Andy's Fan-Fiction Archive

BUMP IN THE NIGHT
By
Lizzy

Timeline: Years later
Author's E-Mail: heckercw@voicenet.com

AUTHOR'S NOTES:
Let me begin by saying happy Halloween everyone! Let me finish by saying, this is a little Halloween story, but it's not some 'Eden Project celebrates Halloween'-type thing. It's just a wee bit of fun.

Bump In the Night
by Elizabeth Heckert (aka Lizzy)
He heard a creak, and it was coming from *outside* his window. Ulysses Adair shivered beneath his quilt as he heard the sound again. CREAK! CREAK CREAK! SNAP!
He was sure of it now; someone was climbing up the tree outside his second floor window. He pulled his blankets even closer about him, wishing his mother and step-father weren't at a meeting at the hospital.
CREAK!
There it was again. Uly squeezed his eyes shut, trying to convince himself it was just his ears. He held his breath for a few moments. The sound didn't come again.
He opened his eyes and surveyed his small room. Everything in the house looked so different at night; the clothes strewn over his chair cast odd shadows in the twin moonlight. But everything was as it should be; the desk was still neatly organized, his walking stick still hung on the wall, his drawers were still shut. But something felt different.
Uneasily, he cast a glance at the window. And froze. A pair of yellowish, glowing eyes peered back at him, unblinking. They appeared to be attached to a hulking body, which blocked the entire window, save a small area where the moonlight poured through.
He stifled a scream in his pillow, pulling it close to him and burying his face in it. He heard another series of creaks and snaps and after a few minutes he forced himself to look back at the window.
The eyes were gone.
"True!" he gasped. He had to go get his step-sister, tell her what he'd seen. But she'd probably just laugh and tell him he was stupid for waking her up so late at night.
Shaking uncontrollably with fear, the image of the glowing eyes still haunting his mind, he pushed aside his bedclothes and hopped out of bed
He padded down the hallway to the room next to his own, which was inhabited by his twelve-year-old sister True. He turned the knob slowly and poked his head in the door. She slept soundly, curled up in her bed.
"True! True!" he called plaintively, hoping she'd wake. But True was quite a heavy sleeper, so he was forced to enter her room (which was otherwise considered OFF LIMITS to him) and shake her awake.
"True!" he called again, shaking her gently at the same time. Now True opened her eyes and blinked blearily. It took her a moment to realize who he was, but once she did, she became furious. "Uly! It's nearly eleven o'clock!" she exclaimed, looking at the clock on her night stand. "What are you doing, and why are you doing it in my room?"
"I'm sorry," he said without much conviction, "But . . . but I saw these eyes in my window, and they were glowing--"
"Moons, Uly," she cut him off irritably, "They're called moons. Honestly, you're *such* a baby." She rolled over on her side, preparing to go back to sleep.
"No, really True," he pleaded, "I swear it! I saw two glowing eyes, and this big, dark body! It was in the tree outside my window."
"Oh yeah," True muttered sarcastically, "I know a lot of monsters that can climb trees. Regular monkeys, they are."
"True!!"
"Listen, Uly, what do you expect me to do about it?" she snapped, "Just because you've got some overactive imagination *doesn't* mean you can wake me up in the middle of the night. Now, either wait another hour and a half for mom and dad to get back, or just *go back to bed*."
"C'mon, five minutes is all I ask!" he protested, "Just come take a look out the window for me. I'll do the dishes for you tomorrow."
Though it was clear that True didn't want to go chasing after some creature that goes bump in the night that her dim-witted step-brother had come up with, the offer of chores in return for her services was too good to resist. "Oh, alright," she grumbled, pushing aside her sheets and getting out of bed, "Five minutes."
As she headed out of the hall, Uly stopped her. "You'd better get a flashlight," he advised her.
"Fine! You get me a flashlight and I'll go look." True waited impatiently at the top of the stairs as Uly quickly dashed downstairs and retrieved a lumalight from one of the kitchen cabinets. Once he was back upstairs, he passed her the light and they headed for the room.
"I swear Ulysses Adair," she said, flinging open his bedroom door and flashing the light around the room. "You are by far the most--" she froze in mid-sermon as the light passed over the window. The eyes were there again, the flashlight reflecting off of them eerily.
True shrieked, dropping the light to the floor and taking a step back. Uly did the same. A surprised grunt echoed True's scream; then a series of sounds like CRACK! SNAP! CREAK! CRASH! GRUNT! SNORT! came from the other side of the window, and the eyes were gone, replaced by the branches of the tree and the light from G889's twin moons.

Two frightened children. Two frightened children sat huddled in the hallway of a small cabin in a place called New Pacifica, on a planet known as G889, twenty-two light-years from the star system of their birth.
True Danziger and Ulysses Adair, though they didn't know it at the time, were experiencing something that every child goes through : a fear of monsters. A fear of the unknown.
"What was that?" True asked in a frightened whisper, the first words either had spoken since their encounter with the creature nearly fifteen minutes ago.
Uly shook his head. "How should I know?" "I . . . " she shivered, "I guess we'd better tell mom and dad . . . " "Are you kidding?" They're at the hospital with the dunerail. Don't you think it'd take a little longer for us to get there than it'd take them to get here?" He asked incredulously. She remained silent. "Besides, do you really want to go outside with *that*?" He nodded towards the door to his room.
"I think we'd better," she said.
"You think we'd better *what*?" he stared at her. "I think we'd better go out there and see what it is." "Are you *nuts*?!" he practically screamed in disbelief, grabbing her by the nightshirt. "Who knows what it is? Who *cares*? I just want it away from my window!"
True was completely startled by his reaction, and jerked her nightshirt from his grasp. "Quit acting like such a baby!" she scolded him as she got up, retrieved the flashlight, and headed back to her room to get a pair of shoes.
Uly tracked after her as she pulled on some boots and zipped up her coat over her pajamas. "Are you sure you want to go out there?" he asked her.
"Of course I'm sure! Now get ready and come with me, or else get out of my way!"

"Man, it's cold out here," Uly shivered, this time from the cold. He and True stood on the front porch of their home, looking out at the waves of Ocean Pacifica, bathed in midnight moonlight.
"Let's go," True said, switching on the flashlight. "Your window is on the left side of the house, right?"
Uly nodded, and the two of them went down the front steps and around to the other side of the house. They stopped at the foot of the infamous tree and gazed up through the branches as True illuminated them. When finally they could see the top, it became apparent that there was no creature in the tree.
"Where is it?" True whispered, confused. Uly, however, was kneeling down at the base of the tree, investigating a patch of earth.
"True," he called, "Come look at this." Immediately interested, True bent over beside him to see what he'd found.
"It rained this morning," he reminded her, pointing with his finger at a clearly marked path in the mud. "Whatever it is, it left tracks."

"This is insane!"
"I didn't ask you, did I?"
"Mom and dad are gonna kill us when they find out we've been traipsing through the woods in the middle of the night.
"Uly, shut up and quit complaining," True growled as she stepped carefully over a fallen tree trunk. Upon discovery of the tracks, True had resolved to go after whatever had been up the tree. Uly, although reluctantly, had decided to come with her.
They'd been walking for about ten minutes, and True estimated that in another ten or so they'd reach the perimeter relay fence. After that they couldn't go any further.
That's because of the relay fence. It was a wonderful bit of technology, inconvenience aside, that kept all manner of creatures from entering the area within. That way things such as Grendlers couldn't enter the colony grounds. It also kept animals *in*, so if a horse were to jump the farm's fences, it'd have the relays to deal with. Unless you had a special chip in you (which all the adult members of the Advance Team *did*) the field would give you a sound zap. The more you tried to pass through it, the greater shock you got.
Unfortunately, the adults hadn't given these chips to the children. This was because they were afraid they might try to run off, and inadvertently get lost. It also kept them from playing outside of the boundaries, with the dangerous creatures that dwelled around them.
As a result, they couldn't pass through the perimeter fencing. "Mom and Dad will be back soon," Uly pointed out. "Not for another forty-five minutes," she corrected him. The two children trooped their way through the forest for another few minutes, slipping now and then on the wet ground, following the trail left by the creature. Just as True had guessed, fifteen minutes more travel and they arrived at one of the perimeter fencing relays.
The post looked like something out of a science fiction novel. It was covered with all manner of buttons that glowed in the dark. However, the pinkish beams that connected the posts were absent.
Frowning, True stepped closer, placing a hand on the relay post. "Watch it True, it'll buzz you," Uly warned. She waved him off. No beams . . . what did that mean? Maybe you just couldn't see them at night. No, that didn't make any sense . . .
She furrowed her brow thoughtfully, and then decided to try something. She walked around the post.
She circled it. No buzz. No zap. No shock. The field wasn't working, the relays were down. "Must be malfunctioning," she muttered, then decided they best move onward.
The tracks continued on past the post. True turned back and motioned for Uly to follow after her. He did so uneasily, the idea of stepping out of the colony's boundaries not all that appealing.
The two followed the footprints for a few more yards, until True's breath caught in her throat. She'd seen a motion out of the corner of her vision. A pair of eyes. She'd seen a pair of eyes peering out from behind a tree. The tracks led towards that tree.
"Over there!" she whispered to Uly, whose eyes immediately darted to where his sister indicated.
There was a grunt, and the bulky figure bolted off in the other direction. "Let's follow it!" True exclaimed, grabbing Uly's hand and jerking him off after the creature.
The two children charged in pursuit of the critter, dodging around trees, leaping over logs. Whatever it was, it could sure move. "True--are--you--sure--we--should--be--do--ing--this?" Uly asked, his voice being bumped around by his constant motion.
"Of--course!" True replied, and they continued their wild chase after the figure, which they were now beginning to catch up with. They were almost upon it when, suddenly, it seemed to disappear. True stopped dead in her tracks. "Uly, did you see that? Where'd it go?"
Uly, who had stopped as well, inched forward a few feet, and then looked downwards. "It's a hole, True, a hole in the ground."
"It must've gone down there, then," she said, coming up behind him and kneeling on the ground to peer down into the hole. It was black and dark inside, so she shined her light down. It looked like the interior of a small cave. "Let's go," she said, dangling her feet through the rather large opening, preparing to jump.
"I don't think so," Uly shook his head, taking a few good steps back to separate himself from this insane woman.
True had given up on trying to convince him to follow, so she simply said, "Oh, fine, you just stay here. And don't move," she warned, "Remember, I've got the flashlight." And with nary a word more, she leapt into the hole.

Uly paced nervously outside of the hole entrance, every now and then casting an anxious glance to it, as if at any moment he'd hear a terrified scream from his step-sister. But none came. That was even more alarming.
Finally, curiosity overwhelmed him, and he lay on the ground, his head peering into the hole. The first thing that struck him was an overpowering smell. He immediately clamped a hand over his nose, so as not to have to smell it. "True!" he called out softly, "True, what's down there? What do you see? Is it the monster?"
There were several moments of silence, before he heard her answer softly from somewhere below, "Yeah, Uly, get down here and take a look at your monster."
Uly's eyes grew wide, wondering what kind of hideous creature he'd find; probably some new species that enjoyed scaring the living night lights out of ten year olds.
He dropped down the hole, and then remembered that True was the one with the flashlight. It was pitch dark in the cave. He felt around with his hands, and shuddered when his fingers brushed against the damp, rock wall. He preferred the dry, dull brown Terrian caves to *this* damp den any day.
"True? True, where are you?"
"Over here, you weenie, you're getting closer." He felt around the wall until he found a section where it branched off into a chamber. That's where True was, holding her flashlight. What he saw astonished him.
There, within the cavern, illuminated by his step-sister's flashlight, was a rather large pile of leaves and clothes, at the center of which was perched a Grendler, its ears pricked, its eyes filled with suspicion. Around the Grendler, three bare, gray, dribbly little baby Grendlers scampered about, one squabbling in its mother's arms.
They'd stumbled upon a Grendler family. "See, Uly? When the relay went down the mother must've come to our house. Must've been looking for food," True said, her eyes wide with wonder at the rather endearing sight. She'd always thought that Grendlers were ugly, drooly, lumbering lunkheads, but the babies were awfully cute.
One of the reckless little buggers skittered right up to True's feet. It was only six inches high itself. It tilted its head to gaze up at her, and when she waved at it, a funny little half-smile pulled at the creature's lips.
When the mother Grendler saw this, she let out a warning grunt, which caused the baby to skitter back to the safety of the nest.
"Uh, True," Uly tugged at her sleeve, "Um, I don't think she wants us here." He nodded towards the mother, who had a rather firm look of disapproval on her face, aimed at the two intruders.
"Yeah, you're right," True said regretfully. She would've liked to find out if Grendler babies were as much fun to play with as kobas. However, the mother didn't look to happy with their presence, so she turned and began to head back for the hole. "You and your creatures," she snorted, "You and your things that go bump in the night.
-The End-

SEE FOLKS? SEE WHAT SUGAR MAKES YOU CAPABLE OF! (maniacal laughter)
Oh, what a wonderful bit of fluff! Happy Halloween everyone!!!
Elizabeth/Liz/Lizzy/Michaela/Mica/Mich/Michi/Mike/Mic/WHATEVER
Assistant to Mayor Devon Adair
Proud WBSE2Con '96 and WBSE2Con '96 AGAIN Attendee
"I *am* god here, dammit!" --Devon having a bad day
"What *are* you doing, and why are you doing it in my room?" --True, "Bump In the Night"
http://www.voicenet.com/~heckercw/index.html

This text file was ran through PERL script made by Andy. Original text file is available in Andy's Earth 2 Fan Fiction Archive.