Darkness Creeping by Neal Shusterman Page A

stomped after them and found them in their own room. They were fighting to get underneath the quilt, which now lay crumpled in the corner of Timmy’s bed, like a creature ready to spring.
    That’s odd , I thought. Mom must have pulled it down from the wall .
    They grabbed the quilt and managed to wrap both of themselves in it from head to toe. I began to laugh at the way they quivered beneath it. I mean, did they think that a puny little blanket could protect them?
    “Are you scared?” I growled at them.
    “Yes, yes, we’re scared.”
    “Are you really scared?”
    “Yes!” they yelled. “Please stop, Marybeth!”
    “Good!” I bellowed. “That’s what you get for ruining everything for everyone.”
    Then they started to cry, and I realized I had gone too far. I took the dumb old mask off. “Oh, stop whimpering,” I said. “It was just a game. You can come out now.”
    But they didn’t come out.
    “Come on,” I coaxed. “You can’t hide under that blanket all night!”
    “We’re not hiding,” said Timmy. “We can’t get out!”
    I watched as the two of them struggled to unravel themselves from the blanket.
    “Don’t be ridiculous,” I said. But as I watched them struggle, I could see that blanket stretching around them, pulling tighter and tighter—actually straining to keep them from struggling out.
    “Help us, Marybeth!” they cried. “The monster—it has us! It’s eating us!”
    That’s when I saw the eyes. They were attached to all those faces—hundreds of them—all staring out of the quilt . . . and this time I knew it wasn’t just my imagination.
    They were all the faces of children.
    “Help us, Marybeth!” the twins kept shrieking.
    Panicked, I ran across the room and, in the process, stepped on the thumbtacks that had held the thing to the wall. Wailing in pain, I fell to the ground. That’s when I noticed that the twins’ cries seemed to be getting weaker. I had to get them out.
    I crawled to the bed, where the quilt had them wrapped up tighter than ever. I could see that, all bundled up, the thing did look like a creature . . . but like no creature I had ever imagined. I bit back my own fear, reached for the terrible quilt, grabbed hold of an edge, and tore it off the bed.
    But there was nothing beneath it.
    There in my hand was a mere blanket, a limp quilt that was still warm to the touch.
    “No!” I cried.
    I ran to my room with the horrible quilt clutched in my hand and got a pair of scissors. I was ready to cut the thing into a million pieces. But as I brought the scissors to the fabric I knew that I couldn’t do it—because of something I saw inside the quilt.
    There, at the very corner of the fabric, was a new patchwork square. Two ovals of tan velvet on a purple cotton background. And, when I looked at it hard enough, those ovals became two faces— their faces. I could see my brother’s and my sister’s eyes, just like all the other eyes, silently staring out at me from inside the quilt.

    The following Saturday, Mom and Dad had a garage sale.
    “Look at this!” said a woman who rummaged through the piles of children’s clothes and children’s toys. “It’s a double stroller!” She was talking to her husband, who held newborn twins in his arms. “Just what we need,” the woman went on, and then she turned to my mother. “I guess your twins have outgrown it,” she said, giving the stroller a friendly pat.
    My mother just stared at her, blinking. “No, we don’t have twins,” she said.
    The woman glanced around at the piles of clothes. “But you seem to have two of everything, so I thought—”
    “The stroller was in the garage,” my mother said with a shrug. “I don’t know how it got there . . . maybe it was from the previous owner.”
    And then Mom walked off to help some other customers. I almost said something, but what good would it do? I was the only one who remembered the twins. To everyone else, it was as though they had never