What Was Your Childhood Monster?

Today I have a lot of guests on my blog. I am taking part in a fun blog fest, What was Your Childhood Monster?, started by Christine Rains. Christine is an author, and her latest book, a  paranormal romance novella, Fearless was  released yesterday. She came up with the idea of having lots of other folks write about the monsters of their childhood as a fun way to promote her book.  She says on her website that one of her favorite parts of writing the story was creating monsters spawned from children's imaginations. Some of them are silly, but there's no rhyme or reason to a child's fears.

There are 49 authors participating in the blog fest, and the stories are varied. The blog fest started yesterday and will conclude tomorrow. If you have time over the next few days, visit a few of the other blogs to see what monsters frightened some of my author friends. A full list of the blogs is at the conclusion of this post.

My childhood monster always came to me in a dream that recurred frequently over a period of about a year or so when I was about 7 or 8 years old. This was a human monster who chased me from the field on the corner of my street, brandishing an ax. In my dream I would always slip and fall on the gravel driveway leading to the house and would have blood seeping out of the scrapes as I ran into the house.

There I saw my mother at the stove so I called to her, "A man is chasing me with an ax. Don't tell him where I have gone."

Then I would run and hide deep in the closet that ran under the staircase, listening as the man burst into the house. I heard him say, "Where is the girl?"

"Under the stair case."

I would always wake up just as the man pushed clothes aside and found me, which was a good thing. Some experts at interpreting dreams say that if you die in a dream, you actually do die. I wonder if that is true?

Now that I am all grown up - well, maybe - I have forgiven my mother for the betrayal, although I always did wonder why she was so cavalier in giving away my hiding place. In my dream she always just kept stirring the pot on the stove and nodded toward the hall leading to the bedroom and the closet.  I asked her once and she just told me to stop being silly. In some ways I'm glad I didn't listen to her.

So what is the monster from your childhood? We'd love to know so you can share your story in a comment here or any of the other blogs. Have fun!