I just started remembering what it was like being nine years old. The same age my son, Wyatt, is now. He’s my only kid, and he’s a gentle and curious boy. Which is why I worry this whole thing is about to go horribly wrong.
I was tough, but I think my parents’ divorce was what set it off for me. I didn’t see it coming, and wasn’t prepared for being alone in our big house with just my mom. But dad had to leave, so it was just us.
Everything felt different after he left. Especially my room. It always felt like there were sets of eyes following me from under the bed to the closet. And then back again.
I’d walk past the closet and see movement in my peripherals, but I’d never turn fast enough to catch it.
The incidents in the closet grew over time. It’d be every three or four nights. Sometimes six. Sometimes ten. Just long enough for me to hope the thing wasn’t coming back.
But then I’d be laying in bed, and a coat hanger would twist and squeak. Or a toy block would tumble or pages in a book would flip.
One night my closet door slowly creaked open.
I pulled the covers down and finally saw what it was.
My scream shook the town and my mom was in my room in under five seconds flat. She’d been awake and trying to drink herself to sleep down the hall.
My mom checked the closet, but found nothing. I convinced her to let me sleep in her bed that night, but she was adamant it wouldn’t become a habit.
I knew I couldn’t stay in my room anymore. And didn’t really want to stay in the house. But I didn’t like the idea of that thing in my room. Or near my mom. So the next night, I made a plan and spent the whole day preparing.
It was shortly after midnight when my closet door creaked open.
A tall, impossibly long limbed figure ducked out from under the frame of the closet, and into my room. It moved awkwardly, like a man unable to fully control his limbs. His body and head were tiny, reminding me of Daddy Long Legs spiders. The man had to curl under the ceiling as he approached my bed.
He leaned over the tiny mound under the blankets, and peeled them back to reveal…
Clothes, strategically placed to resemble my body. And in the centre - A knife pointed upwards, taped to a mechanical toy trebuchet. Its trigger pin had a long string attached to it, which ran off the bed and behind the dresser, along the wall… and to a mound of clothes in the corner.
Which I was hidden in. I’d tricked it.
I pulled the string and the pin yanked out. The trebuchet snapped forward and the knife swung up, slamming into the tall man’s face.
He stumbled backwards, falling into the closet and pulling the door shut behind him. I climbed out of my hunting blind with a hockey stick I’d taped a flashlight to and another one of my mom’s knives to the end of.
I opened the closet, ready to jab forward, but it was empty. I turned on the ceiling lights and found a trail of strange dark blood from my bed to the middle of the closet.
The blood disappeared in the middle of the floor.
I cleaned the blood up with bleach and left the light on for the rest of the night. Then I moved to the second part of my plan.
Our family were big campers and I’d watched my dad set up the tent plenty of times. I loved sleeping outside under the stars and convinced my mom to let me sleep in the backyard in the tent for the week.
The week turned into a month. And that turned into three months. I spent the entire summer in the tent.
When my mom made me finally come in and sleep in my room again… my closet was normal. The tall man never came back. I eventually stopped thinking about him and grew up.
I didn’t think of the man again until my wife and I went to a parent teacher meeting. Wyatt was kept separate from it.
The teacher, Mrs. Boyle, thought Wyatt was a great kid. Very intelligent and kind. With an expansive imagination.
His creativity had typically produced very diverse work.
But the past few weeks, things had changed. He’d only been drawing one thing. It was a stick figure of a frightening, distorted looking man.
Who was very tall.
The man’s arms and legs were long. Too long for the tiny head and body which were made up of small swirls and spikes.
Wyatt had written “Mr. Daddy Long Legs” on all of the drawings.
My heart skipped a beat and I felt like I was nine again. Apparently, Wyatt was speaking with Mr. Daddy Long Legs constantly in class.
I didn’t remember anything else that was said in the meeting. It was like I went deaf.
My wife and I picked Wyatt up from the adjacent classroom after. It was a quiet walk to the car, and an even quieter drive.
From the backseat, Wyatt finally broke the silence. He asked if Mrs. Boyle brought up the drawings.
I said she did bring them up. Then asked Wyatt, who the man in the drawings was.
Wyatt told me, “You know who he is. You met him before.”
I lied and responded, “I don’t remember meeting him.”
Wyatt leaned forward in his seat, up to my shoulder, and whispered, “He remembers meeting you.”