Chapter 6
Part 6
“Midnight,” Nancy said, and then hung up the phone.
Glenn closed his curtain and then walked over to his bed. “Midnight,” he muttered. How was he going to make it to Midnight? He was already dog tired. He wasn’t doing a no-sleep marathon like his girlfriend, but he’d missed his fair share of forty winks, too. He sat down on it, his feet up but his back against the headboard. “Baseball bats and boogeymen….women? Boogeywomen?” He rattled his head to clear some of the cobwebs out. “Beautiful…”
He put his air pods in and started blasting music as loud as he could. He grabbed his laptop, hoping to find something to keep him awake.
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Nancy looked at a photo on her dream board; a relatively recent pic from this past summer. Nancy and Glenn. Tina and Rod. What had been four friends arm in arm and squeezed onto a park bench for a selfie had been altered...perverted.
Now, Tina, clad in a giant onesie, and Rod in nothing but a diaper sat on Nancy and Glenn’s laps respectively. Tina grinned stupidly and Rod was sucking on a pacifier looking off to the side, like a bird had caught the not-so-little tyke’s attention.
What would happen to these pictures if Nancy was next? Would Rod be remembered as babysitting them that day? Would Nancy be jamming fingers into her mouth with a dress that did nothing to hide her giant Pampers?
Nancy would have been horrified, mortified even, but she was just too damn tired. Tired. No. No sleep. Not yet. Not until she was ready. Barely thinking about it, she put another STA AWAKE pill in her mouth and swallowed it dry. She was popping them like Tic-Tacs, now. It was practically second nature by this point; almost reflexive.
Feel a yawn coming on? Pop a pill. Mind starting to drift? Pop a pill. Blink last longer than a second? Pop a pill. Pop-a-pill, pop-a-pill, pop-a-pill. Heh. Poppa Pill. That sounded funny, like some big Daddy who gave out medicine.
She pinched herself. No. Stop it. No giggling. No getting punchy. Just stay awake. Stay focused. Stay awake and focused or risk never growing up. She ran her hands through her hair and exhaled. What the pills didn’t manage, the fear more than made up for.
She only hoped her boyfriend had the same resolve.
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Doris Lantz knocked on the door to her son’s bedroom.”Glenn? Honey?” She knocked again.
No answer came out, but she could hear a sound through the bedroom door. (Sound was too nice of a word for it in her humble opinion. “Noise” was more like it. Then again, to be fair, her parents said the same thing about her music when she was his age.
Also much like her parents, Doris had just shown her respect for Glenn’s privacy by knocking first, and then asserted her own authority by coming in anyway.
It was no wonder that Glenn hadn’t answered. Those fancy headphones (or whatever they were called now) were plugged into his ear buds and were blasting “music” at a volume loud enough to where even she could hear. His laptop was playing something too.
But her Glenny was neither watching, nor listening. He lay passed out. Fast asleep. She remembered when she’d creep into his nursery and peek down on him in his crib, just in case the baby monitor wasn’t giving her the entire picture. He’d grown so big, but in some ways he still looked like her little angel. All children were their parents’ little babies, she supposed, no matter how big they got.. She almost hated to disturb him. Almost…
“Glenn.” She tapped him on the shoulder. “Glenn.”
The boy jumped awake, his jaw set like he was ready to swing and knock her block off. Doris leaned back, just as startled. She hadn’t expected that kind of reaction. That must have been some dream he’d been having!
The panic lasted only a fraction of a moment, before Glenn regained his senses and joined his mother in the here and now. He took the tiny headphones, the air pods, out of his ears and looked up at her, seeming slightly embarrassed.
“How can you listen to the videos and hear your music at the same time?”
Glenn blinked. “Oh, I wasn’t listening to the videos, Ma. Just watching. I’m watching a Scarlett Johansen Movie Marathon.”
Doris pouted her lip out, and put her hand on her hips. “How can you hear what she’s saying, then?”
Glenn smirked. “Who cares what she’s saying?”
“Don’t be such a smartass,” she told him. Silently, she thought, at least she hadn’t caught him looking at actual porn. “I want you to go to bed.” He looked exhausted. The only reason she’d woken him is because he’d be infinitely more sore (and infinitely more cranky) if he spent the night as she’d just found him.
“It’s almost midnight. A growing boy like you needs his rest.”
“I will, Mom.” Glenn promised. “You and Dad turning in?”
“Pretty soon,” she assured her son. Such a good boy, even if he had so much more growing to do than he wanted to admit. That’s why she was here, though; to take care of him until he did. She waggled her finger, lightly at him. “Now get to bed.” She stole a glance at his alarm clock just as she walked out. It read 11:42. Not quite fifteen minutes to midnight.
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11:43
“It’s over, baby.” Mom whispered gently to Nancy. “The nightmare’s over.”
Nancy didn’t look at her mother. She just laid in bed, forcibly tucked in, wriggling uncomfortably in her Goodnite. (Seriously, how did little kids get to sleep in these things?) Mom stroked her hair soothingly with one hand. The rest of the bottle of anti-sleeping pills confiscated in her other. “Okay,” Nancy mumbled and drifted off.
Gently she snoozed, dozing into a slumber….
At least until Mom collected the pills and coffee, turned out the lights, and left the room.
She was up and out of bed as soon as the door was closed, scrounging around for the extra pot of coffee she’d brewed and stashed under her bed. In a weird way, the bedwetting pants might come in handy. She wouldn’t need to go to bathroom as often. Gulping down more of the caffeinated bean water, Nancy hoped that was her practicality thinking, and not a warped psyche on the verge of being magically infantilized.
After draining another two cups, the young woman went over to her close and took off her nightie so she could slip into something a little less comfortable. A white button up blouse, and a pair of jeans would do. She buttoned up the front and went over to her window, gazing past the curtains and the iron bars over to Glenn’s house.
Standing out on the front lawn was his father; practically playing security guard, drinking a beer and staring at his phone. He looked up, and though it was dark, Nancy could swear he was looking up at her window.
His mother came out and joined Glenn’s Dad.
Damn.
They knew. Or at least suspected. With all the “babies” popping up, Glenn’s folks probably assumed that he and Nancy were having sex and were doing all that they could to prevent becoming grandparents. Either that, or they too were in on the same conspiracy that Mom had told her about and were burying their children’s safety in a wave of denial.
She closed the curtain.
Nancy stared at her bruised knuckles. The swelling had gone down but not much. She looked at her alarm clock. Shit. Where was Glenn?
Cautiously, she opened her bedroom door and peered out into the hallway. Mom was up. Up and drinking again; bottle of vodka in the towel closet. God, was Mom always this much of a drinker and Nancy just noticed?
Novices who were stress drinking didn’t just have special hidey holes. That was Mom’s problem, though, not Nancy’s. Nancy only had the spoons for one life breaking problem at a time.
Shit. Where was Glenn? How was he supposed to get over to Nancy’s if his dad was staking out the front door. How could Nancy get to him with Mom still in the hallway?
Desperate, she picked up her phone-a small kindness that her mother hadn’t disconnected it-and called Glenn.
The phone rang.
And rang.
And rang.
“Come on, Glenn.” Nancy said into the receiver. “Pick up.” He’d better not be asleep, the bastard.
The phone stopped ringing. “Hello?”
Shit! Mom must have come back inside!
“Hello, Mrs. Lantz,” Nancy said in her very best talking-to-parents voice. “Can I please speak to Glenn?”
“Hold on,” she said. There was a pause. Nancy had the creeping feeling that the phone wasn’t being handed over to her boyfriend. “What’s this about, Nancy?” Her voice was more serious. Annoyed. On edge. Mrs. Lantz did not like Nancy in this moment, she could tell.
“It’s private,” Nancy said. “Very private, and very important.” Shit! They probably thought she was pregnant now, or something! What choice did she have though? She was operating off the cuff and it’s not like they would have believed the truth.
Another pause. This one longer.
The phone was passed, but not to Glenn. “Glenn’s asleep you’ll have to talk to him tomorrow.”
Nancy had already been hung up on by the time it registered that she was hearing Mr. Lantz’s hurried and annoyed voice.
With quiet breathing that was starting to pick up its pace into hyperventilating, Nancy called again. The Lantz’s phone did not ring. It was busy. Maybe Glenn had picked up the phone and was trying to call her back?
She tried again.
Still busy.
And again.
Still busy.
And again.
Still busy.
She paused. If Glenn was calling her, she could wait and her phone would ring. If she was fast enough, she could pick it up before her Mom registered the sound. Nothing happened.
She dialed Glenn again.
Still Busy.
Nancy was on the verge of a panic attack. Either she and Glenn were so in sync that they kept calling each other at the exact same time or...
Or those mother fuckers had left their phone off the hook.
She hung up and went over to the window and stared across the street. The lights were still on in Glenn’s room, but there was no other signs of life from the second story. “Glenn,” she prayed. She couldn’t yell, not without Mom hearing. “Don’t. Fall. Asleep.”
She went over to her bed and sat down, trying to keep calm. The best laid plans of mice and men.
BRIIIIIIING!
Hope! Redemption! Glenn!
Nancy leapt up and snatched her phone off the reciever. “Glenn?” She whispered.
No voice came out the only end. Only the first tinkling notes of Brahms’ Lullaby, like from a music box or a crib’s mobile, came out.
Lullaby, and goodnight. Go to sleep little baby.
“NO!” she shrieked, and in her panic and adrenaline she ripped the phone out of the wall, only realizing what she’d done too late. “Brilliant,” Nancy moaned. “Now what if Glenn tries to call?” The scream had created another complication.
Nancy went over to her bedroom door and looked out. No sign of her mother, anymore. Good. Really good. There still might be a chance.
BRIIIIIIIIING!
The young lady turned around, her blood curdling as she looked at her phone, still unplugged from the wall, ringing clear as a cloudless night.
BRIIIIIIIIING!
It lay there on her bed, ringing, beckoning her. Daring her to answer it. She walked towards it, slowly, like a poisonous snake.
BRIIIIIIIIING!
Nancy looked at the cable cord. Snapped in half. There’s no way this could be ringing. No way.
BRIIIIIIIIIING!
Unless…..
BRIIIIIIIING!
She picked up the phone and placed it to her ear, and paused. “Hello…?” she whispered.
A raspy voice whispered back. “You’re too little to be dating, Nancy. You’re both too little. But you can have a kiss!”
Lips, actual lips, wrinkled and scarred by fire, shot out of the phone and kissed Nancy on the cheek. “MWAH MWAH MWAH!”
“AAAAAAAAAAH!” Nancy tossed the phone down and stomped it into pieces. And as the phone was broken into pieces, Nancy put others together. “Too little to be dating...both...my boyfriend…!”
Out the hallway. Down the stairs. To the front door. Nancy was a blur. An unstoppable force. That is, until she met the immovable object. The doorknob wouldn’t turn. The door wouldn’t budge.
Nancy pulled and pushed, and rammed her shoulder into it, but the door might as well have been a brick wall. “MOTHER!” This was no time for subtlety, no time for sneakiness. Glenn needed her. “MOTHER!”
“Locked,” Mom slurred from the couch. “Locked, locked, locked.” Nancy jumped. Marge had just been lying there in the dark; drunk and waiting for her. “I locked it all up. I had to. I did what I had to.” She rambled, her eyes closed, even as Nancy approached. “Nancy, you are going to get some sleep tonight if it kills me.”
Just barely holding back her anger, Nancy stuck out her hand. The next words that came out of her mouth were calm, quiet, and deadly serious. “Give me the key, Mother.” Not Mom, not Mommy, not even Marge. She hadn’t earned any of that. She was just Mother, now.
“I can’t,” Mother drunkenly giggled. She opened her pajamas and padded her pockets. “I don’t even have it on me, see. Too drunk to remember where I put it, either.”
If not for greater things on her mind, and the sudden shock of feeling a wet trickle into her Goodnites, Nancy might have committed murder right then. “DAMN IT!”
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The clock on Glenn’s nightstand flashed midnight. On his laptop, Scarlet Johansen did backflips and dodged bullets in tight leather as the Black Widow, while his air pods blasted music just shy of deafening. Despite all of it, though, Glenn slept.
He slept as the movie on his laptop melted away and dissolved into Little Einsteins. Aiding in his sleep, even subconsciously, the music dimmed to the more pleasing and soothing tune of Brahms Lullaby.
Lullaby and good night, with pink roses bedight…
The posters on his wall, movies and bands that defined his adolescence; his manhood, evaporated from existence. Those that remained transmogrified into reminders about the alphabet, and cross stitches about how precious a little boy was.
Still, Glenn slept.
With lilies o’er spread, is my baby’s sweet head…
The dresser drawers were gone in a puff, leaving only barren shelves. The topmost layer was padded, like a massage table, with a little nook holding a box of baby wipes and a bottle of sweet smelling powder. The wicker laundry hamper nearby hardened into thick plastic, and the faint smell of stale urine and feces entered the air just beside; the distinct stench of used diapers never able to be fully covered up, no matter how much baking soda was put in the pail.
Still, Glenn slept.
Lay thee down now and rest, may thy slumber be blessed…
A guitar and amp that Glenn had always meant to learn to play folded themselves and combined into a toybox. The desk where he did his school work warped and added itself to the nearby seat until it was a rocking chair, perfect for breastfeeding, story time, or just a quiet cuddle with Mommy.
Still, Glenn slept.
Lay thee down now and rest, may thy slumber be blessed…
Up from the sides of his bed, wooden bars and a railing slid up on all sides. A simple boxspring and mattress slowly grew legs and boosted itself off the ground. And even though there was visibly nothing underneath the new crib, two hands reached up through the bottom of the mattress, carefully, lovingly wrapping themselves around Glenn’s waist.
Too late, Glenn awoke.
Down, down into crib’s mattress he was pulled, impossible though it may be. It was a solid whirlpool, a gravity well sucking him into an unseen abyss. “NO!” he shouted out. His bum was the first thing to be sucked in.
Down.
Down.
Down.
Not like this! Not like this!
“HELP! MOM!”
Down.
Down.
Down.
Quicksand! Glenn scrambled, clawed at the sheets, but they were being dragged down with him. He tried to kick, but everything beneath the mattress went numb, and the crib bars were just out of reach.
The last vestiges of his adulthood went under before him. His laptop. gone. His air pods flushed down the hole...the very last thing associated with him that would be flushed.
He called out for help, screamed as everything below his belly button went numb and dead. “MAAAAMAAAA!” A poor choice of final words. Had he had time, he might have thought of a better epitaph for his life up until now; preferably something that he’d be no longer able to say after this moment.
But that was just it. He didn’t have time to think. It was too fast. “MAAAAAA-MAAAAA!” His head went under, then finally his hands.
Then.
Silence.
In his final moments of maturity, Glenn could have sworn he heard Nancy crying and calling out his name across the street.
WHAP!
A GEYSER! A yellow geyser erupted from the mattress. Gallons and gallons shot up to the ceiling, as if propelled by a firehose. Yellow rain splattered from the roof, dripping down onto the carpet below. The sound of it all, the splashing and crashing, the sheer enormity of the volume drowned out wailing cries of a mind snapping and a giant baby calling out in panic and confusion.
Impossible for there to be so much urine in a human body. Unlikely for that so much to be produced in just eighteen years.
But so much else was impossible and had already happened, so why not this?
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Hearing the noise, Doris burst into her son’s room, and stopped dead. Watching the piss rain down from every corner of the ceiling, she opened her mouth to scream. As she inhaled, though, the smell of urine tinged with baby powder entered her nostrils and with it her eyes clouded over, becoming milky white for a second.
When they cleared, she blinked and saw her son laying in his crib bawling his eyes out and drippin, in his crib. He was naked, too. Somehow he’d managed to get his diaper off again, and the stream had gone just EVERYWHERE. That’s what she got for getting the cheap-o store brand.
“Fraaaaank!” She called. “Get up! Give me a hand!” Then she added, “Bring towels!”
Frank came trotting up, a bundle of white terrycloth in his hand. He glanced in the room. “Again?” he asked. He looked into the nursery. “At least it means he’s healthy. Remember when he was first born and he was in the incubator? He was so weak they just had to slide one under him and he’d dribble out.”
The two set to cleaning up their boy. “He’s so much better now.” Doris agreed. “But he’s still our little boy. I’m so glad they never grow up.”
“Me, too, hun. Me too.” Frank looked Glenn’s changing table. He instantly noticed the lack of diaper. “Oh criminy. Again?! How do we keep forgetting to stock up? You’d think we’d have the hang of this by now!”
“It’s your turn,” Doris said. “Walmart is open twenty-four seven.”
Frank looked to his wife. “What are you gonna do?”
“I’m gonna break out the old bassinet, and see if I can’t find some safety pins or something in the meantime,” she said. Glenn stopped crying long enough, to start pawing and Doris’s breasts. “Also feed him, I guess.”
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From out her window, Nancy watched as Mr. Lantz got in his car and drove off in the middle of the night. She didn’t need to guess why. She saw Glenn, a towel wrapped around his ass, and being held by his mother wave bye-bye. Diaper run.
The picture on her dresser confirmed it. Now she sat alone on the park bench, with three not-so-little tots smiling on the ground beneath her. Three down. Just her to go.
She picked up the phone in the kitchen, dialed the police station and asked immediately for her father.
“Nancy?”
“Hi, Daddy.” Her voice came out gargling and hoarse. “I know what happened now. I know who’s responsible for what’s been happening to all the...all the...the kids I’ve been babysitting.” Deep down, it hurt to refer to her friends like that. But it was the only way, she needed that tiny lie so that she could sell her truth.
“Yeah?” Her father seemed mildly curious.
“Listen Daddy,” Nancy went on. “I’ve got a proposition for you. Listen very carefully, please.” She was back on the verge of bawling. Bawling like a baby.
“Nancy…”
She barreled forward. “I’m going to go get the lady who did this. The kidnapping. The neglect. The...the...forced babying…” Hard swallow. “And I want you to be there to arrest her when I bring her out, okay?”
“Just tell me who did it and I’ll go get them, baby.” There was frustration and more than a little parental concern in the police lieutenant’s voice.
“Nan Rueger did it. And only I can get her. It’s my dreams she comes into. Just come here and break the door down in exactly twenty minutes. Can you do that?”
“Yeah. Sure.” He wasn’t buying it.
His daughter didn’t care. She closed her eyes and powered through. “That’ll be...exactly half past midnight. Time…” she stuttered. “Time enough for me to fall asleep and go find her. Just a little nap.”
Daddy was losing patience. “Honey...yes. Honey, go get yourself some sleep. That’s what I’ve been telling you all along.”
“But you’ll be here to catch her?” She could no longer hide her desperation; her fear.
“Yeah, yeah, sure I’ll be there, sweetheart.” Dad promised. “Now you just get yourself some rest, please. Deal?”
“Deal.”
“I love you, sweetheart.”
Nancy didn’t reply, just leaned her head against the wall until after he’d hung up on her.
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Drill a hole in a lightbulb with a thin screwdriver. Gunpowder from Daddy’s old shotgun shells. Combine and screw into a floor lamp.
Wooden clothespin as makeshift alligator clips.
A steel tripwire.
Screw in and install a bolt lock on her bedroom door. Croquet mallet above said door, rigged to swing down whomever opened the door.
Kevin McCallister eat your fuckin’ heart out.
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“I guess I should have told you about her earlier.” Now Mom was in bed, tucked in, and Nancy was holding her hand. Time for goodbyes, just in case. This wouldn’t be the last time they saw each other, but this could very well be the last time the two ever talked to each other instead of babble and coo.
Mom was a wreck. She hadn’t been sleeping either and the booze and stress and guilt were taking their toll on her just as much as the supernatural on Nancy.
“I was just trying to protect you,” her mother promised weakly. “I didn’t see how much you needed to know.” On some level, Mom must have realized how dire things were, too. You face things. That’s your nature. That’s your gift. But sometimes you have to turn away, too.”
No. Not this time. Turning away meant a smacked ass and a forever padded bottom. “I love you,” Nancy whispered.
Mom blinked. “I love you too, ba-...” she hesitated. “I love you too, young lady.” That last bit meant more to Nancy than words could have expressed than just then. So she didn’t even try.
With one last goodnight kiss, she turned the lights off in her mother’s room and walked quietly into the darkness of her room. Here would be the final battle.
“Okay, Rueger,” the grown-woman spoke aloud. “We play in your court.” Her court, Nancy prayed...but by her rules.
She climbed into bed, pulled the comforter over her, and began to pray the most appropriate prayer she could imagine given the circumstances.
“Now I lay me down to sleep,
I pray the Lord my soul to keep,
And if I cry before I wake,
I pray the Lord my toys to break.
So none of the other kids can have them.”
With Mom too drunk to keep it from her, Nancy grabbed her phone and set a timer. Ten minutes. Just enough time. One way or another.
As sleep started to take her, she thought of Glenn. About other things, too.
“But what about monsters or witches?” she’d asked back on the bridge. “Then what?”
Lightbulb.
Door.
Mallet Trap.
“They turn their back on it. Take away its energy and it disappears…”
Lightbulb.
Door.
Mallet Trap.
“But what happens if they don’t do that?”
Lightbulb.
Door.
Mallet Trap.
“Then I guess they don’t ever wake up to tell what happens.”
Lightbulb.
Door.
Ma-
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Nancy walked down the stairs of her house. Still clad in her jammies, and still (mostly) dry. Sleep hadn’t come for her. Not tonight. Maybe not ever.
Sometimes things just worked that way…
Everything was just how she had left it. That’s how she knew she was awake. Her hand was still bandaged and throbbed with rapped knuckles. She still crinkled when she walked with the Goodnites making its presence known with every step.
The house was still deathly quiet. All of the lights were still out.
And just as it always had, the door across the hallway from the kitchen led down to the basement. Down past the old tricycle hanging on the wall, and the pink roller skate left at the bottom of the stairs.
She went to the furnace and opened it, taking the burlap sack out from its iron casket and flapping it open.
Empty.
No paddle. Gone.
The creaking of a door. Nancy looked and saw the door in the far corner. She didn’t remember it being there, nor did she notice the Sesame Street banner hanging right behind the furnace.
She’d had no idea that behind the door were even more stairs, descending lower and lower. Only a baby gate was there to stop any hapless individual from falling down them.
Sometimes things just worked that way...
Stepping over the baby gate, Nancy descended the stairs, her hand gripping the railing as a low and quiet laughter echoed up to her from the darkness, and the nice familiar colors of her house were replaced with old and faded paint chipping off the walls. Paint that was once bright and sunny, but had long since faded and been chipped...or burned...away.
“Hee-hee-hee-hee!”
“You dreamed about the same freak I did,” Tina’s voice joined in, before turning into shrieking baby babble.
Nancy kept going down. It was the only way to go.
“Gonna get you….” The voice from the darkness taunted. “Nanny’s gonna getcha…!”
Nancy knew where she was. She knew this was all a dream. It didn’t make sitting on the corkscrewing spiral slide any easier. It didn’t make her any less scared to hear a replay of Rod screaming as the last of his adulthood leaked out of him and into his diaper.
The grated, play place floor offered no comfort as Nancy stepped onto it. She tried to center herself and try to get a feel for the place, but over the railings were just more impossible tubes filled with the souls and sanity of children endlessly shuffling through them.
Endless crawling.
The echoing sounds of Tina softly crying out for her sent shivers down Nancy’s spine and another dribble into her disposable panties.
She found a ladder and climbed down it; the fact that each rung was a different color of the rainbow did little to amuse her or lift her spirits.
“RUEGERRRRRR!” she called out. Only the echoes and the thump thump thumping from the inside of the crawl spaces answered her.
Rueger
Thunk-thunk
rueg-
thunk-thu-
“I’M HERE!”
I’m here
Thunk-thunk
I’m he-
thunk-thu-
No other choice. Further into the labyrinth she went. Smells joined the senses: Rash cream and baby powder. Stale Urine and the barely contained odor of dirty diapers.
A row of empty cribs, four of them; rickety, rotting decrepit things that no mother in their right mind would let their child sleep in took the place of the play equipment.
Each one with a different laying where the infant would sleep.
Trophies.
Tina’s old nightlight. She’d been the first. The easiest to regress.
Rod’s leather jacket, still reeking of Axe. It had been a security blanket in it’s own way.
She was being watched. Nancy could feel it, as if the eyes of a predator were watching her. Silent. Hungry. Waiting. Toying with her.
Nowhere was this more evident than the third rickety crib. Glenn’s laptop and air pods...boys and their toys. They were still wet and dripping with piss.
The fourth crib lay empty…for now. Yet Nancy could hear her own crying, her own infantile screaming off in the distance. A promise of things to come.
She dropped her boyfriend’s possession and snarled up to the eternal black sky of the nightmare nursery. “COME OUT AND SHOW YOURSELF YOU BITCH!”
The silence was the only reply she got. Digging into her pocket, she looked at her phone. Shit! Running out of time. What would she do if she couldn’t find h-?
“NAUGHTY NAUGHTY!” The burned Nanny, sans her flower hat, was on Nancy in an instant, paddle in one hand a bar of soap in the other.
Nancy ran.
The old beldam chased her, cackling and cooing in her shadow.
The young woman scrambled over to another corkscrew slide, or the same corkscrew slide as before?
No. It didn’t matter. Not here!
Home! She had to get home!
“COME ON, NANNY!” she taunted. “FOLLOW ME! YOU’RE IT!” Nancy slid down the slide just far enough to bypass the railing, and flung herself down into the blackness…
-...and crashed in her own front yard. The discarded rose trellis broke her fall from oblivion.
“DAMN IT!” She roared, picking herself up. She was in her yard, in her home...or a dream version of it anyways. No Rueger, though. No Nanny. “WHERE ARE YOU?!”
Her phone was beeping. A warning app she’d installed. Running out of time!
10…
9….
8…
7…
A grating, charred whisper from the trellis. “Nancy…” Nanny Rueger stood up from the rose bush. “Peek-a-b-!”
Nancy charged, right into Nanny’s waiting arms. “I’VE GOT YOU NOW!”
The witch tittered, catching the charging woman and twirling her around onto the bed of roses. She was pinned, her arms held against her sides, as old lady kisses peppered her cheeks. “Give Nanny some sugar, baby!”
RRRRRRRRRIIIIIING!
The alarm clock buzzed Nancy awake, thrashing and screaming. “AAAAAH! AAAAAAH!” But as the lattice turned back into her comfy bed, the only thing she had in her grip was air.
Rattled and still exhausted, Nancy sat up from her toddler bed, the rustling of her nighttime diaper sounding like popcorn, even though it was soaked. It could hold a lot more. Up to twelve hours of protection.
On top of her lavender colored dresser was the changing mat she was just starting to transition out of needing; a stack of big girl Pull-Ups that she wore during the day beside it.
“That’s it,” Nancy whispered to herself. “I’m crazy.”
The witch that popped up from the other side of her bed, seemed to disagree. “COME TO NANNY!”
Survival instinct kicked in over fear, allowing Nancy to side step her attacker, grab the empty coffee pot by her bed and smash it over Rueger’s head. That bought her enough time to run to her room and lock it from the outside with the bolt she’d installed.
The monster-woman’s taunts had devolved into angry roars as she clawed and pounded at the door. Heavy, thudding pounding, like a wooden club or a paddle breaking down the door.
Plan beat out fear, as Nancy used the precious seconds the dead bolt bought her, to arm the mallet trap she’d set up.
She opened a window and screamed out. “DADDY!” Where was he? WHERE WAS HE?! More pounding and thudding as she ran to the front door. Still locked. The girl grabbed an umbrella and shattered the the glass in the door. “DADDY!”
A thump and a groan let Nancy know that her mallet trap had sprung. Cold comfort. Grim satisfaction. But when real burglars were hit in the solar plexus and fell over the railing and tumbled down the stairs, they didn’t get up nearly as quickly.
On her last legs, Nancy powered on. “COME ON NANNY!” She taunted. “CAN YOU CATCH ME?” She hopped over the living room couch and ducked.
The ghoul was fuming “You’re not going to be able to sit down for a week...” she snarled.
A bright flash and a miniature explosion as the witch tripped the lamp trap. A little gunpowder went a long way. But would it be far enough?
More glass shattering. More screaming and praying that her father wasn’t a complete asshole and was actually on his way home. “DADDY! HELP! HELP M PLEASE!”
The bars on her window had turned this place into a prison; an execution chamber. Rueger clambered over the couch. Unaffected by the explosion beyond momentary disorientation. She’d died once already. A little blowing up didn’t bother her.
The only advantage that Nancy had was that outside of her dreams, Nanny was just as slow and lumbering as the rest of us. No more teleportation. No more popping out of literally nowhere. No more effortlessly wielding a paddle that was at least half her size. And if her panting was any indication, she was capable of being worn out, if not killed.
“I’m gonna give you SUCH a rash!” The woman bellowed as she chased Nancy down the stairs to her basement.
Time for a last ditch effort. Carefully waddling so as not to fall thanks to the thick padding between her legs, Nancy grabbed a jug; it was filled with a cocktail so strong even Mom couldn’t drink it straight. The kind of moonshine that was used to burn warts off a mule.
Speaking of burns…
The shattered over the witch’s head. The pack of matches did the rest.
“NOOOOOOOOOO!”
Nancy had heard of witches melting. She infinitely preferred witches burning. No joy came.
No time. Skin and clothes ablaze, Nanny Rueger chased a terrified eighteen year old up the stairs. She’d been burned to death once before and she’d gotten over it. What made Nancy think this time would be any different.
Stupid. Stupid girl!
Slamming the basement door closed, she felt the thud and heard the tumbling bodly back down the stairs. The problem with having a burning woman in her basement led to a burning house. All too quickly smoke rose into the air, threatening to choke.
“NANCY?!” A familiar voice. A good one. One belonging to a certain police lieutenant.
Nancy ran to the front door, just as her father busted it open, with one of his friends from work behind him. “DADDY?!”
“NANCY WHAT IS IT? WHAT’S GOING ON?”
“IT’S RUEGER!” Nancy cried. “I’VE GOT HER! I’VE GOT HER IN THE BASEMENT!”
She wasn’t in the basement, though. In the time it took Nancy to explain and lead her Daddy to the basement door, a trail of flaming footprints tromped up the stairs to the bedrooms.
It took her no time at all to know where she was going. “MOM!”
Mom was screaming when Daddy and Nancy ran it. Her legs kicked and her voice cawed nonsensically as she was pinned across the lap of a flaming woman and spanked bare handed. Mom! She was spanking Mom!
Dad tossed a blanket over them and tackled the the two. “CAREFUL DADDY!” Nancy yelped. “SHE’S UNDER THERE! NANNY RUEGER IS UNDER THERE!”
Carefully, very carefully, Daddy took away the blanket. Still on the bed, wearing a yellow ducky onesie and a wet diaper that threatened to burst the snaps, Marge Thompson kicked feebly and cried around her thumb.
Daddy took a step back, flabbergasted, even as a box of Pampers manifested at the foot of the bed.
“Hey Lieutenant,” another police office said from the hallway. “I was able to get the fire out.” He saw Mom crying on her bed. “Hey? Whose baby is that?”
Her Dad just closed the door and hugged his daughter. “Do you see, Daddy?” Nancy whimpered. “Do you believe me now?”
He didn’t say anything, but she knew he did. “I”m okay,” she said. “You go downstairs. I’m gonna change Mom and then we’ll join you.” Completely shell shocked, Daddy left.
“Lieutenant,” Nancy heard the other cop. “Everything okay? What’s with the baby. I thought you had only one daughter…”
“I don’t know,” Daddy said. “I don’t know.”
Nancy just inched closer, looking down at her mother; her own incoming sobs threatening to match Marge’s. Between the newest baby’s sobs and Nancy’s own, she almost didn’t hear the bedroom door close on its own.
Almost. Teeth gritted, she grabbed a Pampers from the box and unsnapped Marge’s onesie.
“I know you’re there, Nanny,” she said. She could hear the wood warping as the spectre crawled out of the shadows.
“You didn’t think you were going to get away from me, did you?”
Nancy popped open a package of wipes, and undid the tapes of her mother’s diaper. “I know you too well, Nanny.”
“Now you’re mine.”
Don’t turn around. Don’t turn around. Don’t turn around. Just keep changing the baby. Adults don’t worry about spankings.
She balled up the used diaper and wipes and tossed it behind her. “It’s too late, Rueger. I know the secret, now.” She unfolded the fresh diaper. “This is just a dream. You’re not alive.” Unflinchingly, she tugged the new diaper up and taped it onto her babbling mother’s hips. “This whole thing is just a dream.” She kept her tone even and fearless, even though she wanted to scream.
Finally, she snapped up the onesie and turned to face her attacker; fearless. “I want my mother and my friends, again.”
For the first time, the monster woman seemed taken aback. Confused. “You what?”
“I take back every bit of energy I gave you.” The words were their own sort of spell. A curse. Binding. Ancient. Eldritch. Powerful. “You’re nothing.” She hissed.
With purpose, she turned around and picked Marge up. Surprisingly light. Neat. Nancy went and grabbed the doorknob. Didn’t make sense to keep Daddy waiting.
“AAAAAAH!”
Nancy turned around just in time to see Nanny Rueger taking one last swing with her paddle before disintegrating into sparkling fairy dust. Baby Marge giggled and clapped.
No more power. Only a dream.
And so, it was with that, her power restored and her adulthood intact, that Nancy Thompson set her Baby Mommy down on the floor, opened the door, and walked back out into the waking world…
**********************************************************************************
Nancy blinked as she stepped into the sunlight. No crinkling accompanied her footsteps. She was wearing panties again. No baby clothes threatened to over take her.
Her skin was healthy, her hair done up and her eyes bright.
She was rested. The long nightmare had been nothing more than a fitful nap.
“The sun,” she squinted. “It’s so bright.” After so much darkness it felt good.
Mom came out the front door behind Nancy. “It’s going to burn off soon, or it wouldn’t be so bright.”
“Mom?” Nancy gasped. “How are you?”
Mom beamed there in her pure white dress. “Oh, I’m fine. They say you’ve bottomed out when you can’t remember the night before.” She gave her daughter a kiss on the cheek. “Thanks for taking care of me. You’re gonna make a great mother someday.”
“Thanks,” Nancy said, actually blushing.
Mom winked. “But hopefully not too soon.”
The sound of an approaching car signaled the end of their conversation.
“Have a good day.”
“Thanks, Mom. You too.”
The car honked. Her ride was here. Glenn drove up in his hot red convertible. The top was down, and Tina and Rod were only inches away from each other’s face in the back.
Nancy skipped down the driveway and hopped into the passenger seat, not even opening the door. She leaned over and gave Glenn his good morning kiss…
Just as a red and green top popped back over them. “What happened?” Nancy giggled.
“Yeah,” Rod asked. “What’s goin’ on?”
The doors locked. “Hey hey!” Glenn cried out. “I’m not doin’ this!” Harness belts leaped out from the seats and restrained the four teens.
Nancy felt her panties getting thicker while the harness snaked between her legs and snaps that weren’t there a moment ago unbuttoned themselves along the inseams of her pants, revealing the diaper underneath.
Tina screamed, and Rod yelped. Glenn just sucked his thumb. The house in the distance got lower, and the street got further away as the car’s chassis got farther and farther off the ground.
Her pants were gone now, replaced by a cute lolita dress. Glenn wore a dapper sailor suit. In the back, Rod and Tina wore complimentary onesies. All their screams were caught off by pacifiers leaping between their lips.
A stroller. They were in a giant stroller, built for four very big babies.
“Mmmmy!” Baby Nancy called out from behind her dummy. “Mmmmy!”
Mommy just smiled and waved as the stroller moseyed on down the street.
Ten, nine, better watch your behind.
Eight, seven, gonna learn your lesson.
Six, five, never gonna thrive.
Four, three, in your pants you pee.
Two, one, Nanny says you’re done….
(The End)
