What’s Your Personal Monster?

Everyone has been scared by some personal monster, tailored just for us. We’ve all been terrified by the unknown slobbering thing under our bed to the point that we believe we’re going to die of fright. It may seem ridiculous in the morning, but at night it’s as real as the covers we pull over our head.

And we all have our definitions of what makes a monster. It could be a sun-deprived ghost, or green-skinned aliens, or an ax-wielding psycho with three personalities. Maybe the monster is make-believe, a second rate actor on TV with two-dollar fangs and horsehair glued to every inch of exposed skin. Or possibly something a little more terrifying, like a parent who used your back as an ashtray.

We all have our monsters we carry with us through life.

For me, when I was younger, I’d heard about Bloody Mary. I don’t remember the whole story except for this: look in a mirror at night and repeat, “I believe in Bloody Mary,” after which she’d appear. That’s all I needed to know. Bloody Mary tortured me through most of my childhood. I didn’t need to see her; just knowing she lurked out there in the mirror world was enough to keep me from walking into a bathroom with the lights off.

Even now that I’m rapidly approaching mid-life (whatever that number is nowadays) and when I walk into a darkened room with a mirror, sometimes my thoughts race back to eight-year-old me and I get a slight sensation of what I once feared. It’s there and gone before I completely realize what went on. Ambushed me.

Yeah, it’s hard to shake monsters. Especially personal monsters.

In my latest short story, Re:evolution and the Radiant Machine, there are many types of monsters: monstrous men, monstrous machines, monstrous thoughts. People see other people as monsters. People act as monsters when they think they’re trying to stop monsters. It’s like a monster parade, but played out through a sci-fi story.

This story is found in an anthology of great short stories by some great indie authors. Some you might know, others you might not. Pick up this anthology and see what monsters haunt the dreams of these authors. Click the image to be taken to Amazon. You won’t be disappointed. At least I hope not…