Editor’s note: From time to time, we’ll run original flash fiction (very short stories, 100-1,000 words long) in text — not audio — format. Eric Sandler’s “The Monster” gets us started.

‘The Monster’

Written by Eric Sandler.

The boy lay in his bed, staring at the ceiling. He pushed back the covers, breathing hard. Beneath the bed, the monster lurked, hiding. Waiting for him to close his eyes. The boy could hear it, slithering about, even over the noise Mommy and Daddy made.

They were yelling. The boy had heard it every night, for days now. He didn’t understand what the yelling was about. Daddy was always angry with Mommy, and Mommy was angry with Daddy. But the monster didn’t care. The monster wanted to eat the boy. To gobble him up. The boy had barely slept the past two weeks because of the monster.

He heard it. Heard it creeping, sneaking, crawling, pacing around beneath his bed.

Mommy and Daddy didn’t believe him. They said there was no such thing as monsters. They showed him his closet. Empty. They peered under the bed and made him look. Empty. But he knew better. The monster was real. He’d seen it, stared at its claws, its fangs, gleaming in the moonlight. Heard it growling and snapping for the meal he’d make.

The monster was there tonight, under his bed. Lying, rumbling, waiting. Every night the boy thought he would never sleep, would never wake again. Every morning he woke covered in sweat, his pajamas soaked in it.

More yelling from Mommy’s and Daddy’s room. Mommy called Daddy a bad word. The boy didn’t know what it meant, but when he’d repeated it one morning, Daddy had hit him and told him never to say it again. He never did.

The monster rose on its hind legs, gripping the sheets with its claws. The boy lay very still. He didn’t scream. Screaming only made it more hungry.

“You want to eat me,” said the boy.

A growl. The monster was happy. Tonight it would get to eat.

“You can’t eat me,” said the boy, almost feverish in his courage. For he had come up with a plan, two nights ago, lying awake waiting to be eaten. He’d made a plan, and it would fix everything. “You can’t eat me,” he said again. “But you can eat Mommy and Daddy.”

The boy stared at the ceiling, waiting for an answer. The claws disappeared from the bed. A shadow slithered through the moonlight. The bedroom door, left open mere inches to let in the hall light, didn’t move a whisper.

The monster was hungry.

The boy lay there in bed, tired, unafraid. Mommy and Daddy were still yelling. Mommy called Daddy another bad word. Daddy shouted something awful. Something broke. It sounded like glass. Mommy screamed. He heard thumps from Mommy’s and Daddy’s bedroom. More screaming.

Silence. Finally, silence. The monster had eaten its fill.

The boy smiled, pulled up the covers. He rolled over and went to sleep.

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