The Closet

At first glance, Matt Gordon might have appeared calm and composed. He was sitting up straight in his bed, cross-legged, like he was meditating – and his face, lit up by the amber glow of the street-lights spilling through the blinds, was blank. Expressionless.

A closer look would have revealed pale skin. Cold sweat, beading on his forehead. His lips trembled as they stuttered over the words. His hands were shaking as he chanted:

‘You’re not real. You’re not real. You’re not real...’

A strange rattling sound came from the closet, and the door creaked slowly open on its own. The darkness behind that door was total – the amber glow didn’t penetrate. Matt kept chanting:

‘You’re not real. You’re not real. You’re not real...’

A familiar mantra. One he’d had to memorise since they moved here.

His parents had split up when he was four years old – Matt hadn’t understood what was going on until it was over. Whenever he asked his mother about it, she’d quickly tell him to shush, and change the subject. Let’s not dig around in that particular closet, shall we, Mattie? Best leave that alone. That was one of the first lessons he’d learnt, as a kid. You don’t dig around in closets. They were places for secrets, for hidden sins and bygones. Closets were where you buried things.

And Matt Gordon had buried his share of things in his closet.

After the divorce, he and his mom had moved to a small, quiet town called Dale River. It was supposed to be a fresh start. But when Matt joined Dale River Elementary School, he became the class loser. He blamed it on his glasses – those ridiculous, coke-bottle lenses that made him the butt of every joke. Matt hated it. He didn’t understand why the other kids couldn’t just be nice to him. He didn’t tell his mother about it. He felt humiliated – the first thing he buried was his shame.

The bullying went on until he was in third grade, until, one fateful day, he snapped. There was one kid, in particular – Patrick Low, a heavyset kid who Matt tried his hardest to ignore, every day. But the kid just kept on pushing. Four-eyes, four-eyes, four-eyes – the taunt was ringing in his ears, chasing him down the school hallways, until finally...

Bang.

He remembered the way the kid’s head snapped back – blood sprayed from his nose, and he was knocked out cold.

Since then, Matt had gone from bullied to bully. Gone was the nervous little kid who was too scared to stand up for himself – he buried his fear with his shame, and that was that. Hunted to hunter. Easy as that. Nobody made fun of Matt Gordon anymore. He buried his fears in a dark closet, and he left them to rot.

But buried things don’t always stay buried.

He’d been in fourth grade at the time. And it had been a weekday night like any other, homework, then dinner, TV and finally bedtime. His room was quiet, and Matt could make out the red glow of the numbers on his alarm clock; the choppy, orange light from the streets streamed in through the blinds – but as Matt was about to fall asleep, he noticed that the closet door was open. Just a crack. A tiny sliver.

Matt heard a rattling sound from it. He stirred uneasily, only half-awake; he shut the door, and went back to bed.

It creaked open again.

He frowned. Got up and shut it again. But sure enough, the closet creaked open once more, and Matt shivered a little. He heard the rattling sound again, and the closet creaked open a little wider. He smelled something rancid in the air – the smell of dead things, buried things. Things forgotten to the sun. The door creaked open wider...

He got up, and slammed the door, his breath shallow.

The room was silent for a moment. Not a sound.

Then the door slammed opened again, and Matt stumbled back onto his bed. He saw something moving in the darkness –

‘MOM!’ He screamed.

The dark room flooded with light from the hallway, as his mother burst in.

‘What is it, honey?’ She rushed to his bed, eyes wide with concern. ‘Are you okay?’

He pointed to the closet – though the door had shut itself again, looking ever so innocent in the corner of the room. ‘There’s something in there,’ he said, his voice trembling. ‘I heard it. It was rattling, and the door...’

He saw his mother’s face relax, as soon as she saw where he was pointing. He stared at her, confused. Did she not believe him, or something?

‘What’s the matter, darling? Skeleton in your closet?’ She asked him, a strange smile on her face. She went to open the closet – Matt let out a startled yell.

‘NO! Don’t, please,’ he begged her.

She smiled again, and pulled the door open.

Nothing.

Matt blinked. How...

‘See, honey? Nothing but shadows. It was just a bad dream.’

And that was how it started. He’d felt like a complete idiot the first night – so, the second night, he didn’t yell for his mom. He wasn’t some little kid who was scared of the dark. He wasn’t that nervous little loser he’d been before.

He saw it creak open out of the corner of his eye. He threw the sheets over his head, refusing to look at it. It wasn’t real. It was just his imagination.

‘You’re not real,’ he muttered as the rattling sound grew louder, as the shadow pulled itself from the closet. ‘You’re not real, you’re not real, you’re not real...’

The thing started moving towards the bed. He could see its outline through the thin bedsheet. Clacking footsteps as it moved closer. He saw skeletal fingers stretch out towards him, outlined in the faint street-light from the window, filtering through the sheets –

‘You’re not real!’ He screamed.

The bony fingers recoiled, as if struck by something. They withdrew, and Matt heard footsteps from down the hall.

His mom burst in again, exasperated. ‘What now!’

‘Nothing,’ the boy muttered. ‘It was nothing.’

His mom didn’t ask for follow-ups. She slammed the door again, muttering something about over-imaginative children...

The thing came every night. Matt bought a collection of night-lights, which he put on his bed-dresser – little islands of blue and green lights, warding away the dark. The night-lights, and Matt’s mantra, kept the thing in the closet at bay. That was the second lesson he’d learnt, as a kid. People buried things six feet deep for a reason. Buried things never stayed buried for long – it wasn’t enough to just lock them away in the shadows and hoped they’d disappear. You had to keep them locked up. You had to stand guard.

But sometimes, things are too big to be buried. He learnt that when he was in eleventh grade, when he killed Eddie Cabello.

A skinny Mexican kid with glasses and a bad case of acne – he had a smart mouth, and Matt had beat him up a couple times for that. He’d never dreamt that he’d kill the boy. He’d been having a bad day, and Eddie caught him by surprise with a snide remark about Matt needing a tutor for maths. Matt wasn’t so smart, and he was sensitive about that. So Matt snapped.

Bang.

A mirror image of what had happened in third grade – the boy’s head snapped back, blood flew from his nose, and he collapsed to the floor. He didn’t move.

Matt left him there, and it wasn’t until the police came that he learned Eddie had died from his concussion. A one-punch kill.

He’d had to go to court. The proceedings hadn’t finished, yet, but by this time tomorrow he’d be in jail. So he went home for the night, for one last night of freedom – the sun had just gone down.

He’d sat crying on his bed – terrified, choking sobs – all his buried fear and self-loathing was bubbling out of the crypt he kept it locked in, and Matt vomited on the floor.

He cleaned himself up later, and went to bed.

That night, he heard a door creak open. The night-lights in his room flickered a little, then died. Matt looked up sharply, his eyes still blurred with tears – the closet door opened wide, and that rancid smell poured out, the smell of buried secrets.

Something stirred in the dark – that strange rattling sound. Matt sat upright, and closed his eyes, cross-legged.

‘You’re not real,’ he said to the shadows, keeping his eyes closed. ‘You’re not real. You’re not real.’

But he couldn’t help it. He opened his eyes. In the amber streetlight, Matt saw bones assembling themselves in the closet. Skeleton fingers pushed the door open wider, and Matt swallowed. Tears were streaming down his cheeks.

He closed his eyes again.

‘You’re not real. You’re not real. You’re not real –’