Under the Bed

I’ve told this story so many times. I could recite it in my sleep. Sometimes I do. Reliving the moment I lost everything I held dear. The moment I lost more than I realized.

The moment I met the monster.

I’m sitting in the green room, waiting for my cue to take the stage. I’m alone, the makeup specialist and sound technician finished with me. I’ve studied the cue cards and rehearsed what I’m going to say.

I grip my hands together to keep them from shaking, try to slow my breathing. It’s another talk show, another interview. My first in a while. And maybe my last.

The door opens, and the stage director sticks his head in. “Mr. Harmon? We’re ready for you now.”

I nod, stand up. Show time.

I leave the room, follow the director to the stage entrance, the heavy curtain separating me from the cameras and the audience, from the host who will ask all the questions and lead my answers. It’s not too late to turn around, to call the whole thing off, to go back to my silence. To try to forget about everything I’ve done, everything that’s been done in my name.

The director holds up a hand, three fingers extended. He counts down silently, then signals me.

I take a deep breath, and push through the curtain.

Applause greets my appearance, the live audience following the cues just like everyone else. The host leaps to his feet and comes out from behind his desk, hand extended to shake mine.

“Welcome to the show, Douglas!” he says, voice pitched so that the mic clipped to his suit jacket is probably redundant. “Or may I call you Doug?”

“Doug is fine,” I say with a smile. “Thanks for having me on.”

He waves away my gratitude. “My pleasure, my pleasure.” He guides me to a seat in a plush wingchair next to his desk, takes his own seat, directing his attention to the cameras and the audience. “Well, folks, our guest tonight hardly needs any introduction. He’s been known as a survivor, a champion, a crusader. The man who brought something amazing and terrifying to the public’s knowledge, and spurred us to face it.” He swivels to face me directly. “So, Doug, let me be straight with you. We get a lot of celebrities on this show, people who’ve done great things. And while you certainly meet that criteria, it’s fair to say your fame started not from something you did, but with something that happened to you.”

It’s a struggle to keep smiling. “You could say that.”

A laugh comes from the crowd.

“I mean, it’s been, what, almost thirty years since… that night?” The host couches the words carefully, but I know what he’s looking for. What he’s leading me to.

He wants the story. They always want the story.

“Something like that,” I say. “I was just a kid at the time. I had no idea what was really going on. Just that… just that it was terrifying.”

“No doubt,” the host says, his features assuming a look of sympathy and commiseration. “And I know you’ve told it all before. But perhaps you could go over it again, for our younger viewers?”

I guess there’s no getting around it. “I was six. My parents put me to bed, said good night. Turned off the light.” I pause, feeling the sweat start to form under my collar. It’s like this every time. “At some point, we all fear the dark. The places where it gathers. In the closets. Behind the doors. Under the beds.”

The host nods, the very soul of understanding.

“For weeks I’d been convinced there was a monster under my bed. Hiding there. No matter how many times my folks checked and told me there was nothing there, I was sure of it. Because they always checked with the lights on, you see?” I sigh. “The monster didn’t come out unless it was dark.” A faint tremor passes through my limbs. “I’d hear it breathing first, this noise that I could only call a growling sound. It would go on and on, until I couldn’t take it any longer, and I’d have to look. But the minute I turned on my bedside lamp, the breathing would stop; when I’d look, there would be nothing there.” I swipe the back of my hand across my damp brow. “That’s when I decided to look with the lights off.”

The host is staring at me, transfixed. The audience is holding its collective breath.

I swallow against a dry throat. “First I saw the eyes. Narrow, red. Gleaming in the darkness under the bed. Then its breathing changed, the growl getting more pronounced. Its mouth opened, and I could see its sharp teeth. When I saw that, I screamed as loud as I could.” I lick my lips. “And that was when it came out from under the bed.”

The host glances from me toward the camera. “I know this must be difficult for you, Doug. But can you please remind us all of what happened next?”

“It came out from under the bed,” I repeat. “But not right at me. It came out on the far side, and I could sort of see the whole thing. It was… strange. Dark, formless. Like a cloud of shadows, with eyes and teeth and the impression of limbs, arms and legs. Claws. It… moved around, in the darkness, as if it was looking for something, maybe. For me, I thought at the time.” I blink rapidly, fighting tears now. “That’s as far as things got before Dad charged into the room, holding a baseball bat. He flicked on the lights. I hoped that would make the monster disappear. Make it go away, like it did when it was still under the bed. But it didn’t. It just seemed to get angry. Or frantic. Like it went berserk.” I shake my head again. “It was the most terrifying thing you can imagine.”

“I’m sure, I’m sure,” says the host, his tone soothing. “We don’t have to go into what happened next. That would be cruel.”

Like bringing any of this up isn’t cruel. But I appreciate not having to describe what the monster did to my dad when he went after it with the baseball bat. “It’s funny, though,” I say. “All the times I’ve retold this story, the one thing that’s really struck me is the eyes.”

“The eyes?” the host repeats. “What about the eyes? You said they were glowing red, scary.”

“Yes. But there was something else there. When the lights turned on, and the darkness that hid it was gone, its eyes… changed.” I shake my head. “Having had a lot of time to think about it, now I wonder if those eyes didn’t look a little… frightened. As if the monster was scared, too.”

“Yes, well, I suppose the most important thing is really what this incident meant for the world,” the host says quickly, getting away from my tangent and back on his track. “Before this, monsters were just something you told stories about, campfire and bedtime tales meant to entertain and get a scare. But when the world realized that they were real, well, that changed a lot of things.”

I nod, lost in my thoughts.

“Now, thanks to you, we know what is hiding in the shadows, lurking in the dark,” the host continues, rolling on. It’s like he’s gotten what he wanted from me, and can take it from here, anywhere he wants to. “Scientists have studied the phenomenon for decades. We’ve learned what lies on the other side of the darkness. We know what comes through when we turn off the lights. What comes out from under the bed. And we’ve learned how to fight back against it.”

Now I frown. That’s true, I suppose. At first, people used my experience to create awareness, warn of the possibilities. Parents stopped turning out the lights, and an entire generation has adapted to sleeping in the light. It’s not that the monsters can come through any patch of darkness; it seems to require a specific combination of environment and circumstances to let them through. Basically, you have to have a frightened kid in a dark place. And he has to know they’re there.

I won’t go into the research they did to find all that out.

“So, now we know the threat we face.” The host leans back in his chair, a satisfied smile on his face. “For the better part of thirty years, we’ve fought back. Finding them where they hide. Dragging them into the light.” His smile takes a fierce cast. “Getting them before they get us. Is that right or is that right, Doug?”

I can only nod again. That is what we do now. And all because of me, because of what happened to me, and how I interpreted it as a child. For so long, I’ve been telling and retelling my story. Of how I found the first monster. Of what it did to my family. Of what it took from me.

And all that time I never thought to ask why it happened.

It sent people up in arms, started a veritable crusade against the monsters. All across the country at first, then across the world, people shone lights into the dark spaces, seeking the monsters that might be hiding there. And when they found them, they destroyed them. Turns out the creatures, whatever they are and wherever they come from, are just as vulnerable as we are. It’s become a war. The world thinks we face an invasion, and is determined to prevent it.

But I’m not so sure anymore. I’ve relived that experience so many times. In my nightmares at first. Then, after telling and retelling the story, as I grew up, matured, I really thought about it. Compared my memories against my feelings. Gradually, I’ve come to wonder some things. Where do the monsters come from? How long have they been hiding under our beds? And why have they’ve been hiding at all?

Were they watching us because they fear us? Did they see everything we did to ourselves, and worry about what we might do to them? Is it possible that they hid in the dark, because they were scared of what hid in the light?

“Excuse me,” I say, clearing my throat to regain the host’s attention, interrupting him as he rants about the dangers of the monsters and what we must do to protect ourselves. “Excuse me, but has anyone ever thought to ask a few basic questions?”

The host’s eyes narrow. “What kind of questions?”

“Well, why the monsters were under our beds to begin with?”

“I think that’s pretty obvious, don’t you?” he asks, arching an eyebrow. “They’re out to get us, an invasion, determined to eliminate us, take our world—”

“But how sure are we?” I say, interrupting him again. “How many monster attacks have there actually been? I mean, unprovoked attacks?”

“Excuse me, Doug, I’m not sure what you’re getting at.” Now the host sounds condescending, like he’s being forced to explain something painfully obvious to an idiot. “These monsters have been found hiding in every corner of the planet. Watching us. Lurking under our very beds. I mean, with what happened to your father, I’d say it’s clear they mean us harm.”

“I know the monsters can kill,” I say quietly. “Believe me. But they only seem to do that when we expose them, flush them out. Why haven’t they launched their invasion? Made an organized effort?” I draw a shuddering breath, suddenly overcome with conflicting emotions. “The monster killed my father, yes. But… but I was the one who made it come out from under the bed. And then, when Dad turned on the lights, maybe it couldn’t get back where it came from.” I look down at my hands, clasped before me, so tight that the knuckles are white. “Maybe it didn’t mean to kill Dad; maybe it was just defending itself.”

The host glances at the cameras, as if wondering whether he should continue the interview. At a signal from the director, he turns back to me. Controversy makes good content, I guess. “Doug, I can understand if you’re a bit confused. You’ve had a rough life, after all. But you know the extent of the threat we face. These things are everywhere; we have to take steps to protect ourselves—”

“And what if that’s all they’re doing? What if they don’t have any intention of invading and exterminating us? What if they’re just watching us, trying to find out how much of a threat we pose? I’ve seen what happens when we find one of them. When we lure them out of the dark, turn on the lights. They fight back, yes, but wouldn’t you fight if someone was trying to kill you?”

The host is silent for a long minute. “Just what are you saying, Doug?” he asks at last.

I frown in thought, trying to find the words, and the courage to say them. “I’m saying that maybe we’ve made a terrible mistake. Maybe I’ve made a terrible mistake. For so long, I’ve championed this cause, let myself be used as the poster child for a crusade against beings we don’t understand. I’m saying that maybe we should stop what we’re doing, stop hunting the monsters down and killing them. I’m saying maybe we should try something else, attempt to communicate with them, rather than just trying to eliminate them.”

I look up, staring directly into the camera, into all the eyes watching me through it. “I’m saying we need to change how we think about the monsters.

Before we become monsters ourselves.”