The Closet War
“Eight o’clock is eight o’clock,” said Anna Marie’s father as he shuffled her off to bed.
Anna Marie wasn’t satisfied with that conclusion. She dug her feet into the carpet, clung to doorways, and ducked through her father’s legs whenever he let his guard down. The battle was lost when he slung her over his shoulder and carried her into her room.
“You’ll be really sorry when I get eaten by the monster,” Anna Marie said. It happened, she knew. Seven-year-olds were eaten all the time. When their parents came in the next morning the only remains left were child-sized skeletons and monster-sized toothpicks.
Her father planted her in front of the dresser. “There is no monster in your closet. Now put on your pajamas.”
Pouting, Anna Marie took out her Ninja Turtles pajamas. No monster, she decided, was too scary for the Ninja Turtles. As she got dressed, her father opened the door to her closet and poked his balding head inside. “Are there any monsters in here? If there are, please don’t eat my daughter. She has school in the morning.”
Anna Marie crossed her arms. “Dad, don’t patronize me.”
Her father gave her a look. “Did your mother teach you that word?” He shut the closet door and crossed the room to tuck Anna Marie into bed. The seven-year old squirmed as he secured her under her star-patterned comforter. “Now,” he said, patting her head, “I’ll be right down the hall if you need me.”
Anna Marie sighed and let him kiss her goodnight. Her father turned off her lamp and left. The door closed after him, taking with it the last rays of light from the hallway. Alone in the dark, the little girl pulled the sheets up to her nose and pressed her shoulders into the headboard, staring out across the room. The eerie shadows cast by her toys and furniture didn’t bother her. She was focused on the closet door – the door that, with a creak, had come ajar. In the gap she felt something staring back at her. Something with eyes like hot coals. Something that devoured little girls while their fathers watched CNN do the hall. Huddled in bed, Anna Marie realized her Ninja Turtles pajamas weren’t working.
The door pried open a few more inches, and a smoky black tendril crept out. Anna Marie froze, her eyes widening. The tendril seemed to regard her for a moment, then with a sound like sopping wet socks being dragged across the floorboards, a round black body slithered into view.
“You go away!” Anna Marie hissed.
The monster gurgled. Rising up from the floor, it twisted in midair and shaped itself two pairs of legs and an enormous, furry head. It was a near-perfect copy of the black panther that had frightened Anna Marie at the zoo that summer, except for its orange coal eyes. The little girl whimpered and shrank down into her pillows. The beast’s growl rumbled through her bones. It took a step toward her, its enormous claws digging into the area rug, and she screamed.
Anna Marie’s father was in the den watching the coverage of a senate hearing. Hearing his daughter’s shriek, he jumped up from the recliner and sprinted down the hallway to her room. When he threw aside the door, the girl peeked out from under her comforter, still trembling. He looked around the otherwise empty room and let out his breath.
“Young lady, do you think this is funny?”
Anna Marie sat up tentatively, her eyes on the open closet door. “No, it – it was going to eat me!”
“Look,” said her father, going to the closet, “there is nothing in here.” He picked up a stuffed cat from the closet shelf and shook it in her direction. “Stuffed animals. Board games. Winter clothes. There’s nothing in here to be afraid of.” He set the cat back on the shelf. “Now, I don’t want to hear any more from this room tonight. Is that clear?”
Anna Marie nodded, a knot in her throat. As her father closed the door again, her eyes darted back to the closet. She didn’t own a stuffed cat.
The toy on the closet shelf opened its coal-orange eyes and winked at her in the dark. She swallowed hard. Gathering up her courage, she pulled her teddy bear into her lap and hugged him tight. “You got me in trouble,” she said to the thing on the shelf.
The stuffed cat took a step off the shelf and turned into a stream of black smoke. Resolidifying at the floor, it wove itself a new body: that of a thin, balding man in a sweater. Aside from the eyes and the fact that it was entirely black and gray, it looked almost exactly like her father. The monster-father wagged a scolding finger at Anna Marie and made an angry face. She chucked her teddy bear at it, landing a blow to the face. The monster evaporated in a puff of smoke, swirled around in the air, and came back to the floor in the form of the tentacle blob from the late-night horror movie she’d snuck downstairs to watch the past weekend. Reaching its dripping tentacles in her direction, the monster oozed across the floor toward the bed.
Stifling a shriek, Anna Marie kicked away the sheets and scrambled out of bed toward her bookshelf. Grabbing random titles off the shelf, she threw them as hard as she could at the monster. A picture book on animals struck it, causing another puff of smoke and a new form: an oversized black velociraptor. The dinosaur scraped its head against her ceiling light and opened its jaws wide, plunging down toward the girl. She hit it in the mouth with her Math workbook, and the beast erupted into a cloud of black smoke.
A moment later she was facing a looming, pale vampire that hissed like a snake. It drew nearer, trying to paralyze her with its luminescent orange eyes. Anna Marie pulled out of its gaze and tossed a copy of the Berenstain Bears, which hit the thing in its skeletal clawed hand. The thing turned to smoke once more and hovered at floor level, spreading its tendrils across the room. Anna Marie readied herself with the heftiest book on the shelf and watched for the monster to re-form. The monster gave a smug growl, turning into a patch of hot gray and black fire. In moments, flames engulfed the room.
Anna Marie’s father heard a clatter from down the hall and sighed, getting up from the comfort of his chair. Walking down the hallway, he opened the door to his daughter’s room and scowled. The little girl was standing in the middle of the room with books strewn about the floor and a copy of the Illustrated Children’s Bible clutched in her hands.
“Young lady,” he said, rubbing his temple with a pained look, “bedtime is bedtime. You’re going to clean up this mess and go to sleep.”
“But the monster was--”
“Enough about the monster!” her father said, his voice just below shouting level. “There is no monster! You need to stop throwing your things around and get in bed, or else.” With that, he picked up her teddy bear and a gray sweatshirt – which Anna Marie was certain she didn’t own – tossed them into the closet, and closed the door. Anna Marie half-heartedly picked up her books and put them back on the shelf. Once everything was back in place and she was back in bed, her father left in a huff to go back to the television.
Anna Marie sat in bed for a little while, glaring at the closet door and listening to the rustling behind it. This just would not do, she thought. There was no way this monster could get her in trouble like that and get away with it. Before that door could open again, she stepped into her slippers and crept out of the room. Her father had settled back into his recliner and was intently watching his news program. Anna Marie tiptoed past the entrance to the den and up the steps into the kitchen, where she began gathering supplies to wage a battle.
Making sure to be quiet, she dug into the cupboards and pulled out a metal colander, which she placed on her head as a helmet. From the drawer under the oven she took a pot lid for her shield. She found a lengthy two-pronged barbeque fork that could serve as a decent weapon for one-on-one combat and fashioned a strap for it using twine from the junk drawer. Lastly, she took with her a package of chocolate chip cookies from the snack cupboard – sustenance in case the battle went on for long.
Careful not to make a creak, crinkle, or clank, Anna Marie tiptoed back past the room where her father sat with his back to her and started down the hall. From outside her door she could hear the monster, grumbling and gurgling in the dark. Pot lid held out in front of her, she went inside.
The closet door was still closed, and she heard rumblings behind it – the thing was preparing itself, too. Anna Marie sprinted across the room and leaped into bed, piling pillows around her for protection. Tipping her colander helmet forward, she pointed the barbeque fork out in front of her and waited.
With a long, slow creak, the closet door swung open. Anna Marie took a bite of cookie for courage. A long, wispy tendril snaked out the door, and wove through the air toward her, pulling a cloudy bulge of a body behind it. The black smoke trailed over next to her bed and solidified into the shape of a six-armed, scaly alien with glistening claws and orange-coal eyes.
Anna Marie shielded her face with the pot lid and swung the barbeque fork at the monster. With a thwack, it exploded into smoke and gathered itself into the shape of a man-eating crocodile. The girl swung again, and with a whack the monster turned into smoke and then into a twelve-foot-tall gorilla with fangs. Gripping her pot lid with white knuckles, Anna Marie lashed out with the fork, swinging and jabbing wildly at the monster. With each hit it took, the thing changed into something new and terrifying.
Thunk! A desiccated, headless corpse.
Crunch! A nuclear bomb, its timer counting down: four, three two--
Squick! A werewolf with a mouthful of clacking yellow teeth and claws like jagged rocks.
Swat! Her stooped, snarling former kindergarten teacher, Mrs. Stein.
Anna Marie had had enough. Standing up in bed, she clocked the creature in its fake old lady face with the pot lid. Black smoke sprayed into the air, and the image disintegrated. The smoke dropped to the floor and collected itself into a final shape – its own shape.
The monster had a small, round body edged in smoke and four spindly legs with long, clawed feet. Its wispy tail lolled behind it as it laid on the area rug, taking ragged breaths. As it gazed up at Anna Marie with its coal eyes, she puffed out her chest victoriously.
“Take that,” she said, giving it a last prod with the barbeque fork. The thing wheezed pitifully. Anna Marie grinned, tipping her colander helmet back, and stuffed another cookie into her mouth.
The monster’s eyes widened. “Cookie?” it said, breathing out smoke.
Anna Marie looked down on her defeated foe for a moment, then shrugged. Sticking a cookie on the end of the barbeque fork, she extended it. “Truce?”
Anna Marie’s father tried to ignore the ruckus down the hall. There came a battle cry, then scuffling, then silence. The silence was what got to him; it was too quiet. He turned down the volume of the television to listen and, still hearing nothing from his daughter’s room, got out of his chair to check on her.
When he opened the door, Anna Marie was sitting on her bed, swinging her legs off the side. She was decked out in cookware armor and eating a chocolate chip cookie.
“Is that my good colander?” he said.
“Oh, hi, Dad,” the little girl said, perking up. Sitting beside her on the bed was a small black and gray dog with a cookie in its mouth. The dog looked at Anna Marie’s father with its coal-orange eyes and smiled. Anna Marie held the package out to her father and said, “Would you like a cookie?”