Jimmy had always known a monster lurked in the depths of his closet, imprisoned there in darkness by the light of the human world. He wasn’t sure how he knew, but he could feel it in his bone marrow and in the inner twinings of his intestines. And although he’d never had an exact picture in his mind of what it would look like—how many legs, arms and such, or tentacles, or claws, or how many eyes—he was certain that it would have lots of sharp teeth. Yet up until today there had been a small, solitary space in the deepest hideaway of his heart where he cradled a precious yet fragile hope that his dad had been right: there was no monster in his closet.
“Just a little boy’s imagination being manipulated by ghost stories,” dad had told him two years earlier with both authority and a finality that ended the discussion forever. When dad saw the worried look on Jimmy’s face, he gently mussed up Jimmy’s hair while giving him a fatherly chuckle.
“You’ll grow out of it,” dad said, turning back to his newspaper and coffee, then, “trust me, you’ll be okay.”
It was okay to open the closet door during the day, or at night as long as one light in the bedroom was on. Everyone knew that. And it had proven to be true. A night-light, however, didn’t work; ‘not strong enough to ward off monsters and other malevolent entities’ he had read in one of his haunting middle-grade books—a theory he had never tested.
But tonight, as the moon bathed the semi-dark interior of his bedroom with pale autumn light, Jimmy was determined to leave boyhood behind. He just turned ten and was more mature and a lot bigger than he was two years earlier when he’d confided in dad. In fact, this morning dad had even called him Jim for the very first time. That meant something had changed. Dads knew. He had even sung part of a song, something about not spitting into the wind—that was funny—not tugging on Superman’s cape, and not messing around with Jim, who was a real tough guy according to the song.
Yeah, Jim wasn’t some little fraidy-cat’s name. Not a little boy’s name. And this Jim wasn’t a little boy anymore. Dad had pretty much confirmed that this morning. Jim was becoming a young man, and young men weren’t afraid of monsters.
But as bedtime approached, the snake of dread that had been hibernating in his gut all day slowly uncoiled; and now, as he stood before the closet door, it began to wriggle and writhe.
No, he wouldn’t back down—he must face it!
Willing himself into manhood, he stood straight and swallowed, and clung to dad’s words: ‘Just a little boy’s imagination…you’ll be okay.’ There was no monster in his closet.
And this was the moment to prove it.
Settle the matter forever.
Put both the monster and the little boy to bed.
Nighty night, sweet dreams.
And wake up a man.
He reached for the closet door handle and pulled…
…and tried to scream as the thing reached for him with slimy, sucker covered tentacles to fetch him into its lipless mouth, which reeked of wet decay and was lined with lots of sharp teeth.
Jimmy staggered backward, raising the ‘ultra-beam’ flashlight he had borrowed from dad’s work area in the garage just in case and flicked on the beam in the same motion. The light splashed across the monster’s face, the beam penetrating deep into its cavernous throat. The monster grimaced, closing both its mouth and eyes, and swallowed the light…and disappeared, instantly sucked from the closet by a powerful, cosmic vacuum. Gone!
It worked! He’d done it—stood like a man and faced the fake monster and won.
The flashlight filled the closet interior with glorious light.
No monster here. Never had been. Just a boy’s imagination.
He thought about going down to the family room and declaring his manhood to dad, who would probably just chuckle again and say ‘Good for you, Jimmy. What’d I tell you, now go back to bed.’ And Jimmy would reply that from this point forward he preferred to be addressed as ‘Jim’ because he was now as tough as Jim in that song. Not to be messed with.
But he didn’t go downstairs and talk to dad. That could wait until tomorrow, after dad had settled in the breakfast nook with his coffee and newspaper. Then Jim would march through toward the fridge while pretending to absentmindedly be humming the melody to that ‘don’t mess around with Jim,’ song to see if dad took the bait and asked him about it.
He slipped under his bed covers, closed his eyes and, with a grin, began humming the tune through his nose. All was right and life was good. THE END.
Except for the putrescent smell that began stinging his nostrils, as if his room was a mausoleum and someone had just opened all of the crypts. He squeezed his eyes shut and held his breath, trying to will the source of the smell away, but when he could hold his breath no longer the smell still lingered, only stronger.
“Dad?” He knew it wasn’t.
He heard something slither up the bed post near his head, and the tip of a tentacle, like a cold, slimy tongue, licked a circle around his ear.
For the first time in his life, Jimmy realized that dads could be wrong. His dad was wrong; there had been a monster in his closet, and he had foolishly set it free. And no, he wasn’t going to be okay.
“Flashlights don’t work either, little boy Jimmy,” came the moist whisper from under the bed.
Tom lives in the foothills west of Palomar Mountain (Hale telescope) with his wife, Michelle, two strange dogs, and a furry grey demon who thinks she’s a cat. He also writes poetry, songs, and instrumental compositions for guitar.
Published 6/5/25