Solomon heard footsteps at night. They marched persistently, softened like heavy boots on carpet. They sounded near enough to trample him in his bed, but they never crossed the threshold of his mattress. No matter how loudly they stomped, the noise woke neither his sister in the bunk above him nor his parents in the room across the hallway. The footsteps sounded for Solomon alone.
His imagination—unruly and unconditioned by maturity—scampered for an explanation. It was a given that he was dealing with a monster, but he wondered how the steps could sound so close. If the creature plodded near his bed, that meant it could seize him at any moment. That thought terrified him, so he pretended the monster was on the other side of town. To account for the intensity of the footsteps, Solomon had to scale the creature’s size, expanding it to Godzilla proportions. However, even this distance was too close. To save himself, Solomon pushed the monster to the other side of the world, then to the end of the galaxy, before settling on the edge of the universe.
As the distance between Solomon and the threat became infinitely immense, the beast transformed into an infinite behemoth, an Outer God of one boy’s fears. It maintained a humanoid appearance but lacked detail, appearing like a silhouette of dark static against the emptiness of space. Its spindly arms reached to its clawed feet. Sometimes, Solomon imagined its ogre-like face as it stared at him from across the universe. Its strides pressed through solar systems, thousands of planets obliterated into footholds as it stalked toward Earth. Its footsteps roared, losing volume throughout the galaxies until they became heavy boots on carpet near Solomon’s bed.
With lightyears upon lightyears separating Solomon from his attacker, the fear decreased marginally. As an additional precaution, he reasoned the monster only moved when he could hear the footsteps, which averaged once every other week. With this system, if he grew afraid, he could focus on the expansive distance between him and evil until sleep overcame fear.
Throughout his childhood, Solomon implemented multiple safeguards to ensure he lived through the night. He slept with his head covered, tucking the comforter underneath his body to seal himself from the outside. In the summer, he would bathe in his sweat because he could not afford to forfeit his comforter’s protection. A sheet could be transparent and thus was unusable because any visible flesh was an invitation for mutilation. He permitted himself a small opening in his cocoon near his mouth so he could still breathe. It was a risk, but death by suffocation also scared him.
He maintained a fetal position throughout the night. If he did not tuck his head into his chest, a monster would bite off everything from his eyebrows up. Drawing his legs and arms to his chest served to make him a smaller target against random stabbings. He lay with his back against the wall, an impenetrable protection. When he could, he measured his breathing, inhaling and exhaling deeply to mimic sleep. Solomon understood no monster found enjoyment from snatching a slumbering child.
Solomon’s fears were typical for his age. The front covers of Goosebumps books created the majority of his monster archetypes. His morbid fascination in horror movie posters and promo shots spawned the rest. Solomon never actually read or watched horror; that would be too much.
His traitorous imagination ultimately led to nightmares, albeit the developmentally-appropriate schlock for children. He hated his powerlessness in his dreams. None of his hiding spots fooled the monsters. He could never rely on his ability to run. He was too afraid to physically fight back. Sometimes, he even did nothing.
In a recurrent dream, Solomon would be at home, watching TV with his family in the den. He would grow nervous, seeing that someone had left the door open to the windowless basement. Far into the basement, the family’s home computer would suddenly flick on, shining a blinding light from the darkness. Neither his parents nor his siblings would notice, but Solomon would. He needed to close the door. He would tentatively walk towards the basement, but once he had reached the door, his body would not stop, instead leading him down into the darkness and closer to the monitor. He would will himself to scream, to escape, but his body would allow neither. Once he had reached the computer, he could move freely once again. The moment he did, the door would close, and he would wake up.
Solomon ran to his parents after nightmares, seeking safety and comfort. On their full-size mattress, his parents squeezed together to allow him an edge to lay next to them. They put up with the discomfort for a few minutes before one of them coaxed him back to bed. Solomon never felt any less scared when his father or mother tucked him in. His parents recognized this because they understood the power of childhood fears. They also knew sleep deprivation was far more frightening.
Outside of his bedtime, Solomon began to experience the demons of everyday life. Around the age of nine, his depression started festering. It manifested as irritability at first, and minor inconveniences resulted in mood swings. At school, he seemed to annoy his classmates, and he had yet to understand that his prickly behavior lent to his own isolation. At home, he had convinced himself that his parents had abandoned him, having chosen to invest their emotional energy in his siblings instead.
His nightmares gradually incorporated fewer imaginary horrors. Instead, people attacked him. His assailants most often fought with sharp objects, be it knives, rapiers, or claws. Unlike his previous dreams, he no longer woke up right before he was hurt. Although he had never suffered anything more than superficial cuts in the real world, his mind convinced him that stab wounds and open gashes caused excruciating pain.
Of all his nightmares, he most dreaded those involving his family, largely due to a single dream. In this dream, he found himself fighting human-sized face cards, in his backyard no less. Cardboard-thin jacks, queens, and kings sparred with him, flailing their simplistic, gold-handled swords. Solomon typically did not overcome his attackers in nightmares, but in this case, he managed to deal consecutive lethal blows to his enemies. With each finishing strike, however, the face card would be replaced with a family member. Ignorant of the nonsensical nature of the entire situation, Solomon felt terror as his family died before him. When he woke up, he did not run to his parent’s room.
But he still ran. As he progressed through his middle school years, he collapsed into his own narrative, one in which he was the tragic hero tortured by an unfair world. He sought to blame others for his own unhappiness because his ego was too fragile to accept his negative impact on his life. He believed everyone disliked him. He wanted to be the stoic loner yet clung to his classmates and family for recognition and companionship. He hated everyone but desperately needed them.
In his nightmares, the people shifted from villainous caricatures to everyday individuals. Their hostility toward Solomon gave way to indifference. Without the aggression from others, Solomon incited the violence himself, preemptively attacking the inhabitants in his dreams. He began to see a part of himself as wholly evil.
During one night in all those years, Solomon experienced an overdue epiphany. Puberty had come and gone, yet he still slept with the comforter over his head. On that hot night, he had nearly soaked through the blanket with his sweat. He still feared the dark, so he could not peek his head out for longer than a minute. He emerged from his comforter to flip his pillow over, hoping the cooler side would give him some relief.
Once he had situated the pillow, he tucked the comforter under himself once more and laid on his side, one ear to the pillow. As he settled, he began to hear the footsteps, unchanged from the countless nights before this one. This time, he became aware the subtle pounding in his head. It thumped in sync with the footsteps, and Solomon finally understood. There was no monster, no horror marching towards him from lightyears away. He had been hearing his heartbeat. Every time, it came from himself.
In his brazen boar of blankets, Solomon roasted alive.