�Mommy! Daddy!� A tiny voice from somewhere upstairs desperately cried out for help.
�Oh great, not again!� Peter Carter slammed his scotch onto the counter splashing most of it across the front of his shirt. Irritated he brushed it off with his hand. �She�s only looking for attention. Tell her to lie back down and go to sleep.� His patients and nerve were slowly slipping away. Last week he had gotten the ultimatum, �Leave your wife or else.� Now the little bit of courage he managed to find was fading.
�Shut up! Can�t you hear how scared she is? Some father you are.� This was the same heartbreaking scene that had been playing itself out every night for the past two weeks. Little six-year-old Jenny was convinced her bedroom was infested with flesh eating monsters �Get the flash light!� Susan gave her husband a disgusted look over her shoulder before disappearing up the stairs.
Jenny sat in the middle of her bed, the covers pulled tightly around her. Shinny wet paths creating zigzag patterns covered her frightened cheeks. Her dark blue eyes darted back and forth from one side of the bed to the other. �Mommy it tried to get me again!�
�Shhhhh, mama�s here baby, and daddy�s getting the flash light.� Susan gently rocked her back and forth. �There�s nothing under your bed baby. You�ll see. Daddy�s bringing the light.�
Jenny was too frightened to be comforted so easily. �But there is mommy! There is something! It wants to hurt me!� She pleaded between the sobs shaking her tiny body.
Peter came in and lifted his terrified daughter from her mother�s arms, �here Jen, look there isn�t anything there.� He shined the light under the bed to show her the space he personally emptied the weekend before. �See honey nothing to be afraid of.�
�It goes away when you shine the light on it.�
�Well then I shinned a light on it so now it�s gone.�
�Thank you daddy!� Jenny relaxed. �Can I sleep with you? Please?�
As always but especially lately her father was defenseless against his daughter�s charms. �One more time. But tomorrow you�ll have to sleep in your own bed. Ok?� Frowning she agreed.
Only after reading several stories and singing all of her favorite songs did she finally give in and fall asleep. Peter snuck out of the room worried the problem with Jenny was getting out of hand. Things were definitely taking a down turn.
�I think we need to take Jenny to see someone.� He didn�t like the idea of his only daughter seeing a shrink, but at this point he didn�t see they had any other choice.
�The problem is you�re spoiling her! Make her sleep in her own bed so she can see there�s nothing to be afraid of.� Susan had used her time alone to finish off another bottle.
�There are marks on her arm.�
�What?�
�I saw them while I was laying her down.� Peter turned to pour himself a drink and hide the tears pooling in his eyes. �Suz, I think she�s hurting herself.�
�What kind of marks are they?� Susan sobered up a bit, but she wasn�t surprised her baby was being affected by all the fighting? The situation her life was turning into was beginning to even make her want to start hurting herself.
�Cuts, like from a razor blade or something.� Peter shrugged glad for the soothing effect the scotch had on his voice.
�Did you check her bed?�
�Of course I checked her bed!� Of course he hadn�t, but he couldn�t let her know he didn�t think of it.
�Alright calm down. I�ll go and check it out.�
Jenny�s room felt dark and foreboding, reminding Susan of what her loony neighbor had told her about evil spirits. Shaking her head she tried to concentrate on what she was doing and pulled the blankets back. Sure enough there were a few tiny drops of blood on the sheets near the edge, but no razor or knife. She knew her little girl must have hidden it somewhere and started to search the bed.
Peter sat in the chaos of his own thoughts. His eyes closed imagining Susan�s reactions when he told her he was leaving her for another woman. He didn�t know what kind of effect it would have on Jenny, but he convinced himself it would do her more harm if he stayed. A loud thud shaking the upstairs brought Peter back into reality. �Suz you alright?� She didn�t answer. Checking on her felt like too much of an effort. Instead he waited a few minutes. �Suz, what are you doing?� She still didn't answer. Great he thought she fell down and broke her neck. �Can you answer me?� When she didn�t he figured he had to get up.
Peter went into Jenny to make sure Susan wasn�t with her. She lay alone in the middle of his bed sound asleep. �Suz did you go down stairs?� He was positive she couldn�t have without him seeing her. �This is stupid! Where are you?� The house was quiet. He decided she must have passed out in Jenny�s room.
A glass teddy bear holding balloon lights barely lit up the puddle forming on the floor next to the bed. He didn�t need to get a closer look. He already knew what it was. �Oh my God! Suz?� Peter slowly got down onto his hands and knees. �Oh no! Gees! Suz you alright?� Her lifeless eyes staring back into his gave him the answer he didn�t want to know. Peter sat up, rubbing his face trying to erase the gruesome scene now burned into his memory forever. He looked one more time to make sure Susan�s body really was lying under the bed covered in blood. Her face was the last thing Peter ever saw.
�Hello? Hey everybody where are you?� Grace Hammer, the next-door neighbor, slowly opened the front door. She hated going into this house. The bad vibes felt like walking through mud, but she�d knocked for what she thought was more than a reasonable amount of time.
Jack, her husband, stood nervously behind her, �What are you doing?�
�I�m just checking to see if everything is alright.�
Jack usually ignored his wife�s more outlandish ideas. He only went along with them when she forced him too, and because he loved her. �You�re not thinking of just walking in are you?�
�You heard the screams.� She felt a little strange about it too, but she had to know what was going on. �Stay out here if you�re chicken.�
George, from across the street, came over saving Jack from some of the embarrassment he was sure was waiting for him on the other side of that thresh-hold. �Well you didn�t think Molly was just going to sit there watching you two trying to guess what you�re up to?� Molly and George, a retired couple, had the street�s distinction of being the center of information about anybody living on the block. Jack, looking extremely relieved for an excuse not to follow her, told Grace he would fill George in. Grace wasn�t happy her husband admitted so easily to being a coward.
Feeling a little like a burglar she walked through the down stairs, then went to check the bedrooms. An eerie and deserted feeling forced the tiny white hairs covering her arms to stand straight up. Faint whimpering coming from Jenny�s bedroom did nothing to lighten the mood. Grace knew she should probably look there first. That would be what a normal adult would do. But Grace wasn�t feeling like a normal adult. She was feeling like maybe Susan and Peter had a really big fight and the results were lying on Jenny�s bedroom floor. Being the coward she planned on becoming she checked the other rooms first. Unfortunately they were as empty as the downstairs.
Grace was relieved to see Jenny hunched over on the floor quietly crying and not the bodies of her parents. �Hey honey what�s wrong?� Her first impulse was to run to the poor little girl. A sick heavy feeling in the pit of her stomach stopped her. Slowly forcing herself to walk into the room Grace bent down to pick her up. Jenny suddenly jumped up and grabbed her almost knocking her over. �What�s going on honey?�
She pointed under her bed. �It goes away if you shine a light on it.� A flashlight loosing it�s charge lay on the floor next to where Jenny had been sitting.
�What goes away?�
�The monster.� She calmly clung to Grace�s neck.
�The monster?� Not sure what Jenny meant she took the girl downstairs to George and told him to take her in to Molly.
�What�s going on?� This time Jack didn�t hesitate to follow her inside.
�Susan and Peter are gone. Maybe you should call the police?� She covered Jack�s mouth before he could say he didn�t think they should be getting involved. �Susan and Peter would never leave Jenny home alone. Call! I�m going to get some of Jenny�s things.�
Grace�s sense of better judgment was screaming for her not to go back in there. It was telling her to turn and never stop running. It was also telling her she had no choice but to look. Swallowing her fear she walked toward what she thought might be a spot of drying blood. After considering it she decided it must be juice or something and bent down, again relived there weren�t any bodies. Laughing she got up in time to see the flashlight flicker and die. Without any warning her feet were swept out from under her. Grace frantically clawed at the floor trying to stop her self from being pulled under. Her lungs, griped in fear, only managed a pair of awkward screams as something dug its teeth deep into her ankle.
Jack slammed into the coffee table knocking it over as he shot upstairs. Ignoring Grace�s pleas for him to get out he desperately wrapped his arms under her shoulders trying to pull her free. Something that wasn�t there had already swallowed half of her. Fresh blood from Grace mixed with the old blood already covering the wooden floor making it impossible for him to get any real foothold. No matter what he tried the monster was winning. Inch by inch the pair were being pulled closer to nothingness.
Sometime during the struggle Grace stopped helping. He wasn�t sure when or why but he now held her lifeless body in his arms. With the little strength he had left Jack gave her one last pull. The two flew backwards. Grace landed on top of him forcing the air from his lungs.
Out of breath George finish flipping over the bed. He checked to make sure Grace and Jack were still breathing. Gasping he leaned against the wall. �You know you should really plug the night lights in under the bed. That�s where they like to hide.� He motioned at the air around him. �You should also always keep your house clean of negative energy. Too much of it attracts all sorts of creepy things.�