This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/UnalloyedSaintTrina on 2026-08-08 13:51:27+00:00.

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I took one look at the nameless thing, lying statue-still in the bassinet with its pearly-white smile, and said:

“That ain’t mine.”

“Oh, just give it a second,” Darlene shouted from the other room, “I’m sure you’ll start to see the resemblance.”

I leaned in.

To her credit, the kid and I shared a subtle likeness, and the more I looked, the more similarities I seemed to appreciate. That didn’t prove anything. Both Darlene and I were born in this backwater town, each dredged up from the same Floridian genepool. Statistically speaking, any child of hers was bound to look a little like me, but I sure as shit didn't pop out of the womb bearing teeth.

The kid's jaw was nearly the size of her cranium.

Her head had the proportions of a barbell - thin in the middle, rounded and heavy at the ends.

Her lips wouldn’t stay closed. She could force them over her front teeth, yes, but it was a strain. Looked painful, though she didn’t seem to mind. She just stared up at me, quiet as a church mouse, eyes wide, mouth overflowing.

“What’d the docs have to say about her teeth?” I asked, entering the kitchen.

Darlene was by the stovetop, tending to a skillet sizzling with fresh peppers. Steam caressed her slender frame. Long chestnut curls bounced against the back of her tank top.

She looked… great.

Better than great, actually. For someone who’d recently been pregnant, she looked stunning. I hadn’t seen Darlene in about a year, and though I welcomed the break from our decades-long, on-and-off fling, romantic distance was against her nature.

“Uhh…congenital something-or-other. She’ll need a dentist, but otherwise, nothing to do about it.”

Darlene flipped her head around and shot me a look.

That look.

“Breast-feedin’ is probably off the menu, though,” she remarked, chuckling.

I felt heat.

This is how it always starts - I reminded myself.

She ropes you in with the promise of a few sleepless nights, and before you know it, you’re back in her bed, under her goddamned thumb…

“I’m headin’ out, Darlene,” I said, pacing through the mobile home with a peculiar sort of urgency. She shouted something about my making me dinner. I pretended not to hear her.

“If you really deadset on thinkin’ that kid’s mine,” I called out, “I’ll have my blood tested or - “

Before my hand reached the knob, the front door swung open.

I found myself face-to-face with a wiry old man. Despite the darkness, I could tell that he appeared catastrophically unwell.

His cheeks were sunken so deep that it made his skull look deflated.

His eyes were bone-dry and as yellow as bile.

If he’d been any other stranger, I would’ve thrown a punch - Darlene’s nearest neighbor lives on the complete opposite side of the marsh - but his deathly appearance left me dazed.

Darlene’s squeaky voice yipped over my shoulder:

“There you are, Daddy! This is Jacob. The Jacob.”

The man gradually lifted his arm and placed an open palm in front of me, propositioning a handshake. Thick tendons visibly struggled to keep the trembling limb upright. Weathered tattoos ran the length of each finger, spirals and crescents and teardrops. A mummified rabbit's paw hung loosely from a bit of frayed twine wrapped around his wrist.

“Jeez, I don't think I ever told you: Daddy’s been livin’ here ever since he learned how bad I wanted to make a kid. It was good timing, what with his church needin’ to relocate after…well, you know, whatever happened to ‘freedom of religion’, that’s all I’ll say… ”

Darlene’s soft hand drifted onto my shoulder.

“Jacob’s gonna join the baby and us for dinner.”

I rolled my shoulder, bucking her touch.

“No, I ain’t.”

I stomped out of the mobile home, sliding past Darlene’s father. The walking corpse was still offering me his wizened palm. I mumbled “Nice to meet you, sir,” and kept moving. The land squished under my boot heel, switchgrass licking at my ankles. I hopped into my car and turned it on. Headlights washed over the property. They were both still in the open doorway, watching me. I shook off the discomfort and lay on the accelerator, kicking up mud as I jerked onto the nearby dirt road.

“Last time I answer one of Darlene’s texts,” I whispered.

My eyes flickered to something aside the road. A structure I didn’t recognize, nestled between a few evergreens.

It was small, couldn’t have been much bigger than a college dorm room, but the shape was peculiar: boxy with a pyramid-shaped roof that gradually narrowed as it projected into the canopy. The bottom of a tool shed spliced with the top of a chapel. It blinked by, and I gave it no more thought.

That was my first mistake.

As I coasted off to sleep that night, whiskey kindling a campfire in my stomach, I prayed to the powers that be. Asked the Almighty if He could kindly point Darlene in a different direction. An impossible request, even for God. When she wants something, she never backs down, and she wanted a kid. Specifically, my kid. Back in 2024, I caught her covertly poking a sewing needle through my condoms. A few weeks later, I underwent a clandestine vasectomy. I know what you’re thinking: wouldn’t it have been cheaper to just…not have sex with her? Of course. But I know myself, and I know Darlene. She always finds a way to suck me back into her orbit. So, the only safe choice was to remove the option entirely. A little preemptive scrotal de-fanging…

A feverish buzzing ripped me from sleep.

Vision swimming, groggy as all hell, I reached under a nearby pillow, pulled out my phone, and flicked the screen on.

Nine missed calls and thirty-two unread texts glared back at me.

Darlene <3 XOXO (11:09 PM): “I promise, she’s yours. A mother knows. If you spend more time with her, you’ll see that.”

Darlene <3 XOXO (1:01 AM): “Come back. She’s crying for you."

Darlene <3 XOXO (3:46 AM): “I miss you. If you’re here within the hour, I’ll [ insert the lewdest series of words you can imagine ] “

I groaned and put the phone down.

I was going to need that paternity test.

Lurching upright, my bleary eyes fixed on an old rucksack in the corner of my bedroom. I gave the tattered thing a weak grin. Hadn’t thought about it in a long while.

I lumbered over and inspected the contents. Boots. Flannels. An old hunting rifle and a dirty wad of cash. Everything I’d need to just up and leave.

Well, almost everything.

The only thing missing was a bit of willpower.

I told myself: one day, it’ll be there, a spark in your chest, a determination to escape, and when that day comes, the most dangerous thing you can do is slow down. When it's time, you won't hesitate. You’ll pick up the bag, jump in your car, and you’ll drive.

That was fifteen years ago.

I held the rucksack’s drawstring in the palm of my hand. Took a nice, deep breath.

And felt nothing.

I pulled it shut, stood, and kicked the bag back into the corner.

Maybe after another fifteen years, I’ll finally be ready - I thought.

Until then, there are bills to be paid.

The pub was unusually quiet that afternoon. Empty. Not a soul to be seen. Elbows planted on the sticky bartop, I pulled up Google and started to research. Nearest commercial paternity testing center was near Tampa. The out-of-pocket cost wasn’t pretty. Even worse, I’d need to procure a DNA sample from the kid. I plodded over to the tap and poured myself a lager. Chugged half immediately.

Will I even be able to fit the cheek swab into her mouth with those godforsaken chompers?

I chuckled.

Nearby, my phone screen lit up.

My chuckle morphed into a scowl.

It’d been hours since I last received something unhinged from Darlene. In a sense, I was overdue. I cracked my neck, threw back another swig, and grabbed the phone.

EMERGENCY ALERT*: Flash flood warning for this area until 12:30 AM EST. Please exercise extreme caution and avoid driving unless absolutely necessary…*

“Huh,” I muttered. Didn’t know a storm was coming.

My ears perked.

A faint sound was floating through the pub.

A clicking. Mechanical, maybe.

I set my phone on the bartop and bent over, but no, wasn’t the cooling unit or the ice maker. I stilled for a moment, head under the bar, focused on recognizing the sound. I couldn’t place it, but I was beginning to hear it more clearly. It was a thin, quivering tap, like a centipede skittering across marble, legs striking the polished stone.

I stood.

A violent heartbeat shuddered through my body.

The bar door was cracked, just slightly, and multiple eyes were peeking through the slit.

I couldn’t tell how many, but I could tell they were staring at me, and I could tell that’s where the noise was coming from.

The door slammed shut.

“Hey! The hell you doin’?” I screamed, launching myself over the bartop. I ran across the pub and threw my weight against the door, heaving it open. A sharp wind battered my face. I practically fell onto the curb.

Breathing heavy, I looked left.

I looked right.

No sign of whoever had been peeking through the door.

No sign of anyone, actually.

Main Street was vacant, though that wasn’t completely out of the norm; destitution had stripped the once thriving marketplace of life. Potholes of varying depths littered the asphalt. Monsterous weeds sprang through the fractured sidewalk. Most of the storefronts were derelict, boarded up and hollowed out, the graffiti-stained carcasses of long-dead ambitions. The only b...

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