Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep Read online

you,” Kaylee whispered at the door. “You ain’t real, an’ I ain’t scared of you one bit.” She took another step forward. The bat shook over her head as her arms trembled.

  There was another bump on the door, and it started to swing open. Then night light flickered and extinguished itself with a small pop. Now the room was lit only by a distant street lamp filtered by the Monster High curtains. Kaylee froze, her foot hovering two inches above the floor. Carly whimpered by the bed, unable to move.

  The door yawned open, creaking slightly, until the doorknob bumped into the vanity beside the closet. Kaylee could see nothing: no toys on the floor, no clothes on their hangers, not even their backpacks sitting by the door. But she could hear them. The hangers rattled and toys shifted as something moved among them. “Not real, not real, I don’t believe in you,” Kaylee muttered into the darkness, like a mantra.

  Whatever was in the closet drew a breath. The inhalation was a drawn-out hiss, the exhalation a sharp snort. The hot breath blew over and around Kaylee, ruffling her hair and pajamas. Her skin marbled into gooseflesh despite the heat of the wind. She gagged at the stink of it. She wasn’t old enough to know the smell of graveyards, of decay and rot, but it caught in her throat nonetheless.

  The foot that had been hovering over the floor drew back, and Kaylee took a long backwards step toward the bed, not worrying now about making noise. “Not real, not real,” she repeated.

  Carly was bouncing on the balls of her feet in agitation and fear as her sister retreated. She picked up on Kaylee’s chant and joined in, hoping on some level that it would make the thing just go away if she could convince herself it wasn’t real.

  “Not real, not here, not real,” she muttered. Her toe bumped against a Barbie doll with one arm and she nearly screamed. Looking down at it, though, pulled her eyes away from the closet and she found that she could act, after all. She stooped and grabbed the doll.

  “Not real, not real, not really real,” she stated, and threw Barbie for all she was worth.

  The doll flew wide, though, and struck the doorframe, bouncing away and hitting the floor by Kaylee’s foot. She jumped and dropped the bat, a gasp startled out of her by the impact.

  The thing drew in another long breath and held it for a full minute. The room was dead silent as time and darkness stretched out. Carly stood where she was, staring at the place where she thought the doll had struck, while Kaylee reached behind herself, one hand flailing for the bed.

  It breathed out with a fetid whuff, and a low growl cut the silence of the room. It shifted and there was a bump as a toy teapot fell to the floor, playing a tinkling tune when it hit.

  Carly whimpered and didn’t notice the weight in her belly ease as her bladder emptied itself.

  The Closet Monster opened its eyes. Dark-red and huge as saucers, they burned with fierce hunger as they fixed on Kaylee. It blew out another hot breath and started to advance.

  Carly found her voice then, and screamed with all her four-year-old might. The thing turned its gaze on her, but she didn’t stop. Her screams echoed around the room and tore down the hall.

  “Dammit, you two!” Danny shouted, and the spell was broken. Kaylee crouched and grabbed the bat again, while Carly dove into the bed, still screaming. With a final disappointed growl, the thing turned away from the girls. The hungry light of its eyes was hidden by the bulk of its body as it slithered back into the deep shadows of the closet. The door swung shut, but stopped just before it clicked completely closed.

  “I have had enough, ladies!” Danny shouted as he thundered into the girls’ room. He was trying to push one arm through the sleeve of his robe and turn on the bedroom light with other, and it took him three tries before the room lit up with the soft glow of fluorescent bulbs. “This has gone on too long! I told you both to…shut…up…” He trailed off when he saw the terrified expressions on his daughters’ faces. Kaylee was still crouched on the floor, clutching the whiffle ball bat to her chest, while Carly peeked over the covers. Her face was pale and covered with sweat. Both of them stared at their father with wide eyes.

  “What happened in here?” He finally got his robe on as he crossed the room and stood over Kaylee. He reached down to take the bat away from her, but she shook her head, holding it tighter.

  “No,” she said. “I might need it again. If it comes back, I might need it again.” She looked past Danny and stared at the closet door, which remained open just a crack.

  “What?” Danny asked. “If what comes back?”

  “The Closet Monster,” Carly squeaked. Her voice was cracked and raw from screaming. “It was there, in the closet, just like you said. And it was gonna come out and eat us all up, ‘cause we wasn’t asleep. It was right there.” She pointed at the closet with a trembling hand.

  Danny was inclined to think they’d managed to scare each other into a screaming fit, but was worried about the shell-shocked expressions on their faces. “Guys, come on,” he said, not really sure what to say. “The Closet Monster isn’t real. I just told you that so you would go to sleep. I made it up, that’s all.” It sounded lame to his own ears, but he still hoped it got through to the girls.

  “Huh-uh,” Kaylee said, shaking her head. Her hair fell into her eyes, but she wouldn’t take a hand off the bat to brush it back. “It’s really real. I tried to make it go away, but it’s really real, and it came to eat us.”

  “An’ it was gonna eat Kaylee first, but then I scared it off when I shouted,” Carly added. She climbed out of bed again and went to Danny. One leg of her pajamas was soaked to the knee where she had wet herself, and that more than anything unnerved him.

  “Look, guys, I’ll prove to you I made it up, okay?” He tried to sound light. “I’ll look in the closet, just to show you there’s no monster in there. Then you’ll need to clean up, Carly, and get yourself some fresh jammies, and back to bed for both of you.” He ruffled Kaylee’s hair, but she neither took her eyes from the closet door nor loosened her death grip on the bat.

  He turned around and went to the closet door, noticing for the first time that it wasn’t closed all the way. Had it been like that earlier? Danny didn’t think it had been, but that really didn’t mean anything; he probably only just noticed it since his attention was actually focused on it now.

  He was reaching for the doorknob when Kaylee’s voice stopped him. “Daddy?”

  Danny looked over his shoulder at her. “What is it, sweetie?”

  “Don’t do it, Daddy. Don’t open the door. I’m scared of it. Please don’t.”

  “Me too,” Carly whispered. “I’m more scareder of it. Don’t look in there, Daddy, please? Okay?”

  “Now listen to me, Carly, Kaylee: there is no… repeat, no… Closet Monster,” he said as he grabbed the knob and pulled.

  “The door swung open easily, displaying the toys and clothes that filled the interior of the closet. One of Carly’s teddy bears fell out into the room. The girls gasped, but Danny stuck his head and looked around.

  After a moment, he turned back to look at the girls. “See?” he said. “Nothing in there but a very sloppy closet. Tell you what we need to do, though: tomorrow we’re going through this mess and picking out all the toys and clothes and stuff that you guys don’t play with and giving it to other children who could probably use them more..

  “But Daddy…” Carly whined. Danny held up a silencing finger.

  “No ‘buts’, young lady. You two have enough crap in here to bury China, let alone any monsters hiding out in here. So tomorrow, we’re digging through this mess and-“

  Something moved in the back of the closet.

  Danny turned and leaned back to look in the closet again. The girls, though, gasped and started shaking. Kaylee dropped the bat

  “Daddy, please close the door,” she said.

  “Hello?” Danny said into the closet, half-joking, then went cold when a thick growl came from a jumble of stuffed animals.

  “What the hell…?” he started to
say. Then he saw the eyes.

  They were peering at him from the pile of toys, burning with the same hungry malevolence that had terrified the children. Danny stared back into them, his chest tightening so that his breath came in little gasps.

  With no warning, the pile exploded as the thing came at Danny. He couldn’t make out details, nor did he stick around and wait for it to land on him. Throwing himself backwards, Danny hit the edge of the door with his hand and slammed it closed.

  The thing rammed the door hard enough to rattle it on its hinges, but it held firm for the moment. Danny had just enough time to realize that the monster was trapped inside before he overbalanced and fell against the vanity beside the closet. The wooden edge bit into his ribs hard enough to knock the breath out of him with a whoosh. The lamp sitting on the opposite corner tipped backwards and fell off, hitting the carpet with a dull thud and rolling behind him.

  Carly leapt straight back into the bed and wrenched the covers over her head again. She was crying now, gasping “Mommy, Mommy!” between sobs. Kaylee clamped her hands over her eyes and shouted “Not real!” over and over as loud as her young voice could go.

  Danny leaned against the vanity. His side was on fire, and somewhere in his mind, a practical voice was saying he may have broken a rib.

  The thing in the closet threw itself against the door twice more, rattling it in its frame with each