Tuesday, April 20, 2021

Black Sheep Mutation (Part 2)

 ***This story is part one of a collaboration made in my Creepypasta Club on Outschool. This was made by the "Spooky Spaghetties" Zoe and Sarah Anne. This final installment also features their fantastic artwork***

Part one is here. 




Nicky stared at me for a long time after I told her what had happened at school; at least the part about the headache and growing really big. Sort of like she’d done last night after I’d revealed being nonbinary to her. I thought maybe she’d hit me again. But the look on her face was somehow different. In fact, I witnessed yet another mysterious wonder for the day.


My mother had tears gathering in her eyes. 


Finally she spoke. “You stupid girl,” she whispered. 


I sighed. “Mom, I am not a girl,” I said quietly, too exhausted to fight or to rage. 


Nicky smirked in response. “Well, I guess, for once, you are actually right. You’re not really a girl. Or a boy.” 


My spine straightened. I didn’t trust her. I knew she wasn’t suddenly having a change of heart and accepting me, that was for sure. “What are you talking about?”


She stared at me again for another long moment. “I really thought you might never find out, Ginlee. I really thought I did the right thing.” 


I almost laughed. In what reality would Nicky ever think she did anything right by me? 


“Look, I know you think I’m like the worst mom,” she said. Her eyes softened as she said it, but then hardened again and filled with hate. “And believe me, I am, don’t make no mistake. But I had to be. I had to be this way, Ginlee. To protect you. To protect us both.” 


“From what? What are you talking about?”


“I’ll tell you, but I have to do something first, and probably more than once.” 


“OK,” I said, shaking my head. “Fine… What?”


Nicky slapped me. My head snapped to the side and my cheek stung viciously. I shut my eyes and stayed quiet.


“The women in our family… We have a… Genetic mutation. They say it’s a curse,” Nicky began. I decided to look at her again and then she slapped me again.


“WHY DO YOU KEEP DOING THAT?” I screamed.


But she didn’t answer that question. Just kept on rambling. “Once we reach a certain age, you know, that puberty age, we have within us this… This… Monster… And the monster comes to the front if we’re kind. Or if someone is kind to us…” Nicky explained. Before she finished her sentence, she slapped me again. I reached up to slap her back but she knocked me down.


“That’s right girl, stay mad. Stay mean,” Nicky seethed. 


“I. AM. NOT. A. GIRL!” I screamed. 


“I KNOW YOU AIN’T!” She screamed back. “You are a monster! A giant! Just like me. And you can’t be nice, and neither can I. Unless you want it to happen. Want the pain. Want to hurt people who were only tryin’ to be nice to you.” Her eyes narrowed to slits. “What’d you do, kid? You hurt someone didn’t ya? That’s why you came in here with that ghost look on your face.”


I started to cry and Nicky slapped me again. “Please, stop,” I pleaded.


“I can’t, and you can’t be cryin’. Cryin’ is one of them things that leads to kindness, you can’t be doin’ it.” She jerked me by the shoulder. “Now tell me what you done.”


“I… I… Killed someone. It was an accident!” I looked at her in sheer terror, certain the beating of a lifetime was coming. 


But instead she nodded. “I thought so.” Her face looked softer than I’d ever seen it. But then she flinched severely and reached out and smacked me hard enough to make me fall again. 


“MOM STOP!” 


“I can’t!” She screamed. “You wanna see me change? You wanna get hurt?” She seethed. “You think getting slapped feels bad? How you think gettin’ your bones crushed will feel?”


I recalled the poor broken librarian and shuddered. I began to feel weirdly grateful to my mother and then a stab of pain in my head gripped me. I sucked in a painful breath and grabbed my head. 


So, my mother punched me. 


***


She thought she’d protect me all along. She thought she’d train any trace of kindness out of me before ever even setting me loose in the world so that when my time came for the curse to kick in, I’d be spared, and I’d never mutate. 


But it turns out, even in the cruelest world, kindness finds its way in. At least once in awhile. 


Through a weird, fractured, violent conversation, I learned that my mother and I were the last surviving members of our family because ultimately, our kind are always taken out by the authorities because we hurt people by mistake. And so they hurt us back. 


But legend had it that, if one generation can avoid the mutation, then the curse will be broken for future generations. She’d thought that it might happen for me thanks to her terrible brand of protection. But now, that hope was lost. 


Worse still, it didn’t take long at all for a cop to show up at our door. I hid in a closet trembling, listening to Nicky cuss and rant at the officer. But, someone had seen me running out of that school. Someone had seen me changing. Someone knew what I was and the cop told mom if she saw me she better turn me over if she knew what was good for her. 


After she got rid of him, she stormed in and demanded I pack up whatever I wanted (nothing, after all what did I have?) and we were leaving. 


That’s how we ended up here. Late at night, and far away from any sense of home we’d ever known. Running through a thick and endless forest. To me we seemed hopelessly lost, but she seemed like she knew just where she was going. It was an old cabin, she said. Something long empty and lost to society, that had belonged to her family back when it was alive. We would go there, and we would live out our days, hidden away from anyone who might hurt us. 


The night cold settled in and I had nothing on my feet but an old pair of her sandals. That’s all she’d had to give me since my shoes were ruined in my transformation. 


And, she’d kicked me when she gave them to me by throwing them at my face.


Now my feet were torn and bloody from brambles and branches and thorns clawed at my face and bare arms. But I followed her still, not seeing much of any other choice. 


My body was tattered and exhausted when we finally broke into the clearing where the little cabin stood. 


Mom was turning toward me. At the same time, I saw that there was a small flickering light in one of the windows, and I could see two forms inside. 


A twig snapped as mom turned. The two forms inside jerked toward the window.


But, then my mother hugged me. My second hug of the day, and of my life. 


I wanted to alert her to the fact that someone was in the cabin. But I was so caught off guard by her affection. Plus, the instant softening of my stone cold heart created a horrible conflict of shooting pain in my head. Still, she held fast to me, her own face contorted with pain. 


With a roar of agony escaping both of us in unison, the terrible and magical explosion occurred once more. Still entwined in a grotesque sort of embrace, we both shot upwards, breaking branches and sending limbs and whole trees crashing to the forest floor.


Our horrifying experience of becoming giants came to abrupt halt as the two shadow figures I’d seen behind the dusty windows of the cottage burst out the door, shrieking into the night. It was Nicky and my turn to be taken by surprise. We quickly parted and our heads snapped toward the two creatures emerging from the cabin. I barely even had time to take in my mother’s horrid appearance in her giant form. Bulbous bald head, large bulging yellow eyes and teeth dripping with long strings of saliva. Her giant boney rib cage rose and fell fast with quick shallow breaths. But just like that she began to shrink back down to her regular terrible but far less terrible form. It happened to me as well, another unpleasant conflict of searing heat and icy freeze racing in my veins.


Off guard and afraid, all kindness was once again stripped from us as we faced the two things, at midnight in the clearing outside the cabin, back in our regular forms. 


One of them looked like a girl, but one who was somehow… Not human. It wore a cute but dirty dress and had blonde hair with purple tips. But, instead of eyes it had one blue socket and one red socket. If it had eyes, they would’ve been trained intently on us, but only emptiness regarded us. Right before my eyes, it’s long skinny fingers stretched into claws and turned jet black, up her wrists, and then in whisps up the rest of her arms as if it was black smoke inside her blood vessels. 

Elior, original character by Zoe


The thing smiled broadly, with rotten crumbling teeth and black tears slipping down her cheeks. 


“Elior, get back,” the other person thing muttered, stepping slightly in front of the one called Elior with the empty eye holes. 


“Asriel, watch yourself,” Elior whispered back to the bigger one, the one with strange white hair. He might’ve been a boy, judging by his nondescript pants, poncho, and boots and his short yet scraggly hair. He also had eyes, big blue ones, almost pretty in a deathly sort of way. Big black scars scrawled beneath the haunting eyes.

Asriel, original character by Sarah Anne


The thing of it was, neither of these things was what you could call…. Human.


“Stay calm,” warned the one called Elior.



My mother tossed her head back and laughed maniacally. The unhinged sound drifted off into the trees and the sounds of the night forest went death still. 


“Calm,” my mother spat. “Who are you? What are you doing here?” The eerie smile that had accompanied her laughter died on her lips. She glared at the duo with bared teeth and flaring nostrils. 


I instinctively took a step away from Nicky. I didn’t know what she thought we’d do with these two in our regular human form. I wasn’t a fighting type, and my mother was so tiny she had to run around in the shower just to get wet. We were nothing if we weren’t giants. 


And we weren’t giants if we weren’t kind. 


“What’s it to you?” Asriel snarled. Elior continued to smile creepily, as if the corners of her mouth was sewn into a morbid grin beyond her control. 


“What’s it to me? WHAT’S IT TO ME?” Nicky growled, her voice cracking as it raised. “This is MY HOUSE!” She screamed. “It belongs to ME and we LIVE HERE.”


It was Asriel’s turn to chuckle evilly. “Oh yeah? You live here? Then why have my sister and I been here. In this cabin. For twenty years?”


My jaw dropped. Even though they didn’t look human, they also didn’t look… Old enough to have lived anywhere for twenty years. 


Nicky stood with her feet spread, clenching and unclenching her fists. I noticed Asriel straighten his spine and thrust his shoulders back, towering over my tiny mother and me. Elior continued to grin, but her claws made a strange clicking sound as she gnashed them together. The energy of a violent clash vibrated in the air and I had no doubt of who would be the victors. 


Although it could easily be argued that I had absolutely nothing to live for, I didn’t exactly want to be taken out by these two… Whatever they were, in a dark forest in the middle of the night. 


In the end, somehow, some way, there was no clash. From some strange reserve of strength I didn’t know I had, I somehow managed to diffuse the situation. I achieved a sort of connection with them, especially Elior with her weird smile and soulless eyes. Instead of fighting, we told our tales. 


In fact, during the telling of Elior’s and Asriel’s tale, I was stricken with sorrow for all they revealed, and I changed to my giant form once again. However, out here in nature, with nothing but the stars for a ceiling, I changed safely. No one was hurt. Amazed, yes. Hurt, no. 


Elior and Asriel were brother and sister whose family possessed a dark and terrible genetic mutation of their own. Except in their family, it only struck certain members, and normally only after old age, when they died…


They returned to life. As the undead, and with some sort of power they hadn’t possessed in life. In Elior’s case, she had her terrible claw hands that became weapons when she needed them to be, and she had her awful eyes that she could use to summon a terrible snake like creature if she so chose… Asriel on the other hand, could read the minds of others, and move things with his mind. However, since both of them were children when they died, their powers were weak and didn’t serve them very well.


Which brought them to the sad tale of how they died. Murdered. By bad parents. 


I couldn’t help but glance at Nicky when Asriel grudgingly revealed some of the evil doings of their parents. It seemed we had a lot in common. As soon as I began to feel sorry for them, that’s when I morphed. 


They paused in their story to allow me to explain our terrible and inconvenient tendency to monsterize without warning. Given that I was explaining this to two zombies, they were really accepting which was a pleasant relief. 


Nicky, on the other hand, remained in her human form, because she was basically just as nasty as she ever was, minus slapping, punching, or kicking me, because I was a giant and she wasn’t, so I could snap her like a twig if I wanted to.


After the brief intermission of explaining my own family’s sordid history which I’d only just learned that day, they went back to explaining their tale. Yes, they’d been murdered by bad parents, but the nice thing was that when they returned from the dead, they just got to murder the parents right back. More good news, the zombie mutation missed their parents, so those wicked ones were just regular dead, not zombie dead. However, not unlike my own ancestors and now myself, Elior and Asriel were wanted by the authorities. Both for murdering their parents, and for being abominations. They’d been forced to flee into the woods near their home and that’s how they’d ended up here in the abandoned cabin. They were never found, soon forgotten, and had lived on here peacefully for decades. 


These days they’d even managed to rig up some electricity for themselves and apparently sneak back to civilization and goblin away somebody’s Xbox, so they whiled away the days playing Minecraft and Roblox, and living here was starting to sound pretty cool actually. Plus, Elior and Asriel, though very loving siblings, had grown weary of the never ending exposure to the weird quirks of the other and though they’d scarcely admit such a thing, they were pretty happy to have company. 


Especially of the mutant fugitive variety. 


The cabin, being that it was the secret refuge of giants, was big enough to accomodate me in my enlarged form. Just like that, I didn’t have to endure the pain of shifting back and forth any more, nor did I have to spend my days being a vengeful, angry, maniac. I could just… Be.


Nicky, on the other hand, was also just being, and for Nicky that meant just being a relentless witch. She could’ve used this blissful opportunity to chill out, but no. She was maybe more horrible than ever before. Imagine a skeletal evil little shrew of a person who not only likes to sling bigoted insults at her nonbinary offspring, but that offspring also happens to be one heck of an ugly giant as well. *eye roll* I guess that you can sort of imagine what life was like for me. Only now, she also had two zombie pre teens to abuse as well so, lets just say, things got out of hand pretty quickly. 


We only lived together for a week before Elior, Asriel, and I decided we were going to kill my mom. Maybe that sounds a little shocking, but is it really? If you’ve read my whole story up to now, do you really even care that we decided to off her? Are you mustering up any sense of disdain or upset over that fact?


No, I didn’t think so. 


And so, that’s really where this story should end, wouldn’t you think? My zombie friends and I murder up my horrible mom in her sleep, toss her scrawny carcass out in the woods and let the coyotes take care of it, right? 


Well, that’s precisely what we did, and for a day afterwards, it absolutely rocked, to be honest. But then at night, we were all huddled together, playing Xbox live on a Minecraft server. Yes, WiFi. Like I said, zombie roommates actually rule. I don’t even know how they pull this stuff off, but they had twenty years to figure it out, so I guess it doesn’t matter. Not my department. 


Anyway. We were playing Minecraft and then, we heard the twig snap.


The last time Elior and Asriel heard a twig snap at night out in the woods, two giants showed up. So needless to say, we were all pretty alarmed. I was freaked out enough to morph back into my human form for the first time in a full week. 


We rushed to the window and if we strained our eyes; squinted really hard, we could see her there, out in the trees, just before the clearing broke. 


All the wildlife went quiet. 


She lurked there, hulking in the blackness. 


She was giant Nicky, but not quite even that… An even more monstrous version of the monster she already was naturally. And she just stood there staring, with startling white eyes. 


“Oh my God,” Asriel murmured. “I can’t believe it’s true.” 


Elior shook her head and stumbled back from the window. “No, it can’t be!” She still wore her horrible smile even though she sounded like she was panicked and crying. 


“What? What’s going on?” I demanded. 


Asriel sighed, but he didn’t take his eyes off the window, off my dead mother. (Let’s not go into details, but yes, we definitely killed her. Nicky was definitely 100% for sure dead as crap.)


“No living person has ever lived with a zombie before,” Asriel began. “Why would they? After all, it is the mission of the living, to end the undead. So the two groups simply do not coexist. However, the legend of our family has it that our zombie mutation can be contagious. If living people spend too much time with us, they can catch it, just like a virus.” 


I gasped. “So she’s a…”


Elior shook her head again, refusing to believe it. 


“She’s a giant, a psychopath, AND A ZOMBIE?” I cried. I gasped again. “Oh no, does this mean that I’m a zombie?”


Asriel shrugged. “Dunno. Won’t know as long as you’re alive. But, that’s the least of our problems. In case you didn’t notice, she’s not just a zombie. And she sure ain’t a person anymore either… She’s a giant. And a zombie. Like you said. Something tells me that’s just not a good combo.”


***


It’s been a month. Every night for the first two weeks, she came. And she took one step out of the clearing and closer to us, every night. She’d stand there staring with those dead glowing white eyes. She’d stand like that all night and then retreat back in the trees. We’d stay inside the cabin all day every day, afraid that she was out there waiting to attack. We grew more afraid every day that went by.


Then, she just stopped coming. She just wasn’t there one night. Or the next, or the next. We talked about a million different possible conspiracy theories. Maybe it had been a ghost. Maybe she’d ended up dying again somehow of natural causes. Maybe… Maybe… Maybe…


But now, one month out and we just heard the twig snap again. We see her white eyes out there in the black tangle of limbs. But this time, she’s screaming. A long shrill horrible scream that never ends. 


We should’ve asked for help sooner. The nice thing about tween zombies is they are smart in the ways of stealing internet access but the drawback is that they don’t know how to give directions. And I have no clue where the heck we are either. As you may recall, I was just pretty much dragged out here by a crazy woman and now that same crazy woman is a dead screaming giant who no doubt wants to snap my bones and maybe eat my brains. (I think that might be a myth about zombies though, there has been zero mention of brains the whole time I’ve had zombie roommates.)


I don’t know how to tell you to help us, but we’re hoping you have some ideas because every time a twig snaps we die a little more inside.