The Ninth Child and the Starving Ghost

Amongst the pure children of a moral man, only the ninth was born alive. In the dead of the night it ripped the silence apart with a high-pitched cry, scarring away the ghost that observed from the corner of the room. The shadowy figure was petrified from the mortals shriek and jumped off the window to save itself. The doctors and the nurses heard and saw nothing suspicious, their eyes too immoral to see what the pure child saw. They cleaned and checked the child, a small girl with pink flesh, soft bones and a piercing shrill filling her lungs. The doctor approved and left the room while the nurses cleaned up the mess and helped the mother who was drugged out of her mind.

From the window the ghost was watching. Starving as it was, it waited for a chance. The flesh of humans, let alone children and infants was a legendary delight among its kind. The mother sooner or later would fall asleep and the child would be lulled by the soothing beep of the machines.

And so they did and the ghost was delighted. The mother was asleep, muttering words of terror in a slur in a bet with metal bars and a box attached. The prey was there, unprotected wrapped in white fuzzy clothes, it was almost taunting it to come and ripped it apart. Licking its teeth and smiling to itself, the ghost slipped through the window and went straight for the kill. It rushed towards the child, who was inside a box of glass.

The ghost tries desperately to open the box, crazed by the starvation. Like a stubborn Christmas gift, the walls of the box stay intact, protecting the child. It bites through the glass and howls in agony. Milky white blood showered the child. By instinct the child began shrieking, waking up the father who had dozed off on the chair near the beds. He saw nothing of the ghost, how could he? Only the pure can see the ghosts, but called the sister on watch to see why the child is upset. The sister came and checked the child, everything was normal, the child was dry, the heartbeat was normal and it wasn’t hot or cold. Maybe it was just a nightmare or the first signs of a fussy personality? Everything was safe and sound.

The ghost was furious, muttering outside and biting the inside of his cheeks. How it angered it when children wouldn’t obey their fate and stay still while it ate their petty flesh. Always the younger the child was the hardest was to keep it still. Human larvae with ear-raping cries that couldn’t lift it own head without help but could keep demons at bay with their screams. It made the ghost wanting to snap his long teeth and return to his old ways of hunting; wandering around woods and feeding off whatever it could catch, but the taste.

The taste of a newborns flesh was something only the finest of poets could describe, according to the ghost. If it was a flower it would be a savory pink rose; if it was a sound, it would be Tsjaikovski’s Waltz of the Flowers. It is and will be the purest, most precious and delicious meal a ghost could ever have from human meat.

It had ravished dozens and dozens of others, from sickly elderly men to newly born children. It had snap bones like crab legs and slurp the narrow, lick them clean, leaving the guts and the brain for dessert. It had saved the blood of hundreds and the fluids in jars and drank them as it morning’s tea. It needed again to feel the taste again. It was starving and the child was like a finely cut oyster meat dangling front of a chained starving lion.

The ghost would get what it demanded, even if that meant killing the protectors of its meal.

And of course the child would shriek and writhe as loud and as powerful as its little lungs could to keep the devil at bay…

After two days the woman and the child took the hospital leave and return home with the father, all happy and loved, like all families with a newborn should be. Naturally the ghost was following, running an unnatural speed.

In a matter of a few hours the father had set up the crib and everything, while the woman was taking care of the child and just trying to rest; a new mother was always weaker and more fragile than women who never had children. The pair spent the remaining hours of the day cuddling with the child and admiring their new bundle of joy.

The night creeped and the child are falling asleep in its mother’s arms. The mother coos and the father smiles wide, how lucky can they be? But the joy is short lived. Children that sleep with their parents become fussy and stick to their family. The child must learn from such a darling age that she’ll be alone. So the mother picks up the child and walks to her daughter’s room.

Pink wallpaper covers the walls and an even pinker and cheaper carpet covers the floor. The room is simple; the budget was too tight for extras. Inside the crib, a single fluffy white stuffed bear. Now it is bigger than the infant, but later it would be its teddy; its first and softest friend.

The mother places the child in the crib. She lingers her fingers with the child fragile body. She smiles sadly; in her mind flashing the horrors and the joys of her pregnancy and birth. How can a simply drop of seed to create such a beautifully horrifying thing? Her body almost died and created this. She wasn’t sure if she should cry or laugh. Whatever, the child must sleep.

She kisses it goodnight and switches the light off. Her husband is already asleep, the toll of the day too much on his shoulders.

In the dark of the night, the ghost can finally move freely. The realm of the shadows has expanded and now the ghost walks up and down the house, searching for its meal. When the prey is as easy as this, it likes to play dumb. The hungrier it is the more it will enjoy. The ghost observes the house while it wanders through the rooms. It just shakes its head. It never liked human decoration or architecture, too boring for his taste. Most of the objects were tasteless.

They were placed on the shelves and the walls just to fill the void. The pictures will be eaten by worms. The vases will fall and shatter. The books with the first hardship will be burned. The fine china will break and become dull from the use and the porcelain dolls will be left to become a spiders den.

It was so much more interesting to watch them rise and die and leave everything behind to rot. It was like a theatrical play for one person. An unintentional gift from boring mortals to even more bored immortals. Like dolls made out of porcelain bones and cay skin, the mortals moved up and down the dollhouses rooms and levels. They bred, wed, befriend, fought and died, while the ghost and the others of his own enjoyed observing. Of course and they felt nothing about the mortal’s struggles and joys, but it was so enjoyable looking at their misfortunes and passions. They observed them like scientists that observe the labmices running up and down the mazes and the test tubes.

It made it feel a weird kind of joy and excitement in his howling gut. It reminded him of the older ages, when it and its brethren would wander the battlegrounds and the fields, feasting on fresh and rotten corpses. How they would eat the bodies raw, without even removing the armor or the cloth. When the humans waged war against each other, these were the times that the ghost feast and had the time of their never ending life. How he savored these old memories, some could say he even missed the feeling of unity and absolute happiness. But he stopped reminiscing about the past; the memories wouldn’t feed him tonight, as much as they brought the sweet taste of armor in his the wide of his tongue.

The ghost found the children’s room. Oh dear lord. The ghosts smiles so wide and shows off his numerous, needle like teeth. Let the feast begin…

Swiftly, it dances with the shadows and like spilled liquid reaches the crib. The child is already deeply asleep; its chest rise and fall rhythmically. Easy prey, the ghost ponders and licks its black lips. Should it eat the babe raw with the clothes and the blankets? Or should it snap its fragile spine and cook it with spices and garnishes? Tough question and even tougher answer for the ghost, the first would satisfy his hunger for a moment while the other will satisfy his taste buds.

The ghost decides the second option. Gently he picks up the child and shushes it. The child can’t see clearly, it is way too young but she can feel the change. What was holding her wasn’t human. It had no warmth or love inside it, like an empty void. It mad her cringe on how cold the thing that hugged her was. She starts to mewl and demands to be putted down, ghost or not she wants to leave.

But if the child is one time stubborn, the ghost is one hundred. It clenches his grip and tries to imitate the lulling rhythm of a woman’s heart. It can’t fool the child; the child tries to cry and shriek, to inform her parents of the threat. To make them wake and come and save her from deaths grip. With a sign, the ghost lets his ribs to open up and hides the child inside. Now it lies inside the ghost empty torso, while the bones clasp up together again, sealing the child’s fate.

The child wants to scream so loud, to rip the bones and flesh apart and escape her dark fate.

She dares and rips her lungs apart with the screams. The ghost feels like his ribcage is being burned from the inside out, like a monster thousand times stronger and more heartless than it claw their way out of his insides. It winces and tries to ignore the pain, but it gets only worse by breath to breathe. The ribs open up and it tries desperately to get the child to stop. The child is heavy and in his terrible state it can’t lift it to save its life. It falls down and lets a groan of agony. Its ribs open up instinctively and the child falls to the ground, side by side to it.

The damage is done and the ghost is whimpering while his insides are trying to hold themselves from falling apart. The child stops crying and stays silent. Its way, way too young and pure to see a god’s death.

She stares into the ghosts eyes. A bottomless void meets the blue sea. The past meets the future.

They stay like this for an hour or more. The child can’t walk to get back in the crib and the ghost is way too hurt to move. During this long battle of not closing their eyes, something clicks hard inside the ghost. It amazed how stubborn the child is; it scares it. In his long everlasting life it has never seen such stubbornness from such a small thing. It had seen so any grown-ass men with more medals than teeth that in their final moments turned into mushy pools of self-pity and begging, but not even once such a child. Such ferocity and audacity and will to live were more glorious than all the battle medals and honors. Even the fearless way the child looked at it, made it feel a deep, strong respect for the child. Its stomach stopped rambling; such a fearless being wasn’t suited for its dinner.

In the midst of its absolute misery, it shakily stands up and picks the child. The child is about to cry when it feels the change in the ghosts aura. It is still cold, but it has something loving; like a cool summer breeze. It holds her gentler, mimicking the way mother would hold their children before it took them away forever.

She stays still and waits for even the slightest, palest chance the ghost wants to returns in its old ways. But it stays the same. It even mimics a hug and tries to bring her closer to its chest. The smell of dust and the texture of perfect bones are engraved into her memory.

Now it places back into her crib and observers her one last time. Such stubbornness, a stubborn diamond against a sea of begging screams and tears. It promises under its breath it would protect this stubborn child that killed it with all the ways it knows and doesn’t know. Without any grace it falls to ground and shatters, breaking into dust-sized pieces of bones. What is left of its tainted soul; a unshaped smoke floats and gets absorbed in the teddy bears faux fur. It doesn’t let itself to be inhaled by the daughter; it’s tainted past will destroy the child. But inside the bear it can stay still and strong, guard the child from all the evil of the world. To protect this perfect stubbornness, this ferocity it had seen only among its kin.

But the child would age and die…this though appeared on the ghosts mind and made it crazy. After all this it couldn’t take the child’s life as effortlessly it once could. A thought appears in its mind and seems the perfect one.

The morning came and the mother went to feed her sleeping child, only to find it dead. The teddies had fallen and suffocate the child. Oh blood red moon, the mother is hysterical. It takes the teddy and rips it into shreds. Gathers the remains and burns them while her husband is crying his heart out.