Creepy - Old Thomas's Hatchery
Episode Date: August 29, 2022Old Thomas had a farm...***Written by: Rene Rehn***Bonus Episode: ""I Go Dumpster Diving, And I Found Something Strange That Shouldn't Exist" Written By: withywoodwitch and Narrated By: Alicia Atkins*...**Content Warning: Dead Kittens, Abandoned "Baby", Uncanny Valley***Find our reward tiers and how to get your bonus magnet at patreon.com/creepypod***You can also subscribe to us on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/creepypod***Sound Design by Pacific Obadiah***Title music by Alex Aldea Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
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Especially if you live in, around, or within driving distance of Chicago.
Hint, hint, hint.
Now, this.
is creepy.
A podcast dedicated to sharing
the most famous
chilling and disturbing creepypastas
and urban legends in the world.
Whether these stories truly happened
or are simply fabrications
is for you to decide.
These stories may contain
graphic depictions of violence
and explicit language.
Listener discretion is advised.
Creepy Presents.
Old Thomas's Hatchery.
Written by Renee Wren.
Begglers can't be choosers, the old saying goes.
I've been unemployed for weeks when I learned that old Thomas Mayer was looking for help around his chicken farm.
To be honest, I was weary.
I never imagined myself working at a chicken farm, and I wasn't looking forward to it.
There was also old Thomas.
I'd heard more than a fair share of rumors about him.
He was said to be an eccentric, hard man who worked his farm hands to no end.
Over the course of the past years, almost a dozen men had worked for him, and none had lasted for long.
Even stranger, none of them talked much about the old man and his chicken farm.
Yet, I was out of options.
They needed work, and he needed it fast, and old Thomas' chicken farm was the only option
out here in the middle of nowhere.
I knew old Thomas wasn't an industrial farmer,
and he ran his place the old-fashioned way.
No modern technology or machinery,
and none of that new genetically altered chicken feed.
As I drove my car along the country road,
I could already make out what was said to be his pride,
his hatchery.
Multiple additions and various extensions
to transform what must have been a barn
into a huge patchwork monstrosity,
housing thousands upon
thousands of chickens.
The moment I arrived, the old man was already waiting for me.
I was nervous when I stepped out of the car
and the old man's probing gaze and deep frown didn't help.
Before long, his demeanor thought a little, and he led me around the farm.
There wasn't much to it.
The garden, his late wife, had run, was now almost completely follow,
and what few fields he worked were only used for chicken feed.
Soon enough, he led me to his hatchery.
A proud smile showed on his face as he led me inside.
I couldn't help but gasp as I stepped inside.
The place had been huge from the outside, but seemingly gigantic inside.
Rows upon rows of nesting boxes were stacked upon another, reaching high above your head.
As I followed him through one of the many aisles dividing up the place, I felt almost claustrophobic.
As we walked, while Thomas described the basics of the job to me,
The old man made sure his chickens were always well fed.
For that reason, he filled the feeding troughs at the center of each child twice a day.
Once around noon and once in the evening, so the chickens would never run out of food.
Only happy chickens lay eggs that make people happy, he said with a smile on his face.
After that, he went to explain a few more of the ins and outs.
He explained how he mixed up the different ingredients of his chicken feed,
how to not disturb the chickens too much, and how to get the eggs.
There were a lot of intricacies, and some of his instructions seemed overcomplicated.
I tried my best to listen and then to remember it all, but there was just too much information.
Before long, the old man seemed to realize so himself.
He sighed, gave me a pat on the back, and said it was only a matter of time until I'd get the hang of it.
I told him I hoped so, and that I'd do my best.
For the first couple of days we took care of things together, but I could tell why the old man needed help around the farm.
More than once I saw him wince when he picked up a sack of chicken feed, and I could see him wheezing and panting as he felt the troughs.
Old Thomas was getting too old for the job.
Starting the second week, I assured him I'd take care of feeding the chickens by myself.
I regretted my decision almost instantly.
With the old man around, it had been nothing but work.
hard work sure but still only work on my own i couldn't help but feel differently about the place
there's almost disorienting walking all these long aisles on your own there's nothing but nesting boxes and
chickens around you occasionally things felt a bit strange i could have sworn that aisle seemed longer than it should be
while I dump shovel after shovel at chicken feed in the troughs,
I couldn't help it feel as if the hatchery are grown in size.
In those moments, an image of the hatchery going on forever snuck into my mind.
I imagined nothing but nesting boxes and chickens going on forever.
I always pushed those thoughts away with a laugh.
The hatchery was huge, sure, but it was still just a place.
All those weird thoughts and ideas were nothing but tricks of the brain or optical illusions
caused by the monadity of the work.
And yet, on certain rare occasions, I couldn't help but feel I was losing time in there,
and that work took me a tad bit too long.
Over the course of the entire week, these strange feelings persisted,
but I shrugged them off.
I was doing the job, and I wasn't used to the damn hatchery yet.
That's all there was to it.
And so whenever the old man asked how things were going, I told him they were going well.
At times I could feel him looking at me, that if he was waiting for me to say something else.
The hatchery felt always worse in the evening hours.
After the sun fell, the ground was almost entirely deserted, and most of the chickens had retreated to their nesting boxes.
From there, they'd stare at me with half-open eyes, watching me as if I was an intruder,
they'd ready themselves to pounce on me.
During those hours I was always unnerved, slightly apprehensive even.
I felt misplaced in this giant hatchery, as if the place was warping and changing all around me.
On Friday evening, as I pushed the wheelbarrow down the aisle, shoveling chicken feed into the troughs half-heartedly,
a cold shower went down my spine.
When I looked up and stared down the aisle, I couldn't make out an end.
I blinked, rubbed my eyes, and looked again.
But all I could see were nesting boxes and chickens seemingly going on forever.
I couldn't help but laugh and shake my head.
My stupid brain was acting up again.
Just keep going, dump the rest of the chicken feed, and get back out.
That's all there is to it.
The longer I stared down this never-ending aisle, however,
the more I stopped trusting myself.
After I dumped the last of the chicken feed, I left the wheelbarrow and shovel behind and continued on.
This was insane.
The hatchery was huge, sure.
But there had to be an end to it.
There had to be.
And yet, I just kept walking and walking and walking.
After long minutes, I stopped again.
What the hell is going on here?
Even if this was some sort of optical illusion, I've been walking along.
long enough to reach the other side of the damn farm.
Yet, the aisle just continued on.
I took one more step, then another, before fear washed over me.
And I told myself I was going to get the hell out of here.
Something strange was going on.
Something extremely strange.
The moment I turned around, however, it was the same thing.
no end in sight.
Eventually, though, I sat out.
I kept my eyes open for the wheelbarrow and shovel I left behind,
but no matter how far I walked, there was no trace of them.
They were gone, just like the ends of the aisles.
And I realized the walls of the hatchery.
All I could see were nesting boxes and the staring, half-empty eyes of chickens.
These stairs felt almost oppressive to me, as if the chickens were watching my every move,
measuring me up and mocking me for being lost.
I continued on walking, intent on finding my way about.
At first I was walking normally, but the longer the aisle continued on, the more unnerved I got.
I told myself I'd just have to go a bit further that I was imagining things and that I was almost out,
but eventually I couldn't anymore.
There was no one in sight, no walls, nothing.
All there were were nesting boxes and chickens.
Before long, I was running, dashing past nesting boxes,
and a few lonely chickens were still out.
I ran for long minutes driving myself faster and faster,
desperately trying to reach the end of the hatchery,
but nothing changed.
At least, that's what I thought at first.
When I stopped, panting and out of breath, I realized my surroundings had become more chaotic, bizarre
even.
What had once been rows of meticulously constructed nesting boxes were now nothing but haphazard
stacks that looked more like something that had grown than being constructed.
These strange constructions soon grew higher and higher, turning into towering monstrosities
of impossible design.
I laughed.
How could something like that even fit inside the hatchery?
What as I stared upward?
I couldn't see the ceiling anymore,
where once had been a wooden ceiling
was not only a strange, colorless void.
The aisle had been following for so long deteriorated as well.
Stacks upon stacks of nesting boxes sprouted from the ground here and there.
It was as if all sense of order was gone.
I was confused, freaked out, scared, but my feet kept moving forward, kept dragging me deeper into this mad, bizarre world.
And as I walked on, I stared at all of it with a horrible fascination and an almost dreamlike trance.
All the towering stacks and nesting boxes around me were filled to the brim with chickens.
Chickens who were still staring down at me, still watching me.
and yet before long these chickens too were subject to bizarre changes some had bodies so bloated they almost didn't fit into their nesting boxes while others had long dangling necks and strangely emaciated bodies
i stared at these twisted creatures with a mixture of fascination and disgust more than once i turned around and tried to flee from my ever deteriorating surroundings but it didn't matter which way i went
The longer I walked, the deeper I was thrown into the bizarre, further and further towards
deterioration.
Eventually, the design of the nesting box has made no sense anymore.
What had been towering stacks before became physical impossibilities.
We were leaning over one another, creating long bridges and wide arcs, constructions that could,
no, should, collapse at any moment.
As I stared ahead, I could see towers so high, so massive, I couldn't fathom them anymore.
I felt like I was staring at distant cities, at a skyline comprising nothing but nesting boxes.
But it wasn't just the nesting boxes.
The chickens, too, continued to change.
The further I walked, the stranger their forms became.
At one point, a chicken with multiple heads and legs rushed past me.
Others were flying high, soaring through the skies on multiple wings, wider than it should be possible.
The worst I saw was a chicken centipede, comprising nothing but chicken bodies, slithering around one of the nesting box towers.
As my eyes trailed after it, I saw it slithering upwards before it vanished out of view.
Other chickens grew in size.
From a distance I could see a deformed chicken the size of a pig or cow sitting in a nesting box a size of a large.
garage. As my eyes wandered around, I told myself there was no way a place like this could exist.
A sound that should have been laughter skied my mouth, but it was something different.
I shivered when I realized it almost sounded like the cluck of a chicken. I stopped, looked down
in my body, lifted my arms and touched my head, half expecting to find feathers and having turned
into some sort of chicken hybrid, but all was normal, no changes to my body and no feathers
sprouting anywhere.
And yet, relief didn't come.
This had to be a dream.
Somehow I must have fallen asleep in the hatchery.
I closed my eyes, told myself to wake up and get out of this nightmare.
When I opened my eyes again, crying to find myself back at the farm, back out of the
outside, away from the hatchery. Nothing had changed. I was still there, still in this mad and
absurd chicken world. Madness, however, soon turned into terror. As my steps let me
past another tower of nesting boxes, I noticed movement ahead. I stopped instinctively, wondering
what sort of twisted, nightmarish version of a chicken I'd seen this time. What I saw made me freeze.
It wasn't merely a deformed chicken, no.
It was a chicken that looked like it had been twisted into humanoid form.
I saw chicken feet, feathers sprouting from a two-legged, upright, standing body,
and a head sprouting a dirty, sagging coxcomb.
Its wings weren't so much wings, but feathered appendages,
sprouting strange finger-like extensions in which held a heavy sort of bucket.
The worst, however, was a creature's face.
It was almost human, except for the same empty eyes and the giant beak-like growth sprouting
from it.
I watched as the chicken poured something wet and sticky from the bucket into a trough in front
of it.
A disgusting, putrid smell reached me and I had to cover my nose.
The creature, however, seemed undeterred by it.
I heard a cluck a few times.
These sounds, they were almost tender, almost friendly.
Nearly seconds later, a bizarre zoo of twisted feathered creatures descended upon the trough, gorging
themselves on whatever was inside.
As carefully as I could, and driven by a mad sense of curiosity.
I climbed on top of one of the nesting boxes nearby to get a glance at it.
The moment I did, I stumbled back, falling off and barely able to cover my mouth, I had the scream
that had formed in the back of my throat.
feed. It was flesh and the flesh of people. I hadn't only seen a meaty, grounded mass,
but fingers, hands, and feet. As my eyes wandered back, I could hear the chicken beast
feeding on it, saw strange snake-like creatures swallowing up what might once have been a hand.
A terrified yelp escaped my mouth, one I couldn't silence in time. It that
moment something stirred next to me. My eyes grew wide when they were met by empty staring eyes
of another chicken creature. I was frozen in terror as I watched an elongated neck shoot forward
further and further towards me. The creature's beak opened and a strange, horrible, stored
a cluck, escaped it before it came from me. I barely avoided the creature's attack, beating
a tight aside. A moment later, my hands, almost by instant, closed around its neck and twisted
it. I gave it one jerk, then another, before I felt something break. In an instant, I was thrown
aside as a creature's body went wild. The now broken, long dangling neck was thrown left and right
while the creature's huge wings flapped and beat against the nesting box. Within moments the
wood gave away. The creature went on struggling for a few more moments before I lay still.
Well, its death, however, had been noticed.
And I heard the concern clocks of thousands of chickens all around me, and then terror washed
over me anew when I saw the outlines of more of the strange chicken hybrids in the distance
who come to find the cause of the ruckus.
In that instant, I ran.
My feet pounded hard on the ground as I dash past nesting-box towers and abominable chicken
creatures.
The sound of my steps caused many of these creatures to wake.
freak out and throw themselves from their nesting boxes.
Soon I was running through a madhouse of feathers and twisted bodies.
I felt wings slap against my body, felt chicken feet scratching over my arms and legs,
felt beaks tearing at my skin, but I continued on.
More than once I had to wrestle something feathered from my body and throw it aside.
I didn't know where I was running.
Didn't know for how long, but all I wanted was to get away.
to get out of this mad, surreal place.
I dredged on for what felt like hours running, stumbling,
before I tripped over a trough in front of me.
Eventually I fell to the floor and crashed hard against the wheelbarrow.
I left standing.
In an instant, I thought myself to my feet,
tipping over the wheelbarrow before I realized where I was.
All around me stood the meticulously constructed rows of nesting boxes
with chicken sleeping them.
To both sides I could make out,
an end in the walls of the hatchery.
For long moments I stood there in shock and disbelief,
wondering what had happened.
It had to have been a dream, a hallucination.
But then I noticed the wounds covering my arms.
When old Thomas put his hand on my shoulder,
I cringed back, staring at him with wide eyes.
When he saw my quivering lips and the scratches and wounds all over my body,
He led me from the hatchery and asked what had happened.
At first I was reluctant to speak.
But then I told him I'd ended up somewhere.
I expected the old man to laugh, but he asked me where I'd ended up and what I'd seen.
As I rambled on, he merely nodded.
Once I was done, there wasn't much he said.
Neither did he say much when I told him I was done.
working at his farm.
And yet, when I turned to get into my car and to leave his farm forever, there was something
in his eyes.
I couldn't make out what it was.
It was a hidden secret.
Some hidden knowledge that sent yet another cold shower down my spine.
For your bonus episode, Creepy Presents.
I go dumpster diving, and I found something strange.
Strange that shouldn't exist.
Written by the Withy Woodwich
And narrated by Alicia Atkins.
I started dumpster diving about six months ago.
It started as a hobby, and I picked up some cool shit.
But the cooler the shit I picked up, the more obsessed I got.
And after a while, it became an impulse I couldn't ignore.
I haven't worked in a while.
And my first big find all those months ago was around the back of a pizza
place. I didn't have money for groceries and someone told me that undelivered pizzas were just
tossed away. And that night, my stomach made me check the theory out. The person who had imparted
this information hadn't been wrong, and I scored three perfect pizzas that night, untouched and still
in the box, that I took home and gorged myself on until I felt sick. After that, I kind of made it a
habit between job searches to go and check out the dumpsters behind restaurants and grocery
stores. Before long, I had a pretty steady routine set up that meant I didn't need to go to food
banks anymore, and if I found more than I needed, I distributed amongst the homeless shelters and
food banks in my town. It made sense that after finding necessities, I would begin looking for
luxuries. There is so much waste out there. I can't even begin to describe it. I started checking the
backs of pharmacies and clothing stores, and I found makeup, home decor, and fashion items that
might not be in perfect condition, but were still usable. I managed to pick up some decorations
for my niece's birthday party, find gifts for Christmas, and even furnished my house with throes and
cushions and curtains. It isn't all candles and party plates, though. You can find the best and
worst of humanity while dumpster diving. I quickly learned which places were sympathetic, in which
places weren't. Some employees would carefully place undamaged items and food aside from the rest of the
waste, just so people like me could find it. Other places poured bleach over food, or slashed clothing
so it couldn't be worn. I got manhandled by some pretty unpleasant security guards a couple of
times, one specifically hired to deter fortune hunters. I've made some pretty unusual discoveries,
too. The most
heartbreaking one still haunt me.
I found a homeless man sleeping in one once.
I didn't see him at first.
He'd pulled piles of garbage sacks over him to keep warm,
and I woke him up with my rummaging.
Scared this shit out of me when he sat up.
But I'd had a good haul that night.
And once I'd calmed down,
I got some food and blankets from my car for him.
It wasn't much, but it was all I could do.
Another time, I ripped open a plastic sack
And found a pile of newborn kittens inside
Five of them
One was still alive, but its siblings had died
And I took it home to try and nurse it back to health
It didn't survive the night
That fucked me up for a while
And I didn't go scavenging for a couple of weeks
I buried all five kittens in my back garden
Even made a little headstone for them
I couldn't just leave them there to rot.
After a while, I got an accomplice,
an older niece of mine who liked to hang out with me.
She loved looking over my halls every day
and begged to be allowed to accompany me,
and after a while, I lit her.
She was with me when I found the baby.
It was such a normal night, looking back.
I'd found a huge batch of carefully wrapped bread
behind a sympathetic bakery,
and some discarded perfume samples that were pretty much full behind a department store.
So there were no omens, no warnings, that my life was about to change.
We heard a strange noise coming from a dumpster behind a supermarket,
a mulling sound that spurred me into action.
I was thinking of the kittens, all five of them lined up beneath the grass of my back garden,
and I threw the lid of the dumpster up with such force it rebounded and closed again.
With my niece holding the lid up, I abandoned any caution and climbed inside.
It was mostly empty, meaning it had probably been emptied that day,
so anything inside had to be recent, that comforted me somewhat.
The noise I had heard first was accompanied by frantic rustling,
and it took me mere seconds to find out where it was coming from.
A plastic bag bound into a tight cylinder with duct tape.
Only the top and bottom left untaped.
i had started to carry a flashlight with me for my night-time expeditions and shown the beam to illuminate the thrashing parcel the top was wiggling from side to side the bottom flexing and twin staccato burst
The kittens had been bad, but this was much worse.
I knew what was in there, and for a second I couldn't move for the horror I felt.
I had a box cutter with me, but I didn't even get it out of my pocket.
I was too scared on my cut-wows inside, so I tucked my flashlight under my chin and used my bare hands,
focusing on the top of the bag first.
The plastic parted easily under my nails, and as I explained,
I exposed the skin of the bag's prisoner.
The flashlight slipped from where I had clenched it, and fell,
narrowly missing what I was trying to save.
The light went out then, the bulb smashing,
but I continued ripping the bag apart in the dim light of a nearby security light.
The sounds I had heard initially continued,
slightly louder, but still somehow muffled.
I couldn't process that right then.
So I didn't.
I just carried on shredding the plastic.
My niece was peering over the edge of the dumpster,
and once the head was free, I lifted the little plastic bundle up.
It was a solid weight, heavier than I expected,
but I hadn't held a baby in a long time.
It's a baby, I told my niece and heard her answering gasp.
Oh my God! No fucking way! Who would do that?
I didn't bother to answer.
People could be shit.
The kittens had already shown me.
Instead, I held the baby up for my niece to take.
Grab it, I told her.
I need both hands to climb out.
Now that the initial panic was over,
the smell of the dumpster filtered into my senses.
It smelled like rotting vegetables and sour milk,
and I gagged as I extended my arms.
Sour spit filled my mouth,
and I knew if I didn't get out soon, I would puke.
My niece started to take the baby from me, as I reched, my eyes watering.
But just as I was about to let go, I felt the whole weight sag back into my hands.
No, she moaned.
I can't.
Take it!
I spluttered, gagging.
I need to get out.
No, it's...
I spat over my shoulder, a thin drool I couldn't have swallowed under anything.
circumstances. I was pissed off. At my niece, at whoever had dumped this baby, at the whole of
humanity. Fucking take it! I shrieked. My voice was hoarse, but it must have had enough authority to convince
my niece to do as she was told, and I felt my burden leave my hands. The lid of the dumpster slammed
down then, came down into the crown of my head with a force that made me see stars. And when I ducked my
head, the edge of the lid continued its downward trajectory, catching my fingers against the
rim. I nearly fell, and if I had, I don't know what would have happened. My niece would have been no
help. I know that now. I might have puked myself into unconsciousness, rolling round in the
filth of rotten food. But somehow, the reek propelled me up and out, dizzy and disgusted. I launched
myself over the edge of the foul dumpster, the lid scraping my already sore head, then my back,
and I fell headfirst into the concrete below, gulping in fresh air even as I passed out.
When I came to, it was dark, but that was because my niece was blocking out the light with her head.
Her hair was falling in my face, tickling it maddingly, and she was sobbing.
For a split second, I wondered why she was in my bedroom.
but the cool night air in my throbbing head brought me up to speed.
Where's the baby?
The first words out of my mouth.
My niece continued to cry.
I thought you were dead, she said.
And you didn't call an ambulance?
I thought, but didn't say.
Using my bruised hands, I pushed her away and forced myself to set up.
Stop sniveling.
Where is it?
I demanded.
She didn't answer with words, just pointed with a shaking hand, before putting both hands over her face.
Don't touch it, she said.
It's all fucked up!
I had no patience for her.
Of course it was fucked up.
It had been thrown into a dumpster in a makeshift plastic shroud by someone who deserved to be crucified.
I managed to stand, my legs wobbling and my knees sagging.
The little parcel I'd fought for was lying on the bare concrete some feet away, still taped up,
and those weird little muffled sound were still being emitted.
I staggered over, falling onto my knees next to it, and for the first time I saw what my niece meant.
The baby was all fucked up, but not by being thrown away like so much garbage.
Its head was huge, bulbous, the skin of molten gray.
and thread it all over with blue veins.
I could see them pulsing in the meager light.
But that wasn't the worst thing.
It had no face.
Where a face should be was just a blank mask of skin,
with indents and swells where eyes, nose, and mouth would have been.
Face shaped, but not a face.
I could have been repulsed, I suppose.
Could have felt the same disgust as my face.
My niece apparently felt.
But I couldn't feel that.
It was a baby, not responsible for its appearance, brought into this world only to be rejected.
I picked it up, supporting the sagging weight of its oversized head in the crook of my arm.
My niece was moaning behind me and feel much sympathy.
I remembered holding her as a baby, cradling her squirming little body against me.
her face had been bright pink her scalp flaky and her ears too big that hadn't deterred me then and this baby didn't deter me now poor baby i said
and it might have been my imagination but i felt the baby's struggles lessen and the strangled noises it made grow quiet how could it hear i wondered and inspected the side of its head
There were fleshy little nubs there, slightly pointed, but sealed over.
It whimpered, and this time I wondered, how can it breathe?
How can it make noises?
How can it feed?
There was a pharmacy nearby, and I knew that the dumpster behind it might have things that I needed for a baby.
But for that moment I couldn't figure out exactly how formula and bottles would be of any use.
unsure of what to do.
I made my way back to where my niece was crouched.
She was still weeping, in an absent-minded kind of way, but watching me closely.
We need to get to a hospital, she said, and I nodded.
It was the first sensible thing she had said.
Yeah, this baby needs medical care.
I began, but she interrupted me.
Not for that thing.
your head!
My eyes had been stinging since I had regained consciousness.
I'd barely noticed.
And it was only when she mentioned my head that I realized my head was bleeding.
Blood was running into my eyes, dripping down my face.
But I didn't have time for that.
I shook my head, making me giddy,
and it was a little more violent than I intended.
Don't worry about me, I said.
This baby!
I took another step.
towards her, feeling helpless.
She was still on the ground, but she leaned back as I approached, crawling like a crab away from me,
and the pathetic burden I held.
Don't, she said.
I don't want to.
The baby made one of its snuffling strangled muse again, and my knee shuddered.
Just kill it, she moaned.
Kill it.
I couldn't speak.
I was outraged by her callousness and stupefied by her ignorance.
I shook my head again, and this time I noticed the drops of my blood had fallen on the place where the baby's face should have been.
I went to wipe it off with my sleeve, but before I could, I noticed something very strange.
The blood disappeared, not like it had run off, but more like it was absorbed,
and the noise the baby made now was calmer somehow.
how satisfied. Ignoring my niece, I raised one hand and dipped my fingers onto the blood
still dripping from my head wound. I was curious. I placed my bloody fingers where I judged the
baby's mouth should be and felt an odd sensation, something like suction, although there was
nothing there that could feasibly suck. When I took my hand away, my fingers were clean, spotless,
Strange, I thought.
My niece was getting to her feet.
I noticed her at the edge of my vision.
Something that wasn't important, but was also mildly annoying.
She was backing away from me.
Kill it, she said again.
It shouldn't be alive.
I agreed on that last part.
It shouldn't be alive.
But it was.
And I would do everything I could.
to make sure it stayed alive.
Fuck off, I told her.
My voice sounded far away, an echoey,
as though I was hearing it shouted from the end of a tunnel.
Fuck off.
Or I'll kill you.
I heard myself say.
I paddled my fingers in my head wound again,
and transferred the blood to the baby's non-existent mouth.
I felt the pull in my fingertips,
A sensation that traveled all along my arm, into my shoulder, and into my chest where it seemed to tugged my heart.
My niece said something then, something I didn't hear, and I said something back that I don't remember.
Whatever it was, she fled, ran away into the night and left us in peace.
It's a good thing she did.
I don't know what I might have done.
They might have found her body in the dumpster the next time you're not.
it was emptied. A replacement for the little sacrifice I held in my arms. Once she had gone,
and once I'd fed the baby till it was sated, I returned to my car and laid my little bundle on the
back seat. It was still taped up, swaddled in plastic, and I didn't like that. I used my pocket
knife very carefully, stripping away links of tape until it was free. Then I wrapped it in a blanket,
the way a baby should be swaddled.
It's worth mentioning that the rest of the baby's body was pretty much the same as its head,
pale and discolored, but blank.
Whilst it was of normal size and proportions,
there was no indications of any gender.
It was smooth like a Barbie doll,
perfect and neat.
And that made a twisted kind of sense.
I wouldn't need anything for this baby apart from clothes to warm its chilly,
little body. No bottles, no diapers. Just a supply of what it seemed to need. And whilst I had
plenty of that, I know I can't sustain a regular supply without leaving the baby motherless,
so I'll have to find it elsewhere. It's amazing what you can find in dumpsters.
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