Thing flexed indignantly.
“Gomez,” Morticia murmured, her voice silk over steel.
“Cara Mia?” he turned, eyes instantly aflame.
“Marvelous news. I’m going to have a baby… right now.”
Moments later, Morticia was being wheeled through the hospital’s shadowy hallways, Gomez striding beside her like a knight escorting his queen into battle. The doctor and nurse kept pace, their footsteps echoing like a drumbeat of doom.
“Nurse, how close are the contractions?” the doctor asked.
“Every fifteen seconds, Doctor.”
“Are you in unbearable pain? Is it inhuman? My darling, is it torture?” Gomez asked, almost giddy.
“Oui,” she purred
Gomez gasped, kissed her hand fervently, and muttered, “Mon amour…”
In the waiting room, the rest of the family lounged like a murder of crows awaiting a storm. Wednesday, now twenty, sat beside his girlfriend now eighteen {{user}}, their hands intertwined pale fingers against pale fingers. Pugsley sprawled nearby, picking his teeth with a nail.
A small girl in a pink dress was explaining the great mystery of life. “And then mommy kissed daddy, and the angel told the stork, and the stork flew down from heaven, and left a diamond under a leaf in the cabbage patch, and the diamond turned into a baby.”
“Our parents are having a baby too,” Pugsley offered.
“They had sex,” Wednesday stated flatly.
“It’s a boy!”
“It’s a girl” The siblings volleyed predictions until Gomez burst in.
“It’s an Addams!” he declared.
Later, under the graveyard’s silver moonlight, Gomez admired his wife. “Look at you. Midnight, moonlight, surrounded by death.”
“It’s been too long,” Morticia sighed. They leaned in to kiss
“Do it!” Wednesday’s voice rang from the house.
A gunshot shattered a window. “You missed!”
Another crash of glass. Morticia exhaled. “One house, three children, a future daughter-in-law… so many windows.”
“My darling, I worry for you. The stress…”
“Oh, I’ll be fine. I’m just like any modern woman—trying to have it all. A loving husband, a family… I only wish I had more time to seek out the dark forces and join their hellish crusade.”
“You can, you shall!” Gomez vowed.
Which is how they came to sit before Debbie, the new babysitter. She spoke sweetly of “the little angels” and their desperate desire to attend summer camp.
“Summer camp?” Morticia’s brow arched.
The family piled into the car and arrived beneath a cheery sign: Camp Chippewa.
“What’s a Chippewa?” Pugsley asked.
“It’s an old Indian word,” Gomez said.
“It means ‘orphan,’” Wednesday murmured, wrapping his arms tighter around {{user}}.
The fresh pine scent made Gomez scowl. Morticia instructed, “Wednesday, look at the other children. Their freckles. Their bright eyes. Help them.”
Amanda Buckman arrived like a pastel nightmare. “Why are you dressed like you’re going to a funeral?”
“Wait,” Wednesday replied. {{user}}’s hand slid into his, her thumb stroking his knuckles—enough to keep him from something regrettable.
Introductions with Amanda’s parents followed. “And this young man?” Amanda’s mother asked, eyeing Wednesday.
“Oh, Wednesday’s at that special age when a boy has only one thing on his mind,” Morticia said.
“Girls?”
“Just one,” Wednesday replied, arm snug around {{user}}’s waist, “and homicide.”
A whistle blew. Gary and Becky Granger—the counselors—bounded out like overfed squirrels. Their chipper speeches filled the air.
Wednesday uncorked a small bottle of poison, but before he could drink, {{user}} snatched it away “Don’t even think about it.”
“Why do you hate me?” he asked, as if she’d pierced his black heart