“Did you see that?” my wife, Sara, said waking me from sleep. The only light in the room was from the small baby-monitor screen my wife was clutching in her hands. “Look” she said, showing me the screen. I squinted at the light. The monitor was in-infrared mode and showed a black and white image of our newborn’s room. I saw no motion save for a an occasional mote of dust settling and the subtle flicker of the night light out of the camera’s field of view. I could see the rise and fall of our newborn’s chest, her face was peaceful, cherubic and at rest. I turned over.
“I don’t see anything.” I replied half-asleep.
“I swear I saw something.”
“Hon, she’s fine, don’t worry. You need rest, she needs rest. This is the longest she’s slept so far.” I replied sleepily, hoping my wife would drop it. She didn’t. I could sense her still watching the monitor.
“It had wings…” I heard her whisper as I drifted to sleep.
I woke before the sun. I turned to my wife who was sitting up in bed with her eyes closed. The monitor glowed dimly in her lap. “I couldn’t fall back asleep - I’m exhausted. That thing I saw, I must have been hallucinating or something. I didn’t see anything for the rest of the night.” She scooted herself down under the covers. “Betty needs to be fed. There’s some milk in the fridge.” she said, her voice was thin and trailed as she tried to go back to sleep.
It was odd Betty wasn’t already stirring. I made my way to the kitchen, not turning on any lights, and opened the fridge. Light spilled out into our kitchen. I heard a buzz like a taser, but lower and faster.
“The hell?” I scanned the dark room. Nothing - I was sleep deprived, it must be my imagination. I looked back in the fridge, took out some milk and heated it for Betty. I took the milk to her room, left the lights off and opened the door slowly so as to gently awaken Betty. I closed the door behind me. While holding the warm milk I reached into the crib and picked Betty up and cradled her. The floor creaked as I reached into the crib. Betty opened up her mouth, soundlessly, her eyes still shut. Weird, I thought, she’s usually gurgling and making adorable baby noises. I grabbed the milk and started feeding her and she drank hungrily. “Whoa whoa little baby, you’re hungry.” I whispered to her as I swayed gently. Her arms were swaddled so I held the bottle for her and I could feel her tugging at an intensity I had never experienced before. The level of milk visibly dropped with each pull she took. I heard the buzzing again, this time above me. I looked up.
It was a grotesque horror, slightly larger than a football, it’s six legs covered with spine-like hair were unmoving. It rested on the ceiling between two blades of the ceiling fan. It’s movement were jerky. Large compound eyes the size of golfballs focused independently and a curled proboscis furled and unfurled as if breathing. It’s transparent wings vibrated, buzzing. It’s body glistened and seemed to change colors in the shadow shifting between maroon and dark green. My heart and breath stopped. Don’t startle it, don’t make a noise. Betty continued to drink hungrily and the sound of her suckling now felt deafening to me. It looked like she would soon be crying for a second bottle. I wanted to call out to my wife but didn’t want to alert the horror. Move I thought to myself. I just had to make it to the door. I inched my way there. I was almost there, almost out. Open the door, lock that fucker in there and call the military to kill that monstrosity. Just before I reached the door the knob turned and the door opened.
“Hey hon…” I tried to motion to my wife, but not quickly enough. I heard a skitter and buzz behind me. My wife screamed.
“Bathroom!” I yelled. She scrambled ahead of toward our hallway bathroom. I could hear the creature buzzing behind us and clumsily smacking into the wall. The dark, it must not see well. We made it to the bathroom, shutting and locking the door behind us. Betty finished her milk and began to croak like a man parched in the desert.
“The fuck what the fuck what the fuck!” “Shh… shh stay calm.” “The fuck was that.” “I don’t know. We have to get out of here and kill it.” I could hear it thudding against the walls of the hallway. Bzzz bzzz bzzz thump. Bzzz bzzz bzzz thump. “Here hold Betty.”
“What’s wrong with her?!” Betty croaked, long and slow - too deep sounding for an infant. My wife began to unswaddle her. “Her leg!” A spidery bite, blue and red covered her upper thigh. Sara rocked Betty, who now laid limp in her arms. “It’s ok, it’s ok.” her voice wavering as she tried to reassure the baby.
I began rifling under the bathroom sink not knowing what I was looking for. I grabbed a bottle of drain cleaner, across its label in large askew cartoon letters it had written “GEL!!! DISSOLVES HAIR INSTANTLY!!!”. This product is way too exclamatory about itself, I thought. Odd how the strangest thoughts seem to materialize in crisis. The bottle was further adorned with a litany of dire warnings: corrosive, acute toxicity, aspiration hazard.
The buzzing outside had stopped.
I pulled down the shower rod and took off the curtain. I then bent it over my knee, creating a pinch point, then bent it back-and-forth until it broke. Two makeshift spears, short, but I felt like they would do the job.
“What are you going to do?” Sara said looking up at me. “Kill it.” I could tell Sara didn’t like the plan but she nodded.
I dipped each spear in the drain cleaner, then wrapped toilet paper beneath the tip so it wouldn’t drip on my hands. I leaned against the bathroom door and shut my eyes, breathing deeply. “Ok, I’m going to go out there, shut the door behind me. Don’t leave the bathroom. You have water here and should be able to last. If I can’t kill it I’ll try to make it out to get help.”
“Hurry,” she said, “Betty is getting worse. Be safe.” It was a moment where words felt inadequate. After a pause, she deadpanned “Kill that fucker.” I nodded, tried to look brave and stepped out into the dark hall.
I crept down the hallway, not seeing it. My heart pounded in my chest as I made my way to the kitchen. I held the broken shower rods like batons. They suddenly felt very light, inadequate, ridiculous, as if I was carrying a child's toy instead of a weapon. There it was, resting on the refrigerator door. It was facing away from me as I crept up to it. Closer, five feet, closer, four feet, closer, three feet. I hoisted one of the spears like I had seen javelin throwers do, wound up and threw. It went wide and clanged off a window harmlessly. The creature reacted instantly, zipping up - thumping itself against the ceiling. I swung wildly at it as it darted around the kitchen. Drain cleaner gel flicked everywhere and I could feel flecks of it burning on my face and arms. I got a lucky swing and clipped its wing and it whirled out of control smashing into a cabinet and falling on it’s back into the sink. Screaming I lunged at it, stabbing and punching, it’s legs flailing. I could feel it’s spine like hairs tearing into my chest and forearms as I stood over it attacking. My makeshift spear found it’s mark between two pieces of chiton where one of its legs met its body. I drove it through and it stopped moving. I quickly went under the kitchen sink and grabbed a trash bag - picked up the thing by the spear, a putrid hors d’oeuvre - and threw it in the bag and tied it off. Ichor and guts were everywhere.
I dragged the bag behind me as I made my way to the bathroom.
“I killed it.” “We have to go to the hospital now.”
We were in the hospital for two weeks. The bite on Betty’s leg healed remarkably quickly. We were on the news. No one had ever seen that thing I killed before. A scientist said it was a shame I had killed it before it could be studied, but I know I did what had to be done. Life returned to about as normal as it could after what happened. Betty was different though. She seemed faster, stronger and grew at an alarming rate. She learned to stand and walk early, and was soon forming words. Her appetite was insatiable. Otherwise she was normal though, except for one thing that my wife and I don’t like to talk about. When we check on her at night with the baby monitor it’s as if she knows. She’ll stand up in her crib, and stare back. The worst part of all is that her eyes will glow in the infrared light as if she has compound eyes.
Submitted June 17, 2015 at 05:28AM by chchchi-guy http://ift.tt/1GrXxU2 nosleep
No comments:
Post a Comment