A woman can be seen carrying a laundry basket, which she presses against her side, competing for balance with a very pregnant belly. She walks from the nearby house across the lawn to the three rows of clothesline. She deposits the basket onto the ground near the first line and takes a breath, when she turns to look back at the house. From within comes a man, her husband, with their young boy in tow. He runs up to his wife, taking her shoulders gently and soothingly steering her back to the house.
“Lauren what are you doing?”
“Maybe that’s for the best, Jed. I got so much mama brain that I washed my lipstick with the sheets.”
Kissing his wife gently on the head, he rests his hand on her belly. He smiles and says, “Don’t worry about it mama, your boys are gonna handle these sheets. You go inside and get those hippo feet up.”
She playfully smacks his chest, and glares at him.
“You better not be mean to your very pregnant and very testy wife. She’d probably kill someone who’d do that.”
He laughs and rubs his hand on the back of his head, sheepish.
“No of course not sweetheart, I meant get those ballerina feet up.”
She glares still into his face when a wink breaks her stern expression.
“You’d better fold these sheets right or I may kill you anyways.”
“Of course. Go back to your book, sweetheart.”
She leans down to kiss her son on the head, kisses her husband on the mouth, and turns to waddle inside. After a beat of watching his wife inside, the father turns to his son.
He grins at his son and mutters to himself.
“Just like Fantasia.”
Seeing his sons lack of comprehension, the mans face turns mock stern.
“Now listen here Joe, this here is a two man job. You, and me. We’re gonna take these sheets down, fold them up however we want, and then go have some ice cream.”
The boy, about four, nods with wide eyes. He does not blink as he listens to his fathers instructions, it’s very cute.
The father ruffles his sons hair and stands.
The boy dutifully grabs the bottom of the nearest sheet.
After a tense moment, just bare of a pause, the father pulls the sheet off the line.
He holds it in his hands, reflecting on how many lipstick stains there were in the sheet. After shaking his head and chuckling he turns to look at the house. A smile spreads across his face and he turns to methodically fold the sheet. Once he finishes he throws it down into the white basket the boy just brought over. He turns to get the next sheet and we switch to indoors. We see the mother, sitting at the dining room table with her foot up and watching her boys through the glass door.
She has a small smile, content with her family. It falters as her eyes turn from her boys. Her brows knit together as she puts her foot down and leans forward. She stares intently at one sheet that was the only one that made it through the wash without any lipstick stains. The only sheet that fluttered in the breeze. She slowly rises to her feet, and makes her way to the door. After pausing, to verify what she sees, she opens the door. But as the door passes we see only the sheets outside.
Only none of the sheets are fluttering.
There is no breeze.
She pauses, staring at the sheets when a breeze does kick up. She has a small jump when they all begin to flutter and flow in the new breeze. She lets out a heavy sigh, and gives her head a tiny shake.
“Jed?”
Her voice rings out across the sound of fluttering bedsheets.
No voice calls back.
“Jed!”
The second time she spoke with worry, with fear.
She takes a step towards the sheets when through the fluttering curtains she sees her boy. He is facing her, and his eyes stare up towards her.
Her breath a sharp gasp, she sees his eyes are wide and frightened. Her son holds his hands up, she can’t tell if they’re to reach for someone or to shield himself. The curtains flutter back and forth, obscuring her sightline and clearing it randomly. It is in one of these brief windows, just before the sheet shifted and blocked her vision once more, her son seems to suddenly be yanked upwards. It is so sudden that his mother jumps and screams his name.
“Joey!”
She rushes forward as fast as her feet will carry her.
“Joesph!”
She runs and pulls sheets down in her path as she runs. She gets to the last row and a hand yanks aside the last curtain. It’s her husband, holding their boy in his arms and looking scared at his wife. He puts a hand on her shoulder in alarm and looks down at where their unborn child lay.
“Is it?! Is it time?!”
She pauses and her head falls back, a soft sob escaping her lips.
“Oh my God, Jed. Where were you? I called your name and you didn’t answer, then I saw Joey and he looked so scared. He looked so scared, Jed.”
Glancing at the boy, Jed turned a worried look at his wife.
“Babe? We’ve been right here, you didn’t call. You didn’t say anything until I heard you scream ‘Joey.’ Is everything okay?”
She leans her head on his shoulder, and continues to cry softly.
“I was so scared Jed, can we just go inside? We can get these sheets tomorrow. Please.”
Putting his arm around his wife’s softly shaking shoulders, he gave her a squeeze and a kiss on the head.
“Anything you want, hot stuff.”
With his arms around his whole world, the young family make their way inside. They make their way through the tunnel of space where the sheets had been torn down. They pass by one sheet with no notice of its gentle flowing. Of its pure whiteness, unmarred be lipstick stains.
The father is tidying up their living room for the night. He walks around, straightening the pillows and putting books away with his head bowed in contemplation. Eventually he makes his way to the sliding glass doors, which peer out into the dark yard, where some sheets stand in the darkness, just visible in the shadows. The empty line between the rows of hanging sheets seems much darker than the surrounding darkness.
He gets to the sliding glass door and, after pausing slightly to check out the dark outside, begin to secure it.
As he stares downwards at the latch in his hands, a figure darts by outside, just a shadow. His head snaps up, alarmed at the outside movement.
The moment is protracted as he stares into the darkness.
After a beat, he decides she had imagined it and breathes a sigh of relief.
That’s when he sees the same figure dart past, this time in the reflection of the sliding glass doors.
As he whirls around, the figure can be seen standing between him and the sliding glass door. It looks down at him from its disproportional and illogical body. Its shoulders jut up far past its head, as its neck seems to thrust downward rather than up. Its hands seemed to bend too sharply at much exaggerated arm length. Its hands are hidden behind long sleeves that dangle down almost to the earth. Its head, body, and arms are covered as if in a sheet, like Charlie Brown did for Halloween. The only difference was the obvious disproportions within and the endless black legs stabbing downwards. As the person looks around at the living room, the figure behind him grows closer.
It seems to move its body as the perfect shadow to his frantic movements. His breath slowing, he turns around. Before he can stop moving, the figure’s sheet-like body reaches out to envelop him. We see the bone white sheet move towards his vision but for a flash. Then we see the monster, for yes we see it is a monster now, standing with its many, many legs still. But just above those still legs the sheet of flesh ruffles as it extends outwards and into the air where his hands wave frantically at his sides, around legs limply kicking at the sheet.
From within the sheet we see his face, as if in bed on a hot summer night.
His face is scrunched up tightly in pain until lights begin to flicker across.
Slowly his tight facial features slacken and his eyes begins to crack open.
As soon as the lights, which now fluctuate as if a fire behind a stained glass window, hit his eyes they widen.
His struggling shoulders can be seen to drop as the lights are now flooding the individual.
Back to the outside shot, we see the fathers feet now limply dangling as they slowly rise further and further into the sheet.
Eventually his feet rise to disappear into the sheet when one of the fathers shoes slips off.
A dull thud suddenly shatters the stifling silence and from out of the room a voice can be heard calling out.
“Jed?”
The monsters body seems to convulse under the sheet flesh. An outline rises from within the sheet, and the sheet seems to tighten across the shape of the recently eaten. The curtain of lower flesh seems to flutter in an unseen breeze as a voice calls out from the monster. The fathers voice.
“Yeah, sorry I dropped my shoe.”
“Oh…What are you doing? Come to bed.”
The inner figure seems to shrink back into the flowing middle of the monster. The feet begin to shuffle, wavelike in place almost as if in anticipation. The sheet shudders and almost flies forward. It is silent as the sheet shoots through the air and into the hallway.
The mother is lying in bed, propped up on a bed of pillows with a magazine resting on her belly. She stares into the dimly lit hallway.
“Jed?”
She tosses the covers aside and pulls herself out of bed and makes her way to the doorway. She rests a hand on the doorframe, peering down the hall to the light of the living room. She stares intently into the darkness as the sheet creature can be seen on the ceiling.
It flows like the surface of water as it moves.
The mother’s tense attention is torn from the lamp in the living room to above her.
Just as she looks up, the creature disappears into the room behind her. We see her sparing upwards, her eyes wide and her breath racing. As she holds a hand on her belly, attempting to lift it somewhat in an attempt at comfort, we see the bed and sheet puff up behind her and settle into place.
She glances back down the hallway, calling out more desperately.
“Jedidiah!”
Silence.
She turns at the soft rustling from her bed. She does a double take at the bed and steps forward. The bed is not perfectly made, the bedding she had just tossed open now neatly tucked and square. Slow step by slow step, she makes her way to the bed.
Tense, terrified breathing fills the air, the only sound.
Her hand slowly extends, fingers shaking with terror. With a sharp movement she pulls the bedding. Flung aside, the bed stands empty. Nothing there.
She returns to the bedroom doorway, once more her hand resting on the doorframe in the same spot. A habit.
She takes a deep breath, readying herself to yell once more, when she hesitates.
The pent up breath escapes silently as she slowly makes her way down the hall. We watch as she passes a closet on her right, its slatted doors shut.
On her left she glances in to their son’s room, where he is fast asleep in his bed.
The living room is normal to her eyes. She can see where her husband put away the book she was reading earlier, and where the blocks that were once on the carpet now rest in their bin. She also sees the sliding glass doors, where the darkness outside can be seen. The sheets ripple in the outside wind. She shivers as she thinks about earlier. As she turns to go back to the hallway she freezes.
The sliding glass door is unlocked.
She hurries forwards, slamming the lock in place. She breaths heavy and we see her pull the blinds across.
She returns and sits on the edge of her bed, staring intently down at the cell phone in her hands.
She calls her husbands cell phone, and its ringing pierces the tense silence.
We see her shoulders rise with tension as it just keeps ringing.
His voicemail finally picks up.
“Hey, this is Jed, I’m hitting the head or I’m in bed. Leeeeeeaaaave a message!”
She hangs up the call and tries again.
Voicemail.
Voicemail
Voicemail.
She stares down at her phone as her fingers now dial 911.
Her breath coming in gasps she tells the dispatcher her husband has disappeared. The woman’s voice is calm and reassuring as she asks prompt questions.
“When did you last see him?”
“Just a few minutes ago! He wanted to straighten up the living room and now he’s gone!”
“Were you fighting?”
“What? No we were not fighting! I told you he went to straighten up the living room, and now my husband is gone.”
Eventually a squad car is sent over. The mother waits with her arms wrapped around herself.
She’s still shivering.
With a deep breath she turns and lies in bed, staring intently at her phone as she again calls her husband. She pulls the covers over herself and snuggles in, listening to the ringing of her husbands phone.
Her attention is solely on her phone, so she doesn’t notice how the bedding is seeming to tuck itself.
The line is still ringing.
Her eyebrows furrow more deeply as her attention turns.
She continues to snuggle into the blankets, despite her face showing her confusion.
Her snuggling becomes struggling as her muffle voice calls out.
The line is still ringing.
Her movements become more frantic as the blanket seems to slide off the bed, revealing the tightly tucked sheet beneath. The mother’s body can clearly be seen beneath the sheet.
Her struggling begins to lessen, she is clearly being restrained. A light shines from beneath the sheets onto her face.
It is the same painted glass pattern of lights that so recently flashed across her husbands face. The mother’s expression softens as her eyes glaze. Her muffled cries turn to sighs of contentment.
She has no reaction as her body beings to snap beneath the sheet.
No reaction as she sheet slowly covers her entire head.
Pounding on the door can be heard.
“Police! Mrs. Worden, are you there?”
Silence from inside the house. Officer Peters continues to thump on the door as his partner, Officer Patel peers into the house through a side window.
“I don’t see any movement inside, but wait, stop. Stop Paul! I can hear something.”
The thudding ceases and we see the officers lean close to the front door. From within the house, a child crying can be heard.
They share a look before Peters turns to his radio.
“Dispatch this is Peters, we have a situation, possible 3316 at 44 Vestment Avenue. We are entering the building, send one for backup.”
Patel begins to ram his shoulder into the door. After a few tries, the door swings inward. Peters follows Patel inside, his pistol in hand. Patel removes his own and hurries towards the now loud crying. Both officers pull out their flashlights as they get to the darkened hallway. They make their way down the hall to the boys room, where his crying is loudest.
“Jesus Christ”
Patel mutter weakly as his flashlight swings into the room, revealing a shape that sent his balls into his throat.
A sheet, twisted wildly, stretched from the ground in an arch above the child-sized bed in the room. A bed in which a screaming boy was being lifted, the sheet gently holding by the head.
Both officers scream as they try to comprehend what they’re seeing. Patel slowly raises his gun to the strange sheet. His hand shakes.
Peters rushes forward to try and grab the boy. He drops his flashlight and the light flashes across the room. The twisted shape undulates and moves in the staccato darkness.
Before Peters makes it to the bed Patel fire several rounds at the strange monstrosity before him.
Two bullet holes appear in the sheet and an unearthly scream rents the air. Peters raises one hand to his ear as he tries with the other to grab the screaming child. His eyes fill with terror as the twisted shape untwisted and flew at him. The flapping sheet slammed into Peters and enveloped him.
Patel screamed as he tries to keep his flashlight trained on the nightmare. The halo of light rests on his partner struggling, the sheet now tightly wrapped around him from the waist up. Once more a hand is seen waving and legs are seen kicking as they seem to shrink into the sheet.
Patels screams are the only ones that now sound, as the young boys feet vanish into the folds of terror. Officer Patel’s arm jerks as his pistol fires.
Once.
Twice.
Three times.
Shot after shot, and Patel’s screams grow more terrified.
The sheet, thought rustling, has only four bullet holes. It rustles further and the sheet only has two bullet holes left. Patel watches in horror as his partners movements slow to a stop. And then Patels nearly dropped his flashlight as his partner’s feet slowly turn towards him. His partner, now tightly wrapped in a haunted sheet or whatever it was, takes a step towards him. Arms seem to sprout out within the sheet, two arms that stretch towards Patel.
Patels eyes dart down at the left hand that hangs limply below the sheets. The left hand or whatever was within the sheet slowly stretches towards him. Though he remains frozen, he still holds his pistol out. Two more shots flash the darkness as bullet holes appear at the head. What Patel sees into the bullet holes makes his screams turn to absolute terror as the sheet envelops his outstretched arm. Patel now tries to pull away, despite his hand sinking further and further into the sheet. Patel, in an attempt to yank his arm downwards, sees Paul’s feet disappearing up into the sheets that not float stand on infinite black spider legs. He turns to look out the door as lights flash against the hallway. Red and blue, the color of backup.
After throwing his flashlight into the hallway Patel slams his radio.
“Stay out! Stay out of 44 Westmore! We have a 4052! Repeat a 4050-“
He was cut off before he could finish, the sheets now sinking over his head.
A moment where the sheet monstrosity, now standing full and tall, hundreds of sharp legs rhythmically moving as whatever beneath the skin twitched.
The hustling of the approaching officers cause the sheet to freeze. As flashlights dance across the hallway and into the room, the sheet fell to the floor.
An officer comes into the room, staring around at the empty children’s room. She steps forward, her gun held out. An officer passes the hallway behind her, moving to clear the other room. As she moves forward cautiously, the officer scans the room. We watch as she steps on the sheet and it suddenly flies towards the ceiling.
Her brief cry is immediately silenced as the sheet presses fully to the ceiling. Small struggling vanishes as the other office runs into the room.
“Tilly? Tilly!”
He runs to just where Tilly so recently disappeared when the sheet now falls over him. In the same way Officer Tilly quickly went, so too did her partner.
The sheet shudders for a moment before gently drifting downwards to fall flat on the carpet. Where it will rest until the next meal came along.