You can move. Run. Pick up stakes and book it over the green hills and far away. It’s an option.
Just not a good option. Your average monster will track you, even if you stop sleeping on beds. Monsters are indeed more comfortable under the bed, but it’s something of a stereotype that they are only found there. And if they are forced to sleep rough between your blanket and the ground, well. Let’s just say that this will not improve their attitude towards you. The ghosts in the attic? Again, not necessarily shackled to that location, right? Yes, many restless spirits are in some way linked to locations, but the most persistent poltergeists are in fact attached directly to individuals. You’ll just be taking that baggage with you. And that is definitely true of the spiders in your skull – can’t outrun what’s inside you!
You can deploy the nuclear option: burn them with fire! Well. Sort of.
I mean, think about it. You can’t burn a ghost. Believe me, I’ve tried. But ectoplasm, it’s damp, isn’t it? Not even a little flammable. And when you jam that lighter up your nose to get after those spiders up there, well, you’re also going to light your nose hairs on fire, aren’t you? Burning hair smells bad enough, but putting the source right up there next to your olfactory receptacles is like pouring gasoline on the fire, right? Just don’t do it. Now flame might actually work against the monsters under your bed. But you’re all too likely to set the bed alight at the same time. Which generally leads to setting the covers on fire, followed by the curtains, the wall, the ceiling, and eventually the entire house. Yes, it will probably take care of your monster problem, but the cost simply doesn’t justify the result, especially as you’ll still be left with ghosts and spiders. Assuming you manage to get yourself out of the burning house alive, that is. So, no. I think upon mature reflection, the nuke isn’t the best way to go.
You could check yourself into the nuthouse. I mean, if you assume that the monsters and the ghosts and the spiders are all just figments of an overtaxed and diseased imagination.
But what if you’re wrong? What if they’re all real? Asylums generally have beds, after all. And if you’re really, violently nuts, they like to strap you down to said bed. Monsters *love* asylum beds. Ghosts find the very white environment a little confusing, true, but the constant wailing, moaning, and quiet sobbing really are right up their alley. Might as well make them some cookies and put out a glass of milk, okay? And while the drugs those asylum jockeys will pump you full of will absolutely, doubtlessly, definitively kill the spiders in your skull, they’re also going to pretty much end your own will to dress yourself and feed yourself and get yourself to the toilet before you soil yourself. I’m thinking that’s no kind of life for anyone, especially not you; you’re too full of life!
No, I really think you only have one option. It’s a good option, just not an easy option.
I’m afraid you’re not going to like it.
I mean, really afraid.
I kind of don’t want to tell you, because I’m afraid of just how violently you are likely to oppose the very idea. But I don’t see any other reasonable, legitimate options.
So, here goes.
Roundtable.
Look, you’re stuck with some very difficult roommates. I mean, really unpleasant, truly difficult. But you’re stuck with them. What else are you going to do? You’ve got to get them all around the table, all at the same time, and lay down some ground rules. It’s going to be a long process. Spiders aren’t notoriously keen on Robert’s Rules of Order, and there will be language barriers, and some very serious questions about what to serve at tea. But you’ve got to start somewhere. And once you get a rota established, once you’ve got them discoursing about schedules and timelines and chore distribution and rent, once they’re really warmed up and actually talking instead of moaning and salivating and creaking and rustling, then you can get down to work. Quality face time, up close and personal. That’s when the Vatican wetwork team can burst in and clean house.
Try it. You’ll thank me.
