Troy was, without doubt, one bad kid.
I don’t mean in the sense of merely disobeying his parents or finding ways to get into trouble. It went beyond that.
No, Troy was not your average, run-of-the-mill bad boy with a mean streak. He was evil.
Pure, unadulterated, evil.
I know this, because I was the monster under his bed.
He wasn’t always that way. When I was first assigned to him, though, I could definitely sense the troubled waters laying beneath the surface.
Oh, yeah, you didn’t realize that was how things worked? We’re not just some evil entities out to make lives miserable for kids. We are there for a purpose, and our assignments are carefully chosen by the higher-ups. Each of us is assigned someone we’ll be able to best attune.
That’s just a fancy way of saying we mold them into becoming better people, so they don’t end up in places they shouldn’t.
Our service is our gift to them, and we take pride when a kid grows up to be an upstanding citizen. We helped make that happen. We changed their ways by putting the fear into them, knowing something was always there, always watching, so their inmost secrets would not turn to rot and decay.
Troy… well Troy was an exception to a long-successful rule.
I tried. I really did. When I saw the pattern of his spirit emerging, the darkness festering there beneath the skin, I knew I had to do everything I could to prevent him becoming something this world would not be able to handle.
Serial killers, pedophiles, the absolute worst that humanity could ever offer started out with spirits like his, and I could not let another one come forth.
Not if I could help it.
So I did the best I could. I scared, I frightened, I made my best noises and the haunting songs. I did all the rulebook said to do, and more, to scare the child straight.
But I failed. Miserably failed.
I would follow him, sometimes, sneaking along with him, always enough of a distance away to not be suspected, hiding in the shadows in the way my kind can do best. I hated what I saw him do.
At first, it was simpler things, like throwing rocks at a dog, or kicking a littler kid when no one was looking. Even something like that could be forgiven, could be worked with eventually. It wasn’t even as if his parents had caused trauma, turning him into a bully like one might hear of. No, they were good to him, coddling his every desire and need, ever present in his life.
They were, really, blissfully unaware of the being he was becoming.
I knew, though. There as not a shred of doubt within me, and it only proved out when the killings began.
First a bird, the tiniest little thing, fallen from its’ nest and injured. Instead of picking the creature up and putting it back in place, or even protecting it in some kind of way like most children would do, Troy spent the next twenty minutes torturing the poor things. Pulling out its’ small feathers one by one, he then crushed the neck between his fingers and laughed at the way it died.
If only I could run over and stop him…
That was against the rules, though. We can do a lot of things, but rule number one is to not reveal ourselves fully, especially in the light of day. One could skirt the edges of the rule, and most of us did at times, but that was a big one.
I know, you might think it strange that monsters-beneath-beds – MBB’s – have rules of any kind, but it’s true. There are rules in everything else in life, why would there not be for us? We serve a higher purpose, too, as do all things.
Later, there was a kitten, and finally a puppy, all falling prey to this child-turned-sour.
I couldn’t fathom it, really. I had hard assignments before, but this boy was something else entirely. I was with him for a reason, and I became frightened of what that reason might be.
Yes. It’s true. Even MBB’s can be scared. If that seems strange to you, imagine how it was for me to understand the depth of what I realized I had to do.
He was due home early that day, and I was, as always, under his bed, biding my time and deep in thought from the moment he left for school. It was cold and already growing dark by the time he came into his room, the time of year and place in the world such that the sun faded into evening earlier than most parents got off of work.
Troy came in and flung his book bag to the small desk in the corner of his room, flopping himself onto his bed with a gust of breath. I’d been thinking long and hard about how to do things in a way that would not break the rules. Don’t reveal, don’t cause harm, be the conscience they need to become better humans…
They swirled in my mind like a litany, pushing hard against what I knew needed done, but not fathoming how to accomplish it.
My eyes roved, seeking something, some way, to cut through the red tape and meet my goal.
A small car lay across the room, discarded by Troy a few days ago when playing. And another object on his desk, one that gleamed with silver as the light from the lamp reflected across it.
I could do this. I had to do this.
One of the special things MBB’s can do is to cause things to reshape, to move, to shift around reality as it suited our needs. After all, one of the most frightening experiences for a child was the sight of a shirt across the room moving on its own.
I made good use of those skills.
The car slid silently along the floor, taking position only a few paces from my own face as I concentrated. Then, a small pull on the silver paper spike brought it to the floor, as well, and I moved it more to where I thought it would work best.
Troy was still above me, softly speaking as he read something. Maybe his homework. More likely that list he made of all the things he would love to do. Horrible,Horrible, evil things.
I shifted myself again, bringing my hand up along the ridge of the blanket on his bed, drawing ever further upward until I reached the edge of the mattress.
Then, my hands shifted, turned, became like a long snake, and I grabbed out for the leg I sensed was there.
He squealed, a satisfying, high-pitched squawk that echoed through the room, and tried to bolt away from my grip. His leg pulsed with the effort, but I pulled harder, making him twist closer to the edge of the mattress.
Only a little more…
Finally, instinct took him over completely, and he tried to jump off the bed, to leap away from the thing grabbing at him and run.
His leg came down to the floor, and I released my grip, letting it happen.
I could feel his weight shift, the familiar rusty squeak of the springs in his bed wrenching as I backed away a little further, thinning myself out even more.
As soon as his body cleared the bed, his foot stepped on the car I left in place, and he tumbled, his arms and legs flinging askew.
With a crash, his body came down, face-first, landing on the hard floor. His breath puffed out but there was agony in the sound.
As he rolled, frantically trying to right himself, the base of the once-glistening silver spike came away from his chest, falling to the floor with a clatter as blooms of red spread across his front.
I couldn’t turn away, even while he gasped for more air, the blood rushing from the wound in his chest as his heart, somehow, kept beating, despite the piercing it just took. His eyes glossy, he fell backward again, the strength he once had quickly ebbing.
Those eyes locked on my own and I could see something there, something of the child I had once known so long ago, before murderous intent entered his heart.
It was only a few moments later his breathing stopped and I knew I could finally move on, to get away from this horrible demon-in-the-making.
See, even monsters have standards.
