Second Prize Story Winner
2026 Short Story Competition
IF YOU KEEP STILL
By Ciaran Warner
He woke suddenly, as children do. Catapulting from deep sleep to total alertness like a switch had turned on inside his brain. But what had flipped it?
His eyes gradually adjusted to the smudges of darkness on the walls and ceiling of his bedroom. The shadows seemed to seethe resentfully as they faded, and the vague outlines of furniture and objects began to suggest themselves. Once they were discernible, he moved his gaze slowly to the left, where heavy curtains hung protectively against the intrusion of light from the nearby streetlamp. From there, lying still as stone, his breathing shallow and rapid, he slid his eyes back to the right, his rigid gaze covering the breadth of his room in one slow, frightened sweep.
Something moved.
He did not quite see it, nor did he quite hear it. It had come from his left, and before he could stop it, his head jerked in that direction, the soft scrape of his hair against the pillow causing him to freeze again just as suddenly.
It’s a rule that every child knows, and never forgets: the monster can’t find you if you keep still. If you refuse to make a noise, it won’t hear you, may not even know you’re there. And if as much of you as possible (preferably all of you) is covered by the blanket, it can’t touch you. Even the top half of your face, if left exposed, could be vulnerable to the clammy caress of the monster’s claws as they rasp across your scalp, down your face, towards the tender veins of your throat, where the blood pounds with a treacherous roar. It’s your terror of the creature above you that betrays your location to its long, probing fingers.
And if your feet are uncovered? This is a death sentence. It would be the work of a moment for the dweller in the darkness to fasten those long, scratchy fingers around your exposed ankle, drag you screaming into the absolute black beneath the bed, and feed.
These thoughts ricocheted off the walls of his panicked mind as he lay, drenched with cold sweat, staring at the curtains (did they just twitch? Or was it his imagination?) not daring to close his eyes. Because while that meant he wouldn’t have to see the thing that was doubtless lurking behind his curtains, he knew eventually he’d have to open them again, when the need to know became too great. And he knew when he did, the hulking form of his nightmare incarnate would be looming over him, maw yawning wide as it leaned down to plunge mirror-shard teeth into his soft white throat. Nothing nearby to defend himself, except a few colouring pencils and a small pair of scissors with bright green handles on his bedside table, which he used to cut out images of his favourite superheroes. Even they couldn’t protect him now. They’d never faced anything as frightening as the monster in his mind.
So he didn’t close his eyes. Wouldn’t. Couldn’t.
A noise again, distant this time. And… familiar? The icy grip of fear loosened ever so slightly. Familiar was safe. Familiar was real, everyday things, things he could see. The noise grew slowly in volume, until he realised it was a car engine. Coming closer. Slowing down.
No, he thought. No, please no.
Even at the age of six, a small corner of his mind reflected idly on how many different forms of fear it was possible to feel.
The noise grew, until light that was every bit as frightening as the darkness preceding it splashed through the tiny gap in his curtains. It traced an angular line down the wall, which narrowed and slid downwards as the car turned into the driveway and rumbled past his window. His ears were attuned for other sounds now, noises they had become keen at discerning. For instance, he knew the harder the front wheel hit the curb turning into the driveway, the more the man driving had been drinking that night. The louder the final rev of the engine, the angrier he was. And if the brakes were hit hard enough to squeal in protest as the car came to a stop, he knew he’d be bruised and bleeding before the night was over.
The next set of noises were virtually rote. The clunk as the car door opened, the aggressive slam as it closed. Low, truculent mumbling, mingled with the tinkling of keys manipulated by unsteady hands. Scraping noises as they were clumsily forced into the lock, a loud clank as the heavy bolt was rudely yanked from its slot. A sharp jangle like breaking glass as keys were tossed on the kitchen bench, and the uneven steps of his father coming down the hall.
Had he known the names of every god that ever was, he would have happily prayed to them, bowed down and worshipped them all, if it just meant those footsteps wouldn’t stop outside his bedroom door.
The thump of heavy boots drew closer, closer…and didn’t stop. As always, he didn’t dare relax until he had counted the six steps from his bedroom door to his father’s. Sometimes daddy changed his mind. One. Two. Three, four. A brief pause that made his heart spring into his throat. Five…six. The creak of his father’s bedroom door opening, the loud clunk as it swung shut.
Then, silence. Soft, sweet, velvety silence.
As his heart slowly settled, he glanced around his room once more. Nothing there. The shadows were just shadows, the shapes just shapes. Maybe there had been a monster. There had been before, and would be again. But it wasn’t interested in him tonight. Tonight, at least, he was safe.
The adrenaline slowly trickled from his brain, replaced by drowsiness. Within minutes, he was asleep. He slept soundly, and didn’t dream.
“Wake up.”
The harsh voice wrenched him from sleep. Slurred by drink and thick with grief, it triggered an instinctive dread that flooded his mind before he was even fully conscious. His eyes fluttered open, his vision filled with the unsteady form of his father looming over his bed.
Barely trusting himself to speak, he dared to croak a single word: “Daddy?”
The figure shifted, and there was a rusty shriek from the bedsprings as his father sat heavily.
“She left because of you. You know that, don’t you?”
Daddy had told him this before, and he knew it was true. But if there was a right answer to this question, an answer that would save him pain, he hadn’t found it yet. So this time, he decided to keep still, and stay silent.
“All your bitching and whining, your neediness. She was sick of it, and now I’m stuck with you.” His father was breathing hard. “Stuck” came out “schtuck”, the sour waft of whiskey on his father’s words.
“Little bastard.” His father’s hand shot out of the darkness like a striking snake and grabbed a clumsy handful of his hair. Instinctively his own small hands shot up, grabbing his father’s wrist, a cry of pain and fear bolting from between his lips before he could clamp them closed.
“See? Whine, whine. Fuckin’ whine.” The grip on his hair tightening. His vision darkening. His hands reaching, fumbling.
The shadows at the edge of his vision surged, and a shape leapt from within them. With a growl so deep it rattled the bed, the monster rose up and lashed out with silvery claws so sharp they seemed to wound the air as they surged through it. The grip on his hair suddenly disappeared, and he saw his father stagger backwards, an indistinct shape in the fuzzy dark. His father uttered a choked grunt and clapped his hands to his throat, where the monster’s claws were deeply embedded. More shadows sprayed from the stubble-speckled flesh of his neck, pattering onto the hardwood floor, reminding him of soft rain on the roof.
His father’s back hit the wall. With a final gurgle, his hands fell away, his legs collapsing beneath him. He sat motionless, a faint gleam at his throat as his life trickled away.
The monster, turning to him with eyes like silver coins. Those shadows, eating up more and more of his vision, until he saw no more. Just the blessed dark, and whatever else lay within it.
It wasn’t until the following evening that they were found, and it was night once again when they were taken out of the house.
The boy, not speaking, his eyes vacant, one hand tacky with partially dried blood, the crotch of his pyjama pants darkened.
His father, on a stretcher covered with a plastic sheet, a small lump in the sheet where the scissors with the bright green handles protruded from his neck.
And the bedroom, sitting in shadowy disarray. There was always a monster. There had been before, and would be again. But for tonight, at least, all was silent again.
