Bedtime by Michael Whitehouse (best contemporary novels .txt) 📕

The hollow was dark and filled halfway with rotting leaves, no doubt deposited there from countless autumns, nevertheless I reached deep inside to see what remained. I couldn't believe it! I had found a toy that I had hidden there before we moved, all those years ago! I could feel the plastic in my hand, it's sharp edges unmistakable, but the leaves and darkness of the hollow obscured its view from me as I struggled to remove it from the thick,wet mixture of rotting leaves and rain water. It seemed to be caught amongst a collection of small twigs.

The reason I was so excited was that I knew when we moved that I had left one of my favourite toys behind; a small plastic First World War British Soldier. It may not sound like much, but I had grown up on my family's stories of my Grandfather's adventures during both wars, and while he had passed away before I was born, I would often act out exaggerated versions of the stories with this small soldier in the role of the hero: My intrepid Grandfather. At the time I thought a hollow the perfect hiding place for a soldier.

My delight, however, quickly turned to horror. I felt sick to my stomach, for as I pulled the soldier out, I realised it was not my toy, but something else entirely. Stuffed into the back of the hollow amongst the sludge, and now in my hand, was the skeletal remains of a small animal. The bones crunched together in my grip as the few small flakes of hair and flesh left on it putrefied between my fingers. I almost lost my balance as the rotten and potent smell of death escaped through my moist grasp, invading my senses.

I climbed back down carefully, dejected. There was nothing else in the hollow, my toy was gone, probably taken by another child during the subsequent years. What remained of the poor animal, I buried under some loose earth in the garden. 

I left that place immediately.

Despite my unfortunate encounter in the hollow I still felt empowered'. That I had actually plucked up the courage to revisit that place, to see how ordinary it really was, made me feel in control once more of my faculties. I did not at that time require anything other than a conventional explanation. 

I said goodbye to the old neighbourhood, to that bad memory once and for all, and began to make my way home. By the time I had driven onto the motorway, something had begun to filter through from the back of my subconscious. At first I disregarded it, dismissing it as my imagination, but as the sun shone its last and dipped below the horizon, I sensed the growing of a compulsion in me. An idea which seemed to have been born and nurtured for no good reason. No rationale, no sound causal footing, but one which had to be followed, at all cost...

I must get home!

I increased my speed, zipping sporadically between the slower cars on the motorway, looking in the rear view mirror, keeping an eye on what might be following.

I had to get home!

Again, I drove faster constantly looking behind as if racing some unseen pursuer: 70, 80, 100 miles per hour! I tore along the road, I beeped, I yelled, the sweat lashed off of me. What was happening to me!?

Please, just let me go home!

White knuckled, I finally made it off of the motorway and onto the country roads which would lead directly to my town. The roads were narrow and wound around the now bleak and ominous countryside. Darkness seemed to blanket the road in front of me. I turned my full beam on and breathed a sigh of relief to see a bright light again, even if artificial. The manic anxiety which had seemed to grip me on the motorway appeared to have diminished, however, I still glared into the rear view mirror more often than I should have, just to make sure that there was nothing following me.

What a ridiculous thought! To think of something chasing my car! To put myself and others in danger by speeding down a busy motorway... Madness!

Still, madness or not, I had felt compelled to get away as quickly as possible and even though I had managed to collect my nerves, the loneliness of the road I was on fuelled my yearning for my own town, my own street, my own bed!

Nervously, I traversed the web-like winding roads which seared through the countryside, feeling relieved at the first sign of a lamp post, of civilisation, and of the boundaries of my town. I pulled up outside of my house, switching the engine off, and sat for a moment in silence. I had to stop all of this nonsense! Things coming out of walls, watchers smothering me at night, looking into someone's window like a prowler, all of this was lunacy!

Tomorrow, I would start afresh, no more writing about my childhood experiences, no more reliving of dread filled nights. Just getting back to normal, carrying out my work, spending time with my girlfriend, and most of all reaffirming my belief, faith, and confidence in science and rationality. 

Then the thing in the back seat leant over, grabbed me by the shoulder and breathed a foul, rancid breath from deep inside its lungs down the back of my neck.

I scrambled for the door, my arms flailing around looking for the lock. Fear possessed me, shook me; a fear I remembered all too well, a fear from all those years ago, lying awake at night in that sickening room. The inside of the car had grown much colder, but that was nothing compared to the icy fingers burrowing into my shoulder.

I honestly thought I was going to die, that this thing would finally get its way after all this time. 

The door handle popped in my panicked grip and I fell out of the driver's seat onto the pavement. For the briefest of moments I thought I caught a glimpse of something in the back seat; vague, the form of an old man, yet twisted and distorted grinning from ear to ear. Luckily there was no one around, as had there been I would have appeared a mad fool, for the car was empty. I grabbed the keys from the ignition and booted the door shut with my foot, locking it for the night.

I staggered down the path and into my house. I'm not going to lie to you but I drank myself to sleep last night. You may recall that I said I had evidence, actual physical evidence of something unnatural. You might be wondering what that evidence is. Well, I could say that it was the marks on my shoulder that made me shudder with fear, or I could tell you that my bedroom window lying prised open this morning, by what looked like claw marks, has left me dreading tonight, or any other. But no, none of that scared me as much as what I saw today upon waking.

Sometimes the most frightening of messages are the most simple, for lying on my chest as I awoke this morning, was a toy soldier, the soldier I had hidden in that hollow all those years ago; returned to me as an adult, bitten in half.

Last night was the most heart-wrenching and frightening of my life, so much so that I can barely bring myself to contemplate it. By now I will have submitted what occurred during my visit to that cursed place I once called home; a visit which heralded the return of my childhood fears. No matter what foul thing befell me then, nothing could have prepared me for last night.

After waking up to the chilling sight of that toy soldier, bitten in half, I found that the window to my bedroom was slightly ajar. On closer inspection it looked entirely as if the window had been prised open from outside. The latches were bent back, out of position as if subjected to an unrestricted, unbound brute force.

From the outside looking in, I could see three indentations where the unwelcome housebreaker had used some kind of tool to leverage the window unnaturally away from its latch. What was peculiar about those markings was that they seemed to cut across the outside of the window frame like an old uneven razor, unlike a crowbar or other implement which would have merely left a dent where it had been used as a wedge, to force the window open.

Nothing had been stolen and I attempted to rationalise the markings on the window as human-made, and not 'claw-like' as they appeared to be. The toy soldier, returned to me so violently, I could not explain. My heart sank at the very thought of it.

I knew it was a message, but it seemed to me to be more of a twisted joke, announcing the arrival of my childhood predator, rather than something to be puzzled over or interpreted.

I spent the morning checking each room of my house and its contents; nothing was missing. I could only hope that whatever that fiend had been in the back seat of my car the previous night, that it had only wished to frighten me one last time, and then be on its way.

Perhaps its reach would be weakened so far from my childhood bedroom.

It is all too easy for any sane person to persuade themselves that a traumatic event is something more benign, but in this instance I could not; that broken toy was not a mere joke, but a promise. A promise that it would return, for what I did not wish to know.

My thoughts naturally tumbled inwards and back to those terrifying nights I had as a child. I was now re-introduced to the apprehension of bedtime, the longing for the day, and the anxiety of night. Like an old and relentless enemy, my fear grew throughout the day, festering inside of me leading to strange and ominous thoughts about the consequences of unwittingly bringing that thing home.

Do not misunderstand me, my fear was not simply for my own safety. As a child I believed that my nightly visitor was transfixed and consumed by wanting me, but I did not feel that my loved ones were in any danger. This, however, had changed. I did worry. This time I did feel nothing but fear for my loved ones, because you see, I do not live alone.

My girlfriend and I moved in together over two