I work at a grocery store and I’ve never had an experience working there that I felt would make sure I wouldn’t sleep tonight… until today.
Just after lunchtime, a large woman in her 70s came into the entrance of the grocery store, where we have carts, vending machines and some benches for sitting, and sat at one of the benches. I was working the register and could only see the back of her head. She was swaying left to right from time to time and occasionally turned her head up to look up as she was doing it. I saw her facial expression from the side and her jaw was hanging open while her eyes looked even further up than her head had titled. I wanted to go see if she was alright, but we had just re-opened after a COVID outbreak in the store and we were forbidden from getting too close to customers for now unless an emergency had already occurred. I rationalized that maybe she was just high from some medication and sent a text message to my boss to inform them to watch for this lady at the entrance.
A few minutes later, I was relieved at the register and needed to collect some carts for the entrance. It was at that point I was able to get a good look at this lady on the bench. She looked exhausted and haggard, one of the lens on her glasses was cracked so badly that it could be seen from my distance. The moment she saw me come back in, though, she fixed her gaze at me, her jaw lifted but her mouth was still open as if she was looking at me in awe. I wasn’t sure if she was aware she was staring right at me.
“AREN’TTTTT YOOUUU WOOORRRKKIIINNNGG HAARRRDDD??” she said in a disconcerting slow voice. I think she meant to be making pleasant small-talk to acknowledge a young man working, but her words came out strained and so slow that it took away any doubt that something was wrong. I moved my mouth to speak, but she immediately darted her head down and began mouthing something to what I though was like a scarf or sweater on her lap. It was only at that moment it occurred to me that that was actually a baby in a bundle.
“Ma’am, are you alright? Did you need some help?” I finally said out loud. She sharply turned her head back up at me, almost like she was surprised that I was there or said something. She held a look of shock before quickly turning it into an unconvincing smile.
“III’MMM FIIINNEE.” She said in her strange accent. “WEE’REE BOTH FIIIINNNE.”
She turned down to the baby on her lap and said to it “It’s ok… It’s ok… no one’s coming.” For some reason, when she spoke to the baby, her labored accent was gone.
“Are you sure?” I tried to press. “We have a doctor onsite at the pharmacy, or we can call our security guard if you like.”
She nervously flashed me another unconvincing smile while keeping her body lurched forward and her long, messy gray hair over the bundle. It was as if she was intentionally trying to make sure I couldn’t see the baby.
“WEE’REE FIIINNEEE. SHHHEEEE’S JUST HUUUUNNNGRYYYY AND FUUUSSYYYY…” Then she quickly diverted attention again back to the baby, as if she couldn’t overlap her attention between me and the baby.
I decided to leave her be and went to my next duties handling the customers at the self-checkout. I tried to focus away from it because creepy customers and people with mental problems are things that really make me anxious on a deep level. It kept bothering me that I couldn’t see the baby, or that I even knew it was a baby until she looked down and starting mouthing things at it.
“It’s ok… it’s ok, he’s not paying attention to us.” I suddenly started hearing from the entrance. It was the old woman talking normally to the baby, but this time at a volume that could be heard. I dreaded to think she was referring to me.
“I think… I think, I think, I think… no… no, no… you’ve had… no, enough… well, they’re ALL named Fred down there…” Then she paused for a few seconds, and I heard her end whatever she was saying with a nasty racial epithet that rhymes with “trucking snickers”.
For a little while, it got quiet. I didn’t see any customers for a bit. Lulls like this can be rare at a grocery store. It was quiet for a good 15 minutes. I thought maybe this meant that the creepy old woman and her baby had also gone, but I turned around and she was still sitting on the bench - no longer swaying back and forth, now I could only see the back of her head while was there motionless. Further more, looking down at the other aisles to my right, I could see that ALL the other cash register attendants had gone. I was seemingly the only one up front.
My anxiety over this old lady was getting worse and I began to critically go over what was bothering me here. Why was she now so quiet? Come to think of it, why is the BABY so quiet? She said it was hungry and fussy, but it didn’t make a noise. I could hear her talking but the baby never so much as cried or made any noise. What was she saying to it? What the HELL is going on?
As I was in my solitary trance, it then was a small shock when a customer came up to me from my left to get my attention. It was a mom with a 9-year-old daughter, and she had an intense and serious look on her face.
“You need to do something,” She started. “This woman at the entrance is breast-feeding a tightly- bound baby with her tits WAY out. There! That old woman right there. She’s way too old to be breastfeeding a baby, she’s mumbling like she’s doped up on something, she’s exposing herself… I don’t think she’s wearing ANYTHING under that coat! She looked at both me and my daughter and asked US if we would wet nurse that child. She asked my 9-year-old daughter to breastfeed that baby!”
I could feel a sensation that felt like the world had almost gotten swallowed by something. This feeling of dread just exploded into full-blown fear. I didn’t know how to really deal with emergency situations or unruly customers, and now a spotlight was shining on me to deal with a really unique version of both.
“You need to DO something!” The mom screamed. “Something is wrong with this woman, that baby could be in danger!”
“STOP IT! STOP YELLIIINNNNNNG!” The old woman screamed from the entranceway. She was clearly referring to us, but was still facing away from us. It was like what she said and what her body should be doing weren’t connected.
“Call the security guard..!” the mom said. “There’s a phone right there, it should be connected to…”
“STOP IT! MIND YOUR OWN ******* MOTHER******* BUSINESS!!!” was another scream that should have been associated with the old woman but still felt disconnected from her. Her accent had changed again - neither slowly drawn out like a lobotomy patient nor talking quietly, now her voice had a major SCRATCH to it, like a Southern grandma who yelled for a living was about to start shooting.
“Mommy… mo…” the daughter started crying and closed into her mother’s side, confirming this bizarre thing was really happening and really as bad as I thought it was.
“Don’t. Don’t, don’t, don’t… you need to swaller now…” the old woman starting saying in her “quiet” voice again that meant she was talking to the baby, but still loud enough that we could hear it and with no self-awareness whatsoever. “You said you weren’t going to do that. You need to swaller now. I gave all you I got and no one else will help us. You know what you said, now swaller it.”
Then she stood up from the bench, her coat falling off her shoulders and revealing a naked back. My eyes lifted in shock and the mom next to me gasped as well. She lifted the baby up to the same level as her head and now I saw it for the first time. I couldn’t make out any features, but it did not appear to be moving.
“Oh my god…” the mother said in her gasp. I thought I would have a heart-attack. Why was this bothering me so badly? Something here was wrong - even for this situation, something was really wrong here.
“CALL SECURITY!” the mom screamed at me again. “CALL SOMEONE!”
“All… alright, I’ll, I’ll call someone.” I stammered out meekly. I jumped to the nearest store phone and started punching in numbers and trying to remember what to say. I turned back around and now the old woman had the baby held above her head with one hand, and had the other hand over its face. I think, at that time, she was trying to pry open the baby’s mouth and push something down its throat with her finger.
“Get Stanley out front, we have something going on here!” I rushed the words out of my mouth as fast I could get them. “We need help out here, we’ve got an elderly customer and…”
Suddenly there was an air-piercing shriek. It was so loud that I could hear it all around me. It was the old woman who had screamed. The mom and her daughter had run behind the counters at this point. She screamed again, long and with all the strength of her body with extreme pain. When I had turned to around to see her, I could no longer see her standing.
There was another scream - one longer and more excruciated than the others. This time it came from the floor.
Then, two seconds later, she was hurriedly crawling into the store completely naked and leaving a trail of blood.
“IT BIT ME! IT BIT ME!”
She reached out to me with her hand, the same hand that was over the baby’s face, that was missing a finger and shooting blood and dangling a piece of bone from the torn flesh.
“IT BIT ME! IT BI-HI-HIT ME…!”
She crawled a bit further and I discovered there was also blood on her legs. Strips of skin and muscle were peeled out from the back of her left leg, adding to the gore flooding the tile floor. She groaned in agony, then turned over to expose her naked front side for a third shock at what had happened to her… both her breasts were also maimed, spraying blood, missing one nipple and the other one just barely hanging “by a thread”.
Finally, several co-workers had gotten to the front and had rushed to help the poor woman. The moment I saw someone, I immediately bolted to get the baby. I nearly tripped over the woman like some horrible joke, but I had to act quick. She HAD to have dropped the baby from whatever happened, holding it 6 feet in the air and then collapsing on the ground, she had to have dropped it. It was only a split second in real time, but in my mind hundreds of horrible thoughts came together as I was preparing myself for what I’d see.
There it was on the ground, it was back tightly bound in its cloth bundle. It had blood and a piece of something pink near it. Holy shit, what happened? What was I going to see? Was I going to make it worse by touching it? So many thoughts scrambled through my head in the few steps it took me to get there.
But nothing could have prepared me for what I’d find.
It wasn’t a baby. It was a doll. It was a realistic, proportionally accurate baby doll.
And inside its mouth was the woman’s finger.
Time stopped for who knows how long while I was transfixed with the incomprehensibility of the scene. I dropped the doll and the woman’s finger rolled out of its mouth. I threw up a little bit in my mouth and then someone finally shouted at me, “HEY! HOW’S THE BABY? IS THE BABY OK?”
I got away from it, fear and tears both in my eyes as I was losing control of the situation. “It’s not a baby!” I said, my mouth quivering.
“WHAT?”
“It’s not a baby! It’s…”
I turned back around, like an involuntary spasm to look at it while I was talking about it… and it was gone. The doll, the cloth bundle, and THE FINGER, had all disappeared…