Dad's Stories: What's In The Closet?

What's In The Closet?

When I was just a young boy, I had a strong feeling or perhaps a pervasive sense that something not human, hit in my closet and under my bed. I would persuade either my mom or dad to take my small plastic, red "pluto" flashlight and look under my bed and reassure me that nothing was hiding there.

I insisted that they also check my bedroom closet. This was a nightly routine that I insisted on. Be aware that not for a single moment did I think that the "monsters" who haunt little kid's bedrooms didn't have the ability to evade such a faithless and less than serious parental monster search. As a matter of fact, my daddy would complained and griped while he search my bedroom for hidden monsters. He would mumble such words and phrases as, “This is ridiculous, for heaven’s sake, what am I raising, why me, no such thing, and I can't believe I do this every night.”

I was amazed that a bedroom monster hadn't done something hideous to him years ago. I suppose he was just really lucky. I'd heard they go for unbelievers first. After my parent had finished the monster search and told me goodnight for the fifth time, I would wait for them to turn the lights out and leave the room. I knew in my heart and the knot in my stomach validated the fact that the monster was only waiting for the grownup to leave and then wait a few minutes and then start tormenting the living heck out of me. Didn’t they ever sleep?

Many a night I would lay there in my bed in totally darkness and wonder what my folks had against night lights. The small plug-in night lights, so popular today, are one of the more useful and meaningful gadgets ever created by man. When I was little, I would have traded by Barlow pocket knife for cheap little plug-in night light. But back in the thirties and forties, it was imperative that every light in the house had to be turned off at bedtime. I noticed that most adults had those little shin scars on their legs from bumping into things in the dark. My faithful companion and monster fighter was a little red plastic, pluto flashlight. A big problem was that flashlight batteries back then would run down in a hurry. This was way before the alkaline battery. Every kid in the nineteen forties had this deep seated fear of his flashlight batteries running down right in the middle of a monster spotting. I’d heard the stories and they weren’t nice.

I've seem many monster photos, but the one I'm about to show you looks exactly like the one I imagined lurked in my bedroom, somewhere.

Can you see how this “thing” might disturb a young lad of say, seven? Skeptics would ask, "Did the brute ever show itself to you, or did you ever actually see it?" No! I never saw the brute, but I know it touched me several times on the face and arms. I’ve never seen a panda bear, but I believe they exist.

After being certain that the beast was wandering around in my bedroom, I would cry out for parental assistance. My daddy would run in and turn the light on and exclaim, “What’s wrong, are you sick? After I explained that a monster was roaming around the room and trying to touch me, he’d try to console me and reassure me that there was no monster's in my room--that monster's don’t exist. Once, he gave me a long explanation that God wouldn’t allow such a thing to bother us. I ask him, “What about the devil, how come God let’s him bother us?“ That stymied my dad to total silence.

If just once my daddy had of sneaked into my bedroom and struck a match, instead of turning on the lights, then he'd of seen the monster at it’s worst. When you cry out for help in the middle of the night, your help seems to always blunder into your room making a lot of noise and immediately flip on the lights. Any kid will tell you, bright lights will make a closet monster disappear. My pop would look at me and confidently announce, "See, there's nothing in here." I would think to myself, not now maybe, but they were all over the place--touching me, shaking the bed and whispering in my ear before you came in.

Under the bed monster's and closet monsters are very sneaky when adults are present, but they plunder all around a dark room and make weird noises when it's just a kid by himself in the dark. I knew that after daddy turned off the lights again and left the room there would be hell to pay. If it’s one thing a monster hates, it’s a kid “whistle blower.” Impromptu parental interruptions always infuriated my bedroom monsters. As soon as the adult was gone, the monster would send me a telepathic message, “Okay, you little twirp, I'm gonna scare you until your teeth chatter.”

There is one rule that keep's you safe from a bedroom monster. This cardinal rule states, if you keep your arms and hands under the covers, a bedroom monster cannot touch you. One thing you never did was put your hand under the bed, in the dark, to see if you could touch a monster. Trust me, you would! I did that once and almost got dragged out of bed. As a matter of fact--I heard about this one kid who accidentally got his arms out from under the covers and a monster started touching and kissing them and there wasn't anything he could do about it. There was no way that was ever going to happen to me. I made sure that the only thing not covered my was face. Yes sir, there was no way I was going to fall for that old trick. Even if it was hot and I was sweating--I kept all body parts under the covers.

Shortly after your parents would tell you goodnight, turn out the lights and leave you all alone in the dark, it was only minutes before you heard the first strange noise. If you listened very closely, I believe me I always did, you could hear them walking all around your bed. Daddy told me one night that he believed I could hear a “gnat” hit the window pane. I proudly accepted that as a fine compliment from my dad. I did have extremely good hearing, especially at night in a dark bedroom.
Sometimes the monster left me alone, but would open and shut my bureau drawers and move things around. I never knew what he was hunting for--but I can tell you with a certainty that many of my toys would go missing for no reasonable explanation. I've heard that these monsters steal toys and things and put them on a big wagon that sits outside under your window. If a kid was brave enough, he could go out there in the middle of the night and steal them back. I never tried it, because I figured that if the monster catches you outside in the dark messing with his wagon, off you would go along with your toys.

I know most of you have seen the photos of missing kids on milk cartons. I always wondered if it wasn't the work of bedroom monsters. Once the monster kidnaps you, the police always suspect it was someone in the family or an acquaintance. They never think to investigate to see if a bedroom monster stole the kids. They don't fool me for one single minute. I know darn well who get's most of those kids. The police should tell all kids to stay under the covers so you can’t get monster napped. Sometimes you just wonder about the people in charge.

I want to mention one other type of creature that often attacked me in the dark. That was wild eyed monkeys. They are weird creatures who are half human and half ape.

These simian like monsters stand around your bed and pull pranks, like putting bugs in your glass of water, biting you like a mosquito or simply running across you like they were a bug or something. I hated these things because they always looked funny. They have really strange eyes. As a matter of fact, their eyes were completely black in the light and bright red in the dark. They were much different than the closet and under the bed monsters.

While playing in the backyard one day, I happened to go inside a dark storage shed to explore some old chests and one of these ape people was sitting on an old trunk in the corner. It hopped down off the trunk, opened it's arms wide and took a couple of steps toward me, with this stupid grim on his face. I jumped a foot off the ground and ran frantically out the door and into the sunlight. It was several days before I could get the vision out of my mind and months before I went back inside that old wooden shed without someone with me.

One night when I was eight years old and living in our family home in Meridian, Texas, I experienced one of the most traumatic monster encounters of my young life. Daddy wasn't home, he was serving with the army MP's at the White Rock German Prisoner of War camp in Dallas, Texas (this was shortly after WWII). I recall my dad telling us about a German prisoner that the Nazi's had hung, inside the camp, because he fraternized with the enemy. There was a big brouhaha and many of the prisoners had been injured in a riot. We were very concerned about our dad's safety, as he had to go inside the German POW camp and pull out several of the ring leaders.
Daddy had told me that I had to act like the big man of the house while he was gone. I thought, okay, but let’s keep the lights on at night. My big monster sighting occurred on a Sunday night. At bedtime, Mom, tucked me in and told me goodnight.

I said, "Mom, would you just check the closet and look under the bed, please?" She very patiently walked over and looked in the closet, moved some clothes around and then got down on her knees with my "pluto" flashlight and looked under my bed. Nothing! For the second or third time mom told me goodnight and walked over to the door, smiled and turned out the lights--then shut the door behind her. I was all alone. Within a couple of minutes I heard the closet door slowly open and then the bed began to move just a little. I quickly yanked the covers over my head and began to shake. I thought about calling out to my mom, but she'd just left the room and it would aggravate her if I called her right back and told her there was a monster rocking the bed.

I decided to wait it out, if I could. In the darkness of my bedroom I could sense that what ever it was, was standing at the foot of the bed staring down at me. I was so grateful that monsters can’t talk or yell at you. There I lay in my bed with the covers pulled up over my head and tightly clutching my only weapon, the little red "pluto" flashlight.

I knew if I jumped out of the bed and ran for the door, the brute would grab me. My small flashlight wasn’t strong enough to flash on the monster and make it disappear. You needed at least three D-cells. Such a dim light would only accentuate it's hideous and macabre features. No, I didn't want that at all. Suddenly my entire body stiffened as I felt the monster squeeze my big toe. I immediately drew my feet up in the bed. He wasn't supposed to be able to touch me if I had my covers on, this must be a very aggressive hellhound.

My heart must have been beating a hundred times per minute. I was beginning to sweat under the covers. It appeared this closet fiend really had me socked in. Knowing that I dare not drift off into slumber, I kept my eyes open under the covers. Suddenly one of my little wind up toys that was lying on the floor near my bed started moving and making a little horn noise. Maybe my mother would hear the disturbance and come in to see what caused it. The little toy car stopped after only a few seconds. The next thing I remember is the little car hitting on the mattress next to me. The thing had evidently thrown it on the bed to frighten me and it sure did. I slid my foot over the mattress and kicked the toy out of the bed. It flew across the room and hit a small window pane and broke it. I heard a loud swooshing noise as if something was going through the broken window.

I thought, what the heck, let’s go for it. I threw my covers back and shined my flashlight toward the window just in time to see two big, black shoes disappear through the broken pane. It must have been the monster. Without any warning I felt a hand grab my shoulder. I thought, “I’m dead.“ Then I heard my mother's voice, "Sammy, wake up, what in the world is going on in here." In all the excitement I hadn't noticed that she'd come into my bedroom to check out the noise of breaking glass. I attempted to explain to her what all had happened, but I could tell by the look on her face that she wasn't buying one bit of it. She told me to settle down and go to sleep, that she'd have someone fix the window tomorrow. Mom left and once again I was in total darkness.

I was sitting in my bed with my small flashlight still on. I thought I've got to do something to outsmart this brute. Suddenly, I got an idea. I grabbed my blanket and pillow and walked over to the closet. My theory was if you can't fight them, join them. I opened the closet door and walked inside and spread my blanket on the floor and wrapped up snugly in it and laid my head on my pillow. My thinking was if I slept in the closet--the monster couldn't inhabit it and would have to leave me alone. There I was, seven years old, doing my best to do battle with the supernatural.

I placed my feet against the closet door, so no one or anything could close me in the closet. Just as I was dozing of to sleep, I heard someone else breathing. At the same time instant I sensed that there was the pressure of another body pressing against mine. Finally I could take it no more. I screamed to the top of my lungs, jumped up and quickly ran for the door.

Something seemed to be holding my back, I could hardly move. Normally, I was a very fast runner. I screamed again and rolled out of bed and hit the floor. Mother came running into the room and said, "What happened? Did you fall out of bed again?" "Yes, I did. I was running from a monster in the closet." Mother held me close to her and kissed me on the head and explained, "You were just having a bad dream." I replied, "But it seemed so real." The lights were on in the bedroom and I looked over at the window. No broken glass, everything looked normal. Mom said, "Come into the kitchen and I'll fix you a glass of warm milk, then I'll sit next to your bed and read you a story until you go to sleep."

The next day I thought about all the strange things that happened the night before. I will never know what was real and what was just a dream. One thing is for certain, it wasn't my last close encounter with a monster. But I save that story for another time.