"Mmmph!"
Gobackkasleep.
"Mmmmph! No!"
ShuddupChrisimtryintosleep.
"Ow! No! Lemme 'lone!"
It was 4:00 in the morning. Slowly, the dark world came to Rich. Outside, the moon shone through an icy haze. Fingers of ice crystals clung desperately to the window. Rich's bed was warm and it was cozy. He could feel that the house had cooled down in the night. All he wanted to do was go back to sleep. He wrapped his blankets around himself.
"Don't! Gowaylemmelone!"
Rich sat upright. It was another of Chris' fits. Chris always woke Rich with his late-night shouting. Their parents couldn't hear; their room was downstairs. Rich always had to deal with the problem, even though doing so meant losing sleep. He looked at the clock and cursed it. Three hours until he had to get up. Outside, the snow seemed to glow from the light of the moon. Maybe he'll just fall asleep...
Rich listened for a few more minutes. Silence returned. Outside he could hear an occasional car on some distant street. He laid his head back down on the pillow and turned himself over. Slowly, he started drifting back to sleep. The drowsiness was pulling him away, back to the warm comfort of slumber.
"No! GO 'WAY!"
Rich sat bolt upright. He felt the cool air in the room again. There was no point in trying to go back to sleep. Chris would not slip into peaceful slumber by himself. Rich got up. Now he felt as if he were standing outside - the room was frigid. He wanted to turn on the lights, but didn't want to hurt his eyes the way he always did when dim darkness became light. While he crossed the floor he tripped on a toy, almost sending himself tumbling down. He made his way across the room, taking careful steps this time, and grabbed his bathrobe from its hook. Chris kept calling out in his sleep, and the cries becoming closer together.
Rich pushed open the door and the hinges squeaked, their report sounding like the shot of a gun in the darkness. It was even colder in the hallway. Noises that were masked in the daylight - the creak of floorboards as he stepped on them, the hum of the heater downstairs, the tick of the clock in Chris' room - were now easy to hear.
Down the stairs he saw only inky blackness. The curtains were drawn and no light from the windows could break into the house. A night light glowed dimly in Chris' room, obstinate against the darkness that surrounded it. Rich crossed the threshold and stepped into his younger brother's room.
Chris lay sprawled on his bed. His pillows were on the floor and his head rested uncomfortably against the mattress. The blankets were cast about in a haphazard manner, half-covering Chris. Every once in a while he would jerk an arm or a leg or turn his entire body over, shaking the bed and throwing his covers into new, bizarre patterns. More often than turning over he would utter squished strings of words - "lemme lone", "go 'way" or "mmmphnono".
Rich sat down in a chair across from his brother's bed. He just sat there - sometimes all it took to soothe Chris' imagination was Rich's presence. As he sat there, listening to his brother's moans, he knew that tonight it would take more. He sighed, a deep, heavy sigh. He was tired and cold in his bathrobe and underwear. All he wanted to do was go back to bed, to feel the soothing kiss of his pillow, and to wrap himself in his cozy sheet and blankets. Chris went on speaking in his sleep, oblivious of his brother.
Rich got up and stepped toward Chris' bed, noticing that his brother's closet was open. Involuntarily, as one switches off a bathroom light, he turned toward it to close it. For a split second, he thought he caught movement deep within, then it was just a closet again. Silly fears, he thought, as he closed it. He turned back toward Chris' bed and looked at his brother's face.
In between outbursts Chris seemed complacent. But right before he would utter some half-indistinguishable phrase at some intangible danger, his brow would furrow and he would sharply draw a breath. Rich took the covers and pulled them fully over his supine brother. He must be freezing, he though.
He sat down and felt cold. The bed wasn't warm, it was almost as chilly as the night air. He looked around the room, toward the closet door he had just closed, and then at the window. He strained his neck and could just barely see out the bottom of it. He saw streetlights, distant, and as cold as the snow on the ground. The whole world seemed desolate. The only place Rich wanted to be was in his bed, wrapping his arms underneath his pillow.
As he was looking out the window he heard something shift in the closest. He turned to look and his brother kicked his foot. He listened for a few more seconds but whatever was in the closest had settled. Why does the dark always seem so dangerous?
He drew his robe tightly around himself and wondered what his brother could be dreaming about. Chris had a vivid imagination; he was terrified of the dark and afraid to be alone. He refused to go into the basement. One time, Rich had hid in the basement, waiting for his brother to come down. He didn't think he'd scare his brother - he'd even left the lights on. When Chris came by the spot where his brother was hiding Rich jumped out and screamed. He had never heard a more terrified shriek. Chris bolted up the steps and Rich found him by the fireplace, weeping. Rich had sat down, trying to explain to his younger brother that it was just a joke, but Chris kept on crying.
Rich strained to remember. Was that when Chris had started crying out in his sleep? There were probably a lot of causes for his bad dreams. He had been moved upstairs, away from their parents, less than a year ago. Rich had scared him in the basement later than that. Chris had seen countless scary movies on TV. There were a million phantoms in the night to terrify the boy.
He settled his weight on the bed, shifting and shaking it a little. Waking Chris wouldn't help. He'd sit up, fall back asleep, and within twenty minutes start his caterwauling again. But sometimes jarring him a little would soothe him, like bumping a stick in a stream to change its course. This time it didn't help.
Rich looked at his brother's face again and wondered what he could be dreaming about. He felt cold again, and then he thought he heard something moving around downstairs. The heater, which before had been humming, had died down. He could hear no traffic on the streets outside. The world had suddenly become a wasteland where the drip of a faucet sounded like the crack of thunder. Rich strained to listen, but heard nothing more. Why was it so cold in the house? The silence was ominous, and it choked him. He could almost feel it, like the chilly air, on his skin.
Then he definitely heard a noise downstairs. It was thump. Slowly, like a plant taking root, fear germinated inside Rich. He knew there was something in the house. He didn't know why, but he just knew. He scooted closer to his brother, listening desperately in the unfeeling night. Now he could sense it, an evil presence. It seemed to be getting closer, and Chris shouted suddenly, making Rich start. In the time Rich had been listening to the thumps in the dark Chris' shouts had gotten louder. Rich thought, why don't Mom and Dad hear him?
The room was now actually getting colder, and Rich thought he could see, in the pathetic glow of the night-light, his breath. He longed for his bed, knowing that he would be warm, if not safe, there. He could feel whatever it was downstairs, honing in on his and his brother's fear. He heard another thump downstairs, and it was closer.
The walls started closing in on Rich. He was trapped, a caged animal. The only other person in the world was Chris, who could only cry out. He felt his terror climbing the stairs, and heard one or two steps creak. It was getting closer, hunting its prey and delighting in the fear that now seemed to fill the tiny room. Rich's nose and ears felt like they were frozen to his head. The nightlight flickered pitifully.
Rich remembered every fear he'd had. The times in the basement he'd heard something breathing underneath the stairs. The monsters in his closet, the terror that came from taking the garbage out after dark, the nameless fear that would hover outside his window in the dead of night when the rest of the world was asleep and would make him cover his face with his blankets. The creatures on TV, the mortal terror of being alone. It all came back to him and he felt powerless against it. He squeezed his hands into fists, despair and terror taking hold of him.
"Gowaylemmelone," Rich said meekly to nobody.
He looked down at Chris, filled then with anger and remorse. If only Chris hadn't started wailing, Rich could be laying in his bed, asleep!. This terror wouldn't be rushing to suck the life from him - from them. He felt like shaking his brother, he felt like screaming at him. The hallway darkened outside. The nightlight flickered and went out and the room wasn't much darker without it. He could now hear a sound, the horrible breathing of some vicious monster. Chris screamed a shrill, piercing scream, louder than when his older brother had scared him in the basement, and Rich wanted to join him.
But he didn't scream. Instead, he leaned down and hugged his brother, pulling him tight. He hugged him harder than he ever had before. It was an instinctive reaction, and he almost told Chris that everything was going to be okay. His brother's body felt hot in that cold room. He realized then, at the end of his life, on the brink of being killed by a nameless horror, how much he loved his brother. If they were going to die, at least it would be together. He kept on hugging his brother, oblivious of the outside world. Let the monster come, he thought. In the dark he thought he saw his brother's face relax a little. If this was how he was going, at least he had his kid brother with him. Together. He tenderly kissed the side of his brother's head.
He released his brother gently on the bed and, mustering what courage he could, turned to face his fear.
And saw only an empty hallway.
Faintly, he could hear the heater and the click of the clock on the wall. The night-light was back on. Far away came the sound of cars on streets somewhere in town. The warmth from the hug he'd shared with his brother hadn't left him. He could no longer see his breath and he realized the room was warmer. Chris had stopped moaning and now slept with a smile on his face.
Rich stood up and gazed on his brother one last time. There hadn't been a monster - monsters weren't real, just the product of overactive imaginations. He stroked his brother's hair and stood there for another ten minutes. Chris didn't make a peep.
Satisfied, Rich crossed into the hallway and entered his room. Shedding his bathrobe, he climbed into the bed, still warm, and drifted back to sleep.