We’re all familiar with the tropes of creepy kids. Children of the Corn, The Omen. Cooties, The Exorcist. Home Alone (maybe it’s just me but I reckon Kevin Macallister is a sociopath). These movies call on the innocence of children to subvert expectations and show them as evil, remorseless killing machines — and for that, we love ’em.
But what if I told you there was a vessel of Satan in your very home — in real life!? What if I told you it was in an even smaller, even more unassuming package?! What if I told you your very own tiny baby is a pontoon on which the devil bobs the ocean of your humanity?! Well strap your stupid idiot ass in because I am telling you each and every one of these things, and — you know what — I kind of already have, implicitly, so consider it done, and let the fear manifest as so much trouser urine as you read on and discover just a few of the ways in which babies represent the dark lord himself.
1) The Endless and Guttural Screeching
If you’ve ever heard a capuchin get karate chopped by a man with knife hands, you’re halfway towards understanding the noises that often come out of babies’ mouths. Are they excited? Hungry? Sleepy? Ready to burrow their way into your stomach and live inside you once more? Who knows. But replacing the windows in their room every time they shriek is getting expensive, and your neighbours are complaining that you have exotic pets (and knife hands).
2) The Eye Gouging
Damage to the eyes is a primal fear. The TV Tropes page for Buffy the Vampire Slayer lists eleven eye-specific horror and gore scenes from just seven seasons of television. So maybe it will strike dread into your heart to learn that sometimes, a baby will just reach up and try and grab your eyeball straight out of the socket. They don’t mention that at the hospital — and yet months later you will be sitting there, cradling your bundle of joy, when it suddenly reaches up and attempts to steal your peepers. Eyes closed? No matter, they’ll just try and push their fingers under your eyelids to get at the sweet seeing-meat underneath.
3) The Staring
Speaking of eyes, have you ever woken up and someone is staring at you? It’s pretty unsettling right? How would you like that to happen every day, with eyes that seem to only be capable of perceiving you and your ugly soul? You wouldn’t like it, I will tell you that for free. Not awake to be stared at? No worries, little baby will just go for the aforementioned eye-gouge, or the screeching, or even just grab a fistful of your hair and tug so hard you could swear they’ve grown one big arm like they are Popeye mid-spinach ingestion.
4) The Ceaseless Vomit
The Exorcist is a rightly famous movie for its super-duper scary vibes. In perhaps the most famous scene in horror movie history, a young girl twists her head around and projectile vomits all over the room. I’m sure any new parents watching at the time probably took that as an opportunity to go to the bathroom, maybe stock up on popcorn. Spirits may want your home, zombies might want your brains, and vampires are thirsty for your blood, but at least they want to take something. Babies are additive. With no notice they will turn, look you in your eyes and vomit directly into your actual mouth. They won’t care. Not one little bit. They might even laugh — manically, and with no sense of justice in their demonic, hate-filled bones.
