Bulge (short story)

Chester stood in his living room, staring at the grotesque (and somehow organic) bulge under the carpet hanging in the hallway leading from the living room to the kitchen. The carpet itself was nondescript- dark pine green, with emerald stripes entwining over its surface. Nondescript as a wall decoration, or a carpet. As a curtain covering some sort of mysterious thing, it held just the right amount of...descriptness.

"Mom's not gonna like this..." Chester muttered, wondering exactly how she would deal with it. He didn't know what was under the carpet, but he had confidence that when he returned from school it would be dealt with. After all, it was a bulge, and mom would never allow a bulge into her house. At least, not for very long.

The bulge moved. Shifted. Chester was sure of it, and started to get worried. "Mom?" he called into the kitchen, where he suspected his mother was making his lunch. "I think you should use the... the back hallway."

"Why? Chester Densmore, if you made another mess in that hallway..."

Uh-oh. She was coming this way. Why didn't parents ever listen? "I didn't do anything wrong mom," he called, "but... but..." His young mind scrambled for an excuse, but vivid and disgusting pictures of the mysterious thing under the carpet kept interfering. And then Chester's mom was there. And then she was gone.

He blinked. She had stepped around the corner into the hallway and vanished!

Chester's feet took two involuntary steps forward before he remembered the bulge and looked to his right.

The carpet was completely stuck to the wall on all four sides like a fabric suction cup, and the center was writhing and squirming. The outline of a hand - his mother's, Chester was sure of it - pressed into the carpet from the wall side, pushing frantically for escape. And didn't that lump in the middle look like a nose? The shape below it a mouth, perhaps screaming, perhaps gasping for air as some unknown creature devoured it in the darkness from the legs up, no explanation, no rationale, just pain and darkness and confusion?

The mouth-shape moved up and down in jerky spasms, screaming in silence. The one visible hand-shape clawed at the carpet. The hand stopped moving.

A trickle of blood oozed out from the corner and dripped down the wall.

"Mom?" Chester's voice cracked. "Are you all right?" His feet shuffled forward, one step, two...