I never used to believe in monsters, that was always Sara’s thing. Every night around midnight she would come into my room and shake me awake, yelling about the monster under her bed and begging me to let her sleep with me. Of course I always said yes—it was hard to say no to those big blue eyes. She was only five.
But that night I’d been up studying for a big test in chem the next day, and I couldn’t afford to fail it. So I was angry when she woke me up, and rather than let her sleep with me I decided to prove to her once and for all that there was no monster under her bed. Unfortunately, it didn’t exactly work out like that.
I took her by the hand, brought her back to her room, and switched on the light. Nothing. She pulled at my hand, tears streaming down her face, trying to say something but I couldn’t understand through her sobs. I threw the covers back from the bed and crouched down so I could see under it. Outside, the neighbor’s dog was howling.
“Look, Annie,” I said to my little sister, “there’s nothing there, see?”
“He’s hungry!” she sobbed. “Get away! He’s hungry!”
I looked back at her, about to say something, and from the corner of my eye I saw something move. I whipped my head back around and was it, though what it was I don’t know. It looked as if it wasn’t entirely there, like it wasn’t solid, and it was hard to tell where it ended and empty space began. All I really saw were its eyes, brown and filled with hatred and hunger. It was only there for a second before it moved. Then she screamed.
From down the hall I heard my parents’ door open and their pounding footsteps coming frantically closer. They burst in. “What’s wrong? What happened?”
Annie turned towards them. “Nothing’s wrong, we were just playing a game.” She looked back at me. “Weren’t we, sis?” Her brown eyes were filled with innocent malice.