Twilight…silence, as the crickets croon their summer song. The day gives way to night, lights flicker and stutter into wakefulness to cast eerie shadows on the lanes that twist and turn through the small village. A breeze comes up and whistles through treetops, wind chimes and the curtains of people careless enough to leave them open. I walk in the shadows on the dark side of the lane my dreariness blending into the dreariness of my surroundings…I walk unnoticed. I go by many names…boogey man, closet monster, dream stealer are but a few of my distinguished titles.

I am motivated tonight…I have a goal. His name is Charles and he does not know me…not yet but he will and when he does my cackle will echo through the chambers of his mind for years into his future. He dared make light of me to his friends boasting that he was not afraid…silly eight year old; tonight he will learn the meaning of fear.

My raven friend screeches from the top of the nearest light post hopeful for the delicacies I some time offer him after one of my sweeter night visits. He developed a taste for delicacies of a type not found in your usual bird feed store when I first took him or he took me under his wing. I do not need him this feathered friend but he amuses me when I am not doing my chosen field of work in the wee dark hours of the night in the rooms of the brats who think they are untouchable. To watch him slurp those two delicate morsels I always save for him that stare back at us with their last sight captured in a visual scream is you have to admit to say the least amusing to my black heart

Anyway I digress, ah…number 13 Drury Lane, now that’s a laugh this place should be called Dreary Lane, oh well I am here now and as I work my way along the neglected wild rose bushes that separate his home from his neighbor’s almost tripping over his bike left carelessly in the path, using one of my finely honed nails two tires become strips of rubber…hell he won’t ride this bike again anyway. From a passing window I catch my reflection, and preen with satisfaction at my utter gruesomeness. My incisors as yellow as old ivory, eyes fiery red as the devil’s own child, my talons long as short knives, my arms and legs twisted gnarls of muscle and sinew always moving and shifting shape with each step I take…and though you can not see it the smell of my fetid breath the smell of rot and death glows like an aura of stench around me. Ah Satan…life is grand indeed.

My steps slither to a stop outside the second window that glows from a soft hue, possibly a night-light…I will fix that and with a bolt of evil power I send a wave through the window that knocks out the little light that he though would protect him…ha. The window rolls up effortlessly; new sliders vinyl coated ah so much better then those old wooden ones people used to have, no splinters and whisper quiet. In the wink of a shadow I am into the room and oozing along the shadows of the room to the sound of his little boy snores that call to me like a beacon.

Toys, games and other boyhood treasures line his room and I slime them and smash them indiscriminately as I near the bed and the sleeping boy. Ah a thin almost gray line of moonlight through the window highlights the sassy imp who lies there in his superman PJs with the blankets kicked to the foot of his bed. Feast time indeed and as my anticipation builds my mouth already dripping acidic saliva starts it’s journey for his throat…but his scream rends the night into chaos as lights go on and my body shape shifts into another form to avoid detection into the night I drift as I hear the father’s voice…

“Charlie, Charlie it’s okay Charlie just a bad dream I am here.”

"Daddy it was the boogey man he was here and he was going to eat me…” The silly boy rambles on and on, and the shadow of my raven friend crosses the lamplight and takes the blame for my nocturnal visit as I slip back through the window, no feast here tonight. As I take the list out of my pocket…now lets see

Caleb

Cain

Charles

Carl

Ah Carl, now that sounds like a better prospect his father is dead and his mother drinks…what address is that again?