This just won a short story competition over at Cracked.com's forums, making me a very happy girl.

To whoever finds this letter,

Follow up:

I don’t sleep much anymore. Oh I know its not good for me, the uppers and the caffeine drinks, but it beats the alternative. When you don’t sleep for a little while, you get tired. When you don’t sleep for a long time, you get exhausted. But when you don’t sleep for weeks, you get a little crazy. I haven’t slept for a month, so I’ll leave it to you to judge what my mental state is. I know I don’t have much time left before my body betrays me. When despite the pep pills and endless espressos I will nod off for more than a moment. Before that happens, I’ll end this nightmare, but first I have to write this down. Someone needs to know the truth.

It all started one night when my little girl’s voice dragged me out of a deep sleep. Bleary eyed I can remember staring at the clock radio, the strange glyphs unreadable to my tired brain at first, then slowly I recognized the patterns as numbers. 4:03 am. With an exhausted sigh I looked down at my daughter, “Honey, why are you awake?”

“Monsters under my bed.” She told me as I snapped on a lamp.

As the bedroom filled with light I saw how tired she looked, the skin under her big blue eyes bruised and puffy. “Monsters huh?”

“Green ones.” She reported with the matter of fact attitude only a four year old can have while reporting mythical beings. She snuggled in under the covers. “I told them to go away, but they didn’t.”

As she settled in I turned off the light and hugged her, “Tomorrow we’ll get some monster repellant. That’ll make them go away.”

She yawned and told me, “They said grownups always promise to make them go away, but the grownups are wrong.”

The next day I got a spray bottle, decorated it with paint and sparkles, and stuck a label that read “Monster Repellant” on the side. I filled it with lemon water and presented it to my daughter with great solemnity, explaining that with this powerful weapon, no monster would dare disturb her rest. Oh God, if only I had known. Please forgive me Sweetheart, I didn’t know better. But I am getting ahead of myself aren’t I? You don’t know what I know, not yet.

That night my sweet Amy went off to bed, her bottle of monster repellant in hand. I did the traditional parental patrol, checking under the bed and in the closet before I turned off the lights and tucked her in.

It was 2:30 am when she appeared at my bed again. “Mommy? It didn’t work.” She informed me and laid the now empty squirt bottle on the pillow beside my head. I turned on the light and stifled a need to curse as I saw the time.
“Okay hun, you can sleep with me, but tomorrow night you have to stay in your own bed!” She crawled into bed and with that uncanny ability all kids seem to have, she was asleep within seconds. Me on the other hand, I took a long time to get back to sleep. Just as I drifted off, I thought I heard a sound like sleet hitting warm glass. “Now she’s got you imagining things too,” I thought to myself and then I was asleep.

The next day Amy and I had a long talk about monsters, and how they weren’t really real. She listened, and nodded, and promised me that no matter what, she wouldn’t be afraid. I promised her that if she stayed in her own bed, the next day we’d go for ice cream, Strawberry Bliss with sprinkles, her favourite. When I tucked her in that night I checked the closets and under the bed, showed her there was nothing to be afraid of, and tucked her in tight. God forgive me, I left her there, snuggled into her comforter. I can still see her smiling at me as I turned out the lights, her tiny hand making the thumbs up gesture.

That night my dreams were strange, filled with dark noises and uneasy images. When I awoke, it was morning, and I was so proud of my Amy for sleeping on her own. I went to her room …and her bed was empty. The rest of that day is a nightmarish blur. Police, tears, explanations and accusing looks from strangers who asked me the same things over and over. My baby was gone, and no one knew how, or why. It was days before I was allowed to go back to the house, to see her room, to touch her things.

I missed her so much, I slept in her bed that first night. A grown woman curled into a child’s bed, clinging to Amy’s stuffed rabbit and praying she was found. Just as I was slipping into unconsciousness, that’s when I heard the noise again, that same strange slither, coming from under the bed. Still and quiet, I lay in my daughter’s bed and listened. The slither came again, louder. “Amy?” I called my daughter’s name, though why I did, I still don’t know… I couldn’t have known then what I know now.

“Mommy?” My child’s voice was a sibilant whisper in the dark. I leapt from the bed, looking for my baby girl with my arms outstretched to hug her. But something else was holding my little girl. She hung in its grasp like a broken doll, her eyes blank as she stared at me. Claws curled round her tiny frame, and grey green scales covered a creature of impossible horror. As I screamed it fled and my daughter’s voice wailed from the darkness, “You said there are no such things as monsters Mommy, but you LIED!”

That was a month ago, or thereabouts. I’ve lost track of time I suppose. I can’t sleep you see, because they are hunting me now. Every time I close my eyes, in that moment right before I slip into the blissful peace of sleep, I hear that sound and I can hear my baby girl whispering for me in the dark. I know if I sleep, they will find me. They will come for you too one night while you're sleeping. They're coming for us all now you see, they're not afraid of us anymore.

I am getting tired, I don't think I have much longer. I can hear that sound, even when I'm awake now. It's time for me to end this sleepless Hell. May God forgive me, but I am a coward, and I cannot face my Amy’s cries again.