Neck slack, head hanging limp over the crook of his arm, the child’s arms dangle outstretched, hands open, its cheeks silky and smooth, the skin like liquid. It lies perfectly relaxed.

But soon the night will come, and with it its terrible objective, the relentless driving force: to feed. And the mother will give herself to it, for she has been seduced, and in making her covenant, she too now sleeps in the day and wakes to the nocturnal calling, the ghastly cries, the screeches and wails.

The child will take its fill, its cheeks fat and flush, the trembling smile creeping over its face as one eye rolls into the back of its head and the lids drape shut in ecstacy; it fattens itself on the mother’s essence, but never taking too much, never drying the well, it keeps her here like this, tired and worn with pallid complexion and lifeless eyes, enslaved to the insatiable hunger, no longer alive, but never in the rest of death.

But no more. It ends now. The cursed will be delivered to the darkness that bore them. A chopstick from last night’s takeout oughta do it--hammered through the heart with the can of cream of mushroom soup in the top cabinet. Yes. Yes. But quickly now, the father must not hesitate, for the shadows lengthen, the last sliver of gold melts into the horizon.

He takes the tiny stake, reaches for the can of Progresso; there is a stir, he looks down. The eyes, open and blank and searching. A shriek into the coming night.

He is too late.

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