Insomnia: Paranormal Tales, Science Fiction, & Horror

by Saul Tanpepper

  “I’m sorry I hit you, Jeremy,” she said. “You were having a bad dream.”

  “Grin,” he said. Cassie could feel him tense up again. She remembered the sound from downstairs. “Grin…coming.”

  “It’s just a dream. Nobody’s coming.”

  “Get…Daddy.”

  “No, honey. It’s all right. Your father’s working. I’m here.”

  “Get Daddy. Get…Jeremy.”

  “Nobody’s coming to get you.”

  “Get…Cassie.”

  She shrank away from him, finally letting the fear wash over her. She felt like she was suffocating. She knew it was ridiculous to let herself get worked up like this. There had to be a reasonable explanation for the noise, a loose shutter or board or something else blowing around outside.

  Bag, she thought. But bags didn’t make hard knocking sounds.

  “Nobody’s coming, Jeremy. And even if they tried…” She held up her fists and pretended to punch the invisible assailant. “I’d kick his little booty half way to Stepford!”

  “Grin! GRIN!”

  “Please, Jeremy. It’s okay.”

  She tried to remember what Mr. Hastein said about calming him down.

  Music. Play some music. It soothes the savage beast. But the CD player was downstairs. And she didn’t want to go down there right now.

  Jeremy was trembling uncontrollably, clutching the sheets about him as he stood, his eyes wide and glued to the doorway.

  “Get…Daddy.”

  Cassie looked behind her. But of course there was nothing there.

  She decided to sing to him. She’d done it often enough for fussy toddlers. Jeremy wasn’t a toddler, but psychologically he wasn’t much older than one.

  “Hush, little darling,” she began. It was a simple lullaby, dug from the recesses of her memory. “Don’t say a word…” She rested a hand on his shoulder. She could feel the tension in him, like a spring under pressure.

  Jeremy wrapped his arms around himself and rocked. He squeezed his eyes closed and tried to bury his head, but he couldn’t do both at once.

  “Momma’s gonna buy you a mocking bird…”

  The singing seemed to be helping. Jeremy’s trembling was beginning to lessen. The knots in his arms relaxed a little.

  “And if that—”

  This time, there was no mistaking the thumping sound. It came from downstairs and it sounded like something deliberate.

  “Griiiinnn,” Jeremy began to moan.

  “Shh!”

  “GRIN!”

  “Jeremy, be quiet, I said!”

  She crept over to the doorway, her fists clenched with fear until her nails dug deep into her palms and the muscles in her arms burning. From the opening, she could see the top of the stairs through the railing. Unbroken light washed up from the kitchen, splashed against the wall.

  There was another thump. She felt something brush against her cheek and nearly screamed. But it was only cold air. The sound of rustling leaves was louder.

  Thump, thump.

  “Grin,” Jeremy whispered.

  “It’s the front door, Jeremy,” Cassie said, exhaling. “It’s blown open. I’m just going down to close it. I’ll be right back.”

  “No!”

  “Jeremy, please. I’ll be okay.”

  The boy scurried across the room after her and tried to block her way.

  “Go back to bed. I’ll be back up in a flash.”

  Thump.

  Cassie hurried down the hall and turned for the stairs.

  “Griiiin!” Jeremy screamed.

  Cassie collapsed upon herself on the top step, clutching her chest. She’d nearly peed herself.

  “Jeremy!” she screeched. “Go back to bed!” She was pissed; she didn’t this crap! “Go back to bed or I’m going to take your nightlight away from you!”

  She heard him emit a mournful noise and immediately felt guilty for yelling at him.

  She stomped down the steps, saying in a loud voice for Jeremy’s benefit: “Here I come, Mr. Grinch, so you better leave now. We don’t want you to steal our roast beast!”

  The door thumped against the wall again.

  She reached the bottom of the steps and entered the kitchen. Everything was exactly as she had left it.

  “I’m warning you!”

  Thump.

  “Just leave right now.”

  She stuck her head around the corner and saw that room was empty. The door was standing wide open, the deadbolt protruding from the edge, preventing it from closing. She marched over to it and twisted the lock and shut the door, this time making sure that it caught, then set the deadbolt once more. She gave the knob a tug. The door didn’t budge.

  “Damn wind,” she muttered, leaning her head against it to catch her breath. She wanted to laugh, to get rid of some of the nervous energy that had filled her body, but first she needed to check on Jeremy.

  She turned just in time to see the figure reach out for her.

  † † †

  “Jeremy!” she yelped. “I told you to stay put!”

  “Grin.”

  “You scared the hell out of me!”

  Jeremy lowered his face. His body slumped.

  Cassie walked over to him and gently touched his arm. He didn’t flinch this time or draw away. “I’m sorry I yelled at you, but you need to listen. You can’t let your imagination take control of you like this.”

  I can’t either, she thought.

  “Grin.”

  “There is no Grinch, Jeremy. It’s just a movie on—”

  “Dream…real.”

  “Dreams aren’t real, sweetie.”

  She tried to turn him, to lead him back upstairs, but he refused to move.

  “No…sleep. Dream. Grin.”

  Cassie sighed. If she wouldn’t be able to sleep after that, how could she expect Jeremy to?

  “Fine, how about a game of cards, then?”

  Jeremy’s face brightened. He clapped his hands. “Rummy!”

  They played until one o’clock before Cassie finally won a hand. At first, she thought she was letting Jeremy win, but it soon became obvious that he had either unusually good luck or skill, and since rummy didn’t seem to her to be a game of skill…

  “It’s time for sleeping, Jeremy.”

  “Grin.”

  Cassie sighed. “I’ll tell you what. Go on upstairs and I’ll be right up with some music, okay?”

  Jeremy hesitated, then nodded. He pushed away from the table and headed for the stairs. “No Grin?” he asked, stopping.

  “I promise.”

  She waited until she heard the top step crick, then the squeak of the bedsprings before she silently got up and moved over to the front door. As quietly as she could, she unlocked it and slipped outside. The winds had died down, but the icy coldness of the air still took her breath away. It felt like the temperature had dropped twenty degrees since her arrival, which had been—she glanced at her watch beneath the porch light—over five hours before.

  Enough to pay for the jacket, she realized. The remaining hours would be for herself.

  Ice crystals hung in the delicate air, suspended in an almost magical mist. She extended her arm and swished it around, watching the air swirl around her hand. The silence about her was complete. She could understand why a person might want to live out here in the boonies. There was something peaceful about the isolation, the solitude, the separation from all the madness of the crowded world that existed just a few miles up the road.

  But then again, a person could begin to fool oneself living out here after a while, begin to believe in things that didn’t exist, begin to believe the wild stories.

  Extracting the keys from her pocket, she gave a wry smile. Out here, she could rescue all the little kittens and puppies she wanted to, couldn’t she?

  She made her way down the steps and over to her car.

  Her babysitting kit was in her trunk. In it was all she needed to deal with children who did
n’t behave or acted out. It was filled with stickers and candy and all sorts of other goodies, enticements for any child, whether they were mean-spirited, spoiled, or simply out of sorts.

  Then there were the extra difficult children. She had something special for them. She hated using it, but she thought this time warranted it.

  She unzipped the small compartment in the front and reached in, searching. Her fingers circled around the bottle she was looking for and withdrew it. After extracting a single sleeping pill, she gave it a second thought and tapped out two more into the palm of her hand—Jeremy was quite a bit larger than normal children. One pill would definitely not work; two might. Three would be for certain.

  “It’s that stupid Grinch,” she muttered to herself.

  It was her one secret fright, and she knew it was completely unreasonable. If she never saw another live action Seuss movie as long as she lived, she’d die a happy girl.

  She replaced the bottle carefully in the pocket of her kit and zipped the bag closed. Then she shut the trunk and went back inside.

  Jeremy was in bed, his bedroom ablaze by the light thrown off by the bulb in the ceiling. Cassie set the CD player on the floor at the foot of the bed, then handed him a glass of milk which she’d warmed in the microwave. “Drink this,” she told him. “It’s a special magical potion that’ll help you sleep.”

  “No…food. Daddy—”

  “It’s okay. This isn’t food.”

  “No…mares?”

  “No nightmares. I promise.”

  Jeremy took the mug and held it to his lips. After a moment, he dutifully swallowed the liquid, all the while looking at Cassie. She smiled, feeling herself relax.

  After a few minutes, Jeremy’s face lost tension. His eyes glazed over. His head drooped. Ten minutes later, he was snoring happily away.

  Cassie placed the half-empty mug on the table beside the bed and slipped out of the room, flipping the light switch on her way out. She made her way back down the stairs.

  † † †

  It started snowing around two-thirty, large white snowflakes, thick as cotton balls, dense as rain. Quiet as ash.

  Soon thereafter, the Grin returned.

  “Nooooo!” Jeremy wailed. “No…get Jeremy!”

  Cassie leaped from the couch where she’d been dozing, her heart pounding as sounds of struggling upstairs in the boy’s room came to her.

  “Jeremy?” she yelled.

  She raced up the stairs and into the dark, missing the light switch. The shape on the bed was a quivering tangle of bed clothes, hands and feet sticking out, the whole lot jerking about. He was grunting in his sleep.

  “Jeremy!”

  She went over and tried to shake him, but his body was a shuddering mass of muscle with no awareness. He wouldn’t wake.

  A floorboard below them squeaked.

  Cassie stopped and stared at the doorway, straining her ears. There was a low metallic chittering sound.

  “Oh, god!” Cassie gulped, realizing she’d forgotten to lock the door after going out to her car. Something was down there for real this time. And the thing was laughing!

  “Jeremy!” she screamed. But the boy was too drugged. She slapped him. His head snapped back, but his eyes remained closed.

  She heard something scrape against a wall downstairs. Then something fell, clattering to the floor. It sounded like a chair being overturned in the kitchen.

  She grabbed Jeremy’s hair and shook him, but he continued to mumble words she couldn’t understand. He still wouldn’t wake.

  “Grin,” he mumbled.

  And from somewhere downstairs, something replied: Grrriiiiiinnnnn.

  “No,” Cassie moaned, as realization filled her mind. The Grin was Jeremy’s doing, his creation. It was his nightmare come true.

  She leaned over and placed her mouth against his ear and screamed as loudly as she could. “Wake up!” But Jeremy’s head lolled away. Another slap had no effect. Even a pinch to his cheek wouldn’t wake him.

  A stair creaked.

  She looked around the room, frantically searching for something to use to defend herself. With a strange sense of detachment, her mind registered the same rigid organization to Jeremy’s room that she’d noticed downstairs. But there were no books lining the shelves here, just an odd assortment of mundane objects carefully arranged on top of his dresser and along the floorboards: an empty bird’s nest, a wooden bowl, a plain gray chunk of rock. There were no toys, nothing to stimulate the imagination.

  What had she done?

  Her eyes settled back on the rock.

  She crossed the room and picked it up. It had good heft to it. She hurried back to the bed and tried once more to wake Jeremy.

  She heard the sharp crack of the top step as it sagged under considerable weight. Whatever Jeremy had summoned, it was big, and it was now on the landing just a dozen feet from the room.

  She ran over to the door and slammed it closed, but there was no lock, so she wedged the chair beneath the knob. From the end of the hallway, there came a dull thump and the scrape of something being dragged.

  “Jeremy!”

  She grabbed his sweatshirt and shook him.

  “Wake up! WAKE UP!”

  Jeremy thrashed in her hands, batting her away. “No…Grin…grin…gri—”

  His eyes flew open just as something smacked against the door and slid down it. There was a low moan, a grunt, then another thump, louder this time. Cassie shrieked.

  “Jeremy, make it go away!”

  “No-ooooooooo!” he wailed, not seeing her. His head thrashed. His body jolted as if struck by an invisible blow.

  “Jeremy, make it go away! It’s not real!”

  In the hallway, wood splintered. Griiiiin, the thing out there moaned. Cassie screamed.

  Her eyes were now wild with terror, searching for an escape. It was her only chance. But she was on the second floor and it was a fifteen foot drop to the ground below.

  She flung open the windows. The driving snow blasted in on her, making her gasp. Her lungs were fire and the sleet was only making it burn more.

  Scratching now, at the door. Rattling as the thing tried to get in at them.

  She grabbed handfuls of the wet snow and hurried back to the bed, where she dumped it on Jeremy’s face.

  The boy sputtered, gasping, but wouldn’t wake.

  Outside, the thing roared in anger.

  “Jeremy,” she whispered, “please wake up!”

  Bam!

  “Jeremy!”

  She pushed the snow under his shirt, and the beast screamed.

  “Jeremeee!”

  “Gri…,” he muttered, struggling to wake.

  BAM!

  The door shuddered and split, but held.

  BOOM!

  The frame around the knob shattered.

  Cassie jerked Jeremy up from the bed. “Daddy…” he said. She shook him and screamed his name.

  The Grin laughed its metallic laugh and pounded again on the door. The chair began to slide, scraping hard against the wooden floor.

  “Wake up!”

  She wrenched him from the bed and onto the floor, where he tumbled face down. He stirred, placed his hands beneath himself and began to lift.

  “Nooo!” But this time, the cry was from the hallway.

  “Come on, Jeremy,” Cassie shouted. “Come on!”

  Jeremy lifted his head, struggling to blink.

  The beast screeched; the door began to bend against its weight.

  Jeremy’s face lost its slackness. “Cass…eee?”

  Cassie laughed, a hitching, screaming laugh. “Yes, yes! Jeremy, make it leave.”

  “Grin…”

  “It’s not real!”

  “Grinnn,” the thing wailed, a mournful, agonizing wail of such pain and loneliness that Cassie felt reached deep inside of her, nearly to her core.

  “TELL IT TO GO!”

  “Go away you are not real you Grin go away go away,” Jeremy h
owled.

  The door scraped open several more inches.

  “YOU ARE NOT REAL GRIN NOT REAL GO AWAY!”

  The chair shattered and fell to the floor in pieces. The door swung all the way open. The hallway was empty.

  † † †

  They spent the remainder of the night playing rummy, and when the light began to bleed into the day, they saw that the snow had stopped falling and the sky was blue and clear. There were no tracks to prove that what had happened during the night was real, only the broken bedroom door and a few scratches on the wall.

  A few minutes before eight o’clock, Cassie heard the faint grinding sounds of a snowplow, and she looked out the front window to see a truck driving through the trees, a spray of fresh snow preceding it. The truck circled her car and then came to stop along the side of the house. Mr. Hastein stepped out.

  She didn’t mention the Grin, nor did Jeremy. But when they showed his father the ruined door and chair, the set of his chin and the curt nod he gave indicated he knew nonetheless.

  He paid her the two hundred and forty dollars with crisp twenties from his wallet, and didn’t ask if she’d be back. Not that she’d have said yes, but she knew the man was disappointed in her. She’d let them both down.

  Mr. Hastein watched from the door as she went to her car and turned the key in the ignition (it started on the first try, for which she was grateful). He watched as she pulled away, shaking his head and sighing.

  Then he went upstairs to see his son.

  Jeremy was sound asleep on the bed, the mug in his hands and a faint white mustache on his lip. He wasn’t dreaming, not yet.

  But he would be. Soon.

  “Grin,” he murmured.

  The police found Cassie’s car the next spring, after the snows had finally melted away. The door had been ripped off and there was no trace of her inside. All they found was a sweater (slightly irregular), a pair of ladybug earrings, and a maroon ski vest.

  Mrs. Ingersoll cried when the police handed these things to her. She hugged the jacket to her breast and wept for her lost daughter.

  “She knew maroon was my favorite color,” she said.

  ‡ ‡

  Author’s note

  The Grin did not start out as a story of nightmare monsters becoming real. Rather, I had intended to pen a tale about an evil babysitter intent on terrorizing her young and hapless charge. I even toyed with the idea of making the child her next meal. After all, what could make a more horrifying monster than a young, pretty teenager, especially one so obviously sympathetic to the plight of abandoned kittens and puppies?