The Bogeyman

Soaking wet the grey sheep huddle by the stone wall shaped and laid to last five hundred more years still. Rains sheeting o'er the moor leave us dripping as the fish in Foley's Tarn. Clouds careen across the sky like ragged flags unfurling, our house is battered by the storm's relentless wrath, and something's coming... It's nights like this that bring the creature from the other side of time, misshapen wretch with no measure of humanity, dragging its loathsome body to our door. Squelching abomination with dark sockets for its eyes, a travesty of decency and grace. Not marked in any almanac, no picture of this beast save in the nightmares of our child, who flies into his mother's arms and trembles, trying to scrape the ugly specter from his mind, for he knows... he can feel the slimy presence hidden deep within the shadows of the house. Is it living only in his darkest fears? Once settled is he free of fang and claw? "Leave the light on, Mom!"