The Children

"Goodnight my love." A mother kissed her six year old son on the forehead before pulling the comforter up to his chin.
"Don't leave mommy." The boy whines as his mother turned towards the door. "They're gonna get me. They're in here." The woman consoled her child and informed him that there was nothing for him to be afraid of.
With that, she flipped off the light, and closed the door.
Darkness poured across the room. Shadows danced along the walls, bouncing from corner to corner. Silhouettes of tiny bodies crawled around the perimeter of the bed. Claw-like scratching ripped against the wooden bed post.
Tears built up within the boys eyes as he could make out the blurred image of a dark eyed boy and girl climb up the bottom of his bed. Their faces were pale. Their hair an Ashen gray.
"Please go away. Please go away." The boy repeated over and over again. His voice trembled with fear. He closed his eyes but could feel the pressure of the children's cold hands gripping at his bare legs beneath the sheets.
"Mama says you're not real. She says you're my imagination." The boy opened his eyes.
The children had vanished.
Sweat poured down the boys face and formed sticky puddles of perspiration underneath his chin against his neck. His heart raced uncontrollably.
"Mooom!!" The boy yelled from his bed, too afraid to get up and venture towards the door on his own. "Mooom!!" The door came flying open and the boy's mother flicked the light switch bringing back a much appreciated flare of light.
"What? What is it?"
"The scary kids, they were here! They were grabbing my legs!" The boy had become hysterical. Streams of tears poured down his face.
"Shhhh." The mother said as she sat on the corner of the bed, wiping away the wet that covered her sons face. "Everything is okay. Would you feel better if I checked the room for you?" The boy nodded his head. He sniffled in an attempt to stop the mucus from dripping from his nose.
His mother walked a few laps around the room, checking the closet, outside the window, in the toy chest, and lastly under the bed.
"See, there's nothing. It's just your imagination. Please try to go to sleep, okay?" She gave her son another kiss and a long hug before turning off the light once again and exiting the room.
The boy shut his eyes and relished in the silence. Sleep crept over him.
Then the scratching noises returned. A noisy shuffling sound came from under the bed. "Mama said it's all in my head." The boy whispered quietly to himself. He had watched as she checked under the bed only a few minutes earlier and knew that nothing could be down there. He was hesitant, but thought that maybe everything would stop if he looked for himself.
The boy slumped his torso over the side of the bed and dropped his head so that it hanged down towards the floor. Four red eyes stared at him from out of the darkness that lived beneath the bed. Two decrepit faces poked out of the dark and opened their mouths releasing a beast like screech. A pair of hands grabbed onto the boy and pulled him into the floor.
He screamed for help but the only response that came was from his mother who screamed from another room in the house "There's nothing in there, now go to bed!". His fingernails pierced the wooden floor as he was pulled beneath the bed. A trail of scratches were left behind. A child's high pitched laughter echoed through the room as the screams faded into silence.
The boy was never seen or heard from again.