Becca piloted the yellow rubber duck along the surface of the bath water, launching it through a berg of soap bubbles with a “Whoosh!” and sending it soaring for a victory flight.

As the duck dove back into the water, Kev submerged a bar of soap and launched it up his daughter’s spine. Becca laughed and wriggled at the touch.

“Did that tickle?” Kev asked, setting the bar in the corner of the tub and reaching for the bottle of no-tears Muppet shampoo.

Becca resumed her duck’s circuit back through the bubble berg. “It makes me feel wiggy.”

“Wiggy?” Becca’s vocabulary was pretty good for a four-year-old. This sounded not like a mistake, but a word she had coined.

“You know, that oogy-feeling,” she explained, matter-of-fact, as the duck again launched and plunged. “Like worms in your hair.”

Sometimes Kev would pretend he held an egg full of worms and crack it over Becca’s head, his fingertips wriggling over her scalp and down her back. Becca would squirm and squeal, “Again! Again!”

She set the sudsy duck on the edge of the tub, sat up, peered over the side, and scanned the floor near the toilet. “Can I read my book?”

Kev’s hands were busy massaging the shampoo into a lather and working it through her shoulder length blonde hair. “In the tub?”

“Yeah,” Becca said, pretending she didn’t know better. The board book pages would not survive a reading in the tub. She had not quite finished the book during her pre-bath big-girl potty time. Even though she could recite the tale word for word from memory, she did not like to leave it undone. After all, the story was a mystery that needed to be solved.

“Why don’t you finish it after your bath?” Kev suggested. He filled a large plastic cup to rinse her hair.

“It’s not a bedtime book, it’s a bathroom book, Daddy.” Duh implied.

Kev spied the book as he placed a finger under Becca’s chin and lifted slowly so she would face the ceiling while he rinsed the shampoo from her hair. Grover, the affable, goofy blue Muppet of Sesame Street fame, warned clearly from The Little Golden Book cover that there would be a monster at the end. This was Becca’s current favorite bathroom text. The suspense that built with each turning page stirred in her that wiggy feeling of nervous excitement, even though she knew full well that the book’s “monster” was only Grover himself, not scary at all.

“I’m afraid it’s too late,” Kev said. He flipped the metal toggle to drain the tub. “Your bath is all done. Time to dry off.”

Kev enjoyed these times when it was his turn to get Becca ready for bed. Jess would handle his usual post-dinner dish washing and dog walking duties. It would not be long before their little princess was too big for her daddy to help with the bath routine. Unfortunately, the dirty dishes and dog poo would never outgrow him.

Tonight, Jess had the bedtime story honors. Once that was complete and she clicked off the big light, Kev rejoined Becca in her bedroom.

“Good night,” he said with a kiss.

“Don’t let the bed bugs bite,” Becca chimed in with the sing-song benediction of her bedtime ritual.

Kev kissed her again, told her he loved her and wished her sweet dreams.

Becca usually had no problems sleeping through the night. When she did stir, her trusty night light and soft, ragged blankie usually provided enough security to lull her back to dreamland.

But not that night.

The hard oak floorboards that stretch along the hallway connecting her bedroom to the master bedroom are riddled with fifty-odd years of creaks and moans, alerting Kev to her midnight visit before she made it to his bedside. She stood cuddling her blankie in the crook of her neck, not making a sound. Jess remained still, breathing deeply, not quite a snore. The dog looked up sleepily from his spot at the foot of the bed long enough to make a quick assessment of the situation before dropping his head heavily back to the covers.

Even in the faint light of the room, Kev could see Becca’s lower lip protruding in a serious pout.

“What’s the matter, honey?” he whispered, not wanting to wake Jess.

Something unsettling she’d experienced during the day had crept to the forefront of her mind in the dark of the night.

“Will you lie down in bed with me,” she asked, “for just a few minutes?”

They’d had the discussion about how big girls can go to sleep all on their own. And Becca had embraced that concept, though not enthusiastically. But that night’s appeal seemed out of the ordinary. She was being haunted by some new bogeyman.

Kev smiled and wiped a tear away from her cheek with his thumb. What kind of father would he be to turn down the chance to provide his baby the feeling of safety and security as she drifted off to sleep?

The mid-July night was pleasant—low humidity. The warm breeze that blew in through the open bedroom window was a refreshing change from the past week of stagnant air conditioning. Kev tucked Becca into her twin bed and again kissed her forehead. She smiled, now certain that Daddy would keep her safe. She scooted closer to the wall, providing room for Kev to slide in next to her. He remained on top of the covers to allow himself an easier escape once she was conked out.

Kev lay on his back with his right arm cocked behind his neck and stared ahead, avoiding the allure of sleep as his eyes slowly adjusted to the dim room, illuminated only by the small, partially obscured night light. Kev felt as relaxed and content as any father could be.

Until an odd, shadowy movement caught his eye.

Given the room’s lighting and his state of semi-consciousness, Kev couldn’t be sure, but it looked like something was crawling across his shirt, from his belly toward his face. Perhaps the hungry bed bug of legend had come to feast at last.

His pulse quickened.

Maybe the shadows were playing tricks on him. His eyes strained to focus on his T-shirt. The folds of the shirt and the angle of the low light created ample shadows across his torso. Kev remained still, not wanting to alarm Becca, though every muscle in his body was taut. Kev didn’t blink, he didn’t want to miss any possible movement, and was rewarded for the effort. One of the shadows suddenly moved with remarkable speed. It was huge. Becca stirred beside him, not quite asleep. Kev didn’t want her to panic. He was there to protect. Yet panic seemed eager for a victim and Kev proved to be fertile ground as the enormous thing scurried closer. Closer.

Closer.

It crested the collar of his shirt. Instinct overpowered his rational mind. His left hand slapped wildly at the front of his shirt. Kev was sweating and his heart was pounding. But Becca remained unaware of the danger.

An open hand still firmly against his chest, Kev groped about it to detect the creature. A tickling at the base of his palm confirmed that something was there. An invader. If it were a spider, he’d probably crushed it dead. But he had to know for sure. Kev didn’t want some fatally wounded creature of the night exacting its final revenge on his daughter.

Then a thought hit him, the kind of thought that only comes in bed, at night, when the lights are low and the shadows long: that the thing might be burrowing into his hand. Or worse, his chest—like some horrid, tiny monster from a B-movie on late night cable.

A gasp escaped his lips and Kev leapt from the bed, arms flailing as he snapped on the lights.

Becca sat up and rubbed her eyes. “What’s wrong, Daddy?”

“Uh…nothing, honey,” Kev tried to assure her, failing to assure himself, realizing his startled leap had allowed the fiend to fall from his grasp. Kev searched the bed, pulling back the covers and the sheets, then checking and re-checking his shirt, his shorts, and the floor. No writhing horror. No scurrying terror. No twitching corpse.

Nothing.

Becca’s innocence and drowsiness kept her from suspecting the true nature of his sudden urge to ransack her bed.

“Did you lose something?” she asked, now fully awake.

Kev slid the mattress away from the wall and surveyed the dark crevice. If it had made it that far, its escape would be certain.

“Daddy?”

He pushed the mattress back into place, cupped the back of her head in his hand, smiled and calmly replied that he thought he had lost something, but must have been mistaken. She smiled in return, satisfied. Kev turned off the lights, returned to the bed, kissed and covered his daughter, and, now very, very awake, reviewed the recent events in his mind.

It had all happened so fast, it was possible he had imagined it in a near-dream state. Had his subconscious latched onto that old saying about the bed bugs and fabricated the entire event? No. Kev was certain he’d seen it—some thing—had felt it against his skin. Yes, it was real. But where was it now? It had moved so fast. Could bugs move that quickly? His mind accelerated with his lurching heart. He re-propped his head with his cocked right arm and kept his left hand free, ready to strike at the first sign of movement. It had probably fallen to the floor when he had jumped up, and scampered under the bed or maybe the nightstand. Kev tried to focus on the thought that he was safe, they were safe—whatever it was, was gone now—gone for good.

Bugs really bothered Kev, especially at night. He knew it was silly. He understood the math. He was thousands of times more massive and powerful than any lurking critter. But the thought of even a harmless millipede scampering across his body left Kev feeling all, well, wiggy—goose bumps, cold sweats, and chills down his spine. Picturing spiders or other ungodly nocturnal nasties crawling upon his little princess in search of her blood sent Kev into paternal protector mode.

Becca cuddled close. After five minutes without further incident, Kev began to realize that the intruder was unlikely to return, especially if he’d frightened or harmed it. His breathing and heart rate returned to normal. Lulled by the warmth and reassurance of his daughter’s body against his, Kev felt his eyelids grow heavy. He could actually feel himself drifting off to sleep when he felt an itch in his right armpit, the one next to Becca. Kev tried to ignore it, but the more he did, the more the itch intensified. He was wide awake again. Becca’s breathing revealed her escape to dreamland, so Kev carefully reached over with his left hand and slowly scratched the irritating spot. Mission accomplished, he re-set his left hand in a defensive position, and resumed his vigil.

The itch returned. The more inconvenient it is to scratch an itch, the more it seems to recur. Again, Kev waited, taking in deep breaths of the fresh night air, hoping in vain the itch would abate. First the bug, now this itch. His mood had swung from wiggy to vigilant to irritated.

It seemed his promise to calm Becca into sleep was satisfied, so he began plotting his escape without waking her.

The itch moved.

Eyes wide, Kev realized that the source of the itch was something inside his shirt, clawing its way through the hair in his armpit. The creature wound its way through the curly brush, soon to pounce from beneath the fabric of his shirt to Becca’s nearby head. Adrenaline flooded his bloodstream spiking his heart rate to light speed.

His left hand swooped in, the thumb and forefinger finding their prey and, with a pinch, halted any possibility of escape. A squeeze produced a discernable crunch, the sound of an exoskeleton under duress. Kev sat up, holding the insect captive. Becca stirred. “I’m just going to the bathroom. I’ll be right back,” he told her and made a quick exit.

In one fluid motion, Kev flicked the bathroom light on with his right elbow and shut the door behind him with a kick of his foot. His thumb and forefinger squeezed together again, and he was rewarded with another audible scrunch. Kev hovered over the gaping toilet bowl, positioning himself so that, upon the release of his vice-like hold, gravity would drag the bug to its watery tomb.

He released his grip, but nothing fell.

Kev shook his shirt and frantically checked the floor. Still nothing. Was he going mad? Had it flown away? He scanned the ceiling while grasping clumsily at his armpit. He decided to take his shirt off and shake it out. It wasn’t until his head was below the neck hole, inside the shirt, that Kev realized that that was where the bug must be. He imagined a multi-legged, fanged and venomous creature lunging at his nostrils. He stripped the shirt from his back with a quick jerk. He shook the garment, checked the floor…nothing. Kev looked in the mirror—just in case.

It was on his head. Scurrying through his coarse, rapidly graying hair.

The wigginess returned, intensified. As if electrocuted, his whole body convulsed, his feet dancing as he slapped frantically at his head. Dislodged, the bug was smacked against the wall, then fell with a thud to the floor. Even after all the slapping and squeezing, it was able to move with uncanny speed. Near the base of the sink, it made a frenzied dash for a crack in woodwork. Barefoot and still freaked out, Kev whacked at it with the shirt, but the bug stayed its course. He grabbed Becca’s rubber duck and brought it crashing down on the six-legged fiend. It was an incapacitating blow.

With a satisfied smile, Kev said, “Duck you.”

Using a tissue plucked from the box on the tank of the toilet, he brought the still-writhing insect in for closer inspection.

It was enormous. Black, with brownish markings, some kind of beetle, perhaps. Not a cockroach, but…what was this? Kev brought it within an inch of his nose—it had two huge pincers, like the claws of a lobster.

That’s when it leapt back to full life and onto his face.

Kev reacted as though set on fire. Sputtering and blowing viciously out of his nose in a panicked attempt to keep it from clawing its way into his nasal cavity and—who knows—raising a small family there. He bludgeoned his face with his hands and the creature fell again to the floor. This time, shoeless be damned, Kev stomped and felt a crunch beneath the meaty part of his foot. Remembering the big pincers, he retracted his foot and watched in horror and amazement as the thing continued to limp toward the door.

Becca’s Little Golden Book on the floor and caught his eye. Kev grabbed it and threw it onto his nemesis.

Just then, the bathroom door swung open and a bleary-eyed Becca stumbled in, still clutching her blankie. She stepped squarely onto her book, oblivious to the source of the crunchy, popping sound emanating from beneath it.

“Are you done going potty?” she asked. Why else would Kev be in the bathroom at this hour?

His eyes never left the book. Grover continued to smile that Muppet smile, but now a new monster resided at the end of this book. On the back cover, to be precise. Kev stood breathless, waiting for a small claw to appear from beneath an edge of The Little Golden tomb, like a slasher flick villain refusing to die—this tiny monster determined to extract its hideous body for one final assault against his precious daughter.

“Daddy?” she asked, puzzled by his disheveled, shirtless, distracted state.

With a nervous, unconvincing smile, Kev suggested she go back to bed.

“I’m thirsty,” she protested, shifting her minimal weight to the foot not resting on the book. That might be all the hellish creature needed to escape. Kev rushed her back around the corner to her room, promising a cup of water in a moment. Back in the bathroom, he cautiously flipped the book over, revealing the very squished corpse of his waking nightmare. Kev wiped the remains off the cover with a tissue, then dropped it into the drink, flushing it into oblivion.

He put his shirt back on, filled a Dixie cup with water, turned out the light and returned to Becca’s bedroom. Her thirst quenched, Kev again reclined beside her and she in turn drew close to his side.

“Good night, don’t let the bed bugs bite,” she chanted, wrapping her tiny arms around him, snuggling close, sighing. Relaxed. Content. Asleep.

The inside of Kev’s eyelids revealed hordes of the deceased pest’s relatives swarming from the woodwork to take up where their fallen comrade had left off. They dispersed as his eyes shot open, yet every shadow moved. Squirmed. The gentle breeze crawled across the hair on his arms.

Kev lay awake for hours.