I know he is wrong. "But Dad, the hole!"

He takes a deep breath. "Look, I don't know what caused the hole. But it damm well wasn't monsters! Probably just water running off. Or rats, although I haven't seen or heard of any around here. I'll have somebody fill it in soon."

I shook my head. "But they made the hole. I don't think they will let you fill it in. It goes down really, really deep into the dirt and rocks to where the other people live. The hairy things. They bite!"

Dad kneels down to me . His breath smells bad like it does when he is drinking beer all the time. "Jimmy, I am so sick and tired of hearing you talk about imaginary monsters. If you don't stop it immediately, you are going to get a spanking. Do you understand? Look at me when I am talking to you! No more of this silly nonsense. You understand? Say, yes!"

I nodded. "Yes, Dad. But could we move somewhere else? Like Tommy and his mother and father? They are moving to Denver next month. Can we move too?"

Dad said the F-word, and stood up. He was mad and he hit me hard in the face. He went into the house to talk to Mommy.

I want to cry but Mommy says big boys don't cry so I try not to. I sit down on the steps to think and rub my hands in my eyes. It is hard to be a big boy. I wish Dad would not hit me. But when his breath smells bad he always hits.

I hear Dad yelling in the house. Mommy starts crying.

I know the creepy crawling things are in the basement. They made the hole with claws because they don't have no fingers. But they only like the dark. When you turn on the lights they hide. It hurts them.

The crawly people don't think right. Not like Mommy, or Dad, or Mrs. Johnson, Tommy's mother, or other kids. Not even like King. I cannot understand what they think of mostly. The pictures are wrong. I do not know what they mean. But I know they want to come out at night and eat people now.

They are not so much afraid of me anymore. Last winter I made some of them dead, but now they are bigger. If I was not so little, if I was big like Dad, I could make them all dead. But Dad cannot even hear them a little bit.

Yesterday, when Mommy was sleeping and Tommy and his mother went to the mall shopping, I made King come over and go down in the basement. I wanted him to bite the creepy things. Or maybe just scare them. Because King is a big scary dog, almost bigger than me.

They ate him.

I am very sorry for King. Everybody said he was a mean bad old dog. But he was always nice to me. He was just very tired and old. I know it hurt him when he ran. The scary things grabbed him with their claws and pulled him down deep. And then they ate him. They used to eat just bugs and worms and little white things in the dirt. But they liked King. They want more.

I think I did a bad thing sending King after them. He did not want to go but I made him. Now the creepy crawly hairy scary things in the basement want to eat more meat.

And they think people are meat.

I don't know what to do.