He looked from his father to hismother and back again- their big, ell-loved faces.
" Really?"
" Really," Hiss mommysaid. " Now i want you to get up and go pee, big guy."
" I did. That's what woke me up."
"Well," She said, because perants never believed you, " Humor me then, what do you say?"
So he went in and she watched while he did four drops and she smiled and said, " See? You did have to go."
Resigned, Tad nodded.Went back to bed. Was tucked in. Accepted kissess.
And his mother and father went back to the door the fear settled on him again like a cold coat of full of mist. Like a shroud stinking of hopeless death. Oh please, he thought, but there was no more, just that: Oh please, oh please, oh please.
Perhaps his father caught his thought, because Vic turned back, one hand on the light switch, and repeated: " No monsters, Tad,"
" No Daddy," Tad said, because in that instant his father's eyes seemed shadowed, and far, as if he needed to be conviced. " No monsters." Except for the one in my closet.
The light snapped off.
" Good night, Tad." His mother's voice trailer back to himlightly, and in his mind he cried out, Be careful, Mommy, they eat the ladies! In all the movies they catch the ladies and carry them off and eat them! Oh please oh please oh please -
But they were gone.
So Tad Trenton, four years old, lay in his bed, all wires and stiff Erector set breaces. He lay with the covers pulled up ti his chin and one arm crushing Teddy against his chest, and there was Luke Skywalker on one wall; there was a chipmunk standing on a blender one another wall, grinning cheerily ( IF LIFE HANDS YOU LEMONS, MAKE LEMONADE! the cheeky, grinning chipmunk was saying); there vwas the whole motley Sesame Street crew on a third: Big Bire, Bert, Ernie, Oscar, Grover. Good totems; good magic. But oh the wind outside, screaming over the roof and skating down black gutters! Hw would sleep no more this night.
But little by little the wires unsnarled themselves and stiff Erector Set muscles relaxed. His mind began to drift...
And then a new screaming, this on closer than the nightwind outside, brought him back to staring wakefulness again.
The hinges on the closet door.
Creeeeeeeeeeee -
That thin sound, so high that perhaps only dogs and small boys awake in the night could have heard it. His closet door swung open slowly and steadily, a dead mouth opening on darkness inch by inch and foot by foot.
The monster was in that darkness. It crouched where it had crouched before. It grinned at him, and its huge shoulders bulked above its cocked head, and its eyes glowed amber, alive with stupide cunning. I told you they'd go away, Tad, it whispered. They always do, in the end. And then i can come back. I like to come back. I like you, Tad. I'll come back every night now, I think, and every night I'll come a little colser to your bed... and a little colser... until one night, before you can scream for them, you'll hear something growling, something growling right beside your bed, Tad, it'll be me, and I'll pounce , and then I'll eat you and you'll be in me.
Tad stared at the creature in his closet with drugged, horrified fascination. There was something that... was almost familiar. Something he almost knew. And that was the worst, that almost knowing. Because-
Because I'm crazy, Tad. I'm here. I've been here all along. My name was Frank Dodd once, and i killed the ladies and maybe i ate them too. I've been here all along, I stick around, i keep my ear to the ground. I'm the monster, Tad, the old monster, and I'll have you soon, Tad. Feel me getting closer... and closer...
Perhaps the thing in the closet sopke to him in its own hissing breath, or perhaps its voice was the wind's voice. Either was, neither way, it didn't matter. He listened to its words,drugged with terror, near fainting ( but oh so wide awake); he looked upon its shadowed, snarling face, perhaps he would never sleep again.
But sometime later,sometime between the striking o half past midnight and the hour of one, perhaps because he was small, tad drifted away again. Thin sleep in which hulking, furred creatures with white teeth chased him deepened into dreamless slumber.
the wind conversations with the gutters. A rind of white spring moon rose in the sky. Somewhere far away,in some still meadow of the night or along some pine-edged corridor of forest, a dog barked furiously and then fell silent.
And in Tad Trenton's closet, something with amber eyes held watch.
