The Boogeyman

Others Stories | Apr 26, 2012 | 10 min read
1 Votes, average: 4 out of 5
According to his mother, there were no such things as monsters. There were no werewolves prowling the misty streets, no Vampires stalking the midnight hour, and certainly no masked killers with a vendetta to extract upon witless babysitters. Those things simply did not exist beyond Hollywood. And Tom Chambers, knowing this to be true, should have found fewer and fewer things in life left to scare him.

He was old enough now to have long since outgrown the stories of his childhood and the belief he held in the wretchedness of shadow and the occasional creaky board. They were, he knew, simply stories told by his mother, a wicked act of suppression passed down to her, perhaps, from her own mother.  Yet even now, stories and fables supposedly behind him, he could not help his jagged imagination from playing the occasional trick – pricking at his nerves whenever he thought he saw something from the corner of his eye; or found words whispered into his eager ears.

Take now, for example, as darkness fell upon the world he could do little more than lay in a kind of rigid paralysis. He would stare at the ceiling from his bed and watch the shadows dance overhead; and through the heavy silence, the seconds of which were pierced only by the ticking of the Westclox beside him, he heard – or thought he heard – an occasional parlance slicing lazily through the silence. It was only a few words, never quite distinguishable as a sentence, as if spoken through some great void. And the words, when spoken, sounded like the gargled the voice of the dead.

It was a crazy belief, he knew, but it became one he couldn't quite bring himself to deny. The voice had been there, albeit faintly, and he had heard it. Yet in his admittance of hearing it he also found himself having to re-believe all those things he had long since forgotten in the wake of adolescence. The Pinhead's, the Freddy Kruger's, and the Michael Myers … they were all there, lurking in the shadows until his back was turned.

And when his parents occasionally took to asking him why he was so afraid of the dark, as they invariably did when curiosity got the better of them, he would simply shrug and pull the covers tightly beneath his chin and close his eyes.

They wouldn't have understood his complaint even if he had told them. They were too old and (set in their ways?) too long in the tooth to understand, and it was more likely they would think him traumatised (and undoubtedly openly argue the point) after losing Casey the previous fall.  Nor would they have been wrong in such an assumption. Casey had been the best sitter yet – far more tentative than any previous – and her loss, while continually considered a great mystery of the twenty-first century, had hit him hard.

Lives had been shattered that year – his included.

It had been a chilly business that year. The police came and went and asked a million questions of him and his younger brother, Scott, but even with the truth aired (of talk about clawed shadows and burning eyes lurking deep within the dark of his closet) they had simply assumed him too young to fully understand. They had even laughed. In the end, Casey became nothing more than another runaway teen. Yet for those that preceded her, Casey's story became something of a curious legend.

"I want you to tell me everything." Sam said. "I want you to tell me what really happened to her."

"I don't want to talk about it. She's gone, that's all you really need to know."

"But there's got to be something to tell, right? Something you didn't tell the police or your parents?"

"They know everything. They just didn't believed me."

"So tell me … I'll believe you."

"No." He snapped with an air of authoritative finality that made Sam flinch. "Casey's gone – it's over with – there's nothing to tell."

"Oh my God you're scared, are you?" She muttered with a sharp smile, settling herself on the edge of his bed. "I thought you were cooler than that, Tom, I really did."

"Why'd you want to know anyway? You didn't know her."

"I'm curious – and I'm bored."

He lay silent; the covers pulled tightly beneath his chin, and stared at the expectant face of Samantha Wallis.

She's not going to leave you alone until you tell her something. Just have it over and done with and she'll leave you alone … she'll walk out and never ask you again, and you can get back to some kind of normality.

"It was my fault," he said simply. "I killed her."

"You're joking, right?" She asked, the sour tang of distrust weighing heavily in her tone. "That's not cool, Tom. You shouldn't make up shit like that."

He fidgeted awkwardly and stared wordlessly at the ceiling. Outside a rift of wind rattled through the eves and briefly stirred a monstrous growl. The sound reverberated through every room before dying, and Tom shuddered at the parlance. Even the once innocent shadows dancing over the ceiling and walls – cast by spindly branches projected through the moonlight – now seemed greedily poised to snatch him up. Skeletal fingers made of shadow.

"Tom, tell me everything, from the beginning. What really happened?"

"I've already told you – I killed her."

"Assuming I believe you – which I don't by the way – how'd you do it?"

He waved a single hand in front of his face as if to ward away an irritant fly, and scowled. "It's my fault she's dead … but I didn't actually kill her. She made sure that happened all by herself."

"That's enough, Tom. I've heard enough of your bullshit all ready."

"But it's the truth." He said quickly. "Now do you understand why they didn't believe me?"

A brief flicker of unease emerged in Samantha's gaze. It was sharp, cold, and painful. It was the same look his mother and the police officers had given him the night Casey disappeared. Ordinarily Sam was the brave one, but tonight she seemed less so. Tonight she looked a little nervous – almost uncomfortable.

"So tell me," she said. "Or should I go and ask Scott?"

"No! He doesn't know. We – I – never told him."

"Then tell me, and spare me the bullshit."

Tom suddenly wanted to be sick. He felt his stomach cramp and lurch in revolt. The moment passed slowly and the threat faded, leaving his only concern in the aftermath of such revolt was fathoming where to pick up the thread of his inevitable story.

But where to begin? There was so much he could have recounted, and yet there also remained so much he could have omitted. He doubted if she would tolerate the story from its absolute beginning because he suspected her pallet yearned for the kind of immediacy he could not deliver. Yet in omitting the absolute beginning didn't he run the risk of causing problems later? Or would she be far happier with a story only half told?

"Well, what are you waiting for?"

"I don't know how, that's the point. It's been here for as long as I can remember. It's always been here. Mum used to tell me stories about it – kids stuff, you know? – and she'd laugh when I got scared … but deep down I already knew It was real."

"What's It?"

"The Boogeyman."

Sam let out a sharp, unattractive squeal of laughter that Tom didn't like, and almost immediately clamped both hands over her mouth.

"And I suppose you're going to tell me the Boogeyman is real, right?"

Tom nodded: yes.

"You're crazy."

"Casey didn't believe me either. She thought I was lying, too."

"So how'd she die?"

Tom closed his eyes, sighed, and said: "He just came out of the closet and took her. Took her whole head in one hand, pulled her into the closet, and slammed the door behind him. I don't know what else happened to her. Something bad that's for sure."

"Really?" She was half smiling now; unease replaced by momentary amusement, and hitched her thumb over her shoulder. "That closet?"

"Yes."

She stood sharply, crossed the room in a handful of strides, and stood beside the closet door Tom had barricaded with fresh laundry stacked neatly on a wooden chair.

"Don't open it." He snapped. "I keep it closed because it's safer."

"Relax, there's going to be nothing in there ‘cept old trainers and a few shitty comic books. And if that's the story you told the police and your parents, I'm not surprised they didn't believe you kiddo. You're full of shit."

The pile of laundry was almost gone now, pilled neatly on the dresser beside the window, and a hot knot of nerves began to swell in his stomach.

Close your eyes. Close them and don't look until you hear the door slam, because then you really can say you don't know what happened. Close ‘em, Tom, close ‘em now!

He didn't. He couldn't.

"Please, Sam, stop."

Now the laundry and the chair were gone and the closet door, somehow, had already drifted slightly ajar. Mercifully, he saw nothing beyond the narrow crack except for darkness loaning itself to darkness. There were no fiery eyes staring back at him, no voice whispering his name from somewhere just out of sight, and no scantly produced shapes to turn his imagination against him.

"Relax kiddo, it's an empty closet."

You hope it is.

Now she was holding the door handle and smiling at him like a lunatic – masochistically teasing him as the seconds ticked by. She was taunting him, he knew, allowing the moment to unfold in as much painful glory as she could muster. There was only suffering now, the story newly told, and she had taken to turning his fear against him.

What am I supposed to do once you realise you've been wrong all along? What then? What do I tell people – your parents – then?

"You're a liar, Tommy Chambers. A dirty, little liar." She said. The outrage in her tone barely avoidable, and where once curiosity had taken pride of place a simmering rage now resided.  "And I'm going to prove it."

The wind rose again and this time blew not one but a series of monstrous howls through the house. A door slammed.

The room was gloomy except for the small lamp burning on his bedside cabinet, and a thick, palpable darkness had descended upon the world. Todd found himself anxiously watching the mouth of his closet for the slightest movement. He saw nothing. But then, God save them both, he heard something … not a name this time, nor a string of words which may have formed a sentence, but a sound nonetheless. It wasn't the wind, it was something much worse. And it wasn't coming from the world beyond his window either because now it was stirring much louder around them.

Panic began to surface deep within him.

"Go ahead and open it!" He snapped. "Open it and you'll see how wrong you are."

"Enough! There are no such things as monsters. There are no bogey men."

His body shook beneath the covers, and he was only half-aware of the way he was tightly pulling at his bedding, indifferent to the harshness of material scouring at the skin beneath his nose.

Had she heard the noises at all? Had she not taken stock of what was happening around her right now?

"There's nothing in there." She snapped with a harshness equal to his own, and immediately flung the door wide and presented the cool emptiness beyond with a knowing smile. "See?"

In the darkness nothing moved. No creek of boards, no giggle in the shadows. There was nothing there. His body had relaxed a little now – the tension gently eased away – but he still could not disallow himself the seed of doubt that remained deeply entrenched at the back of his mind.

"You're a liar, Thom Chambers. I knew it."

Seconds later, she was standing in the mouth of the closet and peering contently into the gloom. There was nothing to see, of course, save for a pair of forgotten Nike trainers and a pile of Spider-man comics left to dust and age, but the preoccupation seemed to suit her.

"Close the door, Sam." He asked softly, watching the shadows on his ceiling burst into fresh life. "Please, just close the door."

Now the familiar creak of boards began to stir – a tiny parlance all too recognisable.

Tom felt dread then.

Another creak, louder, coming from every point of the compass.

"You need help, Tom. What you did – all those things you said – was sick." She stated, finally turning her back on the closet. "You didn't have to lie."

I didn't lie! I didn't. Can't you hear the noise? Can't you hear it coming right now?

Riddled with fear and paralysis, Tom could only watch as a familiar shape emerged from nowhere and shifted within the darkness. And then came the gentle simmer of fiery eyes and the glistening of an arsenal of needle-like teeth made for ripping the flesh from bones. And it all happened less than three feet from where Samantha currently stood with her back turned.

"Such innocence." The voice said, spoken as if through a mouthful of liquid. "Perhaps, in time, they will remember her as the girl who doubted her killer's existence."

Tom snapped his eyes closed and covered his ears.

A second later Sam screamed. Sam begged. And Sam cajoled.

Tom heard only the screams in his head. The scene played out as before, with Casey, with The Boogeyman lurching out of the closet and seizing her whole face up in one greedy, clawed hand. Afterwards, with the deed done, it would peel the flesh from her bones and suit itself in her tattered remains. And there it would remain, encased in shadow, a fable taunting him with a face he scarcely recognised.

He was content in his ignorance, and in imagining the girl dance her merry jig at The Boogeymans hands. It would have cut and sliced by now, skinned and devoured, and perhaps hid the pieces where only it knew. And Tom knew, in opening his eyes to an empty room, that even the most mysterious of disappearances could sometimes be attributed to the most outrageous of abominations if only the mind remained open to their suggestion.

Tom smiled, content he had not been eaten up tonight, and stared at the bloodied death mask of a face he had only once known for a few months as it peered, wantonly, between a closet door not yet barricaded by wood and a neatly ironed pile of clothes.

 

Tags:

  
Report This Story
Notice (8): Undefined index: User [APP/View/stories/story.ctp, line 227]
Notice (8): Trying to access array offset on value of type null [APP/View/stories/story.ctp, line 227]

Recommendations

Reviews

Saul Hudson Apr 27, 2012

Thanks, Adam, I appreciate that. :)

Adam Apr 26, 2012

Loved it! Definitely one of the best stories I've read here so far... Good job!

Download the Short Story Lovers App

Read and write stories anytime, anywhere with the Short Story Lovers app