The Other Crib (Short Story)

There were only two babies in the ward that night, but only one had a name. I used to work night shifts at Mercy Hospital before it closed down.

I was very good at my job. I always wear a cross around my neck, not as a fashion statement but as one with actual genuine faith. The other nurses always teased me for quoting Scripture often and humming hymns while I changed linens. “Esther is too old-fashioned,” they’d say. “No wonder she’s not married yet.” Whatever.

That night, a storm had knocked out the power. Generators kicked in, but the lights flickered like they were scared.

I was doing my rounds in the nursery. There were two cribs.

One baby, Samuel, was tiny, frail, and swaddled in blue. He was born to a missionary couple passing through town funding for their next mission. They baptized him immediately because the doctors didn’t think he’d make it through the night. He slept beneath a little wooden crucifix. His mother had pinned it above the crib herself.

The second baby… wasn’t on the charts. No name. No band. Wrapped in black cloth—too dark for hospital issue. Eyes open. Not blinking. He wasn’t breathing either.

I called the front desk. “Only one birth tonight,” they said.

I checked again. Samuael was warm—alive, breathing softly. But the other? Cold with a sinister grin plastered on his face.

I turned to call the front desk again, and that’s when the crucifix snapped off the wall. Just dropped, like it was yanked by an angry hand.

So I ran.

And the second baby started laughing. Only it wasn’t a baby’s laugh. It was deep, guttural, echoing from somewhere far beneath the hospital floor.

It lifted its head—without effort, like gravity didn’t apply—and looked me dead in the eyes.

Then it spoke with that same deep, guttural voice. “He’s marked.”

I didn’t hesitate. I grabbed Samuel and started praying, loudly and desperately, Psalm 91. “He shall give His angels charge over you…”

The thing in the black cloth screamed—not in pain, but in wrath.

But I kept praying, “You shall tread upon the lion and the cobra, the young lion and the serpent you shall trample underfoot. Because he has set his love upon Me, therefore I will deliver him…”

Its body then convulsed. Smoke poured from the crib. The swaddle burned—not like fire, but like sunlight pouring through a crack in Hell.

Then it was gone. All that was left was a faint, charred outline in the mattress.

The crucifix lifted itself back onto the wall. And when the lights came back fully, there was only one crib in the room.

They shut down the nursery wing a year later. They said it was “budget cuts.” But they never reopened it.

I transferred. I keep one of those little pocket Bibles in my uniform pocket now—the ones with just the Psalms and the New Testament.

So if you ever work nights in a nursery, and a baby shows up that doesn’t cry… doesn’t blink… and isn’t in the system?

Pray first. Check later.