I rose from my bed, the floorboards cold beneath my feet. I glanced at my little brother, Titus, who had been woken by the sound. His eyes were wide and questioning; I responded with a gesture: investigate.

Poking our heads outside our door, we scanned the empty, silent hallway. Darkness swallowed the space, broken only when lightning momentarily sheared through the window, illuminating our normal home. There was nothing. Thinking it a figment of our storm-frayed nerves, we started to retreat to bed, then a sickening CRASH echoed from downstairs.

"What was that, Ebony?" Titus barely breathed the whisper. "Should we go down?"

I nodded, my stomach clenching. We began to slowly make our way to the staircase. As we descended, the crashing grew louder, now mixed with a high-pitched, mocking laughter coming from the kitchen area.

Approaching the kitchen archway, we flattened ourselves against the wall. I peered inside. To our stunned horror, six creatures—resembling monkeys, but on a grossly mutated, skeletal scale—leapt and rebounded across the room. They weren't just searching for food; they were celebrating demolition.

The biggest creature was uniquely ghastly: it had four arms and a pair of delicate, monarch-butterfly wings sprouting from its temples. It moved with sickening grace. We watched, transfixed, as the smaller creatures shredded curtains and hurled objects. One creature tossed a ceramic plate, and the big one swooped in, catching it mid-air, only to shatter it on the floor and join the resulting laughter.

Suddenly, a volley of silverware was catapulted against the wall right behind us, forcing Titus and me to flinch and gasp. Titus quickly slapped a hand over my mouth, and I clutched his arm.

Silence fell, absolute and suffocating.

I risked a glance into the kitchen. The mutated monkeys were gone.

"Where did they go?" Titus's muffled whisper vibrated against my palm.

"I haven't a clue," I whispered back, utter confusion making my head spin. "They were there just a moment ago."

Titus shook his head. "They couldn't have just vanished." He took a tentative step into the kitchen. Shards of shattered glass glittered everywhere, and food—spilled milk, crushed spices, half-eaten pieces of fruit—lay in a ruined, stinking mess. Yet, strangely, the plain raisin bran cereal box remained upright and untouched.

As I took a step deeper, something slammed into my back. Looking up, I saw all six creatures slithering out from the ventilation shaft above the doorway, dropping down like spiders and launching straight for us.

I evaded the first one, but the others were too quick. Two of them darted low, their long, muscular tails lashing out like a braided rope, and swept my feet out from under me. I hit the linoleum, the breath knocked from my lungs, as the creatures erupted in screeching, joyful laughter.

Through my blurring vision, I saw the other three had already overpowered Titus, their wiry bodies clinging to him. They had gagged him with a whole, red apple and were using heavy twine to bind him against the refrigerator door.

"Leave him alone!" I screamed, scrambling back. I grabbed anything I could—a dented pan, a spice jar—and flung them, striking each creature and forcing them to recoil just enough. I darted to Titus, pulling the apple free from his mouth. I hauled him, half-bound, straight out of the kitchen and into the dark sanctuary of the living room's storage closet.

I hastily untied him. "Are you okay?" I demanded.

"I'm fine," he huffed, rubbing his wrists. "Just humiliated that mutated monkeys took me down."

"That's a relief. Now that we've seen them, how do we get rid of them?"

"Force them out of the house," Titus insisted.

"No, forcing them won't work," I replied. "But we can try tricking them out." Before I could elaborate, Titus clamped his hand over my mouth again, his eyes wide.

Downwards.

The crooked, three-fingered hands of a creature were reaching underneath the closet door, grabbing and scraping the wood, trying to gain purchase.

"Ebony? What do we do?" Titus whispered, trembling.

I grabbed a dusty, leather-bound dictionary from the shelf behind and slammed it down onto the creature's hand. A piercing screech erupted from the gap, followed by the mocking laughter of the others just outside the door.

"I've got a plan," I whispered, detailing it quickly in his ear. "But we need to handle this quickly and carefully. No more damage."

We armed ourselves: Titus gripped Dad's rusty golf club, and I held an old wooden broom. The door began to open slowly. We charged, bulldozing four of the six creatures in a messy heap and darting for the stairs.

We thundered up the steps, almost reaching the top landing, before one creature snatched my ankle, slamming me to the ground, while two others leapt onto my back, using me like a trampoline.

"Four!" Titus screamed from the top of the stairs, swinging the golf club. He sent the creature restraining me flying into the drywall down the hallway. The others looked on in shock for a split second before Titus smashed the end of the club straight into the jaw of another, knocking it into the bathroom. He slammed the door shut and braced it.

I kicked the last creature hard down the stairs toward its remaining three companions. The winged leader tried to give chase, only to collide with the tumbling creature I had just kicked.

We rushed into our bedroom and located the emergency cellphone. My mother answered on the second ring.

"What's wrong, kids?" she asked, her tone already concerned.

"Mom," I gasped, the words tumbling out. "There are creatures in the house and they’re trying to get us! They've destroyed the kitchen!"

"Ebony, what in God's name is going on? What’s all that noise? Where is your brother?" she demanded, anger replacing concern.

"He's okay, but holding the door to keep them out! You need to come home now!"

"We'll be there in ten minutes," she snapped, abruptly ending the call.

Titus! "Mom will be here in ten minutes! We have to hold them off!"

"Alright, Ebony, but I need your help!" He cried out. I lunged forward, pinning my entire body to the thin wooden door as the creatures assaulted it from the hallway, their unseen fists pounding and their laughter echoing with sadistic confidence.

The first few minutes were silence, an unbearable kind of stillness where every breath felt loud. Then, a vile, wet sound began just outside—a repetitive, scraping noise. "Ebony, I hear them," Titus whimpered. "They're eating the door."

A small, wet patch of dark liquid—not blood, but something thick and oily—began to seep through the bottom seam of the door. The wood started to soften where the scraping was loudest. We had only bought ourselves a temporary truce.

Suddenly, the knob began to twist, slowly, deliberately, as if a large hand were testing the strength of our shoulders. We held firm, screaming internally as the scraping continued, now closer to the hinges.

Then, the terrible sound of the front door unbolting captured our attention.

We heard our mother's voice echo up the stairs, concerned but rising into an angry crescendo: "Kids! Where are you? And who destroyed my house?"

I threw my weight, pulling Titus aside just as the bedroom door flung inward. The remaining creatures burst inside and, unable to stop their momentum, collided with the winged leader. They all thudded in a writhing, unconscious pile in the middle of our rug.

"Are they… dead?" Titus whispered, staring at the heap.

I shook my head. "Looks like they're just knocked out."

We bolted down the stairs, only to be greeted by the stone-cold, unhappy glares of our parents.

"Your father and I leave for a few hours, and we come home to a destroyed house," Dad said, his voice deadly calm. "Explain yourselves."

"It was those creatures' fault!" Titus burst out. "They destroyed everything while you were gone!"

"They were wrecking the house, and they're upstairs in our room now," I added, panting.

My parents exchanged a long, unconvinced look. Reluctantly, they followed us up.

We beat them to the room and saw the creatures beginning to twitch and stir, slowly regaining consciousness.

"Mom! Dad! Hurry!"

My parents thrust their heads around the doorway. They froze.

"We don't see anything," Dad stated, his expression going from frustrated to furious.

Titus and I looked on in confused horror, pointing frantically. The creatures were right there, snickering at us, as if knowing our parents couldn't see them.

"That is enough, you two!" my father thundered. "You were trusted to take care of the house, and I won’t tolerate lying!"

The ring of the doorbell cut through the terrible silence. My parents turned, but not before informing us of the punishment they had planned.

When my father opened the front door, our creepy, reclusive neighbor stood on the stoop, looking anxious.

"Sorry to bother you guys on this fine evening," he said, holding a worn leather case. "But I was wondering if I could ask your children a question."

"What else have they done now?" my mother asked, malice seeping into her tone.

"Oh, nothing at all. But I wanted to ask them had they seen six monkeys."

My parents' shocked expressions were immediate. "Monkeys? What do these monkeys look like?" Dad demanded, completely bewildered.

The neighbor replied, "That an adult cannot see them, only children can. But with these specialized glasses..." He opened the case and retrieved six pairs of thick, bizarre goggles.

Suddenly, the living room radio came on by itself, blasting the jaunty, unnerving melody of J’ai Deux Amour by Josephine Baker.

As the music played, the neighbor handed my parents the glasses. They turned back around inside the house and put them on.

The air in the living room grew cold.

Through the lenses, they finally witnessed the six grotesque creatures, now fully awake, perched on the chandelier, the mantelpiece, and the sofa. They were all laughing—a thin, high, victorious sound—as they continued their work, destroying the house, piece by piece, right in front of their eyes.

The story now feels much more complete and the tension is sustained perfectly until the final, shocking reveal! Is there anything else about the story you'd like to refine or discuss?