As a child, we didn’t live in a good neighborhood. The houses were shambles and molding inside, the drug trade ate into every corner, on every street. Over time, my family began to fit in.
Slowly, our parents began to change. Day by day, they were growing cold and erratic. Their skin became soggy and taut, like wet bread moulded onto bones. Their eyes lost focus. They looked less humans and more like scratched up toys.
And they wouldn’t talk to us anymore.. My brother and I became practical orphans, more alone in the house than outside. I think that’s why it came for us.
The day my brother disappeared, it was freezing in the house. There was no fire, but Mama and Papa just sat in the living room, their scratched up faces in front of the empty fireplace.
That morning, I didn’t see my brother. It wasn’t unusual for him to stay away from the house til late. But when night fell, he wasn’t back.
As the house grew dark, I approached my parents. They sat still, staring at nothing. I said Mikey wasn’t here.
At first, they wouldn’t talk. Then, Mama whispered.
“Be quiet.”
“Mama, he’s not here.”
She turned to me. Her pupils were dead and floated in the whites of her eyes.
“The monsters took him. Because he wasn’t quiet”
She kept staring at me, with those zombie eyes, until finally she turned to the empty fireplace again. I stayed quiet.
That night, I saw what took him. It was waiting for me. When I went up to my room, I saw its long pale hand coming out under my bed.
I stood, in the entrance. I wouldn’t let myef believe there was a stranger in my room. I even began to think, to hope, it might be my brother, hiding there. But the flesh were too grey and black around the fingernails
“Mikey?”
Nothing.
I bent down and peeked under the bed.
Someone grinned back at me.
The horrible smile pulled lips back deep into chin and up to their ears. They had no eyes or nose, just empty sockets and a bloody slit in the pale skin.
I tried to scream but panic clogged my throat. Trying to get away from the stare, I scrambled across the floor, pushing myself to stand up. I ran into my Mama.
She was standing behind me, blocking the exit to my room.
“Why weren’t you quiet? We asked you to be quiet.”
First, I blathered and pointed, trying to get any words out. Then I just went quiet and hugged her in sheer fright.
“Th..there’s a monster under my bed.”
I pointed at the floor. The grey corpse hands were gone.
“Look. Under the bed.”
I wanted her to tell me it was gone, that it wasn’t real.
She bent down and looked under the bed. She sat there for a long time. Without getting back up, she jerked her head around and looked at me. She raised a finger to her lips.
“Shhhh. They’re listening.”
“Th..there’s really a monster?”
“We told you to be quiet. They’ll get you if you’re not quiet.”
“Don’t say that. Please. Don’t. Mama, please.”
She got up and walked past me. Before she closed the door, she looked back into the dark room, where she was leaving me.
” If they hear you, they’ll crawl out and get you. “
The door shut. I heard the lock click.
I stayed quiet. I crawled into the corner of a room and tried to stay quiet while I cried.
It was dark, but you don’t know what i was like to be a child in that room. What your eyes can see.
I could still see the hand. It was there . I knew it was waiting for me.
And it kept waiting.
It waited for me all those horrible, cold nights. It was always there, hiding in my room, after they locked me inside.
The house was falling apart, inside and out. My parents were becoming monsters, pale and thin and long fingernails.
And they looked at me in a strange way.
As the nightmare dragged on, I saw more pale hands jutting out from under the my and more little faces in the dark, all grinning out at me.
Some nights, I heard them breathing. Quickly and softly, then stopping all at once.
I knew it was trying to lure me to look again, to peek under the bed so it could grab me. I knew they were waiting for me.
I tried to stay away. I wanted to run away like I thought my brother had done. But there was nowhere to go.
Then one day I realized, as I was walking home. I felt it all at once. They were tired of waiting. This was the day. I felt it all the way in my bones. They were taking me under the bed tonight.
I stopped. I froze on my neighbour’s yard
There was only one way to go. I realized I couldn’t move. My legs wouldn’t move at all. That was when my neighbour, an old man began screaming to get off his property.
The sudden loud noises overwhelmed me. The decision was forced. I had to leave. But I couldn’t take it. I couldn’t move.
I wouldn’t go in. Not even if he forced me to.
My legs bucked and gave way. I sank to the ground in front of him.
“What..Hey now. Hey now.”
I grabbed the old man’s shoe. I begged him not to make me go back.
They would get me. And Mama and Papa wouldn’t stop it. Just like they didn’t stop my little brother. My parents didn’t care.
The old man listened. After a while, he made me get up.
He asked me if I minded staying with his sister for a night, before he sent me home
‘Its the night they crawl out. They won’t wait. When the sunsets, they’ll come and get me.”
With a grim smile, the old neighbour told me nothing would happen, as he marched me back up the street.
But when the sunset, nothing happened
When we got back to his house, I met his sister. A middle aged grandma, who gave me some oatmeal cookies to eat. She made me wash my face first though.
All the time, I waited.
After sunset, policeman came. He was friendly looking, with a red face, orange hair. He began asking me questions. Where my little brother? How long has it been since I last saw him? Did they file a police report? What did my parents say?
His face lost its friendliness as he listened. By the end of the story, he called someone on his walky-talky.
I watched with my neighbour from his fence, as the policemen rang the bell on my front door. and, after broke in. I saw them as they led my parents out of the house. They still stared with dead eyes into nothing, still quiet
“We’ll go collect your things now kid.”
As we walked through the house and the policemen began putting things in bags, he said that it was all over.
He talked about how the they were going to find my big brother soon. And we would put be in a new proper family this time.
I asked what they would do with the monsters under my bed.
This concerned the old man. He took me to one corner of the room and knelt down to my level.
Softly, he explained to me that there were no monsters. There were never any monsters. I just needed help to understand it. And one day all the monsters would disappear on their own.
But he was wrong. The monsters didn’t disappear.
They were still there, waiting for us, where they always waited. And we saw it. We both saw it.
My parents never lied. We all learned that.
When he raised the bed, we all saw them. When they pulled out all those bodies out under my bed, we all saw their big carved grins and their empty sockets.