by Jack Broscie
Under the Bed
A short story that competed in de ‘Struggle of Fantasy’. An enigmatic thriller flavoured by fantasy and paranormal activity.
He suddenly sits up and is awake instantly. Where did that scream come from? With his eyes wide open he looks around in the dim bedroom. The curtain moves, is it the wind? His hands cling to the blankets and his nails carve through the cloth into the palm of his hands. In the corner of his eye something seems to move. His stomach cramps and in panic he looks sideways in bed. There is nothing, nobody. There, that dark shadow, what’s that? His eyes stab through the twilight. On the chair hang his trousers and shirt.
Anxious he looks aside. The light next to his bed is barely able to dispel the shadows. The alarm clock on his bedside table displays in red numbers the time: 03:13. He hasn’t slept for more than half an hour.
He stiffens when he hears a second sound and simultaneously he feels something move under the bed. In wild panic he throws the blankets off and with sweat in his hands he grabs the baseball bat and flashlight lying ready. In a split second he jumps out of bed as far as possible, bents through his knees and presses the flashlight. The bat clamped in his hand, he looks anxiously under the bed. There, shoot something yellow away? His seeking flashlight casts other shadows under the bed. Nothing, there is nothing to see.
It's been since ....
He was already in bed when he heard the front door open. Moments later, Emily came up.
"Quitter," she snapped to him contemptuously. "I’ve arranged it by myself. Without any trace disposed in the container at the supermarket. She’ll never find back that worn hug. And that's a good thing, sleeping at her age with a teddy bear, it's crazy. As if peeing in bed isn’t bad enough."
The venom with which his wife spoke, cut him through his soul. Supposedly disinterested he looked away from her, but inside he felt the anger burning.
She pushed him further. "And I said to her that I had to do it in your command."
He winced. The voice of Emily sounded increasingly hateful the last years. He didn’t agree with what she had done, but as always he was silent when he should speak. Just as he cursed as he had to remain silent. The last sound he heard before he fell asleep was the wailing of their child, his little girl, Jill. Did she already miss her teddy bear?
In the middle of the night Emily shook him awake in panic. "Stan, Stan! I hear something. There's something under the bed."
He turned away from her as he so often did lately. "Oh, now you need me," he said with anger. "Don’t always whine, Emily. Or are you a child that is afraid of the monster under the bed?”
When his head fell back on his pillow he heard her nightlight click on and her blankets were pushed back. There was some stumbling and then immediately after that a scream filled with so much terror that he fledged out of bed. "Emily, what’s wrong?" He still worried about her. "Emily?"
There was no answer. "Hey, don’t behave like an idiot," he shouted, irritated again. He looked around. Where was Emily? The bedroom door was still closed. With his heart beating, he kneeled down and looked under the bed.
That scream was the last he had heard from his wife.
The detectives interrogated him several times. What about the stories of his bad marriage with Emily that the police had heard of classmates of his daughter at school? What was true of the shouting and the hassles that Emily's father - who lived beneath them - had heard almost every night? Did he stick to his statement? That nothing could disappear without trace, or did he believe in witchcraft?
He didn’t answer them and played with the pack of cigarettes he had purchased that morning at the supermarket when he was going to report the disappearance of Emily. The whole house was ransacked and traces examined. Nothing was found.
He stayed alone in the house with Jill. Sometimes he missed his wife, he noticed to his surprise. As usual, every night at bedtime he read from 'Tales that children wishes’ for his daughter. He was proud of the leather-bound storybook - a unique very old copy - he had found by luck in a little bookshop. It was about brave knights, horrible dragons, a nice sorceress and a little princess that could make a wish come true.
Soon he had a girlfriend, Kayleigh, a colleague on which he had an eye on for some time. Less than a month after the disappearance of Emily the noisy Kayleigh stayed for the night. It was late before they fell asleep.
The next morning the bed next to him was empty. Kayleigh’s clothes were still where they were thrown last night. In panic, he picked up the clothes and put them in the dumpster at the supermarket where in former times Emily also threw things away.
Questions of colleagues he avoided. "No, I haven’t seen her. No idea, isn’t she at a girlfriend?"
The detectives heard him suspiciously, but went away empty-handed again.
His need was greater than his fear. In a random pub he picked up a showy woman, Kyana. She stayed for two days and nights. Then Jill came home from staying with her grandfather who brought her to the door and immediately left without speaking any word to him.
In the evening he read a fairytale from the storybook for Jill, checked the closure of her window and looked under her bed. He saw Jill watching him with sad reproachfully eyes when he left her room. Did she miss her mother, or did she miss something else?
Kyana was waiting for him in the bedroom and passionately he indulged his frustrations. The next morning he went to the supermarket. Apparently nobody missed Kyana.
...He gets up of the floor. There is nothing under the bed. Backwards he walks to the door. He looks at the bed while a cold shiver runs down his spine. Will it ever get used? With goose bumps on his arms he switches on the light and the shadows disappear as the four lamps of 100 watts each illuminate the room. The bed is slept on both sides, on the ground only a skirt, panties and t-shirt.
"Selina," she had said a few hours ago with sultry voice.
He sighs deeply and shudders. Tomorrow morning he has to go to the supermarket again. He switches off the light, goes to bed and puts the bat and flashlight on the nightstand beside him.
The fluffy shadow let loose from the bed spiral where it hangs below, glides over the floor and slips under the door. Purposeful, as if he knows its way, he glides through the house and goes through the unopened door of the little girl's bedroom. He is barely visible against the beige wallpaper full of shadows. From above, the shadow looks intensely to the girl tossing in her sleep. On the nightstand lies the old storybook.
She got that when I was four years old, thinks the ghost. Each day her father or mother read out about dragons, knights and the princess that could make a wish come true. And if her parents thought she was asleep, they quarrelled and I ad to comfort her.
The eyes of Jill blink and open. Tears roll down her cheeks. The ghost wipes them gently away.
"Yes," whispers Jill. "Every day they were quarrelling. And mother complained at grandpa on the phone that dad was looking at other women."
The shadow strokes the cheek of Jill and complements her. "And do you remember that time that your mother was kissing with that strange man in the hallway when she thought you were playing above?"
Jill sobs. "I could not tell dad, otherwise he would go away, said Mom. Luckily I had you to comfort me."
The ghost sees her tears and he seems to tremble with anger.
The eyes of Jill illuminate. "Mr. Bear, dear Mr. Bear. My teddy bear, my hug," she whispers against the fluffy shadow while tears are welling in her eyes again.
Footsteps sound in the corridor.
He opens the door of Emily’s bedroom. The burning twilight lamp beside the bed casts a glow on the face of his daughter. She has her eyes closed and her blanket moves quietly along with her breathing. Yet he thought he had heard her voice and even crying.
Jill looks through the slits of her eyes. She sees how her father bends and looks under the bed.
Look at him, so supposedly worried, hisses the voice in her head. The brawler. The Peeping To
m.
Yes, replied Jill. And mom let him bewitch Mr. Bear in the container at the supermarket.
Exactly, the voice hisses. Your inseparable hug, discarded, bewitched, murdered. And I was not even seven years old.
Jill sees how her father closes the door behind him. Her eyes flash with anger as she stares to the storybook with the picture of a sorceress on front. It's his own fault that his hugs also have to disappear.
Notes about the writing of 'Under the bed’
Inspiration for this story comes from: In psychology “under the bed" is a synonym for the 'embodiment 'of all kinds of vague fears and unpleasant feelings that young children have.
If you've read this story:
You’re not sure what happened with Emily (the bedroom door is closed: did she depart, or is she murdered, or is she ...). This also applies to Kayleigh, Kyana, the other hugs and Mr. Bear;
You watch under your bed every night before going to sleep;
You know one thing for sure: parents have a great influence on children.
About the Author
Jack Broscie is a Dutch Fantasy Indie writer. He is best known for the fantasy series 'Chronicles of New Earth’, ‘The cursed gold of Atlantis’.
The work of Broscie is characterized by its visual language and evocative writing style. For the eye of the reader the backdrop of the narrative unfolds. Landscapes, climatic conditions, flora and fauna, scents and colours, settlements and their inhabitants unfold before the eye of the reader. Broscie sketches the contours and the reader fills in the details effortlessly.
His main characters consist of both men and women of various ages and positions, while both men and women are equal. Broscie doesn’t write fantasy with Orcs, Elves and Trolls, but with tribes and people on a newly by himself created world. He combines emotional conditions that are contradictory. Thus, societies are described where extremely primitive transportation and advanced communication are commonplace. He regularly writes short stories and participates in competitions to improve his (writing) style.
Quotes from various jury reports:
"A start like this is simply sublime! You know how to get the reader's attention immediately and how to deliver a sense of tension.”
“The author has a pleasant, expressive writing style without fuss."
"The descriptions of the environment and the characters are very expressive."
"Nice story, well written, it's a real fairy tale."
