Goblin Bites: Scary Stories 16

Robert thought he'd hit the jackpot of awesome, cushy jobs. For the past year, he'd made a decent living as a professional house sitter. The work was stupid easy in most cases: just make the house look lived in while the owner was away. Occasionally there was a pet that needed looking after too, or a handful of house plants to keep watered, but overall it was more or less the same every time. All Robert had to do was sit around and watch TV for a few days... and he got paid for it. Most of the homeowners were extra cool and allowed him to help himself to their pantries, as a part of his pay. The long and the short of it was Robert absolutely loved his job and thought he was the luckiest guy in the entire world... that is, until his last job.

As usual, he got a notification on his online job board to let him know someone requested his services. Like all his jobs, he accepted it without question, and headed out the next morning with bag in hand to visit his digs for the weekend. Honestly though, something felt a little off from the moment he got out of the car. The house he'd agreed to watch was a large, spooky old Victorian with a wrought iron gate, practically in the middle of the woods. At first, he thought he'd driven to the wrong address because the place looked condemned, but after re-checking the email and his GPS, it appeared he was in the right place. When he stepped onto the front porch and rang the doorbell, a little old lady popped out to greet him. "Hello," she said sweetly, "You must be the house sitter I hired, yes?"

Robert did his best to seem cordial and professional, "That's me, ma'am. Rob Smith, house sitter: at your service."

She shook his hand and invited him in pleasantly, "The pleasure is all mine. You may call me Mrs. Sloan. Let me show you around the place. Careful, though; this old girl has a personality all her own."

The inside of the house was very neat and tidy, despite how old and spooky it looked on the outside. Low, overstuffed antique furniture filled every room, and there were shelves upon shelves overloaded with little porcelain figurines and crystal dishes - typical of most homes he'd seen occupied by little old ladies. Robert was honestly relieved that the house seemed so normal, and began to relax a little as she led him upstairs. "This is where you may sleep," she said, opening a door for him in the hall, "It has its own attached bath, too. All I ask is that you clean up after yourself before you leave."

Robert put his bag down on the old brass bed with a nod. Usually, he just slept on the couch, and it was rare that the homeowner on a job gave him his own sleeping quarters. As he looked around the room, his gaze was drawn back through the open door to the room directly across the hall from his. Unlike every other door he noticed in the hall, that door featured a heavy, iron padlock and a bolt affixed just under the knob. Normally he wouldn't be so nosy, but something about the door piqued his curiosity in a strange manner. Before he realized it, he had asked, "What's in there?"

Mrs. Sloan glanced at the door, and her smile fell. "Oh, you mustn't go in there," she said curtly, "there's nothing of interest in there anyway; just some old boxes... and Harvey's things." She turned on her heel then and headed back downstairs without another word. Robert was a little spooked admittedly, but just thought she was a quirky old lady and tried not to think about the door. He followed her back down to the front door to see her out - just to be polite - and even helped her load her bag into her run-down old jalopy. As she settled behind the wheel complete in a hat and driving gloves, she looked him straight in the eye. "I don't have a television," she said, "but if you get restless, feel free to explore the property. You can help yourself to anything in the kitchen too. Just be sure to clean up after yourself, don't touch anything that looks valuable... and don't open that door upstairs, under any circumstances!" Robert swore an oath to the old woman that he would do exactly as she said, then as soon as she left, headed back inside.

For the first few hours, Robert tried playing on his phone to pass the time. It didn't take him long though to realize that cell service was pretty much nonexistent out in the middle of nowhere, and the house's wifi wasn't much better. He started looking around for the wifi router, but very quickly got distracted by all the strange knicknacks littered about the place. Eventually he found himself in a kind of study or small library off the living room. The wifi router was nowhere to be found (at least downstairs), so Robert began skimming the shelves looking for something interesting to read. Oddly enough, most of the books were very old and looked to be in some form of Latin, which he hadn't taken a class in since seventh grade and remembered very little of. The ones that were in English were just as old and dusty, and featured subjects such as gardening, crocheting and other things Robert found incredibly dull. Most of the books he could read seemed to focus on child care, making him think Mrs. Sloan had been a nursemaid at some point in her life.

While he was skimming through one of the old books, he heard a loud "thump" directly above him. Robert startled and looked up at the plaster ceiling immediately, nearly dropping the book in his hands. Mrs. Sloan hadn't said anything about her having a cat, which was his first thought, and he was positive there was no one else in the house with him. No other thumps followed, making Robert think it was probably the house settling or maybe a mouse knocking over a box upstairs. Either way, he tried to put the incident out of his mind and continued exploring the old house.

Before long, Robert had been in practically every room in the house. The only rooms he hadn't been in were Mrs. Sloan's bedroom (because why the heck would he want to go in there?) and the door that was bolted. He couldn't exactly explain it, but whenever he allowed his feet to wander aimlessly, he always seemed to wind up right in front of that door. Once or twice he tried to look through the keyhole, but he couldn't see much of anything in there; just a bunch of stacked up boxes and what looked like an old baby crib shoved over into the corner. He put his ear to the door at least once (again, not sure what made him do so), and was almost certain he could hear movement on the other side. He dismissed the thought quickly though, chalking it up to just his overactive imagination, and moved on with his exploration.

By seven p.m., Robert was officially bored out of his skull. Having nothing better to do, he fixed himself a sandwich for dinner and headed to bed early. The old brass bed looked nice and comfy, however the old metal springs in the mattress seemed to dig into his back in just the right way to keep him from getting comfortable no matter how he tossed and turned. Or, maybe it had less to do with the bed and more to do with the house itself. It was so quiet, it was unbearable; there wasn't a single cricket or tree frog chirping outside, no wind, nothing. The only sounds were the occasional creak of the house settling, but even they were rare. It took a long time for Robert to finally start dozing off, but as soon as he did, there was a loud "thud" from the room across the hall.

Robert sat up in bed like a shot, frozen solid like a statue for the longest time. He had just about convinced himself that he'd imagined the sound and started to lie back down, when suddenly a new sound reached his ears... one that chilled him to the bone: there was a baby crying in the locked room.

Robert was alarmed and confused by the wailing. The door was locked and bolted; how could a baby have gotten in there? The only logical reasoning was it had to have been there from the very start. If that was really the case though, why had Mrs. Sloan not mentioned she was currently looking after a baby? The whole situation raised more questions than answers, but Robert was sure of one thing: there was definitely a baby in that room, and it needed to be cared for. He debated for himself for what felt like an hour, wondering if he should call the cops on Mrs. Sloan. The obvious answer was "yes," but then he realized there was no cell service. That, and he was worried the cops might charge him with negligence too, seeing as he was in charge of the household in Mrs. Sloan's absence. Surely, no one would believe that he'd spent the last twelve hours in a house with an infant and not been aware of it. The crying was getting louder and more desperate with every minute that passed. There seemed to be only one solution: Robert had to open the door.

He got out of bed hurriedly and headed for Mrs. Sloan's bedroom, hoping the key to the padlock would be in there. He felt bad honestly looking through all her drawers, but it was an emergency. He found a large, iron key at last which looked like it matched the lock in the bottom most drawer of her dresser, but that wasn't all the drawer held. There were baby blankets and cloth diapers in it as well, along with glass formula bottles. Robert didn't pay much attention to the baby things, but bookmarked the drawer in the back of his mind in case he needed to get something out of it later, and hurried back to the locked door. Robert was honestly a little scared as he fumbled to put the key in the lock. He didn't have any kids himself, and had never taken care of a baby before; what if it was hurt, or had special needs or something? Besides that, he had no idea how long it had been locked away for, so who knew what kind of shape the baby was in? Eventually he got the padlock open. He threw it off, shoved the latch back and opened the door... and the crying suddenly stopped.

Robert hovered in the threshold a long moment, just staring into the room. There was soft gurgling and cooing coming from the crib, which jostled and rocked a little on its own. He was definitely scared by now, and more than a little confused. Part of him wanted to just turn and leave: leave the room, leave the house, forget the contract the whole kit and kaboodle. Still, he couldn't in good conscience leave a little helpless baby all alone with no one to care for it, especially considering its guardian had kept it literally under lock and key.

He swallowed hard, steeling himself, and headed into the room. His hands shook as he approached the crib, bracing himself for whatever horrible condition the baby might be in. The infant was covered with a blanket completely, squirming underneath it as if it was trying to get it off. "H-Hey, Buddy," Robert murmured, trying to sound calm and confident, "are you okay? I'm sorry, I didn't know you were here. Do you, like, need a bottle or-"

When Robert pulled the blanket off, he froze in horror at what he saw. The creature looking back at him was baby-sized and dressed in a little onesie, but it was definitely not a baby. "Wh-What the hell-?!" The exclamation was cut short when the creature leapt from the crib onto his face. Robert screamed in agony as it tore him to ribbons, but there was no one around to hear his screams. Eventually, the house and the woods fell deathly silent again.

Two days later, Mrs. Sloan returned home from visiting her sister. She hummed quietly to herself as she carried her bag inside and headed upstairs, "Robert? I'm home. Did you have a good weekend?" She paused when she reached the upstairs hall and saw the door open. "Oh, dear," she muttered, setting her bag on the floor as she approached, "not another one." The floorboards were covered with bloodstains, and there was a pile of bones near the crib, picked totally clean of flesh. She sighed as she walked over to the crib, smiling at the creature inside, "Hello, Harvey. Mommy's sorry she had to leave. Did you and Robert have a nice time playing together?" The creature uttered a low, trilling purr and a burp as she scooped it up into her arms. "There, there," she cooed, "Don't you worry, Harvey; Mommy promises to find another playmate for you soon."