The Monster under my bed when I was a child isn’t under my bed anymore

I remember the night my brother kept me up talking about monsters. We shared a room when we were kids. I was four, and he was eight. My brother was lying in his bed and looking up at the ceiling. “There’s monsters in this world Ryan. There’s monsters in the closet, monsters under the bed, and monsters outside looking in through the windows at night.” He said I pulled the covers up over my head. “Don’t worry. Mom and dad will protect us.” I said. My brother turned to me. His eyes were beaming in the dark. “You don’t know how to kill a monster, do you?” He asked I shook my head. I didn’t know how to kill monsters. My brother smiled. “First Rule: Never ever look a boogeyman in the face. They’ll take your soul. Second Rule: Never talk to the brown man in the closet. He’s the boogeymen’s leader. Third Rule: Never go outside at night. Monsters can’t get you in the house.” He listed I asked him: “What about the monster under the bed?” He looked down at the floor, grinned and threw a shoe under the bed. There was a loud thud and the sound of scuttling. I gasped. “There, I killed the monster!” He exclaimed. I was so impressed. Not only did my brother know how to kill monsters, but he just killed the one under our bed to protect me. From that day on, I wasn’t afraid because I knew my brother was. * I’m 14 now and my brother is 18. He goes to college off campus and comes home every weekend. I don’t think he remembers the night he killed the monster under our bed all those years ago. Quite frankly, I didn’t think about it either until I heard it. I was reading a book to myself and about half way through it I stopped. I felt a strange sensation, and I didn’t know why. It was like someone had thrown a pebble into a pool and I was feeling the ripple. I stopped reading and looked up. The closet door was open. Just a crack. I knew I had closed it because I was afraid of the brown man. Maybe it had been this way all night. Maybe I just hadn’t noticed. I called out to my brother but he was asleep. I shut the closet and went back to reading. * I thought about it the next night too, but only for a second. I had closed the closet door after all. But the next night, it was open again. I called out to my brother again but he was fast asleep. I thought to myself that maybe the door just opens on its own. We have an old house, maybe it was settleing. But then I saw the window. It was open, and the curtains were blowing wildly in the wind. I knew I had shut it, I would have felt stupid opening it with the monsters out there. I remember my brother saying: “Never go outside at night. The monsters will get you.” I thought, “What if one got in?” I shook my head and laughed. I went through the motions of checking the window locks and making sure everything was normal. It was. * It was raining the next night. My brother had left to go back to college and I was alone. I was trying to fall asleep when I felt the sensation again. I sat up in bed and looked around. This time, I saw it. It was sticking its head out from under the bed. I froze, paralyzed with fear. My heart was pounding and I was sweating. I remembered my brother’s rules when I was a kid. I knew I couldn’t look it in the eyes. I turned away and ran across the room to the closet. I shut the door and heard the monster scuttle out from under the bed. It started hitting the closet. I heard its huge hands pounding against the door, I heard its teeth gnashing together in frustration and I heard its screams of rage. I was terrified. I called 911, but I knew it would take them a while to get there. So I did the only thing I could do. After all, never talk to the brown man in the closet. I would rather die than have my soul taken by the boogeyman. I waited, trembling in fear, until the police arrived. When they got here, I told them what happened and they told me there was nothing they could do. They said I had bad timing and that the monster would be gone in the morning. I waited until they left and then I left the closet. When I looked at the bed, I saw something. The sheets were bunched up at the bottom of the bed as if someone had just slept through the night. I shook my head. I didn’t care. I didn’t sleep that night, I waited until morning. And when I turned 18, I moved out. I never stayed in that house overnight again. Never again. * That was a few years ago. I started thinking about my brother and I when we were kids. I wondered if my brother remembered the night he killed the monster. I wondered if he remembered the rules he gave to me. And then it hit me. If my brother knew about the monsters all along, why did he leave me to fend for myself all those nights? Why did he leave me alone? I went back to my childhood home for the first time in years. I didn’t call my parents and tell them I was coming, I just showed up. When I walked through the door, I saw my mom and dad eating dinner. My mom looked up at me and smiled and my dad waved. I waved back. “What’s going on?” My mom asked I smiled. “No, what’s going on?” I asked My dad looked back at his food. “We’ve been thinking recently about selling the house.” He said I nodded. My parents didn’t use the home anymore. “Good idea.” I said. I walked up to my old room. I opened the door and looked around. My brother’s bed was gone. I guess he took it with him when he moved out. My bed was still there. I walked over to it and ran my hand over the sheets. I stopped when I felt it. A shoe. From all those years ago. From when my brother had thrown a shoe under the bed to kill the monster that lived there. I tugged on it gently until it slid out from under the bed. I picked it up, examining it. It was my brother’s shoe. The one he had thrown under the bed all those years ago. I looked under the bed. My brother’s dead eyes stared back at me. His teeth were crunched up in death, his face was twisted in agony. A part of his head was caved in, as if someone had thrown a shoe at it. I pulled myself back. My brother was dead. He was dead all along. I felt a cold hand grasp my ankle and I screamed as my brother pulled me under the bed.

The Monster under my bed when I was a child isn’t under my bed anymore

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