In My Bedroom

I s'pose some of you’d think my bedroom was pretty ordinary, maybe a bit bare even. I’m one of four kids and our parents aren’t very rich, so we don’t have a lot of stuff like other guys. I’ve got a small telly now I’m the oldest and Justin’s got a thing he plays tapes with, but we haven't got computers or anything.

I was eleven when I moved into the room Emily’d had … that was before she disappeared. There was a big stink of course, but the cops reckoned she’d just run off, ’cos her boyfriend had vanished as well. He’d come from a swanky family in a big mansion up on the hill and they didn’t like their son messing with the daughter of a coalminer, so we all reckoned they’d eloped or something … well; most of the others did, but I knew better. At first, I’d been happy she’d gone ’cos she was a bossy cow, always ordering us boys about and it meant I got her room and I didn’t have to sleep with Justin no more. He snores like a dragon with the hiccups and it always took me ages to get to sleep. He's got that apnea thing too, so sometimes he’d stop breathing for like, half a minute and I’d wake up in a fright, thinking something’d gone bang.

Mum and Dad were angry when I first got the handcuffs, maybe figuring I was doing kinky things. I told ’em I’d started sleepwalking and it was an idea I had to stop me falling down the stairs or going to sleep in the fridge, but I knew what’d happened to Emily and her boyfriend, didn’t I, and I wasn’t going to go the same way.

I s’pose I could’ve taken the easy way out and just got rid of the wardrobe, but when I tried, Dad said it was a family heirloom and real valuable. It wouldn’t fit in either of the other bedrooms, so I was stuck with the rotten thing. It was the biggest bit of furniture in the whole house; Mum said it came from the Black Forest in Germany and it was covered in these carvings of trees and vines and birds and animals. There were other things, too, but you could only see ’em when the light was right. Like once, I came back in from doing a pooh and I see’d this bear, with its little beady eyes peering out from behind a tree. I got scared and jumped into bed, but when I looked in the morning I couldn’t find it no more so I thought I must’ve made it up.

’Course; I know better now, don’t I. I’ve told Mum and Dad what it does, but they don’t believe me. Mum sat up all night with me once, waiting, but nothing happened. I kind’ve knew it wouldn’t, ’cos I think it just wants kids, not grownups. That’s ’cos of the carving inside on the back … I don’t think Mum and Dad even know it’s there; there’s this guy, see, with a funny hat with bells on and this flute-thing in his mouth, and he’s dancing along the street with all these kids following him.

I think I’m pretty safe now, ’cos I always handcuff myself to the bedrail at night and I put the key in my pyjama pocket. It’s still a bit scary though, because the old woman’s real ugly and her nails are all split and gnarly but she can’t drag me in ’cos I’m stuck to the bed, ain't I. It always starts just when I’m dropping off, too; the wardrobe door creaks open and there’s this light shining out all soft and glowy, then it gets wider and I see her, sitting there at her spinning wheel in her long black dress and that pointy hat with the bells on. There’s little things running about too, like squirrels or maybe rats, but they never come out … not like she does. My eyes keep getting heavier and she puts down the spindle thing and climbs out onto the floor. I try and scream but nothing happens, like I’m all dried up inside. Then I see her hands poke out of her sleeves, all skinny and wrinkled up like walnuts and her nasty nails start reaching for my ankles as she climbs up on the bed, grinning at me with her pointy spider-teeth. The cuffs hurt my wrists when she tries to drag me into the wardrobe, but I ain’t letting her get me like she got Emily and Franklin. I’d heard them through the wall, see, when they’d snuck in here to have sex, all heaving and gasping and making yukky sucking noises. They went quiet after that and I thought they must’ve gone to sleep but nobody ever saw them again, so I reckon the wardrobe got both of them.

I wrote the old woman a note earlier this evening, ’cos I want to find out what happens to the kids that go into the wardrobe, so as long as they don’t get eaten up or nothing. After all, it can’t be much worse than what my dad does to me some nights.