Chapter 2: Brood

The small town in Montana awoke with no knowledge of the events that had transpired the. Some of the women and girls noticed their bed sheets in unusual positions, but nothing to be alarming.

It was not for several weeks before the town physician became concerned that many of the town's girls and women were coming to him with early pregnancy symptoms. Most of the women and girls were even on birth control. Most professed a lack of sexual contact during the time when conception would have been most likely.

The most alarming of the pregnancies was a 10-year old girl who showed no signs of any sexual contact. The doctors little investigation even revealed that few of the girls under 16 had ever experience vaginal intercourse.

The doctor wrote some reports and spoke to city council members on the subject, but the plan was to try to deal with things locally. The town had seen its share of trials over the past hundred years; it could certainly survive a small baby boom. Maybe a population spike would do the town good in the end.

Months went by and 36 girls and women indeed progressed through seemingly normal pregnancies. The town handled the religious outcry regarding underage girls waddling around in middle and high school. The industrious and self-sufficient westerners kept up with demands of clothing the young mothers. The town adapted as it waited.

The local doctor's office did not have the sophisticated tools of a big city, but an internal ultrasound machine was enough to know that all 36 pregnancies were female. This was really the first thing that made the doctor really want to go outside the town for help and advice. Surely, 36 out of 36 being female meant something was wrong. In all other ways, the babies appeared healthy and normal.

As things go in small remote towns, days go by without much change. Eventually babies began to come into the world. Some were delivered by the town doctor, others by family members, and others yet by mid-wives. All told, 36 baby girls were born without untold event.

The only notable difficulties were the difficulties of delivering a six or seven pound baby by girl less than 90 pounds. The younger girls certainly struggle to deliver naturally. The deliveries went as well as could be expected and the young mothers were able to recover fully in short order.

The years went by and the 36 girls grew as all girls do. They learned the ways of small town Montana as all the local girls did. The lopsided population gender became a social problem when they approached their teens, but that was to be expected.

The only anomaly people keyed into was how remarkably like their mothers these girls looked. Beside the age differences, everything else seemed familiar. Hair and eye color matched the mother with perfect coincidence. Height and weight were also as close to the same as memory would allow reconciling.

Everyone was healthy and happy so life went on.