Short Stories Collection

Bump in the Night

There was a time in my life when I thought it was normal. I thought that the things he did was something everyone did. And maybe it was? How was I to know? I wasn't allowed to be around other people outside of school. I couldn't spend the night at other people's house. That was beyond out of the question.

That didn't even matter anyway, not anymore. The one and only time I had asked my father to stay overnight somewhere I had been invited to a birthday sleepover party. My father had freaked out and spent two hours lecturing me on how it wasn't safe, that not everyone knew of them or believed in them. He said the people in town were naive, refusing to believe in what they have yet to see.

He had locked me in the closet after that until he felt I had learned my lesson about wanting to stay somewhere else, somewhere unsafe. That was also the last time anyone from school had talked to me. I became the weird girl that lived in the strange house at the edge of the woods with her paranoid father.

As much as I hate his behavior and how it had alienated me, I loved him. He was the only family I knew. My mother had died when I was just a baby, a story my father still hadn't told me. Maybe it didn't even matter how she died. The part the made a difference was that she was gone. Not how or when, just that she was. My mother wasn't here and that was the only part of the story I needed to know.

"Jessie, it's time for bed," my father said from the doorway of my bedroom.

Sighing, I slid my pen and notebook into the drawer in my bedside table. My father walked to the window on the far side of my room and checked the seal and the lock before moving on to the one right beside my best. After double checking both of them, he turned to me. His face etched with lines of worry and his mocha colored eyes dulled with fatigue.

"Goodnight, Jessie," my father said as he turned to leave the room.

"Night," I replied as my room plunged into darkness and I snuggled into my covers.

I was nearly asleep when I heard the first sounds.

Little girl?

I sat bolt upright and looked around, my heart racing.

Little girl? Are you in there?

The whisper was coming from the window beside my bed. I stared at it in disbelief. Was I dreaming? The sounds of something scratching against the glass filled my ears as the voice spoke again.

Come out and play little girl. We want to be your friend.

My body began to shake as fear threaded its way through my body.

The sound if the lock clicking echoed loud in the room. A shadow creeping slowly across my floor.

Don't be afraid, sweetie. Mommy's home.

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A/N: Word Count 500

I wrote this for the Aim to Engage 2019: YASciFantasy Prompt - Monsters at the Window

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~SM~