Carl opened his eyes
and stared sleepily at the stuccoed
roof of his room. He half squinted one eye and cocked his head
slightly to one side while listening intently.
I must have dreamed it,
he thought, and he was about to
go back to sleep when
he suddenly heard it once again. There it
was, a rustling sound
like dry leaves being blown noisily around
the ground, followed
by muffled thumps. Scribble,
scrabble,
thump. He sat up in
bed suddenly frightened. Little bumps
formed first around
his neck, then raced all over his back and
arms. He shivered and
threw the covers over his head and hugged
his pillow.
"Please go away," he prayed silently. Scribble,
scrabble, thump, it
seemed to answer.
Carl squeezed his eyelids shut and put his fingers in his
ears, but it was no
use. Even through his plugged-ears the
scrabbling from above
penetrated his hands and found its way into
his head. His mind
ran wild with fear, conjuring up a monster
eight feet tall that
was trying to tear apart the roof so it
could get at him and
tear apart his body with its evil claws. He
lay there shaking
uncontrollably and then suddenly as it started,
the sound stopped.
The house became quiet again and as he took
his trembling fingers
out of his ears, he could faintly hear his
father''s snoring
above the pounding of his heart. He listened as
hard as he could, and
even though he was sure it was gone, he was
too scared to
move. Eventually sheer weariness
forced him to
sleep.
When morning came and he woke up, he bounded into the
kitchen to tell his
mother. "Mom there's a monster in the
attic
above my room!"
he told her.
"Carl you're in the third grade. You know there's no such
things as
monsters," she told him.
"Yah it's the boogey man probably," his fourteen year
old
brother Paul
sassed. "The boogey man likes
to eat wimpy third
graders that tell
stories."
"Butthole!" Carl sneered at him. "I really heard
something."
"It's your imagination ," his mother replied. She set
down a plate of
hardboiled eggs and poured them some milk.
"What's his imagination," his father asked as he walked
into the kitchen
fixing his tie.
"I heard something in the attic," Carl said quietly as
he
stared at the eggs.
His father stared at him intently. "Remember what I told
you about telling
stories," he warned him sternly.
Carl remembered all too well. In first grade he told all
the kids in his class
that his father was an astronaut and a
bunch of kids showed
up that evening begging for autographs.
Then there was the
time he came home way after dinner and told
his mother that
someone had tried to kidnap him. The police had
been called and by
the time Carl confessed it was a big mess. He
could almost feel the
pain from the spanking his father had given
him for that
one. There had been other lies too;
the story about
the giant snake in
the swamp, the broken window story, and the
mad-dog-tore-my-pants
story. Everyone knew that the one
thing
Carl didn't lack was
an active imagination.
The following night at 11:00 p.m. Carl heard it again
He woke up
suddenly and lay frozen in his bed. Thump,
scribble, scrabble it
went. He jumped out of his bed and
ran
toward his parent's
room and woke his father up.
"Dad! Dad I
heard it again!"
"Wha-what is it?" his father groaned.
"It's the monster.
I heard it again. Hurry up
before it
gets away," Carl pleaded.
"Goddammit Carl,
you know there's no monster. If I
have to
get up and I don't
hear anything you're going to be in a lot of
trouble," his father grunted.
"Hurry up,"
Carl whimpered while tugging his father out of
bed.
"Goddammit."
His father rose wearily and
followed Carl to
his room. "Well where is it?" he demanded.
"Shh. You have
to be quiet." Carl put his
fingers to his
lips and strained to
catch even the faintest sound. They
stood
there for five
minutes, and with each passing moment his father
grew angrier and
angrier. Not a sound was emitted
from above.
Only from below where
Carl could hear the uneven breathing of his
father.
"What the hell is wrong with you Carl? Christ, do you make
up these stories just
to make me mad?"
"I-I guess it stopped moving or something."
"I donŐt want to hear another word about it. If you donŐt
stop telling these
stories, I swear I'll give you a spanking that
you will never
forget. I'm getting tired of all
these stories
you keep spinning
up. If it's not one God damned
thing, it's
another. I've had it up to here with your
nonsense. For the
rest of the week you
will come straight home and not watch any
t.v. Do I make my self perfectly clear?"
"Yes," Carl
mumbled. He stared down at his
feet trying to
keep the tears from
falling.
His father wearily walked back to his room and shut the
door. Somewhere in the distance a dog
barked. He heard crickets
chirping outside as
if they were laughing at him.
Silently he
stood there
feeling sorry for himself. Then he heard it again.
Scribble, scrabble,
thump. He cast his eyes upwards at
the
ceiling and listened
quietly with clenched fists. The
sounds
grew louder as he
crawled into bed and shut his eyes.
Muffled
sobs escaped from his
throat and the tears began to fall.
The next afternoon when Carl came home from school he
dragged the ladder
out of the garage and into the house.
He
set the ladder up and
began climbing, each step seeming longer
than the last. When he finally reached the trapdoor
and looked
down, it seemed that
he was a hundred feet off the ground and he
gripped the rungs
with all his might. Casting his
eyes upwards,
Carl looked long and
hard at the trap door. The door
beckoned
him, and as his hands
touched the wood he hesitated. He took a
deep breath to steady
himself and opened the trapdoor,
Cautiously, he poked
his head through the opening and peered
inside. Around him
lay pitch black darkness, a black hole that
gobbled up anything
and everything. He felt the darkness begin
to envelope his body,
so he quickly climbed down the ladder and
ran to get a
flashlight. He clicked it on and then ascended
again. He let the
light play on different objects while he got
his bearings. Old
toys, broken furniture, and a ton of dust
littered the pathway
that led to the area directly above his
room. Encircling this
jungle were beams criss crossing all over
the place, forming a
web that only an insane spider could have
made. He cautiously climbed through the
opening while trying
hard not to breathe.
It seemed like he was trapped in a valley
of fire. The stale
hot air surrounded him and clung to his body.
His hand shook
uncontrollably as the flashlight made a jittery
gleam into the
darkness, and sweat began to drip off his forehead
onto the dust forming
dirty little droplets of water.
He sneezed once and began to work his way towards the area
above his room. It was very quiet in the attic, and the
only
sound he could hear
was his heart pounding fiercely in his chest.
Each step took him
closer and closer to his destination, and as
he began to near his
destination, he hesitated. Only through the
urging of his mind
was he able to continue. He began to feel
lightheaded but still
he pressed forward.
When Carl reached the area where the ceiling of his room
was, he stopped and
carefully shined the light around.
He lis-
tened intently, but
still the only sound that could be heard was
the irregular thumping of his heart. Out of the corner of his
eye he saw
something. He climbed over a beam
and looked at it.
There embedded in a
nest of shredded paper, old rags and soft fur
was an egg.
The egg was leathery looking and about the size of a
baseball. It was much larger than any egg Carl
had ever seen in
his life. His curiosity overcame his fear and he
bent over to
touch the thing. Almost in his ear he heard a wicked
hiss. He
jumped back as if he
had been bitten by a snake.
Perching on a beam was an enormous white rat. It had ugly
bristling fur and pink
eyes. It hissed threateningly and
showed
its ugly dagger teeth
and twitched its rat's tail.
Carl dropped the flashlight and suddenly was enveloped in
the darkness. He turned around and stumbled towards
the dimly
lit opening to the
attic. He smashed his shins on the
beams and
bumped his head. Behind him he heard a thump and a
scrabbling
sound. He tripped over the dusty wood beams
and splinters
stabbed his
hands. When Carl finally reached
the opening he was
crying and he hurled
himself down the ladder as fast as his nine
year old body could
carry him. Tears made dirty
streaks across
his face and his nose
was running. The splinters bit
into his
soft hands but no one
was home to take them out. He ran
into the
bathroom and slammed
the door. As he lay there sobbing
against
the door he heard the
front door slam.
Carl opened up the door and ran into the living room. His
brother flopped onto
the couch and turned on the television.
"Paul, I saw
it," Carl said between sobs.
"Shaddup, you big wuss.
What are you crying for? Ya
better
knock it off or else
mom's gonna think I did it and then boy will
I make you
sorry."
"There's a rat in the attic and it laid and egg and.."
"Rats don't lay eggs you idiot," his brother interrupted.
"Stop making up
stories before I sock your ass."