It was a normal quiet and peaceful evening as I sat down in front of the television, expecting to relax for the last few hours of my day. The time had already passed nine o’clock, and it was pitch black outside. I am usually never bothered by living alone in the middle of nowhere, until this one particular evening. Just as I was settling in my chair and watching the sports highlights from the afternoon, I was startled by a very strange and loud “THUMP” somewhere in the background. At first, I assumed that it was only my imagination, and figured that it was a noise coming from the television or perhaps from a car passing by on the street. I got up and looked out the window and saw nothing, so I went back to my chair and sat down. That’s when it happened again. No sooner had I gone back to watching the television when an even louder series of bumping noises occurred. At that point, I started to become somewhat worried, my mind racing through the possibilities of what might be creating these noises. I said to myself, “Has someone broken into the house? Or maybe it was just a small animal that had found its way into the cellar.”

I decided that I would go around and check to make sure nothing out of the ordinary was even going on. Slowly, I made my way down the staircase into the cold, dark and damp basement, and flipped on the lights. Nobody was down here, and nothing looked disturbed. Dismissing it as no big deal, I turned back toward the stairs, and as I was walking, there was a shuffling sound that began above my head. It was upstairs, moving across the floor. Suddenly I was very frightened, and I darted up the stairs to see what was going on. Walking back through the kitchen, I saw nothing. Cautiously, I poked my head through the living room doorway, and what I saw made me jump backward. There was a lump underneath the carpet. A very large lump that was moving. Slowly and carefully, I started to move in its direction. Whatever this creature was, it must have noticed me and then it decided to dart underneath the sofa. Startled and confused, I muttered to myself, “How did this thing manage to get underneath the rug?”

I cautiously approached the couch and moved it away from the wall, only then nothing was there. It was no longer anywhere in the room. For the rest of that night, I never saw it again. It was very difficult to go to sleep and not think about what happened. The slightest sound or sensation of movement made my hair stand on end.

The next morning, the images of the bump in the rug were still fresh in my mind, and I began to wonder if anyone else was hearing strange noises or witnessing anything strange. I stepped out on the porch to get the newspaper and my neighbor, Mr. Jones, was standing by the fence. He yelled to me, “You look awful tired this morning!”

“I had a very creepy phenomenon happen to me in my living room last night,” I said.

“Have you been hearing strange, loud noises? I have been hearing other people nearby talking about weird things going on,” he replied, looking interested.

“Lots of weird sounds and a moving lump under the rug. Something found its way under my carpet and started moving around.”

“Actually, I have been hearing things like that, too,” Mr. Jones said, “an unexplained creature keeps showing up underneath people’s blankets, rugs, bedspreads and the like. Scares them out of their minds.”

“I will have to keep my eyes peeled,” I replied back and went back inside.

Time went by and no more sightings occurred, and I put the strange occurrence in the back of my mind. Two weeks passed and it happened again. I woke up in the middle of the night and was thirsty, so I got out of bed and headed toward the door. Just before approaching the door, I stepped on something hard under the carpet, and I nearly tripped it was so big. Jolted in terror from my half-awake state, I jumped to the doorway and turned the light switch on. The same lump under the rug was in the bedroom slithering around. I picked up the desk chair and tried to hit it, but it darted away. It knocked over the table, and the lamp went smashing to the ground plunging the room back to darkness. I ran out of the room in a cold sweat and breathing heavily. Luckily, that was the last time I ever saw the mysterious creature. Perhaps I am not meant to know the full truth, and it’s probably better that way. For other people, they won’t be so fortunate. This monster-like creature comes with a bump in the night, or sneaks up on someone when they are least expecting it. All I can say is: “Watch your step, and expect the unexpected.”