It emerged from the shadows, a small squat figure of dust and hair, paper clip and tape, bread crumb and lint. Gathered material from the rug underneath the furniture. A living counterpart to the static figure he had created and destroyed.

Daniel stood in the doorway of his room, frozen, unable to even suck in a breath, watching as the horrible creature moved away from him, down the hall.

To his parents’ room.

Their bedroom door opened. Closed.

“No!” he screamed.

“Daniel?” his father called from downstairs.

His parents had not come up yet! They were safe from that… whatever it was.

A relief so powerful that it seemed to weaken his muscles flooded over him, through him. He started left, toward the stairwell, when he heard the sound of a crash from his parents’ room. The sound of something falling.

And a partial yelp.

“Mother!” he screamed, running.

“Daniel!” his father bellowed from downstairs.

He heard his father’s heavy elephant tread from somewhere on the floor below, but he didn’t, couldn’t wait, and he rushed down the hall to his parents’ bedroom and threw open the door.

The creature was on the bed.

His mother, naked, thrashed about, bucking wildly, as the figure forced itself into her open mouth. Daniel was screaming for his father, screaming at the top of his lungs, but he could not take his eyes off the bed, where his mother tried to first yank the figure from her mouth, then began beating herself violently in the face, trying to dislodge it. He knew he should do something, but he didn’t know what, had no idea how he could help, and a moment later, before he could spur himself into action, his father was thundering down the hall and rushing through the open door and running up to the bed.

The figure’s feet disappeared down his mother’s throat.

“Help me!” his father ordered. He picked her up, began pounding her on the back. “Help me!”

Daniel didn’t know what to do, didn’t know how to help, but he rushed over and his father had him grab his mother’s arms and hold them up while he attempted to stick his fingers down her throat and pull out the creature.

Her face was already turning blue, and the weak wheezy gasps that had been issuing from her mouth had silenced. Her too-wide eyes stared blankly straight ahead, and only the open-close-open-close fish motion of her lips indicated that she was still alive.

Screaming crazily, a primal bellow of rage and pain, his father grabbed his mother around the waist, turned her upside down, and, holding her ankles, thumped his knee against her back in an effort to dislodge the dust creature.