Being a kid your mind tends to play tricks on you. Your imagination can run wild. Sometimes you believe you heard strange noises or even seen something uncanny, something that does not belong in this world. That being said, I have been reminded recently of a really odd event that plagued my childhood. A clicking sound coming from my closet.
It started when I was around seven. I have no siblings and lived alone with my mother, who was extremely strict when it came to bedtime. She tucked me in at half past nine every night. Making sure every light was switched off. I would revive a kiss on the forehead for following her routine and be left alone to sleep. This was nothing new, I had been doing this over and over, ever since I grew consciousness. But this night was different.
My room was quite small, my bed taking up more than a quarter of my room and a TV that sat in front of me. The window that was never shut hovered to the right of me and the closet stood straight to the left next to my door. It was an ordinary closet, nothing strange, spooky or unusual about it. Plain Oakwood coloured it and my cloths and shoes were packed tightly in. Boxes of toys filled the roof of the closet making it extremely claustrophobic. Even when playing hide and seek with friends no one was dumb enough to chance hiding in there and not being found. That’s why at the age of seven I found it rather frightening to hear such a noise.
The room was pitch black and shutting my eyes hardly made a difference. No sound ever entered as I slept in silence. Then I heard it. Click. It wasn’t t loud in fact if my bedroom hadn’t been soundless I would have ignored it. Through my innocence I believed one of my action figures perhaps fell. I tried to go back to sleep. Not long later after the non comforting click seemed to have disappeared I began slowly falling back into slumber. Until I heard it again.
Click!…Click! This time it doubled in a short pause, becoming louder as if it was closer. Was it action figures clattering, a horses noisy joints clogging its way down a field, the snapping of a twig in the woods, someone rolling and popping their tongue, cracking their knuckles outside my window or was it something more sinister?
All I knew is that I did not want to find out. I lay in prayer underneath the suffocating but protective company of my quilt as I begged the noise would stop. And it did. I spent the whole night and early hours of the morning awake, petrified of hearing the click but it had gone. That morning I did not dare to take a peek inside.
I explained to my mother what had happened over breakfast. She brushed it off explaining, “it could have been a million things making that noise.” For weeks my nightly privacy remained hushed, only hearing the weather outside my window. The clicking had become a lost memory, carrying on with my simple, sweet, little life it had been totally forgotten.
In the darkness again the nights repeated. A kiss goodnight then eyes shut.
It hit me like a punch the stomach. The sound lit up my room. My heart began to sink up into my throat, it made my breath run heavy as I struggled for air. I took a glance. The closet was peered open. A little gap only big enough to slide a piece of paper through appeared. I had not left it open. Did I? The retreat back into my covers was my only form of escape. That night was misery. I stayed up as to not alert the entity in my closet that I was convinced was real. I didn’t dream of confronting the click. I stayed up all night and morning again. Holding my small bladder that burst not long after.
Frozen in fear I hid until my mother came in to wake me up. I pointed to the closet which she opened. Nothing was there. For pissing in my bed and staying up all night my TV license was confiscated. She repeated herself telling me. “ nothing is in there, you are just hearing things, it’s just your mind playing tricks on you.”
The clicking did not stop. They became more frequent. Every night I heard it. Sometimes once, sometimes ten times, sometimes it was loud, sometimes it was quiet. This went on for months. I became that used to it I stoped hiding. I just listened.
Eventually the living nightmare that had become a reality was weighing me down. I remember my mother taking me to the hospital . They said I had extremely high stress and lack of sleep for a little boy. Sleeping pills were prescribed to me. My routine had changed from a kiss on forehead to swallowing bullet sized balls. At least the clicking stoped.
I don’t know what it was but an urge came over me. I wanted to know if what I heard was just a noise. I placed the pill at the back of my mouth, taking a sip of water and waiting for my mother to leave. I spat it out. Patiently I rested my head against my pillow, almost hoping to hear it. Some time had passed and there was nothing. In a way I was disappointed. I began questioning myself. I guess my mind really was playing tricks on me.
At that moment, I heard it. Not a click but a squeak. The squeak of my closet door being pushed open. Being completely honest I was terrified to even open look never mind getting up and investigating who or what had just opened my closet. But somehow in some dumb defiance, bravery and courage rushed my souls. The darkness surrounded me, my closet resembling a black hole. Nothing but a void of emptiness. By the time my feet touched the carpeted floor, my body was uncontrollably shaking. Slowly and carefully I tiptoed across the soft ground. I made it . The door which was already half opened began squeaking again, the noise was agonising, like chalk being scraped across a black board. This sent me stumbling back, nearly falling in fright. The unknown had terrorised me for too long. I need to know what was clicking in my closet.
I entered.
Click! A flash struck my face leaving me blinded. My vision remained blurred as I heard heavy footsteps pass me by. After my eyes began to clear I switched on the lights. The rustling must have triggered my mother to come rushing in holding a metallic bat. She grabbed me in an embracing hug. During this I could see my window completely wide open. Behind me my mother noticed something else. Most of my clothes, shoes and toys were missing. She reached in the closet. It was a photo. “I told you there was clicking in my closet.”
You are probably wondering why I decided to share a disturbing part of my childhood with random people online. Well it happens around thirty years ago and I have moved e passed it now. I have a wife and a little boy. A little boy who brought this memory back to me. He’s been telling me he hears whispers at night.