You’re in charge of assigning every child on Earth the monster under their bed. One child in particular has caused every monster assigned to him/her to quit. You decide to assign yourself.
Case: #273402
Status: Disastrous.I stare at the file and realize I have no options, over the last 2 years every monster assigned to Charlotte Dower has quit, every last one. Her first monster; a giant goldfish-faced humanoid named Bubba, had been with her for four years, and then she wasn’t scared of him anymore. After that it was a string of different common, uncommon, and rare monsters… I even assigned a sentient sock monster to her. He came back crying!
I look on my tablet, only one assignable monster left; myself. Field work has never been my cup of tea, but desperate times call for desperate measures. So at 8:03 pm, after Mrs. Gideon tucks in Charlotte and her little brother Daniel; I slither into the space beneath Charlotte’s bed.
Across the room underneath Daniel’s crib is a rookie, Chico, a standard Creep kind of monster.
I turn my attention to the bed above me, Charlotte is still awake but barely, I reach up over the bed and run an ice cold finger over her cheek, silence, so I do it again.
“I’m not afraid of you monster!” She whispers, but her voice is shaking. I can see a small clock on the wall 8:14, a door somewhere in the house slams and there is an audible hitch of breath from above me. A few minutes go by I can hear Francis Gideon yelling at his wife. There are heavy footsteps on the stairs, and loud panting breaths, Charlotte scrambles off the bed and…
She. CRAWLS. Under. The. Bed. With. Me.
“Move. Over!” Charlotte hisses at me. I do.
The door to the bedroom slams open and I smell the stench of human intoxicants before the man even steps inside.
I know why Charlotte isn’t afraid of any of my monsters; she’s afraid of her own.
Francis reaches a hand under the bed and I thrust my wrist into it, he starts to pull, I slither out.
“What the…” I cut Francis’s next words off by unfolding to my full 12 foot height. Looming over the drunken man I caress my cold fingers down his face.
“If you ever touch, scare, or harm my child again, I will find you, and I will do the same to you, for all eternity.” I promise to him.
As Francis runs from the room he soils himself.
I pull Charlotte from under the bed, tuck her back under her covers and kiss her forehead goodnight. “I’ll be back tomorrow night, sleep well darling.”
Charlotte Dower is my child, I am the monster under her bed.An end:
For years I protected her; from Francis, from nightmares, from heartbreak and pain… but Monsters can only do so much for their children, and despite everything I did to stop it - Charlotte grew up. I remember the night that I realized my job was done; Charlotte had just turned 17, she was sitting on the edge of the bed talking excitedly to one of her friends about their plans for her birthday party, and how she wanted a certain boy to come. I had grabbed her ankle and she just looked down and smiled at me, pulling her foot away, “I know! I’ll go to bed soon…” she hissed, but she didn’t. She’d crawled under the covers and turned off the lamp, still talking until the early hours of the morning, when the sky was still dark, but the sun was closer to rising than setting.
I went back to the head office, turning in my file for the night and going to sit at my computer. I marked Charlotte Dower as “Matured” in the system and started scanning for a new assignment. Though in my heart I knew that Charlotte would be my favorite.
The next night I went back to her, to tell her goodbye. I hugged her and held her face in my claws for a long moment. “My Darling, you don’t need me anymore,” I spoke as softly as my voice would allow. “But if you do ever need me, just call for me.” I slipped back under her bed, and heard her sleepy mumble “Okay, Love you.”
She never needed me again, she never called for me.
Charlotte’s children never needed monsters to protect them, to keep them safe from horrors only a monster could know.
I’m retired now, and near my end. Monsters die too; when the last of their children have forgotten them. Charlotte was my favorite yes, but not my last. Monsters always keep going after their favorite child has outgrown them; just in case there is a day that the favorite needs their childhood monster. Charlotte never did.
And now, I’m ready for the end, I can feel it; a quiet peace radiating through my skin, rattling my bones and echoing through my blood. In the morning I’ll be gone, but tomorrow a new monster will be born.
Welcome to the world little one, a child needs you.