Sharing with Grandma

    “I had that dream again last night,” he told his grandmother.
    “That’s nice,” she mumbled from the couch.
    He paced the living room jaggedly, one end to the other and back again. “The door creaks open and...there’s something inside...” He sniffed, rubbed his nose with the back of his hand. “I don’t know what it is. I’m terrified. I can’t see a thing.” He clenched and unclenched his hands before him.
    His grandmother’s head began to nod forward; she began to breathe shallowly, a slow series of snorts. “I am sleeping in the spare bedroom at the end of the hall...and it’s dark and the shadows slither and pool amongst the crevasses and corners like swamp water...”
    His grandmother snores, disinterested, beginning to sleep.
    “Like most nightmares, I’m completely petrified, unable to do anything other than watch the vine-tentacle-thing emerge from the dark...creeping towards me...and I can’t move...something glistens...I’m feverish...closer and closer...”
    Another snort, and his grandmother began to make a strange choking sound, full of phlegm, that Garty began to realize, only slowly, was laughter.