The Thing Beneath

Part I - The Thing Beneath

I never really believed in monsters. I mean, who does?

As a kid, sure - I had my moments. I’d swear I heard something breathing under the bed, or I'd run past the closet after dark like it might reach out and grab my ankle. But I grew out of it. My mom told me monsters weren’t real, and my dad shined a flashlight under the bed like that was the end of the story.

By twenty-three, my fears had names like “rent,” “overdraft fees,” and “Emily, who kept Venmo’ing me passive-aggressive emojis.” I was living alone in a basement apartment that smelled like mildew and someone’s idea of a cinnamon candle. It was barely 500 square feet and felt like it was held together with duct tape and sarcasm. I had a bed that sagged in the middle, a job that made me question the meaning of free labor, and the kind of insomnia that turns 2 a.m. into a personality trait.

That’s when it started.

It was a Thursday night, technically Friday morning… 2:17 a.m. I was doom-scrolling Reddit on my phone and demolishing a sad bowl of dry cereal in bed. The fan was on in the corner, humming like usual. The lamp cast a soft glow that didn’t quite reach the closet. I was halfway through a thread about sleep paralysis demons when I heard it.

A grunt.

Not loud. Not even sharp. Just low. Gritty. Like gravel being rubbed together.

I froze. My eyes flicked to the ceiling, then to the shadows along the walls. Maybe it was the pipes. Or the floor settling. Old buildings make noises, right?

Then came the scrape.

It wasn’t the building. It wasn’t normal. It was deliberate. Rhythmic. Like someone - or something - adjusting its position just out of sight.

I slowly lowered my phone, heart beginning to thump in my chest.

Another grunt. This time closer. Closer and under the bed.

I sat up fast. My eyes scanned the floor. No movement. I told myself it was nothing, just a weird noise. A figment of tired nerves and too much sugar.

Then I heard a click.

I turned.

The closet door had cracked open.

I always close the damn closet door. I checked it. It’s a ritual left over from childhood. That door was closed when I went to bed.

Now, it was open… just an inch. Just enough to drive my imagination into the deep and dark places I feared as a child.

The air shifted.

I stood up fast and crossed the room, my hand hovering over the doorknob. Heat rolled out from the crack. Not the warm, comforting kind. This was sick heat. Metallic. Rotten. Like someone had left copper pennies in the oven.

The doorknob felt too cold.

And then, a voice, rough and abrasive, came from beneath the bed.

“Oh, for the love of mucus, kid, don’t open that.”

I screamed. Full-on horror movie scream. The bowl of cereal flew. I fell hard. Elbow to floor. Laptop crashed. I flailed like I’d been tased.

And from under the bed, something groaned.

Two yellow eyes blinked at me from the darkness.

I couldn’t move. I couldn’t breathe. All I could do was stare.

Then, the thing crawled out.

It wasn’t human. It wasn’t even close. Shaggy, hairy, shadow-wrapped and dripping with claws and teeth and limbs that didn't seem to agree on a shared anatomy. It looked like a pile of nightmares that had agreed to cooperate for the evening.

It dusted itself off and squinted at me.

“You didn’t know I was here?” it asked, like I’d somehow missed it.

I could barely speak. “What… are you?”

It sighed. “I live under your bed, genius. I’ve been guarding you since you were six.”

“Guarding me… from what?”

It jabbed a claw at the closet. “Him.”

As if on cue, the door creaked another inch.

I said the only thing that made sense at the time. “I need to lie down.”

“You were lying down,” it said, sarcastically. “Then you flailed like a muppet on fire.”

“I don’t get it,” I said. “You’re not trying to kill me?”

“If I were evil,” it grumbled, “you’d already be a soup stain.”

The closet door rattled.

The monster turned and growled. Not at me. At it.

The thing in the closet froze.

“I don’t understand,” I whispered. “There’s… another monster? In there?”

“Yep,” the one under the bed said. “And he’s a sicko. Feeds on guilt. Shame. Self-doubt. You’ve been giving him plenty lately. That hoodie you never wear? He loves it. Wasted potential. Delicious.”

I looked down at myself. “So, you’re... protecting me?”

“Yes. And doing a damn good job, thank you.”

“Who… who are you?”

It paused. “You couldn’t pronounce my real name. But you can call me Dave.”

“Dave?”

“Short for D’rha’vul-Nak’tzarlg. But yeah. Dave.”

Then he sighed, crawled back under the bed, and vanished into the dark like a tired raccoon guardian angel.

I sat there, staring at the closet. It creaked again.

I kicked it closed and jumped back into bed, heart pounding.

“Good night, Dave,” I whispered.

From beneath me came the faintest rumble:

“Sleep tight. And don’t even think about that hoodie.”

Part II: The Closet Opens

You get used to having a monster under your bed faster than you'd think.

After the first few nights of heart-pounding dread and post-midnight therapy talks with Dave, things settled into a weird routine. I’d toss him granola bars, and he’d mutter unsolicited life advice like “Text your mom back,” or “She’s not haunting you, dude - you’re just emotionally avoidant.” He snored sometimes, deeply, like a chainsaw buried in laundry. Honestly? I kind of liked the company.

But something had changed.

I first noticed it when the closet started leaking heat again. Not warmth - heat. The kind that made the skin on your arms prickle. Every night, it was stronger. Dave grew quieter. More agitated. His claws twitched when he slept. Once, I swear I saw him sharpening a jawbone.

Then, the seventh night.

It was just past 3 a.m. I woke up with this icy dread slithering through my spine. The fan was off. The air was thick. I was sweating so hard my sheets clung to me like plastic wrap. I felt like it was being watched.

And the closet door… was open.

Not cracked. Not slightly ajar.

Wide open.

A chair lay splintered on the floor in front of it… my chair. The one I’d been jamming under the handle every night.

I sat up, slowly and shivering. “Dave?” I whispered.

No response.

“Dave?”

Nothing.

The silence was wrong.

I leaned over the edge of the bed and peeked underneath.

He was there.

But he wasn’t right.

Dave - my protector - was curled up tight, shuddering. His limbs were twitching, his eyes wide and blank. Black ichor leaked from his ears. He looked… drained. Faded. Like someone had vacuumed all the color out of him.

“Dave?! What happened?”

He barely moved. His voice was a scratch in the dark.

“Don’t… don’t look at it…”

That’s when I saw it.

In the closet.

It didn’t walk out. It unfolded. Like something unzipping from the darkness. Too tall, too many joints, too long. It moved like a puppet trying to remember how bones worked. Its skin shimmered - sometimes human, sometimes raw, sometimes wearing my own damn face. Its head was covered with twisted hangers bent into some mockery of a crown.

It didn’t speak with a mouth.

It just was, and I heard it.

“He’s gone soft. You’re alone now. You belong to me.”

I couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t move. Shame, guilt, fear… every awful emotion I’d buried rushed to the surface. I saw every failure, every missed call, every regret wrapped around me like barbed wire. It touched my chest, and I sank. Not physically… mentally, spiritually. I felt small. Unworthy. Forgotten.

Then, just as the darkness threatened to take me…

BOOM.

The bed exploded. Wood splintered. Something howled.

And Dave was there.

My monster.

He didn’t crawl out - he launched out - roaring like a demon freight train.

“You don’t TOUCH my kid, you crazy coat rack!”

The creature turned, but Dave was already on it. Fangs out. Claws flashing. They hit the wall so hard plaster rained from the ceiling. Screams, shrieks, howls. I didn’t know whose voice was whose, or which was worse.

“You dry-cleaned parasite!” Dave snarled.

They fought like titans. The air warped around them. The Hunger twisted and cracked like a broken insect, trying to slip past Dave, but he wouldn’t let up. I’d never seen anything like it. It wasn’t just a fight, it was war. Ancient. Cosmic.

Dave bit down hard on what might have been a shoulder and hurled the thing backward. The closet yawned wide like it was hungry too.

“BACK. IN. YOUR. HOLE.”

He slammed the door shut with a roar that shook the room.

Shadow poured from his mouth, crawling over the closet like a living chain. Symbols I couldn’t understand burned against the wood. The air was still.

Dave collapsed to one knee.

I stared, shaking. “You saved me…”

He looked up. “That’s kind of my job, remember?”

“What was that thing?” I asked.

He winced, wiping black ooze off his chin. “He calls himself The Hunger. He used to be like me. A protector. Then he got hungry, started feeding on shame instead of stopping it.”

I looked down. “He showed me things. I thought they were real…”

“He shows you the worst version of the truth,” Dave said gently. “The one you’re already scared of. But it’s not real, kid. He only has power if you believe you deserve it.”

I let out a shaky breath.

Dave stood slowly, cracking his spine. “You should eat something. Maybe call your mom. Clean up that hoodie. The more balanced you get, the weaker he becomes.”

“And what about you?”

He smirked, already crawling back under the broken bed frame. “I’ll be here. Watching. Mocking your playlist choices.”

“Thanks, Dave.”

“Don’t get mushy. I still eat socks.”

Then he was gone.

I stared at the sealed closet door until dawn. The silence returned, but it didn’t feel empty this time.

“Good night, Dave,” I whispered.

From the shadows, low and loyal:

“Sweet dreams, kid.”

Part III: Watchers

We moved out to the country after Ellie was born.

Big yard. Quiet nights. Space to breathe. The kind of place where nothing feels haunted until the silence settles in. Until the shadows at the edge of your vision get a little too still.

Our new house had a lot of that.

Ellie’s room was bigger than anything I had growing up. Toys neatly lined on the shelves, glow-in-the-dark stars on the ceiling, a closet twice as deep as it needed to be. She insisted on keeping the light off when she slept. “Big girls don’t need nightlights,” she told me, brave as ever.

That night, I’d tucked her in like usual. A kiss on the forehead, the soft rustle of her favorite blanket. She smiled at me, wide and sleepy, and said, “I’m fine, Daddy. Promise.”

So, I turned off the light, and I left.

But around 9:47 p.m., I heard something. The unmistakable sound of silence being interrupted. A shift. A creak. Like the room itself took a breath.

I stood outside her door and listened.

From inside, a voice… small and curious.

“Is someone there?”

I froze.

Another sound, low and grumbly, almost annoyed. “’Bout time you noticed.”

I opened the door just a crack, enough to watch without being seen.

She wasn’t scared. Not really. Not yet.

I watched her lean over the bed, wide-eyed. I remembered that feeling. The tangle of fear and curiosity. The invisible line between childlike wonder and something far older.

Then he emerged.

Not Dave.

Someone else.

This one was shorter. Rounder. Like someone had drawn a monster using sidewalk chalk and then brought it to life after rolling it in lint. Big eyes. Lopsided horns. Claws too long for comfort. But there was no menace in the way he moved. Just weariness.

“Name’s Crumb,” he said, hauling himself out. “Watcher, Underbed Division. Tier Two.”

Ellie didn’t scream.

She blinked.

Crumb scratched behind one ear with a crooked talon and grunted, “You’re not gonna freak out?”

“I’m… thinking about it,” she said.

“Fair.”

And just like that, I knew she was going to be okay.

But then the air changed.

I felt it even from the hallway…him. The closet. The heat. The weight. That same sick pressure I hadn’t felt in years. My skin grew cold.

Crumb turned to the closet and pointed.

“Because something else is here,” he told her.

She followed his gaze. The closet door was open just enough to peer into the darkness. Shadows bled from it like smoke in reverse. I saw the way her shoulders tensed, the tiny tremble in her lip. I knew what she was seeing, what she was feeling.

I wanted to burst in. To scoop her up and slam that door shut myself.

But I didn’t.

Because Crumb stepped between her and the dark.

He wasn’t big like Dave. He didn’t have fangs or fury or righteous rage. But he stood tall… well, tall-ish. His fur bristled. His claws flexed. He stood, and that was enough.

From the closet came a long, wet creak.

Something reached out… a limb, pale and searching.

Crumb didn’t flinch.

“Nope,” he muttered, low and firm. “Not tonight, twig-boy.”

With a roar that didn’t match his size, Crumb slammed the closet door shut. The shadows recoiled. The crack sealed. Silence returned.

Ellie looked up at him, wide-eyed. “Is it gone?”

“For now,” he said, turning back toward her. “But I’m not.”

She smiled. “Thank you.”

He shrugged like it was no big deal. “Just doing my job.”

Then he glanced toward the floor and scratched behind his ear again. “Your dad? Lucas? He had one of us too. Tough guy named Dave. Still around. Talks about him sometimes… you too.”

Ellie giggled. “Daddy used to tell me stories about him.”

Crumb gave a crooked little smile. “Well. Guess now you’ve got one too.”

Then, like it was the most normal thing in the world, he crawled back under her bed and vanished into the dark.

I waited until her breathing slowed. Until I heard her whisper, “Goodnight, Crumb.”

And from under the bed came a low, rumbling reply:

“Goodnight, Ellie. Sweet dreams.”

I stood outside the door, hand on the frame, heart full.

My daughter had her own monster now.

And she was going to be just fine.