A

“BED TIME STORY”

Celebration of Dysfunction

A Short Fiction

By

David A. Archer

02/15/1968

09/10/2006

The shadow seemed always to loom at the door.

It always appeared long after all were in bed, and the house was entirely quiet.

I can’t recall any sound ever accompanying it as it stained the carpet beneath my closed doorway. It was always lit from some source I could never find in all of my attempts and searches in daylight hours.

I think back on it, and it wasn’t the darkness that I found scary – It was a form of light that I now see was terrifying – that light which carried the ominous shadow from where ever it came and where ever it always returned to.

Hiding under the blankets was never any use, as it was always of the gravest importance to keep an eye on that shadow. And further, hiding under the blankets only would serve to make a person an easier victim under some axe blade or other hideous implement which the horrific apparition may have chosen to wield at the slightest opportunity.

I was no dummy.

I always expected a growl or moan – some terrifying sound described in so many stories as being monster like – but, it was always just silent. Deathly silent. Silent and still as I watched it from my bed, beneath the door, just knowing quite psychically – that should I stop watching it sway for even an instant, it would immediately gain entry and spirit me away in some bloody fray – or perhaps simply consume me where I lay, leaving only stains and bones with dangling strips of flesh where once was my living, breathing body.

I bravely decided to try and identify it one night through guessing at just what could cast such a shadow in silence, from its own light source no less?

I guessed to myself, “could it be a serpent bringing evils from even the dawn of time? It couldn’t be” I thought, “the shadow itself, is far too wide.”

“Might it be a troll? Might it be a goblin?”

“No.” None of these things stood to reason and even less to the attributes of what ever this monstrosity could be.

I even sensed that the monster in the closet would have nothing to do with stirring in the night, nor the collection of them beneath my bed – so long as that shadow loomed at the door.

One night I recall in particular shot terror through me that is yet un-matched.

My parents had failed to latch the door securely as they exited my room – and I, ever trusting, didn’t even think to check it.

It was latched so precariously that as fate would have it, even the gentle and silent appearance of the ominous shadow moved it from its closed position – sounding a loud “CLICK” as the spring loaded bolt found freedom in the crack now between the door and the wall. It must have echoed through all of existence and eternity!

I gasped for breath horrified and convinced that with the light streaming in, the shadow – and what ever was making the shadow would soon follow. Bringing with them my immediate end in this world! Perhaps even because of my own fear killing me before whatever the monstrous apparition could deal, befell me.

I held my breath, and even wanted to cry for help through the clinching terror gripping the entire world. But found no ability to do so.

What is more, and making it all the worse in sustaining the effect, is that nothing happened. Only more silence and the continued sway and stillness of that shadow beneath the door ajar, with nothing between us except the sheer terror which by now, IT must have felt as well.

I didn’t move for the next several hours.

I may not have even drawn a breath.

Not an eyelash was distracted from that shadow under the doorway until the dawn came, and with it the light which wisped the shadow away.

The dog barked and bolted through the door as it did every morning after exiting my parents’ room, where it slept.

We had our normal exchange though admittedly with far less enthusiasm on my part, as I considered whether or not to finally divulge this apparition to my parents. Then after some moments, I finally decided to do so.

I sat at the morning table being all as quiet as ever.

The newspaper extended where my father sat behind it, and my mother was now leaning over a hot cup of liquid.

“I have something I should tell you two” I began hesitantly. “There is this really creepy shadow that shows up outside of my door at night…..” I started in with a meek tone.

“We know” said my father still faceless behind the news print, then joined in statement almost automatically from my mother still not having looked up from her beverage; “Why do you think the dog sleeps with us?” she said quite un-concerned.

Then my father again spoke, “It used to scare your older brother, too” he said without looking from the news, “but of course, you didn’t even know you had an older brother” he continued and then again fell quiet. Showing as much lack of concern as had my mother.

“We forgot to close the door until it latched all the way, one night” added my mother in a somber tone, “...and it ate him.”