Good Night... Sleep Tight...
“Good night, sweetie,” said the colt’s mother. “Sleep tight.”
“And don’t let the bed bugs bite,” finished the colt’s father with a grin, before he was batted on the shoulder by his wife.
The colt’s mother hovered over the bed to kiss her child atop the head, the thick covers pulled right up to his chin. “You get some sleep now and we’ll be back before you know it. Your father and I will be at a friends’ house just up the street.”
The colt nodded along, feigning sleepiness, stretching out his jaw in a yawn as he blinked heavily.
“Okay,” the colt said. “Have a good time.”
“We will,” said his mother. “Sleep well, now.”
His father smiled again. “And remember what I said about those bed bugs, bud.” He snapped his teeth together playfully. “They bite!”
Now the colt’s mother did more than tap his father’s shoulder. It made him wince, before he laughed. The door to the colt’s room shut tight and he was swallowed whole by the darkness, the only light in the room coming from the small nightlight in the corner: nothing more than a candle held in a painted glass jar.
The colt rested his head against the pillow, waiting for the sounds he knew so well.
Hooves against wood. His parents on the stairs.
The tinkling of metal. His father fishing his keys out of the bowl.
A tight snap and a click. The front door closed and the lock spun.
And then nothing. And a whole lot more nothing.
And just when the “lot more nothing” was about to turn into “even more nothing”, the colt in the bed swept aside his covers and dashed from the room, taking the stairs two at a time. He hummed to himself as he slid across the kitchen linoleum, breaking into a whistle as he upended the cookie jar on the counter and went to work determining how many heart-shaped sugar cookies he could snatch without getting caught.
He thought two was too little. Four was too much. So he settled on three and chased them down with a long pull from the jug of milk in the fridge. Contently, he sighed as he wiped the milk from his lips and began to clean up. Then he smiled, as his father would sometimes smile at the dinner table after he’d thought of something funny in his head that he wouldn’t dare mutter in front of his mother.
“A little harmless fun,” the colt’s father would tell him later, with the mother safely in another room.
And that’s exactly what the colt was doing that particular night alone. Having himself a little harmless fun. Three cookies. A glass of milk. A few bounces on the bed. It’s not like the colt’s stuffed animals were about to rat him out to his parents.
One jump. Then two. On the third bounce, the colt landed on a pillow and rolled off it, giggling as he went. The springs in the mattress creaked and groaned; the headboard lightly tapped against the wall in a steady rhythm.
The colt might’ve not even noticed the opened window if not for the thin layer of sweat on his forehead, all at once chilled by the night air’s cool touch. Had that window always been open? he thought, but for the life of him couldn’t remember. He’d been so preoccupied up until now, mentally hurrying his parents along—faster, faster please! Looking forward to extra cookies and milk and the simple freedom that came with being able to make all the noise he wanted in the house for an hour or—
“Ow!” said his bed suddenly, and the colt stopped jumping up and down at once.
His bed did not speak again, but that didn’t mean he was about to start bouncing on it like he’d just been doing. With a tiny gulp, he climbed off the mattress to stand near the door. He’d made sure to leave the door open, in case his parents came home much earlier than planned and he had to unexpectedly dive back into bed. He turned back to face his dimly lit bedroom.
Through the open window, he could hear conversation and noise from the street below. It sounded like at least half-a-dozen ponies in metal garb trotting in all directions, barking orders left and right, one voice straining to be heard above another. And with every shout went the colt’s fear and trepidation. Someone outside had made that noise. Because beds couldn’t talk, right? They didn’t go “Ow” when you bounced on them too hard, right? That would be absolutely absurd.
But what about the things that lived underneath beds?
The colt used a badminton racket he had received for his birthday to carefully—and most of all quietly—stick it under the bit of blanket hanging off his bed. Then like some magician’s reveal, he whipped it upward.
The colt yelped. But it was short one.
No terrifying monster lay in wait for him. No sharp claws. No sixteen unblinking eyes. No ruby red lips or bony joints or scabby knees. But there was something under his bed that hadn’t been there before. The colt was sure of it.
It was a teddy bear. A great big one that looked even larger than the colt; its button nose mashed into the underside of the bedframe as it aimlessly stared upward. Had the colt forgotten about its existence entirely? That seemed rather unlikely. It was just earlier today that he’d been searching around this very same room for that extra gold bit he just knew he had but couldn’t find.
So had his parents stuck it down there? he wondered. As a surprise for him to find? Or for next year’s birthday, perhaps? But wasn’t that still five months away?
He thought on that, and as he did he reached to his bedside table to turn on the lantern there. Then he dropped it right back down with a loud clank once he glanced back under the bed.
The large teddy bear was staring at him now; its head laying flat against the floor in his direction; its black button eyes sharply glinting in the harsh lantern light.
The colt gulped again, then flat out shrieked once the teddy bear burst into a cloud of ashy darkness before disappearing whole. The void left under his bed was almost like a miniature blackhole; a pool of jet black nothingness that not even the light from his lantern could pierce. Until its eyes opened…
“Do not be afraid, young one,” the thing under the bed said, in a soft, measured tone.
Sadly, the colt was indeed afraid, yet there was something about the monster’s eyes that quelled him. The eyes were huge—a brilliant turquoise and bright green, shimmering as if made from glass. Just staring at them felt like being in a small, shallow pool. Cool. Safe. Innocent. Entirely protected from harm.
Its echoed voice only added to the sensation of being trapped in a dream that one could not escape from.
“Don’t tell me you don’t recognize me?” it asked the colt with a clear hint of amusement. “Your parents were just talking about me, after all.”
Not taking his sight off the immense eyes floating in darkness, the colt stuck out two hooves in search of the lantern again. Once he had it, he slammed it down to the floor to cradle in his lap. He didn’t know why, but it just felt good to have something between him and what lay underneath his bed.
“Are… are you…” the colt managed to stutter out, his throat all at once as dry as the sugar cookies in the kitchen downstairs. He steeled himself before asking, “Are you a… a bed bug?”
The Bed Bug only smiled at him, raising the corners of its mouth without showing any teeth. With the added light, the colt was able to see much more of the creature—bug—living underneath his bed than before.
The Bed Bug had hair the same color as its eyes, with skin the same shade of black as the shadows that surrounded it. The colt couldn’t tell how many limbs it might’ve had, but saw at least two connected below its chest. Both had many holes in them, as did the sharp and jagged horn atop its head, gently scratching the bottom of the bed mattress as its head moved.
“I am not merely a bed bug, my young friend,” said the thing under the bed. “I am the Bed Bug. The very last of my kind, in fact.”
The colt didn’t know if he was supposed to be astonished or just sad, so he simply shook his head up and down in a spastic manner. He gulped again. His throat remained parched.
“Okay,” said the colt. “Umm… I’m really not sure if I should be talking to you, though… my parents left and—”
“Good night… sleep tight…” the Bed Bug spoke, as if only to itself, “don’t let the bed bugs bite.” Then its haunting eyes focused on the colt again. “Do you know the rest?”
Truth be told, the colt did not. That was as far as his parents ever got. He was about to explain exactly that when—
“Wake up bright in the morning light… to do what’s right with all your might.”
The Bed Bug smiled at him again, seemingly careful to keep its teeth hidden.
“Rather pretty, isn’t it?”
The colt nodded. He thought he’d agree to basically anything the Bed Bug would say to him by this point. “Do I get a gift?” he asked suddenly, surprising even himself by the odd question.
The Bed Bug raised a thin brow. “Is the pleasure of my company not enough?”
The colt held tighter to the lantern on the floor. “Oh… I just meant… are you kinda like the Tooth Fairy?”
“The Tooth Fairy?” said the Bed Bug, chuckling deep within its throat. “My, oh, my, child. The Tooth Fairy and I are more than different. While she works in the world above the bed, I work below. In the shadows. Among the dust bunnies and all the things lost and forgotten.”
The Bed Bug absently flicked at a marble that sat near its forelegs. When it did, something small and metallic jingled behind it. It sounded like there might’ve been a whole lot more of them back there, too.
“As the Bed Bug,” it continued happily, “I see to it that all ponies in the land, do, in fact… have themselves a good night… and do indeed… sleep tight. Because you know what happens when the Bed Bug visits you and finds you not fast asleep? When it finds you wide awake and instead bouncing atop its head?”
The colt couldn’t focus on any proper response. All his attention had been stolen by the numerous sharp fangs inside the Bed Bug’s smiling maw. It had finally displayed its teeth for him. And it was terrible.
“We bite!” said the Bed Bug, with a sharp clamp of its teeth each time it spoke. “And we tear! And we rip and we gulp! And then we wake up bright in the morning light, with our bellies stuffed with just enough!”
The door downstairs clicked and pushed inward. This sudden noise, accompanied by the wildly cackling creature before him, finally seemed enough to get the colt to his hooves and out into the hall. As he trotted down the stairs—three at a time now—the Bed Bug’s mad laughter hurriedly died away until he couldn’t hear it at all.
His father hadn’t even begun searching for the gift they’d forgotten to take before his son attacked his leg and ushered both parents upstairs. As they went, the colt’s speech was nothing more than gibberish mixed with tiny intakes of air.
“Bed Bug! Under… bed! It… bites! It—”
“Happy with yourself? What did I tell you about all that bed bug nonsense?” said the mother. “Now look what you’ve done to him.”
The father rolled his eyes, carrying the colt on his back up the stairs. The colt only rambled on. His parents had to understand what they were up against.
“Its teeth were huge! And it said that they bite… and tear… and gulp and—”
The colt’s words fell away like a sandcastle hit with a tidal wave. There was little more than candy wrappers and broken toys left to be found underneath his bed. Following that, he made his father search inside his closet, and even behind the headboard.
“See? No bed bugs,” said the colt’s father. “They aren’t real, son. It’s just something ponies say before they go to bed sometimes. A silly rhyme, is all.”
The colt could only nod, rather glum and unsure. Had he actually imagined it?
Hesitantly, he turned to his bedroom window and found it shut tight, as if it had never been left open at all.
***
Again, the colt lay still in his bed, listening for the sounds of absolutely anything at all. Only now was he solely concentrated on the act of sleep and nothing else: the hooves gripping his covers aching from the strain, his eyes shut so tight he was seeing spots. Yet he budged not an inch. Nor dare whisper a word.
Even when the Bed Bug hovered over his heated head.
“You've returned,” it whispered, so softly the colt was almost sure it had come from his thoughts. “Well, then, sweet child, to you I say… good night… sleep tight… and don’t give me reason to return.”
The Bed Bug then carefully planted a single kiss atop his head, and the colt gripped his covers even tighter than before, sure it was all some trick to get him to open his eyes or speak. Again, the colt heard something small and metallic happily jingle away in the darkness. Thousands of them, perhaps. It was only when his window suddenly slammed shut that he jolted out of bed and scrambled to find his lantern again.
He flicked it on and found only himself in the room. Again, he searched under the bed with the aid of his badminton racket. He stared in amazement at the ten golden bits bearing the Princess’ likeness left there, standing in a neat, tidy column. Without another thought, the colt scooped them up and hid them away in his sock drawer, right near the back where his parents wouldn’t search.
Even the Tooth Fairy never gave him that much for teeth.