Grunts

I was about 8 when they started coming into my room. I have no idea,
nor do I want to find out, where they come from, or how they got into
my room. They only came during the night, but only when I had my
nightlight on. I suspect it was because they couldn't see anything in
the dark.

I would awake deep in the night (I dared not to turn
my head to look at the clock, lest they notice I was awake) to the
grunts. Low, barbaric growls that were obtrusive no matter how quiet
they were. On occasion, I would slightly open one eye to make some
sense of it all.

They were tall, very tall; they needed to
crouch their heads over so that they wouldn't hit the ceiling. They
were covered in a thick, foot-long coat of mangy gray hair, but here
and there there were long strands that fell to the floor. Every inch of
them was overcome with hair, except for their heads, which were
completely bald, and the only place that their subtle blue skin showed.
But the most noticeable part of them were their eyes. Oh God, their
eyes. Opened impossibly wide and never blinking.

They would
walk around my room, moving their heads and shoulders side to side with
every step, with every grunt. They would pick up my toys and other
things in my room, and just stand there, staring at the object with
their terrible eyes. There were about three or four of them at a time,
walking around or staring.

Once I looked at one's eyes. It's head slowly turned towards me,
tearing me apart with it's ungodly wide eyes. I couldn't stand it, so I
slammed my eyes shut and buried my face in my pillow, wanting to drown
them out, wanting them to go away.

But the grunting got louder.
The cacophony of their grunts barreled into me. I tried to go to sleep,
but every grunt ripped me back to reality.

I have no idea how
long this went on, but it must have been half an hour or more. It was
unbearable, and I, for a reason I still do not understand, slowly
opened my eyes.

They were all around me. One was squatting on
the foot of my bed, staring at me with it's sickening eyes. I could see
it breathing. Grunting. Another was pulling itself around my bed post,
and another was simply standing over me. I screamed. I threw the covers
over my head and screamed as loud as I could. I could see their
silhouettes dancing over the covers in the rays of my night light. I
could hear their perpetual, horrible grunting. The nightlight burst,
and I blacked out.

I woke up the next morning with a bed full of piss and a broken night
light. A few days later, I noticed that some of my toys were missing.

Every
night after that, I would awake to their grunts. And I would open my
eyes, and they would be around me. Staring. Grunting. And I would
retreat under the covers and cry until I fell asleep.

When I was 11, I convinced my parents to let me have the guest bedroom. After that, I never saw them again.

Three
years later, when I was 14, I started to notice strange smells coming
from my old room. I tried to ignore it, but my Mom wasn't as
apprehensive of the room as I.

She stormed into my (new) room and demanded to know what I had done.
When I told her I had no idea what she was talking about, she led me to
my old room. Inside were piles of dead, decaying rats. They were
bubbling over in decomposition, and gave off a smell so bad that I had
to cover my mouth. Spiders, Roaches, and Slugs crawled over the
corpses, but they too had mounds of dead lying across the floor. We had
to get it all professionally removed.

The pipes clogged
frequently, usually from large clusters of bugs, but once or twice by
terribly mutilated toys. Dead rats continued to appear, bugs swarmed
around, and soon the neighbors had the house condemned.

It's been 20 years since we moved out. The house is still there, old
and forgotten. Me and my dad went back yesterday so that we could show
the grandchildren where we used to live. I was reluctant, but my dad
was insistent.

My son was thrilled at the prospect of seeing
the place where all of the strange happenings my father had exaggerated
to him happened, but my daughter thought the place smelled horrible and
didn't want to go in. Once I coaxed her inside, we all went to look at
my old room, clean, but with the odor of decaying flesh. While my
father told my eager son again of all the weird happenings, my daughter
started to look around quizzically. I asked her what was wrong.

"Nothing." she said. "I just thought I heard someone grunt."

by fevilleg