Monsters

There were monsters under my bed. And no, not the same monsters that other kids had, the fuzzy kind that looked like various flavors of Kool-Aid, or the ones that grunted in the middle of the night for the sole purpose of making kids wet their beds. Nor were they the personable monsters of Monsters, Inc. who had entire lives completely absent of their scaring occupations. These were abominable beasts who ate children for breakfast and lived under my bed every second of every day and night. They were subtle until they weren’t anymore, and there were dozens of them. I lived in fear for years, and no one would believe me.

They could write, too. I would find notes from them at all hours. On my well-made bed. Taped to my clothes hanging in the closet. In my underwear drawer right next to my freshly laundered white briefs. They were obscene, these notes, with made-up language and crudely drawn smiley faces, and they accomplished their purpose. When I would show them to my dad, though, he would simply laugh and attribute them to me, and to my well-honed imagination. Then I would burst into tears and run back to my room, leaving the door wide open. I never closed it.

I imagined they had names like Bob, Terry, and Jack. I even made up little dialogues between them as they sat there bored under my bed, waiting for me to start freaking out. Believe me, if I didn’t make up those conversations I would have gone certifiably insane. Maybe I did go insane despite my mechanisms. I did develop a tic in my eye, the lid fluttering open and closed frantically like some broken garage door. My mother took me to the doctor who found nothing wrong with me. I said it was because she had never dealt with monster syndrome before.

Nights were the worst because it was dark. I tried to leave my light on but my dad would yell at me about wasting power, as if by sacrificing my safety he would win the war over the electric company. Then I got a nightlight, but that proved to be worse because of the shadows. The shadows were worse than the total absence of light. I saw them slithering out from under the bed, under the guise of their shadow selves, dark and ominous like storm clouds. And there I was shivering in bed, trying to count sheep and whatever else I could count to keep my mind to myself.

Yet they kept creeping in, always creeping in when the night came. So I became a night walker, one of the mindless masses who slept during the day and stayed up all night, pacing back and forth in morbid anticipation of defeating the monsters, but also in abject fear of being attacked regardless. Years later I would look back on those times and wonder how I survived, with my raccoon eyes and thundering heart that nearly beat itself out of my chest as night stole into my bedroom so long ago.

And some nights I can still see those monsters in shadow, crawling up my bedroom wall like apparitions. Sometimes I still wake with night sweats from a particularly intense dream, preferring to head into the bathroom to calm down instead of waking my wife up with my bloodcurdling screams. I have improved at least that much. But I still never look under the bed. Under any circumstances. Because I know they’ll be there waiting.

Sam