Kristy tidied up, waiting for Chuck to come over for their visit. This was the second time they had coffee together and were swapping notes about how to track down their loved ones. She still hadn’t given up on Colin returning and it helped that Chuck felt the same way about his daughter. They had planned their visits while Jenny was at school so as not to worry her unnecessarily.

  While waiting, Kristy kept looking at Jenny’s bedroom door, tempted to snoop around. Up to this point she had resisted the urge to snoop, not because of some deep trust, but because of how preoccupied she had been with finding Colin. She had known for a while now that Jenny was hiding some kind of pet in her room, but had been so busy with finding Colin, she had let Jenny think she was getting away with it.

  She had considered confronting Jenny about it a few times, but so far had chosen not to out of guilt. With Colin missing, Kristy had been so focused on finding him that she wasn’t able to spend much time with Jenny, so a pet was a nice distraction.

  Jenny’s little secret had been a nice distraction to keep her occupied and not thinking of her father being gone. Besides, Jenny had been much more responsible lately and that was so nice to see.

  Kristy was trying to let Jenny have her secret, but after the other day when she was crying all day, her curiosity was killing her. Whatever was in Jenny’s room was enough to cheer her up when even ice cream hadn’t done the trick.

  At first, she thought it was just a different bug, like with her butterflies, but after the amount of food that was disappearing, Kristy was sure it was something else, but what? She was trying to be a good mother and give her child some privacy, but Jenny was only six after all. Would it be so wrong to take a little peek?

  Also, now that she thought about it, She hadn’t cleaned Jenny’s room in quite some time. If she just so happened to see something while in there, well, how could she have known?

  Kristy smirked and tiptoed toward Jenny’s room. She was the only one in the house, but it seemed appropriate to sneak when you were being sneaky. She slowly opened her daughter’s door. There was a strange smell that she couldn’t put her finger on.

  Kristy gasped.

  It really had been a long time since she cleaned Jenny’s room. She stepped on something crusty and scrunched her face as she saw it was a half-eaten peanut butter and jelly sandwich. It was an absolute pig’s sty in here. Dirty clothes were thrown everywhere and mixed in with dirty plates, bowls, and cups.

  This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

  Jenny had a laundry hamper in here, but there was only one lonely sock in it. Did this child ignore the hamper on purpose? And geez, what was that?! Was that one of Jenny’s good skirts stuck to a dirty plate?

  Kristy was progressively feeling more and more like a failed mother. How could she let her child live like this? What if social services saw a room like this? They’d take her away for sure. Kristy began cleaning with a guilty fury. She couldn’t let her daughter live in this filth.

  A rustling noise came from Jenny’s bug closet.

  Kristy looked up from the wad of clothes she was picking up and stared at the closet. She had gotten so carried away cleaning up the mess, that she had forgotten to look for the secret pet.

  The sound came from the bug closet, so Kristy crossed the room and slowly opened the door. When nothing rushed out, she steeled her nerves, reminding herself the bugs were all caged and opened the door all the way.

  She looked inside the netted cage and what stared back at her was a creature from nightmares. Shiny hard discolored skin like a pig with scraps of shell glued to it, a body similar in shape to an overstuffed crab, but the legs were wrong. The back legs looked like a giant grasshopper’s legs and the front four were spider-like, but with chicken feet at the ends of each. Crab claws opened and closed at the ends of hard, black, arms. It had a mix of beady eyes and strange ommatidia like an oversized bee or dragonfly scattered across its face. The thing was the size of a football.

  The hair on Kristy’s neck stood on end as she slowly backed out of the closet, not taking her eyes off of it for a second. She was so overwhelmed by the sight of the horrible creature, her body would barely move, but she desperately made distance between herself and that thing.

  All the while, the thing was staring at her, tilting its terrible head from side to side.

  Kristy bumped into the wall behind herself, head and all. She pressed her body and palms against the wall as if she were trying to get every part of herself as far away as possible.

  The creature kept watching her and they remained like that for several ticks of Jenny’s butterfly clock. Staring at one another, neither moving.

  “Down?” The horrible creature spoke in a guttural raspy voice.

  “WAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!!!” Kristy screamed and darted out of Jenny’s room, slamming the door behind her. She leaned against it, hyperventilating for a few seconds, then ran to the nearest phone and dialed officer Higgins.

  As the phone rang, Kristy stared off into the distance with wide eyes thinking about how she had let her daughter feed that monster. She wondered how many times Jenny could have been hurt by whatever that was.

  “Hello?” Officer Higgins said, then after a few seconds, “Kristy, are you there?”

  “Oh, uh sorry. I’m here.” Kristy said.

  “How can I help you ma’am?” Officer Higgins said.

  Kristy blinked a few times, then forced herself to talk, “I need you to come to my house right now. There’s a monster in my daughter’s room and I need you to kill it. Please hurry!”

  “Alright, Kristy, lights are on and I’ll be there in two shakes of a lamb’s tail. Try to stay calm.”

  “Thank you,” Kristy said. She set the phone down, but didn’t bother hanging up and then slid to the floor, still staring off into the distance.