The MotherWhore and the Brother hadn't slept at home in days. As much as he loathed them, BadBaby missed his family. An unfamiliar protectiveness towards them was pressing uncomfortably on his tar-black heart. BadBaby may be the size of a 12 year old, but being the Spawn of Satan had given him abilities beyond his years.

Family dynamics are complicated.

BadBaby was sitting in the dark when the doorbell started up. Within a minute, the pounding began, punctuated by a boot every 10 seconds or so. For whatever reason, the clamor terrified the MotherWhore and Brother. BadBaby decided it's gone on long enough. He wants his family home.

Home is where the heart is.

BadBaby opens the door, the officer appears stunned. Probably at having the door open after 18 days was a surprise on its own. Definite shock at the middle-school sized monster who answered it.

Stuttering, the officer is fumbling at his holster for his weapon. BadBaby's red eyes regard this with naked curiosity, he's never encountered a gun, though he's seen them on the television.

The officer's hands are shaking like MotherWhore's do. He's licking his lips while eyes are darting wildly and BadBaby realizes, he's terrified, as terrified as MotherWhore when he follows her. And he likes it, when he coos to her through the door, when he waves at her from his car, when he follows her for no reason... This twisted goatfucker enjoys her fear, he is excited by her fear! BadBaby's mind is beginning to understand the term MotherWhore and Brother had been discussing. Bully.

You picked the wrong family, Officer Goatfuck.

BadBaby steps aside, Officer Goatfuck's limited courage gets a boost thinking his screamed commands are being obeyed. He moves into the apartment, eyes glued to BadBaby, who he follows deeper into the living room. He's yet to shut up, as if he honestly believes this relentless onslaught of questions and demands deserve a response.

BadBaby smiles (grimaces), and with no more than a thought and the pointing of a chubby gray finger, Officer Goatfuck is rendered mute. Out of nowhere, a viscous maroon substance, stickier than licorice but just as thick has covered the cop's mouth and tongue, trapping them frozen mid-question.

Silence is golden.

Goatfuck points the gun at BadBaby, who's smile (grimace) widens at his naïveté. "Go ahead!" Spreading arms wide, giving the cop an easy target of his gray Buddha belly. Goatfuck isn't smart enough to consider his situation. He fires the gun, BadBaby takes one step back with the impact as the bullet enters just above his navel. Stupid Goatfuck, trying to make him an innie.

Cop and demon both watch the round hole, then Officer Goatfuck's eyes widen with horror as BadBaby pinches the opening, as if popping a giant pimple. But instead of pus being forced out, it's the slug, which BadBaby holds before Goatfuck's eyes, as if preparing for a magic trick.

He blows on the bullet, until it's glowing redhot. He then presses it against Goatfuck's cheek, searing a small circle in the flesh, which sizzles and smokes like fajitas.

Smells like bacon.

Goatfuck is screaming behind his bloody muzzle, but no one can hear. No one in this neighborhood would come to his aid, even if he wasn't a creeping, bullying cop, thinking his badge made him untouchable.

BadBaby's got a special touch.

He sits criss-cross-applesauce on the floor, forcing Goatfuck into a mirroring position. Their knees are almost touching. And BadBaby is inspired, the blossoming of a young mind is a lovely thing when allowed free reign.

The stench of burning flesh and hair begins to fill the apartment. BadBaby inhales deeply, it is an aromatic orgy to his senses, the exotic blend of blood, pain, and delicious fear. The same evil streak that makes Goatfuck a bully produces an intoxicating amount of cowardice, which tastes even better when eaten with vengeance.

BadBaby is slicing another long gouge across Goatfuck's belly when his lifelights go out. BadBaby licks his talon thoughtfully while looking at the pattern of blood spray on wall behind him.

Carefully, BadBaby removes Goatfuck's head from his body. He rolls the slackened face in a puddle of blood, then meticulously rolls the head along the wall in a straight line, the way cops roll your fingers over ink during processing.

BadyBaby steps back, admiring his vengeful masterpiece. He's holding the decapitated head by its hair, when a mewl alerts him to the presence of the one eyed Cat. Usually a nuisance, the Cat seems to be regarding BadBaby's artwork with appreciation, BadBaby swells with pride.

He reaches down, patting the Cat's head before tossing the head onto the tile, a gift for his feline brother.

Today, BadBaby learned the meaning of family.

Every day the monster came. There was neither rhyme nor reason as to when it would appear. First thing in the morning, in the evening, and oftentimes throughout the night. I didn’t even know if it had a concept of time. Weekdays and weekends—it didn’t matter. Summer, winter, spring, autumn—again, no matter. I was always vigilant and aware, looking for even the smallest sign to warn me of its impending arrival.

It was tall, about six-feet-two-inches. And big, maybe 275 pounds. A bulbous bare head with deep-set brown eyes that radiated constant angry rage. Its mouth was always fashioned into a gnarled grimace that barely hid its crooked yellow teeth. I knew it understood and spoke English because I had heard it a few times, but, to me, it only barked and growled.

I knew that my five-foot-six-inch, 150-pound self was no match physically. I was well aware that I couldn’t simply overpower it. Every time I tried to run away, I was captured by large, rough hands that always left me bruised and unable to escape.

But a weapon? Yes, that might work. If only. If only I wasn’t afraid that it would wrest any potential weapon out of my hands rather easily and use it against me.

I had a gun, several actually. I could shoot it. Despite being quite adept, I always harbored trepidations if I couldn’t dispose of it with a single, well-placed, fatal shot then I would be in more trouble than I already was. To be honest, I was constantly and unrelentingly frightened—to the point where I stopped thinking about destroying it.

I tried to poison it once but only succeeded in making it sick and that was a mess I never wanted to see—or clean up—again.

I wanted a life, that’s for sure. After having dealt with the monster for years, I realized I wasn’t living. I was simply existing and in constant fear. Sometimes, when I would hear its stomping feet approaching I unconsciously shuddered before cringing and frantically looking for a hiding place. But it always found me. Under the bed, in the closet, wherever. I was positive it could smell my fear and that it reveled in that odor.

I felt trapped in the bottom of a deep pit, and every time I was able to climb to the top, something—the monster—would step on my hands with heavy work boots and I would slide back down—each time a bit deeper—into the abyss.

I was utterly exhausted, broken, and defeated.

Finally fed up, I seriously began planning how to dispose of the monster. After all, I was very intelligent—far smarter than the monster. I was educated—again, considerably more than the monster. I was resourceful. I was determined. I was done.

After months of plotting, planning, and preparation I was ready to take my chance. My one and only because I knew if I failed there would be no more opportunities. I would be forever ensnared.

One morning after the monster left—and after I tended to my latest wounds—I loaded my car with all of my irreplaceable possessions—the rest were unimportant at the time—and drove away, never looking in the rearview mirror as my foot pressed upon the accelerator.

As I had already filed, I left the divorce papers on the dining room table. Welcome home, monster.

There stood the Smiling Man again. Always watching, always smiling. That mangled toothy grin contorted from ear to ear in the shape of a damaged crescent moon. His hollow black eyes were like a doll's eyes. So blank and lifeless yet you know he was looking at you. He followed me for weeks, sometimes from a distance and other times around every corner. Whenever I looked around I could see him stand there. Always watching, always smiling

I first heard about this menacing stalker from a disturbed individual named Jonathan Fich. He was a bright young man if not overzealous when it came to talking about how the government had complete control or when he believed his parents were in the devil's pockets. Yet despite all these wild accusations the most bizarre of them all was how he described the one I mentioned before: the Smiling Man. During our sessions together, Fich always looked to the ground. He would never dare look any one person in the eye because as he claimed then the Smiling Man would be there. Always watching, always smiling.

I finally got him to talk about this Smiling Man. We sat at the table together as he went into great detail of this devilish figure.

"He is not a man." He would say. Trembling nonstop as his gaze remained focused at his feet. "He is not a ghost or spirit or demon. He is something else. I could hear him at night. He stands outside my door. He tells me to endure horrible acts on myself."

"What sort of acts, Mr. Fich?" I asked him.

"Just things. Cutting myself. Slashing others. Murder, rape, torture. Horrible deeds. What's worst is that he'll be there. Just staring and smiling like the sick sadist it truly is." 

Then he finally looked up at me. His bright eyes quivered rapidly. His breathing heavily as if something was squeezing his lungs.

"You want to know what truly is the worst thing about him-" He tried to continue but his focus broke. He started staring at someone or something behind me. His timid nature turned violent as he flipped the table and fought off the orderlies that tried to restrain him. "HE'S HERE! HE'S RIGHT THERE, DOCTOR. HE'S STANDING RIGHT BEHIND YOU. HOW DO YOU DAMNED IDIOTS NOT SEE HIM?"

After his frightening outburst, we confined him to his living quarters. An hour later the orderlies found him with his thumbs and eye sockets cloaked in his own blood. They had to wrestle him again as he attempted to gouge out what remained of his eyes so he could not see this Smiling Man anymore. The same night he slit his own throat in the infirmary with a broken glass shard. 

I failed him. I failed to save his troubled thoughts. Cases like these don't usually get to me but with what happened to Mr. Fich I couldn't help but completely grieve for this lost soul. As I grieved for him that night I thought I saw rows of teeth gleam through the darkness of my apartment. 

Jonathan Fich was buried at his parent's estate under their request. I myself attended the funeral that was held. As his casket was lowered into the earth and the priest begged our Lord for the safe guidance of Mr. Fich's soul something drew me to look up at his childhood home. There in the window that was once his room, there he stood. The every horrid entity that had tormented Mr. Fich for so long, and his gaze was now fixated on me. My lungs grew heavy and my heart beat faster on first glance. I tried to ignore it but his presence was already made. He was there. Always watching, always smiling.

My first sighting of this grinning phantom was not the worst to follow. He followed me like a rotten stench. He appeared again when young Mr. Fich's parents threatened a lawsuit against me for the negligent care for their son. He was there when my office was boarded up, and there yet again when my reputation was ruined.

Now I sit alone in my apartment with the exception of three to accompany my sorrow: This foul-tasting bottle of whiskey, a loaded handgun, and him, that damned spirit, standing right in front of me. I now know his curse won't stop. He'll spread from person to person like a virus and we are powerless before him. I stared up at him as he stared back at me. Even when I'm departed, he'll be there.

Always watching, always smiling.

“I think you’re just being ridiculous,” said Mrs. Jones, shifting uncomfortably in her hospital nightgown and turning slightly to look directly at her neighbor in the next bed. “If that sweet Nurse Angela is going to give me drugs to help me sleep, I am certainly going to take them. The doctor says it’s important to get enough rest, and my hip aches all night.”

Miss Henry shook her expensively styled blond hair and looked disparagingly at Mrs. Jones. It was an insult to have to be in the orthopedic ward recovering from knee surgery, and she was still angry at the temerity of the surgeon who blamed her exercise routine for the injury he had just repaired.

“I, for one, am going to protect my body,” she huffed. “I am not going to pollute it with unnecessary drugs. That’s why I eat only organic food and take all these.” She gestured at the row of antioxidants and probiotics on the bedside table.

At that moment, Nurse Angela came into the room with the women’s medication. Preempting anything the nurse might have had to say, Miss Henry announced:

“I have decided I won’t be taking any more of your drugs.”

“You know it is important to get a good night’s rest. It will take you a lot longer to get better if you don’t rest,” said the nurse, picking up Miss Henry’s chart.

“It’s my decision,” Miss Henry said belligerently. “You can’t make me!”

“No one is going to make you. It’s only a suggestion.” Nurse Angela inconspicuously checked the box marked ‘noncompliant’ on Miss Henry’s chart and turned to speak to Mrs. Jones who was unusually cheerful despite the hip replacement she had had the day before.

“I take care of my body,” Miss Henry cried, insisting that the nurse recognize this. “I don’t eat anything that isn’t healthy. I only drink alkaline water and cold pressed juice!”

“And I am sure you are delicious for it, Dear,” said Nurse Angela vaguely, making another notation on the chart.

Several hours later, Miss Henry lay awake in the half dark room. Her knee ached and was beginning to throb, but she was unable to move much due to her bandages and splint. In the next bed, Mrs. Jones was fast asleep, having taken her medication when she was supposed to.

Miss Henry heard a faint rustling. Nurse Angela must have returned to check on them. She opened her eyes, ready to complain, but it was not the nurse she saw. What seemed to be a strange greyish mass had slipped out from under Mrs. Jones’ bed and now slid up onto the blanket in defiance of gravity and belying its lack of limbs or appendages. She watched in growing horror as the monster thrust its terrifying countenance into the sleeping face of Mrs. Jones and smiled. The maneuver required it to open a surprisingly large and slug-like mouth to show row upon row of sharp, black teeth. Satisfied that Mrs. Jones was unconscious, the monster receded, gently smoothing the covers with its body before sliding back down to the floor.

Miss Henry knew it was only a matter of moments before the creature would be upon her and she was correct. She felt the monster’s soft bulk conform to the contours of her body as it made its way toward her head. When it looked into her eyes, which she now had no power to close or turn away, Miss Henry saw her own expression of terror and disgust reflected in the creature’s multifaceted insect-like orbs. Its breath was warm and smelled like human blood when it hissed at her in a strangely comprehensibly manner, “You should be asleep.”

In the morning, Mrs. Jones woke up to sunshine coming in through the window of the hospital room. A nice young orderly was mopping the floor between her bed and the bed where Miss Henry had been when she fell asleep the night before. He quickly bent down and wiped a spot in front of the bedside table with a rag when he realized Mrs. Jones was awake. Nurse Angela was just tucking in the sheets on the freshly made bed.

“Where is Miss Henry?” Mrs. Jones asked in confusion. “I hope she’s all right.”

“Don’t worry, Dear,” Nurse Angela told her brightly. “She just took a little turn for the worse.”

The house was quiet when I woke up. I yawned and stretched, wiggling to get more comfortable in the cramped but cozy space where I spent most of my days. I was a nocturnal creature, preferring the cool nights and shadows to the sun and it's unrelenting glare. I heard the thump of the front door and my eyes opened a bit wider. That should be Lydia coming home from school with her mother! I waited in anticipation until I heard her footsteps trotting down the hall towards me. My rump wiggled excitedly. The bedroom door slammed open and her feet came into view. Of course they had shoes on them! Couldn't be any other way. I let out a small, deep sigh as I rested my chin on my giant paws, watching her shoes as she moved around her room. Suddenly she hopped up on the bed and pulled her shoes up with her. After a moment, one shoe dropped down followed by a sock and then the other shoe and sock, all in a pile right in front of my nose.

I sniffed the delicious little girl feet smell that wafted gently toward my snout. I froze in delight when one of her pink, delicious, bare feet finally came dangling down in front of me. I was mesmerized by it for a moment. Then the other joined it. Both of her soft, plump little feet wriggled around tantalizingly, stirring up a hunger deep inside me. I started to salivate as she teased me by wiggling her toes independently. My claws came popping out one by one. Slowly I reached out toward the nearest foot. My huge, clawed fingers nearly made it when, "Lydia!" The feet disappeared from my view causing me to let escape a small, growling gasp of protest. Both feet then dropped to the floor as she hopped off her bed and skipped out the door, leaving me feeling empty and alone again.

How I hated her mother with her calming voice and bright flash lights that blinded me at wee hours of the morning when I had been particularly close to taking my prize and she went crying to her mother in terror. Mothers were my worst nemesis followed closely by fathers. Lydia's mother in particular was such a horrid woman. Sometimes it felt like I'd never get my prize. I still had a few years yet, however, to pluck her from her bed and disappear with her forever into the shadows. I just needed a good grip on those feet so I could pull her down under with me without having to leave my safe space. Sometimes I slunk over into her closet to try to grab her from in there, but under the bed was better because she hardly went into her closet for anything.

I settled back down knowing the child would likely be downstairs for the rest of the evening. Perhaps tonight would be the night. I would claim my succulent prize tonight! I could just feel it! Yes! Tonight...