This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/TheActualDGC on 2025-02-02 23:21:39+00:00.

[Part 1]

I remember staring at that piece of paper, taking it in. I’m not sure what I was expecting - maybe the baby’s name or birthdate scrawled by a desperate mother. But this wasn’t a baby left on the doorstep of a hospital or home. This baby was left in a box in the middle of a quiet road in the bush. The block capital letters were written in a neat, steady hand. My scalp prickled, and all at once, the baby felt very heavy in my arms.  

‘What does that mean? I mean…’ I scanned Natia’s face. ‘Whoever left him out here is crazy,’ I whispered, dropping my voice, my eyes darting to the watching trees. 

When I looked back at Natia, she was looking at the baby in my arms like it had just morphed into a goblin. 

I pressed on - surely she wasn’t taking that note seriously… ‘That box isn’t wet,’ I whispered. ‘Whoever put it on the road did that after the rain stopped. How long ago was that? Maybe Twenty minutes before I woke you?’ 

Natia tore her eyes away from the sleeping baby, ‘Did you see any cars parked back there?’ 

‘No, nothing. There’s been nothing for ages. Maybe they’re parked up ahead though?’ 

Natia sat back into her seat. ‘We gotta move,’ she said. ‘Let’s get out of here, quick.’ 

‘Here, take him,’ I said. 

I passed her the sleeping baby and she grappled with it reluctantly. 

‘Watch his head.’ 

‘Fuck, this thing is so cold!’ Natia said, wrapping her arms around the pale little thing. 

I turned the key in the ignition, and the car’s engine slowly turned over, caught for a moment and then died. The silence that followed roared louder than any engine. 

Natia gasped loudly. 

‘I know,’ I said, turning the key again, flustered at her over-dramatic reaction.  

The engine turned slower this time, the headlights dimming. 

‘Fucking car!’ I turned to Natia. ‘We might have t-‘ 

The word dried on my tongue at the sight of Natia’s face. She hadn’t gasped at the car situation.  

She was staring over my right shoulder, and her eyes were wide. I turned my head. There was someone standing outside the car.  

A man was standing out on the dark road, lit by the dimming headlights, and now he lunged forward and bashed the window with his fist. 

I yelled and fumbled with the door lock just as the man reached for the outside handle. Natia held the baby tight in her arms, a protective hand over its head. 

 The man leaned in close to the glass. He was thin, dressed in dark pants and a crumpled white business shirt, jacket and tie. His eyes were red and glassy, as if he had been crying for days on end, and his gaze shook from side to side. He wore a pair of orange ear muffs, the kind that you pick up at Bunnings when your lawn mower’s too loud. He looked completely unhinged. 

‘You luh..leave that here,’ he stammered. His voice was cracked and hoarse, and he slurred his words as though his tongue was swollen. ‘Put it b... back.’ 

My body had taken over and was leaning as far away from the window as possible. I could feel the adrenaline pumping through me, turning my nerves to steel. I straightened up, put my face near the glass and said, 

‘We’ve called the cops already. They’re coming now.’ I swallowed despite myself before roaring, ‘You FUCK OFF!’  

The man looked as though I’d just lit the fuse on a stick of dynamite, he looked past me and glared at Natia with his shaking red eyes. 

Natia clutched the baby and shouted, ‘I know KARATE!’ forgetting to pronounce it correctly in the heat of the moment.  

‘She will FUCK YOU UP!’ I bellowed at the man. I could hear Natia fumbling with something beside me, but my eyes remained fixed on the man. He had turned and was looking down the road ahead, as if expecting to see a police car baring down on him.   

Before I could fully register what was happening, Natia thrust the baby towards me. ‘Take it.’ 

The baby’s head lolled on its tiny neck and I hurried to support it. ‘What are you doing?!’ 

‘I’m gonna punch his lights out.’ She opened her car door and stepped out into the night, just as I had retaken possession of the baby.  

Its head rolled around as I gathered it up. ‘What have you done to him?!” I shrieked at the man, who now straightened up as Natia marched around the front of the car towards him.  

‘You get the fuck away from us.’ I heard her say, muffled by the windscreen.  The headlights lit her from below. Her eyes were wild. 

The man stepped back away from the car, putting his hand up towards the advancing Natia in a ‘stop’ position. ‘L..listen... keep your v...v... don’t... you hafta...’ 

Natia was within striking distance now, squaring up against him, fists raised. 

He reached a shaking hand into the inside of his jacket.  

She leapt forward and popped him square on the chin with a swift right hook. He stumbled backwards across the road and fell flat on his back, his head striking the gravel on the opposite side of the road. He was out cold.  

Natia dashed across the road and crouched over him. 

‘No, no no... get away from him!’ I groaned through the rain spattered side window. 

Natia spent what seemed like five minutes moving around the man’s crumpled body. His legs were splayed, his heels sitting in the road. ‘Come onnn, girl. Get back here!’ 

Finally, Natia straightened up and jogged across the road to her still-open door. 

‘Shit I thought I’d killed him,’ she panted as she climbed back into her seat, ‘My mum would be so mad at me.’ 

‘He’s alive?’ 

‘More or less, yeah. Did you see him reaching in his jacket? Thought he might have a knife... it was just some old photos.’ 

‘Old photos?’ 

‘Yeah like proper old timey shit. Family photos. Dude’s mad as a cut snake. He has earbuds under those earmuffs.  Who does that?!’ 

We stared at the pair of prone legs that protruded from the other side of the road into the dim light reflected by the headlights. The wind shook a branch high above us, and the fat drops of water tapped heavily on the roof of the car. I remember my breathing was heavy, as if I'd just finished running a marathon. Natia’s dark eyes shifted to the road ahead, 'His car must be up ahead somewhere. He has keys in his pocket. I didn’t take ‘em.’ 

’That was really dangerous,’ I breathed.  

‘Guess I do know some karateh!’ 

I was far too rattled to have a sense of humour about it just yet. ‘He’d better not come to. Did you see his eyes?’ 

Natia nodded, still scanning the road ahead. ‘So our car’s dead, do you reckon? Battery?’  

‘I think so. I shouldn’t have left the lights on full-beam when we stopped. Stupid old car.’ I bit my lip and gazed out of the windscreen at the darkness. 

‘It’s okay. Someone will come past. There’s always traffic just before dawn. The tradeys will save us. What time is it now?’ 

'Two A.M.’ 

The baby moved suddenly, a quick jolt from whatever it was dreaming about. We both jumped, catching each other’s eye and laughing, despite ourselves.  

‘Poor lamb. Thank God we found him,’ I said, clutching at the baby’s balled fist, trying to get some warmth into it. 

She nodded.  

‘He’s not warming up.’  I cradled him gently in my arms. 

‘It’s going to start getting cold in here now that we can’t start the engine,’ Natia said, ‘You keep an eye on him out there.’ She locked her door. 

‘Could you grab my jacket for me?’ I asked, ‘Under the box on the back seat…yeah.’  

Natia grabbed the jacket, fetching one for herself from the depths of her backpack while she was back there. She passed me mine. It was a seventies-style sheepskin number, with a woollen lining. Gabe had always hated it, which is why I’d brought it along on the trip. I had planned to be wearing it when I dumped him. Now I draped it over the sleeping baby, leaving a small space for its weary little face, so that it could breathe.  

Natia’s coat was hairy – covered in bright purple fake fur. She turned it inside out so that the fur was against her skin and laid it across herself like a blanket. ‘You don’t wanna know how many muppets died to make this thing,’ she muttered, squirming around until she was comfortable. 

My eyes were glued to the man’s legs across the road. ‘I’m sure they had it coming,’ I said absently. ‘Hey I’m going to turn the headlights off now. I really want to keep an eye on him, but the car might start if we give the battery a rest?’ 

‘Yeah worth a shot.’ 

I twisted a knob on the dashboard, and in a snap, the road and its unconscious man were swallowed up by the night. The dim green light from the radio did its best to compensate. I reached out and turned the keys in the ignition to ‘off.’ The radio blinked out, and a profound darkness flooded the car.  

I could have sworn that I could feel it seeping into my skin, penetrating my bones like an x-ray. I listened to the rain that was now drumming against the roof, and to the wind whispering its soft threats through the thin crack somewhere behind me. 

‘Can we turn it on again?’ Natia asked. ‘Just the radio? Is that okay?’ 

‘Hell yes,’  

I turned it back on. 

Natia re-appeared like a green ghost beside me. She was sitting with her back to the door, sideways in the seat, facing me. 

‘Hey,’ she said, her dark eyes flashing in the weak green light. 

‘Yeah?’ 

‘What if he isn’t crazy?’ 

‘What?! Did you see him?!’ 

‘Yeah! Up close. But… okay, I thought whoever left it in the box would have to have been some crusty meth-head, y’know? But that fella's dressed like a banker or something.’ 

‘Bankers do meth...

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