Mr Dibble's Rules

20261020

Written for the Second Indulgence, Prompt #13

It had started as something innocent. Well, Debbie always considered it innocent. Just a clever child’s way of messing with her silly little brother. Damian had been so gullible. Even for his age. He’d utterly swallowed her story about a monster called “Mr Dibble” living in their attic, spying on and punishing children who didn’t follow his strange, arbitrary rules.
Once she realised this was the perfect excuse for Damian’s toys going missing, or his candy vanishing, or any number of sibling transgressions, the mythos had grown rapidly. Their parents had no patience for it, of course, but Damian believed Mr Dibble was framing Debbie! Helpless siblings banding together against an unassailable foe. Which added a whole new level of fun. She’d… really gotten into the game.
Until Damian got old enough to figure out it was a game, and one she’d been having at his expense. That had… well… they hadn’t been close ever since. She wasn’t sure he’d ever forgiven her, or if her many apologies had mattered.
All memories which surfaced after she answered the unexpected call from her brother, and Damian said without preamble “Debbie, you remember Mr Dibble?”
“Oh.” She winced.
Mum and dad were working on downsizing, and since Damian lived much closer he’d gone to help out. He must’ve found something that reminded him of her childish stunt.
“I’m really sor-”
“What were the rules?”
Debbie blinked. Taken aback by how sharp his voice was. “…Daim, what’s wrong?”
“I…” He took a deep, shaky breath. “I’m going to sound crazy. And maybe I am. But… I think he’s here. With me. I can hear that horrible scratchy tapping coming from the attic.”
“That - oh, that was me scratching my radiator with a metal coathanger. I realised it echoed up and-”
“I’ve checked your room, and nobody’s in there - and it wouldn’t be a comfort if there was someone, because Mum and Dad are out viewing a house. I should be alone.”
“Right, well, some animal must-”
“He wrote me letters.”
“What?” Debbie’s brow furrowed. “Ok, look, fair play and all, but this isn’t-”
“Believe me I know it isn’t funny!” Damian sucked in a sharp breath. “Sorry, sorry. I just - look, I went in the attic day before yesterday, digging stuff out for them to sort through, and next morning I woke up and there was a letter on the pillow just like you used to leave, scribbled on a sheet of toilet paper in wobbly writing saying I’d broken the rules and he was going to get me.”
That…
“So I rip Mum and Dad a new one, not amused, and they swear up and down they didn’t write it or put it in my room. And I kept finding them. And each one was angrier.” His voice is shaking. “And then I started hearing that voice.”
“Voice?”
Silence. Then he says, perfectly level, “The creepy whisper you’d use to threaten me in the middle of the night.”
“What?”
I’d never - I was no good at voices and stuff, he would’ve recognised me, the letters were one thing, I’d been so chuffed with myself thinking to write them using the wrong hand, but…
Damian croaks “Please tell me this is the worst timed horrible joke in the history of sibling hazing.”
“I…” Debbie bit her lip. “I must’ve forgotten that. It’s been years, and… I g-guess I only did it a few times, or something?”
“Mm.” Damian gulps. “Well, look, I need the rules, because the last note said that if I break another he’s going to eat me.”
Oh. Shit. Yeah, that’s what I claimed - that if we misbehaved too much, broke too many of Mr Dibble’s rules, he’d eat us.
Despite knowing, rationally, that none of this can actually be happening, that Damian was either mercilessly pulling her leg or having a mental breakdown, Debbie rushes towards her room. Desperately hoping she still has her old diaries. “Get out of the house.”
“I’ve tried.” Damian whispers. “None of the doors or windows will open. I can lock and unlock them but they won’t move. So I tried smashing one of the windows, and that’s when I started hearing the noises in the attic, and…”
Shit shit shit. Debbie toggles the phone to speaker and drops to her knees by her keepsake box. They’ve got to be in here, they’ve got to be - and they have to have something! She must’ve come up with some way of calming Mr Dibble down, right?? A bribe or something!
“Ok, um, um, I know ‘don’t go in the attic’ was the main one, because I was trying to make sure you couldn’t call my bluff…”
“Yeah. I think that’s what… woke him up.”
“Uhhhh don’t make noise in the night? Which meant past our bedtimes and oh god I can’t remember what time that was when I was making this up.”
“Mhm.”
She wasn’t sure if that strangled whimper was meant to be agreement or not.
“What were the others??” Debbie frantically starts paging through the tacky pink booklets. “Oh fuck I can’t even remember how old we were, hang on…”
“I don’t think I can.” Damian’s voice is barely audible, thrumming with tension. “I just heard the attic hatch.”
“Oh god.” Debbie’s hands fly to her mouth. “Where are you? G-get a weapon or something, a knife at least! You’re not a little kid, he shouldn’t be able to-”
Humming. Debbie could hear creepy humming echoing through the house. She definitely couldn’t make a creepy voice like that, much less as a little kid. Her heart hammered in her chest.
“Sis?” Damian’s whisper hurts. “I still love you. Ok?”
“Daim! Put the phone on speaker and, and hide, ok?? I’ll-”
A wet, sharp gasp. A clatter of the phone hitting the floor. A long slurping. A soft, raspy, satisfied sigh. Then, before Debbie got breath back to scream, the call ends.
Oh god.
I’m so sorry.
What do I tell mum and dad?

Prompt was “Childhood fears have a way of following us long after we’ve supposedly outgrown them. Write about a childhood fear becoming real. What happens when something you once knew couldn’t hurt you proves that it can?”

Read other stories written for this prompt here.