I work at a cafe that hosts talent nights for musicians and comedians to perform at. It’s pretty easy living considering I’m just a barista and I spend most of my time messing around with my friends when I work. It was a really needed pace change and I still think it was a great decision.
I guess the way I could describe how this entire fiasco went down was when one of the musicians who came to perform often had started to really open up to the staff. He was kind of a nobody for the past shows we’ve done. If I had to describe him, his guitar made more noise than he did. Maybe it’s because I’ve always really had a thing for people who are into art, but I started to really googly eye at him. It was a little awkward the first few times we tried to sit down and talk but he grew on me. There wasn’t anything really wrong with him- he was nice, kind of shy. I would even consider that we were really into each other at one point but we just hadn’t really acknowledged it in words. We’ll call him Guitar Guy.
I don’t remember exactly how I landed up at his front door, but it was late, and I wasn’t in any shape to drive after one of our hostings. I was intoxicated. It was one of those things where your head feels too heavy on your shoulders and you could feel your heartbeat in your temples? Anyways, he let me sit on his porch step and got me some water while I tried to figure out my transportation. With the remaining braincells I had that weren’t fried I told him outright I wasn’t looking to hook up or anything which he was understanding of. We sat and chatted and he played me music to try and help soothe the headache I had, which didn’t really help if I were honest. Then came the big question if I wanted to come in and sit down. So I did.
There was this Weird.. Smell. It was like baby powder and vinegar and old boiled pennies. It was faint enough to notice but not strong enough to like, put me on my knees or anything. I felt a lot better when I sat down and I managed to get ahold of my shift manager to help come pick me up. Guitar Guy lived up the block from the cafe so it was in walking distance, it shouldn’t have taken her too long to come pick me up. I vividly remember him staring at me at one point after a really long pause, and I didn’t really know what to say so I thanked him for being kind enough to lend me a hand and look out for me. He was going to say something but he got caught off when there was a noise from one of the rooms in his apartment.
It sounded like the bawling of a baby, and he immediately tensed up when he realized I had heard it too. I had some sort of brief clarity because I was surprised he hadn’t mentioned he was a dad to me earlier. You could imagine that I was flooded with a whole world of questions, and he tried to reassure me it was nothing. Now, I think it’s worth mentioning that I used to be a babysitter before I landed a more stable job. I guess in my drunkened state I got activated like a sleeper agent and insisted to the infant. Who doesn’t love the company of a baby?
“…You have to promise me that you won’t freak out.”
I can still hear his tone of voice clear as day when he said that. I had that familiar swell of being excited during my babysitter days of seeing a baby for the first time, and I followed him to a closed door. The bawling was a little more clear to me as I stood in front of it. He hung around outside of the room when I stepped inside and It was just as you’d think; toddler toys and a cradle, stork paintings- the whole shebang.
I will never get the image of what I saw out of my head when I walked up to that crib. The lamp by the bedside wasn’t enough, so I was confused on what I was staring at. Just trying to wrap my head around the anatomy of the thing that laid snuggly in pink fluffy blankets with flowery emboridering.
It was like a giant maggot. Like a balloon of dark red flesh that wriggled and pulsated because it was too full. It looked like one of those tumors that grew teeth and mounds of hair, and the noises it made were gurgly like it couldn’t breathe. The smell too- it was that same penny and baby powder stench but it reeked. My heart sank down to my ass, and at the first moment I could intercept my fear, I fucking booked it. Which was difficult considering I pratically hit everything on the way out of that apartment. I must have put up a good fight against air because I had bruised knees and arms the day after.
The rush of adrenaline I had carried me a good way down the block when I saw my manager’s car and almost literally got ran over from trying to leap through the passenger window to get the hell out of there. ‘What the fuck’ didn’t feel like a real word by the time I managed to get home.
I don’t know what to think. Maybe I was hallucinating, maybe I was just seeing things. It’s stuck with me. I feel like a different person now. After whatever the hell happened, I haven’t seen Guitar Guy since. It was like he dropped off the face of the earth.
No texts, no phone calls.
Nothing.