Tanner could hear the monster beneath his bed. It was getting closer.

It sounded wet and squelchy, like suction cups through a layer of Jello. The sound make him think of tentacles, and of eyelids, heavy with slime, slowly peeling open to reveal too many dull red eyes.

He tried to control his fear. It was his fear that attracted them, he knew. Uncle Howie had taught him that. Mom and Dad didn’t didn’t understand. They thought he was too old to be scared of the dark, too old for a nightlight, too old for “such foolishness.”

They didn’t know about the shadow tunnels.

Uncle Howie had confirmed what Tanner had always suspected. The monsters used darkness to travel from their world to ours. Where ever there was a patch of shadow dark enough, they could open a tunnel to let themselves through.

“But only if there’s a clear shot from the shadow to the victim,” said Uncle Howie. “If there’s a door in the way, they can’t open the tunnel. That why you gotta keep your closet door closed.”

“And a nightlight?” Tanner had asked.

“A nightlight isn’t a guarantee. It’s a light, and lights make shadows. But you can position it — or position the stuff around it — so those shadows aren’t dark enough to open tunnels.”

“What do they want? The monsters? What do they want?”

Uncle Howie had gone silent for minute, gazing out the window of his trailer with a look in his eye Tanner couldn’t understand. The trailer smelled like burning grass.

“I don’t know, Tanner. I think they want our fear –”

“Like in that Pixar movie?”

“…Yeah. I guess. Only, once they get it, once they mark you. They keep coming back. It’s like… It’s like they’re farming us.”

“For food?”

“And they keep coming back to harvest.”

The thing beneath the bed was close enough for Tanner to smell it. It had a rotten smell, the smell of a dumpster full of meat and eggs left out all day in the sun. Tanner could imagine tendrils of stink reaching over the edge of the bed and filling his lungs.

“Go away!” he hissed over the side of the bed. “I’m not afraid!”

But he was afraid. No matter how many times he went through this, he was still afraid.

“You can’t stop yourself from being scared,” Uncle Howie had told him. “God knows I’ve tried. But you can fight through the fear. If the fear tries to paralyze you, then you gotta find something else to keep you going. Me, I get angry.”

But Tanner wasn’t one for anger. He was the oldest child, eager to please and quick to forgive, more interested in making peace than coming out ahead. When the monsters came, it wasn’t anger that drove him, but a sense of duty. For if he fell, there would be no one left to protect his little sister.

Maria was four. She had nightmares now and then, but the monsters hadn’t found her yet. Tanner could tell because she still laughed and smiled and didn’t scream in the night.

A rubber ball at the edge of Tanner’s bed slowly rolled toward the center of the room. The thing under the bed giggled like a tar pit.

Tanner sat up in bed. He reached for the glass jelly jar he kept on the shelf next to his alarm clock and comic books.

“Go away!” he said again. He spoke aloud. His parents would sleep through anything short of full-body scream, and even then…

He thought about Maria.

Something squirmed out from beneath the bed. It captured what little light seeped through the windows and glistened. It grew. Long strings of slimy black matter looped and piled onto themselves, melting together into some indistinguishable, pulsating shape. Its scent filled the room.

“It doesn’t matter how big the monster is,” Uncle Howie had told him. “It can squeeze through even the smallest tunnel. Here. It’s all in this book.”

When Tanner was sure the monster was as big as it was going to get, he stood up on his bed and held the jar out in front of him.

“By the horns of Astaroth I command you!” he said. His voice only cracked a little bit.

The thing on the floor twisted. Tanner couldn’t see any eyes on it, but felt it was looking at him. He had its attention.

“In the name of the Crawling One, I command you!” The words came faster now, stronger.

“By the southern wind of flame, I bind you!” On cue, a breeze from nowhere ruffled his bangs.

“By the northern wind of ice, I bind you!” The breeze turned cold and moist, raising goosbumps on his skin. The monster recoiled from it and shivered.

“By the western wind of stone, I bind you!” As the odor of wet earth filled the room, the thing on the floor seemed to realize what was happening, and started oozing back towards the bed. But Tanner knew it was already too late.

“By the eastern wind of storm, I bind you! Get in the jar!”

Lightning flashed inside the boy’s bedroom. Tanner knew it was coming, and kept his eyes closed. He heard the monster screaming, and felt it flowing, like a giant mud-filled slug, into the jelly jar.

When the thing stopped twitching in his hands, Tanner opened his eyes, popped the lid on the jar, and inscribed the final seal across the word “raspberry” with a Sharpie.

“I told you to go away,” he said.

He carried the jar across the room, and opened his closet door. He flipped the closet light on. The shelves of jars at the back of the closet shrieked.

Tanner added tonight’s jar to his collection and closed the door, the light still burning.