1.
“Mommy, come quick!!” Jay Jay screamed at the top of his lungs from his tiny little bedroom on the second floor of what his parents called “the best house yet”. Jay disagreed completely, but what did he know, he was only 10 years young in a grown up world. His parents liked to throw that last part at him a lot, along with “Jay, you have so much to learn”. But his personal favorite was “Grow up”.
“Mommy!”, he yelled again, even though he already knew that it would not be his mother that entered the room. It would be his macho father that always had to be the hero. He did not know if his father actually felt that he was the hero, or if it was because his mother was in something called a “coma” all the time, which his father often said at the heat of the moment in one of his parent’s beloved arguments. His mother never woke up at night when the monster came because of that damn “coma”. Very seldom did she ever even wake up before 11 the next morning, ever since Grammy died, but he doesn’t like to think of that.
He heard footsteps approaching down the hall, although there wasn’t as much pep in them as there used to be, whenever the monster first started coming. The footsteps finally came to Jay’s door and he waited for his father to enter. He found himself praying to himself that it was his mother. His mother was the only one who could stop the monster. He didn’t really know why but he did know that his grandmother visited him in his dream the night before and said that only his mommy and two other things could get rid of the monster, the problem was he couldn’t remember what the other two words were…let alone pronounce them.
The door busted open, and there he was…the man of the hour, Mr. Eric Reynolds, husband, father of 1, and hero to all. Eric looked in the dark room and found his son’s streaming bloodshot eyes, turned on the bedroom light, and rushed over to his son to comfort him. He sat down on the bed and put a hand on Jay’s back and kissed his light brown hair.
“Jay, buddy, it’s okay, I’m here now. What happened, another bad nightmare?”
“It wasn’t a nightmare daddy; it was the monster...the monster from the door in the closet!” Jay cried, although he knew that it did absolutely no good at all. His father was not a big believer in “monsters” and his mother just completely chose not to listen to him about it. They were nightmares, although he knew different.
“Look, he scratched me! He went away when I yelled for Mommy.” Eric looked where Jay Jay was pointing and sure enough there was a big long scratch on the inside of his leg. It wasn’t a deep cut but it certainly was disturbing. He thought maybe the cat scratched him, but surely it wasn’t self inflicted for attention.
“Well, explain to me where he went big guy, because grown-ups have a hard time believing in monsters.” Jay pointed to the closet, and his father was already looking at it…probably because he heard this story more than a few times, and Jay knew this.
“I told you before daddy, he lives behind the door in my closet! He wants to get me! Can I please sleep with you and Mommy?” Eric looked at his son and knew that he was going to throw a fit when he told his son he could not sleep with him tonight. He slept with them the last four nights and he knew that he had to put an end to this mess. He just really wasn’t quite sure how to yet.
“Jay Jay, buddy, you can’t keep doing this. You’re a big boy, and you need to grow up. Your mother and I have told you how many times that there is no such thing as monsters. But there are such things as nightmares, and unfortunately there is nothing we can do about them. But as long as you keep thinking about this “Monster” every night, chances are that you are going to keep having nightmares. There is no such things as monsters; remember that chief.” Jay knew he heard this speech umpteen times, but took little effect on him. He knew what he had been seeing every night, and he knew they weren’t nightmares.
“Daddy, I know that you and Mommy tell me that monsters aren’t real, but this one is. You have to believe me before its too late.” Eric decided to humor his son.
“Okay buddy, this monster, what does he look like?” Finally, something that Jay wanted to hear.
“Well, it’s always hard for me to see him because he only comes when its dark, but I do know that he has only three fingers, but they aren’t like our fingers ...they are fatter and they have claws on the end of them. Sharp claws. That’s how I got scratched. He wants to take me into that door in my closet.“
The door inside the closet actually led up to the attic, after a very steep flight of stairs. Eric could easily understand why that door would creep out a 10 year old. Hell, it even creeped him out a bit. But he also knew there were no monsters other than human monsters.
“And his eyes daddy, his eyes are big and yellow. They can make the room light up. And it has a funny smell. I can’t describe the smell. It’s awful!” Jay cried. He seen a look in his father’s eyes that told him that he believed nothing Jay was saying.
“Jay, that’s a big pill to swallow there buddy.” (That was another one of his father’s favorite sayings.)
“So what do you want me to do, because you sleeping with us isn’t going to work anymore, pal.” Jay shrugged his shoulders and tears started to roll down his face again. He didn’t know what to do but beg his father.
“Please daddy, he wants to kill me, he wants to EAT ME!”
Eric looked at his son and felt for a moment his son’s grief…when Eric was a child he also feared a monster in his room, but nothing that a nightlight didn’t fix. Back then they didn’t call them “Monsters”, it was referred to him as the “Boogeyman”. That gave Eric an idea, but it would come later.
“Ill tell you what buddy, I’m gonna go up to the attic and look for this Monster. You do know that that door only leads up to the attic, right?” Of course Jay knew this. He was no fool, although he also knew that was the lair where the monster dwelled. Eric got up off the bed and Jay clung to his leg.
“Daddy, please don’t, he’s up there! Im telling you he’s there!” Eric picked up his son and sat him on the bed.
“I’m gonna go up there and if that monster, is up there, I’m gonna scare him, okay? Would you like to come along and see for yourself that there is nothing up there but boxes and junk. No monsters” Jay thought about this carefully, and decided that he sure as hell didn’t want to stay down here by himself…what good would his mother be if she was in a coma?
“Yes, don’t leave me alone down here, please daddy.” Jay pleaded.
“Okay, well then let’s go. Get your slippers on and make sure you watch where you walk. There may be nails or old screws on the floor.” Jay did as he was told. Jay’s room was the smallest of the three bedrooms, but it had the biggest closet in the house. It was a walk-in, and the door to the attic was in the center on the wall on the inside of the closet. Eric, being a smartass and knowing it, knocked on the attic door, and said,
“Hello, Mr. Monster, may we come in?” This did little to offend Jay; He knew what was up there. His father was only making an ass out of himself. He opened the door and pulled the chain just inside the door that turned on a light that was bright enough to light up the Eifel Tower.
“Mr. Monster, we are coming up.” Another smart ass comment from the world’s greatest hero, jay thought to himself. They reached three quarters of the way up and Eric pulled another chain to turn on another horrifically bright light. That’s when a smell hit Eric that was so awful, he instantly got sick in his stomach.
“Now I remember why we never use this attic” Eric said.
“Daddy, do you smell that smell? That’s him. That’s the monster’s smell. Isn’t it awful?” To Eric, the smell indeed was awful, and smelled like mold and rotten canned mushrooms, mixed with pure shit.
“I don’t think that’s a monster, bud, I think something died up here. Maybe a rat or a squirrel or something. Nothing paranormal” Jay guessed that that word meant not normal. They reached the top of the stairs and Jay was squeezing Eric’s leg hard.
“Look, bud, there is nothing up here…just like I told you. Now, can you get some sleep?” Eric pleaded with his son.
“He is hiding daddy! I’m telling you he is real!” Eric’s face turned red.
“Now that’s enough Jason! I have heard quite enough of this monster shit and there is nothing up here! There are no real monsters!” Jay started to cry once again, but stayed quiet this time.
“Now let’s go downstairs and get you into bed. Enough of this monster business” He pulled the chain to turn off the light. They started down the stairs, and when they reached the bottom he noticed that the putrid smell was gone, but when he reached for the door knob, he noticed that there were some very deep scratches around the door knob and towards the top of the door. Eric thought to himself, “What the hell did this.” It looked like somebody took a knife and cut grooves into the door in patterns of three, each groove about 2 ½ to 3” apart. Luckily, Jason’s tear soaked face was buried into his father’s side, so he didn’t see them. He opened the door in a hurry before his son could see the cuts in the door and try to say that was the monster’s doing too. Eric sat Jay into his bed, laid him down and pulled his covers up and kissed his forehead.
“There are no Monsters, Jay Jay. It was a nightmare. Get some sleep” Eric kissed his forehead and remembered his idea that he had before. He left the room and left the light on, but returned a few seconds later and walked over to the wall outlet. When Eric moved away from the outlet, Jay Jay noticed a little light that was coming from the outlet. It was a night light. This made Jay feel a little bit better, and he made himself put a small smile on his face and he looked to his father, the hero, and said “Thank you daddy.” Eric smiled.
“You’re welcome, champ. Get some sleep” Jays smile slowly faded and he watched his father walk towards the door, and turn off the light.
“I love you, Jay” he whispered.
“I love you too, daddy.” Eric shut the door and Jay was still looking at his bedroom door, listening to his father’s footsteps slowly fading away.
His eyes filled with tears as he turned his head slowly toward the small opening of the closet’s folding doors. There at the opening of the closet was at first one…and then two bright yellow eyes that illuminated a small part of the room. At first they appeared to be squinting at him, and each second they got bigger….as if each second they got hungrier. In the illumination of the monsters eyes, he could see two rows of razor sharp teeth that were long and came down to fine points. As the monsters eyes got bigger, the grin on the monsters mouth got wider. It was hungry. In the light of the night light, he could see a large drop of drool drop off the corner of the thing’s mouth and hit the carpet. All of a sudden he got a whiff of the thing. It was horrible. It was its breathe. It was the smell of death. He threw the covers over his head and remained like that until morning.
I did the same thing when I was new on here.
