The vase had four white, eight green, three yellow, and five red flowers. He remembered that perfectly. Red was his favorite, not because white, green, and yellow were bad, but because red was just the best, and if anybody said that Will was wrong then they would be wrong because it’s a matter of opinion. Mrs. Abbis had taught him that. And teachers couldn’t be wrong. Grown ups could be wrong though, like his aunt, Kate, as in Katelyn, but she didn’t like to be called Katelyn because she said it makes her feel old.
She was wrong because she’d say that your fear is only in your head, but Will had seen it. He had watched it, just like how Kate watched their neighbor Glen and how his cat Phil watched Will every day when he would leave for school.
As his mind drifted, so did his eyes. It was dark out. Will did not like the dark, it was one of his least favorite things along with horror movies, people sneezing, spiders, and tall buildings. But the absolute worst was the dark. As Will stared out into his backyard, he thought of his monster. Not again. He closes his eyes and tries to clear his thoughts and slow his breathing. Not again. He opens them, but it didn’t work. His monster was back, staring a Will from the shadows.
Stumbling from where he sits at the table, he struggles to back away while watching his monster stalk towards the back door. Towards him.
“Kate.” Will forces the words through his teeth barred with terror. “Kate!” He was yelling now. “Kate! Kate!! Ka…”
Kate casually walked in with her back to the door, facing Will. “What’s wrong, did you see a spider honey…” She kept talking but the only thing Will could focus on was the shadow growing behind her.
“Behind you!” His voice cracks through a tight throat. His arms weak from trying to hold his shaking body in place.
She turns around with a very curious look on her face, she looks up and down as if looking for a spider. “One second honey, I’ll go get the Raid.” She turns and walks back into the kitchen.
The shadow was gone, his monster was gone. Will scrambled to get up, grabbed his backpack, ran around the kitchen and up the stairs to the bathroom; turning on all the lights as he went. He made sure to check behind the shower curtain, because in the scary movies the monster was always on the other side of the curtain.
Will looked in the mirror, his hair was tacked to his forehead and hot tears ran down his face. His monster has never moved like that before, appeared and watched yes, but moved as if to reach him? No.
That’s when she screamed. A strangled scream that barely sounded human. Will’s first instinct was to freeze, to listen. But his feet inched forward, begging his body to move. To make sure that his aunt was okay.
With a shaky hand, he opened the bathroom door. All the lights that he turned on a few moments before where off. He tried the switch. It didn’t work. Panic in the form of bile rose in his throat. “Kate…?” his voice seemed to go nowhere.
The quiet was loud in his ears. His fast pulse even louder. “Kate?” His voice was barely above a whisper. Fearing that his monster heard it, he hurried down the stairs as quietly as possible. Every creak made him flinch. At the bottom, the air was frigid and brittle.
He reached the kitchen and tried turning on the light; again it didn’t work. It felt as though the darkness pushed on him, making his shoulders hunch and his eyes go wide.
He needed to think. He needed a flashlight. Yes, a flashlight, there’s one in the junk drawer. He scrambled toward the other side of the kitchen. He trips over a large obstacle and lands in a warm liquid. A sound like a dog’s bark and a child’s scream was ripped out of him. He couldn’t tell if the warmth on his face was from his tears, or the sticky substance on the floor. He snapped himself out of his shock and stumbled for the drawer. He grabbed the flashlight but struggled to turn it on without it slipping out of his wet, quaking hands.
Kate was on the floor. Blood a darker red than her hair spilled from her throat. Her eyes were open and soulless, a scream permanently stuck to her face.
He knew it was blood and that she was dead, because she wasn’t blinking, or talking, and Kate loved to talk.
It was as if he was dead too. Unable to move, unable to scream.
He pointed his flashlight up, up to his monster. It’s teeth bared and waiting. It’s face without eyes. And it’s chin dripped with blood.
He did not scream, or run, or hide, because his monster would always find him; but also because he had nobody else to run for.

“How about now William, do you still see your monster?”
Will sat up on the couch and looked out the therapist’s window. He hesitated for a second before answering, “yes.”
“You were a scared kid, William, understandably so, considering what you saw happen to your parents and your aunt. But, the man that hurt Kate and your parents was caught. There is no monster.” There was an inflection in her voice that made her sound like she was talking to a child. As if she was telling him he couldn’t eat his dessert before dinner.
And although she was right that he was a scared kid, and that a man was apprehended, she was wrong.
Will’s eyes were still on the window. But where there was once only flowers and a pond, now stands a tall, pitch-black silhouette. Only now it’s not as big as when he was a child. It does not make his eyes burn, or his knees shake.
It all changed the day his monster made a mistake, the day he was no longer afraid to die.