‘Hmm, I don’t know Mummy,’ Timmy mused, almost comically. ‘Are you doing a revolution?’
The Philips household were concluding their first dinner of the new year. As both Christmas and New Year’s day had fallen on Sundays this year and there was still a fair amount of turkey left over, the two meals had been pretty much identical. Timmy had finished first on both days; roast dinner was his favourite.
‘It’s resolution sweetie, a revolution is completely different.’ Hannah corrected him patiently. ‘My resolution is to be more assertive.’
Timmy looked blankly at his mother as he mulled over her response and after a short time, gave up. ‘What does assertive mean?’
‘It means that Mummy is going to shout at Daddy more.’ interjected John, showing off his handsome teeth in a cheeky grin. Timmy laughed at this, aware that his father had made a joke.
‘You may be surprised to hear that not all of my life decisions revolve around you, dear.’ Hannah retaliated playfully. ‘What exactly are you going to do differently this year anyway?’
John shrugged, ‘I’m not sure there’s anything I could change about myself that would be an improvement, darling.’ The grin was still there, it made Hannah weak at the knees. ‘Maybe I should focus on helping other people improve their lives.’
Hannah’s eyes lit up. ‘That’s a great idea, you can start by helping me out around the house more on your weekends!’
John’s grin faded slightly. He liked his weekends as they were; the quality time spent with his son and the alone time he could find for his own hobbies were a perfect contrast to the long, stressful hours at the office that devoured his week. 'That’s not exactly what I meant,’ he began, attempting to back-pedal. ‘Surely there are people in greater need of my help than my lovely wife?’
Hannah looked unimpressed. ‘You can’t give up on your resolution before you’ve even tried it. Besides, I think you’d make a great housemaid.’ She looked toward Timmy expecting a laugh but the boy seemed lost in thought.
John felt compelled to fight his corner. ‘I can’t be giving up; I didn’t make a resolution in the first place. It was just a thought.’
Hannah thought about this briefly before her mouth creased in a sly smile. ‘OK then, in my first act of being assertive I shall hound you every weekend until you do something helpful. How does that sound?’
John thought that it sounded like Hannah had confused assertiveness with harassment, but before he could begin his riposte, Timmy interrupted.
‘I know!’
‘Know what dear?’ Hannah asked, a little confused but still smiling.
‘My resolution!’ Timmy was excited, he’d had a long hard think about what he wanted to do differently in his life since his parents had begun their little exchange and was proud with what he had come up with.
‘Well, what is it?’ asked John, somewhat relieved at the change of topic.
‘I’m want to sleep in the dark.’ he exclaimed.
The mood changed immediately. Hannah’s smile completely vanished, her usually pretty face suddenly looking drawn and sullen. Even John looked serious.
‘I’m not sure that’s a good idea sweetie,’ his mother told him. Her voice sounded tremulous, as if she might burst into tears at any moment. ‘You know how upset you get with the light off.’
It was probably true, Timmy thought. He had a vague recollection of screaming and crying hysterically when his father had turned the light out one night after tucking him in. But that must have been at least five years ago now, he was much older and a lot more grown up.
‘I’m not a baby anymore Mummy, I won’t cry because there’s no night light.’
John clasped Hannah's hand gently under the table. ‘We’ll talk about it tomorrow buddy, your mother and I need to confer.’
Another blank look passed over Timmy’s face, easing some of the tension as it did so. ‘What does confer mean?’
‘Just a posh word for talking,’ the grin began to appear on John’s face again and Timmy, who had been a little worried he was in trouble, relaxed slightly. ‘Why don’t you go and play some Mario while we wash up, that Peach isn’t going to rescue herself!’
Timmy didn’t need encouragement to play his 3DS. Within five minutes he was silently sitting on the beige faux leather settee on the other side of the room, fully immersed in the Mushroom Kingdom.
John turned to his wife, his face as grave as hers. ‘I know it’s hard,’ he began softly. ‘But it has to happen one day.’
Hannah breathed deeply. She had managed to keep her mind from dwelling on Charlie for a good few days now and the subject had caught her off guard. A single tear rolled down her left cheek. ‘I know,’ she admitted. ‘I just don’t want to forget about him.’
‘We’ll never be able to forget.’ John was blinking back tears himself. ‘But bit by bit, we’ll find it easier to get on with our lives.’
‘Maybe you’re right’ Hannah concluded solemnly. ‘Maybe this will help us move on.’
Timmy didn’t remember much about his big brother. A vague memory of his father switching off the light, the joy of a peaceful sleep interrupted by sudden raucous movement, and a muffled scream were all the memories that remained of the night Charlie disappeared. John remembered the evening a lot more vividly. Comically reading the final ‘Not now, Bernard’ from his children’s night time story, opening the big window to help keep their room cool that humid summer, turning off the light for his children for the last time, the unexpected ruckus around an hour later and the way Timmy had screamed and screamed and screamed. Most vividly of all he remembered the empty bed, perfectly made as if whoever had removed Charlie from it thought John and Hannah might not notice he was gone. It had made Hannah physically sick. The two policemen who investigated the room could offer no more than the obvious guess. They came through the window. There was a brief struggle. They left through the window. All they’re after is your money, there will be a ransom note.
But the ransom note never came. Worst of all there was no contact at all. Whoever had taken Charlie clearly had no interest in giving him back. So the Philips went through it all: the televised appeals, the county-wide manhunt, the tabloid accusations that broke Hannah’s heart time and time again and would have left John uncharacteristically irate if he read such nonsense. The case of Charlie Philips ticked all the missing child boxes. On the second day in the January of 2012, John and Hannah had more money from anonymous donations than they would have done had they won the EuroMillions. And it all amounted to nothing because after six and a half years, their first born was still missing. It would be unfair to say that the Philips had given up, but deep down John knew that ever seeing Charlie again would be nothing short of a miracle. It was all they could do to live in hope and try to carry on with their lives.
‘Did you and Mummy finish your confer?’ enquired Timmy during breakfast, interrupting John’s morose reminiscence. John smiled at his son, thinking of him as a shining beacon of happiness in these dark times.
‘As a matter of fact we did son.’ he said ‘You can have your light off tonight.’
‘Yay!’ proclaimed Timmy, jumping on the spot. John laughed at his overjoyed child.
‘There is a catch though, your mother stuck to her word and assertively asked me to finally do some decorating.’ This was a joke, the decoration had been John’s suggestion. He’d always enjoyed a bit of DIY. ‘Your rooms first buddy, you’ll have to sleep in Ch…’ he felt a twang of sorrow while he corrected himself ‘…sleep in the spare room.’
Timmy didn’t notice the slip ‘Yeah, I’m gonna watch TV all night!’
John smiled again, he couldn’t help it; no matter how down he felt, Timmy was always so happy. For Timmy, every day was a trip to Disneyland. Even after John explained that the old Samsung in “the spare room” had stopped working since the digital switchover, Timmy had come up with five other reasons why sleeping there would be the best night of his life.
He found another reason when bed-time came around; Timmy liked the bed. On first impressions, he liked it a lot. He thought the tarnished brass frame (that his poor father could no longer bear the sight of) made it look very homely and as he relaxed for the first time on top of the aged mattress covered by its plain white sheet and pulled the enormous duvet up to his shoulders, he quickly decided that it was the most comfortable bed he had ever lay in. Happily drowning in the luxurious pillows, Timmy couldn’t help but fall to sleep quickly, forgetting about the night light he had left on the bedside cabinet just in case he couldn’t manage to keep his resolution on the first attempt.
He awoke with a start, his breathing rapid and body shivering. He could hear the wind blowing ferociously outside as if it was in the room with him and looking over to the outer wall he immediately understood why; the window had been left wide open. The room was absolutely freezing and as much as he wanted to curl up and ignore the temperature drop, Timmy knew he’d not be able to get back to sleep comfortably without closing the window. It was as he begun to walk across the pale blue carpet, as the wind died down ever so slightly that he heard it. It was definitely a groan, as if whatever it was that made the sound had been unexpectedly woken up and was rather unhappy about it. Timmy thought the noise far too monstrous to be either human or animal and the idea made his blood run cold. He ran to the window and slammed it shut, repeating to himself that the two glaring yellow eyes he thought he saw glinting up towards his room from the centre of the garden and the hulking, grotesquely fragmented arachnid body attached to them were all in his imagination.
He ran for his bedroom door, no longer shivering from the temperature but from pure fear. I have to tell Daddy, he was thinking, he’ll know what to do. But as hard as he tried, the door wouldn’t budge. The groans from the garden were getting louder, the whole house was beginning to shake. Timmy knew the monster was climbing up the side of the house, toward his room. As the window smashed open, he closed his eyes tight. This must be a dream he tried to convince himself. I’m going to count to three and wake up. The window frame creaked against the weight of the creature that was pulling itself into the bedroom.
One,…
The ungodly stench of the thing pervaded the room as it entered and Timmy could hear an unpleasant squelch as each of its legs found a surface in the room.
…two,…
No later than a second after the eighth leg splashed down it was upon him. Not daring to sneak the slightest peek, Timmy squirmed as two hairy, adhesive limbs grabbed him by his hips and tossed him into the air toward the creature’s slimy mouth.
…three!
John and Hannah heard a loud crash from Charlie’s room and immediately feared the worst. They leapt out of the king-size bed and bolted out of the door, across the hall. As John burst in, his fear subsided as he realised what had happened.
The boy was on the floor, absently nursing the bruised left arm he had fallen on. He was staring at the closed window in disbelief.
‘We heard a bang son, you must have fallen out of bed pretty hard,’ John told him.
‘I had a nightmare,’ Timmy said quietly, blinking back tears. ‘It felt real.’
‘It’s ok sweetie, it’s over now.’ Hannah assured him.
Timmy looked genuinely relieved at this, ‘Yeah I guess it is, Mummy. Sorry for waking you up...’
John and Hannah were pleased to see Timmy calm down so quickly. ‘Don't worry about it, son. Will you be alright getting back to sleep?’ asked his father.
‘I think so Daddy…’ he answered. ‘…thanks for checking I was okay’ he added shyly.
‘Anytime buddy’ winked John. He and Hannah and both kissed their son on the forehead before heading back to bed.
Timmy looked toward the night light on the bedside table and fought the temptation to sleep with it on. He couldn’t give up on his resolution, that’s what his mother had said. He unplugged the light and hid it inside the room’s empty wardrobe to ensure he’d sleep through the night without it. This time he found it harder to get to sleep, the old mattress that had previously felt so luxurious now felt hard and cold. He experimented with various positions until he found one that was comfortable enough to doze off in and it must have been later than two o’clock when he finally managed to fall to sleep. Again his rest was troubled. He dreamt he was desperately trying to leave the room again, knowing that something evil was shimmying up the drainpipe, coming for him. The door wasn’t locked this time, he instinctively knew this to be true, but the doorknob was just out of reach, climbing away from his groping hands as he jumped for it.
Again the window crashed open ashishe pursuer made his entrance. Timmy caught sigh of the face once before immediately closing his eyes tight.
One,…
The head had been completely scalped, the smell of freshly cleaved flesh was overwhelming. It made Timmy gag. He heard dull and heavy footsteps thudded purposefully towards him.
…two,…
The face was the worst part, there was no doubt about it. He had seen the disfigured face of his father. The voice chilled him to the bone when it spoke: ‘Come on buddy, lets go see your brother!’. He felt cold dry hands squeeze tightly around his neck, just before they cut his air supply completely, he managed a brief scream.
…three!
He awoke in the bed once again, tightly and uncomfortably wrapped in the over-sized bed sheets, sweating from head to toe. He had screamed for real this time, he was sure of it as soon as he heard the scamper of his mother and father running for the room. The light hurt his eyes as John turned it on.
‘What happened, son?’ he asked, once again alarmed.
‘I’m ok.’ said Timmy, once again calming down quickly. ‘Just another nightmare. I think I tucked myself in too tightly.’
Hannah was concerned ‘Do you want to come and sleep in our room for the rest of the night sweetie?’
Timmy thought about this hard. He certainly didn’t want to have another bad dream, especially one so vivid. But he also wanted to be true to his word. He wanted to start his new years resolution today, he wanted to sleep a full night in the dark.
‘No it’s ok Mummy, I’ll be a big boy and stick with my resolution!’ he stated confidently.
Hannah was still concerned, but admired the boy for his determination ‘Ok darling but if it happens again I’m afraid I won’t take no for an answer!’ she told him in what she thought of as her new, assertive tone. After a final hug and kiss goodnight, John and Hannah went back to bed.
Before getting back into bed Timmy turned the dial on the wall radiator to allow more heat in the room. For some reason it had always made sense to him that the cold caused bad dreams, and this seemed like the best course of action. He grabbed one of the dull blue woollen blankets from underneath the bed for extra warmth and placed it neatly on top of the duvet. It certainly seemed to help him get comfortable, once again the bed felt luxuriously soft, and sleep took him quickly.
It had learned from its previous two mistakes. The attempt to fling the child across the room had gone terribly wrong. The second attempt to asphyxiate the disgusting parasite had been thwarted by the older worms and their blasted light. But now it had learned from its previous mistakes and this time it took no chances. As soon as it was sure that the wretched, vile creature who was arrogant enough to lay upon it was dormant, the bed made it’s move. The extra blanket slithered up towards the boy's face and began worming its way into his mouth. When he awoke, Timmy’s attempt to scream was futile as the blanket forced its way down his throat, making him to choke and wretch. Once he tried to pull the blanket out of him with his hands but the sheer force of its lunge further into his body sent his hands flying into his own face, his nose dripping blood onto the white sheet.
He kicked and flailed, desperate to get off of the bed but sheets suddenly sprung up, cocooning him in unyielding polyester. The blanket had now stopped moving, only a small percentage of it was gagging him now with the rest hidden inside the body that was still trying in vain to ejaculate the intruder. Unable to breathe, the world was slowly growing dim and as he lost consciousness Timmy heard various cracks and squelches and could feel a vague sensation of agony as the sheets squeezed tighter and tighter, slowly modulating in colour from their plain white to a deep red.
The last thing Timmy remembered before losing consciousness permanently was the duvet moving up over his head, plunging him into an eternal darkness.
Will and Sandra Denton couldn’t believe their luck. The house was perfect and at £400 per calendar month, a complete steal for its size and elegance. They could scarcely believe that they’d found somewhere in England to live that was so close to Will’s new company.
Will looked lovingly over to his wife, her blue eyes sparkling ‘I wonder why it was so cheap, I thought living was supposed to be expensive in England.’
‘Oh it’s sad story, the broker told me’ Sandra began, knowingly. ‘The last couple who lived here lost two of their children, it was big news at the time.’
‘Oh that’s just awful,’ agreed Will ‘Where are they now?’
‘That’s the worst part,’ replied Sandra ‘They left a note saying they’d never be happy again without their boys and went off an’ killed ‘emselves.’ She began to cry, Will held her tight.
‘I hope they found their peace, I’m sure those boys are making them smile again in heaven, yes sir.’
‘I hope so, Will.’ There was a brief silence as they held each other, thanking the Lord for their good fortune.
‘Anyway, it’s getting late Sandie, and I’m gonna be up late decorating that room that’s half done up there,’ Will explained. ‘While we’re waiting for the new king-size to be delivered, why don’t you have one more night in that snazzy hotel?’
Sandra looked concerned at this suggestion, ‘Oh I can’t do that, where will you sleep, hun?’
Will smiled, ‘Don’t you worry my sweet, I'll sleep in that kiddie room, that old bed looks comfy as!’
Sandra had seen the bed earlier and thought it looked far from “comfy”. ‘You’d do that for me? Oh I love you Will Denton’
‘I love you too, Sandie’ he replied truthfully. After a passionate kiss, Sandra called a cab to take her back to the hotel while Will, smiling, proceeded upstairs to get on with some decorating. Passing the “kiddy” room on his way he saw the nostalgic brass bed-frame and inviting soft mattress through the open door.
‘Damn comfy, indeed!’ he exclaimed, to nobody in particular.
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