Monster

I hear him sometimes, walking around the house. It scares me, because I don't know where he is, or what he is doing. I wonder, lying awake in the dark, if he is coming to get me, and I get scared - I always get scared hearing the monster bumping around in the dark. He is so much bigger than me, so much stronger, and I can't fight him off.

So, I lie there, very quietly, because I don't want to make any noise that might attract his attention. And I hope that tonight, maybe just tonight, he might stay away. And I hold my breath.

My door opens and I feel him in here now, and my skin prickles. I can hear him breathing. I take my mind to somewhere else, so that I don't cry out, and make the monster mad, because it hurts more, when he's mad. And I can tell he's touching me, but I pretend that I don't know. His big hairy hands are cold, and his breath comes hard and smells of other children he has eaten before me.

I think he must of eaten hundreds of children. His face is familiar when I let myself float back to the room, but I quickly turn away, and close my eyes, so I cannot see his eyes, cold and black and angry and empty. I can sense weight upon me, from far away in my safe place, and a rhythmic movement, and some pain, way down there. But I dull it with my mind, and stay in my safe place.

His grunting breaths are hitting me in the face, and my arms ache where his rough giant hands are pressing into me. And my stomach wants to throw up, but I hold it in, because it will only make the monster madder. It seems like forever with the pounding and the weight and the pain, but it ends, and I can feel his hairy body move off of mine, and go out of my room.

I lie still, holding my breath, listening, just in case the monster comes back. I wait until I hear the door latch securely, and hear his monster steps walk away from my room, before I come back to myself. When I return, I smell of his monster sweat on my skin, and the feel of his sliminess, and my stomach churning, and I throw up on my shirt, and then use it to wipe off the slime, and then stuff it in my pillow case, where the monster won't find it. And I try to go to sleep.

But I lie there, awake, until I hear the sound of monster feet fade behind the closed door of my parents' room, and I finally breathe, because my father has gone to bed.

Email: LeAne Austin

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