If I should ever have the displeasure of meeting that creature again, I will end my own life before it can do that for me.

In the summer of ’05 when I was twelve and Leo was only eight, we encountered that which all children secretly believe in; there’s something alive that shrouds itself from adults—it’s a thing that only little ones can be certain of. It bumps in the night and worse. Perhaps there is more than one that exists, but I cannot say, because I’ve only ever known of that which arrived in Leo’s bedroom on that warm June night.

We’d lived in the white house in Goodlettsville since right after Leo was born, but I don’t remember much before that; the memories conjured from when we still lived in Gallatin are toddler figments retold to me or half remembered.

What I do remember is that Dad was a cop and Mom was a homemaker; sometimes I wonder what kept her so long with that man. Right when I could talk, especially on nights that Dad was off, he’d tell me I was going to grow up to be a bitch. Just like that wife of his. He was drunk and didn’t know what he was saying, or so Mom would say. Normally, he’d kick off his shoes and slide out of his work clothes then he’d just be some man sitting on the couch with stinky feet; the sixer at his feet would disappear rapidly and he’d shake the empty box by the haphazardly torn hole and tell Mom to check if there was any left in the crisper.

Sometimes she’d leave to get him more. Sometimes they’d fight. I think the former was just her way of placating him; I could see it in her face—it was like she’d will him to pass out there on the couch. Then he wouldn’t crawl into the bed next to her. But they’d fight too, and it always ended the same. She’d threaten to leave, and he’d threaten her life.

Mom was good at hiding bruises from the rest of the world, but she never could keep it from me and Leo. I think Leo hated Dad more than I did and I don’t blame him. If I was destined to be a nagging harpy, my brother was certainly shaping up to be a soft boy in Dad’s eyes.

One late evening, I could hear Dad speaking and shaving in the master bathroom while Mom sat on the bed, and they talked; I laid out on my stomach reading a chapter book by low TV light in the living room and I caught her there in the frame leading into their room—a sliver of light from the open bathroom cut out her shape in the dark.

Dad’s voice carried easily through the house, even over the running water of the faucet. “There’s somethin’ wrong with ‘im. I mean, no kid his age’s supposed to be coloring and drawing as much as he does. He should be out throwin’ rocks and gettin’ bruises or fuckin’ around in the mud. I think he’s soft.” There was a pause, possibly he ran the razor somewhere precarious. “Think he’s gay?”

“Gay?” said Mom, “He’s only little. Who knows about any of that? Besides, so what if he is?”

A genuine chortle echoed from the man. “Sure,” said Dad, “So what if he is? You want that life for him?” Another pause. “I’ll make him into a man. That’s for sure.”

Dad tried to make Leo into a man, whatever that means—what that meant to Dad was that Leo took more than I ever did. If my little brother said something that seemed suspiciously gentle, Dad would flick the boy across the bridge of his nose; Leo’s eyes would water, and he’d try to hide his tears.

“It’s a tough world out there, boy. If you think you can hide your head under a blanket and cry like a baby in the real world, then you’ve got another thing comin’,” Dad would say.

In those instances, Leo couldn’t manage any words; normally, he’d twist his expression like he was trying to kill Dad through sheer will alone.

“Wipe that face off your face or I’ll give you another.” The man offered it like he was offering my brother a second helping of dessert.

“Okay,” the boy would say, rubbing his eyes dry and snorting; he’d stand a little straighter after that, remain a little quieter.

Those that I recount my childhood to normally see it in the black and white terms that it is, but when you are a person living through it, it is life and life is complicated. Sometimes Dad is mean and sometimes everyone cries. I think that people expect every day of a childhood like that to be a living hell, and though there were stretches that could be called that, there were also good times too. Dad cooked once a week and he was a good cook and always went all out for it—he’d put on a white hat and apron and dance to the radio in the kitchen while we helped him. He cracked jokes, he had friends, he was a living breathing person with thoughts and feelings.

There was even the time I came home from school and was distraught because I’d done terribly on a math quiz. Academics, to my young mind, was one thing I excelled at. I bawled my eyes out—the quiz was stuffed into the bottom of my backpack when I arrived home and Dad jumped from the couch, beer in hand, and hunkered down in front of my face. Mom had taken Leo to the shops—my brother was still too young for school at that time—and so it was just me and Dad.

“What’s wrong, Audrey?” he asked.

I dropped the backpack from my shoulders and snaked my hand under the books I’d brought home to reveal the crumpled quiz sheet.

He took me into a bear hug and patted the back of my head and shushed me till I was tired of crying on the couch next to him. “Math is for nerds anyway.” He grinned at my head poking out from beneath his armpit.

“I’m a nerd though.”

“Well,” he lifted a can to his lips, seemingly smelling it, then rested it in his hand on the arm of the couch without taking a drink, “Then you’ll do fine next time around, won’t you? I wasn’t too good at school. You’re way smarter’n I was at your age. Remember that.” He shushed me more and rubbed my hair.

I fell asleep there with his big arm on me and when I awoke, it was pitch black and I panicked for only a second before realizing he’d carried me to my bed.

But.

He hit us and left bruises and cussed us and broke things when he wanted. We were a family only when it suited his temperament. That’s not love; that’s something else. Sometime, only once I was much older and once Mom had left him, he called me on the phone and I posed a question I’d been yearning the answer for, “Do you love me? Did you ever?”

“What kind of question is that?”

Yes, what kind of question is that, that a child should even ask that of their parent?

It was the night of, and Mom and Dad were readying to go out—they were staying in Nashville for two days and were intending on eating somewhere nice their first night there. Dad had bothered with a polo and slack combo. When Mom withdrew from the bathroom to show the plain summer dress she was wearing, Dad casually remarked, “Is that what you’re wearin’?” And raised his brow.

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Mom’s smile disappeared and she made a face and turned back into the bathroom as though she intended to dress down and stay home.

Dad caught her shoulder and laughed, “Hey, I’m just kiddin’ around. You look beautiful.” He pulled her closer and held her by the elbows and looked up and down her body. “Gorgeous.”

There were meals in the fridge and with me being twelve, they thought I could hold down the fort for two days. It was summer, a weekend without parents, and both Leo and I were chomping at the bit to jump on beds or play video games without limit.

We got kisses on our heads and pats and were told to be good. I was told to watch my little brother and to make sure the house didn’t burn down in their absence.

I offered a salute and a very serious face in response to these orders and Mom chuckled, “Remember there’s sandwich fixins and pasta and casserole in the fridge. Just heat what you need in the microwave.”

The door shut, we watched the car pull from the drive, and immediately booted up the GameCube and began doling out hurt onscreen via Super Smash Bros. I sat on the couch, with elbows resting on my knees while Leo jumped up and down like it would give him some advantage.

“Ledge guard!” He said.

“No I’m not.”

“Let me back on the freakin’ map.” His face was caught in the dull glow of the television, illuminating the yellow-purple swollenness beneath his right eye—he’d won that prize for slamming his bedroom door too hard several days prior. I hadn’t thought he’d slammed it all, but I hadn’t been the one with a hangover.

It was a quiet evening that stretched on into full darkness and we ate and stayed up late enough to see Aqua Teen Hunger Force. Leo was totally alert still, excited, but I was getting tired and told him that I was in charge and that we should probably go to bed.

“No, I don’t want to,” he stated defiantly, “I’m not tired yet anyway.”

“Close your eyes and try. We’ve got tomorrow and Sunday to play games and watch cartoons, remember?”

Leo shook his head and chewed on his bottom lip, seemingly thinking, “What if we did it like it was a sleepover or something? Like we sleep in the same room and just talk until I’m tired?”

“Are you scared to sleep alone? I thought you were tough.”

He scowled at me. “I’m not scared. I just thought you could take a break from your stupid room.”

I couldn’t help but smile. “Really?”

“That’s right. Your room smells funny.” He grinned, crossing his arms, “And you smell funny. You’re ugly too.”

My laughter came without permission, and he laughed right back at me. “You’re the ugly one,” I said, “Asshole.” I lifted myself from the couch, wearing a throw blanket like a cloak, and began to try to corral him to his bedroom with a motion.

“I’m not an asshole.” He lifted from the couch as well and began to follow me, “You’re a bitch.”

I froze and spun to confront him. “Not that word.”

“Don’t call me an asshole then,” said Leo.

“Okay. You don’t call me that and I won’t call you the other. C’mon.”

He laid on his bed and I laid alongside it on the floor, keeping the blanket I’d taken from the couch. We stared at the black ceiling for a time and although I was tired, I knew I’d need to fetch myself a pillow if I intended to sleep like that. Perhaps fifteen minutes went by in that stretch or maybe longer.

The silence was broken when Leo scoffed and jumped from his bed. “S’hot in here,” he protested. He opened the window which hung on the wall his bed was pressed against; he took a small box fan and placed it there; whether it helped, I couldn’t say. If anything, it forced the muggy outside air into the small room and made everything wetter.

It was warm and I watched his silhouette, caught in the moonlight which crept through the window, lay fully on the bed again and then we were quiet, and the only sound were crickets from outside and the gentle hum of the box fan.

“Audrey?” asked Leo.

“Yeah?”

“You awake?”

“Yeah,” I said.

There was a pause. “Do you have any crushes?”

“No. Why?” That wasn’t true, but I wasn’t ready to talk about boys with my little brother. Maybe I wasn’t ready to talk about boys ever to anyone in my family.

“There’s this girl at school and she’s really nice.”

“What’s her name?”

“Heather.”

“You like her?” I asked.

“Yeah.” His voice was a soft whisper. “What are you going to do when you’re old?”

“I don’t know.”

“I think I wanna be an artist.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” he said, “I drew some pictures for Heather, but I don’t know if I should show them to her.”

I pushed my hands under my head and interlocked the fingers of each hand, still staring up into that black ceiling. “Couldn’t you get one of your friends to give her your drawings?”

“I don’t know.” He sounded small or far away. Like a ghost.

“Do you think that girl likes you back?”

“I don’t know.” He sighed. “I know we said no more saying ‘asshole’, but Dad’s an asshole, isn’t he?”

“I said I wouldn’t say it.”

“He is though.”

“Yeah,” I said.

For a moment in the dark it was like I could see everything very clearly and maybe Leo saw it too, looking up at the ceiling while we pretended to have a sleepover. Leo let go of a choked noise and said, “I think he wants to kill me, Audrey. I know that’s weird to say, but I mean it. He wants me dead, and he might do it.”

It was sobering to hear him say that and suddenly I felt so cold in that hot room. I rose in the dark and looked at him there on the bed; his eyes stood crystalized with shines of white, tears.

“I don’t want to cry.” His voice was still choking.

“It’s okay to cry.” I reached out for his hand, but he withdrew.

Leo cleared his throat and I saw him blink in the light of the moon. The hum of the fan consumed all other noise for a moment and then he spoke again, more clearly, “I’m okay. Okay?” He swiped a forearm across his face, and he looked at me with dry eyes.

“Okay.”

Just then, a noise echoed from somewhere outside and he too perked up, scooting from the open window. “You hear that?” he asked me.

I nodded.

“What is that?”

I rose entirely from the floor and angled myself nearer, planting my knees on the bed and craning my neck down to listen through the window. It was someone laughing, far off in the dark, but peer as I might through the night I could not see where the source of the laugher was coming from. “Hmm.”

“Probably some psycho,” said Leo.

I smiled, “Probably.”

We continued listening and the laughter dissipated, seemingly because whoever was laughing went further away.

We sat on Leo’s bed, and I gathered up the blanket on the floor around my shoulders and moved to the door.

“Hey!” he protested, “I thought we were doing a sleepover thing.”

“We are,” I nodded, “I’m just going to my smelly room to get a pillow. I’ll be right back.”

Leo eased into his comforter, and I left the room, closing the door behind me and crossing the hallway to my own bedroom.

Just as my hand reached out to snatch a pillow from my bed, a bout of laughter erupted across the hall, and I recognized the voice. It was Leo.

I pushed out of my room and saw a sliver of light at the base of his closed door as though the light switch had been flicked on. Leo’s laughter became wild.

Reaching out without a thought beyond asking him what could be so funny, I swung the door of the room open and dropped my pillow to the floor.

A mannish thing had my little brother in his lap as it sat on the edge of his bed. Whatever hole it crawled from stank and was dark for its skin was stark white and it was entirely hairless, save a few clumps of hair which hung from its scalp in stringy knots like gunk from a drain. Its fingers were the length of rulers and incredibly dexterous as they ran the length of Leo’s ribcage. “Tickle tickle tickle,” said the thing.

My brother gawked while helpless laughter exploded in exhausted waves from his open mouth. Water rolled from his eyes and the creature played with him roughly, digging its long fingers into Leo’s sides.

It caught me there in the doorway with its pale blue eyes and opened its own mouth in a smile to expose a toothless mouth; the thing’s lips curled opposite each other, and joy radiated from that wicked stare.

“Stop! It tickles! Stop it stop it stop it!” shouted Leo. His limbs thrashed in his spasmed fight.

The creature took to Leo’s armpits and wriggled its pencil thin fingers there to the great and last bout of my brother’s discernable cries. Beyond that was only gasps and wordless pleading as the air was pushed from Leo’s lungs. He looked on in horror, as did I, as vessels ruptured in his eyes then blood gushed from his face in wild spills.

Leo stopped moving and merely gasped for air. Small movements from his fingers were the last fight he could muster and only when my brother went entirely limp did the creature stand to its full stature; the thing towered over me. It lifted the boy in his long grasp then dropped him so that he hit the floor with a thud like he was made of wood.

The creature craned forward, extending its incredibly long index finger so that its tip touched the end of my nose. “Boop,” it said.

It stood fully again then passed me and casually padded through the house. Then it was gone.