Horror - Short

This story is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are fictitious and any similarities to actual persons, locations, or events is coincidental. This work cannot be used to train artificial intelligence programs.  No AI tools were used in the writing of this story.

All rights reserved. Under the Bed Copyright © Eddie Generous 2026

UNDER THE BED

Suicide watch.

At the deepest, darkest depths of his life, the lights never go out, not anymore. Day and night the glow remains constant, illuminating the entirety of the block and Trevor Osmond’s cell. He can cover his head with the thin, scratchy cotton sheet, but it only dulls the yellow glow.

The state demands his blood and they mean to take it.

The prison father has become a constant figure in a plastic-backed chair. This visitor is quite similar to the kind totem Trevor recalls from Sunday school. He lets his eyes play stupidly, lazily over the father with increasing impatience and agitation.

“I didn’t do this,” Trevor repeats for the umpteenth time. “I’m not guilty.”

He’s stood firm, it was not by his hands that his parents had died, not his brother, not his sister either. The evidence was suggestive, but inconclusive. The showmanship displayed by the lawyers was a fantastic mockery of the system, their booming voices, pointing fingers, and circular presentation sealed it. Seventy minutes and the jury came back with a guilty verdict that seemed to rain down on the expectant public as if quenching a drought.

The city wanted blood, the system would abide.

Only twenty and he awaits his last days on Earth inside a grey cell where the lights never go out—death row.

The father, a thin man, his pallor similar to vanilla pudding, sits in his plastic chair. Two crisp pleats run along his black slacks. His thinned hair combed sideways for maximum coverage.

From his angle, this boy is nothing new; he’s heard sinners deny their acts before and needs the boy to embrace his sins in order to earn the only worthwhile redemption offered. Acknowledge guilt and accept the Lord’s embrace.

“You have to get right with God, my son.”

Trevor can’t take it anymore. This man is a broken record in the times of MP3s. “If there is a god, he knows damn well that they’re executing the wrong man and you’d be best to keep all that junk to yourself.”

“Redemption can be—”

“Redemption can eat shit.” Trevor flops back against the wall next to his bunk.

The father tilts his eyes to the hard, cold floor and searches for a method that might take the boy to an admission of guilt. Those who do not acknowledge and accept their crimes miss out on the eternal light.

Situations like these should be gimmes, according to the father, easy points. Every lost soul feels something like a blown save, a walk-off jack in the bottom of the ninth.

The pair sit in silence for a few valuable minutes, only forty hours until needle meets vein. The father tries again. “Why don’t you tell me what happened. From the beginning, let it off your chest.”

Trevor considers this, but instead of his usual answer, he goes ahead. He’s told it before, but never to someone who believed in devils. “All right, but this isn’t a confession. I didn’t do anything wrong, well, maybe I did, I saw it…” Trevor pauses to lick his dry lips.

The father remains silent, eyes on Trevor’s chin, listening but not challenging.

“It started eight years ago. I was only twelve. Dad brought home pizza. We buzzed like flies whenever he brought home anything. We never had much, but we got along and we always loved each other. I didn’t hurt any of them, not a one.

“Anyway, the pizza was a treat and Dad pulled out a box from behind his back for a bonus to the bonus. Ace Ventura Pet Detective had been on video just a little while, the other kids at school had all seen it and I was the odd one out. Probably there were some others, but when kids are picking on you, you feel like the only person in the whole fucking world.” Trevor barks a single ha then. “Funny, the things you remember. I’ve been living the last year just remembering. Anyway, we almost never had money for rental videos either. It was a great night, pizza and Ace. We all went to bed happy.

“My brother, Ger, and me shared a room. Nessa had her own room, she was the oldest, fifteen then.” Trevor wipes at the corners of his reddened eyes. “We were all in bed and that’s when I heard a noise. Nessa was talking, soft, but like what she was saying was urgent. Then I heard a few bangs and ran to her room because I was scared for her. Possibly I was too ignorant yet to be properly scared for myself. You pick that stuff up later in life, right? Anyway, I opened the door and flicked the switch. I thought she’d had a bad dream or something, I guess. Likely.

“The light was yellow, bulbs were always yellow back then. You remember?” The father nods and Trevor continues. “There she was, on the floor, blood everywhere, looking almost orange under the yellow of the lightbulb. And I mean it was everywhere, sprayed up her walls and onto her bed. The blood just kept coming, mounting in size like a reverse of those Bounty towel commercials, you know? It drained right out of her as I watched. I dropped to my knees and screamed. I loved Nessa. I held her tight to me in all that hot blood.”

Trevor shakes his head and goes silent. The father gives him time, but looks at his watch and the inmate takes the hint.

“Other than her being dead and bleeding all over, almost everything else was normal. I didn’t think much of it at the time, but Nessa’s bed was pushed a foot away from the wall.”

“Why would that matter?” the father asks. The newspaper coverage was limitless and often fantastical: drugs, Satan worship, kid serial killer cults, but they never gave quoted accounts.

“It was my grandparents’ old sleigh bed, like cherry or something. Heavy as hell, no way she moved it. Nobody mentioned the bed later and I didn’t think about it. Anyway, I stored the memory somewhere, like outback, you know what I mean?”

The father nods.

“It was a big mystery and the case went cold, or whatever it is they call it when they stop looking. Is that always cold? Or is there another word for when they just stop working on it? Anyway, her death floored my parents especially, like, I mean almost ruined them. We buried Nessa and tried to move on. Mom lost her job a little after, she’d started drinking during the day and not really trying to hide it. I don’t blame her. It was hard on all of us.

“So time went on and we recouped after a few months. Mom’s drinking slowing bit by bit all the time. Dad worked in the sheet metal plant and they got a new machine, so he had to go out of state for a week and learn how to use the thing at a factory in Battle Creek. He was pretty excited, we never took trips and Dad worked hard just to get even. You see he hated debt, hated it like the devil hates busy hands,” the father smirks at this, “so he piled money up in the bank until he could lump it into the mortgage. There’s some rule about slapping some extra in on specific months. I don’t understand, never cared about mortgages. Guess I never will care, now. Mortgages are for other people, people who aren’t cursed.”

The father lifts his eyebrows. This, coming from the horse’s mouth, is a bit of a surprise. He’d figured the papers ran with any fantastical bologna they could sniff out, true or false.

“So Dad was gone. It was just me, Ger, and Mom. Ger had turned fifteen and I knew he wanted more privacy, he’d started to…well you know.” Trevor’s eyes meet the father’s eyes, and he starts jerking the air and making a wet noise against his cheek with his tongue. “Yeah, you know, probably hear about that stuff all the time. Only sex your kind can do.”

The father’s face reddens a hair, but no more. “You mean he masturbated.”

“Uh yeah, I heard him. I never said anything, but my parents knew he’d need his privacy eventually. So without asking my dad, Ger and Mom painted Nessa’s room. I sulked about it. It pissed me off. It had only been like ten months, not even a year. But it was a change and Mom said she needed more changes, needed to change things around the house and then she could get healthy. I was already thinking she was getting to be pretty damn healthy, the gin bottles were lasting weeks rather than nights.

“Anyway, Mom and Ger painted the pink room blue. I helped pack, but mostly I just dug around the boxes, thinking, you know?”

“Guilt?” the father says, nodding some more.

“What? Fuck no! I didn’t do anything. You want to hear this or not?”

The father motions to continue, paddling his fingers in Trevor’s direction.

“So that first night, Ger still slept in our room. He was on the bottom bunk and I was on the top. I asked him what he thought happened to Nessa and he tried to spook me. He told me kids all over the world died in their rooms. Monsters come, monsters with red lizard skin and claws like eagles, and black, black eyes. Stuff like that, I didn’t get scared, I got mad…maybe it was red eyes and black skin, doesn’t matter. I called him names, he called me some back and then we went to sleep. Normal brother stuff.

“That was the last night we shared a room. The paint was dry the next night, most of the fumes gone. Dad called, but Mom and Ger didn’t say anything about packing Nessa away and painting her room.”

“Your sister wasn’t her things left behind, your sister is a soul, she’s out there somewhere.”

Trevor lets his tented hands fall and scrunches his mouth sideways. “Uh-huh. Anyway, that night Ger slept in his new room. He’d started listening to music a lot and had the newest Alanis Morissette tape. Well, a bootleg someone made for him. I heard the songs at just about conversation volume, you know, like use your indoor voice kind of volume. The player was a fancy one. It had a feature where it could read a cassette from both sides. Almost certainly that technology was pricy about a decade before Ger had it. I heard the angry woman and I wondered if it was the music that woke me up. I listened harder, blinking myself awake.

“I also heard Mom, she whispered to someone. Then she yelped and I heard a thump. I jumped out of my bed and ran to her room. I rammed in through the door, flipped the switch and there was Mom,” Trevor rubs a finger at his nose, sniffles, continues, “bloody, just like Nessa was. There was a big comforter bunched on the floor and it soaked through with maroon right as I watched, white to pink to maroon, the blood looking for dry spots and fucking eating them up. Like the science project where you put celery in a cup with food coloring in it. The bed creaked and moved as I watched. I screamed and Ger came running. He grabbed onto Mom and I stood back looking around the room, numb and stupid.”

“You say the bed moved, in what way?”

“It shook, as if somebody lifted it a few inches and dropped it back down. And it was away from the wall a bit. I told my brother, he didn’t care. He was covered in Mom’s blood. Something slashed her chest, just like it did Nessa.”

“Redemption comes with—” the father starts.

“You can either shut up and listen or fuck off, got it?”

The father doesn’t move one way or another and is quiet. Trevor continues.

“Dad came home early and we buried Mom. He was never the same. I know the cops said something, something like since they couldn’t figure it out, that it had to be one of us. Like, that me or Ger did it. I told them about the bed, they checked, but it was nothing. I wish I never said anything. I see now that it made me look bad later on.” Trevor rubs his hands, wipes his nose and eyes. “None of us really talked after that. Ger listened to more music. It got angrier. Some stuff about devils and hell even, some gangster rap, as long as it was angry or violent. The police thought it was him after a while. I remember that stupid Detective Hays, he used to bug my brother at work, outside the school, just about everywhere he went. My brother worked at the bowling alley, spraying shoes and deep-frying things. It couldn’t have helped his mood any, being around all those half-drunks and the yelling kids.

“He’d been there just under a year. His boss wasn’t so bad, I guess. Used to let the employees hang out and drink beer, even if they were underage. He was eighteen anyway by then. Close enough if you ask me. Old enough to die for the country should be old enough to drink beer.

“Anyway, he came home at about three in the morning. Dad was asleep. I heard him snoring. I was in bed, still on my top bunk, I think that helped with acoustics or whatever, like nothing blocked sounds coming from other rooms. Plus, up high was good. I don’t know why, but I just felt better up there—I hate sleeping this close to the floor, not that I get much sleep. They never kill the damn lights in here.” Trevor taps on his cot.

“Anyhow, Ger came home one night and by the way he stumbled around, I knew he was drunk. I’d heard Mom drunk enough to know what it sounded like. So Ger stumbled around and got into bed, and I closed my eyes trying to sleep. I was in and out. Then I heard a voice mumbling. I listened as close as I could without actually moving, it was Dad and he was at it about something. He didn’t talk much in his sleep, none of us did—well if I do, nobody told me. I listened and he was telling something to go away, talking to it like it was a cat that snuck in. Not really dire, just irritated. Then Dad’s voice changed and he yelled, angry and afraid sort of yelling. I held my breath. Heard another thump, but this time I refused to move. I’ve never been so scared in my life. A few minutes later, I heard Ger’s voice, he was talking to something. I didn’t move, didn’t want to. Part of me wanted the thing to come along and get me too.

“I heard the next thump.” Trevor leans back and folds his arms over his chest.

“And then what?”

“Then my fucking bed creaked and thumped. I leaned over the side. I saw something, I don’t know what, a shape, kind of like a man, I guess, but different somehow, smallish. Then I heard a hiss like a snake and I threw the blanket over my head.

“‘Why you sleeping so high, young man?’ the thing asked me. Its voice was low and it hissed, like every S-word. ‘Why don’t you sssleep down here, sssleeping on the bottom isss better?’ I refused to answer. I knew it was going to kill me. I knew for sure it would get me. But it didn’t and I felt the whole bunk bed rattle and shift again. The next morning I stayed in bed. I stayed into the afternoon. There was blood on the floor, footprints leading from Dad’s room to Ger’s and then to my room. I didn’t think about it and eventually ran because I had to piss so bad.” Trevor shakes his head gently, as if needing to piss was a silly reason.

“The police said those prints had to be mine. That I did it, had to—according to that dumb shit Hays. I asked about the beds, but the cops ignored me. I didn’t have a chance, they piled the circumstantial evidence against me, even tried to get a doctor to prove I was crazy. But I’m not crazy and I didn’t kill anybody.”

“And you told this in court?”

“No, not really. My lawyer was a joke compared to the other guy. The other guy was like one of those revival assholes, had people eating up his proofs. My lawyer focused on all the wrong points, asked all the wrong questions, told me not to talk about the thing under the bed. And that’s how I got here. But I didn’t do it. I’m innocent.”

The father tilts his head slowly. “The path to the Lord takes effort. He died for your sins, but only if you admit them, take responsibility here on Earth so He can take responsibility in Paradise.”

Trevor sneers. “You didn’t listen to a thing I said. I bet if I had of stayed in that house I’d be dead already, so I guess it’s fine they’re going to stick me, because I’m marked. But I’m telling you, I didn’t do this. I didn’t! There’s something out there.”

“You’re blaming monsters under the bed?”

Trevor sulks in his bunk and flops his head down onto his pillow. The father stands, as if annoyed with the wasted time—more annoyed at a ruined streak of saves. The young man is Hell bound. These visits have been of no use. The father knocks on the cell door, the viewing window opens, and after jingling his keys awhile, the guard lets him out.

They walk side by side, father and guard. It is a shame. The boy will never see redemption, never have another chance. The father stops dead and looks down at his Bible.

“Think I’d best leave this with Mr. Osmond.” He lifts the Bible to show the guard.

“Needs something. He’s the most peaceable serial killer I’ve ever known,” the guard says.

The father and the guard walk back to the cell. It takes a moment for the right key to present itself on the ring.

“Sssleeping on the low! Isss no more high bunk? That’sss a good boy,” a horrid voice says from beyond the heavy door.

“Trevor?” the father calls through the steel.

He slides the viewing window. Trevor is on his feet, blood splashed the grey paint, floor and walls, and his body drops.

“Oh Jesus!”

The guard manages the lock and swings the door open. The small steel bunk rattles and then settles. Trevor has slashes over his neck and chest. The guard calls for help on a shoulder radio.

The father crouches to look below the bunk. From the darkness, two fiery eyes shine, wink playfully, and then fade away into the steel coils and vinyl lining of the mattress.

“Sssee you sssoon, Father.”

XX