Jane's dreams were recurring, and frightening to say the least. Especially for a six-year-old.

Here's how they went:

Little Jane walked home from school. She only lived a block away, and her mother had walked the route with her at least twenty times before school started. Her brain knew the way, and so did her feet. She learned at school that certain things were hardwired in her brain, things like phone numbers and directions and routines, so much so that her body could do them without even thinking about it. So she followed her feet home, her My Little Pony bag bouncing against her back the whole time.

Jane was on the sidewalk that ran alongside a busy street. Her mother had urged her to NEVER step off the curb, even if she saw a turtle or something adorable like that.  Most of the kids rode the bus home, but she wasn't jealous. She knew that walking home by herself meant that her mom TRUSTed her, and that trust was the root of love. As she walked, she didn't have to repeat the rhyme about stepping on a crack and breaking her mother's back because her mother was BEAUTIFUL and GOOD and LOVEd her. She kept a key on a string beneath her shirt because her mom TRUSTed her to go inside and turn on the TV and not use the oven or do anything BAD.

But then something BAD happened.  

The yellow school bus drove by as it always did, but it was different this time. All of the windows were down, and the children were hanging out of the windows. They were all Jane's friends from school: Mary, Elizabeth, Matthew, Curtis, and Andrew. But there was something strange about them. They each had something sharp in their hands. Some of them carried knives. They were all different sizes, from butcher knives to pocket knives. The others carried things like big scissors and other metal tools Jane didn't recognize. They yelled bad words at her and laughed. She wasn't sure how she knew, but she was positive they were headed to her house.

Her little heart pounded in her chest. She felt around her neck to see if the string was still there, but it was gone! Someone must have taken it from school. That meant the kids would get to her house before she did and do BAD things that she would be blamed for. 

Jane ran all the way home.

When she got there, she didn't see the big yellow school bus anywhere, and she heaved a sigh of relief. But... when she looked closer, she saw that the front door was standing open. Someone must have stolen her key at school. Or broken in! What could they be doing inside? At first, she was afraid to go in. What if it was someone sick, like her mother told her about. Like one of those kidnappers or murderers or rapists? She reasoned whoever it was could be none of those things because they would have to be from her school to take her key, and her classmates were all nice, like her, and would never do anything scary. But then she remembered the image of them hanging out the bus windows with knives and shuddered. 

Jane had a book about bravery that her father read to her before bed sometimes. It was about a little girl who was scared to go in the basement because there was a monster with terrible, pointy teeth and claws. But in the end her parents explained to her that the monster was only in her head, because of her IMAGINATION, and they went with her downstairs and there was nothing there but the washing machine and dryer. Her parents gave her ice cream because she was so BRAVE to face her fears. Jane loved that book. 

Just thinking about that little girl and how scared she must have been made her scrunch up her face and her fists and stomp across the lawn that had grown too high because her daddy hadn't mowed it in a while. She paused for a single moment outside the doorway before entering. 

It was dead quiet. 

The living room looked bigger, brighter than usual, and it took her a moment to figure out why. 

It was because there was nothing in it. The TV, the sofa, the recliner, the cabinet with all of mommy's pretty china dolls--they were all gone. What was really weird was that the outlet covers had also been been pried off and were spilling exposed red and blue wires. That frightened Jane very much because her mother told her it was dangerous to put her finger in an electrical outlet because she could get shocked and die. What if electricity could travel across the room from those wires and electrocute her? 

The thought made her run out of the room and up the stairs, where she might find some comfort in her own bedroom. But she had to stop right outside the door because all over the white wall, someone had scribbled with her crayons. There was a drawing of a bitey monster. The teeth were drawn with black crayon, and some dripping blood was added to the illustration with the red crayon. She found both of these on the floor, broken multiple times, like someone was trying to smash them to pieces.

Oh no.

Her mother would not be happy. She was never supposed to color on the walls. That was BAD. She'd learned that last year when she drew a little daisy on the wall by her bed, and her mother yanked her out of bed and spanked her until her bottom was stinging. 

Jane hurried to the bathroom to look for a washcloth to scrub the wall before her mom could see the damage. She wondered which wicked child from her class would do something like this to get her in trouble. When she found out, she would kick them and bite them--but no, she couldn't, because she'd be punished even worse than for the doodle on the wall. 

Opening the linen closet, Jane gasped. The towels and wash cloths were all gone. They'd been replaced with dead turtles, all with their shells split right down the back. She slammed the door shut again and noticed blood on her fingers. The problem was that she hadn't touched any of the turtles. Where had it come from?

She started to get a really bad feeling in her tummy. Had she done all of these bad things herself? If she did, why didn't she remember it? Still, it wasn't like anyone else was here to blame for the drawing and smashed turtles. It must have been those children with their knives and scissors. She just couldn't understand how they could have come here and done such damage in the few minutes it took her to run home. 

Maybe one of them was still around. If she could catch one of the bad little children, her mother would see that she wasn't at fault. She would commend her for being so brave and catching the BAD GUY. Or bad kid, at any rate. 

Tiptoeing down the hall, she stopped outside her parents' room. The door was closed, and she couldn't hear anything inside. She wanted to call for her mom and dad (even though they were probably still at work), but she also wanted to surprise the bad kid if he was waiting inside to scare her. She didn't say anything, but pushed the door open. 

Inside, her parents' room looked normal at first glance. None of the furniture was stolen. There was a lamp in the corner that was still on. It wasn't like her parents to leave a light on when they weren't home because it wasted electricity and that cost a lot of money. She turned it off, even though it made the room a little darker and harder to see. Her mother's dressing table was there, with her makeup and perfume and jewelry box. That didn't make any sense to Jane at all. If the bad kids who came here were trying to rob the place, wouldn't they go for her mother's pretty rings and necklaces first? Or did they get all of the expensive things and then shut the jewelry box so no one would realize before it was too late? She peeked inside the box, and it looked like everything was still there. When she glanced up and looked in the mirror, though, she saw something gruesome on her parents' bed. 

Jane swiveled around and took in the scene. There were two lumps in the bed, like her parents had been sneaking out and arranged the blankets to look like they were still there. Jane had seen that in a movie one time, and her mother made her swear on a mountain of bibles that she would never sneak out like that bad girl. The cream-colored comforter and sheets were stained red. Was this something else Jane would be blamed for? The stain looked much too big for Jane to be able to clean up, even if she did have a wash cloth.  

She remembered the drawing of the monster in the hallway. Sharp teeth (like knives, like scissors) and blood dripping from them. That's what her parents' bed looked like, like it was covered in blood. The idea made her stomach turn, and she started to throw up but then swallowed it like her mom told her to do if she wasn't in the bathroom. 

Slowly approaching the bed, she thought she smelled pennies, a whole bunch of them. Maybe that was it. Pennies from the tooth fairy! Maybe her parents had lost some teeth. When Jane lost teeth, she sometimes bled a little--not this much, though.

Expecting to find some money under her mother's pillow, she lifted the blanket and looked at what lay beneath. Gasping, she dropped the blanket and ran to the corner of the room. She hid her face in her jacket. She couldn't believe it. What she saw was not true. It was a lie.

And lies were BAD.

She was breathing so hard, she was positive she was going to have a panic attack like the time she did at the mall when she accidentally peed her pants in the candy store. Her mother had been so mad, but it turned out to be okay because there was a girls' clothing store next door, and they bought some new pants and underwear. Then the day was all better. 

Jane had to prove to herself this was a lie, a trick being played on her by her classmates. She knew one kid had used fake blood to make himself look like a vampire on Halloween. Maybe they had used that to decorate some dummies that looked like her parents. It was a mean trick, but it was better than her parents being dead. It took almost every ounce of bravery she had to muster, but she returned to the bed and lifted up the blanket again. 

The sight had not changed. Her mother and father were lying together, side by side, holding hands. Each was dressed in their pajamas: her mother in her long nightgown, and her father in the button down flannel set. Their pajamas weren't very bloody. It was their faces that were the worst. It was like their noses had exploded, much worse than a bloody nose. Each of them stared at the ceiling with an expression of pure shock. Their mouths gaped open, but their teeth were all there. It was just their noses that were injured. 

Actually, their noses were completely gone. She could see one of her mom's nostrils, but that was all that remained. Blood poured onto their pillows in little rivers and then dropped onto the floor. She thought of the drawing in the hallway, of the monster with jagged teeth and blood flowing from his mouth. Could something like that have killed her parents? Like in the book with the little girl who thought there was a monster in the basement? 

But that wasn't real. 

That was just a story, and in the end it turned out there was no monster at all. 

It was just her IMAGINATION.

Well, she wasn't going to be tricked by her dumb imagination. She was going to go downstairs and prove this all was wrong. There would be no monster, and the furniture would be back in the living room, and her parents would be alive again. All she had to do was walk down the steps and turn on the light and see the washer and dryer. 

And then everything would be good again. 

She tried to remember what the parents in the story said. Imagination was a good thing, but not if it made you afraid. What you had to do is confront that fear and show it you're the boss.

I'm the boss. I'm the boss. I'm the boss. 

As she walked toward the stairs, she tried to ignore the crayon drawing outside of her bedroom, but she couldn't because it was different somehow. There were flesh colored bits scattered randomly around the wall. Some of them were shaped like noses, and others were different, like mini sausages. Toes were her best guess. Noses and toes. And some little arrows, too. She couldn't figure out what those were meant to be. Just looking at them made her sick.

This time she made it to the bathroom to throw up. She couldn't get her parents' faces--or what was left of them--out of her head. First came up snack, the Goldfish crackers her friend had brought to school, along with the fruit punch. Then came lunch. It was pizza day at school, and she tasted the spices from the sauce. She looked into the toilet, and all she could see was red, which made her throw up even more. Finally, everything was out of her, and she slid to the floor. Whoever had robbed the linen closet had thoughtfully left some tissue paper left for her, so she wiped her nose and washed her face before swishing some water in her mouth. 

She looked at herself in the mirror. There were dark circles under her blue eyes. Her blonde hair hung in wet sheets around her face. Somehow the blood had gotten onto her white shirt, though she didn't remember rubbing her hands on it. The sight of it made her squeamish again. She ran into her room to change her shirt, pulling it off as she went and throwing it in the hamper because mother would be cross if she left it on the floor. She didn't stop to think about the logic of that statement. 

Jane pulled a fresh t-shirt out of her chest of drawers and pulled it over her head. When she turned around, she was startled by something in the bed. It was just like the things she found in her parents' room. She didn't have to pull the cover back to see what the source of the blood was. It was by the lump's head. She knew if she looked, it would be a little girl with her nose chewed off by the monster. 

She ran out of the room and slammed the door, breathing hard. It had to have been one of her classmates, one of the girls with the knives. She'd been caught unaware, maybe while drawing on the wall, and the monster had attacked her. Then he had set her in Jane's bed to scare her. The only problem with that theory was how did the girl know about the monster to draw the picture if he hadn't attacked her yet. There were too many holes in the story.

Everything inside Jane was telling her not to look, but she had to. One of her classmates was dead in her bed, and she had to know which one. What if it were Mary? Or Elizabeth? She took a deep breath, opened the door again, and slowly approached the bed. She didn't want to touch it, but she had to. She had to know who was bleeding in there. She reached across the bed, her hand shaking, and grasped the white coverlet. When she'd captured the cover by just the corner, she peeled the whole thing back and jumped back, screaming. 

Screaming, for the girl in the bed was her. Jane, with her nose bitten off, blood spattered all over her face. But it couldn't be. How could she be dead and alive? It couldn't be. It wasn't even imagination. It was just unreal, unbelievable, physically impossible. 

What was she supposed to do now? 

How could she go downstairs and confront the monster when she was dead in a bed? Did that make her a zombie? Would a zombie have a better chance against a monster? Would she be the zombie or the girl in the bed? She didn't know. All she knew is that she was too terrified to move an inch, a centimeter. She couldn't even twitch a muscle. Because a horrible thought occurred to her. All of these bodies were upstairs. And so was she. That meant the monster had come upstairs to kill her family. 

She wasn't safe.

Jane looked around for something to defend herself with. The only remotely dangerous thing in her room was her baseball bat from little league. And that wasn't even particularly threatening. It was pink and probably made more out of plastic than anything that could hurt a nose-eating monster. Still, she grabbed it. The bat made her feel a little safer, but not much. 

She sucked in her breath and made a decision. She was not going to just wait for the monster to come and get her. True, it could be anywhere, but that didn't mean she had to sit and wait for it. Her mission became to track and kill the monster, imagined or not. 

She was the boss.

Jane stepped outside of her bedroom again. The picture on the wall had shifted again. Now the monster was facing off a much smaller figure. This little one had a nose, but the monster looked posed to bite it off. The girl was holding a huge club. It looked like it could do some damage. She took this as a positive sign, that she was doing the right thing. 

And it was this feeling that propelled her downstairs, to the living room. She dragged the baseball bat behind her. The living room was the same as when she entered before. No furniture, outlets pried from the walls. The door to the basement was around the corner from the stairs she just came down. Jane stared at it for a long time. The doorknob seemed to be glowing, and she thought it would burn her if she closed her fingers around it. 

There was no getting around it, though. She had to go downstairs. She had to face the monster. She had to defeat him with her baseball bat, no matter how puny it was. She closed her eyes as she placed her hand on the doorknob, but there was no heat. It was completely cold, almost freezing. That was almost worse. 

Jane turned the knob and pushed the door open. She peered down the stairs, into the black abyss. There was no light, and it was cold. If she could see anything, she was sure she would see her breath puffing out in front of her. She tried the light switch at the top of the stairs, but it didn't work. Of course it didn't work. Why would a monster allow light in its lair? She hit the wall with her baseball bat and yelled, "Come out, monster. I saw what you did."

She couldn't see, but she heard a stirring down below. 

"Come out, little girl," a growl floated up the stairs. "I saw what YOU did."

"What are you talking about?" Jane demanded, even more scared than she'd been a moment earlier. How was she responsible for any of this mess? She took a step down.

"Child, I saw you scribbling on the walls," the thing said. 

She took another step down.

"I saw how you stole all of the furniture, probably to buy something selfish, all for yourself."

She took yet another step.

"And I saw how you killed your parents." The thing roared with laughter.

This last line was too much. She ran down the rest of the stairs, into darkness, into nothing. She swung her bat into pure space, and it banged against metal, right about where the dryer should be. The door creaked open, and light spilled across the floor. 

Something darted into the light and back out. It looked like a tail, reptilian. 

She didn't want to see its mouth, its teeth that bit into her parents' faces. She swung blindly again and made contact with pure meat. There was no other way to describe it. The creature groaned, then snorted, mocking her.

"I love the noses and the toeses and sometimes the elbowses." It giggled again. 

"Show yourself to me," she challenged it. If this was her imagination, she could summon it into the light. She could control it. 

Jane wasn't sure the command would work, but the thing leaned toward her, illuminated by the light from the dryer. Its head was small, teeth taking up half the room of the skull. Its eyes were situated on either side of its head, so it didn't look like it could see her unless it turned to the side. And the thing--it had no nose. Just two holes above its mouth. No wonder it was after other peoples'. It was the monster doing selfish things, not her. 

She raised her hands above her head and brought down the bat with all the strength she had. What happened next she couldn't explain. The bat made contact, but it didn't have any impact. Her bat swung through pure dust, hitting the ground with a giant crack.  

As soon as it happened, Jane raced back upstairs, screaming all the way. 

She was crying. She was hysterical. It took her a long time to start breathing normally, and an even longer time to open her eyes. When she did, she saw something incredible. 

T living room was dark, but all the furniture was back where it belonged.

Just the way it was when she left for school that morning. 

Believing it was too good to be true, she took the next flight of stairs up to the next floor. 

The drawing was gone. 

Now was the important part. She couldn't bear to go into her parents' room, so she went into her own first. The bed was smooth and flat, with no evidence of blood on the blankets. 

That was all the encouragement she needed. Next she ran into her parents' room, and what she saw was a miracle. They were both in bed, reading books. 

"Go back to bed, darling," her mother said.

"She's had that nightmare again," said her father. 

She wasn't sure what he was talking about. Everything that had happened? It couldn't have been a dream. But then she looked down as saw that she was wearing her sparkly pajamas. Her father climbed out of bed and put his slippers arm. He slipped an arm around her shoulder to guide her back to her room. 

Jane didn't want to get into that bed again, but there was really no other option. She pulled up the covers and under the clean sheet. It smelled like detergent, not like pennies. She relaxed.

"It's okay, baby. Everything is going to be alright." 

Her father tucked her in tightly and then leaned over to give her a kiss. 

"My sweet little sunshine," he whispered. "Goodnight."

After he crossed her room, he turned back and winked. "Watch out for bed monsters. They like those noses and toeses and even elbowses," he said, and then flipped the switch, throwing the room into darkness again.

Jane stared at the ceiling until the sun came up.