Closet Doors

A shriek came from Maddie’s room, loud and panicked. Immediately, I bolted off the couch and up the stairs, leaving the television on. Icy fear shot through my chest; logically I knew there was no way a rapist or murderer or the like could have gotten past me or in her locked second-floor window, but she’d sounded so frightened, what if –

I burst into her room, terrified I might be greeted with my daughter bleeding out or perhaps not there, the only trace of her an open window leading into the night. But Maddie was in her bed, sitting up, eyes wide and staring at her closet.

I let my breath out, my heartbeat slowly returning to normal as relief flooded my body. I turned on the light and did a quick scan of the room: nothing stood out. The window was still locked, thank God. “Maddie! Why did you scream like that, honey? I thought something had happened to you! We only scream in emergencies, remember?”

She slowly turned her eyes, wide and shimmering with tears, to me. “It was an emergency, Daddy,” she whispered.

I crossed the room and knelt by her bed, smoothing with one hand the purple comforter, adorned with crowns. This comforter was new; we’d just bought it when we moved into this house. I remembered going on the daddy-daughter shopping trip to let her pick out her new bedroom decorations. She’d been so excited. The bedding was her favorite part. She’d debated between this set and a similar pink-with-castles set for twenty minutes before ultimately choosing the purple crowns, because, in her words, “Our new house is already our castle, all I need to be a full princess is the crown.”

Now, I reached my other hand to brush her hair from her face. “What’s the emergency, then?” I said gently. “Are you okay?”

She looked at me in fear, still struggling not to cry. “I am for now,” she whispered. “But barely.”

I sighed. “Okay, sweetheart, you have to tell me more than that. What happened? Was it a nightmare? Did you hear something that scared you?”

She shook her head. “No, Daddy. It was in the closet. But it’s real.”

“What’s real, honey?”

Now the tears came in earnest, and she began to cry. I turned and sat on the bed, lifting her from under the covers and pulling her onto my lap. She buried her face in my shoulder, still sobbing, soaking my shirt with her tears. “Shh, shh, it’s alright. I’m here, it’s okay,” I murmured, brushing her hair with my fingers. “But you have to calm down to let me know what’s wrong. Can you do that for me?”

She slowly pulled away from my shoulder and looked at me, still sniffling. Her big brown eyes glistened, but she nodded.

“Okay, Maddie, now tell me what happened, sweetie.”

She glanced back at the closet, frightened. I followed her gaze but saw nothing out of the ordinary. Through the open door I could see her clothes hanging, her shoes lined up. Nothing out of place. Although, come to think of it, I could have sworn the closet door had been closed when I tucked her in forty minutes ago.

“There was something in the closet, Daddy. It whispered at me, and growled, and said it wanted to take me away. I couldn’t see it at first, in the dark. I squeezed my eyes shut real tight and pulled the covers over my head and I thought I was dreaming. But then I heard it turn the door handle, and I pushed the covers off, and when I looked over the closet door was opening, and, and -”

She was panicking, speaking faster and faster. I stroked her hair. “Shh, Maddie, calmer, honey.”

She took a deep breath and glanced back at the closet again, nervously. “Something came out,” she whispered. “It was big and dark and mostly I could just see its red eyes. It made it so cold. It felt like ice everywhere. And then it started to slither out and it was saying it was coming to take me and I screamed, I was so scared, Daddy. It’s trying to take me away!”

She buried her head in my shoulder again. I stroked her back thoughtfully and looked to the closet again. Certainly I saw no monster there. I assumed she must have imagined it, must have dreamt it, but this was nonetheless the most terrified I’d ever seen Maddie. It made my heart ache for my little girl. Could it be the new move, the stress from all the change? It hadn’t been easy on me either. Since her mother had died, I’d been having vivid dreams of her, of the woman I’d loved and lost. I knew Maddie missed her too. We all did – me, Maddie, even my younger son Sam, only two, was having a hard time adjusting to a life without Mommy. I’d thought a new house, a new town, would be good for us; fewer memories to be reminded of. And this house was closer to my parents’ home, a big plus for a newly single father. But maybe it was too much at once. I cursed myself. It was my fault Maddie was having such horrible nightmares.

“That sounds so scary,” I said now. “But don’t worry, honey, I’m sure you only imagined it. Maybe you’re just not used to the shadows in your new room yet. Do you think that could be it?”

She sat up in my lap and looked at me. “No, Daddy.”

“Well, sweetheart, I promise there’s nothing in the closet. I know it seems scary in the dark, but I promise there’s no monster or anything. Okay?”

She stared into my eyes long and hard with more intensity than I’d ever seen from a seven-year-old. Finally, she grabbed my hand and squeezed it. “You promise?” she said, still sounding worried.

I glanced back over at the closet. Everything looked orderly. I was proud, in fact, of the freshly-organized closet. It hadn’t been easy; Maddie was opinionated and Kate had always been the organizational mastermind of the family. The only thing that continued to gnaw at me, just slightly, was the open door. I was certain it had been closed, and it was now wide open, as if flung by some force. I made a mental note to check its hinges in the morning.

“I promise,” I said, returning my gaze to Maddie and smiling. Hesitantly, she returned the smile, and I lifted her off my lap back onto the bed. As I stood up, she climbed back under the purple comforter and pulled it up to her chin.

I knelt down by the bed again. “You think you’re okay now?” I said.

She nodded. “I’m okay, Daddy. I trust you. If you promise, then it’s okay.”

“I do promise,” I confirmed. I leaned over and kissed her forehead. “I’ll close the closet door, okay? Tomorrow I’ll look at it and see if I can fix it so it stays shut from now on.”

Her eyes flicked over to the open door, and I could see the fear still shimmering in her brown eyes – so much like her mother’s – but she looked back at me and smiled once more. “Thank you,” she whispered.

“Of course, honey,” I said. I got up and went over to the closet. As I grasped the door handle and closed the door, I shivered. Maddie was right – it was cold over here. Freezing, actually. But wasn’t there a vent behind the dresser? That would be it.

After closing the door and double-checking that it was firmly shut – nothing seemed to be wrong with the hinges, I noted with curiosity – I went back to the hallway entrance. I stood there a moment and turned back to Maddie, who was looking back and forth between me and the closet.

“Good night, sweetheart. I love you.”

“I love you too, Daddy,” she whispered.

I smiled and blew her a kiss, then turned off the light. I pulled the door closed as I went back into the hallway. Downstairs, the television was still playing; I could hear the laugh track of a show rerun. But I felt uneasy, now. I’d never seen Maddie so scared, and something wasn’t quite right. I couldn’t put my finger on why exactly I felt so off. Maybe just the closet door? Maybe just feeling inadequate, yet again, as a single father? I sighed and rubbed my right thumb against my wedding ring. “I wish you were still here, Kate,” I said to myself.

It seemed only right to check on Sam while I was upstairs. His room was down the hall, next to mine. I walked over and cautiously, quietly, opened his door. It was dark, but the crack of light from the hallway shone on his crib. Sam was in it, one leg kicked up against the rails, his face snuggled up to Night-Night, his favorite little blue blanket. I chuckled. It was almost time to switch him from a crib to a bed. Sometimes he hated the crib and tried for hours to climb out of it. Tonight, thankfully, was not one of those. I was sure he’d be up and fussy before I knew it, but for now, at least, he was peaceful.

Suddenly I frowned as my gaze moved to the closet. In Sam’s room, too, the closet door was wide open. I knew I’d closed that one. It hadn’t been open since this morning, and I remembered closing it then, after putting a pair of shoes away. It had definitely been closed all day; we’d come in several times since to grab various toys. And it had definitely been closed when I put Sam to bed.

I didn’t like that. It was strange. But maybe I hadn’t closed it all the way, or maybe its hinges were bad. Could be a number of things. No one was in the house who could hurt my son, and that was the important thing; the window was still locked, and I triple-checked the alarm system and doors every night. It was annoying, sure, but not harmful. And it didn’t seem to bother Sam.

I almost crossed the room to close it, but thought better of it. I might wake Sam, and that would result in a cranky kid and a father cursing his own stupidity. I decided I’d let it be; I could look at that in the morning too.

I blew a kiss to Sam and softly closed the door. Smiling to myself, I began the descent back down the stairs. I still felt a bit uneasy, but nothing I could pinpoint. It worried me. The kids are fine, it’s a safe neighborhood, you’ve got the day off tomorrow to fix anything – especially those damn closet doors. They really should have mentioned something like that when we looked at the house, I thought. Not a deal-breaker, of course, but if it upsets Maddie like this, I would’ve liked to have known.

I’d just reached the landing, still convincing myself I was getting anxious about nothing, when Maddie screamed again. This time it was even worse than the first: pure terror, so much so that ice filled every vein in my body. And it wasn’t long and drawn-out; it was shrill, panicked, and then – it simply cut off, as if the screamer’s throat had been cut.

“Maddie!” I yelled, spinning and taking the stairs by two. My heart was exploding out of my chest; my hands felt frozen; my mind was whirling, barely able to connect two thoughts together. I couldn’t even register what might have happened.

I was at her door. I shoved it open and looked around frantically, the light from the hallway flooding into the dark bedroom. Maddie was nowhere to be seen. Window still locked. No blood. Nothing strewn out of place. Just a blank spot in the bed where Maddie should be.

“No no no no no no no no,” I was repeating, barely consciously. Suddenly something caught my eye. I turned to look, the fear in me expanding tenfold: the closet door was wide open.

Even though there was nothing in the closet besides clothes that I could see, I still started towards it, hoping, maybe, somehow, that this open door that had so scared her before was now linked to where she was. But before I got there, I heard Sam scream from his room down the hall.

It was no ordinary two-year-old cry; it was like Maddie’s, full of terror and pain and then – nothing. Cut off, like he’d been stopped. Like he’d been taken away, I thought in horror, remembering Maddie’s words.

I sprinted down the hallway. Oh God, not him too, not both, oh God –

I threw open his door, somehow knowing already what I would see and dreading it. Sam was gone, the crib I had checked just minutes before empty except for his Night-Night. The closet door was hanging open, swinging slightly, as if someone had just hurried through it.

I let out a strangled cry. My thoughts were scrambled, jumbled, as my brain tried to make any sense of what happened, of what I could do to fix it. Sam, Maddie, oh God, my children, the closet doors, oh God, what do I do –

Stumbling, frantic, I ran back down the hallway to Maddie’s room. She’d mentioned it first. Maybe there was a clue here. Maybe this was simply a nightmare. I hoped this was simply a nightmare. But the fear and helplessness enveloping me were real, I knew they were.

I skidded into Maddie’s dark room, the light from the hallway still allowing me to see the furniture. I made a beeline for the closet and stood in the open door, looking straight into it. Still nothing but Maddie’s little clothes hanging there neatly. I shivered. It was frigid in this doorway, like it was a gateway to the Arctic. Must be the vent, I thought absentmindedly.

I could see nothing, but my heart began to beat even faster than before. I could feel each thump against my chest. Blood pounded in my ears. My entire body felt frozen, not just my hands. “Maddie?” I called out, my voice shaking uncontrollably. “Sam?” I tried to step forward and found that I couldn’t move. Not out of fear or shock, although I was overcome with both of those things. No, something was blocking me from moving, keeping me locked in place in the closet doorway, holding me hostage.

And then, suddenly, though I wasn’t able to turn my head, I could see in my peripheral vision that the door to the hall was closing. Slowly, then quicker, and quicker. The light was diminishing. Ice flowed through every vessel in my body. I felt a terror I had never felt before, even upon losing my children.

I couldn’t form words anymore; my lips were frozen shut. I had time to think Maddie, Sam, Kate, I love you, and then the door shut with a firm click, and the entire room was plunged into complete darkness.

Except for the two blood-red eyes emerging from the closet.