Have Mercy On Us All #1

*This story is inspired by, in tittle only, the Fred Vargas novel Pars Vite et Reviens Tard (Have Mercy On Us All). I have neither read the novel, or seen the recent 2007 film. Although I plan to do both when done with this story.

This story is copyrighted by back words 4.

Have Mercy On Us All

part 1

"I want to tell you something. I want to tell you about the monsters in my room and the bad dreams I'm having. They are behind the door and in the ceiling fan and in the shadows of the night light. Turn that off. Check behind the door. The horse's in my dreams are all unicorns with wings. They walk around like people and there's one behind the door."

-A beaded necklace rattles the wood as the door opens. The hollow ping of the plastic slapping the wood takes too long. Time begins to slow. But behind the door yields no monsters. No goblins. No unicorns with wings walking around. Just the horror of the once area daddies vacuum doesn't get. Dust bunnies. Far worse than Easter bunnies or fuzzy bunnies in the yard. A beaded necklace and a grey streak of dust behind an off white door.

"There's nothing in here. See. Monsters are just pretend. Besides, Mommy and Daddy would never let anything scare our little girl. We're right downstairs and you can come down if one appears."

"But mommy is not here and there are more monsters in the ceiling fan and the closet. The fan turns into a wing and the unicorn walks around up there. He wants to get home but he cannot get to the closet before they hear him. They lock the door on him. That's their hideout. There, behind that tent."

-The yellow fabric feels cool from the constant sway and billow of fan-wind. If it were a tent the campers would have to pray for no rain. The right hand section seemed to open itself with a ghostly swagger. The left hand panel of curtain held shut, blocking the light from the killer of all monster killers, a child's flashlight. Sometimes, the beam alone has been said to have launched ceiling fan monsters right back to Home Depot.

"Shine that light over here. For one little girl, you sure can jam pack a closet like a grown woman. Half of these clothes should be sent out to goodwill or something. The diapers. Those should be tossed, you haven't been in those for a year at least."

-The curtain stayed closed on the left side. There was a quick flash of white behind the plastic over wrap of a bag of diapers. A piece of thin trim from a panel. The trim was only one piece, straight up from the baseboard. The diaper bags, cloths and stuffed animals all toppled over with the slightest touch. With the hallway light illuminating parts of the wall, there was a change in the paint color. What was a clean white wall, seemed grey in part. The part felt different too. Like particleboard. Like it wanted to give a hand a splinter. A door.

-A makeshift, but flush with the existing wall, three by three square door. Big enough to crawl through. Any monster pliable enough to fit through though could not be that terrifying. The door looked like an access door to a fuse box, or a attic entry. Nothing near big enough for a talking winged unicorn.

-But big enough for a little girls imagination.

-The light bulb popped in concert with the switch.

-In the dark, the door in the closet seemed to disappear. Then, the square got darker as the panel fell back into a space behind the wall.