It was a scrabbling, gnawing sound coming from under the bed. Steady and grinding.
There was something down there. Something with sharp teeth. Something chewing its way up to them. It would eat through the wooden slats of the bed frame, then the soft organic cotton mattress, and then—
She shook him harder, gave his shoulder a not-so-gentle punch. “Nate, there’s something here,in the trailer!”
“Ow! God! What? Where?” he asked, sitting up, listening as he rubbed his shoulder.
“Don’t you hear it?” she asked.
“Hear what?” He looked at her, puzzled. “Have you been drinking?”
“Just shut up and listen!” she hissed. Thiswas notgoing to be like the scream their first night.
They sat together under the covers, listening.
Gnawing. Definite gnawing. Not the soft chewing of a mouse, but something much louder, much larger.
“You hear that, right?” Helen asked.
“Yeah, I hear it.” He sounded worried.
“Well,what the fuck is it?”
“I don’t know. Some kind of animal.”
Helen remembered the library woman’s words: “You stay out there long enough, and who knows, maybe you’ll see her, too. Go to the bog at sunset and wait. When the darkness is settling in, that’s when Hattie comes out.”
And Helen had thought of going last night after supper, of walking to the bog by herself, but she’d been too frightened.
The mad chewing got louder, more insistent.
My, what big teeth you have.
All the better to eat you up.
She hadn’t gone to Hattie. Perhaps Hattie had come to her.
“I think she’s under the bed,” Helen whispered.
“She?” Nate said, grabbing his glasses, flipping on the light.
“It. Whatever.”
She shouldn’t have been reading the ridiculous Hattie story online and the witchcraft books from the library before getting into bed. Next time she couldn’t sleep, she’d pick up one of Nate’s science tomes—study the anatomy of an earthworm or how evaporation and condensation cause rain.
“Hand me the flashlight,” he said as he slid off the bed and dropped to his knees. She passed him the big yellow light and he flicked it on, shone the beam under the bed. Helen stayed on top of the covers, legs tucked under her, half expecting a gnarled hand to reach out and pull him under.
“What is it?” she asked. “What do you see?”
“Nothing here,” he said. “But I still hear it. It sounds like it’s right underneath us.” He stood up, his white boxers and T-shirt glowing as he moved down the darkness of the hall.
“Where are you going?” Helen’s voice was squeaky and frantic and she hated herself for it.
“Outside,” he said. “To look under the trailer.”
She scooted out of bed, padding behind him down the hall to the front door. She stood in the open doorway while he made his way down the steps. It was a clear night, the moon hanging low in the sky, the stars looking bright and close, the air damp and cool. Goose bumps prickled her skin.
“Be careful,” she said as Nate crouched down, shone the light into the crawl space beneath the trailer, which rested uneasily on crumbling concrete blocks.
