Waking in darkness

He woke, scared and confused in the darkness.  Lying still, trying to figure out what woke him up, he noticed the room was darker than usual.  He waited for his eyes to adjust, but nothing happened at first. Then he forgot about his eyes as his ears tuned in to a low rumbling noise.  A chill ran up his spine as he realized the noise was under him.  Under the bed, right where he lay..

He sat there petrified as the rumbling grew louder, changed to a growl... He couldn't move even when the bedsheet started moving as something started to come out from under the bed.  He tried to scream, to call out... his father lay asleep in the next room and would surely know how to deal with this...

He strained to make some noise, but all that came out was a whisper of sound, so soft he hardly heard it himself... "Dad..."

But even if he didn't hear it, the thing did. It ceased the growling sound and for a moment, a flash between breaths, he thought things would be okay.  But then the sheet started moving again - this time towards him. He fought his frozen limbs. Struggled to get them to move.

As the thing beneath the sheet reached within arms length he wrenched his head away, and finally leapt from the bed just as the thing leapt too...