We Love To Eat Children...

On spindly legs the ghastly little creature made it’s way down the hallway to the top of the stairs. Its head was oblong rather than round; it’s eyes large and glassy. The mouth was a large upside down smile framed by rows of sharp, serrated teeth.

The creature was probably only three feet in height, and maybe weighed only sixty pounds, with skinny arms and legs on a reptilian body, but as it stood with the light from the lone bulb swaying behind him, Jamie was as frightened as he felt he’d ever been in his brief five years on this planet.

His sister, Emily, stood beside him, peering up at the creature that stood before them, her normally boisterous demeanor silenced by the presence of this unwanted intruder. She reached out and took Jamie’s hand. As she did so another identical creature came around the corner and joined it’s friend at the head of the stairs, and now the two glowing sets of eyes became four. When the dual mouths opened, ugly black tongues licking their night crawler lips, Jamie and Emily turned and ran for the living room.

“Mom dad! Mom dad!” They shrieked, their voices overtaking the sound of explosions on the Friday Night Movie.

“Hey now! What the hell is this?” Their father asked, a can of Old Milwaukee in one hand, his other hand casually placed around their mother’s shoulder. She was sipping a glass of white wine and between them on the couch was a large bowl of popcorn. “It’s time that you two were in bed.”

“Daddy!” Jamie burst out. “Daddy there is a monster at the top of the stairs!” He was almost out of breath due to anxiety, his eyes wet with tears.

“Two monsters!” Emily cried.

“What?” Edwin Lancaster said, dismayed at being interrupted because the movie they were watching was just getting good. Here he and his wife Amy had sat through all the boring crap to get to the juicy parts and this was when the kids decide they don’t want to go to bed.

“There are no monsters,” Edwin said patiently, taking a sip of his beer. “We exterminated for them last month and the man from pest control promised they wouldn’t be back.”

“But they are daddy, they are! They are right at the top of the stairs.”

“Come on kids, you’re getting a little too old for this, aren’t you?” Their mother said, sipping her wine and tossing a couple of kernels of corn down. “Just be good and go to bed. Your father and I would like to be alone for a little while.”

“We’re not lying.” Emily said grimly, hoping she could convince them. She was, after all, almost two years older than Jamie and a much more reliable source. “There really are two monsters upstairs.” She swallowed thickly, looking rapidly from her mother to her father. “At least come and take a look.”

Their father rolled his eyes.

“At the commercial.” He finally relented and the children felt a surge of relief. “But you go upstairs and I’ll be right up after you.” He said and at once their spirits crumbled.

“But daddy we can’t get to our rooms, they are right at the top of the stai-”

“I’ve heard enough of this!” Their father exploded, slamming his can of beer down on the coffee table, foam and beer erupting from the top and splattering large droplets on the cherry wood surface. “You two will go upstairs this instant and I will be up shortly!”

“But-”

“No buts! Not another word! Go!” He said, pretending as if he were going to rise quickly and give them a spanking and the two scampered out of the room. They walked slowly down the hall, stopping at the landing at the foot of the stairs. Neither one of them wanted to look up into the dim light and see if they were there.

“You’re older than I am,” Jamie urged his sister. “You look.”

“Well, you’re a boy and supposed to be braver than me,” She countered. “You should have a look.”

“Uh-uh, I’m not doing it.” Jamie said and his sister sighed.

“If I look first I get your deserts for the rest of the week.” She said and the little boy frowned, but nodded just the same.

“Okay.”

“Are you sure? Mom made apple crisp.”

“I’m sure!” Jamie said fearfully. “Just look, please!”

Emily braced herself as she stepped up onto the landing, slowly turning and looking up the length of the stairs. Her gaze was on the first three steps, then the next three, then the next until eventually her eyes were at the top. She held her breath, her hands balled up in fists at her side…

Nothing was there. The dim bulb that hung from a single electrical cord was still, it’s 60-watt glow inviting shadows, but no strange creatures lurked about. She turned to her brother whose eyes were tightly shut.

“It’s okay,” She said, a note of relief in her voice. “There’s nothing there.”

“Really?” Jamie asked, his voice trembling. “You’re not just trying to scare me, are you?”

“Why would I do that? I’m scared too!”

“Well, okay…” He said, opening his eyes and stepping up onto the landing beside her.

There was nothing at the top of the stairs, and certainly no sign that anything ever had been.

“Where did they go?” He asked his sister, and the older girl shrugged. “They were there though, weren’t they Emily?”

The girl nodded, still staring ahead. “Yes,” She finally said. “Yes they were.”

“Maybe they are hiding around the corner.” Jamie suggested, knowing that was their favorite spot-he and his sister-to jump out and scare each other. “That’s probably where they are.”

“Could be.” She said, averting her face from his, covering her mouth with her hand momentarily, and Jamie thought that she was struggling not to cry.

In actuality, she was struggling not to laugh. Her little brother had such a wild imagination that the mere suggestion of anything remotely scary set him off. He probably really did ‘see’ the creatures at the top of the stairs, even though he never would have known what they looked like if Emily hadn’t described them to him in detail, a subtle fact that he’d long forgotten. She had been the one to point them out to him as they were walking up the stairs. Her little brother scared so easily it was almost impossible to resist messing with him. His sleepwalking and night terrors were ample proof of this.

“Take my hand and we’ll go upstairs.” Emily said reaching for his hand and Jamie wasted no time putting his sweaty palm in hers.

“I-I-I don’t want to.” Jamie said hesitantly. “Let’s wait for dad.”

“You heard what he said,” Emily replied matter of factly. “It sounded as if he was ready to give us a spanking. We better do what he says.”

Jamie considered this for a moment before finally nodding his head.

“Okay.” He said and the two of them took the first step up. Then they took the second, then the third…

“Their back!” Emily suddenly cried and Jamie looked up, saw the two creatures jump from around the corner, licking their slavish mouths, their teeth glimmering like sharp knives in the dim light, eyes gleaming a pale yellow glow.

“AAAAHHHHH!” Jamie screamed and Emily clamped a hand over his mouth.

“Quiet!” She hissed. “You want mom and dad to hear you?” She said as he struggled alongside her, at last breaking free.

“Yes!” He said, his whole body quaking, his teeth chattering in his mouth. “I want them to hear me!”

“Well,” Emily said, her tone growing cold, menacing, her eyes dark and foreign. “They don’t want to hear you, in fact, they are the ones that sent the monsters here in the first place.”

“Wh-wh-wh-what?” Jamie gurgled, his heart racing like a jackrabbits.

“That’s right.” She said, looking up the stairs, causing him to look up as well. “They don’t want us anymore, so this is what they are going to do about it.”

Jamie eyed the ghouls as they smacked their fat lips, tongues barely able to contain the saliva that drooled down their skinny torsos. Their thin arms were outstretched in front of themselves, rubbing their hands together as they looked at their prize for the evening, the gift of two little children.

“You’re lying!” Jamie brayed, shock and dread filling him. This was like one of his worst nightmares-and believe it when told that he had some real doozies-the central theme being abandonment and isolation. “They would never do that to us!”

“Oh no?” She said, and then nodded up toward the horrifying beings. “Ask them,” She suggested. “See what they tell you.”

“They can’t talk…” Jamie said, lowering his voice, keeping his head turned away.

“Yes they can,” Emily said, reaching out and taking his head in both of her hands, turning it so that it faced the top of the stairs. “Go ahead,” She cajoled him. “Ask.”

Finally the young boy summoned all his strength and looked at the two cavorting things before him, took in their sallow green complexion, the thick, sticky sound their mouths made as they opened and closed.

“Why are you here?” He at last dared to ask, raising his voice ever so slightly, putting some emphasis on it, as if to show that he wasn’t scared. “What do want?”

The creature’s greedy eyes and slobbering mouths looked upon him with an insane glee, the black pupils rolling in their sockets. Their hands fiddled in front of them at stomach level, the long, thin hands lacing and unlacing, the long nails making a sickening scraping sound as they rubbed against each other.

“Oh…” One of them rasped, his tongue lapping at the saliva as it rained down, his elongated nailed feet curling over the edge of the top step, perching himself like a bird. “You know what we want…” It hissed. “We want…to…eat you…”

“Yes…” The other added, mimicking the motions of the other. “We love to…eat…little children…”

And then the two of them laughed, a harsh, revolting sound that made the hair on the back of Jamie’s neck stand on end. At once he started crying, his whole body shaking.

“We have to go get mom and dad!” he said thickly through profound sobs and Emily reached out for him, put her arms around him and held him in place. Maybe she had taken this whole thing a little too far. She didn’t know what her little brother thought they said to him, but whatever it was it was about to make him crap his pants.

“Okay, okay, calm down Jamie, calm down,” She soothed, rubbing her hands through his hair. “I’m just messing with you, all right? There is nothing there. I made it all up.”

Jamie had his head buried in her chest, his whole body one shivering, sobbing mess. He was holding her so tightly that it was getting almost difficult to breath.

“Nu-nu-nu-no! Don’t let them get me Emily! Don’t let them!” He sobbed, burying his face deeper, tightening his grip on her.

“Relax Jamie!” She said, louder than she wanted, hoping their parents didn’t hear. “I told you, I made it up. I was just trying to scare you, there is nothing there!”

She thought of how she stood next to him at the bottom of the stairs, pretending to see the troll-like ‘monsters’, describing them to him in a quiet, somber voice as he too stared, the image filling his subconscious mind and his imagination running away with it. She thought of how she did this to him when they were playing in the basement and a light bulb would burn out, how she would describe a ghost or some shambling zombie that was all of a sudden in the room with them, and how he ran for the stairs as if his very life depended on it, his little heart no doubt pounding at triple speed, a scream just waiting behind his clenched teeth…

She thought of all the times that she and her parents found him sleep walking or crawling, his eyes as blank as those of a GI Joe, his mouth slack, his hands either out before him or at his side, sometimes mumbling, sometimes shouting…

She was so sick of this little creep and his endless fears, but more than that, how easy it was to plant them in his mind.

“Let go of me Jamie,” She said, more forcefully. “I made it up, okay? There is nothing there.” She tried to free her arms to push him away but they were pinned to her sides. At once his grip was more than just strong, it was crushing…

“Let go of me you scaredy cat! Let go or I’m going to tell mom and dad!”

And that was when she heard the voice, a raspy, gravelly voice that seemed to emanate from everywhere and nowhere at the same time. Simultaneously she felt the pressure on her chest tighten, felt it getting harder and harder to breath.

“No…” The voice said, and at once she saw that it was coming from Jamie. The little boy leaned his head back and she saw that his eyes were black and lifeless, his mouth like a large red ‘O’ with rows of sharp, serrated teeth framing it. At once his long fingernails sunk into her skin, tearing the sleeves of her nightgown and drawing thick blood that ran down her arms.

“I’m going to tell mom and dad…” The voice grated, the volume low but the intensity high. “I’m going to tell them that the coast is clear…it’s all going to be all right now…” he said, and at once she heard the claustrophobic sound of heavy breathing right behind her, closing in. She turned her head and saw her mother and father, or, at least, what used to be her mother and father, but now they had morphed somehow. Now they had oblong heads and thin bodies with long, skinny limbs and mouths that seemed to go on forever and ever and ever…but…this couldn’t be…she had made it all up…

The hands of her ‘parents’ clutched at her roughly and she felt as her nightgown was torn away.

“It’s all right now…” ‘Jamie gasped, wiping drool from his mouth, his arm coming back enslimed. “She can see us for who we really are…” He made a sucking sound that at once put Emily’s hair on end. She could feel the scream building in the back of her throat.

“Everything is okay,” His gruff, wheezing voice forced out, his hands settling on his sister’s throat and tightening until her world became a blackish/blue blur with little spots of light dancing around. He licked his lips as thick spit gushed onto his chin. “We can eat now…”

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