The three brothers sat laughing. Even though older now and each in his separate house, they still loved their time together. They would meet every two weeks or so after work, to have a drink and relax. As is the case with siblings in general and brothers in particular, there was a certain air of doing one better in the stories they told. It was the last vestige of a childhood rivalry that would never completely fade, no matter how much love it was covered with. Tonight they had been talking about odd and frightening experiences from their childhood.

“That’s nothing.” The eldest laughed. “I have a story so scary, so horrible, that if I told it, you would beg me to stop.”

The two younger brothers rolled their eyes dramatically and figured that he had one drink to many tonight. Their looks of doubt made the oldest laugh even harder.

“I’ll tell you what, I will bet you each twenty dollars that my story is more frightening than the ones you told.” He said.

Quickly the youngest and middle sibling each slapped a twenty on the table. The love they shared didn’t preclude taking easy money. As they settled back, their brother began his story.

“Do you remember when we were kids?” He asked. “We would all be sitting in the living room watching T.V., with mom and dad on the sofa holding hands. Then, one by one, mom would put us to bed and she and dad would shut off all the lights then go upstairs to their bedroom.”

The youngest two nodded their remembrance and were puzzled over the story’s mundane plot so far.

The oldest continued, “That’s when it would happen. Every Thursday night, as we lay there, blankets pulled up to our chins, that horrible, frightening noise would begin. Squeak, a tiny noise followed by silence. Then squeak again. I would beg to fall asleep, beg to be taken away, anywhere away from that noise. It seemed the more I wished, the louder and quicker it came. Squeak, squeak, squeak, squeaksqueaksqueakSQUEAK! Till mercifully, it would end and I would breathe a sigh of relief. The SQUEAK SQUEAK SQUEAK louder than before, shaking the whole house.

He paused in his story and looked up. His youngest brother had inserted a finger in each ear and was shouting, “La, La, La, I’m not listening to you.”

The middle brother sat there glassy eyed and ashen faced. “My Lord, I had forgotten.” he was mumbling to no one in particular.

Seeming to come out of his trance, his eyes focused as he pushed the money towards his older brother and said, “Here take the money, but for the love of all that is Holy, let us never speak of this again!”

The eldest shuddered as he took the money and thought; some stories were better left untold.

“Joe, wake-up,” Margie frantically whispered.

“Leave me alone,” he muttered, rolling away.

“Joe, I hear strange noises.”

“As long as you aren’t hearing voices, you’ll be fine,” he replied.

“Wake up! This is serious!”

Groaning, he sat up in bed and listened. He was just about to tell Margie that she was imagining things again when he heard it.

Thump. Thump. Thump.

The sound was soft and strangely rhythmic. Reaching out to touch the wall, he could feel the faint vibrations.

“It sounds like it’s coming from next door,” he said.

“I know. Do you think we should call the police?” Margie asked.

“And say what?”

“That there are strange sounds coming from Janie’s apartment.”

Joe tried to hide his grin. “Do you realize what part of her apartment they’re coming from?”

“Sure, they’re coming from the bedroom,” her eyes widened as she realize the implications. “You don’t think…”

“…that Janie has a new boyfriend?” Joe finished for her. He paused as the thumping grew louder. “I’m not sure that I want to know. Why don’t you turn on the TV for a while?”

She grabbed the remote and turned on the set. The Three Stooges came to life on the screen.

As the Stooges’ antics became wilder, the noises became louder. Margie responded by turning up the volume. Soon, even the TV couldn’t drown out the sounds coming from next door.

Thump. Thump. Thumpthumpthumpthumpthumpthump…

The picture above the bed started to rattle, adding to the din. Joe climbed out of bed and started to put on his pants.

“Where are you going?” Margie asked.

“It’s 9:30 at night and I have to work tomorrow. I’m going to tell Janie to keep it down.”

“You can’t do that!”

“Why not?” Joe asked.

“You can’t…interrupt,” she whispered.

“I can, and I’m going to,” he said.

Margie jumped out of bed and threw on some clothes.

“What are you doing?” he demanded.

“Well, if you insist on bothering them, then I’m coming along to get a peek at the new boyfriend!”

Together, they made the short trip to Janie’s door. Joe knocked loudly on the door. The only response was the continued thumping. He knocked again. Still no answer.

As he raised his fist to pound on the door, they heard the faint ding of the elevator. Stunned, they watched as Janie stepped off carrying a box of laundry detergent. She greeted them with a puzzled smile.

“Is something wrong?” she asked. Joe shook his head as Margie blushed. Janie's expression changed to panic as she realized that the incessant noise was coming from her apartment.

“My new washing machine!” she wailed. “It’s going to be ruined!”

Janie rushed into her apartment. Within seconds the hall was silent.

When Janie returned to her door, Margie and Joe had disappeared. They never did tell her the purpose of their late-night visit.

3:23am – Aboard Flight CJ198 – Somewhere over the Atlantic.

I had a splitting headache and could no longer sleep. I quietly left my seat and headed down the aisle to the washroom. Suddenly, our plane slammed into severe turbulence.

Co-pilot Captain Thompson noted the drop in altitude, but was more concerned with discovering the source of that bump in the night from within the passenger cabin. It was me. I defied gravity and crashed through the ceiling with such force that my head breached the fuselage. The cabin pressure collapsed. Instantly, oxygen masks dropped from their hidden compartments. I, however, could not reach one because I was busy being sucked out of the plane into the night sky.

Moments later and a few thousand feet below, adventurer Steve Fossett, who happened to be napping during one of his unsuccessful round the world solo balloon flights, awakened to a bump in the night. It was me. Miraculously, I landed atop his airship in a surprisingly relaxing fashion. It was so comfortable that I was actually quite content to stay a while. Mr. Fossett however cited Guinness World Record’s rule number 72, which states ‘solo efforts must be done alone.’ So he kindly reduced his altitude to something closer to sea level to prepare for my eviction.

Coincidentally, only twenty or so feet below, Captain Winton was at the helm of his cruise ship when, from directly above the wheelhouse, he heard a bump in the night. It was Steve Fossett. I figured one fall was more than enough for me and that Mr. Fossett could use a real adventure. After shoving him overboard, I steered his balloon towards the ship at unfortunately an alarming speed. The second bump in the night was me. I crashed into the Lido deck’s heated pool. It was a lovely 84 degrees. I would have stayed longer if it weren’t for all the distracting commotion. It seemed that every ship official was milling about pondering how to handle such an occurrence. At the precise moment that I wondered ‘who was steering this ship?’ there was a bump in the night. We had hit an iceberg.

Not long after, I was treading water while the vessel dove to the frigid depths below. After it slipped from view and the noisy screams subsided, I peacefully became aware that it was a beautiful, starry night. It was then that I felt it. Something very large just swam past and gave me a bump in the night.

3:24am – Aboard Flight CJ198 – Somewhere over the Atlantic.

I awoke from my shark nightmare with a sudden jolt. From a rather contorted slumber position, I bounced my head off both my armrest and my tray table simultaneously. It made quite the loud bump in the night. I had a splitting headache and could no longer sleep. I quietly left my seat and headed down the aisle to the washroom.

Thump. Clatter. Whirrrrrrrrr….

What the heck was that?

I can’t see anything here in the dark, but I don’t dare turn on a light. Is that the sound a ghost would make as it floats through the house? Maybe it was some kind of monster, searching for food. Afraid of what I might bump into, I scuttle across the house toward the master bedroom. The only illumination is the pale yellow light from the streetlamps, invading the house through a gap in the curtain. By this dim guide, I make my way to the door and gently push it open, simultaneously wanting and not wanting to wake the sleepers within.

From the deeper darkness of the room comes a voice, crackly with the remnants of slumber. “What’s wrong?”

“There was a noise. I’m scared.”

She hardly stirs. Still half-asleep, she mutters, “It’s probably the cat.”

Of course, the cat. Wait! It couldn’t have been the cat. “It wasn’t the cat. He was in the den.”

“Then it was the house settling. Go to bed, Jeremy.”

“It didn’t sound like a settling noise. Who’s Jeremy?”

I can’t see her, but I can tell she’s swimming up through the drowsy depths as she rolls over. Apparently, she can see me better than I can see her. Her gasp alone is enough to wake most people, but she quickly reaches over to shake the man sleeping next to her, presumably her husband. “Frank! Wake up! There’s a strange man in the house.”

Frank, quite obviously caught fast in the grip of deep sleep, struggles to stay that way. “You’re dreaming. Go back to sleep.” He vainly tries to push her away and return to slumber, but her continuous shaking and yelling make that impossible. Defeated, he sits up in the bed, opens his eyes, and looks directly at me. He closes his eyes again, rubs them with his fists, and slowly reopens them. I’m still here. “Ellen, there’s a strange man in our bedroom. Who are you?”

“I’m Bob.” I say. Extending my hand I move toward the bed, but his recoil at my approach makes me stop. “I heard a noise out there. Can I stay in here with you?”

Frank looks upset. “No! You can’t stay here. I’m calling the police.” As he picks up the phone by his bedside, I start to back out of the room. Frank picks up a slipper from the bedside and waves it at me menacingly. “Stay right where you are, Bob!”

Now I’m confused. “You just said I can’t stay. Now you want me to?”

“Only until the police get here. Ellen, why don’t you go check on the boy.”

Maybe that’s who Jeremy is. I move aside to let Ellen pass. “I really don’t think you should send her out there. Like I said, there was this noise…”

“Shut it, Bob!”

I shut it. I hope the police can figure out what made the noise.

Terry and Mandy had been looking for a used car for over a month now. They had been looking for over two hours; the same routine for the past week. Rounding a corner, Terry spotted a vehicle that wasn’t there earlier and decided to stop.

After taking it for a quick five minute drive they jumped on it. They felt it was a good price for what they were getting. Getting late, the owner had agreed to let them drive it for the night on the promise they would return in the morning for the paperwork transfer.

Wanting to test the new vehicle, they decided to eat and head to the drive-in. Waiting in their car for the food they heard a noise.

BUMP…. BUMP! BUMP… BUMP!

“Great, should’ve figured this was too good of a deal!”

“Maybe it’s just something minor. Let’s go to the drive-in anyways. If it gets worse we can say we changed our mind and take the car back.”

They didn’t hear the noise again until the end of the first movie.

BUMP…. BUMP! BUMP… BUMP!

“There it is again!”

“Maybe we can have it checked out in the morning before we go back to the old man’s house. I’ll give my brother a call. He might know someone.”

BUMP…. BUMP! BUMP… BUMP!

“Damn!”

“Wait, how can a car make noise when it isn’t running?”

BUMP…. BUMP! BUMP… BUMP!

“You’re right Mandy. Besides, listen… it’s coming from the trunk.”

BUMP…. BUMP! BUMP… BUMP!

“The old man said there’s a trunk release under your seat we have to pull before using the key, that it was some kind of safety devise. See if you can find it.”

Mandy felt around under her seat when her hand found something cold and heavy. Raising it to eye level they saw it was a gun.

BUMP…. BUMP! BUMP… BUMP!

“Damn! Put the gun down Mandy, we’ll figure that out in a bit. First find that lever so we can check the trunk.”

Mandy slid the gun into the waist of her jeans and found the lever now that the gun was out of the way. As they stepped to the back of the car they popped the trunk. As the lid opened they were hit by a bright spot light.

“This is the police; put your hands in the air where we can see them!”

They raised their hands and looked into the trunk. Two bodies; one dead and one barely alive; a mob hit. Eager to get back into the good graces of the mob, the victim that lived pinned it all on Terry and Mandy.

The car was reported stolen. Mandy’s prints were on the gun. The seller said he had never seen them before. The mob added their own witness placing them both at the crime scene. It was an open and shut case.

Sentenced to death, at night in their cells they both hear:

BUMP…. BUMP! BUMP… BUMP!

Over and over again.

Bodamb woke up in a cold sweat. The heavy eiderdown blanket was clammy and drenched, and the scream still echoed around the stone walls of his chamber (east tower, level four, “Mage Administration Directorate – ‘if you ain’t got Form 27b signed in triplicate, get the heck out of our jurisdiction’ “ ). It was actually one of the nicer rooms in the MAD-tower, especially if you were a fan of cast iron trellises, dripping candles, and moldy murals.

Bodamb shivered. The nightmare that woke him was a recurring one, with sinister demons shoving illegible contracts into his face, their knife-sharp talons tapping indignantly onto highlighted passages in the documents.

“So, mighty Bodamb,” they hissed and spittled, “did you really think that your interpretation of the exception to subclause twenty-one beta slash seven-eight would be accepted by the Committee of Trans-Regulatory Malevolence?!”
Sneers were plastered onto their vile visages.

“Well… it wasn’t!” they cackled, screaming and slavering as they pounced on him.

That’s when he usually woke. If he was lucky.

Endeavoring to control his breathing, he tried to listen into the surrounding darkness. Something made him feel uneasy, a weird foreboding that things were amiss.
Maybe it wasn’t the dream that woke him?

His hand searched beneath the pillow for his trusted three-shot, point four five quick-repeating “Equalizer” wand. When you work in MAD, you tended to make sure you had the last word. Even if it was over someone else’s dead body.

“Famulus,” he croaked. Swallowing, he tried again, yelling louder this time.

“Famulus! Get in here!”

Nothing happened. If anything, the silence deepened, until it started collapsing into itself, pulling wisps of sound from the corners of the room and sucking them into oblivion.

Bodamb started trembling slightly. He couldn’t shake the feeling that there was something moving, just beyond the range of hearing, at the very edge of his perception.
With a slam, the door flew open, a tortured scream being emitted from the creaking hinges. Bodamb was paralyzed in fear.

A ghoulish, zomboid creature shuffled towards him, scraping and scuffling over the stone floor. A rasping sound uttered from its lips.
“Whaa?!”
His nerves strained to the snapping point, Bodamb screamed and squeezed of three quick shots from the wand before falling into a dead faint.

.......

The morning sun peaked through the windows, dispersing the horrors of the night.

Stirring awake, Bodamb looked at the snapped wand in his hand. His gaze wandered towards the door, and sauntered across the rather messy bits and pieces that were all that was left of his former famulus.

With a sigh, he threw away the remains of the wand and shook his head in exasperation. He would have to get someone to clean up the mess on the floor.
“Famu…,” he started.

Oh, never mind.

My boyfriend Rich and I decided it was time for a camping trip deep in the wilds of Idaho. 45 minutes out on a forest service road, 50 yards from a slow-moving creek, nothing around to bother us but the bugs. His father dropped us off with a cooler full of food, leaving us stranded for the weekend. I was thrilled.
We explored the area, saw signs of a beaver and a couple deer, tried our hand at fishing, caught a couple of crawdads, and after big chief know-it-all couldn't even think of a recipe, releaed them. We made a fire, pitched the tent, I dove into the food, cooked up beans and a few slices of cheese for dinner. Off in the meadow we heard coyotes yipping and the distant chirping of the crickets. We roasted a couple marshmallows, had a few beers, and eventually decided it was time for bed. We stripped down for..uh…warmth, and climbed into the tent.

We were on the verge of drifting off when I heard noise from camp. Claws scraping against the cooler, a pot thumped onto the ground. I sat up like an underfoot rake.
"Rich!" I hissed, nudging him, he was tense as a bridge cable.
"I know." He whispered back. "It’s a BEAR."
More dishes hit the ground.
Fear gripped me, "We’re stuck out here for three days! We can’t let him eat all our food!"
Rich gave a noisy swallow, raised his head, and in husky voice said, "I’ll chase it off."
He slowly unzipped the tent, took a deep breath and exploded into the campsite –buck naked, mind you- crouched with arms out like the cavemen of yore, releasing a great adrenaline-powered bellow.

Scared the crap out of that baby raccoon.

Tears filled my eyes upon seeing the intruder, accompanied by the the rude sound of stifled laughter coming out my nose.

He turned to face me, his unit swinging in protest, glared at me, and said in his most menacing voice: "DON’T LAUGH."

Two more days passed of limited conversation, glaring, and muffled giggling, but the food was safe.

Billy Sutcliffe at age 12 terrorized his six year old brother nightly.This was no ordinary big brother/little brother hazing. It revealed a budding talent as a director, conjoined to the morality of Natzi torturer.

When Terry was safely ensconsed in bed, with their parents downstairs watching TV, Billy, crept along the landing carrying his major prop, a dampened pillow. He made a loud bump, then dragged the pillow along the floor with an ominous slithering. Terry was now sitting up in bed straining nervously at every noise, “Stop that, Billy! I know it’s you!” he called.

Billy let out a gutteral sound, and dragged the heavy pillow nearer to Terry’s door.
“Billy, is that you? Is it?” By now Terry was shaking with fear. At this moment of maximum terror, Billy hurled himself into the darkened bedroom and threw the soggy bundle right on top of him. Terry’s shrieks were unmerciful as he fought with this damp thing.
His screams brought their parents upstairs, but they could understand little of the incident as Billy was contrite, and Terry was gibbering incoherently.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

As soon as he was of age, Terry put as much space as he could between himself and Billy. He emigrated to Australia and became a Park Ranger in Kakadu, the tropical National Park . Billy eschewed a career in dramatics. Instead he entered the dog-eat-dog world of P.R., where his amoral ways ensured a quick rise up the corporate ladder.

During a business trip to Australia, after an in-flight drinking session, Billy decided to drop in on his brother unannounced.
Terry made it obvious that Billy, was not welcome. He did give Billy a room for the night, but he also indicated curtly, that Billy should leave early in the morning.
Somewhat miffed that his 'little brother' now had cajones, Billy retired to the room and instantly fell into a drunken sleep.

He was awoken by a soggy bump and a slithering sound.
He broke into a guffaw.: “Oh, come on, Terry you friggin’ idiot! You're trying to fool the Maestro.” The slithering stopped. “Oh, Duh!” shouted Billy, “You can't even do it properly!” Chortling aloud, he flicked the light switch and went soundly back to sleep.

The Constable stared at Billy’s corpse . The python’s articulated jaws were stuck over his head like some exotic pice of headwear. After crushing him to death, the beast had instinctively tried to swallow him - and got stuck. The python, of course, was no worse for wear.
“What I don’t get is how a grown man can let something this big into his room. He must have been totally wasted.Pythons don’t move fast when the AC is on.”
Terry eyed his brother thoughtfully then said, “Sometimes people bring these things upon themselves.”
The constable, practiced in the art of reading emotions stared quizzically at Terry saying, “Now what the heck does that mean?”
But, Terry’s expression told him absolutely nothing.

Eric and Tom got out of the canoe for one last night in the park. After a cold supper of beans right from the can they turned in for the night as darkness fell quickly under the overcast sky.

“There isn’t much of a place to lay out the sleeping bags,” Tom complained. “And it’s sloped.”

“We’ll just have to sleep with our feet pointed downhill then, won’t we?” As the final light faded they climbed into their sleeping bags.

Just then there was a loud rustling in the bushes about 20 feet away. The darkness was already deep enough that everything beyond the small clearing was pitch black. Eric pulled out their only working flashlight. “The batteries in this thing are nearly dead,” Eric whispered. “I’m not sure I want to use it yet.”

“Use it, use it!” was the panicked reply from Tom. “The light may scare the bear off.”

Eric let out a chuckle, “you’re scared of bears now? We don’t know if it’s a bear. It could be a raccoon. BAAAA!!!” he yelled into the forest.

Tom jumped, “why did you do that?”

“Most animals are more scared of us then we are of them. I thought that if I made a loud noise I’d frighten off what ever was out there.”

“You scared the crap out of me, you idiot!”

“Shut up and go to sleep Tom. We can’t see what’s out there anyhow.”

Tom just grumbled a bit and they both settled down for the night. It took some time for Tom to fall asleep but Eric was out right away. Tom listened for any movement in the forest for a while before drifting off to sleep. There was no light at all when Tom awoke to something furry under his neck. At first he thought it was his cat cuddling up to him as usual. Then he heard a loud rustling noise and remembered where he was.

“AHHHHHH!!! I’m being attacked!” Tom started to fumble with the zipper of his sleeping bag and in his panic he was now rolling down the hill. A light hit him, blinding him, and someone was laughing. There also seemed to be an angry chirping noise as well. When Tom hit the lake his rolling was over. Eric rushed down the hill and pulled Tom out of the lake but could not stop laughing for several minutes.

“Why didn’t you help me?!” Tom asked once Eric had caught his breath.

“Help you? You didn’t need any help. The half dozen chipmunks that were in your sleeping bag with you needed help. They came pouring out of there as you rolled down the hill and ran off into the bush. I hope you didn’t drown any of the poor little things.” Tom just looked dumbfounded and that set Eric off on another fit of laughter.

It was midnight.

The cat was yowling again, looking out the window at dim street lamps and the shadow of the neighbor’s Tom. In the other room, she buried her head under the pillow and prayed for silence. Her head throbbed as the cat’s wails grew louder and more insistent. Every few minutes she pulled the pillow off her head long enough to shout at the animal.

It hadn’t been her idea to get a cat. Her ex was allergic to dogs, and he’d worked nights, so he’d insisted she have some animal to “protect” her when he was at work. What she wound up with was a mangy yellow cat with pale green eyes and a crooked tail, which her ex had refused to take with him when he moved out. She wondered how much longer her neighbors would tolerate the creature. The apartment had paper thin walls and every night since they’d brought the cat home, he’d sat on the back of the couch, staring out the window and wailing.

“Please, please, for one night, would you please shut up?” she half yelled, half begged before diving under the pillow for what felt like the fifteenth time. In response, she heard a deafening crash, as though someone had broken in through a window, and then silence.

She waited. Nothing. Part of her was grateful, because whatever IT was that had broken into her apartment had silenced the cat. The other part was terrified that she would be next, and livid that she hadn’t been the one to have the pleasure of silencing the animal. She held her breath and listened intently. There was a rustle of fabric. Was something was approaching her bedroom door?

She pressed herself against the mattress, looked around for a weapon. The tall posts of the bed beckoned her. They could be screwed off the headboard, and were about the size of a baseball bat. As quietly as she could, she armed herself, and waited for the doorknob to turn.

Again, nothing. Slowly, she crept to the door, and holding the bedpost high, turned the knob and eased the door open. A thin line of dim light crossed the floor as she opened it wider. There was nobody there. She flipped a switch and tried to find the source of the crash that had silenced the cat. Her living room looked exactly as it had when she had gone to bed, down to the book on the table opened to the same page she’d left off on. Again, she heard a rustle, and she spun around frantically. The curtain behind the couch was moving. Slowly, post held ready, she walked toward the couch. With a jerk she pulled on the curtain, and found, laying behind the couch, with a spot of blood on his nose where he’d crashed into the window, her dazed cat.