This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.
The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/AcidStreet7 on 2024-04-08 09:29:08.
I woke up to him slamming his head against our front door. They’d told me he was confined, and escape was unlikely.
I come from a small town, one of those wasteland sorts–heavy fog washes over the roads come morning, and during the night there are no visible stars but the moon, shining triumphantly over our house. So no one can save me
My husband and I lived in a neighborhood that contains two houses; one is mine and the other has been evacuated since the accident.
My husband had tried to shield me from the house opposite ours, as I was pregnant and he was worried that if I went near there, our late neighbors would pass over their rumored disease to me and the baby. I insisted that I was strong, but agreed to stay away from their house. It wasn’t inviting, besides. It was old and there was mildew growing over the outside walls, and the interior was no more comforting. The entire place was lit with white bulbs, which against the age of the house made it appear uncanny. Sterile lights, no warmth.
I used to watch it from my bedroom window, while my husband would get undressed from his strenuous day of work. But one night, while I was peering at the window, I saw it. What the news had mentioned half-heartedly, as if it was nothing to be worried about. PEOPLE WERE EATING PEOPLE. A phenomenon as ridiculous as that, I figured, shouldn’t be taken seriously anyway.
Our neighbor had a young son, eight or so. He and his mother were seated in the kitchen, and the son loomed dreadfully over his mother, smoothing a wet, swollen finger over her hair. Slicking it back, so he had more room to see the expanse of her face. I moved closer to the window, until my cheek brushed up against the cold glass. The boy held his mothers face, then picked a fork up from the table. He was soaking wet and his body seemed to be yellow, flushed as if he had jaundice. His brittle skin was ripping, as if the poor thing were so thin his skin was but a paper splayed over him, bound to break.
Slowly, he stuck the fork into his mothers cheek, and pulled downward, revealing the fatty flesh that sat so delicately underneath. His thumb squeezed into her face, and she didn’t move. She appeared transfixed, maybe on drugs. The boy pulled away from his mother but kept his fingers of her flesh, pulling the fork further until it reached her nose.
Then, he stabbed the fork through the cartilage and bone of her nose, and brought the matter to his face. Eating it, an empty expression on his face, eyes wide and twitching. He looked away from his mother then shoved his hand back into her cheek, squelching it like jelly, his other hand banging profusely against the table.
I stood up and I screamed for my husband. He ran inside and I showed him what I was seeing, while tears streamed down my face.
He kept his mouth pursed, while I pleaded for him to go help them. Help that poor child. I thought of my own child, unborn and waiting to come into a world like this.
“No.” He said, sternly. “They will die soon.”
“Then I’m calling the police, please! This–I can’t just let this happen right beside us–”
“You’re NOT calling the police. You are going to make yourself sick.” He shut the curtain then put both his hands upon my shoulders, and suddenly I felt him grow colder. Usually his touch comforted me, it was always burning hot with love and care, but now I felt entrapped by him. He leaned forward, kissing my cheek. “You just go to bed now.”
“No, I can’t! God, no!”
His grip tightened around me, and his head lingered near mine. His lips brushed up against my ear, and his breath felt heavy, unkind. “Wouldn’t you want to be left alone if you were them, sweetheart?”
I didn’t know he’d already contracted it. Neither did he. I don’t think they ever realize they’ve got the disease.
I ended up taking a sleeping pill and forcing myself to forget about it, as his firm words made me wonder if I had hallucinated it. He could be convincing like that.
I woke up in the middle of the night, to an empty room. My bed was the only thing that was there, my soft mattress; for a moment there was silence, comfort, and my senses hadn’t yet kicked in.
Then they did. My legs felt wet. Truth be told, I laughed to myself. Maybe an accident, though it wasn’t typical of me, but who knows–I’d never been pregnant before. I shifted my knee
And the pain hit me. I didn’t scream, but only sat still. I felt soaking wet, every part of me from my waist down felt like it was cold and air was whipping through my body. I tried to sit up, and did so just enough so I could turn on my lamp. Light flooded the room, and I saw that my lower body was almost pooled in blood.
By then the sheet had become so wet that it could’ve been a part of my body. I thrashed and kicked it off of me, then put a hand on my open stomach. My hand just continued to move deeper and deeper into my own body until I cried out and began to shake. I wiped the blood over my face, slipping as I tried to get up, help myself. I thought I could feel everything, my ribcage, my organs, everything was freezing and soaking and moving in ways I couldn’t understand and the room began to spin and I could hear my husband laughing in the bathroom and I wanted to kill him
I lost my daughter. I also lost myself. It has been a month since this occurred–and I was only a pinprick away from dying. I was able to get to the hospital and they stitched me back up. If my husband had eaten me just a bit extra he would’ve ended my life, on top of the life of our child. Not a day goes by that I do not wish the doctors would stop testing him, stop experimenting on his body to see what this disease is, and instead let him rot and starve and die.
I knew they should’ve. Because now he is back at my doorstep. Skin yellow and engorged, flailing like a deranged animal.
Help. The police won’t.