Extract From Notebook 4
It’s funny how, once we’ve grown up, we don’t have the same fears that we have when we’re young.
We might fear we’re going to be burgled or stalked or murdered, yet very few people check their homes for an intruder when they come in from work in the evenings.
Whereas children often fear that a monster is lurking in their bedroom and will check behind the door and in the wardrobe and under the bed before going to sleep.
You, Nell, check behind the door and in the wardrobe but you never look under the bed. Which is just as well.
Your bed is antique and high off the ground, and you’ve thoughtfully covered it with a pale green throw which reaches to the floor on all sides.
If you’d thought to look under it tonight, and had found me hiding there, it wouldn’t have mattered because you’d have been dead before you’d had the chance to scream.
But it never occurred to you that there might be a monster lurking under your bed; thanks to the window I’d thought to leave ajar, you presumed I’d already left.
I almost wished you had looked, because I would have enjoyed seeing the terror that would have coursed through you when you saw me waiting with my knife.
When you began to pull the throw off the bed, my excitement surged again; now, you would surely see me.
But you didn’t turn around so you didn’t notice I was there, so close I could have reached out and nicked your foot with my knife.
For a moment I was tempted to, just to see your reaction.
But you left the room, pulling the throw behind you, and I guessed that you were going to sleep downstairs.
It was just as well because had you chosen to sleep in your bed, I’m not sure I could have resisted the urge to drive the knife up through the gap in the springs, through the mattress and into your body.
It’s such a delicious thought that it might be how it happens when I kill you.