Baby Monster

On a bone-chilling night in 1881 a crippled baby boy was born with no ears and a useless right arm. As the midwife delivered the babe she shrieked with fright, her eyes had never seen such a being in her life. She informed its mother that the monster could be gone in no time at all, and the villagers would be told it was lifeless when it came into the world. After hearing this mother insisted on seeing her first-born child. The midwife advised against meeting the baby, but the mother’s anger flared, “How dare you want to kill my baby! Is it because I am without a husband? No one in this village wants me to be happy!”

To calm the woman, the midwife grabbed the babe and gently placed it into his mother’s arms. She expected the new mother to reject her son, but his mother looked at him with loving eyes and began to hum him a song. Tears began to trickle down her cheeks as his name left her lips in a whisper, “Samuel”. After holding her son for what seemed like hours the midwife came to take him away, but the young mother refused. “I will raise him by myself,” she whispered to the boy, “God wanted him to live, and he shall. You will not take him away.” The Midwife began to disagree with the young lady, but her decision was made. “No! God made him strong and he survived. If God has made him strong he has also made me strong. I can raise my son, without a man. I will be a strong woman because God has willed it. I will protect my son.”

With that, the midwife was done fighting and told her the truth; the boy wouldn’t make it to his first birthday. Due to his condition it would be miracle if he lived to celebrate his first year on this earth. When she informed the mother tears began to show in her eyes. The midwife left and wished the small family good health for as long as they both lived, and the small family began to live their life in the small village they called home.

For the first few months of the boy’s life no one in the village bothered with the family. Samuel’s motor skills slowly developed and his mother’s love grew stronger every day. When the baby reached his half birthday the villagers began to come around and harass the family. The village’s people wanted to see what the “monster baby” looked like and to shame his mother for not being married. They also came around for another reason, to blame the baby for the recent happenings in town.

Since the boy had come into the world a sickness plagued the village. The sickness made everyone bedridden and unable to work. The villagers noticed that everyone was sick except for Samuel and his mother. Women claimed that no babies had been born in the past six months that Samuel had been alive. Men complained that there was a curse on the town that stopped visitors coming to the village to buy goods, and it started around the time Samuel was born. The last complaint the villagers made was seeing weird ghostly figures at night, sometimes watching them sleep or trying to hurt them in their own house. The boy’s mother ignored their accusations; she thought they wanted someone to blame so they picked the defenseless little boy.

Six months had now passed and the happenings in the town didn’t get any better, but seemed to get worse. The villagers were uneasy. People were now dying from sickness, children were still to be born, not one visitor crossed the village line, and villagers now began to see evil spirits instead of ghostly figures. The village elders called for a town meeting and didn’t invite Samuel’s mother. The village discussed what there was to do about the recent happenings and how to solve them. They linked the events back to the “baby monster” and decided that the only way to solve their problems was to get rid of the baby and restore peace back to the village.

The baby’s mother was very happy about today, it was Samuel’s first birthday. She showered him with love and affection. The mother decided that it was time to walk thorough the village with her son. He had survived the first year, defied the odds. Due to this she wasn’t going to let the village hurt her miracle child’s feelings, she wanted them to see just what a miracle he was. She was prepared to let the villager’s comments slide off her back, but to her surprise no one made a comment. When the day was over Samuel and her went home and got him ready for bed. As she was telling him a bedtime story all she could think about was how the villagers didn’t say anything to her, but gave her sympathetic looks.

An hour after she put Samuel to bed there was a knock on the front door. The mother opened the door to find the whole village on her front porch. She looked at their stone-cold faces, not one face reflected an expression. The man standing at the front of the group asked to be let into the house and he shifted his stance. The mother dropped her gaze from his face to his hands, which were gripping an axe. She moved her eyes up to his face; his expression didn’t change as he repeated the question. She then looked to the hands of the mob. In every hand there was an axe or a knife. “No,” she whispered. The man took a step towards the doorway and she sprinted to her baby. As she was running to him she heard the footsteps of people filing into the house. She grabbed Samuel quickly from his crib and put him to her chest.

The man from the door was now standing over her, “Put him down”, the deep voice demanded.

She began to scream, “NO,” and her body went down on the floor as she clutched Samuel to her chest, the baby started to cry. The man gave them no mercy and with two swings of his axe the mother and baby were both silenced.

The baby and his mother were buried together in the village cemetery. The headstone’s inscription read, “Here lies beloved young mother and baby monster”. Soon after the burial everyone in the village recovered from the sickness that plagued them. A few weeks later visitors began to wander back through the village and the reports of ghostly figures subsided. A few months later healthy babies began to be born within the village for the first time since the monster was born. Since then the villagers knew they made the right decision, and even if they didn’t, they needed to tell themselves it was for their piece of mind.

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