The Blanket
Copyright © 1994
by R. Brian Curtis
Alexandra shuddered and pulled the blanket tighter. It was as if the flimsy, worn out material of her security blanket could shield her from the horrors she was witnessing. As she watched, the madman lifted the heavy mallet and brought it crashing down on his victim's unprotected skull, gore spraying in a fine mist over everything nearby. Alexandra pulled the blanket over her face and screamed.
"All right, that's it," Alexandra's mother said as she strode briskly into the darkened living room from the kitchen. "It's time for bed," she declared, turning up the light intensity with the dimmer switch on the wall.
"Mommy" Alexandra pleaded, "please. I won't scream again, I promise!"
"These horror movies are warping your brain, Alex."
"Oh, mommy, "she replied, "they are not," and turned back to the television, where the madman was removing an electric cattle prod from a young woman's abdomen.
"Oh, Alex," her mother said, turning her face away from the set in terror, "that's so disgusting. Turn it off."
"But ma..."
"I said turn it off, Alexandra!" her mother interjected harshly, "Now."
With a heavy sigh, the young girl, who was curled up on the couch, reached her hand out of the warm, comfortable safety of her security blanket, going for the remote. She delayed the inevitable as long as possible by acting like she could not find the off button, she finally gave it up and "found" the power button on the controller and, pressing it, switched off the television. She continued facing away from her mother and watched as the image on the picture shrank suddenly to a glowing, multi-colored dot at the center. When it finally went black all together, she saw her own image and that of her mother behind her reflected in the mirror of the darkened screen and frowned. She always does this, she thought. Right when it's getting good, pow! It's bed time, and I never get to find out what happens at the end.
"Mom, it was almost over," she said, a scowl filling her tiny face as reflected in the TV screen before her.
"That's not the point. Those movies are demented, and I don't want you watching them anymore. You're ten years old, for God's sake. You don't need to be watching that trash."
Crossing her arms dejectedly, Alexandra stuck out her lower lip, as if pouting.
"I don't want to go to bed, Mom," the girl muttered, a tone of brooding in her voice. She wondered if her mother knew she could be seen in the mirror of the television screen. She hoped not. "You're making me miss the best part!"
"The best part of those movies is that you can turn them off. Now get to bed."
"Fine!" the little girl blurted, and then sprung briskly off the couch. As she pulled one end of her faded blue blanket around her shoulders and allowed the other to drag along behind in her wake as if robes of royalty. Her father had given it to her when she was only four, and even though it was now torn and faded, having survived through most of her young life, she still thought of it just as she had then, a pretty, blue blanket.
She was already halfway down the hallway when she heard her mother call after her, startling her out of her memory.
"Don't forget to go to the bathroom and brush your teeth," she shouted after her daughter. "I'll be in to tuck you in in a few seconds."
Upon hearing her mother's command, the girl turned back quickly and entered the bathroom. She locked the door and, turning off the lights, she dropped her underwear to the floor, lifted her father's old, black concert T-shirt which she now used as a night gown, and sat on the toilet. She knew she didn't have to go. Just like every night she knew, but went through the routine anyway, just to appease her mother.
As she sat there she decided that she couldn't wait until she was grown up. When I grow up, I'm going to make my own horror movies, she thought, then I can watch them whenever I want. They'll be mine, and I won't let her watch them.
She giggled silently to herself as she stood up off of the toilet and pulled her underwear back on. Turning around, she gave it a flush for the benefit of her mother, and then padded softly to the sink. After first switching on the dull, yellow lights and opening the white medicine cabinet above, she removed the tube of toothpaste from its bottom shelf. She gripped the tube tightly in her left hand, used her other to first close the cabinet door, and then slipped her toothbrush deftly from its holder that her father had installed on the wall.
A tear came to her eye at another thought of her father. She opened the cap on the toothpaste and squeezed out an ample supply of the translucent blue substance onto her toothbrush. Setting the tube down onto the edge of the sink, she ran some water over the paste-covered bristles and began running the instrument over her teeth, back and forth, up and down, quickly turning the minty tasting gel into a whitish lather.
As the toothpaste began foaming out of her mouth, she was reminded of a movie she once saw where a rabid dog was trying to kill people. Continuing to brush, she growled, pretending to be that dog, and laughing at herself in the mirror.
Finally rinsing her mouth out and her toothbrush off, she examined her teeth, moving her tongue over them slowly. Glistening white, she could almost imagine her incisors grow elongated and sharp, becoming the fangs. She thought of drinking blood, like a vampire would, and wondered what it would be like. Just then the locked handle of the door next to her rattled, startling Alexandra out of her fantasy.
"You okay in there, Alex?" she heard her mother's muffled voice ask from beyond the door to the hall. "You almost done?"
"Yeah, mommy, just a sec." She hated it when her mother called her Alex. She thought that Alexandra sounded much more sophisticated, much older, more archaic.
Habitually she replaced her toothbrush and tooth paste to their proper places, Alexandra wiped her hands dry on the mauve towel hanging on the rack next to the sink. The rack, another object her father had installed. She sighed and opened the door to the unlit hall, exposing her mother to the tawny light of the bathroom.
"Hurry up," her mother scolded, "it's already past your bedtime,"
"Mommy," the girl responded, exasperated, "everyone else stays up this late!"
"But you're not everybody," her mother retorted. Then, softening her voice and smiling weakly, she continued, saying, "come on, I'll tuck you in." Sighing, Alexandra entered the hallway, moving slowly past her mother, her head hung low. She didn't want to go to bed yet.
"Can I pleeeease read for a while, at least?" she asked, hoping for anything that would allow her to stay up, just a little while longer. She did not know why she liked staying up late - or why she enjoyed sleeping in late in the mornings - she just did. She remembered her father always did, too, and thought of all the times her mother had had to yank her father's blankets and sheets off of him, just to get him up every morning. But that was then, when he was still around.
"I suppose, but just for a little while."
Alexandra entered her room and scrambled into bed, bringing the faded blue blanket, still held around her shoulders, with her. Then she turned on the lamp next to her bed to read by.
"What book would you like?" her mother asked, moving towards the little girl's bookshelf. Scanning the titles, the woman squished her face into a prunish visage of disgust. Alexandra, too, from across the room scanned the titles of her book collection, her father's book collection. She knew her mother hated these books. One day, eavesdropping, her ear to one of the house's heating vents, she had overheard her mother talking on the phone with someone, saying that she wanted to get rid of them, but that she was afraid that they might be Alexandra's only remaining tie to her father. Alexandra didn't know what the 'irreparable harm' might be, but she was glad for anything that would allow her to keep them -- they were her father's, and she enjoyed reading them.
Finally her eyes rested on the one she wanted. She pointed.
"That one."
"Which one, dear?"
"That little one, the one that daddy wrote," she said, responding with obvious glee.
Alexandra's mother sighed and pulled the thin volume from the shelf, examining it as if it required scrutiny. The illustration on the front cover of the dust sleeve was a depiction a sinister looking silhouette of a man, behind which dead bodies lay strewn about, each having died in their own horrible manner -- crucified, mangled, burnt, eaten.
Alexandra wondered why her mother didn't like her father's books. She decided that mothers must not be able to like those sort of things, and told herself right then and there that she would never be one. She watched as her mother, with apprehension on her care worn face, slowly crossed the room and, with slightly shaking hands, handed the book to her.
Alexandra took the book decisively, set it down next to her, and propped her relatively large, fluffy pillow up against the wall behind her, so as to sit up against it while she read. While she began settling into her bed clothes to read, Alexandra's mother drew them snugly, and protectively, across her body.
"G'night," she said when she was done tucking the child in. Then, kissing her lightly on the forehead, she continued, saying "I want you asleep in half an hour. Okay?"
"Okay, mommy," Alexandra said, smiling. She loved her mother. She just thought she was silly about stuff sometimes. She looked up to see her mother's familiarly worried face gaze upon her and then turn from her towards the door as if to leave.
"I love you, mommy," Alexandra said sincerely to the slowly fleeing figure of her mother. Her mother turned back at this utterance, and Alexandra watched as her face lifted, as if a terrible burden had been removed from her entire body instantaneously, developing into a broad, proud smile.
"I love you, too, Alex," she said, with no longer a tinge of sadness in her voice. "G'night." Then, switching out the light, she cast the room into gloomy shadows created by Alexandra's reading lamp.
"G'Night," Alexandra said to her mother, who then left without a sound, quietly shutting the door.
The small, not quite womanly form picked up the book lying next to her on her bed, examining it as her mother had. She had read it many times, and by looking at the cover, and the bodies of the dead depicted there, she could recognize the characters who were in the story within by the way they had died. Then, after first opening the book, its cracked spine flipping almost on its own to the first page, Alexandra began to read.
Some time later, her mother crept into her room to check on her. Finding her asleep, she kissed her daughter lightly on the cheek. Drawing Alexandra's bedclothes over and around her shoulders, she silently left the room.
"Sweet dreams," she whispered, closing the door softly.
Alexandra slept soundly that night. Gripping her blanket in her arms, she smiled in her sleep, dreaming of demons and madmen.