1. The Changeling Baby


    Date: 1/1/2016, Categories: Supernatural, Author: TamLin, Rating: 3, Source: LushStories

    home). Nissa's apartment was the same layout as his, so he went down the hall and hung a left. The floorboards creaked. Returning, William glanced into the living room, and then nearly fell over: Nissa's father was sitting in his easy chair! “Oh! God, um, Mister…" He hesitated; what the hell was Nissa's family's name? "Spenser!" Was that right? He'd never even actually spoken to Nissa's father before, just inched around that one chair he always sat in the few other times he'd been in the apartment. He tried again. "Uh, hi sir. I'm sorry, I was just…" Just what, he thought, walking around your apartment half-naked? I'm a dead man. But Mr. Spenser did not reply. He sat in his usual chair, beer in hand, staring at the window, now and then, raising his beer to his lips but otherwise doing nothing. When the can was empty he crushed it and tossed it on the floor, then pulled another one from the warm 12-pack nearby. He acted as if William did not exist at all. "Hello?" William said. He edged into the room. Something prickled at the back of his neck. Now he could see the TV and the backs of two kids’ heads as they watched, quiet and attentive. William was right next to Nissa's father but the man didn’t seem aware of anything around him. His watery blue eyes never blinked. Nissa's bedroom was right by the front door; how could Mr. Spenser have come home again without William hearing anything? Then William thought hard: Had Mr. Spenser ever said anything to him? Had he ever even ...
    seen Mr. Spenser get up out of this chair? He couldn’t remember a single occasion. The prickly feeling got worse. Steeling his courage, William dared to tap Mr. Spenser on the arm. The man’s skin felt cold and hard, and his entire body rocked back and forth, as if it were a single, solid piece. William jumped. "What the fuck?" he said. The man in the chair did not respond. William touched him again and Mr. Spenser slid out of the chair, rolling onto the floor with a thud. From the front, Mr. Spenser was a remarkable facsimile of a human being: Even now, lying on the floor, his face continued to move, his eyes blinked, and his arms and hands groped around, following the same preset motions over and over again, animated by whatever force gave the wooden figure a semblance of life. But he was only a façade: There was no back to him. He was hollow on the inside, half a person only, the illusion ruined the moment the puppet was taken out of the chair. William backed away from the grotesque, twitching thing and bumped right into the kids. One fell over, revealing that it, too, was only a carved simulacrum. The hollow figure rolled on the floor. William started to hyperventilate. "We call them 'fetches.'" William jumped. Nissa stood in the doorway. "Fake people," she said. “I know they aren't very good. I'm not much of a craftsman. But I had to do something to make the place look lived-in. Most people never bother to look close at them anyway.” William backed against the wall, shaking ...
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