I can still remember every detail of this night as if it was yesterday, though I am now 31 and was then only 5.
My sister and I were playing in our bedroom before bed time. There was a perfectly square bump in the closet, as if there was a trap door under the carpet there.
I told my sister that that was where monsters live, so we decided to prove our bravery by stomping and yelling on the spot. We yelled that we weren’t scared of the monsters and that they better not come out of there or they’d regret it. However, looking back, I was the one who regretted my actions.
My mom put us to bed, leaving our bedroom door open so we could have the plug in light from the living room. I easily fell asleep, listening to my parents watch tv. Yet hours later something woke me.
I looked in the corner diagonal from my bed to see my sister still fast asleep. I looked out the bedroom door from my bed to see only the plug in light, my parents having long went to bed themselves. All was quiet, I didn’t understand what woke me.
Not until I saw movement coming from my closet. Movement raising up from the bump in the floor. Crawling out of the closet on all fours like a giant dog. It turned its head towards me, blood red eyes glowing in the dark.
I couldn’t scream, too scared to make a noise as I threw the blanket over my head as if that was an impenetrable shield. I didn’t move, held my breathe and pretended to be asleep, praying the monster from my closet would go back to where he came from and leave me alone. I was terrified, I wasn’t the fearless girl I claimed to be hours earlier.
After sometime I dared a peek out from under my blanket, looking down at the end of the bed. It wasn’t there.
I looked over at my sisters bed, she still slept peacefully, unaware of what had happened. I thought about running to my parents room, but was too scared to leave my bed. What if it was hiding somewhere in the room? It’s black form blending in with the shadows of the closet or under my bed.
I stayed in bed, silent tears flooding my eyes, until I saw the sun light come through the blinds of my window. That was when I closed my eyes, hours to go before my mom would get us up for breakfast still.
I never went into my closet again. No one believed me about what I saw. “You probably just dreamed it. There is no such thing as monsters.” The typical line over and over.
I’m 31 now, and I still remember those red eyes, the black form. It resembled a dog in someways, though I only saw it’s body and head, not the limbs it crawled from my closet on.
My parents moved from that house not long after, having bought their first home finally. I was glad to see that house go, even years later I drive by and shiver at the memory.
Recently I heard a podcast talk about The Rake. Though the details are quite the same, I wonder, was my monster something as dangerous as that? Did I narrowly escape death? Questions I pray I never know the answer to.