Monsters Under the Bed

No one knows why they attacked. Maybe they had planned this from the start. The experts say they’ve been around as long as we have. You know those unsolved kidnappings? They were the culprit, and we never knew to look for them.

They were figments of our imagination, just a bad dream. That’s what my parents said. Then my brother Matthew went missing. We tried going to the police. They wouldn’t listen. Who would? Monsters under the bed? Those were silly childhood fears. Everyone knew they weren’t real.

Except they were. About a month after Matthew was taken, the disappearances became more frequent, with dozens of people going to the police every day. Some people thought there was a serial killer on the loose, but there were those who knew. Like me, they had seen the creatures.

It’s hard to say if they look more like humans or bats. Their bodies look stretched out, like if you took someone tall and skinny and stretched them to the point you could see their veins and muscles and light that passed through their skin provided as much light as a full moon on a cloudless night, but they have the head of a bat, and sinuous wings attached at their hips and hands. I saw one the night Matthew was taken nine years ago. He would have been starting high school now if the world were still normal. I’ve often wondered why they didn’t take both of us. I’m only two years older than him.

The monsters always attack at night and usually drag their victims under the bed or into the closet, so people have taken to calling them boogeymen. No one knows how they get in and out of houses without any trace and it’s unclear how they’ve stayed hidden for so long. All we know is that they’re done hiding.

It’s been five years now since they started hunting out in the open. They’re faster, stronger, and more durable. Bullets, knives, don’t even phase them. Our only advantage is the sun. Once it sets, no one is safe.

After the monsters decimated the human population, they started abducting people that were past the age of their usual prey. These were usually kept alive for a few years then killed and discarded with the flesh stripped. Only the occasional necklace or watch marked them as someone you used to know.

Most of the survivors travel alone. My dad and I worked together to survive. We helped others where we could. Maybe that was our mistake.

The sunlight was waning when we came across her. A heavily pregnant woman was going into labor right there in the open for all the boogeymen to find. I knew there was an underground bunker just outside the ghost town we were scavenging. Could we make it? Thirty minutes to sundown. If it were just us we could run there in ten. Carrying a pregnant lady giving birth? We were athletic; you had to be to survive. But this would be a challenge.

“Grab her legs.”

I looked at my dad. Was he sure? He gave me a stern look. I guess we were doing this. I grabbed her legs as he looped her arms with his and hoisted her onto his back so he could run. It felt like we travelled at a snail’s pace. The sun was steadily sinking. Twenty minutes in, I saw a little head starting to pop out, and we were almost halfway to the bunker. Ten minutes left. If we picked up the pace we might make it, but the extra weight was taking a toll on both of us.

“Let’s just leave her! We can still make it if it’s just the two of us.”

“Emily!” His sharp tone startled me. “We do not abandon those in need.”

“Yes, papa.” The way he said it made me feel ashamed of myself. Still, it was clear I had a point, and he quickened our pace.

We were five yards from the bunker when darkness fell. The head of the newborn was half visible now. I could hear the boogeymen surrounding us. We were as good as dead. Still, we ran, sprinted toward the bunker, even as the monsters closed in. Two yards. Crap! A clawed hand closed on my upper arm. Another pulled the newborn out of the woman as she wailed in pain and despair.

“Em!” Papa laid the woman on the ground and drew his machete from the scabbard on his belt, but too late. Before it was fully unsheathed, a third monster slashed his throat and he fell, drowning in his own blood.

“Papa! No!” I tried to run to him, to stop the bleeding, but the monsters were dragging me away. One jabbed my arm with its claws and my eyes drifted shut. I guess this was how they stole people. They made them sleep so they couldn’t call for help.

When I came to, my clothes were gone and I was in a crude pen surrounded with barbed wire, along with several hundred others around my age. Boys and girls, all naked. Some looked as confused as I was. Others actually seemed happy to be there.

“What is this place?” I asked.

“Farm! Good, yes? Make children for Great Ones eat!” said one of the smiling girls.

I backed away from her and proceeded to bump into someone else. I was surprised by the skin contact, as I wasn’t used to being so exposed. “Excuse me!” I said, blushing furiously.

He turned around and gave a sad smile. “No worries. In this place? You’ll experience a lot more skin contact than that.”

“Why?”

“That girl told you, right? This is a farm. The boogeymen farm humans to eat.”

“Why’s her English so bad?”

He barely spared me a glance as he answered. “The Smilers were raised here. By those things. They’re taught to worship them. It’s sick.”

Not long after, a group of boogeymen took some of the others. Only the boys returned. When I asked my new acquaintance why, he told me the “carriers” were monitored to ensure food wasn’t lost.

Soon it was my turn to become a “carrier”. Several Smilers were also taken. I felt sick. Was this how livestock felt?

We were taken to a dilapidated shack with rusted cots. There weren’t even privacy curtains. The monsters chose our pairings for optimal breeding. I fought my partner so they brought a new boy, then another. They quickly grew tired of my resistance and tied me down. The next boy they brought was the one from my first day here.

“Don’t fight them,” he whispered. “It’s worse for us. You get tied down if you resist, but they’d kill us.”

“Isn’t that a mercy?”

“No. They eat us while we’re alive. So please…”

I swallowed my fear and nodded. It was quick. If we took too long we were given an electric shock.

I soon learned that those of us that were stolen were tied to cots during pregnancy so we couldn’t run, while the Smilers roamed free. They saw it as the highest honor that they could bear food for their masters. Tubes were shoved down our throats for feeding. The Smilers eagerly opened their mouths for this, overjoyed the infants they carried would be more nutritious for those monsters. When they gave birth, their wish was for their children to satisfy the monsters stomachs. The sane among us apologized profusely to the children we hadn’t wanted to carry. They would become Smilers, desperate to please their overlords.

When I was returned to the farm, I broke down. The father of my child, whose name I’d learned was Mason, tried to comfort me. Over the next six weeks, we grew closer. I learned that he would only breed one more time before he was eaten. The monsters apparently kept a genealogy record to improve quality. Girls completed five pregnancies and guys fathered ten children before being eaten.

When I was taken away to be a carrier again, I was relieved to find they had paired me with Mason again. I didn’t dare resist. He was my only friend here. I couldn’t lose him. I later remembered that would have been his final breeding, so it was a shock to find him alive and well when I returned. Either the two of us together produced delicious offspring, or the boogeymen decided I wouldn’t resist if they paired me with him.

After my second carrying, Mason gave me a locket. It was beautifully filigreed and shaped like a heart. He had kept it hidden in his mouth since he was brought here. We’d grown fond of each other, so much that we didn’t want to live if the other was killed. We decided we had to escape.

While the slavedrivers slept, we made and discarded plans until we found one we thought would work. We would be forced to breed again soon. There was no barbed wire in the “carry place.” I gave Mason directions from the breeding shack, then we waited to breed again. Mason would come during the day to untie me and we would escape together.

We bred, and this time my stomach grew heavy with triplets. Months passed and I began to worry. I was entering the third trimester, and still he hadn’t come. The Smilers who were carrying all told me I was lucky that I would provide the Great Ones with so much food, that this would make me a favorite for carrying and I would be allowed to carry until my body broke to give them more eat-people.

Ten weeks before my due date, Mason finally came for me. He told me the boogeymen were more watchful this time because I would provide so much food. He untied my bonds, and we made our way toward the boarded-up emergency exit, the only door that led to freedom. Mason broke the glass for the fire axe and started chopping the boards away so we could escape. The noise woke the boogeymen, but if we could just make it outside we would be beyond their reach.

Each strike of the axe seemed to bring more of them. They came barreling down the long hallway. Captivity and the futility of running had made me forget about their inhuman speed. They were almost to us in a matter of seconds. There wasn’t time to fully break through the barricade. Mason grabbed my arms. I thought he was going to give me one last kiss since this was surely the end for us.

Instead, he told me to jump. I didn’t question him. I jumped as he pulled me close and propelled us through the compromised wood, protecting my head with one arm and my rounded belly with the other. I felt the claws of the monsters graze my ankle before they screeched in pain from the afternoon sun.

Sunlight! We were saved! The sweltering heat and browning grass indicated that it was summer. We had hours until dark! Mason hissed in pain. He had sheltered me from the impact. Was he alright?

“Mason, we did it! We’re safe!” My gaze drifted to his leg. The claws had missed me but had punctured his calf. The toxins would render him comatose for days. “No no no! Stay with me. Mason! Mason, we’re free!”

“I’m glad… you’re okay,” he sleepily mumbled.

“Don’t sleep, okay? You have to fight it! We’ll find a bunker and then you can sleep all you want. Stay with me!”

“Take care… of our babies.” His eyes drifted shut. I searched for something to carry him, settling on some rope and a skateboard missing its back wheels. It would have to do. I fastened the rope to the skateboard and flipped him onto it, pulling him behind me. As sunset painted the sky, I found it. We had made it to a bunker. We were saved.