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<blockquote data-quote="Sniktch" data-source="post: 612264" data-attributes="member: 7704"><p>The Boogeyman</p><p></p><p>“Hey, kid! Wake up!”</p><p></p><p>Matt felt a small, hairy claw prying at one of his eyelids. He slowly opened the other eye and caught sight of a tiny, misshapen creature perched upon his nose and furiously ripping the lashes from his other lid.</p><p></p><p>“Aaaaah!” Matt sat up in bed screaming. The beast evidently did not have a very firm grip and catapulted across the room, striking the wall and dropping from view with a soft squishing sound. A creaking noise called Matt’s attention to the closet. The door he remembered carefully shutting before going to bed swung lazily open, revealing a large black shape with dull crimson eyes that rose out of the closet and advanced upon the foot of the bed.</p><p></p><p>Matt screamed again. And again and again until a cold, clammy hand grabbed his throat from behind, cutting off both his cries and his air. The breath left his burning lungs as he fumbled with one hand for his aspirator, which he’d left on the nightstand next to his bed.</p><p></p><p>Suddenly the hand and the shape melted, giving way to the brilliance of the overhead lamp. He blinked rapidly to adjust to the unexpected light, relieved that he had just been saved from certain doom.</p><p></p><p>A ringing smack knocked Matt sprawling across the covers. “What are you tryin’ to do, wake the dead?” He cringed and looked up at the source of the voice, his stepfather Gary. Gary was a short, balding man who had obviously been well built during his youth but had started to go soft, especially around the middle. What was left of his wispy hair stood out crazily from his head and he was dressed in a dirty tee shirt that showed the stains of many beer spills.</p><p></p><p>Gary’s tirade continued, and Matt shrank from his strident voice, almost wishing he could be back in the nightmare where his stepfather couldn’t reach him. “I have to work in the mornings, you little punk, so that you can eat every day and have clothes to wear, and I don’t appreciate these little stunts.” Whirling and opening the closet (<em>it should have been open</em>, thought Matt, <em>in the dream it had been open</em>), he exclaimed, “Look, its empty! There is no Boogeyman, and if I ever hear you scream or mention bad dreams again, you’ll get a chance to visit the hospital.”</p><p></p><p>The light went out and Matt could hear his stepfather stomping back to his own room. Left alone again, Matt realized with dawning terror that the closet door <strong>had been left open</strong>. Helplessly he turned to face the opening.</p><p></p><p>Within its inky depths, one red eye closed in a wink.</p><p></p><p>*****</p><p></p><p>After school the next day, Matt unlocked the front door and trudged inside. He caught his reflection on the mirror in the entryway and frowned. He was a wiry boy of eight, small for his age, with tangled brown hair. His usual expression was gloomy and pensive and he had a habit of chewing on his nails and bottom lip. He threw his backpack on the floor next to the door and sighed, recalling the events of his day. The teacher caught him dozing off in class again and severely reprimanded him, but he couldn’t help it. Whenever he went to sleep at home, the nightmares came, and each night they grew in intensity. He never had time to sleep, never.</p><p></p><p>“Matt, you left the bedroom light on again!” Matt stood bolt upright, eyes growing wide and body growing rigid with fear. Gary was somehow not at work but already home, waiting…</p><p></p><p>Gary stormed into the room raving about the price of electricity and Matt overcame his temporary paralysis, whirling towards the door and escape. A hand caught him by the collar, pressing him into the glass storm door before lifting him into the air and hurling him backward against the wall. He felt the air driven out of his lungs as he collapsed to the floor gasping. Looking up, he saw his stepfather’s foot pulled back to deliver a kick. Matt tried to scramble aside but was not fast enough and his vision went alternately black and red. A dull throbbing ache filled his side as Gary stumbled away from him.</p><p></p><p>The refrigerator door swung open in the kitchen and he heard Gary pop another can of beer, his stepson forgotten in the heap where he lay gasping and crying and clutching at his aspirator.</p><p></p><p>*****</p><p></p><p>Late that night Matt lay whimpering in bed trying to avoid sleep. If he slipped the dreams would come, and he would scream, and Gary would beat him. His white knuckles clenched the covers as his paranoid eyes darted to every corner of the room, searching for any hint of movement. So far there had been none. Matt sighed and glanced out the window – and froze. A cadaverous figure stood outside, regarding the boy with deeply bloodshot eyes that had no pupils. The figure grinned through half-rotted lips and scratched at the window. At the same time, a slow creak told Matt that the closet door had started to gradually swing open. A shriek welled up within his soul, and as the Boogeyman came into view he could no longer contain it. He couldn’t believe that he was asleep; he was awake – he had to be.</p><p></p><p>The light flipped on and he saw that the closet door was still securely shut. The real monster walked into the room. “More nightmares? When is it going to end? I warned you not to wake me up again.”</p><p></p><p>Matt pointed to the window and yelled again. Maybe if he could show Gary that the monsters were real his stepfather wouldn’t hurt him anymore. Gary turned and looked, but of course the figure had disappeared from the frame, melting back into the shadows from whence he came, and all Gary saw was Matt’s little television set.</p><p></p><p>In blind, drunken anger Gary picked up the small box and heaved. It crashed through the window in a spray of reflective shards and then burst upon the lawn in a cascade of glittering sparks. A snap warned Matt that his stepfather was unfastening his belt, then rough hands jerked him out of bed and pushed him to the floor. The leather strap bit into the tender flesh of his back, eliciting a cry of pain. Another smack followed and Matt tried again to voice his agony but discovered he could make no sound. As the belt continued to fall, cutting angry red stripes across his skin, Matt realized that he couldn’t breathe. Growing numb to the continuing rain of blows, he fumbled and groped for the one thing that could help him inhale again – his aspirator.</p><p></p><p>Gary finally left the room and Matt crawled to his nightstand. He finally closed his trembling fingers around the small plastic tube and held it to his mouth, feeling the cool icy air once more flow into his lungs. While he sucked on the aspirator his mind unlocked a desperate plan. A feeling of hope filled his heart as he decided that this is what he must do; he would run, run to his Uncle Eddy’s, run to where he would be safe from his stepfather and hopefully from the dreams, too.</p><p></p><p>He rose and dumped the schoolbooks from his backpack, replacing them with a couple spare sets of clothing and his piggybank. After tying his shoes and shouldering the pack, he went to the window and climbed out, carefully avoiding the scattered splinters of glass. Favoring his room with one sad farewell glance, he pushed off the sill and dropped to the ground. The night air was cool and moist and he could hear the sound of chirping crickets all around him. Matt scampered to the street and started toward the nearest bus stop; he had no time to savor the night if he wanted to get away.</p><p></p><p>He raced around the corner of the block and then slowed down – the house was out of sight and he felt he’d made a clean escape. The street ahead was dark except for the occasional streetlight, which he avoided the best that he could. Ignoring the tree branches that seemed to reach out to grasp him he stuck to the shadows, learning that they were sometimes friendly and now always the domain of bad dreams.</p><p></p><p>The bus stop loomed before him at last, surrounded by a halo of light. He decided to brave the illumination and sat down on the bench. Clutching his jacket tightly around him, he looked up and counted the stars to stay awake.</p><p></p><p>“So, are ya gonna get on or what?” The bus driver’s cranky question stirred Matt from a deep dream in which he had been glued to the bench while a wicked, twisted dwarf with razor talons, clacking steel boots, and a crimson-stained beret slowly advanced upon him. Shuddering, he climbed onto the bus and sat in the first seat by the window, placing his backpack on the seat beside him so that no one would try to take the adjacent chair. </p><p></p><p>He looked out the window as the bus rolled back into motion, trying to ignore the caked-on dirt and streaks of dust and grease. Buses always reminded him that other people had problems too, for some reason, but this never comforted him. Far from it, he had grown to hate the sticky floors, the gum mashed on seat cushions, and the smell of those who had ridden before him. No one deserved to live in such conditions, and being a compassionate young boy, it made Matt feel worse when he was exposed to those less fortunate than he.</p><p></p><p>The bus screeched to a halt and Matt handed the driver a wrinkled dollar and climbed down to the street. He walked quickly towards Uncle Eddy’s apartment building, confident that his uncle would let him in and would know what to do. He had finally escaped Gary, the tyrant that ruled his home.</p><p></p><p>*****</p><p></p><p>Ed sighed and sipped his espresso, glancing every now and then at the stack of term papers scattered across his coffee table. A hundred papers waited to be graded before Monday and he had looked at only twelve so far. Procrastination never ended with good results; he always paid for it with last-minute research and with sleepless nights and with utter exhaustion, and yet he seemed somehow unable to avoid it. He breathed deeply and ran his free hand through his thick, curly brown mop of hair. He picked up another paper and stretched his lanky form before settling down again. Best to start working and stop thinking about it; mental self-chastisement wouldn’t get the work done.</p><p></p><p>A knock on the door completely derailed his train of thought. Rising and moving to answer it, he abandoned all thoughts of work in favor of daydreams about friends who would rescue him from boredom and labor. His jaw dropped in happy surprise when he saw his visitor. “Matt! How are you, little buddy? Whatcha doin’ here?” He patted his nephew on the back and provoked a small whimper of pain. Ed dropped to his knees, unbuttoned Matt’s shirt and jacket, and pulled them off. When he rose again his face had contorted into a livid mask of rage.</p><p></p><p>“Did your stepfather do this?” he demanded. Matt nodded in answer and his uncle exploded. "I knew that bastard Gary was no good! I swear , Matt, if it takes all my savings to pay for the legal expenses I’ll make sure you never have to live with him again! It was a mistake to ever let you stay there after your mom died.”</p><p></p><p>Matt let Uncle Eddy lead him into the bathroom and watched as he opened the medicine cabinet. Ed collected a wad of gauze and a bottle of peroxide then carried Matt to the couch and began applying the medicine to his back. Lovingly, each strip of gauze was dipped into the peroxide and then rubbed soothingly across the angry weals that crisscrossed the boy’s back. Matt let his muscles relax and stretched out on the couch, his uncle’s couch, with the not-quite-broken springs and the soft feather cushions that seems to sink to fit his body perfectly, feeling the relaxing steady massage of Uncle Eddy’s hands on his wounded back…</p><p></p><p>Long before Ed finished the back rub, Matt was fast asleep. For the first time in weeks, he did not dream.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Sniktch, post: 612264, member: 7704"] The Boogeyman “Hey, kid! Wake up!” Matt felt a small, hairy claw prying at one of his eyelids. He slowly opened the other eye and caught sight of a tiny, misshapen creature perched upon his nose and furiously ripping the lashes from his other lid. “Aaaaah!” Matt sat up in bed screaming. The beast evidently did not have a very firm grip and catapulted across the room, striking the wall and dropping from view with a soft squishing sound. A creaking noise called Matt’s attention to the closet. The door he remembered carefully shutting before going to bed swung lazily open, revealing a large black shape with dull crimson eyes that rose out of the closet and advanced upon the foot of the bed. Matt screamed again. And again and again until a cold, clammy hand grabbed his throat from behind, cutting off both his cries and his air. The breath left his burning lungs as he fumbled with one hand for his aspirator, which he’d left on the nightstand next to his bed. Suddenly the hand and the shape melted, giving way to the brilliance of the overhead lamp. He blinked rapidly to adjust to the unexpected light, relieved that he had just been saved from certain doom. A ringing smack knocked Matt sprawling across the covers. “What are you tryin’ to do, wake the dead?” He cringed and looked up at the source of the voice, his stepfather Gary. Gary was a short, balding man who had obviously been well built during his youth but had started to go soft, especially around the middle. What was left of his wispy hair stood out crazily from his head and he was dressed in a dirty tee shirt that showed the stains of many beer spills. Gary’s tirade continued, and Matt shrank from his strident voice, almost wishing he could be back in the nightmare where his stepfather couldn’t reach him. “I have to work in the mornings, you little punk, so that you can eat every day and have clothes to wear, and I don’t appreciate these little stunts.” Whirling and opening the closet ([i]it should have been open[/I], thought Matt, [I]in the dream it had been open[/I]), he exclaimed, “Look, its empty! There is no Boogeyman, and if I ever hear you scream or mention bad dreams again, you’ll get a chance to visit the hospital.” The light went out and Matt could hear his stepfather stomping back to his own room. Left alone again, Matt realized with dawning terror that the closet door [b]had been left open[/b]. Helplessly he turned to face the opening. Within its inky depths, one red eye closed in a wink. ***** After school the next day, Matt unlocked the front door and trudged inside. He caught his reflection on the mirror in the entryway and frowned. He was a wiry boy of eight, small for his age, with tangled brown hair. His usual expression was gloomy and pensive and he had a habit of chewing on his nails and bottom lip. He threw his backpack on the floor next to the door and sighed, recalling the events of his day. The teacher caught him dozing off in class again and severely reprimanded him, but he couldn’t help it. Whenever he went to sleep at home, the nightmares came, and each night they grew in intensity. He never had time to sleep, never. “Matt, you left the bedroom light on again!” Matt stood bolt upright, eyes growing wide and body growing rigid with fear. Gary was somehow not at work but already home, waiting… Gary stormed into the room raving about the price of electricity and Matt overcame his temporary paralysis, whirling towards the door and escape. A hand caught him by the collar, pressing him into the glass storm door before lifting him into the air and hurling him backward against the wall. He felt the air driven out of his lungs as he collapsed to the floor gasping. Looking up, he saw his stepfather’s foot pulled back to deliver a kick. Matt tried to scramble aside but was not fast enough and his vision went alternately black and red. A dull throbbing ache filled his side as Gary stumbled away from him. The refrigerator door swung open in the kitchen and he heard Gary pop another can of beer, his stepson forgotten in the heap where he lay gasping and crying and clutching at his aspirator. ***** Late that night Matt lay whimpering in bed trying to avoid sleep. If he slipped the dreams would come, and he would scream, and Gary would beat him. His white knuckles clenched the covers as his paranoid eyes darted to every corner of the room, searching for any hint of movement. So far there had been none. Matt sighed and glanced out the window – and froze. A cadaverous figure stood outside, regarding the boy with deeply bloodshot eyes that had no pupils. The figure grinned through half-rotted lips and scratched at the window. At the same time, a slow creak told Matt that the closet door had started to gradually swing open. A shriek welled up within his soul, and as the Boogeyman came into view he could no longer contain it. He couldn’t believe that he was asleep; he was awake – he had to be. The light flipped on and he saw that the closet door was still securely shut. The real monster walked into the room. “More nightmares? When is it going to end? I warned you not to wake me up again.” Matt pointed to the window and yelled again. Maybe if he could show Gary that the monsters were real his stepfather wouldn’t hurt him anymore. Gary turned and looked, but of course the figure had disappeared from the frame, melting back into the shadows from whence he came, and all Gary saw was Matt’s little television set. In blind, drunken anger Gary picked up the small box and heaved. It crashed through the window in a spray of reflective shards and then burst upon the lawn in a cascade of glittering sparks. A snap warned Matt that his stepfather was unfastening his belt, then rough hands jerked him out of bed and pushed him to the floor. The leather strap bit into the tender flesh of his back, eliciting a cry of pain. Another smack followed and Matt tried again to voice his agony but discovered he could make no sound. As the belt continued to fall, cutting angry red stripes across his skin, Matt realized that he couldn’t breathe. Growing numb to the continuing rain of blows, he fumbled and groped for the one thing that could help him inhale again – his aspirator. Gary finally left the room and Matt crawled to his nightstand. He finally closed his trembling fingers around the small plastic tube and held it to his mouth, feeling the cool icy air once more flow into his lungs. While he sucked on the aspirator his mind unlocked a desperate plan. A feeling of hope filled his heart as he decided that this is what he must do; he would run, run to his Uncle Eddy’s, run to where he would be safe from his stepfather and hopefully from the dreams, too. He rose and dumped the schoolbooks from his backpack, replacing them with a couple spare sets of clothing and his piggybank. After tying his shoes and shouldering the pack, he went to the window and climbed out, carefully avoiding the scattered splinters of glass. Favoring his room with one sad farewell glance, he pushed off the sill and dropped to the ground. The night air was cool and moist and he could hear the sound of chirping crickets all around him. Matt scampered to the street and started toward the nearest bus stop; he had no time to savor the night if he wanted to get away. He raced around the corner of the block and then slowed down – the house was out of sight and he felt he’d made a clean escape. The street ahead was dark except for the occasional streetlight, which he avoided the best that he could. Ignoring the tree branches that seemed to reach out to grasp him he stuck to the shadows, learning that they were sometimes friendly and now always the domain of bad dreams. The bus stop loomed before him at last, surrounded by a halo of light. He decided to brave the illumination and sat down on the bench. Clutching his jacket tightly around him, he looked up and counted the stars to stay awake. “So, are ya gonna get on or what?” The bus driver’s cranky question stirred Matt from a deep dream in which he had been glued to the bench while a wicked, twisted dwarf with razor talons, clacking steel boots, and a crimson-stained beret slowly advanced upon him. Shuddering, he climbed onto the bus and sat in the first seat by the window, placing his backpack on the seat beside him so that no one would try to take the adjacent chair. He looked out the window as the bus rolled back into motion, trying to ignore the caked-on dirt and streaks of dust and grease. Buses always reminded him that other people had problems too, for some reason, but this never comforted him. Far from it, he had grown to hate the sticky floors, the gum mashed on seat cushions, and the smell of those who had ridden before him. No one deserved to live in such conditions, and being a compassionate young boy, it made Matt feel worse when he was exposed to those less fortunate than he. The bus screeched to a halt and Matt handed the driver a wrinkled dollar and climbed down to the street. He walked quickly towards Uncle Eddy’s apartment building, confident that his uncle would let him in and would know what to do. He had finally escaped Gary, the tyrant that ruled his home. ***** Ed sighed and sipped his espresso, glancing every now and then at the stack of term papers scattered across his coffee table. A hundred papers waited to be graded before Monday and he had looked at only twelve so far. Procrastination never ended with good results; he always paid for it with last-minute research and with sleepless nights and with utter exhaustion, and yet he seemed somehow unable to avoid it. He breathed deeply and ran his free hand through his thick, curly brown mop of hair. He picked up another paper and stretched his lanky form before settling down again. Best to start working and stop thinking about it; mental self-chastisement wouldn’t get the work done. A knock on the door completely derailed his train of thought. Rising and moving to answer it, he abandoned all thoughts of work in favor of daydreams about friends who would rescue him from boredom and labor. His jaw dropped in happy surprise when he saw his visitor. “Matt! How are you, little buddy? Whatcha doin’ here?” He patted his nephew on the back and provoked a small whimper of pain. Ed dropped to his knees, unbuttoned Matt’s shirt and jacket, and pulled them off. When he rose again his face had contorted into a livid mask of rage. “Did your stepfather do this?” he demanded. Matt nodded in answer and his uncle exploded. "I knew that bastard Gary was no good! I swear , Matt, if it takes all my savings to pay for the legal expenses I’ll make sure you never have to live with him again! It was a mistake to ever let you stay there after your mom died.” Matt let Uncle Eddy lead him into the bathroom and watched as he opened the medicine cabinet. Ed collected a wad of gauze and a bottle of peroxide then carried Matt to the couch and began applying the medicine to his back. Lovingly, each strip of gauze was dipped into the peroxide and then rubbed soothingly across the angry weals that crisscrossed the boy’s back. Matt let his muscles relax and stretched out on the couch, his uncle’s couch, with the not-quite-broken springs and the soft feather cushions that seems to sink to fit his body perfectly, feeling the relaxing steady massage of Uncle Eddy’s hands on his wounded back… Long before Ed finished the back rub, Matt was fast asleep. For the first time in weeks, he did not dream. [/QUOTE]
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