Bedside Monster (House Beasts #1)

Fading

Oliver reached out for an umbrella and held it in front of him. His hand was shaking. His eyes darted from right to left. There was the sound of something banging, somewhere in the flat.

With slow, careful steps, he walked to the living room, following the source of the sound. One of the window's glass was smashed and left open. He swallowed. He lived on the third floor. He readjusted his grip on his umbrella and walked over to close it, careful not to step on any glass.

Something ran down the hallway. By the time he turned around, it was already gone. Again the sound of those small footsteps - he didn't remember that from the last time she had haunted him. Had she discovered a new trick to torment him?

He looked down the hallway again. There was his room, still dark from when he had left without opening his curtains this morning. He knew that whatever he was looking for, it was in there. He slowly followed it, his weapon raised like a bat. He had done some baseball when he was younger. He wasn't quite sure if that counted in self-defence.

Nothing looked out of place at first glance. He reached out to turn on the light but his gaze met the one of the Thing that was under his bed and he froze.

Large, pitch-black eyes in a bony face. A lipless mouth, full of sharp fangs. A neck that was so twisted that its pointy chin rested between his shoulder blades. It laid there, crouched, its clawed hands sinking in the carpet, so still, it didn't look alive.

Oliver drew in a shaky breath but didn't scream.

It pounced at him from under the bed with an ear-piercing screech. Oliver shouted and swung his umbrella without thinking. That sent it flying back to the ground before it could reach him, even if it was standing again before Oliver even realized that he had actually touched the creature. That's when he got his first good look at it.

It was bony and lanky, but also small. There were muscles on that thin frame. Some cheeks. Maybe its belly could be described as chubby. A child?

It flickered its long black tongue at Oliver in annoyance, rubbing the side of its head, and got on all four, turning its head until it was all the way around on his shoulders. Oliver slowly backed away as it crawled in his direction.

"Please leave," he told it. "This is my home."

The thing hissed and charged him. Oliver didn't hesitate. He brought his umbrella down on the creature once, drawing a yelp from it as he stopped it in his tracks. It was slow enough that he could stand his ground in front of it. It wasn't that bad.

There was a low growl behind him, so deep it was like a tombstone opening. Never had he heard such a sound, yet he recognized it like the cavemen recognized the sound of a lioness ready to pounce as he was attacking her cub. He slowly turned around.

She was there.

The way she held herself on the walls of the hallway reminded him of a spider. A human-shaped spider, although the resemblance stopped there. Her skin looked like leather, her eyes were two black sockets in her skull. When she opened her maw, she had but rows and rows of needle-like teeth sticking in all direction. There were markings on her body, dark paint that looked awfully like dried blood. They had always reminded Oliver of runes, as if she was born out of a nameless, horrific ritual, a corpse brought back to life. But what sort of corpse possessed limbs like sticks with the strength of a horse and the ability to bend itself in any direction she pleased? What sort of power had been granted to her, that she could move without a sound and scale buildings?

He half expected her to smile. She could do it, he knew. Too many times she had been standing in the dark, waiting for him to find her, with that lipless smile of hers, that made her face gape on each side of her teeth. She didn't now.