The Monster in the Closet
I was five years old the first time I saw a monster die.
I had seen plenty before that night but the first time I remember seeing one die was shortly after my fifth birthday.
It was in my closet and to this day I think it wanted to eat my soul.
It was one of the first monsters that had managed to get inside our house. I’m not sure how that happened.
Maybe someone my parents had over at a barbecue or a party brought it over inadvertently, maybe it found a crack big enough to crawl through or maybe it came from another dimension.
Those ones are tough as their worlds don’t always follow the same rules as ours.
I had seen monsters prior to that night – monsters are everywhere - but this was the first one I had witnessed in close proximity.
The very first one I remember was when I was being pushed through the park in my buggy by my mother on a bright summer’s day. It hid in the shadows of the tall trees, skulking unseen.
As the path veered closer to it and my mother pushed me in its direction, it hissed at us and bounded off into the distance.
I have found over the years that they don’t like the daylight but are by no means impeded by it. If there are enough of them and enough negativity and fear or hate to feed on then they can do as they please in plain sight.
I have also learned that not everyone can see them. Most children can but for many reasons the ability wanes with age.
I guess I only just started to figure that out that day in the park. I was too young to really understand what was happening, too young to understand how much of a threat I was under.
I got that message loud and clear as I lay awake in my bedroom on a clear moonlit night as the light of the midnight sky shone through my windows casting the shadows of barren fall tree limbs and branches against my walls.
The first thing I heard was scuffling in my closet. To this day I don’t know if what was in there had been there all day waiting for me or if it had crawled its way through a crack in another dimension at that moment.
I didn’t think anything of it at first, just looked up at the shadows of the trees dancing against the ceiling of my room.
Then the noises got louder and I had to look up from under my covers at the closet door across the room.
Nothing stirred at first, just the scratching and scuttling for what seemed like hours, then the closet door flew open.
The moonlight was clear and the monster revealed itself in grizzly clarity. It was short, maybe a couple of feet, squat and chunky with what looked in the light to be mottled brown skin. It had a wide face, somewhat frog-like if there was any earthly comparison.
The shape of the head was where the similarity ended, however, as it’s yellow reptile eyes caught mine and it bared its razor point triangle teeth in a grimace of glee.
At a certain point in a child’s life their yelling and hollering get to be a ‘keep calm and carry on’ sound to a Dad rather than an all-out ‘man the lifeboats’ kind of deal.
In the early days Dads go running like their assess are on fire but you become conditioned to assume nothing too much is up because anything screaming that loud and wildly can’t be in any actual distress.
The doors and windows are locked, you checked the alarm system therefore all you are dealing with is hopefully some night sweats and if you’ve hit the jackpot: maybe a piss-soaked bed.
No immediate danger on the second floor.
Fear maybe, but that’s what Dads are for.
In years since, there have been times where I have been so terrified that I have tried to scream but the sound has got caught in my throat. The silent scream is the worst.
Not that first night though, that first night the lungs and vocal cords were working just fine and I gave them full reign.
The monster’s expression raised from a grimace to a smile at that, like something primal had been triggered deep within it.
The sounds of prey in distress.
It lunged from the pile of clothes, hastily cleared toys and discarded laundry for the closet doorway but bounced back off an object I could not see.
Again it lunged for the open doorway and again it was bounced back, being knocked off its feet the second time and landing square on its backside.
I have come to understand the force-field keeping it at bay in the years since but at that moment all I could see in the clarity of the moonlight was the area inside the doorframe of my closet shimmer.
It rippled on contact like the effects of a stone being dropped into the surface of a still lake. Realizing it had no clear path the monster reached a hand tentatively to the doorway.
It was like reality shifting, something invisible but tangible giving as the creature pushed its way through. Emboldened by the knowledge that it would not be sprung back, cast aside like so much garbage, the monster dug its heels in and pushed both hands against the force holding it at bay.
This transpired in the matter of a few seconds although it felt much longer to the younger me. By this point my Dad had acknowledged that my yelling was not part of an unwelcome dream and was not going to simply subside.
I guess he lost the toss as to whose turn it was to attend to me.
As the creature threatened to breach, my parent’s bedroom door opened down the hall and I caught sight of the shadow of my father standing in the doorway, ruffling his untidy hair, framed in the door.
“Yep, yup. Coming. It’s okay, it’s okay.”
It’s never really occurred to me over the years what I thought he was going to do, but this early monster was about the size of a regular cat, give or take, so I guess I figured he would be able to bundle it outside as a worst case scenario.
Dad ambled down the hall, in no particular rush as the creature he didn’t know about despite my fevered ramblings edged out of the closet, whatever force holding it in stretched around it like so much surreal saran wrap.
It was surely only moments before it would break through and get to me before my father got to it.
Then, something odd happened. It is something I have seem innumerable times since but was a shock that first time.
It will be for you too if you are gifted like me.
As my father’s shadow eclipsed the light from my parent’s doorway as he closed in on my room, the creature rocked back. It stumbled as if nudged and then, it moved its left arm from out in front where it was supporting its right, to its left hand side.
A few steps further down and now the monster was fighting on two fronts. Instead of pushing through the closet door, it was holding the force-field at bay, weak spasms of light pulsing from the contact points.
There had been two out in front of it but now there was one in front and one to the left.
Instinctively, I sat up.
What had begun as a hunting expedition for the creature had now turned into a desperate fight for survival, the two barriers pushing it back and back into the corner of the closet.
With my father within steps of the bedroom door, its crocodile smile of hate had been replaced by a look of panicked desperation.
Thoughts of breaching the barrier had been replaced by almost comic hysteria as it beat at the near-invisible obstacle in frustration, turned its back and tried to use the gap between the closet wall and the force-field as a prop to hold itself in place.
The earlier moans and groans, hissing and low pitched gowls had been replaced by occasional yelps and high-pitched mewling you would associate with an animal in its death throes.
Seconds passed, my Dad was mere feet from the doorway and it tried to use the weight of its body against the walls of my closet to hold the encroaching barriers in place. To no avail.
“What’s all this noise?!?! Calm down. It’s okay. I’m here. I’m here.”
There was one last yelp and a sickening pop from the closet in the second before my father turned on my bedroom light.
“There’s a monster in my closet!! There’s a monster in my closet!!!”
In the decades since I have come to understand the wearied look of careworn indifference that swept over my father’s face as he stepped over to my bed and took me in his arms.
I know now that many times a boy will cry wolf and you will still need to be ever ready and prepared for the actual wolf.
“It’s allright. It’s allright.” He patted my head and hugged me close.
Getting up off the bed, he moved over to the closet, nudging the clothes aside and holding those few remaining items still on hangers to the side so I could see the full emptiness of the closet.
I think now that he might have believed there to be a rat or some other unwanted rodent in there so he kicked out my toys and dirty clothes and scattered laundry from the floor of the closet.
“Nothing, see?” Then he stopped for a minute and crouched, sweeping his hand through a pile of dirt about a foot high.
“Where did all this glitter and colored sand come from? Was this from school, a project? We’ll need to clean this up tomorrow but now back to bed. Time to get to sleep.”
