A bedtime story with a difference…

Monster by P.K. Graves

Amy’s crying and Marie’s yelling got louder as they came up the stairs. Had he been alive, Teddy would have known what was coming from the sounds and moved out of the way. As it was, Amy’s seven-year-old body crashed into him without warning.

"Now get into bed!" Marie’s yell shattered the air and bounced off the walls. The force behind it loosened her false teeth. She clenched her jaws to shift them back into place.

Teddy remained unmoved, slumped down over one leg and resting on his nose. His black button eyes revealed no understanding of the emotional churning around him. Sniffing and swallowing, Amy pushed against him to get up, grinding his nose into the dusty wood floor.

"Stop that crying, or I’ll give you something to cry about!" Marie grabbed the back of the child’s dress and dropped her onto the bed. Amy yelped, then cut it off, waiting, but the blow she expected didn’t fall.

Marie’s hands were over-strong as she undressed the child. Her sole interest was the swift removal of the dress. Marie had a life of her own to live, a life forced to wait while she cared for this little brat . . .

With equal speed she jerked the white nightie down over the little girl’s blonde head. The nightie was on backwards; Marie ignored it. Familiar with her mother’s impatience, Amy sneaked her arms through the armholes, keeping her actions small to avoid drawing more of the woman’s attention.

"Get into bed, and I’ll tell you a story."

Amy gave Marie a startled look. The word ‘story’ sank into her seven-year-old mind, uncluttered by facts and numbers and teaching, upon whose fresh cells was still written the memory of what it was like to be born. The word sank into her mind, past her mind, past the physical memory into another memory, a memory of before she’d been born.

Amy remembered things she didn’t know: places, names, the sounds of different words, of words in different languages, some of which would be hard to speak with lips and teeth and tongues. She remembered stories, too: wonderful stories of things that weren’t on this world, things that could be, and do, using only their thoughts. And she remembered how to imagine.

All that remembering had made her slow to obey, and Marie pushed her into bed. Amy’s head bounced off the headboard, but her mother pretended not to notice.

Amy shoved her feet under the covers and pulled them up to her chin. Marie leaned back against the bedpost at the foot of the bed and let her blurring eyes half-close as she tried to think of a story.

Watching her, Amy saw that the alcohol was beginning to take effect. The schoolteachers told her that drinking alcohol was bad, but they were wrong. When Marie drank, Amy was free to do anything she wanted. Marie opened her eyes; Amy snapped hers shut.

"Once upon a time . . . "

Amy’s eyelids jerked open. "No, mommy, a good story. Tell me a good story, about monsters."

Marie’s eyes closed halfway again, but not in an alcoholic stupor. The malice glinting out at Amy from beneath the narrowed lids stiffened the little girl. She pulled the blankets up, covering all of her face except her eyes.

"Little bitch," Marie hissed. Amy made her eyes look at Marie’s face. Bad things happened when she looked away.

The whiskey in Marie’s blood dulled her temper, and she forgot to stare at the child. Glowing with all the hope and lust that the rest of her smooth features lacked, Amy’s eyes remained on the puffy face above her. In her intensity her pale blue irises darkened to midnight. The whites became ivory. Their glow hardened over the corneas and formed a glassy sheen. Inside Amy’s tiny torso, a second, faint, heartbeat began.

"Once upon a time there was a little girl who was very bad. She never listened, just talked back to her poor mama all the time, and was always in the way. The mama can’t even give her away, ‘cause nobody wanted her, she was so bad. She was a very bad girl." Marie’s face grew larger in Amy’s eyes, but the child’s gaze was steady.

Marie leaned back against the white enameled bedpost again. "So one day this little girl and her mama move to a different house, ‘cause the mama gets a better job. And every night she kissed her little girl goodbye before going to work but still the little girl was bad."

"So one night she kisses her little girl like always and leaves. But as soon as she closes the door, the little girl hears sounds. And even though she knows she’s supposed to stay in bed, she gets up to find what’s making the noises. She goes all over the house, but there’s nothing there. She’s all alone. So she goes back to bed. But she hears the noises again. And she listens real close. And—IT’S THE SOUND OF MEAT BEING SUCKED OFF BONES!"

Amy’s eyes were still wide open, clinging to her mother’s face. Since the story had begun, she had not blinked, and her eyes were beginning to dry out. The glassy haze was faintly yellow.

Amy’s eyes mesmerized Marie; they were so dark blue, so deep and shining. For a moment she allowed herself to sink into them, then the lids flickered and Marie blinked, remembering her place in the story.

"The little girl gets scared, listening to the noises. She listens and listens, and they never get louder, or quieter, always the same suck, suck, suck."

"And then she bends over and looks under her bed. And—THERE’S A MONSTER UNDER HER BED, SUCKING MEAT OFF OF DEAD MEN’S BONES!"

Marie waited for Amy to scream, but the little girl was still, just staring at her, the light behind the flat eyes frantic. Her small body seemed to shudder regularly, as if with the force of an incredibly strong heartbeat. Disgusted, Marie rushed to the end.

"So the little girl runs downstairs, but she can’t get out, and all the time the suck suck suck gets louder and louder, until the monster gets the little girl and eats her up. And when the mommy gets home in the morning, there’s nothing left but a pile of little bones. And nobody cries for the little girl, since she was so bad. They all just say ‘good riddance. There -- The End."

Marie’s face was inches from Amy’s when she ended the story. Amy’s dried eyes were boring into hers.

"What’s that sound, Mommy?" Amy asked. The blankets covered her to her nose, and nothing else in her face moved as she spoke.

Marie drew back. "What sound? It’s nothing."

From out of the quiet came a slurpy squeak.

Marie went white, her bleary eyes almost returning to sober. Then they narrowed at Amy. The child almost laughed. Marie was no longer frightened.

"What was that? You’re doing that, aren’t you, you little bitch!" Marie slapped at the child, but she was huddled so deep that the pillows and blankets took most of the blow. Still, the little girl’s eyes were fixed on Marie.

The sucking grew louder.

Marie screamed and leaped for the door. From under Amy’s bed an oily, green, clawed paw raked the air where her legs had been. Marie ran, shrieking. The monster slipped out from under the bed and scurried after her. They disappeared down the stairs.

Slowly, Amy blinked, to re-moisten her eyes, then closed them to sleep, giving a little sigh and a smile at the distant sounds of sucking and screaming. The second heartbeat slowed, and was still.

About an hour later the sound of heavy footsteps woke Amy. She opened her eyes to see the monster standing by her bed. In one paw he held Teddy by a leg. As she watched he tried to suck the meat from the toy’s bones, but sucked up cotton filling instead. Coughing and sneezing, he spat it out. Amy giggled.

"Why are you laughing?" the monster growled. "I’ve come to eat you, too. I’m so hungry," he said, looking forlornly at Teddy’s fuzzy remains. He spoke with a slight accent, his words slurred by the completely round, teeth-filled mouth.

"But you’ve already eaten the bad little girl," Amy said. "I want you to tell me a story."

The monster blinked its singular brown eye and shrugged it’s almost-shoulders. Dropping what was left of Teddy, he sat on the edge of the bed, leaning back against the white enameled bedpost. The bed frame groaned at the weight. Amy snuggled deep under the covers and kept her eyes on the monster’s almost-face.

"Once upon a time . . . "

Amy sat straight up. "No, a good story. Tell me a story about a beautiful princess, and monsters."

Amy’s eyes mesmerized the monster: they were so dark blue, so deep and shining. For a moment he allowed himself to sink into them, then the lids flickered and the monster took a deep breath, to start.

Amy’s eyes remained on the monster’s face her. In her intensity, the pale blue irises darkened to midnight, and the whites to ivory. Their glow hardened over the corneas to form a glassy sheen. Inside Amy’s tiny torso, a second, faint, heartbeat started again.

"Once upon a time there was a little kingdom on an island in a sea filled with beautiful green creatures with lovely shining fangs and claws. And these were the most marvelous of creatures -- they sucked up the entire body of their prey, not just the meat. They lived for thousands of years, from the strength in the bones of those they ate. In the spring the males and females . . . "

"Monster."

Amy’s call interrupted him, and he blinked quickly, startled to remember that he was in a little girl’s bedroom. Then his eye focused on Amy again.

Amy’s eyes were still wide open, clinging to the monster’s face. Since the story had begun, she had not blinked, and her eyes were beginning to dry out.

The monster stretched its curved, spiny back, and continued. "Anyway, so on this island was a decent-looking human princess. Some might say beautiful, but the poor dear had two blue eyes, like yours, instead of one lovely deep brown one. And long, yellowish-white hair, that didn’t even keep her warm. All in all, she was a pretty puny thing. I never understood why all the fuss was made over her."

"I think she’s beautiful," Amy said.

The monster looked at blond-haired, blue-eyed Amy. "Well, yes, I suppose you would. May I go on?"

Amy nodded, never taking her eyes from him. "I’m sorry."

"It’s perfectly all right. Now then . . . " the monster clawed a bit of Marie out from between its molars and sucked it down. "Every day the little princess went down to the seaside to look at the pretty sea-creatures. But her father, the king, decided this wasn’t a very princessly thing to do, so he sent a message all over the kingdom that whoever could kill one of the sea-creatures, that he called ‘monsters’, just as you have called me ‘monster’, when in reality I’m just a displaced sea-creature with no idea what I’m doing here. . . . At any rate, the lad could marry his daughter. And since she was considered to be very beautiful, many young men came."

"The first twenty or thirty were not successful, and were killed and eaten by the sea-creatures, which was very good sport for them. But at the last there were three princes left, and all three managed to murder one sea-creature." The monster wiped away a tear, and sucked it down. "But in the end the contrary girl decided she didn’t want to marry any of the princes, so she went into the sea and murdered another creature, apparently gaining her freedom from having to get married by spilling the blood of an innocent thing, and lived alone ever after on her island. Frankly, I hope the little hag grew quite lonely, with only herself to blame."

Finished, and quite satisfied with himself, the monster blinked his eye and looked at Amy, but instead of a little girl, a young woman met his eye. The monster closed his eye, rubbed it, and looked again, but the vision was real. Amy had metamorphosed into a young woman.

"Well, I have to be going," Amy said, rising. The child’s nightgown tore as it stretched across her now-adult body, and fell to the floor, leaving her nude before him. He just blinked again, and stared.

"How did you do that?" he asked, appalled at the sudden change.

Amy smiled a little-girl’s smile, and the incongruity of it on her adult’s face chilled the monster. "I killed a monster and bought my freedom. Just like the princess in the story." She walked with long, slow strides to the door, feeling the seductive way her bare woman’s body moved, and the strength of her two hearts pumping blood through her veins.

"But what about me? I’m still hungry!" the monster wailed.

Amy turned, and just as slowly came back to him, still smiling. "I’ll take care of you." She kissed him on his wrinkled nose. "Thank you for my freedom. Being a human child wasn’t as much fun as I’d thought it would be." She stopped, finally remembering why she was there. Inside her body, she stopped her child’s heart, absorbing its flesh and blood for nourishment, then walked away from him, so smoothly that the monster thought she floated.

Amy turned back to him at the door, and looked at him. "Just like her," she murmured. Then she left him.

Her kiss burned on his nose, and he reached a paw up to rub it off. Green liquid came away. His nose was now slime; he was no longer able to breathe through it.

Amy walked down the hall and into her mother’s room. Going from dresser to closet and back again she moved deliberately, rhythmically, gathering items of clothing. Her hands never paused, never interrupted the dance; they randomly picked exactly what she wanted. Dressing herself slowly, she hummed her favorite Sunday school songs. They harmonized perfectly with the monster’s screams.

The screams became muffled when his mouth melted into slime as well, then those sounds stopped as the slime infection spread to his throat. Amy paused at the silence, and for an instant a pout replaced her smile. Then it was gone.

Marie’s good black pumps were on the closet shelf; Amy took them down and slipped them on her feet. Then a look in the mirror, and she left the silent room, going down the stairs carefully, unused to the high heels. Stepping across Marie’s wet bones in the hallway, she unlocked the front door and went outside. She pulled the door shut behind her and never looked back.
 

The end

Pamela graduated from the University of Colorado, Boulder in 1992 with a M.A. in English. When not writing or watching way too many horror movies, she is the Inhuman Resourceress for No Quarter