Thirteen Little Quacks

This horror short is based on true and heartbreaking events.

"Thirteen Little Quacks"

By Corvina Sweeney

Martin Hensley didn’t even swerve.

The mother duck had waddled into the crosswalk—majestic in her maternal calm—leading her line of thirteen fuzzy ducklings across the road like little soldiers. Martin, late for work and fueled by caffeine and road rage, leaned on the horn and pressed the gas harder. The last thing he saw in his rearview mirror was a blur of feathers and blood.

He told himself it wasn’t his fault. Wildlife belonged in the woods, not on suburban streets. But that night, he heard the first quack—soft, deliberate, and far too close to his ear. He bolted upright in bed, heart pounding. The room was empty.

The next morning, there was a red welt on his ankle. Perfectly round. Like a tiny beak had latched on and twisted.

Each night it worsened. The quacking multiplied, echoing from his vents, his closet, his sink drain. When he turned on the TV, static hissed—then quack. The bathroom mirror fogged itself with the word “MURDERER” written in dripping condensation.

By the fifth day, Martin was sleep-deprived and twitchy, covered in strange, round wounds. The welts now bled slowly, and always in the same shape—small, oval, serrated impressions, like something had bitten him over and over.

Neighbors whispered. His coworkers avoided eye contact. When he showed up at urgent care begging for anti-psychotics, the nurse recoiled from the pungent stink of pond water and rot that clung to his clothes.

On the seventh night, Martin woke to the pat-pat-pat of webbed feet on hardwood. He couldn’t move—his body paralyzed by terror. The bedroom filled with a chorus of quacks, wet and wrathful.

The last thing he saw were eyes. Tiny, glowing, vengeful. Thirteen ducklings surrounded him. The mother perched on his chest.

Then came the beaks.

Neighbors say Martin Hensley clawed his own eyes out. They say he was found pecked to ribbons, his skin torn in tiny, precise pieces. No animal tracks were found. Just a single feather.

And on the street out front?

Thirteen perfect, wet prints... leading to the pond.