Crawling

Fiction - Another Horrific Short Story (from a writing prompt)

            It was dark and cold and the mud rose in the garden as the river rose at the edge of the woods and the rain pelted the side of the house and I checked out the attic window one more time. IT, a twisted creature I had never seen before and which I wished I would never see again, was still crawling through the black sludge that used to give life to Mama’s gourds. I shivered.

            The lamp at my feet flickered, and I tightened the quilt around my shoulders, turning away from the window. Mama would be home soon, I thought. Mama would take care of the thing in the garden, crawling crawling like a slug.

            Only it wasn’t a slug. It was far too big, more the size of the dog that lived next door which would sometimes lick my hand through a hole in the fence.

            Only it wasn’t the dog. From my window up above, I had seen the neighbor bring him inside when the rain started.

            When the wind shifted, and the other side of the house began to get soaked, I checked the garden again. Crawling crawling, this way and that—and then it stopped and raised a swollen head to look up at me peering down through the attic window.

            I scurried back, accidentally knocking over the lamp and extinguishing the flame, and I was crawling crawling to the attic stairs and screaming for Mama but I knew, I knew that Mama wasn’t coming and Mama wasn’t going to take care of the thing in the garden.

            Because Mama was already in the garden, crawling crawling, in the mud.