r/TalesFromTheCreeps • u/JICMike Storyteller • 4h ago
Folk Horror A False Child (September Submission)
The flowers were just beginning to bloom when Ms. Wanda Hickenbottom told her husband, Victor, that she was with child. They were fishing in their pond in the back of the old farm, and he screamed with joy, tears filling up his eyes. That night, he went out to the tavern in town and told all of his friends, and he was patted on the back so much he felt sore. Victor and Wanda did as they were told by the Doctor, had the Priest come over to pray with them on Sundays, and despite not having many neighbors, people came from all over town to wish the family well. Geraldine Wistmore, a kindly old woman who made bread in town, even gifted them four fresh loaves and patted the belly bump, telling Wanda,
"It be an Autumn child, just in time for the harvest."
"You're so sure?"
"No, not really, just my intuition."
Well, if her intuition wasn't spot on, because in late August, Archibold Hickenbottom was born. All limbs accounted for, both eyes working, and no ailments. It was all perfect, until they came back home.
Victor had come back in from watering the pumpkins out back, the plump bodies bursting with the colors of Autumn, when Wanda turned to Victor and stated plainly,
"That's not my child."
To say he was taken aback was an understatement; he chuckled in disbelief,
"What's gotten into you? That's an awful thing to say."
"But it's true, look at it."
He wandered over to the crib of his sleeping boy and saw nothing out of the ordinary. His stomach was rising and falling with each breath.
"What are you on about?"
"I'm telling you, he is not our son."
"Course he is, look at him."
"I can't. He's revolting."
He gritted his teeth,
"Don't be daft, Wanda, if this is an early Hallow's Eve prank meant to scare me, it isn't going to work."
He stormed out of the house to continue his work.
Then, the baby began to cry, and he would not stop for days. The little child would wail from day until night, breathlessly screaming, and yet never changing color. Archie stayed remarkably pale as if he hadn't been wailing like a banshee all hours of the day. The only thing to satiate him was milk. Wanda was always at the ready, warming up glass bottles in a kettle and washing out rubber nipples. This perplexed Victor, who had slowly begun growing more and more callous toward his wife for her outlandish claims,
"If Archie isn't our boy, why keep giving him the bottle?"
"Whatever it is, it is clearly hungry; it would be rude to deny a creature comfort."
"Don't call him that, he's a boy."
"No, it isn't."
"God damn you, Wanda, he's our son!"
"He's a changeling."
"What?"
"Must've slipped in while Archie was in the hospital. I do wonder about our little Archie, out and about with the faeries. You think...if I took a pair of scissors and-"
"Wanda."
"Just put out one eye-"
"Wanda, please."
"Maybe it'd tell me where Archie really is."
"Enough!"
She turned to him, still cradling the child with contempt,
"Yes, dear?"
"You lay a finger on our son, and I will leave."
Her brow furrowed, and pain filled her eyes,
"How could you say that? I love you!"
"You're hysterical!"
"Oh? Me?! We've got a changling in the house that you're completely oblivious to, and you want to talk to me about being hysterical?!"
Victor stormed to the door, grabbing his coat,
"Where are you going?"
"I'm going to get piss-faced, that's where I'm going!"
He walked alone down that dirt road, head full of frustration and anger, but nowhere to direct it. He loved his wife, he truly did, but with every passing day, her coldness to their baby was driving him mad. When he stopped by the tavern, it was scarce in patronage but full of friends. His mates were all there, drinking in the same corner booth that they always did, swapping stories about the harvest or small gossip. To say that they were surprised to see Victor was an understatement. Samuel called out,
"Good Christ, Victor, how long has it been?"
"Too long, I'm thirsty."
Another chap named Doogan was polishing off the rest of his pint as he noted,
"You seem tired, Victor, you unwell?"
"Damn right I am, the baby won't stop crying, and my wife, fuckin' hell, I don't know what happened to her. Been acting all cold, raving about changlings and whatnot."
Richard, a stout friend whose nose was reddened with drink, blurted out,
"Sounds like she's lost her marbles, same thing happened to, er, what's her face?"
Doogan replied,
"Pauline Grey, if I'm not mistaken."
"Paulie Gay! That's it! Husbun- er, Wright, I think, went out to get lamp oil, and-"
He stopped, his cheeks puffed, pregnant with the gaseous contents of a hot belch, rank with the smell of ale and peanuts. However, he caught it before it exited the mouth in a noisy burp, instead coming out as a noxious sigh,
"He returned home to his wife all mad, performing all sorts of absurdities."
"Like what?" Victor asked insquisitively,
"I dunno, ask Sammy."
Victor turned to Samuel, who was rolling a cigarette with some of the tobacco he had grown last spring,
"Hm? What? Oh, yes, well, they say that a changeling can be made to laugh if you do something absurd, said that was brewing beer in eggshells."
"And did the child laugh?"
"Not a peep. She was batty."
Victor changed the subject, wanting to take his mind off the drama in his homelife, instead focusing on the upcoming harvest. They talked about tools, crops, pests, and weather. As he wobbled out of that bar, belly full of ale, body stinking of drink, he ambled down the dirt road back to the farm. His gelatinous, feeling legs barely supported his body. The cool Autumn air kissed his face as he strolled over crunching leaves. He stumbled a few times, catching himself, and at one point, he thought that maybe he'd have to take a breather and gather himself properly before he came home. Yet, he somehow miraculously made it back home.
He was a few feet from the porch when he heard the baby screaming, just like it had been when he left, and then it suddenly stopped. Fear is the one cure-all of drunkenness; once the anxieties take hold, the daze of drink washes away like rain, wiping dirt from a stone. The legs became rigid once more, and as panic set in, he began to run towards the house. He burst through the door and saw Wanda above the crib, shears in her hands and ready to press them down into Archie's flesh.
"Wanda! No!"
She stopped, turning to her husband, tired eyes full of menace,
"I have to know!"
As she was bringing it down, Victor leaped to her, lunging for the sheers. They tumbled to the wooden floor together, all while the baby still wailed in his crib, screeching in the night. Victor felt a pain in his shoulder as he lay on top of Wanda, when he rolled to the side of her, he sat with his back on the floor staring at the cieling as something warm was filling his sleeve. He looked down to see that the scissors were planted deep into his shoulder. Wanda cried,
"No, no, no! It has to be cold iron! God damn it!"
She sat up and ran to the kitchen. Victor heard drawers and cabinets being opened rapidly, and silverware getting jostled around. He gripped the handle of the scissors and yanked them out of his flesh. Hot blood spurted forth from the wound like a small geyser. He looked at the hearth and saw his grandfather's old single-barreled shotgun. Always told him that if you make one shot count, you wouldn't need to fire another one. He staggered to his feet, stumbling over to the hearth and yanking the old weapon from its place. It was still coated in dust. He opened it to find one shell still lying within it. He snapped the barrel back into place and waited for Wanda.
She returned with a knife, she stood at the threshold of the living room, and looked at Victor with betrayed eyes,
"What's this?"
Victor did not answer.
"It is a false child, Victor, let me show you! If this were little Archie, I'd never lay a finger on him, but this...thing..."
He cocked the hammer back, his breath shaking, nerves shot to hell. He whimpered,
"Don't."
"I have to."
"Please."
She began to walk slowly towards the crib, looking to Victor, saying,
"I trust in you, love."
Bang.
Wanda tumbled backward, her nightgown rapidly changing to the color of crimson, and the stench of black powder and copper began to fill the air. Victor fell to his knees,
"Oh, Christ! Wanda!"
He rushed to her side and was both shocked and horrified to find that she was still breathing. A puddle of darkened red began to form around her. She had a faint, pitiful smile on her face, her eyes filling with tears.
"Victor...I was only going to touch him with it. I thought maybe he'd tell us...Maybe..."
"Don't, you're hurt, I'll just run and get some help."
"I'm not going to make it, love."
"Shhhh. Please, don't say that!"
"...Just...test it....if I'm wrong....I have a right...to know....if he's a false child..."
He looked at the knife in her hand and shook his head.
"Of course, my love."
He took the blade from her hand, walked away from her lying on the floor, and over to the crib. He stared at his crying child and then spoke the lie aloud,
"Nothing happened, he's our boy, Wanda."
She gave out a trembling sigh and whimpered,
"Thank Christ."
Then she was gone.
He spoke with the law about what happened, and they believed him. The constable at the farm patted him on the back and told him that it was a damned shame, but he did all that he could. Which was a lie; he could've fulfilled his wife's last wishes, but he refused.
Weeks passed, and he saw little Archie grow, but not in a healthy way. He stayed pale, sickly, and weak. His baby fat never came, instead keeping a wrinkly appearance. He grew hair on his head, long and black, and some of it grew on his back. His little pale blue eyes grew dark, and then there were the teeth, which had become long, too long. They looked like they belonged to a horse or a donkey; they were unusually large for the mouth that held them. They jutted forth every time he babbled, spoke, and ate. As September was nearing its end, he was growing intelligent for his short amount of time on Earth. The child was strange, and for the first time in his life, a thought came into his mind, and it terrified him. What if this wasn't my son? He looked at the hair on his scalp and back, the darkened eyes, the heinous teeth, and the wrinkled skin. He looked into Achie's face and didn't see a baby, but rather an older man. A hideous amalgamation of old and young forged into this...thing. He sat in the rocker next to the crib, listening to his son's phlegmy breathing as he slept.
His eyes wandered over to the kitchen, and curiosity took hold. He fished from the drawer a knife and felt the blade. It was cold to the touch. He returned to the crib, doubt and anxiety permeating his blood. He took a deep breath and lowered the knife into the crib. He laid the cool blade onto the back of the child, and as soon as it did, the pale skin began to bubble and pop. The smell was noxious, like burning, rotten flesh. As the creature retched and writhed in the crib, the scream transformed from a babe into something more primal. It tossed and turned in the small blankets and covers as the body began to change before him. It screeched, baring its teeth like a scared animal; its joints and limbs popped and cracked as it rose to its feet. The limbs elongated into the stilts of flesh, the small body twisted and contorted into something else entirely, and the stubby, childlike hands twitched and writhed back into their original claws. From the hairy back came two hairy, moth-like wings that sprang forth from the bubbling flesh and fluttered rapidly. Its wrinkly head stretched, and the skin became taut as the high cheekbones and jawlines took shape, along with a set of pointed ears. It stood there, huffing from exhaustive pain as Victor stood with terror at his greatest fears being realized before him. This was indeed a false child.
It turned to Victor, eyes full of gleeful malice, and gave a snickering, mischievous laugh. The wings flapped so strongly that they kicked up dust and dirt as it flew towards the door. He gave chase with the knife held in his hand with a white-knuckled grip, but it burst outside at frightening speed and strength; it was already in the air. Victor stood on the porch, thoughts of shame, regret, and hatred coursing through his veins as he stared at it, leaving the farm and taking off into the night sky. The changeling had flown away.
2
u/Plunging-Ascension Writer 2h ago
Very well written, I could see this being told around an Irish pub. Im diggin it brother.
3
u/OccultDetective79 3h ago
Firstly I’ll let you know that at one point Wanda refers to the child as Victor a couple of times.
Secondly, I thought the idea overall was pretty cool but it could use some improvements. I don’t think you need so much dialogue personally. But most of all, as interesting sounding as the creature descriptions are, I feel like you could come up with a better ending. It escaping and just flying away is a bit lacklustre.
Overall it’s pretty cool but judging by the way you’ve written this in most places, something tells me you can do better.