A True Bizarre Story
A short story by Ryan Ramoutar
Copyright © 2012 Blacklight Publishers©, a division of Blacklight Design®
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Blacklight Publishers
8 Belleplaine ♦ Quartier d’Orleans ♦ Saint Matin ♦ 97150
Sonny lay fast asleep in his room in the upper floor of his two storeys, unpainted wooden home which was located half a mile into a forested stone road In Cedar Hill, Princes Town. He pulled the cotton peacock sheet unconsciously over his head to avoid the extremely chilly wind which entered through the opening between the top of the wall and the galvanized roofing but only to allow the frosty air to bite at his toes. Slumberous, he crouched up his both legs as he turned to his left side, making the cover a full protective shield from the frigid breeze. His rhythmic breathing lulled his semiconscious state back into the depth of dreamland.
Something grabbed at his right foot. It felt like a hand, a strong hand, the cold fingers wrapping its way like vines, just above his ankle. In a deep somnolent state, Sonny could feel his weight being pulled inch by inch, closer to the edge of the bed. He dazedly tried to comprehend the occurrence and came to the frightening realization that he wasn’t dreaming. He wondered if he should pull the covers off him and make a dash to his parents’ room next door but he was so mortified that his mind willed his body to remain still as a log as he was being slowly dragged off the bed. He had to do something quickly or else…
Sonny mustered up all the courage he had in his ten year old heart and ripped the cover passed over him. He was now just inches away from the bed’s edge and a three foot fall off a bed for a ten year old was just as terrifying as the feeling of being pulled by the foot in the late night, especially when the rain was now beginning to sound like large fun-snaps on the rooftop.
Sonny yanked his foot from the grasp and succeeded. As he quickly searched for the source of the hand in the dark, a huge lightning bolt flashed through the air and the horrifying red face as that of a leprechaun stared back at him with huge, glossy, black eyes. The creature’s mouth curved into a scary smile, revealing green, mossy teeth as pointed as needles. Sonny felt so scared his heartbeat seized as he remained stuck in time as if in a déjà vu.
“I came for you, little boy,” the creature spoke in a measured, icy tone.
Sonny remained shell-shocked, his eyes dilating to its limit as the cold wind feasted on his young flesh.
Then, in the blink of an eye, the nightmare was over. The creature was no longer there by the bed’s feet but one thing Sonny knew for sure: this wasn’t just a nightmare in the subconscious dream world, this was real…
Sonny ran to his parents’ room and banged his small hand on the heavy wooden door. He could hear his mother’s sleepy acknowledgement and the shuffling of a person getting off a bed. As he waited breathlessly for his escape into the safe sanctuary, he dared not look back through the open doorway which led into his own room. The boogie monster had appeared again tonight, only this time he hadn’t shown any smile; he was violent, pulling Sonny hard by the foot, mumbling something about the time was coming close and Sonny was being a stubborn little boy. That had freaked him to the extent where his short hair stood at attention as if he had been electrocuted. Time froze all over again as his mother took a zillion years to open the door and Sonny felt like fainting.
Finally he heard the bolt unsnapping and the door began to open. Sonny rushed it open and ran into the warm comforting arms of his mother as she stood motionless in the doorway.
“What’s wrong?” she asked, carrying him towards the bed. Sonny heartbeats reverberated off his chest onto his mother’s pregnant belly. Sonny began to sob, too terrified out of his wits to say anything.
Sonny’s mother, Devi, pulled him between herself and her sleeping husband on the bed and covered his little body as she hugged him closely, into the warmth of her motherly aura.
Devi knew her son’s dilemma. In the recent past he seriously complained about ‘a ghost in his room’ which was pulling him off the bed, telling him that it came for him. He described the ‘ghost’ as ‘very ugly’ and, since the first occurrence of him seeing the creature, he became very despondent. She noted that it was time to take Sonny to a doctor, maybe a witch doctor, or more likely what the world referred to them as - ‘obeah people’. Maybe it was some sort of evil spirit set out to make the little boy’s life miserable or maybe it was a mental problem where the patient suffered from a phobia after viewing a horrific scenario on television. Being an avid reader, she had read in a novel about the latter but admitted that both circumstances could be possible.
She turned her head up and lifted it a little to see Sonny fast asleep, his small arms wrapped tight around his chest. She loved him so much. She would demand Peter, her husband and Sonny’s dad, to carry them to a known Hindu priest in the Indian walk area tomorrow. She glanced at the time on the wall clock and the short hand seemed to disappear behind the long hand which was pointing at the black number 10. Ten minutes to ten o’ clock, she thought, as she lay on the bed, rubbing her hand assuredly over Sonny’s warm head.
A pain unexpectedly gripped her womb and she bucked and writhed in pain as she began to breathe rapidly through her clenched teeth and nostrils. Gosh, it was painful! She was just five months into pregnancy and the fetus already behaved as if it wanted to be pushed out into the world. Tiny beads of sweat formed and blanketed her forehead, palms, neck and between her breast and she felt like dying. She didn’t want to awake her husband as she knew the pain would eventually dissipate and Peter worked hard every day from dawn till dusk to maintain his family. She couldn’t possibly burden him with her pain and deprived him off his sleep. Devi writhed in severe piercings, rolling, squeezing and knotting in her abdomen for the next half hour before a sudden moment when the pain seized. She drank a mouthful of water from a glass she kept on the bed’s head and rested back on the soft mattress. Slowly, she drifted off into oblivion…
“God evening… Good evening,” a loud male voice echoed into the silence at my home. I proceeded towards the window where I would be able to see who the call was emanated from and saw my aunt’s Ierene friend, Peter. My grandmom was already approaching him from the front porch and my aunt Ierene quickly followed her tiny footsteps so I returned to my room to continue typing on my laptop as I had no interest in what was no concern of mine. I heard indistinguishable words being exchanged outside but what caught my attention was my name being mentioned. At first I paid it no mind but then I heard my grandmom saying something about asking Ryan, which was my name of course.
As I stood from my very comfortable cushioned seat, my aunt poked her head into my room.
“Ryan, are you busy?” she asked. Before I could have answered, she went on: “Your grandmother and I need you to follow us to my friend Devi’s house so you can bring us back. It’s urgent,” she pleaded, “Devi’s about to make child and your grandmother have to be there.”
“Sure,” I said, as if I had a choice.
I jumped into my Nissan Sentra and followed Peter’s beat-down old black Lancer. My grandmom and Ierene were in his car and he kept at quite a fast speed. I hang back a little, not wanting to high-tail him when I was abruptly forced to stop at the yellow light which turned into red in seconds
.
When the light came back green I pulled off and accelerated to meet up with Peter’s car as I had no idea where he resided. After a few corners I was able to see Peter turn into a side road. I followed him…
“You stay outside,” said Ierene, as I pulled to a stop. My grandmom, Ierene and Peter went inside the board house. OK, I thought, I’ll just wait here as the obedient chauffeur I am. I sat in my car and waited.
Sonny stared in amazement, as he stood in his parents’ bedroom, at his mother who was anguishing in pain on the bed. He was so bewildered that he didn’t notice the helping hands which had just arrived to do whatever they were going to do with his mother. Wasn’t getting a baby brother to play with a good thing? He thought: if he had known the process brought on so much pain to his mummy he would have opted for a pack of plastic army men and warrior enemies instead.
Devi should have been relieved that her friend Ierene and her mother was there to help her pass out the pre-mature baby and the afterbirth but instead she felt a sharp twisting in her belly causing her to groan out loud.
I heard the sound from his car and cocked his head thanking the heavens that he was not a female.
Tears trickled down the side of Devi’s nose and cheek as she closed her eyelids and opened them back again, revealing her wide bright-white corneas and light-brown irises. No, it wasn’t tears; it was perspiration from her forehead which ran down the crevices of her fair face. Sonny stood aside as Peter guided his astonished body to the side with a heavy hand on the shoulder.
“Okay, girl, don’t worry now,” consoled the old lady, “It’s going to be over soon. How’re you feeling?”
Devi’s answer was a long moan.
“Okay, child, just now.”
The able helped the wounded to a crossways position on the bed as Sonny looked on in amazement oblivious to everyone else in the room. Devi’s feet hung down to the floor and the old lady placed it up on the bed with her knees pointing skywards.
Everyone except Sonny knew that the delivery would be very painful since it was a forced abortion; Devi even stood the chance of dying.
The medical doctor had advised her to take an abortion since the pain she experienced was deemed by him as being very ‘alien and abnormal.’
Devi appeared as if she was about to faint, or going into shock, but the old lady ordered Sonny’s dad to retrieve a bowl of cold water and a small towel which she used to sap Devi’s head. The abortion pills were working and Devi could feel the extensive pushing of the fetus and her tight cervix expanding as she opened her raised legs wider and wider. She had never in her life experience so much pain not when she had gave birth to Sonny, that was a wonderful experience; the oxytocin chemical hormone released from her hypothalamus would sure change the message in her subconscious, warning her that childbirth would be a very disastrous experience in the future.
But the pain! Oh, gosh, the pain! Devi squealed and bucked on the bed as the old lady and Ierene held her legs apart.
“Breathe, child, breathe,” advised the old lady but, instead of breathing, Devi bucked upwards wildly and her hand caught the nearby standing fan, crashing it onto the ground in a cacophony of metal, plastic and the noise of the rotor…
I jumped and my heart skipped a beat as I sat in my car and heard the loud crashing sound. I flew out of my car and raced into the house to see what had happened but what I saw as I rushed to the open doorway which showed the bedroom where everyone was, froze me like an iceberg.
Devi was lying on the bed, her eyes rolled up in her head, her legs forced to stay apart, a hairy ball protruding from her vagina. Damn! I instantly felt nausea, as if the ground was tilting beneath my feet. Crap! I wanted to retrace my footsteps but the awkwardness of the situation and my curiosity caused me to stare into the room.
“Push, push, push, push!” repeated my grandmother as beads of sweat rolled down from her hairline and she raised a shoulder to wipe it off. Between Devi’s legs gushed forth thick blood as the child strained to ease out from the womb it was caked in blood and it wiggled. It was a baby!
“It’s alive,” shouted my grandmother over Devi’s screaming.
“What?” Devi blurted.
“What?” Peter repeated.
“It’s alive,” reiterated my grandmother.
What were they babbling about? I thought. Wasn’t it supposed to be alive?
“Oh! It’s coming out!” squealed Ierene.
“Almost, child, it’s almost here,” comforted my grandmom.
I now saw a movement against the side wall of the room and saw that it was Sonny, Devi and Peter’s son. They shouldn’t have allowed him to witness this dramatic event. Apparently, Sonny sensed my eyes on him and glanced back at me. I motioned with my right hand for the little boy to come outside with me but Sonny adamantly shook his head no. Well, suit yourself, I thought, geez.
I found myself grimacing, feeling the pain for Devi. The newborns feet slid out now, onto my grandmother’s pair of open palms, one under the blood-caked baby’s head and the other under his buttock. What I saw next pierced the marrow of my bones, shocked my brain and riveted my soul to my body. On my next blink the sky burst into a roar and rain thumped down harshly on the house. If I didn’t know better; that each raindrop is accompanied by an angel from heaven, I would have surely thought that the raindrops were little devils hammering to get inside.
The newborn’s face had the features of a monkey, I saw as my grandmom wiped the blood off its face and turned a little, so that I was able to get a clearer view. I quickly searched out everyone expression to get a response but they were all dumbfounded. Something was hanging, dripping blood, from beneath my grandmom’s hands. It was a tail! What in Holy Cow was going on here? Instantly Sonny began to scream hysterically and ran into the wooden wall, ricocheting to the ground, unconscious. Ierene ran towards him and cradled him. I felt as if I was in the middle of the creation of a blockbuster horror movie.
“We have to kill it!” screamed Devi. “That… That… is what used to harass Sonny.”
“What the hell is that?” Peter said, mortified.
“It’s a demon,” said my grandmom. “A demon child.”
The entire universe got wedged in front my eyes as I aversely helped Peter to dispose of the ‘demon child’. I immediately envisioned the end of days and the antichrist being born. As Peter and I optimized the last rays of the setting sun, we halted on the gravel road and ventured approximately forty footsteps into the dense grove of trees. We seemed to have had an invisible impetus, as to this day I muse about what really happened. I remember cooperating with Peter to dig a shallow grave, helping him remove the creature from a knapsack and wrapping it up in a white blanket, placing it into the hole, covering it back up with the loose dirt, but believe me or not: as much as I try to expunge the feeling, I can’t. Only because I remain hesitant, not knowing if the demon child was buried alive or not.
Other works by Ryan Ramoutar:
Breakable Moments (novel, available)
Kiss of a Killer (novel, coming soon)
The Rooster and the Caterpillar (short story, coming soon)
Supplementary information about the author can be found at www.ryanramoutar.webs.com
Other titles at Blacklight Publishers:
Burning Tears (art album, available), by Lucia Trifan
Carol (novel, available), by Gabriel Szeitz
Little Sebastian and the Doll He Loved, (short story, coming soon), by Lucian Merisca
Past East (novel, coming), by Gabriel Szeitz
Trisha. An epic novel (epic novel, available) by Reg Whitelock
Trisha. The Caribbean Cruise (free promotional chapter) by Reg Whitelock
The Roxolan Princess (short story, available), by Gabriel Szeitz
Blacklight Publishers© is a registered trademark of Blacklight Design®
Blacklight Publishers
8 Belleplaine ♦ Quartier d’Orleans ♦ Saint Matin ♦ 97150
www.blacklightpublishers.webs.com