Under the Bed

Bella anchored the sheets over her chest with a white-knuckle grip. The walls, ceiling and floor, and all her junk she hadn’t bothered picking up, were black and shapeless as spilled ink in the darkness. All she could see was the bedsheets and her own limbs, and the tips of her toes poking out at the end of her bed, and the face that rested between her feet.

Eyes flickered like candlelight in the dark. The creature watched Bella with feline fascination, as if there was nothing more important to observe than a girl quivering in her bed.

It didn’t watch her every night. After the first time, the monster hadn’t come again for over a month. But then the monster grew bold, it became comfortable with Bella’s bedroom. Now the monster came more often than not, and those nights always began with the creature watching her from the end of her bed.

The creature was too shy to reveal itself completely. But she had seen bits and pieces of its form around the edges of her bed. She had even felt it. And though the entirety of its features remained a mystery, Bella knew the creature’s individual parts as well as her own.

She knew the creature’s hands, knew the feel of its shockingly soft touch. The creature would reach up for her on monstrous nights, when her body’s position allowed for it. In the beginning, when the creature was exceptionally small, it would grip her finger and holdfast with a strength too secure for a hand so tiny. But the creature had grown along with the frequency of visitations and now its hand could envelope hers like a catcher’s mitt.

The creature’s hold was warm but not sweaty, never sweaty. Bella hated the feel of sweaty flesh against hers. The creature didn’t even have flesh, not human skin at least. There was a comforting texture to its hands, neither smooth nor rough but somehow a mix of both, like the worn fur of a well loved stuffed toy.

The candlelight eyes shifted, one now lower than the other, and Bella knew the creature was tilting its head. She often thought how hard it must be to move your head below the weight of such massive horns.

Though invisible in the dark, she knew they sprouted above those orange eyes. She had seen them other nights. They were just little goat nubs the first time she had spotted them poking up over the corner of her mattress. The last time she had caught sight of them, the horns had grown powerful and curving like an Ibex’s. Were the creature to stand, Bella was certain those horns would tear down her ceiling in a single blow.

How the creature managed to crawl under her bed was a mystery, but Bella did not understand much about the things that happened to her. Why should the creature be any stranger?

The creature jerked, orange eyes now wide and alert, and no longer on her. The creature stared at Bella’s door. Bella’s eyes followed. The creature always knew before she did.

Deep below the thick plush carpeting of the hallway, the foundational layers of plywood squealed. No sound followed, just as no sounds had preceded the squeal. The carpeting muffled all steps, all steps but those that fell upon that single spot.

For the monster who visited in the night, the squeal was an annoyance. Something to curse and mutter about under his hot stinking breath. For Bella, a warning that set her heart racing. But for the creature, the monster that lived under the bed, the squeal did nothing but make him angry.

A whiteness burst through the darkness as the creature’s lips peeled back, baring teeth long and sharp as kitchen knives. There was no sound to its snarl, no spit or anything but teeth so bright Bella had to squint.

The doorknob turned back and forth, rattling from a clumsy grip. There was no lock. Why would Bella need a lock? Who did she have to keep out? She had answers for these questions, she just wasn’t allowed to voice them. The inability to open the door had nothing to do with the door itself, the monster was just drunk again.

Like the single step in the hallway, the hinges squealed. Bella felt the pain not just in her ears, but in her bones. Her kneecaps felt they would pop off her knees as her legs jerked into perfect straightness. Spine threatening to snap, she forced herself deep into the mattress, praying she would sink into its thickness… praying that she would drown.

Her eyes squeezed shut as the door creaked open. Light from the hallway flooded into the black room, she could sense it through her eyelids. But she did not open them, she would not look. She refused to look no matter how strongly she wished to see the light. If she looked, she would see the monster and he would gobble her up.

Bella tried not to breathe. The smell of cigarettes and sweat fought to claw its way up her nostrils, but she wouldn’t let it. She would suffocate before she gave way to his scent. Deep down she knew this was just another oath she couldn’t keep.

“Belly girl, are you awake?”

The voice was not as shaky as it once was. He was braver in his words now, braver in all things he chose to do.

He came close to Bella’s bedside. His presence was as noticeable as his stink. She didn’t need to see him to know he was there. She never did.

“Belly, be a good girl.”

Her grip tightened on her sheets. Sheets were her armor and shield, like that of the knights she used to read about. The monster gripped the sheets and with a single tug, tore her armor away.

And then, nothing.

There was supposed to be something. The thing that always happened on nights like this. But no touch swept over her skin, no whispers reached her ears. She couldn’t even smell him anymore.

Slow and cautious, Bella opened her eyes.

The door was still open. Her bedroom was illuminated, but she did not see her walls or floor or ceiling, or any of her junk she hadn’t found the time to clean up. It was all still there, of course. She just didn’t see it. Her attention was wholly possessed by the monster in her room.

Not the man who visited her. He was gone. Only the creature who dwelled under her bed remained.

Teeth and talons and limbs as thick as tree trunks, and so large he couldn’t even stand. The creature’s hulking, inky black form filled the room completely. He was crouched to allow space for his mighty horns, though it did no good. The ceiling was cracked and dented, and likely to crumble should he move.

His face was halfway between bear and wolf, or so Bella thought. She had never come face to face with such beasts, save for in her imagination. It stared at her with his candleflame eyes, kitchen-knife fangs now vanished back into its snout. She smiled.

The creature fell to all fours and crawled towards her bed. Even now he was still taller than she. Bella watched his movements with as much fascination as he always watched her.

“Where did the monster go?”

“I am still here,” he answered, voice deep and powerful, but not scary.

“Not you,” she said, nervous for the true answer. “The man.”

“I gobbled him up.”

Bella squeaked at the blunt casualty of the statement. She wasn’t angry. She wasn’t sad, either. She felt happy, though she was sure it was monstrous of her. Guilt burned under her skin.

As if reading her mind, the creature said, “Smile if you’d like. There is no shame in it.”

“Why now?” Bella’s eyes went wet. “Why not before?”

“I was small,” he answered, huffing. “Now I am grown.”

The creature curled in on himself and slipped away under her bed like a mouse through a crack in the wall. What a strange sight it was.

Sinking her head into her pillows, Bella lay in silence. Cautiously, she dangled her arm over the edge of her bed. A catchermitt sized teddy bear hand enveloped hers in its warmth and she slept well that night, pleased that the only monster in her room was the one under the bed.