Under The Bed

• Jessica Paterson, Grade 7
• Short Story
• 2019

I slipped into bed, not daring to make a sound otherwise he will come for me! The shadow that lurks in my room, in the closet and under my bed. “It’s a monster,” I tell my parents they say “it’s just your imagination” but I know it’s not. It has warned me about trying to tell someone. Its voice terrifies me in my dreams, I’ll dream about meadows and out of nowhere the shadow, it comes out. It shakes me and then I wake up. Not once have I seen its face, I’ve tried and almost succeeded but it’s always one step ahead. It’s like it can read my mind. I wonder what would happen if I did see it’s face? Would it kill me? Would it be someone I knew? So many questions and no answers. I crept out of bed the next night, hoped it wouldn’t know and I could finally see it’s face.
As my foot hit the ground, a cold hand grabbed it. I realised something was dripping down my leg. It was cold so I thought maybe it was water. Then a thought hit me what if it’s blood? It replied. “It is.” Its other hand grabbed my right foot and this time it was tighter than ever. It was as though it was trying to pull itself out from under the bed. Scrambling everywhere, things being pushed aside, my big book from all of kindergarten slides out and across my floor. I shut my eyes as tight as I could and wished it would go away. I heard it ask, “Why do you want me gone? Aren’t we having fun?” It knew what my reply was going to be so it dug its long fingernails into my skin, knowing it would make me scream. I screamed, no movement, no sound. Where did it go? What are you doing I thought?
As I dragged my feet down the hallway to investigate. “Don’t go any further or you will uncover the mystery you always dreamed of solving.” The mystery of why my parents disappeared. I kept pushing one foot after the other, almost there I thought, when suddenly, SLAM! I walked straight into a door. The door that leads to my parents’ room. I’ve never been in there (they were very secretive). I slightly push the door and it makes a loud creaking sound and sitting there are my parents. Bright computer screens reflect into their eyes, the chairs spin around and they get up and mummy whispered “we believe you darling, we believe you.” “We are a team, once a team, always a team!”
We worked together until the end. We found out what it’s afraid of, flowers and torches. So we have bunches of flowers and 3 torches, one for each person. We crept down the hallway and the floorboards start to creak. We quietly ease the door open and look around it’s not there. It’s not here, or here or here. It’s nowhere, it’s gone…
But for how long?