I have been chased by the same monster every Thursday night for eleven years.
It is always Thursday.
I don’t know why.
You’d think my subconscious might occasionally mix things up. A Monday nightmare. A festive Christmas special. Perhaps something experimental on a bank holiday.
But no.
Thursday.
The dream begins in a forest.
The trees are black, the moon is enormous, and somewhere behind me something howls.
I run.
I have always run.
That is the arrangement.
The monster crashes through the trees behind me, snapping branches, roaring, breathing like an asthmatic furnace.
I sprint towards an old house at the edge of the forest.
I reach the front door.
Locked.
I search my pockets.
No key.
The monster gets closer.
I bang on the door.
Nobody answers.
The monster appears behind me.
I turn.
It raises its enormous claws.
And I wake up.
Every Thursday.
For eleven years.
There have been minor variations.
Once the house was a bungalow.
Once I was wearing roller skates.
Once the monster had my old geography teacher’s voice.
But essentially, the dream has remained faithful to the original format.
Until last Thursday.
Everything began normally.
Moon.
Forest.
Howl.
Running.
I was halfway between the twisted oak tree and the suspiciously theatrical patch of fog when I noticed something was wrong.
The monster wasn’t chasing me.
I stopped.
In eleven years I had never stopped.
I turned around.
The monster was sitting on a fallen tree.
It was enormous: eight feet tall, black fur, horns, claws, glowing red eyes.
It was also hunched forward with its elbows on its knees.
It looked miserable.
“Come on,” I said.
The monster sighed.
I stared at it.
“Are you chasing me or not?”
It looked up.
“Do we have to?”
“What?”
It rubbed its face with both claws.
“Can we do something else?”
For a moment neither of us spoke.
A wolf howled somewhere in the distance.
The monster shouted, “Oh, give it a rest, Trevor.”
The howling stopped.
I walked cautiously towards it.
“You’re supposed to chase me.”
“I know.”
“You’ve chased me every Thursday for eleven years.”
“I know.”
“You’re terrifying.”
“Thank you.”
I sat down at the other end of the fallen tree.
The monster stared at the ground.
Up close, I noticed things I had never seen before.
Its fur was thinning slightly around the horns.
One claw was chipped.
There were dark circles beneath its glowing eyes.
“You look tired,” I said.
“I’m exhausted.”
“Well, you do run quite a lot.”
“So do you.”
“What would you rather do?”
“I don’t know.”
“You’re the monster.”
“That doesn’t mean I have hobbies.”
“Surely you must do something besides chase me.”
“No.”
“Nothing?”
I felt unexpectedly guilty.
“So for eleven years you’ve just been waiting in this forest every Thursday?”
The monster shrugged.
“Well,” I said, standing up. “Fine. Let’s do something.”
The monster looked suspicious.
“Like what?”
“I don’t know. What do monsters enjoy?”
We stood in the moonlit forest considering our options.
“Cards?” I suggested.
“Don’t have any.”
“Chess?”
“Don’t have a board.”
“Football?”
The monster raised one enormous, clawed foot.
“Ball problem.”
“Charades?”
“There are only two of us.”
“Trevor could play.”
From somewhere in the forest came a faint, “I’m not doing charades.”
We started walking.
Without the chase, the forest seemed considerably smaller.
The terrifying path turned out to be about two hundred yards long.
The abandoned house was practically next door.
For eleven years, I had desperately tried to enter it.
Now the monster opened the door.
“You have a key?”
“Obviously.”
“I’ve spent eleven years searching my pockets for that key!”
“You never asked.”
Inside was a sofa. A small television. A kettle.
And a kitchen table covered in mugs.
I stared at the monster.
“You live here?”
“Between scenes.”
“You have a kettle?”
“Of course.”
“You’re an ancient creature of darkness.”
“Ancient creatures of darkness still drink tea.”
Fair point.
The monster filled the kettle.
“What do you take?”
“Milk. No sugar.”
It nodded approvingly.
“Same.”
The kitchen cupboards were almost empty.
Tea bags.
Biscuits.
A jar labelled EYEBALLS.
I opened it.
Buttons.
“Budget cuts,” the monster said.
We drank tea at the kitchen table.
“So,” I said. “Do you have a name?”
The monster hesitated.
“Malcolm.”
That was not quite what I was expecting, but I made no comment because I did not want to offend my host.
We finished our tea.
Then I tried to entertain him.
First we played I Spy.
“I spy with my little eye,” I said, “something beginning with T.”
“Tree.”
“Yes.”
“My turn. Something beginning with M.”
“Moon.”
“Yes.”
I looked around.
“This game is terrible.”
Next, we tried making shadow puppets.
Malcolm had six fingers on each hand, so most of his shadow puppets looked like medical emergencies.
Then we attempted karaoke.
The television had only one channel.
A weather forecast.
Malcolm sang along anyway.
“LIGHT RAIN ACROSS THE MIDLANDS,” he bellowed.
Trevor appeared at the window.
He was not, as I had imagined, a wolf.
He was a middle-aged man wearing pyjamas.
“Could you keep it down?” he said. “Some of us are trying to haunt people.”
Malcolm closed the curtains.
“He’s unbearable.”
“Who does he haunt?”
“Accountants.”
We eventually went outside again.
The moon had moved slightly.
I was beginning to worry.
“I should probably wake up soon.”
Malcolm nodded.
Neither of us said anything.
Strangely, I didn’t want to leave.
For eleven years I had feared this creature.
Now he just seemed lonely.
“Same time next Thursday?” he asked.
I smiled.
“Sure.”
His eyes brightened.
“What shall we do?”
I thought about it.
“Bowling?”
“Claws.”
“Cinema?”
“Maybe.”
“Mini golf?”
Malcolm gasped.
“You’ve got mini golf?”
“Not here.”
His face fell.
“But it’s my dream,” I said.
He looked at me.
“So?”
“So perhaps we can make one.”
For the first time in eleven years, I realised something important.
This was my dream.
I closed my eyes.
I imagined windmills.
Plastic castles.
Tiny bridges.
Artificial grass.
When I opened my eyes, the forest was gone.
We were standing beneath a glowing sign.
NIGHTMARE MINI GOLF.
Malcolm stared at it.
“Oh,” he whispered.
His eyes filled with tears.
“Are you crying?”
“No.”
“You are.”
“I’m a terrifying monster.”
“You’re definitely crying.”
“Shut up.”
We played eighteen holes.
Malcolm was terrible.
On the seventh hole, his ball disappeared into a plastic volcano and never came back.
On the eleventh, Trevor appeared and asked if he could join us.
Then I heard my alarm.
Malcolm heard it too.
His smile faded.
“Well,” he said.
“Next Thursday.”
“Next Thursday.”
The world began dissolving.
The golf course vanished.
Trevor vanished.
Malcolm vanished last.
And just before I woke up, I heard him shout:
“BRING SNACKS.”
The following Thursday, I fell asleep early.
The forest appeared.
The moon rose.
I waited.
Nothing.
Then Malcolm stepped out from behind a tree.
He was wearing sunglasses.
“Right,” he said.
“Right.”
“No chasing?”
“No chasing.”
“No screaming?”
“Definitely no screaming.”
He grinned.
“Good.”
Beyond the trees stood a rollercoaster.
Trevor was already strapped into the front seat.
“I hate this dream,” Trevor said. “I’d just like it noted that I voted for bowling.”
Malcolm climbed aboard.
I sat beside him.
The safety bar came down.
The carriage jerked forwards and began the long climb.
Click.
Click.
Click.
Higher and higher above the forest.
Malcolm looked over the side.
His smile disappeared.
“You all right?”
“Fine.”
“You don’t look fine.”
“I’m an ancient creature of darkness.”
Another click.
“Ancient creatures of darkness aren’t frightened of heights.”
We reached the top.
For a second, everything was still.
The forest stretched beneath us.
The moon hung enormous in the sky.
Malcolm gripped the safety bar with both claws.
“Why have we stopped?”
“We haven’t.”
The carriage tipped forwards.
Malcolm looked down.
“Oh.”
Then we dropped.
Malcolm screamed.
“AAAAAAAHHHHHHH!”
And for the first time in eleven years, it wasn’t me who was screaming when I woke up.
