The monster under my bed needs to learn to keep her hands to herself
I had barely been asleep more than two hours when a tug on my leg woke me. Hands around my knee pulling down. Bleary eyed I looked down and wondered if that was a shadow of a person I could see. Now you have to understand there are no little people in my house. Long gone are the days of toddlers wandering in to wake me up at stupid o’clock.
I lay still. Trying to get my recently asleep brain back in gear to assess the situation. My eyes had other ideas of course and began to droop back over my eyeballs. But another insistent tug and the certainty that I had just been moved a little towards the edge of the bed woke me once more. The monster under my bed.
‘Oh no!’ I said, ‘Not in my house’
I pulled my leg back under the duvet and peered down over the edge of the divan – nothing to see, those monsters are fast.
It was about this point that I realised I was sweating so bad I needed to come out from under the duvet – which wasn’t going to happen right then.
To make matters worse a bright light suddenly shone in through the curtains and the creases appeared to move – normal right? Not if there are no car noises, or helicopter noises, or, well, any noises. But those lines were definitely moving.
Another glance at the floor and I swung my legs out of the bed and dashed across to the light switch.
First things first – check for alien spacecraft – or other more probable causes of the light. I didn’t find any, although the sky was quite intense and bright and I couldn’t see the moon.
Deciding it was probably someone’s security light coming on and going off before I turned my light on I decided on a quick trip to the bathroom (holding my phone out to look for further possible threats in the light). Then back to bed.
Only I really didn’t want to have to turn the light back off – I did it but I didn’t want to. Then I leapt across the remaining space and back into the bed, tucked deep under the now cold duvet. Eyes peering into the darkness for movement. Glancing now and then at the curtains for the light.
Before finally drifting back off to sleep.
The image of the monster under my bed is quite clear – a mixture between one of those Grudge girls and a painted American Indian I got out of a magazine once. Female for sure, but not the first time I’ve had this image of it coming over the edge of the bed.
And I’ve been surprisingly horror free recently – I haven’t been writing it or watching it, so no I didn’t finally find a film to scare me.
What to do, what to do…?
Do I have a monster under my bed? My divan – it would have to be one super flexible, bone free, monster. Or is my brain waking me up in the middle of the night to frighten me into doing something? Or perhaps I ate something I shouldn’t have – but all I can remember having was chicken and salad.
Salt? Smudging? Writing? What will banish the monster this time?
What do you suggest?
Kate xxx
Horror and Fantasy Author – Also writing as K.T. McQueen. Love Western Horror, cowboy boots, my cactus Collin, & my Demon Cat.
Moths – I hate moths, the way they flutter at your face!
