Crib

Crib.

Violet snapped up clutching Taylor to her breast Oh shit!  She'd fallen asleep again!
        Before she had given birth to Taylor, Viola worked a fifty hour week minimum. It involved, as all fifty hour work week jobs tend to do, a seemingly pleasant but heavily watch-your-back work environment. Violet would go to the gym in the early hours, but mostly just to be seen. "Where does she get the energy?" Violet liked to envisage people asking behind her back more often than she would have ever admitted. "I have no idea, but look at her go" Her imaginary admirer's friend would respond as they both gawped at her mouths like gold fish.
          Violet could only imagine what those same admirers would say about her now. Having found herself fallen asleep to some primary coloured bear/alien people on children's television. Taylor never paid the slightest bit of attention to it, a fact Violet was quietly proud of. Yes, Taylor was a little small. Indeed, he had yet to focus his eyes on much of anything or make a sound of any kind. But you could completely go to fuck if you thought he was going to sit still and have his precious mind occupied with that complete sham of a television show. Taylor had more taxing, intellectual pursuits to attend to.
        For instance Taylor's primary pastime of the here and now was rubbing himself against things; the floor, the settee, or the dog (before it ran away, presumably because of shame or guilt). If you required Taylor in some kind of needing to chew his fat legs there and then emergency, you could probably find him on or around his current favourite, the base of the computer table. Even right at that moment he was very slowly rubbing his very own miniature fat boy face on Violet's cotton vest.
        Taylor had never really smiled. Once, while still in the hospital when he had very bad wind Taylor managed to crack a slight grin. but since then he had settled on having a comfortable contented look on his face. He had that look now. Violet could read it clear as day and her own expression unconsciously fell into a mirror of his.
        After shuffling the remote across the floor with her feet and turning the television down, Violet scooped Taylor up gently and took him upstairs. The nursery was almost clinical in it's organization. Toys were stacked by type in clear plastic boxes. The way the changing table was organized Violet’s husband, Mark had remarked once was scarily similar to the way a surgeon kept his operating utensils. The only downside Violet could see of being so organised was that cartoon characters she had paid a small fortune to be painted on the walls put her in mind of the feeble attempts at decoration in a Child's ward.
        Her naturally organized style of living had served Violet well when she had first married Mark. Since Taylor came home from the hospital, it somehow didn't seem the right way for a family  to live.
        It was never Violet's intention to become such a scrupulous housekeeper. It worked out that Violet found herself pent up with anxious energy whenever Taylor was asleep. Combining her energy with the fact that although Violet had wanted to make the room more homely she just had no idea how to go about it lead to her only option other than perhaps crafting. Violet did hate crafters so, “Just buy a bloody scarf and get on with your life!”. Violet decided it was always better to know where everything was. Reasoning it saves time, and her time was once money. Violet had to catch herself every time her mind began to dwell on how her time was now in fact, just more time.         
        There was hope for Violet’s family home though. One part of her nest she hoped would somehow expand in nature one day. A small area in all the house that Violet considered the definition of homely, Taylor's crib. 
        The crib was a gift from Violet's mother. It was narrower by a small margin than the ones you could buy these days. Although not explicitly regarded as an antique, it had age and a sturdiness that came with furniture that had stood to the service of generations. A dense wood with a burned caramel varnish, Violet hadn't polished it since it had come in to her possession but it still reflected her face clearly. Violet often found herself smoothing her hand over it while watching Taylor dozed off. The cribs polish was so smooth if she didn't look at her hand, she couldn't tell when she had stopped running her palm across its surface. One peculiarity Violet found of the crib was that no matter the time of year, it was always cool to the touch.
        Inside the crib were stitched toys that Violet’s mother had told her spoke Spanish when you squeezed them. They only seemed to murmur to Violet.
Once Violet had asked her friend Lucile (Who had met and seduced her husband at many a Spanish class.) at a dinner party Violet held what the toys said. After squeezing the toy multiple times and watching a concentrated expression change to a skeptical one on Lucile’s face “That’s not spanish. That doesn’t even sound human.” was the closest Violet had gotten to a translation. Violet thought to question her mother about the toys but knew any response would be worthless. Violet's mother had been on a number of medications for a number of ailments for a number of years. Before Violet realised how perfect the crib from her mother was, she had just been content that her mother had seen fit to give her a gift. Violet didn't dare to question how a woman with such meagre means as her mother had sourced the crib. Violet knew that would be a dark road.
        The gifting itself was a surprising present. Violet's mother had seemed disinterested, even angry at the news of her daughter’s pregnancy. She barely spoke to her at all throughout the nine month, one week and two day duration. It all seemed to change when she came to see Taylor the day after he was born. Light and recognition poured out of her medicated eyes when she had leant over his original crib to meet her new grandson "He looks just like your grandad" she had said quietly. The next day the crib was delivered with a note, "He doesn't like that crib, he will like this one. Mother.". Violet didn't question the notes curt tone, her mother had the communication skills of a scallop. Violet simply took her old crib to a charity shop and that was that. As it turned out Taylor did prefer his new crib. He slept peacefully in it every night for ten months straight.
        Violet took Taylor upstair and lay him in the crib on his chest, his head on facing to the side. She had been told time and time again to put him to bed on his back. It seemed to Violet that every parenting book or magazine had a  half-page dedicated to chiding her for putting him to bed this way, but Taylor always seemed to descend into sleep smoother this way. Even when Violet had tried to rest him on his back, whenever she went to wake him in the morning, he was back on his front burrowing into the mattress.
        Violet stroked her son's face and let him be. He was breathing a little heavily out of his nose. Nothing to worry about, a little sniffle.
        Violet went back downstairs. An Oxfam ad was asking, in the reduced volume, for her to donate just three pounds a month to provide children in the third world with basic medical care. Violet made sure to feel very pointedly sorry for all of the hungry, poor, sick children in the entire world as she turned the television off. She put the kettle on and ran upstairs to the toilet.
        Violet was mid-way through a comical article about an elderly nudist resort in Ghana when the doorbell began to ring. The ring came again and again until it seemed to sputter and then became one long buzz. Buzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz."Just a minute!" Violet yelled down the stairs. Taylor had never been a light sleeper so Violet wasn't worried about waking him by shouting. She did however, have a growing concern when the doorbell showed no sign of stopping buzzing. She finished up quickly rinsing her hands and flicking them dry, and ran downstairs.
        The buzz grew uncomfortably loud as Violet made her way out on to the landing. As she took her final few steps to the door Violet saw the distorted silhouette of a man wearing a dull red jumper through the textured glass. Violet had an impulse that made her draw herself back from the door, a hint of an icy cool pressure on her shoulders and over her mouth. It was almost unnoticeable. Violet held on to a miniscule sharp gasping intake of breath. The sensation was so faint and foreign to Violet that she ignored it and all but forgot it after only a moment. Some residual trepidation made her draw the chain almost unconsciously as she opened the door.
When Violet peeked around the door the silhouette was gone. An uneasy, searching moment passed. Violet closed the front door. There was a letter was wedged inside the slot Violet must have missed that morning. It was an ordinary electric bill, as Violet pulled it out the section of the envelope that was wedged outside was coated in a thick powdery black grime.
        Minutes after the Violet was sat at her kitchen table and over a steaming cup of lady grey. Violet, after careful consideration opened the letter. The first sheet seemed regular enough. A cover letter in front of the actual bill. It detailed a few new services of the electrical company and some of their new plans on becoming more green and environmentally conscious while saving Violet money. The cover letter also included a few notes on how to help the environment in the home; not leaving things on standby etc. As Violet lifted this page she found the cover letter to be stuck to the itemised section of the bill by the same grime she had covering half of the envelope. After pulling the two sheets of A4 apart she found the bill to be exactly as grimy as the envelope, covering along the left hand side. A smell of something filthy and chokingly flammable was coming from it. More than a little flummoxed, Violet threw it away immediately and changed the bin bag.
        The front door rang again as Violet was scrubbing the grime off of her fingers. Still not a really ring but just one short buzz this time. Buzz. Perhaps the battery had died a death earlier. Violet went up to answer the door. In the hallway Violet saw it was the same silhouette, a man in a dull red jumper. 'Fuckssake.' she said to herself. Violet checked that the chain was still on opened the door. The front door swung open far wider than it should have. The chain grew taught at a metre long. Where the chain had only moments ago been gold it was now black, lumpy stalactites of black rust ran inches long down from many of the links. Violet had no time to register the chains metamorphosis, all of her attention was drawn to The Man at the door.
        “I'm detective Inspector Taylor Ellis, this is my partner Detective Inspector Violet Ellis.” The Man gestured sharply to his left. The Man stood alone. Inches away from Violet. The Man was staring intently and unblinking into Violet’s eyes. “I'm afraid we have some bad news. May we come in? You may want to sit down. It's about your husband.” The Man spoke jarringly yet not without a melodic quality.
        The Man was much taller than Violet's husband. Much taller than his silhouette had seemed. The Man was wearing a hole ridden dull red jumper, skin-tight black pinstripe trousers and shiny pointy black shoes. The Man’s bony right hand held a simple black cane with a silver tip. The cane moved as though The Man was drawing something in the floor with it. The canes silver point was making very small yet noticeable shapes, moving with speed and purpose. The Man’s flesh was covered in dense freckles, Violet could see them on his chest through the holes in his jumper. The Man’s face was narrow and sharp, his skin was dry and peeling off in great patches particularly around his eyes. The Man’s lips were thin and chapped with yellowing spittle gathering in the sides. “May we come in?” The Man repeated.
        Violet looked from The Man to the door chain and back and stammered out, “I'm sorry, you're who?... You have the wrong house.” and impulsively tried to slam the door closed.
The man's next movement had the fluidity of turning on ones bedroom light. His cane wedged horizontally above her head between the door and the door frame so quickly it didn't register with Violet until after a few grunting attempts to close the door.
“Why are you doing this?” she said, her legs cold and impossibly heavy.
        The Man turned his head slightly and nodded gently, his eyes wide as a flake of skin fell from his brow. The Man pulled down his cane so that it scraped down the paint on the door. Violet tried to move the door open or closed. The door was steadfast, heavy as lead. The cane was now level with Violet's neck. The Man leant back gripping the cane. Never moving his bold pale eyes from hers, never blinking he said, “May-”. he then swung under his cane and rose up less than an inch from Vi's face.
“We-”. small white blisters under his eyes looked like scales. His voice became deep and feral.
“Come-” The Man said as he swung back. He stood there a moment, appraising her. He put both hands on his cane hopped high in the air and began to swing full force inside the front door, both his pointed shoes poised to kick towards Violet’s stomach.
        Then he was gone. All of him. The chain was loose, gold and back to its regular length. The scratches on the wall and door were gone.
Mark? Violet shut the door and after standing still for a few moments breathing raspily. Violet locked all four locks and began calling Mark from her mobile.
Taylor began crying. She felt this help her, it filled her with something that wasn't an icy chill. She was no longer a possible mental patient. She was a mother. Taylor's mother.
        Violet got through to Mark's mobile after what felt like a thousand droll yet piercing rings. She was climbing the stairs when her stoic back relaxed a little as she heard his voice. “Hi babe.” he said as she made her way to Taylor’s room.
        Violet didn’t give him time to say hello, “Babe? Babe!” she began, her normally even voice had taken on a bird-like vibrato. “There was a man at the door. And he said he was a police-” Taylor was on his back. Violet paused, her eyes began to sting and tear. Taylor was still asleep. But he was on his back, arms and legs held to his chest.
        “What's wrong babe, what man?” Mark always found Violet's panic contagious.
        “He said, hold on-” Violet picked up Taylor, held him tightly against her thumping heart as she relayed the story of what had just happened to her husband. She lay Taylor back down. Properly. Tightly. On his chest the way he liked. “He was there, he said something about you and then he just disappeared. He wasn't any kind of policeman but his voice, it was so convinced for a moment I thought...” Violet choked.
        Violet went over to the window that overlooked the front garden. “Are they still there?” Mark asked.
        “No. And it was just one guy, I just said! Why aren’t you listening?” Violet spat.
        After a shallow laugh Mark asked,  “Are you sure this actually happened, not just a result of your anxiety and boredom?”. When the call began it and sounded like he was at the office, now Violet thought he must be outside. She could hear so many people in the background. Chatting to their bat-shit crazy wives.
        “Mark!-Listen! Just please come home! I'm… I’m scared!” Violet said after a search for a better adjective failed her.
        “OK, wait. I'll leave now, be home in an hour or so.” Mark finally seemed to understand, this gave Violet a little ease.
Mark didn't continue talking but he didn’t  hang up either. A deep sound like a creaking door coming down the line smoothed into his voice “urnnnn-Oh and babe?” Mark said.
        “What's that sound?” Asked Violet.
        The sound resumed for a short while then formed a more groaning vocal sound until eventually it turned into some guttural version of Mark's voice which asked, “urnnnn-Can we come in?”.
        The line went dead as Violet threw the phone to the floor. Violet only noticed peripherally that the phone didn't bounce, as though the scrupulously clean floor were sticky.
        Taylor began to cry loudly, piercingly and muffled at the same time. Violet turned from the window she had been watching the front of her house from to the crib. He was lying upside-down  his feet where his head should be thrashing on his pillow. His head was vibrating under the covers as he wailed.
        Violet reached down to pick up her son. Two small black hands reached down from the opposite side of the crib. As Violet pulled away the small black hands turned over and caressed the back of her own before pulling away. They had a rough, sandpaper quality.
        The small black hands belonged to a small black boy. He was bald and wearing only a t-shirt that was too dirty to discern its original colour, and although too big for his impossibly skeletal frame it did not cover his nakedness.
        Violet took a quivering step back from the crib and so did the boy, his head was low but his blue ringed eyes did not leave hers. Violet clutched at her heart, the boy mirrored her perfectly.
Violet looked to the floor and back to the boy. As their eyes met the boy’s skull gave a small pained shudder and instantly dark blood began to run down from his crown.
Violet’s hand came to her mouth and the boy ignored the blood dripping from his chin to the floor as he copied her. Violet pulled her hand away slowly and the boy’s fingers tipped in his own blood as he did the same.
Violet blinked and the boy’s skull shuddered again. The flow of blood from his crown grew heavier. In barely  moments he was covered, his t-shirt was all but completely crimson. It began to drip from his fingers and thud heavily onto the floor.
        Violet raised her arm, the boy mirrored her. She made a waving motion and so did the boy, the blood simply poured off of his elbow. She took a step towards Taylor, so did the boy. He left a dirty bloody trail behind him. She slowly reached down into the crib for her son, the boy copied her movements faithfully, even down to her trembling tendons, all the while never losing eye contact.
        Violet looked down at Taylor, a drop of blood fell from the boy’s finger to the blanket and she met his gaze again. The boy’s skull shuddered with unnatural violence for a moment. Underneath the rapid waves of blood that cascaded off of his face in splatters Violet could see his expression had  become one of resolved and genuine sadness.
         With no notice the small boy stopped shaking and stood stock still. His hands splayed by his sides, the boy screamed an absolute volatile scream of anguish and hatred. Violet let out a short convulsed scream that was instantly swallowed by the boy. The boy held Violet’s gaze as he began to step back in jerkily movements. Constantly screaming but never taking in breath.
        When he reached the wall his scream became less human and more like a sound from a raging force. His mouth so wide now began to split at the sides, stringy pitch black sinew spreading from ear to ear, his jaw dropping unnaturally low. His limbs gave a low creek and began to lengthen as the howl from his mouth reached a new intensity. The room began to quiver before Violet’s eyes.
        Violet gathered up Taylor in her arms. As she clutched his form to her chest he simply wasn't there. He was back in the crib. Laughing. She gathered him up again, and again he wasn't there. As soon as she lifted her son up and out of the crib neither he nor his blanket would be there, just a warm cottony breeze running through her fingers.
        Still the black child screamed. As it reached the wall, flames grew around it and spread, rapidly engulfing the entirety of the nursery. There was no smoke but Violet couldn’t breathe as she watched the flames grow more violent. Within moments the fire lapped at her, scorching her skin, hair and clothes.
Finally, the black boy outstretched both his arms out wide, his palms against the wall. The boy’s fingers split apart into thin black strands and grew, weaving within the fire as it spread around the room.
The black running from the boy’s fingers danced and fought with the flames and eventually dampened them completely. The boy’s screams became a gurgle, the sound replaced by the sinewy strands smacking against one another deafeningly loud as they expanded into the centre of the room. After one more attempt to grasp her son failed Violet did the only thing she could. Violet crouched to the floor and hugged her knees. Her eyes closed to the darkness as it lapped and lashed at her flesh. 
        It stopped, it all stopped. All there was, was the freckled man and his red flaky eyes, “How much do you love your son?” He asked. The question lasted a millenia of years and a handful of seconds. After Violet answered there was a blinding crack.

        Mark came home that evening and found his wife. Violet was folded neatly unnaturally in the crib, her back broken multiple times, along with all but her smallest bones. Snapped, cracked and folded with considerable thought into a crib like a rag doll.
This was not Taylor's wooden crib, but the old plastic and metal one he and his wife had bought in her sixth month of pregnancy. His son, Taylor and his wooden crib were missing. There were scorch marks around the crib in Mark's periphery he could never quite catch.

        Violet's Mother received a postcard that morning. The picture was of her daughter, folded clutching her grandson ever so tightly, her bones jutting out from her knuckles. They were both cramped in a crib a gypsy once told her would protect her daughter. The crib was surrounded by disfigured burned men. One of The Men in particular caught her eye. In the darkness of the photo she could make out a small black boy stood by the crib, his arms reaching through the barriers for, but not quite touching her daughters face. On the back read a message in perfect cursive:

“Collected. With interest.”

        The postcard was not signed and had no stamp. Of course. She lost it as soon as she had read it.
       
There are old county curses, and there are debts to be paid.