The Scratching at the Bottom of the Bed nosleep

The scratching had started again.

Oh yes, the scratching at the bottom of the bed had started once more, and Chris did not like it.

About a week ago, the noise of horribly overgrown nails against the wood of the bed had ceased completely. For a few days before that, it had been incessant, drowning out any other ambient noise in the room. At first, the scratching had not frightened Chris, as it would many a normal child. Instead, it was a minor annoyance, something you dislike, but it does no real harm.

However, when a noise disappears from one's life and reappears a week afterward, and the person in question is all alone in their bed in the dead of night, that noise will be accompanied by a faint sense of unease, and, in some cases, dread. The shadows of every day objects you wouldn't have glanced at otherwise, like the pillow that you never seem to pick up from off the floor, or the cabinet full of old knicknacks from the past, spread and lengthen in the faint but just noticeable light of the moon, contorting into shapeless horrors that could easily slip from their two-dimensional reality into yours and sneak right by your bed.

Chris often thought about these shadow-beasts, and his thoughts always led him along different trails, like a ghastly Choose Your Own Adventure story which meant life and death in the real world. Along some of these trains of thought, the creatures that suddenly came into existence would whisper half-remembered and all-terrifying phrases into his ear. In others, it simply snapped his neck and that was the end. Another thing it occasionally did was just watch, and this was one of the worst possibilities, for Chris knew for sure that if he just turned the slightest bit from his usual position facing the wall, he'd see something so terrifying and terrible that he'd go catatonic, and only be able to watch as the figure came closer and did something to him. As long as he had been thinking along this line of thought, he had never been able to stumble upon any possibilities as to what it would do. This was particularly terrifying, for Chris was an imaginative boy, and no matter what he plugged into that looming blank, it never exactly fit. All he knew was that something so terrible it was literally unimaginable was in store for him if he just tilted around, an act so sickeningly simple that people did it unconsciously all the time.

In actuality, the shadows were no more substantial than just that—shadows. However, to a rather disturbed boy such as Chris, they were as real as the gooseflesh the image gave him. There was some truth to it, anyways—sometimes shadows hide the silhouettes of figures hidden in the darkness, watching, waiting. Once those particular examples strike, it's too late—they go unnoticed, but they're positively lethal. Just a single underestimation, a single misstep, and the consequences would be dire. Chris, just past halfway through his ninth year of school, was too young to understand this. He did not care to find out, either. Although most of his brain accepted the shadowy figures as truth, a small holdout of reason convinced him otherwise. If he were to learn of those real examples, that small holdout would get overpowered by the fear occupying the rest of his mind, and he might just go insane.

Another cluster of scratching noises came and increased his uneasiness. This shouldn't be possible, thought the rational section of his brain. Although this message kept on being repeated in his mind, other bits and pieces of memories and thoughts insisted that it was real, and that there was definitely something to worry about.

So Chris worried. The small voice of reason told him that this wasn't real, but the other voices outnumbered this sentiment greatly, and he had grown to trust in

(fear)

the voices. He'd heard that hearing voices was a sign of mental illness, like schizo-whatchamacallit and psychosis. He dismissed this as nonsense, though. The voices were quite real, he was sure of it. He just happened to have a few more voices than other people did, he reasoned. You always hear in books how characters told themselves this and that, one voice in their head said to this, another said to that, the like. He stood by the notion that everybody had some amount of voices, they just weren't always as aware of them as he was.

So when he heard the voices' thoughts on the new kid in class, coming in a few weeks late, it was clear they liked him. His name was Eli Norran, according to how he introduced himself. Chris suspected they'd become fast friends when the voices delegated.

Another volley of scratching came at this moment, accompanied by a pound that sent Chris' head off of his remaining pillow and back on to the tough wood of his headboard. He was dazed for a few moments and muttered a brief curse. He thought he could hear the scratching pick up in frequency.

Finding that his attention had shifted, Chris went back to what he had previously been thinking about. He said hello to Eli and invited him to eat lunch with him when it rolled around. They had found out a few similarities between themselves, mainly rather basic things such as their food preference and preferred sport (which happened to be baseball), although a few major personality aspects were also discovered. As Chris had expected, they had—

(A shudder was sent through the bed. It shook and rattled, and whatever lurked under the bed only seemed to be getting angrier and more spiteful. Now, where had Chris been in his train of thought before he had been so rudely interrupted?)

—became fast friends. Over time, they grew to seemingly go everywhere together. Towards the middle of the first semester, Chris and Eli tried out for the baseball team. They had both been accepted.

As such, a new addition had been added to their schedules together: practicing baseball. Although neither of them said it out loud, it was clear it was both of them's favorite part of their week.

Another pound had been landed on the back of the bed. Chris, half expecting this even in his drowsiness, could resist its power.

When had things gone awry, became imperfect, exactly? Was it just a random time after which things faltered in their quality? Was it after Eli had been dropped from the team? When Eli had said he was moving away to Philadelphia? Chris supposed it was likely a mixture of the latter two possibilities—the idea of inherent randomness, kinks in a usually rigid and perfect schedule, did not appeal to him.

Chris supposed he would review the situation starting when Eli got dropped from the baseball team. Why was it he had been dropped again, all those weeks ago?

Lack... lackluster... lackluster behavior, was it? No—it couldn't have been. All the teachers, even the coach when he had had to lay off Eli, had loved having him. Lackluster performance, perhaps? Yes—that seems more plausible, Chris thought to himself in the midst of a furious scratching

(clawing)

against the bottom of his bed. Yes, it was definitely picking up. Whatever lived beneath his sleeping area, low to the ground,

(low enough to be conversing with the shadow people)

was not happy. Something must be rather unpleasant. A faint stench caught Chris' nose, almost like spoiled eggs.

Where was I, again? Chris had honestly forgotten. He quickly reviewed what he had already gone over before coming back to his place.

Yes—Eli had been placed off the team due to "lackluster performance." This was not pleasant for Eli, Chris knew. He was visibly troubled and a dark cloud seemed to form between his eyebrows when he didn't catch Chris' gaze. This must have made him rather angry, for he had caught Eli throwing rocks as hard as he could in the direction of the baseball diamond just after school had let out for the day and the remaining baseball team had gone to practice. Chris had merely glanced over, saw Eli release a rock, and watched it whiz past the head of a fellow school baseball player.

It wasn't terribly long after this, Chris thought, that Eli had announced his leaving. His father had apparently gotten a job offer out of state in Pennsylvania, at least according to the story he told. Although Chris knew that his removal from the team had, in actuality, nothing to do with his moving, an unexplainable flash of fury came over him when his friend had told him this, and dissipated as quickly as it appeared.

Hadn't Chris found himself in a similarly foul mood to Eli's when he had been kicked off of the baseball team? He supposed he had. He understood how it must have felt to have something so rudely yanked from him when it was going so well.

A week had passed between Eli's announcement when the voices Chris often heard made their own announcement. He couldn't quite recall what it was—the voices were as much a part of him as his fingers or toes, so maybe he took the idea for granted, used it, and forgot of the voices' involvement in the process. He thought it had something to do with some sort of sport, most likely baseball.

Yet another week had passed when Chris' idea had been fully developed. With his baseball bat in tow, he visited Eli and tentatively put forward the idea of going to the baseball diamond and practicing. Eli had been a tad suspicious at first, but he eventually agreed to come along. He had only to grab his own bat, so he ran up to his room and got it.

When they had made it to the baseball diamond, Chris brought his bat down over Eli's head.

He's never had a sleepover at my house before. He'll love it there! He can have a sleepover for as long as he wants!

Another volley of clawing and pounding hit Chris when he didn't expect it, causing a rather unpleasant feeling in his back.

Eli had yelled and screamed when he had been struck. No, no, Chris thought, such unruly behavior is bad, very very bad, for a friendship. Tsk, tsk. You'd better get a feeling of how bad friends are treated.

He cracked the wood back down against Eli's spine. He collapsed to the ground, moaning. The bat had the faintest shimmering of crimson, and a few splintered areas along its surface. For good measure, he brought the bat down a second time upon his head. That stopped his whining. Now he was being a good friend. Now he could sleep over with Chris forever, and ever, and ever. He wouldn't have to move to Philly after all. He could just stay over with Chris now.

Looking back, it was a miracle none of the school staff had been there, not even a janitor. Nobody saw their special secret entrance to Chris' home. His parents were out for a few days, so nobody spied him there, either. It was just his own perfect plan.

Well, almost perfect. He had neglected to get Eli a bed, and he couldn't have them separated in different rooms. That would make him a bad host and a bad friend. Instead, he liked to pretend that he was on the top bunk of a bunk bed, and placed the unconscious body of Eli below his bed. The voices seemed to have delegated, and a faint but unmistakable thought ran through his head.

Tie him up.

It was ingenious—He knew that Eli was a bad friend at heart. He had meant to leave Chris alone, and had protested him trying to make him have fun at their own little sleepover. He would need to train the badness out of him so he could be a good friend and stay over at his house without needing to be punished for his inadequacy as a companion.

The worst volley of scratches and pounds yet came from beneath the bed. For a split second, Chris' entire body had been thrown into the air. Instead of being unsettled and a little bit scared, now he was absolutely terrified.

Returning to his thoughts, Chris remembered that he tied Eli up and had stuck an old blanket in his mouth so he couldn't yell or cry any longer. However, that night was the first night of the scratching. He had heard the faintest of noise from under his bed. How Eli had escaped from his bonds, Chris had not know. Perhaps he hadn't, and was just trying to communicate with Chris, to tell him he was sorry for being a bad friend. Chris almost checked under the bed and removed his gag, but thought better of it.

He'll need to be perfectly quiet and nice before I talk to him again.

The scratching against Chris' bed had slowly grown in intensity over night and kept Chris from sleeping. It was rather annoying, so he whispered out into the room, slightly lifting his upper body over the edge of the bed and angling it downwards, for Eli to be a bit more quiet. That had not worked.

Over a couple days, Eli's protests had grown to be more powerful and include halfhearted pounding against the back of the bed. He was absolutely being a very bad friend and he would have to keep on sitting in time out until he behaved. (What Chris had not know was that, although Eli had escaped his hand bonds, he did not dare make a move, for he knew Chris may punish him further, and he had already lost too much blood and nutrition. The gag was too tightly bound to remove.)

Of course, Eli's protests had lessened over the next couple of days, as Chris had expected. He was learning his lesson and learning to be a good friend, Chris supposed. Eventually, Eli had settled down and had become a good friend at last. However, Chris decided to play it safe and let Eli keep learning his lesson. He had been too much of a bad friend and had not had enough discipline.

A few days after the protests of Eli had stopped, a faint whiff of what smelled like rotten eggs had reached his nostrils. He ignored this.

On the day preceding tonight, the night where Chris was experiencing the ghastly scratching, the smell had grown much too powerful to withstand. As such, he went towards where he thought the smell of the rot was coming from, the eggs in the refrigerator just a room over. They must have gone bad, Chris thought. He had not thought to smell the eggs before needlessly throwing them in the trash. When he returned to his room, the smell was still much too strong. He just buried his face into his pillow and drifted asleep.

That brings me to tonight, he thought. Another pound rattled the bed frame and sent his head off of the pillow beneath it.

Over the course of the night that night, the scratching had once again reduced itself to an mild annoyance. As it became only this, sleep overcame Chris, and he slipped into an uneasy, dreamless state of unconsciousness.

As Chris fell asleep, there were a few things he did not know, and might not ever know.

First of all, ever since the first night Eli had gone missing, his family had organized a search. Of course, they would not find Eli for a while, and they may have gotten a nasty surprise when they did, a week or so, maybe more, maybe less, after the night that we currently find Chris, after the point when his parents returned from his trip. It would be much too late for everybody involved.

Additionally, and quite unfortunately, Chris had taken Eli in for a sleepover for almost nothing. Eli's father had decided, not long before Eli had been invited by Chris to the baseball diamond, that he would stay with family for the good of his wife, him, and his son.

The last thing Chris did not know, and would never know, is that, although he was the kidnapper and eventual murderer of Eli Norran, the fetid and rotten corpse of the boy was no longer trapped in Chris' bedroom against his will. In fact, that was nowhere close to the reality of the situation.

No, Chris was now trapped, asleep and vulnerable, with the remains of what had once been a victim of his own twisted thought process.

Submitted March 24, 2017 at 02:09AM by SendineisTheParadox http://ift.tt/2mZgedc nosleep