by Lena Ng
(990 words)
The child is father to the man. –attributed to Wordsworth
Alex started counting aloud—One—though he peaked through the gaps between his fingers. His son darted around the yellow, curved slides, past the blue monkey bars, and behind a group of three grade-school kids climbing a rope ladder, some leaves tangled in its web.
As he counted, a young woman, with a broad, open face, smiled at him from a bench. “He looks exactly like you,” she said. “The splitting image.”
Alex smiled back. “That’s what everyone says, ever since he was born. The ‘spitting image’ but it sounds better the way you said it. The splitting image.”
She glanced at Tyler’s hiding place. “Like if you took a picture and split it down the middle—he could be your other half.”
Alex watched Tyler run deeper into the forested area surrounding the playground, his small feet kicking up the leaves. “Anyway, better go find him.” A mischievous face peeked out from behind a tree. “Nice talking to you.”
Alex moved slowly, hoping the rustling of the branches and forest litter wouldn’t give him away. Finally, he jumped in front of the tree. “Caught you!”
But Tyler wasn’t there.
As Alex moved through the forest, he glimpsed something red partially hidden among the dead leaves. Alex snatched up the red baseball cap, shaking off the crawling ants and beetles. Tyler’s cap. His flashlight darted over the area. More red, a spray of tiny red drops over tree trunks and crinkled leaves. Blood. Please no, let it not be Tyler’s. The sound of his harsh breathing seemed to echo through the desolate forest, the dull thump of his heartbeat roaring in his ears. His legs and sides ached from running uphill and down.
The eyes glowed as the light from the flashlight caught it. At first, Alex thought it was a deer, standing still as not to be noticed. But as he riveted the beam, he realized it was Tyler, the glow of his eyes shining through his longish hair. Standing eerily still in the forest, watching him, like a statue whose eyes seemed to follow you around the room. “Oh my God, Tyler,” Alex said as he raced across the forest. He grabbed his son and clutched him to his chest, the small body light as the wind.
“Are you hurt?” Alex stared at Tyler’s face. Tyler’s pupils were black pinpoints, hard-looking on his round soft face. He gave no sign of recognition. In fact, he had no expression on his child’s face—no fear, yet no relief. Expressionless as an insect. He stood passively, his breathing even and silent. It felt as though Alex were hugging someone else’s son. Or worse. An image flashed into Alex’s mind, sending an unsettling warning down his spine. A fleshy simulant. Something was wrong. Alex felt a rush of relief, yes, but what his racing heart felt was mingled with something else. Was this really his son?
Tyler wriggled from Alex’s arms. He ran with a scuttling speed, like that of a cockroach. Though an avid runner, Alex could not gain more than ten paces behind him. As they fled deeper into the woods, it seemed as though Tyler was tiring. His pace slowed until Alex could finally reach out a hand and grab him.
When Alex grasped Tyler’s shoulders, he realized Tyler wanted him to catch him, wanted to lure him deeper into the isolation of the woods. He turned Tyler around to face him. Like when Alex first found him, Tyler’s eyes seemed to glow. Under Alex’s bulging eyes, his son’s mouth split open, the corners pulled back into an unnatural smile, a smile like an overstretched elastic band. The smile widened and widened until the skin split in two to the ears, a red seam across his face. Both of Alex’s hands clamped over his mouth in horror, dropping Tyler to the ground.
Tyler’s body pushed upwards until it stood. His mouth opened along the split seam and a high-pitched, electronic-sounding whine emitted from it. Alex felt an internal vibration begin to build; his heart seemed to vibrate in the cage of his chest. The piercing sound was splitting his brain. He clapped his hands over his ears which dulled the sound but did nothing for the small tremors seizing down his body.
Tyler bent his body until his chin touched his knees, his back bowed into a standing fetal curl. His back hunched and moved in a pulsating manner, pulsing and growing, pulsing and stretching until the back of his shirt split open and shed, like an insect molting. His son’s spine heaved and shrank, the stretched skin shiny, growing and growing, like something was emerging.
And something was.
Horror upon horrors, like the opening of a gory seam, with a sickening ripping sound, the skin along Tyler’s spine split from the base of his neck. The split traveled down the length of his back, revealing a glistening, raw redness, releasing hot white breaths of steam. One of Tyler’s hands, the skin seemed loose as an oversized glove, hooked onto the skin of his shoulder. He pulled as if to shrug off a costume. His other hand moved under the wet skin of his other shoulder and pulled and tugged and loosened as though shedding the small child’s skin. He hooked his hands under the skin of his face, pulling and stretching until the skin tore and split.
When the new Tyler—a sticky, red Tyler covered in blood as though newly birthed—stepped out of his old form, his soft baby skin, one side moist from a thin layer of fat, a rubbery puddle at his feet, Alex realized his son—or whatever had replaced him—was now the same height and build as himself.
And despite the raw, glistening redness, Alex could see the emerging face was the splitting image of his own.
END
Lena Ng roams the dimensions Toronto, Ontario, and is a monster-hunting member of the Horror Writers Association. She has curiosities published in sixty tomes including Amazing Stories and the anthology We Shall Be Monsters, which was a finalist for the 2019 Prix Aurora Award. “Under an Autumn Moon” is her short story collection. She is currently seeking a publisher for her novel, Darkness Beckons, a Gothic romance.