Grandma's Patchwork Quilt

 

          

         Fluid blue electricity raced across the night sky with a simultaneous roar of thunder.  The flash pierced through the small open window, briefly illuminating the blanket-shrouded figure huddled near the head of the bed.  The boy shuddered as a chill wormed slowly up his spine.  It wasn’t the storm that terrified him; there was something much more menacing somewhere, there in the dark.  After each flash of lightning, he desperately strained his eyes to readjust to the faint light, desperate to avoid being caught unaware.

            The night before had been his first in that room.  The family had moved into that old house down by the river, and his parents gave him an upper room isolated from the rest of the home – his mother’s notion that all boys love attics.  He was melancholy’s child: all of his friends left miles behind and he left alone.

            To appease the boy, the parents had purchased him a parakeet, caged in a black wire dome.  It was the only color in the cold gray room other than Grandma’s brilliant patchwork quilt that covered the bed.

            When night came, the boy plodded down the long hall and up the twisting staircase to the room.  He cast himself across the bed with his chin dangling over the edge.  Winter had scored its first blow in this dying world of October.  The chilling loneliness numbed his body.  Unfortunately, Grandma’s quilt had no power to stay this kind of Winter.

            Only a stray beam of moonlight glimmered through the window to reflect off the welling tear in his eye that broke and fell to splash on the floor beside the bed.  The raw grains of wood drank in the brine, leaving a small dark spot, which he studied through his watery eyes from the elevated position of the bed.  His attention drifted from his own problems as he watched another, curious, wider spot emerge slowly from under the bed.  It looked like a black tide advancing across the floor, leaving all dark in its wake.

            The moon suddenly broke around a passing cloud to beam brightly through the window, showing the growing spot to be a great pool of lurid, crimson liquid.  The boy leaned farther over the edge to peer into the blackness beneath the bed.  A bloody arm lashed out, landing in the pool!  The boy reeled back hard, nearly tumbling over the opposite side of the bed.  The bird shrieked and tore at the bars of its cage.  The full-bodied thing slithered farther out from underneath, rose up, and turned to face its host.

            It was a raw, human frame, red with strips of stringy fresh and fabric clinging to the bones.  The faint light from the window showed through the gaping spaces between the ribs.  Glassy eyeballs, set loosely in the open sockets burned down on the boy.  The teeth, exposed from withered black lips, were set forever in a mock grin, and a wet hiss issued between as they parted.  A deeper moan rose up from with the mouth like the sound of carrion groaning for burial.  The stench was poison.  The thing extended a ghastly purpled hand towards the boy, who took made refuge in the deep folds of the bed, burrowing deep.  He could hear the continued sound of the thing circling sluggishly around the bed and he sound of the bird battering its wings in panic.

            Unaware of the passage of time, the boy kept his position breathing the hot, thick air long after the sounds had stopped.  Then, he finally slept.  But all that had happened the night before, and now he watched from his outpost in the blue-flashing darkness.  Only a mother’s chide of a boy’s childish dreams could shame him enough to remain there alone.  He strained his eyes once more to see if the horror would come again tonight.

            Blazing bolts pierced the blackness of that last night of October.  The terrible peal of the storm echoed in his ears.  The wind rose even stronger, and the rain began in a rush, driving past the curtains of the open window that billowed and snapped at the end of each wild arc.  The raindrops came through in sheets that lashed deeper and deeper into the room.

            The boy knew that he must rise from his place of sanctuary and cross the vast wilderness to fasten the window, only to have to make the lonely journey back again.  With a deep breath he launched himself towards the window.  The curtains struck out at him again and again like claws until he secured the glass; then they settled into two columns of quite submission.

            The bird’s shill scream split the abrupt silence – the boy whirled around to see the thing – there between himself and the bed – there pulsating – there a contorted mass of decay.  It took a couple clumsy wet steps towards the boy, flailing its rotten limbs in his direction.  The boy dodged to the right and then to the left and broke forth with blind fury past the thing.  He skidded through the red puddle by the bed, nearly losing his footing, terrified of sliding down underneath into the horror’s lair.  He righted himself, and with a splash he dived beneath the covers.

            With the blankets drawn around himself, he could hear no sound other than the bellow of his own inflamed lungs.  This was maddening.  Would this go on night after night, an endless torture?  Was that thing still out there?  He cautiously pulled back the quilt and saw the mangled shadow flashing over him with each new bolt of lightning.  He looked over and saw it silhouetted against the blue flickering window.  It lunged forward.  The boy closed the blanket opening to a tiny chink, small enough for a single eye to keep vigil.

            The horror loomed over the shivering boy.  Tears of blood rained down over the bed from the uninviting arms.  The white sheet stained speckled, but the drops that hit the quilt sizzled and skipped away with little whiffs of rising smoke.

            The thing extended a dreadful, torn finger towards the boy’s exposed eye as if to gouge it out.  The boy whipped back the quilt; a corner of the cloth flipped up, catching the thing’s hand.  It staggered back a step, and with its head pitched back, a primal cry of pain issued out of its slimy jaws.  The boy looked up to see the thing’s purpled hand filling the air with reeking smoke.  The portion of the quilt that had touched the creature was now a smoldering rag.  The thing oozed around to the far side of the room, gingerly holding its injured hand.

            Impulsively, the boy sprang to his feet on the bed.  He snatched up the quilt and held it out wide like a net.  With a vault from the mattress to the footboard, he launched himself through the air.  As he reached the crest, his feet arched back over his body, and he zeroed ion on the target and brought Brandman’s Patchwork Quilt down wholly over the demon.  The thing struggled and melted like putty under the blanket.  Smoke shot up, searing the boys face, but his hold over the thing was the tenacity of survival.  The mass sank slowly under his grip, and little boiling splashes of hot liquid skidded over the wooden floor.

            At last, there was nothing left, and the boy staggered to his feet weary but grateful.  He scraped up the few fragments that remained of Grandma’s gift and looked at it with a sad smile.  He tenderly folded and laid it on the bedside table.  He strolled to the window and watched a flash of lightning; ten seconds later he heard its louder partner far away.  Then all was silent.

            Tomorrow would be the first day of November; a new day and a new start.  It was well earned.  With no more fears, he opened the closet for an extra blanket.  Then with his new comforting load, he gave the door a little kick with his foot, which only partially closed it.  He laid down and pulled the soft layers over himself and drifted into contented, optimistic sleep.

            The closet door slowly opened a few more inches of its own accord, and a dark pool of liquid advanced out across the floor.  It its cage, the bird fluttered its wings.