I think everyone who has ever had a babysitting job has had that moment of pure terror while running around a semi-unfamiliar house at 11:20pm desperately looking for something and just praying that the parents don’t get home before you find it. In most cases I bet the item would be a special stuffed toy the kid can’t sleep without or a pacifier. In my case it was a stapler because the worms were spilling out of the baby’s seams and I had to get that thing put back together before the parents came home.

I hope I’ve set the scene for you but here are a few more details. Hi, I’m Riley, I’m a 17-year-old girl and I am the oldest kid in my neighborhood and the de facto babysitter. Most of the kids in the neighborhood are under the age of 7 and I’ve been babysitting them since I was 14 so you could say I know these kids pretty well. But it doesn’t take an attentive babysitter to tell when the kid has been replaced by a baby-shaped sack full of worms. Except, I’m the only person who seems to even notice that the kids in the neighborhood are no longer kids. The kids’ parents haven’t noticed, my parents haven’t noticed, and the other kids (before they, too, became worm sacks) haven’t noticed.

You might think (and I did too, at first) that I was absolutely losing it. I went to a neighbor’s house one night last year to babysit while the parents went out for a few hours. It was already late but the mom said the kid was having trouble sleeping so I should hold him until he nodded off. She was holding him and when she went to hand him to me I saw that it was not a baby, it was a bag. A burlap looking sack in a vaguely baby shape. I took the “baby” and held it. I squinted at the mom and then over at the dad. I didn’t notice anything sus, except, well, bag baby. Both parents were acting normal. The mom leaned down and kissed the bag baby on its head and then they left. I stood there for a few minutes before I noticed that the bag baby was moving. On closer inspection it seemed like the bag was full of something…not really squishy but a little squishy and it was moving, writhing. I held the sack up in front of me Lion King style and lightly jiggled it back and forth. Something plopped onto the floor. A worm.

By the time the parents got back I had tucked the thing into bed and was sitting on the couch scrolling through my phone watching TikToks of people describing what it’s like to hallucinate. Obviously that’s what I was experiencing. “Ew,” I heard the mom say. “What’s wrong?” The dad said. “I stepped on a worm, gross.” A worm. The worm that fell out of their baby. It landed on the floor and I watched it squirm towards the side door where the parents had just come in. The mom stepped on it. A worm, a real thing. So I wasn’t crazy, which is good, but the baby was a worm bag, which was probably not good. But hey, maybe a one off, right? Wrong. All of them are worm bags. Well, all except one.

Before I go on, I should explain that the baby sacks are not the only weird thing going on in the neighborhood. All the pet dogs are avoiding the babies, some growling at them. A few people have had to rehome their pets. One person had to rehome their cat after it attacked a “kid.” There’s also been strange sounds at night. Scraping like trees against a window, even windows where there are no trees. Wailing, almost cat-like sounds coming from the woods. People’s trash was getting knocked over more than usual but no one had seen any raccoons or other usual suspects. This has all been going on for a little over a year. All the kids are bags o’ worms except one, a 7-year-old named Camille. Her brother, Connor, has been bagged for a few months I think. I don’t watch these two very often but when I do it’s usually from Friday evening to pretty early Saturday morning. I usually pass out in the guest room reading and the parents wake me up and drive me home even though I can walk back. They are nice people and I like Camille a lot. Her brother was a cute, quiet kid. He’s quiet now too, but definitely not cute.

Anyway, back to it. It was a Friday, 11pm, I was reading in the guest room. Camille was asleep and Conner was a sack and the parents said they might be home by midnight but this is doubtful because it’s usually closer to 3am and one time it was 6am. I was about halfway through The Grace Year and I was really getting into it. Then I heard the scratching at the window. I ignored it as long as I could but when I couldn’t take it anymore I got up to check on the kids. Camille’s room was right across from the guest room, a small bathroom was at the end of the hall with us. Her door was open and a night light was on so I could see her in the dim light. I pushed the door open a little more. Her bed was against the same wall as the door. She was sound asleep. I heard the scratching at her window. For some reason I started to feel uneasy. As quietly as I could, I walked across her floor, carpeted, luckily, and peered out the window. I didn’t hear or see anything at first. Then, something…maybe. A shape on the ground. It was hard to see because it was dark and I was on the second floor. There was a streetlamp but it really just helped to make more shadows than to light anything up. But there might have been something… about the size of a large cat.

I went down the hall to Connor’s room. His door was also slightly open and his night light was on. His crib was also against the wall near the door. I looked in on him. Yup, still sack. I was about to go back to the guest room when I saw something moving against the light blue of his blankets. Worms. Fuck. There were a bunch of them. I flipped the light on and picked sack-Connor up. More worms spilled out of a hole in his little sack foot. I started to get anxious. I scooped up the worms and turned Connor upside down and tried to stuff them back inside. But I only managed to make the hole bigger. I very quickly went from low-key anxiety to very, very high-key freaking out. I put Connor back in his crib and ran into the bathroom. I looked in the cabinets for something, I didn’t really know what I was looking for. Band-Aids? No, that won’t work, maybe tape? I shoved everything back and ran downstairs. I started searching through drawers, still no plan in my head. Then I thought of it, a stapler!

By now it was 11:20pm and if the parents were going to come home early on any night it would be my luck that this would be the night. I had no idea if they would be able to “see” the baby for what it was if it lost all its worms. Would it, like, die? I was not going to find out. Finally, in a junk drawer, I found a mini stapler with purple staples. It will have to do, I told myself as I ran back up the stairs. Connor was still hemorrhaging worms. I picked him up and started scooping. When I finally had all the worms back inside him I started to staple.

When I was done I set Connor back gently into the crib then flipped the light back off with the back of my hand. I went to the bathroom and washed my hands.

“Riley?” I heard Camille say my name. I pushed the bathroom door open and saw her standing in the hall.

“What’s up, Camille?” I asked.

She rubbed one of her eyes and gave me an annoyed look.

“You’re making A LOT of noise,” she said.

“Oh yeah, sorry about that,” I put my hand on the top of her head and steered her back into her room. I turned the lamp on her bedside table on and scanned the room, just in case.

“What are you looking for?” She asked.

“Just looking. Ok, back in bed.”

She climbed back into her bed and pulled the sheets up over her knees. She was still sitting up and giving me a look I couldn’t really figure out.

“Were you outside?” She asked.

“No,” I said and glanced at the window. “I was just looking for something downstairs and I guess I was a little loud.”

Camille sighed dramatically and said “A LOT of loud.”

I smiled and went to turn off the lamp when Camille screamed.

I whipped around to where she was looking, the doorway, and something was there. Hunched over. Something the size of a cat, with greenish, leathery skin and a long neck and claws on its long limbs. “Shit!” I yelled. I dove onto the bed, partially covering Camille, to shield her but also so I could grab one of her giant Squishmallows and hurl it at the thing. It hit it and the thing screeched and jumped back into the hallway. I heard scratching at the window, loud and insistent.

“Oh my god, they’re going to turn you into worms,” I muttered.

“I don’t want to be worms!” Camille screamed. I grabbed her by the wrist and yanked her out of the bed. The room wasn’t safe. I dragged her out into the hall. The creature I’d hit was at the stairs, another one, bigger with large, dropping ears, was coming up the stairs. It was cradling something in its sinewy arms. A sack. A big, 7-year-old sized sack, full of worms.

“They’re replacing you with worms!”

“Riley, don’t let them make me worms!” Camille was sobbing. The scratching at the window was deafening. There were little mews and screeches coming from the window and from the three creatures in front of us. I ran forward and kicked the thing holding the sack as hard as I could. I was hoping to knock it down the stairs, instead it hissed and dropped the sack and jumped onto the railing. I dragged Camille behind me and ran clumsily down the stairs. I heard the window shatter.

More creatures were on the first floor. Maybe this was a bad move. Maybe we should have stayed upstairs. Maybe we could make it outside to another house. I ran into the kitchen, basically dragging Camille on the floor behind me.

“Riley! You’re hurting me!” Camille sobbed. I yanked her closer to me and held her in a hug.

“I know, I’m sorry, let’s try and get out of here.”

We were standing near the refrigerator. The door to the sun room was on the other side of the kitchen. If we could get to the sunroom and lock it, we could either stay in there or go out the back door and run to a neighbor’s. The creatures were creeping into the kitchen. They seemed a little more hesitant now, realizing that I was willing to fight back, I guess. Then one, a little bolder than the others, leapt onto the island counter. We were eye to eye now. Its eyes were droopy and a filmy white. Its mouth curled into a smile, it had all these sharp, white teeth, too many to count. It reached out a hand and I saw its back legs tense. It was ready to jump. I ducked, slamming Camille onto the floor under me. The refrigerator door opened when the creature grabbed it to keep itself up. Another creature jumped onto the counter, also ready to pounce.

“Stay there,” I said to Camille and used both hands to grab a drawer from the fridge. I swung it at the creature on the counter, lunch meat and cheese flying all over the kitchen. The one that had opened the fridge swiped at me. I managed to dodge and grabbed another drawer out and smashed it into its head. Then I started grabbing everything I could from the counter and fridge and just hurling them at anything that moved. The creatures were hissing and dodging cabbages and ketchup and a decorative ceramic bowl. I grabbed a carton of orange juice and a carton of cream, one in each hand, and started to pummel one of the creatures over the head with them. The orange juice opened and started to leak all over me, the creature and the floor. The cream quickly followed.

Then…silence. It was so abrupt I jumped at the sudden absence of sound, then jumped again at the sensation of my wrist being licked by a rough, cat-like tongue.

The creature I had been beating over the head was gently cradling my hand and licking the cream from my wrist and the back of my hand. I stood there, left hand raised still holding the dripping orange juice carton above my head. Camille lifted her head up and looked at me and the creature.

“R-Riley?” She stammered.

“Shhh,” I whispered. I lowered the orange juice carton and set it on the counter then I used my now free hand to fully open the cream carton. The liquid flowed onto the floor and three more creatures scuttled over to the forming puddle. They bent down and began to lap it up. I put my finger against the forehead of the creature holding my hand and gently pushed it backwards. It let go of my hand and looked up at me with its milky eyes. I handed it the carton and it took it with both hands.

“Camille, let’s go,” I said quietly. She grabbed my hand and I helped her up off the floor. Maybe 10 of the critters were sitting quietly in the kitchen, hunched over and licking the sticky floor. We started to walk towards the sunroom door but one of the creatures jumped in front of us with a hiss. It put one clawed hand up as if to say “stop.” I heard chittering sounds behind me and glanced over my shoulder. One of them was standing on its hind legs holding something wrapped in a dingy blanket close to its chest. It walked over to us and held out the bundle.

It was Connor. The real, live, actual baby, not a sack full of worms, Connor. He was sleeping, his eyes scrunched close and his hand shoved in his mouth. I took him from the creature’s outstretched arms. It nodded at me then let out a series of hisses and clicks. A forked tongue slipped between a gap in its sharp front teeth. All the creatures gathered around the hissing one then they began to lope towards the stairs. I stood there holding skin-Connor in my arms, Camille holding onto my leg. After a while, I couldn’t hear the creatures anymore, just the dripping of orange juice from the counter to the floor.

“Are we not going to be worms now?” Camille asked.

“I don’t think so,” I answered.

It was surprisingly easy to explain the sticky and destroyed kitchen away. And the broken window upstairs. A raccoon, obviously. I did have to go in for a rabies shot but I don’t think that was a bad idea. I don’t know what those things were. I also don’t know why all the kids in the neighborhood are returning, but they are. Every few days it seems like another worm bag is replaced (re-replaced?) by a skin baby. The only thing I am sure of is it's not a bad idea to keep a little dog bowl in my backyard filled with cream.

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