Under the Covers

When Adam was little, he used to click off the lights to his bedroom and sprint to his bed as quickly as he could every night.  He would fly over toys and stub his toes, but that never mattered; what mattered was getting to the safety of his covers before the things that live in the dark could get him.  He imagined twisted hands and claws and teeth coming out from the darkness, reaching for him as he ran, abated only by his bed and the protective shell he made around himself with the bed-sheets.

When the things in the dark finally came for him, taking the form of a man climbing through the window, he thought that it was the covers that saved his life.  Instead, he was saved by the simple fact that his little brother wasn’t quite as fast.

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