The Black Sleep

A young boy sleeps, and his mind releases a black, hungry monster from his subconscious. One night he wakes to find himself trapped in sleep paralysis, facing the monster from his mind.

When Matt was just a child, a boy with a lisp and a tendency toward crude jokes, he rarely dreamed. He closed his eyes, and the darkness trapped behind his lids filled his head. It blotted out anything he might have recalled later, and perhaps that was good, because the things that transpired when he passed into sleep were things perhaps too horrible for a child to see. It would be wonderful to say he never witnessed those terrible things, but then there would be no reason to tell this story.

Matt lay in bed, gripping his covers in a hold that was tying desperately to seem relaxed. Even as a seven-year-old he had learned the importance of maintaining appearances. His mother stood over him, her hair hanging around her face. The blonde strands were just touched with the warm glow of the hall light. She smiled.

"Matt," she said, "try and calm down, honey." She always used nicknames when she was trying to persuade him or guilt him into doing something. "You know Daniel would never hurt you." His new dad. The old one was gone. He never knew what had happened and wouldn't find out until later that he had run off after his delivery. Still, he had that childish loyalty to his absent father, that innocent trust that there could be no better daddy than his own. If there was, though, it certainly wasn't Daniel. He was loud and much bigger than Matt. So big that he once bruised his skinny arm simply by grabbing him too tightly. Mom made him wear long sleeves after that, even though it was June.

Matt didn't say anything. He just stare at the little hill his feet made in the bedspread.

"You know that. Don't you, honey?" She touched his shoulder, smiling. "He was just upset. You did break that plate, sweetie."

He nodded, watching his toes wiggle, shifting the quilted pattern.

"Alright." She straightened, turning for the door. "Sweet dreams, Matt. See you in the morning."

"Wait. Mom," he said, sitting up with a flash of panic. "Check for monsters."

She looked at him, the lines in her face deepening for a second. "Honey, we talked about this. There are no monsters."

"You always did before you met Daniel." Even though it was true, he felt a little bad for saying it out loud.

She sighed, then a smile lifted her face. “Oh, alright. Let's do this.” She crouched by his bed, bravely thrusting away the blankets and pillows. After a moment, “Nope. No monsters under here.” She grabbed the edge of the bed, coming slowly to her feet. The closet was next. Doors open, Sunday clothes pushed aside. “Nothing in here either.” She shut the doors and went back toward the hall. “You're safe for another night, little man.”

“Thanks, Mom.” He snuggled further into his pillow. His eyes followed her to the doorway.

“Goodnight, honey.”

“Night.”

Cool, quiet darkness filled the room with only a bar of hallway light to break up the shadow. Then, the stripe of yellowish light snapped out, and Matt was left in utter blackness. He rolled over in bed, took a deep breath, and drifted off to sleep.

Matt woke to a crushing weight on his chest. It smushed his heart against his ribs like play-doh in the toy spaghetti strainer. He tried to shift, wiggled out from beneath the thing, but his body was numb, lifeless. His mind was still foggy with sleep, but panic started to rise in his throat like acid reflux.

I can't move. He jerked his shoulders but nothing happened. What's going on? Mom? Mommy. Help. He couldn't even twitch his fingers.

He looked up, searching for whatever was keeping him pinned to the bed. A scream reverberated in his skull, but his vocal chords refused to form it. Something was sitting on his chest. It looked like those ugly, pointy-eared gargoyles he had seen in pictures. Its mouth cracked in a stony grin, revealing a set of rough teeth and a dry tongue. A pair of wings fidgeted at its back. Matt found himself staring into the thing's horrible, lusterless eyes. While the thing moved with some sort of vile life, none of it touched its eyes. They were like the ashy debris of a long-dormant volcano. No life. No thought. Nothing but dark existence.

The gargoyle flicked Matt's nose with a brittle tail.

The screams shrieked through his head. Not a sound passed his gaping lips.

Then, with the heightened senses of someone truly terrified, he heard the slight shifting of something else in the room, nearby, just a few feet from his little bed.

He strained his eyes toward the source of the sound.

Darkness welled up at the other side of his room, covering whatever was there, hiding it while Matt fought to keep his senses. Still not a muscle tic from his body.

The thing in the corner moved again, this time forward, into the pale light the moon, where it was now perched high in the night sky, shoved through the blinds.

Fear ripped at the edges of Matt's vision, tearing the corners while he tried to take in every inch of the creature in his room.

It was huge, a hulking, horrid thing with deep, ragged breaths. Rows of tiny, needle-sharp teeth dripped with either venom or saliva. Shiny, marble eyes peered out at Matt, over a long, plated snout that sniffed the stale air. A soft, ruffling sound described his coat as that of long, fine hair. Matt wondered idly if it shed like his puppy. Three-foot-long claws scraped the floor, driving deep ruts into the hardwood floor. It crowded the room with a hot, thick stink. The odor clogged Matt's nose and choked him.

He struggled to move any part of his body. Fear and panic fought each other. He couldn't breathe. The gargoyle on his chest and the stink of the creature smothered him.

Mommy, help. Help me, please. Please, Mommy. I can't breathe. Help.

His vision was blurring again, going dark as his oxygen-deprived brain shut down.

The creature dragged its awful body toward him, panting, stinking of death and greed. Something wet hit Matt's cheek, his sheets.

The gargoyle grinned wider, looking like it wanted to laugh but didn't know how. The dead eyes gazed down at Matt. They were eternally fixed in that awful stare.

Matt kicked up his blankets.

If he had not already been half-way into unconsciousness, he would have realized he had regained control of his body. The weight evaporated, and the stench began to dissolve.

He passed back into the darkness.

Matt stirred in his bed, swimming up to wakefulness.

“Look who's finally awake.”

He blinked.

Daniel was at the other side of his room, arms crossed, chin lowered. “Get some good sleep, champ?”

Matt's brain, still warm with the remnants of sleep, could not catch up to his question. He moved to sit up, only to stop short. Something rancid and damp clung to his legs. His sheets. He had wet the bed.

“Yeah,” said Daniel. “Surprised you could sleep in that for so long.”

Matt looked up, fear rolling over him like a stinking wave. For some reason he thought that he had not actually wet the bed. Something else had thrown the nastiness on his sheets. He could not think of what could have done that, and neither could he think of why he thought that. It lunged at him from the back corners of his mind. It brushed his thoughts, then vanished.

“Come on, son,” Daniel said. “Let's take care of this.”

Matt stared into his eyes, eyes that gleamed like marbles. 

Author's Note

I am looking for any and all reviews, particularly ones that focus on characterization and pacing.