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The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/ritaculous on 2024-10-21 22:33:25+00:00.

Whenever my mom spoke of my grandfather, she just told me he was a sick ******* who cared more about alcohol than he did his family. The irony that she only told me this when she herself had had a few too many wasn’t lost on me. It made me wonder, was being messed up some kind of inheritance, carefully preserved and passed down? 

Whatever it was, fate, inheritance, just plain dumb genetics, it didn’t spare my aunt either. I got the gist of her death - cirrhosis, a night comforting herself in the only way she probably knew, a car accident, and then-

Well. 

My cousin, Liam, moved in with us shortly afterwards. He was small, and pale, with a lazy eye. Mom wasn’t too excited about getting another mouth to feed, which I thought was rich. I’d been living off of school breakfasts and lunches for the past year, none of which she had paid for. 

I wasn’t too excited either, because Mom had made it clear that he’d be sharing my bedroom with me. What teenage girl is excited to have a four year old roommate? It wasn’t that there was much of an alternative though. Our trailer was tiny, and putting him in the living room would mean that my mother would have to give up her late night TV. 

He’d only brought a small backpack, with a change of clothes that looked like they hadn’t fit him for months. I knew my mom wasn’t going to do anything for him, so I took him to the goodwill down the street, and spent the money I’d scraped up working part-time at the nursing home. I tried not to think how many bedpans I’d emptied for the money as I held up tiny shirts to his torso. 

He stared at me - well, either at me or the mannequin behind me. I couldn’t tell which eye was the dominant eye yet. The fitting rooms have been closed permanently, so I just eyed the bottoms as well as I could, and checked. The cashier cooed over him, and when I complained about the clothes maybe not fitting, whispered that I could run home and try them. “If they don’t fit, come back before I’m off, and I’ll give you a refund.”

Plastic bags jostling my legs, I hustled us back home, practically dragging him behind me. His hand was limp in my grip, and I kept glancing over my shoulder to make sure he was okay. It was then that I realized that I hadn’t heard him talk yet. I don’t have a ton of experience with little kids - nursing home and highschool are pretty much the only places I go besides home - but that’s not normal, right? 

My mom was in the living room, talking loudly on the phone, so I led him into my - our - room and emptied the bags. “Here, get changed.”

He watched me blankly, and I sighed, leaning over to help.

I froze when I saw his arms. 

Look, I’m not going to get explicit. Last thing I want is some creep reading this who gets off on the thought of kids getting hurt. All I’m going to say is that someone had been hurting this kid. 

I dropped his arms, staring at him. He looked back blankly, and I stormed out to yell at my mom. Logically, I knew that this wasn’t her fault. It was her sister’s, either for doing it or allowing it, but she was dead and my mom was the closest person that I could blame. 

We devolved into a screaming competition. I called her sister a *****, and we went from there, with her telling me that I didn’t know what had haunted her sister in life. 

By the time I went back to the room, I knew for sure the girl was off her shift, and it didn’t really matter if the clothes fit or not. He’d grow into them, because I was going to make sure he got fed. Nothing was going to hurt this kid ever again.

I bandaged him up, feed him fish sticks for dinner, and got him into bed before I had to take off for work. I don’t know much about parenting, but if our relatives are what doom us, then I wasn’t going to be another mark against him. 

My mother was passed out on the couch when I got home, but I didn’t worry about waking her. Gabriel and his horn couldn’t wake my mother after she was through drinking on a bad day. 

Rolling my eyes, I headed for the bathroom, pausing when I noticed that the door to my room was open. I closed it as I passed - no need to wake the kiddo. I wondered if my mom had checked in on him, and then almost laughed. Yeah, right.

*

I started noticing that stuff was… off, the next couple of days. Doors were open, things in my room, even things that he couldn’t reach, had been moved. One night I came in to find my blinds had been torn down, and the window opened. 

There was no way he was strong enough to do that, so I just assumed my mother had, in a drunken fit, tried to air out the house. That’s what I told myself, anyways, but I didn’t really believe it. My mother had never decided to try and do anything useful while drunk, even if it failed. 

It wasn’t until the weekend, when I had time to help the kid take a bath, that I realized that the wounds weren’t healing. In fact, he had more.

The tub kept filling, and almost overflowed, before I caught myself and turned it off. What was going on here? Mo mother was awful, sure, but she’d never hurt a kid, at least not knowingly. I’d been around the kid all other hours of the day, except for when I had work. My next thought was that he was doing this to himself, to cope with losing his mom, and what I’m sure was a ****** childhood. Still, it didn’t make sense. He didn’t have access to knives, and I don’t think he could have cut up his own back.

I toweled him off, rebandaged him, and called in sick to work. It hurt, saying goodbye to hours I’d fought so hard for, but this was more important. 

He still didn’t talk, but I tried, squatting down to beat his level, asking him who was hurting him. He didn’t answer, still staring off behind me, and I gave up, helping him brush his teeth. I put him to bed, but left the bedroom door open.

Mom was off somewhere, probably trying to get drunk, get a man, or both, so for once the TV was off. 

I made myself comfortable in the living room, and started painting my nails. I’d only done my index finger when I heard the door to my bedroom creak shut. 

I stood up, putting the brush back in the bottle, and went to check. 

The room was still, and dark but for the lights from the gas station across the road. It took me a moment to see Liam, but he was huddled under the blankets in the little bed I’d made up for him, just as I’d left him.

Maybe a draft had blown the door shut? I wedged it open with a dirty uniform, and went back to the table. 

I’d barely done another two fingers when I heard the door close again.

This time I was faster, rushing to the door and flinging it open, but again, nothing.

I noticed then, that Liam was shaking underneath the blankets. I knew he couldn’t be the one closing the door - there was no way he’d closed the door and made it back under the covers that fast. 

“Liam?” I squatted down next to him. “Hey, what’s going on?” 

He didn’t answer, and I pulled back the blankets with my polish free hand. I gave up the idea of keeping my manicure intact though, as he started screaming and thrashing. “Whoa! Whoa! Liam, it’s me!”

He stopped screaming when he finally saw that it was me, and stared, eyes wide, chest heaving. He looked so little, in his too-big paw patrol pajamas, that my heart thumped painfully. Who would hurt him?

“Hey, buddy, what’s going on?” I sat down, criss crossing my legs. He shifted his gaze to behind me, and I glanced back, surreptitiously. Nothing but the yellow light from the living room. 

Wait, there was something else. There, right behind me, something was pressing into the carpet. I couldn’t see what it was, only the indents in the shag, where something was standing. 

I stopped breathing, and mechanically turned around. “Let’s get you a late night snack, okay?”

He was hard for me to pick up, but I managed it, not even looking back as I carried him out of the room. I closed the door right behind me, trying to seem normal about it, like I hadn’t noticed what was in there.

I held him close as I hurried to the kitchen, and I could feel his little heart beating through his chest. 

What the heck was that? And why was it hurting him?

I made silly faces as I mixed powdered milk with water, but my mind was racing. I remembered Mom had talked about her father “and the deal with the devil that killed him” more than once, but I’d always figured she was just talking about how he’d drunk himself to an early grave. Maybe not, though. Maybe she’d meant something much more literal. 

I had no way of contacting her, and she was probably too drunk to tell a coherent story wherever she was, anyways. What else should I do, call a priest? 

That idea seemed best, so I gave it a go why he drank his milk obediently, but when I called the local church, all I got was an answering machine. I thought about the police, but dismissed it. When they saw how beat-up he was, he’d be taken away for sure, and I knew that that whatever that thing was, it would follow him. 

What else, what else?

A quick google search revealed that there were as many ways to deal with a monster as there were horror stories, but how could I tell which one worked? If any did.

Salt seemed to be a common defense, so I wrenched open the drawer next to the sink. We didn’t have salt, really, but I always grabbed lots of packets when my old folks didn’t want them. It saved money, even if it was just a little bit.

I started ripping open yellow salt packets, dumping salt on the ground, scattering it…

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