Kate's heart sank and her veins iced.  It had been her imagination, only her imagination.  She could feel her body stiffen and fingernails clench the mattress.  Her chest’s raising and lowering quickened as she clenched her eyelids together.  Her adult mind fought with her – it’s only your imagination, Kate.  Only your imagination. – “It’s only my imagination.”  The words came out strong and clear.

               “What is?  What are you talking about?”

               Kate’s eyes flashed open, fear battling with fascination.  Her voice was low, tentative, “Your voice: it’s only my imagination.”

               “Only your… what?  How can my voice be your imagination?”

               “I – I’m not sure, but it makes a lot more sense than your voice being real.”

               “How does that make sense?”

               “I’m not sure.”  There was a long pause as Kate tried to make the situation match what she thought was reality.  Her next thought stemmed from breaking the awkward silence rather than actual interest, “So, are you here to eat me, or what?”

               “Meh.  I haven’t really decided yet.”

               The voice’s lack of seriousness about eating her burrowed through her fear, and into the heart of annoyance, “What do you mean, ‘you haven’t decided yet’?”

               “I don’t know how else to say it, I haven’t decided yet.  It’s not exactly easy to eat a human.  First off, it has to be clean, so no friends or family will know that you didn’t just run away, and it has to be quiet so we don’t draw attention to the neighbors, and to top it all off, we monsters have short arms, making it kind of hard to subdue a human, let alone a full grown one.  So, I haven’t decided if you’re worth the trouble yet.”

               “I see.”  For some reason Kate thought the chances of her being eaten would be greatly less if she kept the conversation going, “So, how would you know if I was worth the trouble?”

               “Well, it probably wouldn’t start with you, it’d start with my hunger.  I mean, how hungry am I?  Hungry enough to get out from under here and meet you on the bed, or am I only hungry enough to wait until you step out of bed?”

               “So, staying in bed really is a good idea on our part.”

               “Oh, sure!  Why wouldn’t it be?  I’m telling you, we have teeny-tiny arms, the worst thing someone could do is get out of bed and then peek under to see if we’re here.  Doing that takes the arms completely out of the equation; it’s just teeth and tales after that.”

               “Teeth and tales?”

               “Yeah, we eat, and people tell stories about it.  It’s a pretty simple concept.”

               Kate was a little surprised at how comfortable she was starting to feel about talking to a monster, “When I first asked the question, you said you were the only one, are there usually more of you under a bed?”

               “There aren’t many of us under any beds, it’s not like we’re roaches, we’re pretty few and far between, but to answer your real question: yeah, usually you get a bunch of us under one bed, we generally like to stick together.  I’m being shunned though.  My own fault really.”