I approached the center more slowly. Seeing the hand of the creature first, I was surprised to see what resembled a human hand with its fingers clawing at the high notes. As I rounded the corner fully, I’d swear I saw the scraggly tail of a dog running out. The figure at the keys was dimly lit, but hardly looked like the monster I had envisioned. From behind, it looked almost human. Its back was a bright pigment of green, hunched over the keys. It was mumbling something to itself and sobbing; I couldn’t see the head and I couldn’t understand.

“Excuse me…uh…Mr. Beast? Mam?” I managed to muster .

Its hand abruptly stopped touching the keys of the piano, the room didn’t just fall silent at that point, but it seemed void of any possible sound at all. It begin to turn towards me slowly. I stood my ground at the ready, knowing I couldn’t be hurt. The shape of the creature’s head started to take form and I was about to finally see what the creature truly was. Suddenly books began to topple from a far shelf and something else jetted through them. It was coming right towards me quickly in the dark. I could smell its foul breath as it knocked me over, landing on top of me, my head hitting tile floor. I caught a glimpse of what I’d swear were wolf teeth before it snorted and quickly disappeared again in the darkness. Or was it that I blacked out at that point?

“Are you okay, buddy? Are you still with me?”, I heard Charlie’s voice and opened my eyes finding myself on my back on the basement floor.

“What Happened?” I managed to mumble as I opened my eyes to see a blurry green robe with Charlies head floating just above it. I blinked a few times, “You know I hate it when you call me buddy.”

Charlie smiled, “I’m not sure. I was down here mucking about with the piano and heard you fall down behind me. You must have slipped, or something. Did you hear my awful attempt to play a tune on this thing? I didn’t mean to wake you. I was probably hitting the keys too hard. It wasn’t pretty! I was serious when I told you I couldn’t play.”

“Charlie, you were playing beautifully! I thought I was dreaming it at first. I was standing behind you listening to you play. It didn’t even look like you. I thought you were a zombie or something. You were good. Really good.”

Charlie chuckled, partly relieved that I wasn’t hurt, but mostly because he thought I was being ridiculous. “I think you might have hit your head a bit too hard. You have quite the imagination. Now we should get some ice on that bump and get you back into bed.”  Charlie nervously scooped me up off the floor into his arms.

“Charlie, I’m not making it up! You really were playing perfectly and then something jumped out and attacked me. I didn’t slip! Don’t you remember?”

“You know very well I can’t play much more than a kazoo and even that’s pretty bad. I’d love to be able to play like you say. Perhaps someday we’ll be playing beautifully together. Let’s get you up stairs, now. I’ll tuck you in.”
He carried me back through the maze of books along the path of the extension cord. I scanned the shelves trying to catch a glimpse of whatever pushed me to the ground. I hoped to catch a whisk of its tail, a leg poking out from behind a book, or even it’s snout backing around the next corner. Anything in anything to know I didn’t imagine it, but saw nothing. Charlie carried me up the steps. The walls weren’t the smooth stone I remembered as I stepped down the first time. Maybe Charlie was right and I did imagine the whole charade.

Charlie took me through the kitchen, down the hall over the floor boards, that seemed to stay silent under his step, and into my room where he gently laid me down pulling the covers up to tuck me back in for the night.

“Goodnight, George. Try to get some rest. We’ll talk about that crazy dream in the morning.”