When I was thirteen years old, I had an experience that I can’t explain which gave me a horrible scare. Shortly after my grandpa passed away, I lay awake in bed one summer night thinking of him as I listened to my sister snoring across from me. My dad had left for work and my mother was in her room with the door closed, wearing her usual set of earplugs so as not to hear our nightly chatter.
As I lay there with my covers up around my chest, I could hear the traffic outside and people making all kinds of noises. Suddenly, my covers were yanked all the way down to my ankles! My first reaction was to just lay there and not move. I didn’t know what to do. I remember feeling my heart throbbing inside my chest so loud that I thought I would wake up my sister. Unfortunately, I had no such luck. After a few minutes of lying so still and not moving, I decided to try and pull my covers back up to where they had been.
Slowly, I reached down, barely moving, and with both hands gave a yank. But to my surprise, the covers were stuck as if something had a firm hold on them! The covers didn’t even budge an inch. “Oh my God!” I thought to myself, “What is under my bed?” I tried two more tugs on my covers with no luck. At this point, I was so scared that I couldn’t even speak. I was trying to yell, “Help!” but nothing came out. “What am I going to do?” I wondered.
I thought maybe I could jump off my bed and make a dash for the light switch, but I imagined this hideous creature under my bed reaching out and grabbing my ankles as I sprang for the lights. At this point, the thought was just too much to comprehend. I was literally paralyzed by fear.
By now, I was soaking wet from nervous perspiration and shaking inside from fear. I thought of all the bad things I might have done to make me deserve this night of terror. I decided to give it one more shot–just give a big yank with all my strength, maybe the covers would come loose. So with a last-ditch effort, I gave a big yank. To my surprise, the covers came flying up over my head as if they had never been stuck at all! At this point, I wasn’t going to waste any time. I tucked those covers underneath my legs, covered my head and held the excess covers in my hand. Nothing was going to get me now! I was safe under my covers.
Shortly, after hyperventilating, I fell asleep. Unfortunately my night did not end here. I began to dream. I was in my room again, in my bed, but this time my sister was awake. She was standing next to my bed brushing her hair at our vanity. “Will you please reach under my bed and get Tilly (my ragdoll) for me?” You see, I had this great plan that whatever was under my bed was still there. However, my sister was going to see it, not me.
As my sister bent down to reach under my bed, she let out this terrible scream and backed away from my bed. I was startled by this reaction and without thinking, I flung my legs off the bed to run away. As I did this, a golden-clawed hand came out from under my bed and grabbed my ankle!
The next thing I knew it was morning and it was all over. I ran out of my room, happy to be alive but when I told my parents what had happened, they just blamed it on an over-active imagination. I was upset because I know it happened.
I don’t know what it was that was under my bed that night, but to this day, I still worry about it coming back for me.
