A/N: Well, here's another short story...I really have been dead for a while, haven't I? Ah well. Here's another piece of crappy horror if anyone cares to read it. Enjoy, and feel free to leave a review, you know, so I actually know what you lurkers think. And yes, I did use American English...so sue me.

Summary: The monster under the bed, in the closet; never ending static, rain; the love of a mother just isn't enough.

Obviously, this story is mine.

Help Me, Mommy

they should have listened

"Mommy?"

"Hmm?" A young woman lifted her head out of the book in her hands, surprise clearing written on her face. A young girl was standing in the living room doorway. "Oh, sweetie, what's wrong? Why aren't you in bed?"

they should

The young girl rubbed her eyes. "I couldn't sleep; there's a monster in my room."

have listened

The woman sighed and closed the book in her lap, ignoring the quiet buzzing from the TV as the static worsened. White noise. We'll have to get that fixed. She thought idly, realising for just how long the TV set had been acting strangely. "Come on then, honey," She said as she stood up and put her book down. "We'll go and see what it is, okay?"

The little girl smiled slightly and grabbed her mother's hand. They walked out of the living room, the mother having to bend down a bit so that she could hold her daughter's hand. "So what kind of monster is it, Lucy?'' the mother asked, picking little Lucy up when they stopped outside the child's bedroom door.

"It was a big scary one. It had giant teeth and claws, and it was covered in blood!" Lucy blinked tears from her eyes as she shook, remembering what her mother rightly believed was just a nightmare. It wasn't real.

The woman sighed. "Don't worry, Lucy, it's not going to do anything to you." She turned the doorknob with the hand that wasn't holding Lucy. She walked inside, though as soon as she took not three steps into the room, Lucy whimpered and clung tighter to her.

"It's still in here!" she started to cry, burying her face into her mother's shoulder.

"Don't worry, sweetie," her mother said soothingly, rubbing her small back. "It's not in here, I'll check if you want me to."

"Please, Mommy," Lucy sobbed. "Don't make sleep here! I don't want to be near the monster! It'll eat me!" Lucy's voice grew high as she cried, almost screaming for her mother not to leave her there.

"Lucy!" her mother said, patting her back. "Calm down! It's okay, it won't hurt you, trust me." Lucy's mother started to rock her back and forth as she backed out to the hallway, humming a nonsense tune to try and calm her daughter. "It's okay…" She repeated as Lucy's sobs slowly died down, the girl pawing at her eyes with the heel of her hand.

"Mommy..." Lucy mumbled, tightening her grip around her mother's neck.

"Don't worry...how about you come down to the living room with me? We'll get you away from the monster." Lucy nodded her head and her mother closed the door and turned around, making her way back down the hallway and into the living room, holding Lucy close.

Lucy's mother had sat on the couch and held her daughter close to her until she went to sleep, which took about twenty minutes. Once Lucy fell asleep and was breathing quietly, her mother stood up and, being careful not to wake her, took her back down the hall to her room and put her to bed.

About thirty minutes later Lucy's mother heard the crunching of tyres on the gravel drive out the front of the house. She stood up from the couch where she was once again reading and walking out into the hall and to the front door, ready to open it for her husband.

"You're back! How was work?" she asked, closing the door behind her husband while he took his coat off and draped it over the coat hook. "You wouldn't believe it, but Lucy had another nightmare."

"She has? Poor girl…is she okay? You know, Polly, you should stop reading her those stories, especially before she goes to bed..." He said, turning and hugging his wife.

Polly sighed and wrapped her arms around her husband. "I know, I know...it's just, I haven't been reading her anything other than what she asks for me to read to her." She pulled away and looked her husband in the eye. "She asks for me to read those things to her, John, she wants me to...I try not to, I try to read other things to her most of the time, and most of the time it's fine...but sometimes, just sometimes, she just begs for me to read the ones she wants..."

John could see that Polly was worried; he never seemed to fail to spot the slightly nervous look she had in her eyes when she was worried about Lucy. Polly always had been a natural mother. "Don't worry, just stop reading those stories to her. Even if she does get upset, it's so she doesn't have these nightmares anymore." He pulled Polly back into his arms and planted a firm kiss on her lips. "Don't worry," he repeated.

Polly and John jumped as a sudden burst of static came from the TV set in the living room. They looked at each other, their eyes locked and in an instant they were laughing. John's bellowing laughter rang throughout the hallway, almost overpowering the static with its shear full-heartedness.

Polly tightened her grip on John's shoulders and tried to calm her laughter. Her voice was shaking when she said, "Shh! You'll…you'll wake Lucy!" They continued to stifle their laughter until they were simply breathing heavily, only the sounds of their beating hearts were loud enough to fill the silence alongside the static.

"Wait," John said, the smile falling from his face. "What's that noise?"

They both stopped and listened, straining their ears to hear whatever it was that John had thought he heard. "What did you hear?" Polly asked, perplexed and slightly scared.

John still stood silently, staring into nothing. The static suddenly stopped. "What...what's going on?" he whispered, his eyes wide. His hands were shaking where they were on Polly's waist and his face was pale like the moon.

"John..." Polly's eyes widened as a strange noise came from down the hall. It sounded like one of the doors swinging open, slowly, as if trying not to let anyone notice that it was opening.

help me, mommy

John didn't even look at his wife before he was running down the hall towards Lucy's bedroom. He ran as fast as he could down the hall and when he made it to his daughter's room, he started to hear the one thing that he never ever wanted to hear coming from his daughter. Lucy was screaming. It wasn't a scream of fright or surprise; it was a scream of pure, blind terror. It didn't sound as if it was coming from a seven-year-old girl.

help me,

John was in the room before he even knew what was going on inside. All he understood was that his daughter was in trouble.

mommy

There was something in the room, something that no one would ever want to try and recall for as long as they lived. It was huge, bigger than a man and it had brown, sickly looking skin. It was pointed at disgusting angles where bones were close to jutting through the surface. It was covered in blood, black blood, blood so dark that it seemed as if it was covered in tar, if it wasn't for the way it flowed off the creature, thin, almost like water you would think it was tar. John and Polly couldn't see the front of the thing, and they were sure after that they wouldn't have wanted to.

The thing was leaning right over Lucy's bed.

"Lucy!" Polly screamed, her face contorting into a look that could break anyone's heart. "Lucy!" But the shrieking from the bed didn't stop.

John stood stock still as if he was frozen, Polly stood just as still, staring with wide eyes at the thing as it lurched forward and bent over the bed of the seven-year-old. In moments it ended. Lucy's shrieking simply stopped, cut off. The silence filled the room, save for the sickening dripping of the blood that was sliding off the monster's skin.

Before neither John nor Polly could do anything, the creature turned around and bared its horrible, massive, distorted teeth at the couple. They fell to the floor. They simply fell as if they had dropped dead at the sight of the thing's face.

The monster growled a deep, primeval sound that seemed to come from the very pits of the Earth. In its long, contorted hands lay Lucy, a look of peace fallen across her face as if she was simply in a pleasant dream. The monster growled again, and turning, started to lurch towards the window. It was as if it was going to try and leave through the window, though it was obvious that it would never be able to fit through such a tiny space.

As it came closer to the window, it started to fade. At first it looked like there was a thin haze in front of where the thing stood, but soon the wall and window could be seen through the creature. Eventually it was gone, and Lucy with it. And from the living room the sound of static was louder than ever.

"help me, mommy! there's a monster in my room!"

"calm down, sweetie, there's nothing there. It was only a nightmare."

"but it was there! I saw it!"

"it was only a bad dream. don't worry; I won't let anything hurt you."

you should have listened.