“Is there someone under the bed?”606Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡpYAOvMBrOe
I was so sure someone was about to answer that my ears were already ringing with their words. But there wasn’t any606Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ7gkCwgssei
answer. Braver now.
“Is there someone under the bed or just a stupid mouse?”
Nothing.
I was feeling more confident but not totally since if I was a killer or a monster or whatever I probably wouldn’t answer “Yeah, it’s me, sorry”. I’d say nothing and then grab and laugh and drag and bite until there were two of us under the bed together.
I ran through my next move in my head a dozen times before I did it. The plan:
One minute, I was laying pretend asleep, acting as if the no-reply to my bed question had calmed me down. The next, I threw back the bedclothes and vaulted toward the door and the light switch and instantly out of reach of anything under my bed.
Except:
One minute, I was laying pretend asleep, acting as if the no-reply to my bed question had calmed me down. The next, I got mixed up and jumped before I threw back the bedclothes so I got tangled in them and landed on the floor right next to the bed with the sheets wrapped around my legs. It felt like ten hours of struggling and pulling and waiting to be dragged under the bed before I broke free and jumped up and slammed into the wall and slapped at the light switch.
Phew. An empty, brightly-lit room.
Phew? Had I looked under the bed? Hold your phews, folks.
Except the bedclothes I’d pulled with me had made a curtain around the bed so I couldn’t see under there and so I’d have to get close and pull them up or back and then whoever I found staring back into my eyes would eat me or kill me or do whatever they wanted. Cool.
At least my door was closed. I had only imagined it being open a crack.
Closed all the time or only closed after I slammed into it while getting to the light switch? Keep holding on those phews, people.
My counsellor said:
“Don’t forget, you’re a good kid and your parents are good people. Bad things happen to good people but you’ll get through this because you’re also a tough kid.”
The Milkman said:
“Don’t cry over spilt blood. There’s plenty more where that came from.”
And the lips of the lady possessed by the witch-ghost said:
“If you’re a good little boy I’ll start with your eyes so you won’t have to see.”
And I said:
“Holy shit, quit it!”
Then I marched to the bed, threw back the sheets and saw there was nobody under the bed. Ha ha ha.
I actually said:
“Ha ha ha”.
I fixed my sheets and thought stupid me, stupid movies, stupid wine.
My room was safe but I needed the bathroom and I wanted my phone. ‘Ha ha ha”, I said again but it felt like one of Dad’s winks this time and I didn’t believe it.
But I made it downstairs to the TV room, past lots of dark corners and hard to find light switches and got my phone. I turned all the lights off again as I went back through the house because Ma would be home soon and I wanted the house to be in darkness.
I would be in my room. A brave, sleeping (innocent) adult in my unlit (well looked after) kingdom. Ma would be pleased and would let me stay home unsupervised and unbabysittered some other evening, maybe even with a friend over, because I had:
SHOWN THAT I COULD BE TRUSTED.
Nothing had reached through the stair rail to grab my ankles on the way down but I still made sure to keep myself as close to the wall side as I could when I ran back upstairs to the bathroom. I locked the door and looked at my phone.
11:38PM
I’d only been in bed for half an hour, had only needed that much time to work myself up into hysterics. What a baby.
I wanted to get out of the bathroom quickly but my belly had other ideas and I was trapped on the toilet. Ma said forcing gives you haemorrhoids but I forced anyway because I needed to launch this missile and get to bed before she got back.
Click.Tick. Squeak.
The door of the bathroom closet opened. I watched it happen.
But I had watched it happen lots of times. We had a big bathroom closet, big enough even to fit Dad if we were playing hide and seek. It had a water heater in one corner and an old latch on the door that was always falling open.
Ma said:
“That’s another thing for the To Be Fixed List” and
Dad said:
“I know, I know…” and
Ma said:
“You know, you know, but nothing gets fixed” and
I said:
“Can I go outside?”
I guessed now that Dad was gone I had better learn how to fix the latch. But not tonight.
Squeak.
The door opened another little bit and I jumped (while still sitting on the toilet) but I knew I was imagining the shadow of a hand pushing it open. I wasn’t going to play along with my chicken-liver this time. No hesitation. Not much anyway.
“Is there someone in the closet?”
Nothing. The door stopped moving.
“Is there someone in the closet? Any terrorist scum? I warn you, I’ve got a missile locked and loaded and I’ll happily point it at you.”
Nothing from the closet and I imagined having to clean my turd-missile out of the closet and I laughed a little bit.
I achieved lift-off or launch or whatever and wiped and flushed and sprayed some air-freshener. I washed my hands and almost left without checking the closet but then I remembered so I just casually opened the door all the way and leapt back at the same time (just in case).
Something was behind me but it was just the shower curtain and someone was in the closet but it was just a couple of big towels draped over the water heater. I elbowed the shower curtain to show it who was boss.
Then I stepped inside the closet to give the towels a talking to but, before I could attack, the closet door slammed shut behind me.
I said:
“Oh, shitfuck”.
And then it opened again and shut again and I knew it was just the stupid closet door being stupid.
In my head, Ma said:
“…Scary movies by yourself in this big old house aren’t a good idea. Too many creaks and drafts and what not, even606Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡifb8GtRAqa
with everything shut up.”
And in the bathroom, outside the closet door, a mean, teasing voice that only sounded pretend-scared and pretend-asking said:
“Is there someone in the closet?”
My counsellor said:
“Imagination is great and fantasy is fun but treat them like the sea and reality like dry land. Always keep an eye on the shore so you don’t drift too far.”
I don’t like water or boats or swimming because I learned how to swim from Ma and Dad and they are both terrible swimmers. 606Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡIjDBkjIIyo
But I knew what he meant. Don’t forget what’s real and what’s made-up. Ma and Dad only talking in arguments was real, them getting back together and all of us taking swim classes together was made-up. Me being almost twelve and only the fifth fastest runner in my class was real and me being a badass rebel strongman was made-up…for now anyway.
I said, in my head:
“Swim to shore, you’re drifting too far. Don’t want to drown now, do we?”
I kicked open the closet door and came out with fists raised.
Something launched itself at me from the window but it was only the net curtain that was being blown in by the same wind that had probably been messing with the closet door.
The little window in the bathroom was too small for anybody to get through and, especially since it wasn’t on the ground floor, Ma usually left it open a crack to keep the place from smelling. Still, I knew that night, if she had remembered, and hadn’t been so busy checking the front and back door locks like fifteen times, she probably would have locked this one as well. I locked it now and606Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡMN6osgNKYF
cursed the net curtain and the wind for making scratchy, whispering noises that sounded like a mean voice to a kid inside a bathroom closet.
Bathroom light out. Back up the stairs. Back into bed. All lights out. Phone in hand; giver of light and time and police if I needed them. Time:
11.51PM
Ma should be home any minute but I was ready. I was in bed. Home safe. Ha ha ha.
My eyes started to close.
From under my bed, a scratchy, whispering sound that couldn’t have been net curtain. A voice, meaner now than in the bathroom; mocking, teasing:
“Is there someone in the bed?”
I tried to use my phone to call or make a light or do something but I always forgot to charge it because I didn’t really like to use it anyway, not in front of Ma, and when I pressed the button to make the screen light up it only did it for a second before it went black.
I imagined drowning in a black ocean, far away from the shore, pulled down by white hands and bony claws.
I said:
“MAAAAAAAAAAAA!!! DAAAAAAAAAAAAAAD!!!”
Under my bed, someone said:
“Ha ha ha.”606Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡR3qCEXWzhO
END606Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡer91YNBNz2
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