Gone in the Morning

Amy was always losing things. Her father had always told her it was the monster that lived under her bed. Amy’s father always reminded her to never forgot the monster, and that anything the monster took, she could never get back. No matter where she moved the monster would follow. In apartments or on vacation, the monster would always take one thing from Amy’s room while she slept. Her father told her it was payment so the monster could keep her safe at night. Years passed and Amy went out on her own. She eventually found love and began dating. Her first boyfriend was her whole world. Amy loved her boyfriend so much that she decided to tell him her secret. Amy’s boyfriend humored her and, in time, became her husband. It was a year into their marriage that Amy began to get lazy and forgot to put out things for the monster. One by one, Amy’s personal belongings began to go missing each night. As she fell more in love with the life she had built, the more she forgot about the monster under her bed. Time passed once more and Amy was blessed with a beautiful daughter. Her and her husband’s baby was calm, quiet, sweet and slept alone in a room at the end of the hall. One night, Amy was gently stirred from a deep sleep by the sounds of the baby monitor. Amy’s husband told her that he would go check on their little girl as he pulled back the cover and headed towards the door. As Amy’s husband exited the room she fell back to sleep. In the morning Amy woke to find that her husband was not beside her. Having a bad feeling, she rushed into her baby’s room to find the infant sound asleep. Amy took up her baby in her arms and returned to her bedroom to pick up the phone near her bed and dial for the police. Before she could Amy spied a note lying on her pillow. The note was from the monster who thanked Amy for all the things she had given him in exchange for keeping her safe and sound each night for all those years, and told her that now it was time for him to protect her daughter until she too married and had kids of her own. In the letter the monster requested that Amy and her daughter never neglect giving him things, or else they might forget about him. It would be when the monster was forgotten by those he protected that he would decide what things he was going to take each night as payment. Things like Daddy.