by william Todd
I must have dozed off because the bumps startled me back awake. If my dolls had been dandelions, their heads would have popped off and fell to the floor. It was after 9:00, and just outside my window the yellowish glow of the moon was making its way past my window sill.
I listened intently, dolls and spoons ready to give me comfort for what was to follow. There was another bump of such force I could feel my bed shudder slightly underneath me. There was almost never more than two bumps before the screaming started so I sunk my head deeper into my pillow to muffle the cries. It is those cries and screams and gurgling sounds that scare me the most. The howls and growls that I know are Papa—not so much anymore.
What happened next changed my life forever. I was expecting the shrieks and cries to echo through the big house, but what I heard was the muffled crack, like a firecracker going off. I heard three more before all went quiet.
As I lay in bed playing with my baby dolls and the spoons I pretend are baby dolls in the silence that usually accompanied Papa’s second dinner, I suddenly heard a knock at my door.
“Alina?” the voice asked shakily. When I realized that it was not Papa, for he wouldn’t go back to his old self till morning, I called through the thick door, “You are supposed to be dead and eaten. Why are you outside my room?”
“Child, I think there is something you need to know,” the homeless man said rather sadly. “I know enough to know that I am not supposed to open this door again until morning,” I replied in no uncertain terms.
“If you are afraid of your father you needn’t worry anymore. He’s…he’s dead.” At that moment, my heart sank so deep into my chest that it pulled my lungs with it making it difficult to breathe. The only person who ever loved me, despite my affliction and his own, was now gone. Gone to where Momma was, and I was there all alone.
My dolls and spoons fell to the floor with a dull thud. “Please open the door,” the man pleaded in a gentle tone I had only heard from Papa. “There’s something I need to show you.”
I paused a moment to let the finality of it sink in and tears welled I my eyes. I almost couldn’t unlatch the deadbolts, but slowly, one by one, I unlocked the door.
The homeless war veteran was standing in front of me. He still had both arms, both legs, and no internal organs showed through his stinky clothes. To my surprise there were tears in his eyes, too. In his hand he held a letter. “Your dad left this for you. Can you read?”
“I may be dumb but I’m not stupid,” I replied through my tears.
“Of course. I apologize.” He handed me the letter. It trembled in my hand as I struggled mightily to read what it said; but I was determined to have this moment between me and Papa without help.
My dearest daughter, Once you receive this letter I will be dead. I am sorry that I hid this from you but couldn’t bear the thought of seeing how it would affect you. I can no longer take the strain of my wolfen affliction and can’t stomach another killing. I have been torn for years between my duty to you as a father and ending my life to save the innocent people I kill as a werewolf. Because I refuse to put you in an institution I have been committed these last few months to finding someone suitable for a dual purpose—that of killing me and looking after you. It was a very hard task, but I believe I have found that person in Hugh Stover. He has the steely war-hardened nerves to fulfill the first and the kindness and compassion to fulfill the second. It was that combination that I sought out and would not put my plan into place until I had. Rest assured, my little one, that I am no longer in torment. Mama and I can watch you grow up happy without having to lock your bedroom door anymore. Please do not hate Mr. Stover. He only did what I had asked him to do. I hope you will grow to love him like a father. Just remember, what he did—what I had asked him to do—was for the best, even if you can’t see it right now. Loving you and missing you with all my heart.
Papa
I looked at the strange man with swollen eyes, not knowing what to do or say.
“I made a promise to take care of you,” the man, Hugh, said. “I promise to do my best for you.”
“Do you even know how to take care of someone— someone like me?” He squatted down to my level because he was a very tall man. “Well, once I had a wife and a little girl just a bit younger than you are now.”
“Where are they? Will they be coming to stay here too?” The man’s face distorted into an even sadder expression than the one he currently wore and said, “They died in a car accident while I was away at war.”
“So I guess we both have a reason to be sad.” I wiped the tears from my cheek. “So what happens now?” “Your dad took care of all the details. We can stay here or we can move to another house. I’ll let you decide, but for now you need to try and go back to bed and get some rest while I—take care of things down stairs.”
I nodded solemnly. I would miss Papa dearly, but I knew how much his affliction bothered him. The last thing I wanted was for him and Mama to be unhappy on account of me. This man, Hugh, seemed to share some of the loss I felt. I know Papa would do everything in his power to make sure the person who took care of me was a kind and loving person. I trusted Papa in death as I had done in life.
He rested his big hands on my shoulders and looked me square in the eye the way only one other person ever had. “As hard as it might be to get some rest, please try and leave everything else to me, okay?”
I nodded and wiped my runny nose. As he rose, Hugh squinted in pain and grabbed his side. It was then that I saw the blood stain. It must have taken a while to seep through all his layers of clothes.
“Are you alright?” I asked. He only smiled. “Your father was faster than I had expected. I guess he got a nip in before I had a chance to…” He didn’t finish the sentence, just winked and smiled and said, “I’m fine. Now you go and get some rest while I attend to things down stairs.”
When he turned and gingerly walked back down the hallway holding his side, when he disappeared down the stairs to do whatever tasks he and Papa had planned, I thought to myself that he and Papa were now more alike than anyone could ever have imagined.
It has been a year since that terrible night when my heart died. Me and Hugh moved to another home near the cemetery where Papa is buried so I can visit and tell him I how much I love him and miss him. I still have my two baby dolls and my two wooden spoons I pretend are baby dolls—and I still have the locks on my door to keep out the bumps in the night.
It’s Just Johnny
The cry from the other room woke up the woman. She wiped a tangle of hair from her eyes with one hand while she nudged her husband with the other, who barely registered the interruption. “Did you hear that?” she asked. “Timothy? Did you hear that noise?”
Smacking his lips sleepily, the man mumbled, “It’s just Johnny. He’ll go back to sleep.” He rolled over taking most of the covers with him.
She pulled them back in irritation and began to readjust herself in the well-worn bed when there was another, louder cry.
Nudging the man’s shoulder once more she said, “I think he’s having a nightmare.” The second cry roused the man more fully from his slumber. Rubbing her pumpkin-sized abdomen from under the covers he said, “You two stay here. I’ll go check on him.”
“You’re a dear,” she replied and kissed his shoulder. She readjusted herself under the warm covers, as he slowly maneuvered himself from the mattress.
He lit a candle on his nightstand and staggered in a sleepy crawl down the hallway to the six year old’s room. The door protested noisily when the father entered Johnny’s room. The little boy was sitting up in his bed with the threadbare covers pulled up over his head. There was a visible shake in the old, stained bedding.
The father noticed the window on the opposite wall was open, letting in filaments of cold October night. “Johnny, why on earth do you have the window open? You’ll catch your death in that chill.”
Without waiting for a reply, he went to the window and look
ed out into the night. Fingers of fog strangled the closer trees and clung in hazy clumps to the lower dales and wood line farther out, next to the graveyard. The full moon glowed phosphorescently in the high starlit sky. The whole nightscape was one of an eerie, gothic composition that gave him goosebumps.
He shuddered briefly then shut the window and turned back to his son. “So why did you cry out? Did you have a nightmare?”
A skinny, sheet-covered arm only pointed under the bed, as he gave a frightened whimper.
“Oh, so there’s a monster under your bed?” the father asked trying to hide a smile.
The covers vigorously shook in the affirmative. With a sleepy grin the dad asked, “So if I look under the bed and make sure there are no monsters under there, you’ll go back to sleep?”
The covers nodded yes. The dad went to the bed, got on his hands and knees, placed the candle on the floor and bent down to look underneath.
The shock of what he saw didn’t immediately register; he just knelt there in wide-eyed confusion at first, then suddenly in stark terror. His son was shaking uncontrollably in the darkly shadowed space. When the boy’s teary eyes met his father’s he whispered with dreadful fear, “Daddy, there’s something in my bed.”
Suddenly, the man felt something cold and wet clamping around his neck, cutting off a scream.