Short Story - What Waits at the Top of the Stairs - Grant Eagar
What Waits at the Top of the Stairs
This is a reading from Thursday Writers in San Diego that I did a few years ago.
What waits at the top of the stairs; four eyes twitching, three nostrils sniffing, and 121 sharp teeth chomping?
Gerald reaches up and scratches one of his
three antennas. Why? Why must it take so long? When was the boy going to
come? He had never been a patient
monster, get in, chomp, chomp, get out, but he must follow the rules of proper
monster etiquette.
Gerald stepped backward and his foot found an
old skateboard that had been stored in the attic and he quickly lands on his
head. Standing up and rubbing his bent antennae. Doesn’t the kid know better than to leave skateboards around for
monsters to trip over?
What’s that? All of Gerald’s ears
stood at attention, was the child waking up? Monster-petite dinner is served. Someone
is walking down the hall. His mouth starts to water, drool flows down his three
chins.
Now someone is climbing the stairs, thud,
thud, thud. The door handle slowly turns, Gerald is shaking with anticipation.
The door opens, a click of the light switch and “AArgh-Fredrico?! Fredrico? What’re
you doing here? I thought you were the boy; I was so looking forward to a
snack. Why aren’t you under the bed where you belong?”
Fredrico rubbed one of his three eye
stems with his tentacle and said, “I got bored, the boy never looks under his
bed, I get tired of waiting to eat him night after night.” He then balled his
four tentacles into fists and snarled, “Why can’t I just-just munch him now?!”
Gerald straightened up on all three legs
and in his most lawyerly monster voice said, “You are familiar with bylaw 42: the child must find the monster by opening the
closet door, looking under the bed or venturing to the attic at the top of the
stairs, before the feeding can begin.
Fredrico rolled his eyes and said, “When
in Godzilla’s green earth, do you think a child is going to look under his bed
in the middle of the night?! Oh the inhumonsterity of it all! That brat jumps
on his bed every cursed night. Do you see these lumps on my heads? That’s where
they came from? The little devil brags that his bed is extra bouncy, that’s me
he’s bouncing on. And do you see these bruised tentacles that’s from the little
demon jumping off the bed and landing on them before I can pull them back under
the bed.
“I quit! I’m through! I’m going to apply
for the monster in the basement job, I heard it was open and there is no little
humans jumping on the bed. The basement is where a monster can sleep in peace.”
Downstairs, there was a rustle of
covers and, “There you are snoopy, right under my bed all along, why’d I wait
so long to find you.”
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