The Troll

Stephanie was a twelve-year-old girl who didn’t like doing what she was supposed to. Not that she cared. She only went to school to hang with her friends. Why should she be bothered by stupid homework when there was friend drama to dip her toes into? Why should she do her chores when she had the latest video game to play?

Her mother seemed extremely concerned, and Stephanie worried for her sanity. She had lectured her about how homework helped her to solidify what she had learned so that she wouldn’t forget it. She had scolded her about not caring and had even tried grounding her to no avail. One night, things finally came to light that made absolutely no sense to Stephanie and that’s when she began to worry for her mother.

Her mother kept casting furtive glances at her during dinner and when she could stand it no more, Stephanie dropped her fork and sighed.

“Mom? What?” she asked, irritation obvious in her voice.

“There’s something you need to know…” her mother started.

“What?”

“When I was a kid around your age, I had gone over to a friend’s house with the intention of doing homework. Instead, we sat watching television, listened to music and gossiped rather than do what we were supposed to do, and it led to something that I will never forget.”

“Mom… what are you talking about?” Stephanie asked, groaning internally. She knew where this was leading.

“Shut up and listen okay?” her mother snapped.

Stephanie’s eyes widened in surprise, “Okay, geez…”

“We were supposed to be doing our homework, not goofing off. I guess my friend had been neglecting her work for a long time, because she was failing every class. She didn’t seem to care, and at the time, I didn’t either because I was headed down the same path that she was.”

Stephanie nodded and kept her jaw firmly clenched. There were many comments that she wanted to make but decided that now was not the time to let them flow freely. Something in her mother’s tone made her pause when she normally wouldn’t have.

“It started to get late and I had to leave. As I was walking down the street, I remembered that I had left my science book laying on the floor in her room. I didn’t want to get into trouble for not having it in class the next day. I know I could have called her to bring it in, but I hadn’t been that far from her house so, I just turned around and went back.” Her mother said her eyes suddenly looking glassy and faraway.

Stephanie couldn’t help herself as she leaned forward to listen to her mother’s every word.

“When I got back up to her room, I could see that the light was off when it had previously been on. I thought that was strange because, she had told me that she had no intention of going to bed just then. She had wanted to catch a late-night movie and was planning to paint her nails as she watched. She certainly couldn’t do that in the dark.”

Her mother paused to pick up her water glass and took a long drink from it and set it back down softly.

“I heard a muffled scream from behind the door and I called out my friend’s name and I pushed her door open slowly. She shrieked my name just before I turned on the light. When the light flashed on, I saw my friend on the floor, her legs under her bed. She was looking up at me with frightened eyes. I reached out for her but screamed and drew back when I saw a massive gray hand come from under the bed to grab her face. My friend scraped and scrabbled at the floor trying to get away but… it pulled her under the bed.” Her mother stopped talking then and stared off into space.

She didn’t say anything for so long that Stephanie began to worry, and she tapped her mother lightly on the hand when her mother wouldn’t respond to her name. Her mother jumped and looked up at Stephanie with wide, serious eyes.

“It took her because she was lazy. It took her because she wasn’t doing what she was supposed to be doing to get by in life.” Her mother spoke the words slowly and deliberately.

Stephanie’s interest and concern ebbed away and was quickly replaced by irritation, “Mom are you serious right now? You are trying to tell me, that something came and took your friend because she didn’t do her homework? Really mom? Really?”

“I’m telling you the truth. It was a troll. After my friend was taken, no one believed me, and I had to try to find ways to prove what I saw. I-I was thrown into seclusion for a time, but when I got out, I was able to look up different things and found a lot of source material that backed up what I said! There is a troll that takes kids who are lazy. It takes them and no one knows what happens to them because they never make it back. Don’t you see?” her mother’s expression was frantic.

“Mom you’re scaring me. You need help.” Stephanie said as she got up and shoved her chair forward.

“No! Listen, it’s the truth!” her mother called after her, but Stephanie ignored her.

She tromped up the stairs and into her room, slamming the door behind her. She locked the door and refused to answer her mother’s muffled pleas as she booted up her computer and began playing a first-person shooter game.

Eventually her mother went away from the door and Stephanie began to lose track of time as she played her game. To her it felt like only a minute had passed as she looked up at the clock and realized that it read eleven pm. Oh well, there were more skills to gather, more teams to knock out of the race. Besides, she wasn’t at all tired.

Several more minutes passed when the first noise echoed through the room. It was a soft scrape, but it was just loud enough to catch Stephanie’s attention for a moment. She paused to listen and look around, then shrugged it off and went back to her game. Another minute later and she heard another scrape, this time louder, closer. She looked up from the monitor and turned to look back toward her door and then her bed. That’s when the lights went out.

Startled, Stephanie jumped to her feet so fast, her computer chair rolled across the floor and hit the wall with a loud thump.

“Mom?” she yelled toward the door, “Did the power go out?”

Her mother didn’t answer her right away, and she wondered if that meant her mother had already gone to bed.

Convinced that a fuse had blown, or some other problem had caused their power to go out, she started toward the door, but stopped quickly when she heard the low guttural growl coming from her right. Silence fell as soon as she stopped walking. She stood and listened for a moment and when nothing else happened, she chalked it up to it being thunder or maybe the power trying to restore itself and walked blindly toward the door.

As soon as she reached her door, she pushed her hand out to find the doorknob but found that she couldn’t find it. The it seemed to have disappeared.

“What the hell?” she said out loud as she moved her hand over the door, not even feeling the hinges.

She knew the door was there, she could feel the smooth wood beneath her fingers.

She knocked on the door hoping that it would be loud enough to rouse her mother, “Mom?” she called.

Still no answer.

She moved her hands up and down the door and as she was straightening herself back up, she felt hot breath on the back of her neck. It smelled like sour and she instinctively raised her hand to her nose to cover it.

“Ugh, what is that…?”

A low growl came again, this time directly behind her.

“M-mom?” she called out meekly as she slowly turned to face whatever it was behind her.

A hulking figure towered over her; it’s back hunched over in order for its face to be right near hers. She couldn’t see any of its features, other than the slimy gray of its skin and the shine of its dull muddy eyes as it took her in. It sniffed her then, breathing in her scent, as if smelling a delicacy that was laid before it. It snarled again but didn’t move. She was too afraid to move, but felt her bladder let go and the warmth of urine flow down her sweatpants and onto the floor. The beast seemed pleased by the scent and breathed it in amply. She whimpered and pushed herself back against the door.

Her mother had been right the whole time. Why hadn’t she believed her? Why had she been so stupid not to listen?

Suddenly a massive gray hand shot out of the darkness and Stephanie screamed as it grabbed her round the waist, easily lifting her off the ground. The air rushed out of her lungs as she was suddenly slammed into the floor. It took her a second to realize what was happening but as soon as her breath came back to her she let out a horrified scream as she began to sink into the shadows under her bed.

“MOM!” she shouted and scratched at the floor in front of her to try and break the hold the creature had on her.

Just then, her mother burst into the room.

“Stephanie?” she asked confusedly.

“Mom!” Stephanie cried as she slid further under the bed.

She could feel the beast’s hand tighten around her waist.

“Stephanie! No!” her mother shouted, realization dawning on her face.

Stephanie’s mother started toward her but stopped in surprise when another hand shot out of the shadows from under the bed and wrapped around Stephanie’s face. Stephanie’s cries became muffled as she scraped and scrabbled against the floor, then all was silent as Stephanie was pulled into the shadows and out of sight. She was gone. The only thing that Stephanie’s mom could see before there was nothing but dust bunnies and boxes under the bed again was a pair of muddy eyes staring back at her. When they disappeared, she slipped to the floor and began to cry.

“I told her…” she muttered and began to rock back and forth.

To this day that remains the only phrase she repeats while she rocks back and forth in a chair in her room at the local hospital.

Authorities have no leads on where Stephanie is. Only thing that remained were scratch marks left on the floor next to her bed. She remains missing and the case has grown cold.