The Monster Under the Bed

The Gateway to Hell

Sarah managed to disappear all too well.

Of coarse she didn't know that yet. To her it seemed as if she were standing numbly in the middle of the road, unable to move her feet, no matter how hard she tried. She couldn't hide.  Angeline would see her and kill her.

Howls and growls emanated from the open door of the house. Sarah was shaking. They were going to die. Both she and Chisanu were going to die.

Not that Sarah understood dying that well. She was only five, after all. But she understood enough to know that it didn't mean anything good. She understood enough to know that when her father 'died', the tears people cried for him weren't tears of happiness. She understood enough to know that whoever died would not get up ever again. They would leave the world forever. And that after people died, other people's mothers got very aggressive with other people...Sarah's head throbbed nauseatingly at the memories flooding her head, but, as always, she chose to ignore them. She chose to believe it wasn't her mother's fault.

So who's mother would turn aggressive at their death? Who would get hurt just because Sarah and Chisanu went and got dead? Sarah didn't want anybody to be hurt like she was. Just for that, she decided that she wasn't going to die. She was going to fight for her life. And perhaps someone else's.

Just as she started back towards the house, someone uttered an exceptionally fierce and bloodthirsty howl, and someone else cried out in pain. Chisanu. But before Sarah could figure out what could have happened, she found Angeline striding out of the building. Straight in her direction. Looking straight at her.

Sarah felt herself go still. But...wait. Angeline wasn't looking at her. She was looking through her.

And, just like that, the creature switched directions. She headed for the bushes. Where Sarah had originally planned on hiding.

'Come out, my daughter!,' she said in a horrible, shrill voice. 'I know you're here, my dear! Come out like a good little girl!'

Sarah took the unlikely opportunity to creep up the porch and into the hall. It looked horrible. Blood stood in puddles here and there, and was sprayed on the walls like some morbid spray painting. Chisanu was crouching in the middle of a bigger blood puddle. He turned as Sarah approached him.

Thank goodness you're okay, Sarah. Do you know you're invisible?

'Don't be ridiculous, Chisanu!,' Sarah breathed a sigh of relief. He was still not dead. 'If I were, how do you know where I am?'

I can do things like that. Just take a look in the mirror.

Sarah turned around to the blood-splattered full-body mirror in the hall - and froze.

It was like she wasn't there. She could see right through the space where she was supposed to be standing, and saw the crouching Chisanu and the ruined hall instead.

'That's why mother didn't see me,' she muttered. 'I am invisible.'

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sarah and Chisanu took refuge behind huge rubbish dispensers at the closest bar in town. Sarah's visible body slowly came back to her, so she bought herself a huge sandwich, earning  a few strange looks from the customers and the cashier. A girl no older than five or six years - barefoot and in a nightgown, at that, buying the largest possible sandwich they had, and managing to pay for it was not something one saw every day. But Sarah hadn't had anything to eat since the previous night's dinner, and she was starving. Now she was crouched next to Chisanu, chewing on her most delicious quarry.