An Understandable Misunderstanding

Debbie’s shrieking and rough shaking wakes me,
“There’s a monster at the window!”
Now, believe me, I love my wife with all that I am, but what the HELL is she babbling about? I look around hazily, still rooted in half-sleep, for her face to get some indication as to the urgency of the situation. Her eyes are tiny and her hands have disappeared under the covers. Ow! Shit! She dug her nails into my left forearm.
“What? What are you talking about,” I croak as I tear my arm from her steel grip and rub my bruised skin. People will think we’re degenerates if they see these kinds of marks on me.
“Nelson! At the window!”
I swing my head towards the small rectangle of moonlight.
“Sweet Jesus,” I exclaim as I try to make an escape backwards through the headboard and sheets.
“Nelson! Make it go away!”
I’ve never seen such a thing in my entire life… What on earth brought this thing here? It doesn’t seem dangerous, but still… What is it DOING here?
It had ceased its humble attack on the brittle glass panes when I had caught sight of it. Debbie’s crossing herself.
“O- okay,” I stammer to her, not taking my eyes off the thing at the window.
I set my feet on the cold floorboards and make my way around the foot of the bed when I hear a feeble gasping. I look back to Debbie, who has retreated under the heavy floral printed blanket, and I only see her urging eyes darting from me to the window. I look back to the window and I lock eyes with the thing – at least I think they’re its eyes. It looks like I’m looking into a nothing that has no discernable end-point, and I feel a shiver shake me to my heart. The gasping is coming from the thing. I’m not going a step further.
“G- go away. Get out of here!”
“..please..”
Holy Mother of God the thing can speak… I look back to Debbie, she’s hardly poking out from above the end of the blanket now, and she must have heard it too. At least I’m not hearing things.
“W- what,” I feebly grunted just above a whisper.
The thing scrapes the glass gently. “.. Please. Let me in. I mean you no harm. Just please let me in..”
I must be going absolutely crazy. I swear that thing has a British accent.
“Nelson! What are you waiting for? Make it go AWAY,” Debbie hisses at me. I hear the sheets and blanket rustle some more. She must be crossing herself again; I know I would if I weren’t so damn petrified staring deeper into the empty of its eyes.
“Why should I trust you?”
“I am in no state to harm either you or your wife,” the thing rasped between gasps. “And besides, I would feel horrible if I did.”
That is DEFINITELY a British accent…
The thing seems to crumple a bit against the window, as though the mini speech took all it had out of it. I do NOT want to let this thing in, but I don’t think it will or could do anything to us.
“Hail Mary, full of grace..” I hear Debbie begin from under the sheets. I wish she’d cut that out; she doesn’t go to church anymore.
I frown and break the deadlocked stare between me and the thing.
“Okay. But you..”
“NELSON. What do you think you’re doing,” she half screeches. I ignore her.
“You have to give your word. I’m taking a huge leap of faith by letting you in.”
It’s trying to right itself and push itself away from the window.
“I assure you, good Sir. I will do no harm to you nor your wife. You have my word.”
I resume my stare, and the shiver returns. As I approach I see that the thing, too, is shivering, quaking almost violently in fact. I wonder if it’s from the cold or from our encounter.
I slide the lock on the window at an arms length and take a step back as the thing stumbles inside onto the oak boards, clumps of snow falling from its feet… No... Hooves. The next thing I notice about the thing is that it has wings. I can hardly make them out in the darkness of the room, but they are wings. Righting itself, its legs bend backwards like a crane’s and they stretch out to its right side, making the thing lean to its left.
“Dear Sir, you are too kind a soul,” it gasps in its British accent.
“Don’t move.”
I walk around the thing and close the windows, never once taking my eyes off of it.
Debbie is silent.
The thing is silent.
I cannot stop staring at it.
The thing is the first to speak.
“I am expressly sorry for frightening you and your wife. I avoid contact with you people as much as I can for exactly that reason.”
It seems to have caught its breath, and I take a step back from it towards the bed.
“What are you doing here. Why were you beating at our window?”
The thing had maintained its stare with me as I slowly made my way back to the bed. I need to sit down right now… The thing broke the stare this time, looking down. In embarrassment?
“I must confess, I came to your window because I am in quite a jam, my good Sir. I am being pursued by two of your local hunters who are proving to be quite diligent in their search for me.”
“You want us to hide you? Is that what you are asking us,” Debbie finally spoke from under the covers. I thought she had passed out when I let the thing inside.
The thing seems as surprised as I to hear her voice and it cranes its long, thick neck to address her.
“Yes, kind Miss. I am afraid I cannot elude my pursuers. I deeply apologize for upsetting you so. Please. I truly mean you no ill action. Please come from under there so I may make a proper apology,” it says as it begins to stand to its full height, its hooves scraping lightly on the floor and its wings’ membranes fluttering lightly. It cannot be even as tall as my chest. When I first saw it in the window, I could tell it was small but I didn’t conceive of it being so almost puny. As it stands and steadies itself on its reverse legs I notice how bone skinny it is, its ribs visible even in the darkness.
A light goes on behind me and my irises constrict almost immediately. Holy. God.
The thing stands maybe four feet tall, on those legs which look like they do not belong to something of its sort, has a surprisingly human looking midsection and chest although emaciated to the point of almost looking like rotting, short and bony arms, and the head of a wolf with the horns of a ram coiling out from under its ears. It’s nearly completely hairless, save for around the crotch area and where its wings connect with its back. Its wings are almost as big as it is. Its skin and hair stark white. As white as paper and it’s almost hard to look at in the light of the bedside lamp. But the eyes. It has an overhanging brow, which explains the emptiness I saw in its face in the dark, but in the light its eyes radiate a ruby glow.
I feel the blanket and sheets on the bed shift and I turn my head to the movement. She’s upright, now, and staring into the fire in its eyes. She gasps and I look back to the thing, which is now looking down with his eyes and pawing the floor gently with its right hoof.
“I know my appearance is odd and evil to you. But, kind miss, please do accept my most humble apology,” it bows, “I wish not to disturb you and hope that you may not be frightened any longer either by my presence or appearance.”
“I… I…” Debbie stammers. She’s still staring at the thing’s figure, running her eyes up and down its thin frame and meeting back with its eyes.
Under her gaze, the thing seems to shudder.
“Are you cold?”
“Sir, I have witnessed many a harsh winter, but never have I experienced such a baffling freeze as before this year.”
Debbie squirms behind me out from under the bedcovers and she swings her legs over the side of the bed, all the while locked with its illuminate eyes. She’s next to me now and she seems to have a sad look on her face.
“Would you please come in.” What? “Come downstairs and warm yourself. You look as though you will shake the bones loose inside your skin.” What the hell?? I turn and stare blankly at her.
“Thank you Miss. I fear that I might do just that,” as a shiver quakes it again and it.. Laughs? It sounds almost like the crying of a crow but at a higher pitch, it sounds pained.
“Please,” Debbie stands, pulling one of the sheets from the bed with her, and drapes it over the thing’s thin wings and arms, “Come downstairs. I’ll make some tea.”
She crosses my confounded stare which had slowly written itself across my face as I watched Debbie do a complete 180 of her attitude towards the thing, and she leads it out of the room and towards the staircase. She still has not touched it, but what made her think differently? What is it that changed her mind? What on earth IS that thing?? There’s blood on the floor… It must have been injured by the hunters..
I shake myself out of my own thoughts and realize that there’s a devil downstairs, alone with my wife. I make my way down the stairs after snatching my white bathrobe from the foot of the bed. They’re sitting in the front room; the light is on in there. Rounding the corner into the front, I see that she’s already taken a cup of water and heated it in the microwave, a tea bag floating on the surface beginning to diffuse its herbal tastes.
“I am in great debt to you, sweet Miss. You are much kinder than your neighbors,” it comments as it dips its body forward to pick up the cup. Its arms are so tiny.
“You frightened me considerably. And I am sorry for that. I didn’t know what you were. I still don’t, but I am sorry that I judged your intentions and motives based solely on your appearance.”
“I understand, Miss. I’ve become quite used to it, in fact. You are not the first, and you will most certainly not be the last.”
“Who and what are you?”
“NELSON,” she hisses at me.
“No, no, no. I feel as though I owe you both that much. My name is Stephen. And you already probably know of me. You all seem to, wherever I go. I am a cursed man; I am the son of Deborah Leeds. I am, as they refer to me, the Jersey Devil.”
Debbie’s smiling?
“I have heard the stories. My grandmother grew up near the Pineys.”
I walk across the knitted rug to rest next to her as the devil lifts the cup to its face and manages to lap some of the tea into its mouth. He leans forward again to set the cup down on the coffee table separating him from us.
“Indeed. My existence in that place is widely known, which is in part as to why I am before you tonight.”
I had not noticed before in the bedroom, but as I am sitting down and in somewhat less shock, I am beginning to see the horrible state in which he is in. He had removed the sheet from around his narrow shoulders and wings, I suppose so he could sit, though his legs are sticking through the back of the chair and in a position which doesn’t look comfortable at all. His wings hang over the back of the chair in a way that I can see the decrepit state they are in. They have scattered tufts of white hair along the fingers of wings, whose membranes look as though a family of moths had been eating at them, most notably, though, is the large hole in his left wing. It looks like buckshot had ripped clear through it. The next thing I notice is the abundance of scars. It is making me feel like vomiting. The scars aren’t only in abundance, but they are layered and in criss-crossing patterns along his nearly caved in chest. And here and there are the remnants of what must be rifle or shotgun injuries as they almost take up a third of his midsection. I was right. There’s a smear of blood on his fingers. The hunters must have caught up with him at some point because he’s bleeding a bit from somewhere on his side.
“Sir.”
I’ve been staring. I’m embarrassed.
“I know. The state of this body is horrific. I am conscious of it. Every scar on my chest is self inflicted. I realized that after the first ten attempts that I cannot die. I thought I was having some kind of extended night terror. But I have accepted my life, that which it is. The rest of the scars, however, are from your fellow Normals. Who, upon seeing me, attempt to exorcise me from this plane of existence. They call me a devil, but Sir, I am a good Christian and I have seen more than you or any other can know.”
Debbie is crying.
“I’m so, so sorry. You seem so kind. But fate intended a different life for you. That is obvious.”
“Sweet Miss, please. Do not cry on my account. I am at this moment the happiest I have been in quite some time. You, the both of you, are the third to have not judged me and made an attempt on my life, however a futile enterprise that would prove and has proved. You have great kindness in you and it is people like you who reaffirm my faith.”
Debbie dabs her eyes with the hem of her nightgown and we sit for a while in silence as he leans forward again to sip/lap the tea.
“Is there anything we can do? Would you like a place to stay? We could keep you hidden in the attic or the basement and keep you fed and warm. Keep you safe.”
His fire eyes turn southward again and he stops sipping.
“Sir, I must confess you have been more than generous in your faith in me and in your hospitality. But something like that I could never do. I could not stay hidden forever. It is neither my way, nor part of my mission.”
Debbie speaks again, “Mission?”
“Yes kind Miss. You see, I exist, still, because God wills it so. I have in fact seen Him. He gave me my eyes, which I was born without, and said not a word. I knew, however, what he wanted of me. He wanted of me to search for those few left in the world with true faith. I cannot abandon this mission.”
“But the pain… You have been shot many times. You seem so frail as though you might collapse were I to touch you. Do you not think of yourself at all?”
“Good Sir, please understand that I cannot abandon this. I am God’s messenger. And as far as the pain,” he fingers a sizable bullet wound on his side, “I can live through that. So long as I do not abandon God or the charge he has placed on me, I shall be healed and live.”
“I understand,” Debbie whispers, locking eyes with it again. They’re both smiling to each other. He leans forward and sets the cup down again.
“I thank you deeply, but I am afraid that I must depart. My body has healed itself considerably during my stay with you, and I am sure that I am able, now, to escape my pursuers.”
Debbie takes my hand in hers and she stands up, I follow suit. Stephen makes his way out of the awkward sitting position in the chair and clops behind us up the stairs. I feel sorry, deeply sorry, for the poor creature following us up to the bedroom. He has so much good humor about him and such unflinching faith. Everything he’d said must be true. He wouldn’t be alive were he not some kind of creature endowed with God’s grace. God exists… What does that mean…
“Nelson.”
Again I’m awoken from my thoughts “Yeah..”
“I’m going to turn the light out, would you open the window for Stephen so he can be on his way.”
She clicks the light off as I nod in acknowledgement and walk over with him to the window, briefly looking out onto the streets to see if the hunters had tracked him here.
“Sir.”
“Yes,” I open the latch and let the window swing inward, a chilly breeze drifting inside.
“Thank you, and God bless you,” he cranes his neck almost backwards to look at Debbie, “and you, too, kind Miss.” He smiles
“God bless you, Stephen.” She returns his
He takes one long stride forward and leaps out the window in to the moonlight. I turn back to Debbie, she’s still smiling. In the darkness, their smiles seem so similar. Like they are sharing a secret.