Free The Strange Quilter by Carl Quiltman Page B

crazy.”
    “It's the right thing to do. We'll go and check out the situation.”
    We walked outside into the chilly night and I locked the front door. The air bit our lungs. Even in this Southern California suburban bedroom community, it gets cold. But it doesn't get this cold. Not in all my years of living here do I remember it feeling this cold ever. The lawn was frozen. Billows of foggy condensation left our nostrils as we walked to the garage. Ken bent down and opened the garage door. We never bothered to install an automatic garage door opener. It just wasn't that hard to open it manually. Until now. Ken wasn't wearing gloves, and I could tell he had difficulty moving his frozen fingers.
    The night began to have a strange odor to it, the smell of burning electrical circuits wafted into our frozen olfactory receptors. This odor caused us to look all around for signs of a fire. We looked at our house, at our neighbor's house - we looked all about - but saw nothing. This strange smell signaled a sense of approaching danger - a warning - that continued to intensify as we seated ourselves in our old Honda Civic.
    I chose to drive since I knew where she lived, rather than constantly spouting out directions to Ken. It was a very still hour of the night. Not many cars were on the road. Most people were tucked warmly away in bed, resting up for the coming workday.
    This night felt inexplicably strange to me. I drove through the suburban streets to the boulevard, questioning in my mind if this was the right thing to do. And what exactly were we going to do? Knock on the door in the dead of night and scare Nell to death – give her a heart attack instead of helping her?
    What would we find at Nell's home? Would we discover who or what a quilter, with or without hands, was all about? I would assume most quilters owned a pair of hands... and most quilters were not referred to as an 'it'.

 
    Chapter 2: Nell's House
     
    It was after midnight. It seemed the only drivers on the road, other than us, were police officers or drunks. I had to steer clear of more than a few drunk drivers that found it difficult to stay in their own lane.
    The car's heater was turned up all the way. The heat felt wonderful, but underneath it all, that strange smell of burning electronics tinted the warm air. It seemed to be everywhere we drove. And along with that smell came a sense of danger, an angst that entered us and flowed in our veins.
    “We'll play it by ear. We won't decide what to do until we get there and check it out,” Ken said. I imagine he was beginning to feel nervous about disturbing someone at this late hour. Before this night was over, we might be the ones that ended up inside a jail cell. We do look suspicious. Anyone wandering around at this hour of the night looked suspicious What possible reason was there for anyone to roam the streets after midnight on a cold night like this? Was it to rescue a friend from a gender neutral quilter - a quilter with or without hands?
    “Definitely. We won't even leave the car until we're absolutely certain Nell's in trouble.” If I remember right, we should be getting close to her house. I haven't been to Nell's house often enough to know the way by heart. I normally only see her at the shop on friendship group night, so I have to think hard which streets to turn down. For some reason, everything looks different tonight. It wasn't just the darkness that made everything look strange to me. I've been to Nell's house at night before. It's something else that has settled over the town. A feeling. A strangeness. An aura of danger, as if all the inanimate objects would suddenly come to life, filled with anger, ready to attack any human being they might come across.
    It isn't rational to be sacred, but I am. But why am I scared? Nothing I've seen tonight has threatened me. “How are you feeling?” I asked Ken. I turned to give him a quick glance, and saw only the back of his gray haired head, as he