The pressure had reached its breaking point. Toby wouldn’t be able to hold on much longer. He knew he should go now before it happened again, before he had to explain to his mom what went wrong this time. The door was a mere ten feet away, though the distance looked more like he’d be crossing the Kalahari. It became painful to breathe. He needed relief sooner than later.
Toby inched to the edge. His insides cramped. Every movement was an invitation for disaster. Still, before he trekked out into the unknown, he had to make sure it would be safe to do so. His nimble digits gripped the mattress cushion and the top of his head stuck out to peer over the side of the bed.
His knockoff hightops laid on the floor surrounded by some of the toys he forgot to put away that night. The dinosaur throw rug had one of its corners flipped up. A pair of tube socks - one turned inside out - made an X over the Stegosaurus’s face. Everything seemed to be in order.
Toby gulped. He couldn’t believe he was about to do this. Slowly he lowered one leg to the floor below.
Something clacked against the wooden post of the bed.
He hauled his leg back up in a hurry and hid under the blanket. With palms pressed hard over his ears, Toby hummed a song to block out the clacking noise. Thinking enough time may have passed, Toby made a small hole to look out from underneath the blanket.
The clacking noise persisted, though this time not from under the bed. This time it came from the window.
A soft breeze blew in through the blinds, causing the pull cord to bang against the wall. Toby laughed weakly. He ventured a little further from under the blanket.
A nightlight in the corner gave off an orangey glow to the room. Enough to see by. Again Toby leaned over the side of the bed. He inspected the legs of his bed, holding his breath against what he might find.
Four inch long fingernails loomed out of the darkness below the bed. The sharp points danced against the bedpost.
Clack. Clack. Clack.
The pressure Toby felt inside, subsided on its own. A wet circle formed between the legs of his superhero pajamas, spilling onto his bedsheets. Toby was too gripped by terror to notice.
More of the slender hand extended from under the bed. The nails cut grooves into the floor as it scraped along. The sickly green skin covering the hand reminded Toby of the film that developed on top of his mom’s homemade split pea soup after it sat for too long. All over were warts with coarse black hair sticking out.
Then there was the laugh.
It started off as a soft rumbling, but soon grew to a full bodied cackling, shaking the bed in the process. Toby screamed and covered his ears. The bed jostled up and down as the creature pulled herself from her hiding spot under the bed.
Toby opened his eyes and caught the reflection of the creature in the mirrored panels of his closet. Two burning yellow eyes glared back at him. The creature smiled, displaying rows of razor sharp teeth with bloody fragments of past victims caught between them.
The creature was halfway out from under the bed when Toby screamed:
“Mom! Mom, come in here!”
Hurried footsteps pounded in the hallway. A light flipped on and poured into the room through the cracked door. Toby’s mom pushed the door fully open. She had sleep in her eyes and her hair stuck up on one side where she had been in a deep R.E.M. cycle when her son yelled, waking her.
“What is it?” she asked.
She slapped her hand on the lightswitch next to the door. The creature had retreated, or had never been there at all as far as his mom could tell with a quick assessment of the room. She noticed the wet patch Toby sat in.
“Ah, Toby.” She sighed. “Not again,” she said, stumbling into the room. She kicked the flipped up corner of the dinosaur rug, covering the scratch marks in the floor. She lifted Toby by the armpits.
“Mom, it came back again,” Toby pleaded. “I swear. It was crawling out from under the bed. I saw it, mom. I saw it.”
His mom had already started to strip the bed.
“Toby, it’s late. I don’t want to hear any excuses again.”
“It’s not an excuse,” he said. “I really saw–”
“Come on,” she said. “Get out of those wet clothes. I’m going to have to wash them in the morning.”
Toby did as he was told. He shimmied out of his wet superhero pajamas and climbed into a fresh pair from his dresser. The bed had been stripped and his mom laid down a beach towel she grabbed from the hall closet.
“This will have to do for now.” She patted the bed for Toby to come lay down.
“Mom, I’m not making it up.” Toby cast his eyes at his feet and fiddled with his hands. His mom let out a breath, lifting the hair off her forehead.
“Look, pal.” She held his hands. “I know you’re having a tough time at night, but we’ll get this figured out, ok? There’s nothing scary in this house.”
“But, mom–”
She held up a hand to stop him.
“If you have to go at night, I want you to be brave enough to get out of bed. Nothing’s going to harm you.”
She felt the comforter for wetness, and when she didn’t find any, she covered Toby with it and kissed him on the head.
“Now try and get some sleep,” she said. “You have school in the morning.”
She piled the wet pajamas and sheets in the corner to grab later. She turned off the light and pulled the door closed.
“Wait,” Toby said, sitting up. “Can you leave it open?”
His mom didn’t have the energy to fight him and assenting, she left the door halfway.
“Goodnight,” she said and disappeared into her own room down the hall.
Toby waited for his eyes to adjust before taking a final look over the edge of the bed. Nothing scary jumped out. He rolled to the middle of his bed and pulled the blanket over his head.
#
The next morning Toby didn’t show up for breakfast. He often ran behind on Monday mornings, and his mom didn’t think much of it. Her own brain was in a fog from lack of sleep the night before. She leaned against the counter, holding a cup of coffee in her hands and gazing absently at the wall.
The school bus pulled up outside.
“Toby!” she shouted down the hall. “The bus is here! You’re going to be late!”
She waited to hear the tell tale sign of his frantic footsteps running out of his room. When they didn’t, she resigned herself to the idea she would have to drive him to school instead. By finishing her cup of coffee first, she would give him a few more minutes of sleep, though he probably wouldn’t have time to eat any breakfast now. Life is always about give and take.
She took a sip of coffee and poured out the last swallow that contained bits of ground coffee beans. Rinsing the cup out, she remembered the sheets that still needed to be washed. She trudged through the single story house to Toby’s room.
She knocked on the door before entering.
“Toby? Honey?” she said. “Time to get ready for school.”
The bed was empty. The comforter tossed carelessly on the floor.
“Toby?” she called to the house.
No response.
She started to get nervous. She checked all over. The bathroom. Her room. The living room. Garage. Nothing. She went back into his bedroom.
While standing in the center of the room puzzling over where he could have gone, a warm breeze blew against the back of her legs. She turned around and looked at the window. Closed. She was about to ask where the breeze had come from when she felt it again. Like a hot breath blowing on her. It came from under the bed.
She bent down, but couldn’t see anything in the dark. She reached out, not knowing for what, maybe to feel the source of the heat, and pulled back a handful of dirt and twisted tree roots. Puzzling over her find, she turned her ear to the abyss, thinking she heard crying. It sounded like someone sobbing behind a closed door. Muffled and hard to make out clearly. She attempted to get closer to the sound.
The gap between the bed and the floor was a tight squeeze. At that level the hot air felt oppressive against her skin. She stood and dusted her hands off. She pushed the foot of the bed.
As the bed moved out of the way, it revealed a hole in the floor. Claw marks surrounded the opening, as if something had been climbing in and out.
“What in the world,” she said, her words losing emphasis toward the end. What had made that hole and how long it had been there she couldn’t answer. Maybe she should have listened to her son when he said there was a monster under his bed.
She was about to run to the phone to call the police when a child’s scream erupted from the hole. Instinctually, she fell to her knees and peered down into the hole. Outside of some firelight dancing further down a tunnel, she couldn’t see much. Directly below her, a small pool or pond bubbled. The dark water gave off noxious fumes like brimstone.
Another scream echoed through the dirt corridor.
“Tobey,” she said, worried. “I’m coming, sweetie.” She looked for a way down into the hole. “Mommy’s coming.”
Some thicker tree roots created a makeshift ladder down the five or so feet to the floor below. Once she had lowered herself down, she stood next to what she had mistaken for a pond. The source of the warm breeze.
A large cauldron hanging on a spit over hot coals sent wisps of vapor into the bedroom overhead. Heat radiated off the coarse outside of the boiling pot. She wiped sweat from her brow.
The only way to go, besides the way she had come, was down the tunnel. The low ceiling forced her to crouch as she walked. Along the sides of the tunnel, torches flickered in sconces made from twisted vines.
Mom led with her hands out to help keep her balance. As her back started to tense up from being hunched over, the tunnel gave way to a larger chamber where she would be able to stand fully erect.
The chamber split off into multiple directions, all of them via tunnels like the one she had just come out of. She had no idea of which way to go next. The sound of sobbing would have to lead her. She stood as silent as she could, even closing her eyes to pick up on the sound. She thought it was coming from the tunnel on her left.
Permeating throughout the tunnel system was a stench of mold and rot, mingling with more sensory smells like cloves and onions. It had a homey quality to it, if in fact this was someone or something’s home.
Mom pushed through the tunnel into another larger chamber. She stood up and arched her back to stretch the lower muscles.
All along the walls of this chamber were old tomes. Large volumes with broken spines and torn pages. Interspersed between the books were human skulls with melted candle wax cascading down their faces. A few still with lighted stubbs burning. In the center of the chamber sat another cauldron. This one larger, with an enormous fire burning underneath. A yard long wooden spoon rested across the lip of the cauldron. Out on the table next to the cauldron, one of the books was opened. Possibly a book of recipes or maybe spells. Mom couldn’t tell which from a brief glance. Stacked in the corner were heaps of garlic, onions, and herbs.
“What is this place?” Mom said, gazing in wonder.
Something stirred behind her. She spun around to find a wall of cages. They were built out of various sized sticks and festooned with vines to bind them all together. Inside one of the cages, a familiar face stared out.
“Toby!”
Mom ran up to the cage, reaching through the makeshift bars to cradle her son’s face.
“Toby, are you alright?” she asked.
Tears streamed down the boy’s face. His voice trembled.
“Mom, get me out of here,” he said.
“Of course, dear,” she said. She yanked on the door, unable to discern how it was locked. The cage held together better than its appearance would indicate. “Let me find something to pry open the door with.”
“Mommy,” Toby cried, reaching through the bars for her.
Mom searched the chamber for anything useful. She found a broom leaning against the wall and ran back to the cage with it.
“Get back,” she said.
She slipped the broom handle in between the bars and pulled. The cage door creaked, but it was the broom that broke first. She threw away the broken broom head and looked for something else.
Down one of the corridors a cackling laugh found its way to the chamber. Mom froze where she stood. The cackle became a roar of something inhuman.
“Mom hurry,” Toby pleaded.
She found an ancient looking hand saw buried under a pile of tools. The coping saw could have easily been from the seventeenth century, maybe even before.
Mom used the saw to cut through several of the bars. When she had removed enough of them, Toby squeezed out. Mom hugged him, then gave him a once over to make sure he was alright. He was covered in mud and snot from crying, but otherwise appeared healthy.
“Come on,” she said. “Let’s get out of here.”
Before moving, she couldn’t help but notice the other cages. Inside were rags of torn clothing and what appeared to be chicken bones. She hoped.
The cackling roar neared the chamber. Toby tugged on his mom’s hand for them to go. She spun in circles trying to recall the way back. All the tunnels were facsimiles of one another.
They heard shuffling footsteps approaching and chose the tunnel on the opposite side of the chamber.
Mom allowed Toby to go first. Being smaller, he wouldn’t be as slow as she would. Plus she wanted to keep herself between her son and whatever was behind them. Right when she crouched to follow, the creature appeared out of the further tunnel.
Crawling out on its hands and knees, the creature stood up on bony legs. In fact its whole body had the shape of malnutrition. A tattered cloak covered most of its pale green skin. A hood concealed the creature’s face. Two yellow orbs burned from out of the shadows. The creature reached up and removed the hood.
Mom couldn’t help gasping at the sheer ugliness of the creature.
It had a human face, at least at one time it might have been human. A long pointed nose protruded from between its beady yellow eyes. Scraggly gray hair dotted the scalp. The creature was hideous. The stuff of nightmares.
The creature turned its large proboscis up and sniffed wildly at the air. Somehow it hadn’t noticed Mom and Toby making their escape. Perhaps her yellow eyes were not her strongest sense. Maybe her sense of smell was, because after a few intakes of their musk, the creature turned around and stared directly at mom pushing Toby along.
“Go,” she said. “Go quickly.”
As if she needed to tell Toby that. The boy crawled at a furious pace, already halfway through the first tunnel before Mom entered after him.
The creature’s thin lips spread, giving off a clear view of its teeth with pieces of flesh stuck in between. The creature rubbed its hands together and cackled. It shuffled toward Mom.
Mom went into the tunnel headfirst, leaving her legs dangling behind her. An easy grab for the creature. Mom felt the creature’s talons grip her ankle and yank her back. For something so scrawny, the creature had incredible strength.
Toby reached the end of the first tunnel and turned around. His mom’s determined face twisted up in terror. Toby watched as she zoomed away from him.
“Mom,” he cried, throwing his arms out to her, but not close enough to do any good. She clawed at the mud walls, trying to gain purchase wherever she could.
The creature pulled mom back out of the tunnel and stood over her. Droplets of saliva hung like gooey stalactites from the creature’s jaws. One strand wobbled inches from mom’s open eye.
Mom thrashed, kicking and punching at the midsection of the creature to no avail. The creature’s hand smoothed mom’s hair back and gazed into her face.
“Mom,” Toby’s voice echoed into the chamber. The creature’s head shot up. It began to crawl over mom, seeming to leave her behind in favor of the child. The creature entered the tunnel with ease, having been accustomed to the lifestyle. Now it was mom’s turn to drag the creature out of the tunnel.
Or at least try.
The creature powered through the tunnel, spraying dirt behind into mom’s mouth. She spit the dirt out and moved to the next tunnel over.
“Toby!” she yelled into it. Luckily his voice responded.
“Mom, I’m scared,” he said.
“I know, honey. I am too.” She paused to catch her breath. “You need to run though. Go!”
“I don’t know the way.”
“Just go! The creature’s coming!”
“Mom!”
The blood curdling scream that accompanied the emission told mom the creature had made it through the tunnel. She was losing time.
Mom dug through the pile of old farm tools in the chamber. She found a small hatchet, tarnished and rusted with time. The handheld ax might have been good for chopping kindling at one time. It would have to do for now.
She dove into the tunnel, making her body as long as she could. She pulled herself along until the light from the next chamber illuminated her worst fear.
The creature had Toby in its clutches and hovered over him. It unhinged its lower jaw and emitted a harsh screech. The creature’s jaw fitted around Toby’s head, muffling any screams he could produce. It appeared the creature would try and swallow him whole.
Mom pulled herself out of the tunnel, covered in sweat and dirt. She limped up to the creature and held the hatchet over her head.
“Let go of him.” Then with gritted teeth she added, “You bitch!”
Mom lowered the hatchet into the creature’s side. The flesh burst open with a vibrant green blood. The anit-freeze colored blood showered over mom’s face and arms. She struck another blow with the hatchet, this time connecting with the hind limb. Somewhere inside the leg bones shattered.
The creature dropped Toby. His head had a thick covering of mucus-like spit. He scooped the goop from his eyes and flung the stuff onto the ground.
The creature reeled around and backhanded mom. She went flying into the chamber wall and dropped the hatchet. With the wind knocked out of her, mom struggled to get back on her feet.
Assessing its wounds, the creature screamed in protest. Its eyes flared and its jaw clicked repeatedly. It hobbled on its one good leg.
Toby scrambled to pick up the hatchet. Steeling his resolve, he bludgeoned the creature’s face until one of its eyes exploded with pus. Toby stepped back from the flailing creature. With one hand covering the busted eye, the creature’s other arm reached out for the boy. Mom got to him first and pushed him in the direction of the nearest tunnel.
They crawled in tandem, putting some distance between them and the creature’s agonized cries. They emptied out into the next chamber.
“Which way?” Toby asked. He panted with exhaustion.
“I don’t know,” mom said, spinning to face each tunnel in turn. “Damn-it, they all look the same!”
From the tunnel they heard the creature’s shuffling limbs. They had to make a decision. Picking at random, mom said:
“This one.”
They made it through the tunnel quicker now having practice at the hunched waddling required to get through the excavated passage. At the end they came to the smaller cauldron with its wisps of vapors. Mom let out a sigh.
“I’ll help you up,” she said.
She held out her hand for Toby. He shook his head, apprehensive to go through the hole.
“Toby, come on!”
Again he shook his head.
“What’s the matter? Let’s go.”
“That’s not my room,” he said.
“What?” Mom looked up through the hole at the underside of a bed. She remembered she had moved Toby’s bed out of the way to get into the hole underneath. Her brows knit in consternation.
“This thing has access to houses all over the neighborhood?” She shook her head, not wanting to believe it.
If this led to someone else’s house, where was the tunnel leading to Toby’s room? And should they risk trying to find it? That creature could be waiting for them at the end of the tunnel, hoping they’d come back that way. The heat made it hard to think.
“Mom,” Toby said. “I’m scared.” She kneeled and held him by the shoulders, rubbing away the tears streaking through the accumulation of goop on his face.
“I am too,” she said.
“You are?”
“Absolutely, but we’re going to get out of here. We just have to find the right–”
A snarling from the tunnel prevented her from finishing. The creature had found them and was making its way toward them.
“On second thought,” she said, “this will have to do.”
She lifted Toby through the hole, into the dark room above.
“Get that bed out of the way,” she instructed him. “I won’t be able to fit.”
“I can’t see anything,” Toby said.
“Here.” Mom grabbed one of the torches from the sconce at the end of the tunnel. Before she could turn around to illuminate the room for her son, the torch's light flashed across the yellow eyes of the creature. The thing swiped at mom. The sharp talons of the creature ripped through the front of mom’s blouse. Mom jumped back and swung the torch in the creature’s face, making it snarl and attempt to bat the flames away. Mom smiled with satisfaction.
The creature was afraid of fire.
Instead of retreating, she went on the offensive, poking the creature with the torch. The creature refused to back away, but it also didn’t come any closer.
“You move that bed yet?” she called over her shoulder. Toby’s voice came out of the abyss.
“There’s a girl sleeping in the bed,” he said.
“Well,” mom said between swings of the torch, “wake her up already.”
The creature lunged while mom looked over her shoulder and successfully knocked the torch away. Mom gulped, knowing she was in trouble now.
As above, so below. Two struggles ragged on. One between mom and the creature, each locked in a feat of strength with one another. The other between Toby and the startled girl in her bed.
The girl yelled for her parents as Toby worked hard to move the bed out of the way. Each shove he gave it, the bed moved a fraction of an inch. He wasn’t strong enough and the girl was just heavy enough to create a standoff.
“Would you help me?” Toby pleaded to the girl.
The girl merely replied with, “Mom! Dad!”
The creature had gotten on top of Toby’s mom and held her in a choke hold. A nasty sneer parted the creature’s lips. It leaned down and bellowed a screech like nails on a chalkboard. Spittal flew into mom’s face. The creature’s horrid breath curled around mom’s nostrils.
Up above, the little girl’s parents burst onto the scene, witnessing a strange boy pushing their daughter's bed aside. Toby had managed now to move it enough that the parents caught a glimpse of the creature through the hole in the floor. They both shrieked and ran to their daughter, lifting her out of bed, subsequently making Toby’s task easier.
Because of the creature’s choke hold, mom’s vision blurred in her right eye. She found it hard to focus with her diminishing supply of oxygen. Her hands gave up on punching the creature’s torso and fell to her sides, reaching out for anything that could be of use.
Toby moved the bed clear of the hole and peered down inside. His mom’s flailing hands probed around her. Her hand was inches away from the torch on the ground. Toby cupped his hands around his mouth and yelled:
“The torch! A couple inches to your left!”
Mom put all her remaining strength into extending her hand out to grab the torch. With it secured in her grasp, she swung the flames into the creature’s face. The creature let go of mom’s neck in order to defend itself. The creature backed away, shunning the heat of the fire.
Gaining her feet, mom swung the torch in a semi-circle of protection. The creature, though fearful, didn’t back up as before. Mom took the opportunity to leave her mark. She jabbed the torch into the creature’s chest. The creature screamed in pain but didn’t move. In fact it leaned into the torch. The creature’s grimace turned into a malicious grin, as if it actually enjoyed the pain it felt.
“Uh-oh,” mom said. She dropped the torch and sprinted for an exit.
The little girl’s father handed her off to the mother and told them to flee the room. He himself went to help pull Toby’s mom out of the hole.
Mom leaped and caught hold of the father’s hands. He had to steady himself from falling into the hole after her. The dead weight was more than he could lift.
“I can’t pull you up,” the father said through gritted teeth. “I need more leverage.”
Mom thrashed her feet in the air thinking it would give her momentum to get up, but really did the opposite, making it harder for the father to hold on. Mom’s feet found something solid beneath them. The lip of the bubbling cauldron.
It was just what the father needed to renew his grip on mom’s hands.
“On the count of three,” the father said. “I’ll pull, you push off.”
“Ok,” Mom said. She glanced back at the approaching creature. She quickly skipped to, “three!”
Mom launched off the side of the cauldron, tipping it over in the process. The father pulled her toward himself and Mom flew out of the hole.
The three of them turned around to witness the creature being doused with the boiling liquid. All over its skin, the creature broke out in bright reddish-white boils. The floor rumbled with its painstreaked cries.
With the cauldron off the flames the wisps of vapor disappeared. Along with something they didn’t expect to happen. The hole began to disappear. The floor filled back in as a diminishing circle.
The creature stuck one hand out to grab hold of them and yank them back down, but the hole closed up faster than it expected. The floor filled in completely, leaving behind the severed hand of the creature.
When it appeared they were safe from the creature breaking through the floor, Mom pulled Toby to her.
“I’m so glad you’re alright,” she said. “You were so brave.” She kissed the top of his head.
“I was, wasn't I?” Toby asked. A smile crept across his lips. “Thanks for saving me.” They hugged again.
“What was that?” the father asked, staring down at the lifeless hand.
“I don’t know, but I think we should alert anyone in the neighborhood with kids,” Mom said.
They all got to their feet.
“Sorry to drop in on you like this,” she said with a wry smile.
“That’s ok,” the father said. He couldn’t take his eyes off the gruesome hand sitting in a pool of anit-freeze blood. “My little girl has been home sick this whole week.” He shrugged and added, “she hasn’t been sleeping well.”
Mom looked at her son and ruffled his hair.
“I think everyone will be sleeping better after this,” she said. “We’ll see ourselves out.”
“Yeah,” the father said. “Sure.”
As they left the girl’s room, the father poked the hand with the tip of his slipper. He jumped back, expecting it to move again.
#
After arriving home and checking the room for any signs of the creature, Mom and Toby knocked over the cauldron under Toby’s floor. The hole closed up just like it had at their neighbor’s house.
Word spread quickly about the creature’s whereabouts and how to defend against it. Before going to sleep that night, parents all over the neighborhood checked under beds for holes or creatures with yellow burning eyes. A collective sigh was released when nothing proved to be found.
From that night on Toby didn’t have any trouble sleeping. And he never wet the bed again.
Yikes! Bit of a misnomer. Definitely NOT easy. I must say, I kind of expected Mom to wake up from a bad dream.
This hits too close to home 🏡 😉