Under The Bed

Under The Bed

         Teddy awoke with a start, sweating profusely. When a sharp odor teased his nose he realized he had wet the bed again. By his unofficial count it would be the third time this week, but only the official count would tell for sure. The official count would come from his father, should he gather up the guts to call him, though he wasn't sure he could. It would take an awful fright to compel Teddy to wake up his father to change soiled sheets for possibly the third time in a week.
         His white fists grasping the edge of his blanket, Teddy's eyes scanned his dark room, searching for what could have jarred him out of his sleep. Moonlight shone in through the trees outside, casting jittery, skeletal shadows throughout the room. The forms of long, bare branches reached for him like bony fingers creeping down the walls, across the floor, up his damp bedsheets. His eyes widened as those fingers clutched him in an empty, ethereal grip, then vanished as quickly as they had come, only to appear again dancing on the wall across the room.          Teddy exhaled a wavering breath, squeezed his eyes shut, then opened them again. There was nothing but shadow moving in his room. He released the edge of his blanket and pushed it to the floor. The fresh stink of urine drifted to his nose again, and his own lip curled in disgust at the warm, wet sheets sticking to his legs. Even at six years old, he was growing weary of the ritual of changing dirty sheets. Worse than that, it was fast becoming an embarrassment, and if the kids at school ever found out . . . Tim Mulkey—a portly fifth-grader with an affinity for pounding the smaller kids—would have a field day.
         The sheets peeled away from his legs like a layer of loose skin and fell to the floor. He swung his legs over the side of the bed and sat in his soggy underpants, considering how to hide this mess from his father. At this point, calling his father was no longer an option. He was a big boy now, as his father had told him on many occasions, and he would have to take care of this himself. It wasn't that—
         Teddy froze as cold fear washed over him. From somewhere in his room came a high, constant squeak--eek-eek, eek-eek--that pierced to his heart and spread like icicles through his veins. His stomach contracted in a knot, and even though he could call his father now, his mouth just wouldn't open. The sound continued, now growing a little louder and a little quicker--eek-eek, EEK-EEK--and a tiny whimper escaped from Teddy's lips. Through the darkness, he detected slight movement in the corner of his room, and he had no doubt it was the source of the noise.
         "H-hello?" he managed to say in a weak voice.
         EEK-EEK, EEK-EEK! was the answer.
         He squinted his eyes, peering through the darkness to the corner of his room, where a vicious creature no doubt lurked, waiting for its chance to bite off Teddy's head and swallow it whole. But the squeak stopped and, seconds later, the vicious creature popped its head up from the side of its cage and looked back at Teddy. The dreaded squeak was replaced by a tiny rattle as Teddy's hamster, Fatboy, took a long drink from his water bottle. Then the eek-eek returned as Fatboy went back to running in his wheel, and Teddy breathed an enormous sigh of relief.
         "Damn you, Fatboy," Teddy said in the dwarf hamster's direction, using the newest phrase he had learned from the kids at school. It gave his voice strength, and just hearing it calmed him a little. "You're a meatball tomorrow morning."
         Fatboy ignored Teddy as the boy slipped out of bed and tip-toed across the room to his dresser. He found himself a clean pair of underpants and replaced the soggy ones he was wearing, tossing them in the pile with his soiled sheet. Then he stripped the fitted sheet off the bed. Even in the darkness, he could see where the mattress had been stained a light tan from his many accidents. He stared at it shamefully for a moment, then balled up the fitted sheet and tossed it into the pile with everything else.As the sheet hit the floor, something bumped the bottom of Teddy's bed, a tremendous jolt that practically raised the bed off the floor. Teddy's heart leapt uncontrollably, and finally his mouth opened.
         "AAAH! DAD! DA-AAAD!"
         Teddy tore across the room and threw himself into the corner next to the table that held Fatboy's cage. His breath was short and noisy, coming in gasps punctuated by little whimpers of terror. Urgent footsteps sounded in the hallway, and Teddy's father burst through the door.
         “Teddy?”
         “Dad, there’s something under my bed.”
         Dad sighed and rolled his eyes. His hair was tousled and his eyelids were drooping.
         “We’ve talked about this before, Ted,” Dad said, his voice still mercifully calm. “There’s nothing under there.”
         “I felt a bump.”
         Dad sighed again, a little louder this time, then dropped to his knees next to Teddy’s bed. He disappeared for a moment, rooting around on the floor, then came back up again. In his hand, dangling by the scruff of his neck, was Teddy’s Labrador Retriever puppy, Elmo. The puppy’s tail was curled between his legs and his eyes were full of shame and wonder. Teddy’s heart immediately slowed, and he couldn’t help but laugh in relief. Dad, apparently, didn’t think it was too funny.
         “What have I told you about letting Elmo out of his crate at night, Theodore?”
         “I didn’t. Really, Dad, I promise.”
         “Teddy,” Dad said, carrying the pup back to its wire mesh crate, “I’ve told you before about lying to me. Are you telling me this dumbass puppy learned to let itself out of the cage? I don’t think so.”
         “It wasn’t me, I swear.”
         Dad tossed the puppy in the crate and shut the door, making a careful and dramatic show of sliding the latches into place. Then he stood and stared down at Teddy.
         “The hell are you doing in that corner, anyway? And what happened to your sheets?”
         Teddy stood silently, folding his skinny arms over his chest and dropping his head, ready to crack already under the gaze of his father who stood at well over six feet tall. A more enormous and intimidating sight there could not be to an undersized six-year-old. Teddy’s dad wasn’t violent, not physically, not outwardly. But there were times when it felt like the potential was there, and the potential was perhaps the scariest thing of all. The potential crackled and popped beneath the surface like bursts of electricity. You could see it in Dad’s eyes when he got angry, it showed itself in the cock of a fist or the sharp turn of his head.
         Dad was a sheer column of muscle and it was more noticeable at times like this when he was in only his pajamas. He wasn’t a body builder; he was a worker. From the time he was twenty years old, he had built his own construction company from the ground up, with bare hands and elbow grease as he always said. Dad was tall and tightly wound, like a spring all bunched together and ready to pop.
         “You piss your bed again?” Dad asked.
         Teddy nodded immediately, eyes still cast to the floor. It was best to get straight to the truth with his father. Dad said he hated bullshitters, young or old. Young included Teddy.
         “You strip the sheets already, put them in the laundry?”
         “Yeah. I didn’t want to wake you.”
         “But you did anyway.”
         Teddy looked up at his father. Dad’s face was calm and thoughtful, and while calm and thoughtful could easily turn to dark and angry, it was good enough for now. Teddy thought he could work around and avoid dark and angry.
         “Sorry, Dad. I—Elmo scared the crap out of me. I don’t know how he got out of his cage, I think I forgot to do the latches.”
         Dad’s lips pursed together and he glanced at Elmo’s crate. “Slippery little bastard. Well, soon as he stops dropping steamers on the floor, he can start sleeping in bed with you.” A tiny smile crept across Dad’s face. If there was anything Dad and Teddy enjoyed together, it was coming up with new terms for bowel movements.
         “They’re not steamers, Dad, they’re little piles of love chocolate.”
         “Ass nuggets?”
         “Butthole custard.”
         Dad’s smile broke finally and he laughed loudly, then put a hand over his mouth and glanced back down the hall to his bedroom where Teddy’s mom slept. Teddy had been victorious; making his father laugh always wiped away that dreaded potential.
         “Alright, pal, get out of that corner and come sit down.”
         Teddy scrambled out of the corner and sat down on the edge of the bed. Dad came over and sat down next to him, his weight shifting the angle of the little single bed greatly. There was a bump from Teddy’s closet that they both glanced at, but didn’t pay much attention to. Teddy was eminently aware of how much crap he had piled loosely in there during one of his cleaning binges. He waited for Dad to check it, give him a lecture on how badly organized it was, maybe make him clean it right there and then, but he didn’t.
         “You did okay tonight, Ted. Taking care of your own sheets and all. But you’re six years old now, and it’s time to man up a little bit, you understand me? Jumping at shadows, pissing your bed every time you’re scared. Don’t want to turn into a sissy, do you?”
         “No sir.”
         “That’s right. You see your old man? You think he’s afraid of anything?”
         “No sir.”
         “You’re going to learn real quick that there’s not enough time in your life to be scared. There’s responsibility. You look at all the responsibility I have, running my business, taking care of my workers, taking care of you and your mom. If I took time out of my busy day to be scared, what do you think would happen? I’d lose valuable time and money, all that goes towards making you and your mom a happy life.”
         “I know, Dad. And we appreciate it.” This was the capper. Flatter Dad and stroke his ego a little bit. Potential averted. In the top ten list of handling Dad, this was number one. Dad put a big, heavy hand on Teddy’s shoulder and smiled again.
         “We’ll turn you into a man yet, Ted.” He looked at him seriously for a moment, a hint of concern in his eyes. “You seem extra jumpy tonight, I don’t know why. I know, man, you’re six, just starting school, seems like life doesn’t get much harder than this, huh? The world’s so damn big and you’re so damn small, you wonder how you’ll ever make it through. Well you will because you’ve got your old man to help you. Right?”
         “Right, Dad.”
         “Alrighty, boy,” Dad said, standing up and looking down at him once again. “Now if you get scared again tonight, I want you to think about tomorrow and all the stuff you have to do. Think about your schoolwork and how when you’re done with that, I want this whole room cleaned top to bottom—“
         “Aw, Dad—“
         “No arguments. You think about all that if you get scared and you’ll see what I mean. Now get some new sheets and get back to bed. Wake me again and we’re going to have problems, understand?”
         “Yes sir.”
         “Good boy.”
         Dad ruffled the hair on Teddy’s head, that hand feeling stronger and heavier than ever, and then left the room. Teddy stood up, looked around. There was a big desk that had been his Dad’s against the wall. He’d have to start with that tomorrow, clean off all the unfinished plastic models and paint, the scribbled drawings. Then he’d have somewhere to sit and finish his schoolwork. A nice desk where he could spread out his books and papers.
         First things first of course, replace the sheets on his bed. He took a towel from his dirty laundry pile and put it down on the mattress to soak up any extra pee that might still be there. Then he crossed back to the closet where his sheets were and put his hand on the knob. No, no, that wouldn’t be necessary. There were fresh sheets sitting right on top of the clean laundry pile his mother had brought in this morning. No sense in opening the closet door and risking the avalanche of crap that might follow. He grabbed the clean sheets and made up his bed, first pulling the fitted sheet neatly into place, then tucking the other sheet over it. Once everything was in place and tidy, Teddy stood back and looked around the room.
         Fatboy had tucked his little body back into the tiny house in his cage. No more squeaky wheel tonight. Elmo was lying peacefully in his crate, head up, big eyes directed towards the closet. Elmo might only have been a stupid puppy, but he knew exactly where Teddy kept his box of biscuits.
         “Forget it, Elmo,” Teddy told him, “no more biscuits tonight. Go to sleep.”
         Elmo let out a long whimper, then resigned himself to his fate, head down, eyes locked on his master.
         “Good boy,” Teddy said, lips pursed and fists on his waist just like Dad. “If you get scared tonight, I want you to think about all the things you have to do tomorrow. You know, eat breakfast, poop in the yard, eat poop in the yard. We’ll man you up yet, got it?”
         Elmo’s eyes darted back to the closet again, then closed. Teddy turned out the lamp on his desk, the shadows immediately returning to the walls. He looked at these for a moment, standing entirely unprotected in the middle of his room. They could be frightening, sure, but they were only shadows. Light and dark. Being completely exposed like this made him wanted to run immediately back to his bed and cover himself with the sheet, but he decided to stick it out. Test Dad’s theory.
         Right, he would start with the desk first. Then he’d finish his schoolwork. Then he’d clean his entire room, starting with his closet. No more using the closet as a dumping ground for unused toys and clothes. Then he’d—
         There was another bump from the closet, louder this time, and both Teddy and Elmo yelped this time. Teddy’s resistance broke, and he had leapt back into his bed, sheet pulled over his head before he realized what he was doing. He stayed there trembling for several minutes, icy cold blood pumping through his veins.
         “Damn it, damn it, damn it,” Teddy whispered in the muffled space beneath his cotton bedsheet. This certainly wasn’t what Dad had in mind when he spoke of turning Teddy into a man. A man didn’t hide beneath his sheets. A man would be able to stand in the middle of the room, regardless of whatever bump, scratch or rustle came his way. Real men probably didn’t notice that kind of crap at all. For a man like Teddy’s dad, bumps, scratches and rustles probably didn’t hold even the slightest importance. Trembling beneath his sheet in the dark, Teddy couldn’t help but wonder what it was like to be entirely without fear like his dad. How easy must life like that be?Fearlessness is the key to success, Teddy’s dad had once said. Another man in my position, a contractor looking at a big job, walks into a room for a meeting with a potential client, and he’s afraid. Afraid he can’t get the job done on time, afraid his price will be too high or too low, afraid he’s not the right man for the job. But I walk into that room knowing I got nothing to fear, knowing I fear nothing. When other men see a man like that, they know right from the start this is a man they can respect and trust. This is a man who will get things done.
         “God damn it,” Teddy said, the extra blasphemy making the curse sound even more adult. Making him feel like more of a man. It was the kind of curse his father would use. Teddy threw the sheet off the bed, exposing himself fully to the terrors of the darkness once again. There was nothing here, of course, and he knew it. He stepped out of bed, his toes curling against the cold of the wood floor beneath his feet.
         “Hello?” Teddy said, answered by nothing but a tiny whimper from Elmo. He hadn’t expected to be answered, but it was what they did in the movies.
         In truth, Teddy wasn’t entirely sure what he was afraid of in the first place. This was his room, there was nothing in here but his stuff. Even the shadowy corners that he could not currently see contained nothing but his stuff. So what was he afraid of? Ghosts? While the thought of being haunted by restless spirits did not particularly float his boat, he did not lend much credence to the possibility that there were ghosts here. This was, after all, an almost brand new house, built by Dad with next to nothing but his bare hands. And Dad was a careful and exacting individual; there was no way he would have built the house over a cemetery old Indian burial ground by accident. Ghosts, he knew, didn’t usually show up in new houses not built on old burial grounds.
         Monsters? Well, Teddy did not really believe in monsters anymore, not like when he was a little kid. Now that he was six, a little older, a little wiser, he knew better than to believe in monsters. Believing in monsters, like believing in Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny, could get a kid beat up in school, especially a skinny little one who didn’t know how to fight much. You open your mouth to the wrong kid about monsters under your bed, and you could be guaranteed a visit from a real monster with a real hard fist.
         “So there’s nothing to be afraid of,” Teddy said, “except for a freakin’ puppy in a box and a hamster in a wheel.”
         There was another bump from the closet, followed by a short and light scratching, but this time Teddy didn’t jump. As a matter of fact, his heart did not even speed up. He was not scared one bit because he knew there was nothing to be afraid of, nothing at all, except what was in his own head. Had he finally conquered the fear, just like his father expected? Could he grow up to be a man like Dad? He didn’t know, maybe a feat like that was accomplished in steps, and this was simply one step in a series of many. Still, at least it was a start.
         He bent down, opened the latches on Elmo’s cage, and the puppy came wiggling out. As long as he was up, Teddy might as well let Elmo have some romping time, tire him out a little before going back to bed for the night. It was the kind of efficient logic his father might use. Two birds with one stone and all that; Dad was full of all kinds of tidbits of wisdom. Elmo stood at his feet wagging his tail for a few seconds, then bounded immediately to the closet to investigate the source of the noises. Teddy considered opening the closet, but dreaded the outpouring of crap that might follow. That was the big job for tomorrow, clean out the closet and make it a more useful storage space.Elmo dropped his nose to the floor at the closet door, butt in the air, tail wagging ceaselessly.
         “Elmo, get your furry butt away from that closet,” Teddy said, keeping his voice low to avoid waking up his father again.
         Elmo groaned and whimpered, his nose making snuffing noises.
         “Okay, buddy, if you don’t listen you have to go back in the cage.” Teddy stomped over to the closet, picking up Elmo from beneath his front legs. The puppy whimpered and whined as usual, but submitted to being hauled away. Teddy dropped him back in front of the cage, Elmo stopping to shoot him one last sad look, then hobbled back into bed.
         “Good boy. Now what’s so damn fascinating about the closet?”
         Teddy started back to the closet again, then stopped. There was another one of those bumps that now seemed to be becoming a regular occurrence. Only there was something strange about it. Before, Teddy could have identified the sounds coming from the closet as stuff falling from his many piles of junk. But this one was different, not the sound of something falling like before, but the sound of something being moved.Teddy swallowed hard. It was only his imagination. He would have to prove it to himself.
         We’ll turn you into a man yet, Ted.
         “Right, this is step one. There’s nothing to be afraid of in the dark.”
         He took a step, bare foot shuffling on the hardwood.
         Don’t want to turn into a sissy, do you?
         “Not a chance. No way I’m gonna be a sissy. I’m going to be like my dad, and he’s not afraid of… of… jack shit.”
         Teddy pressed his ear to the closet door and listened. There was no noise from inside. Not a sound. He placed his hand on the knob, ready to turn it, open the door, peer into the dark and see nothing. No monsters, no ghosts, those things did not exist. Those were the things of children’s imaginations, the kinds of creatures that lurked under the bed where children’s imaginations were left to gather dust. Now Teddy was ready to move on from all that, to leave his fearful imagination under the bed where it belonged. There was a lifetime ahead of him, years of elementary school where he would thrive in English and grammar in particular, high school where he would write his first short story and win an award for it, college where he would receive first his bachelor’s then his master’s in creative writing. Years in which he would learn to take his imagination out from beneath the bed only when he needed it, dust it off, and use it to his advantage. An entire lifetime that would be shaped by this moment.
         His ear pressed to the door, hand braced on the knob, Teddy said, “Hello?”
         “I hear you, Teddy,” came the raspy voice from within, and Teddy screamed, screamed to wake his father, screamed to wake his mother, screamed to wake the world.
         And in the blurry moments that followed, Teddy could only see his life like the jerky movements of a movie on fastforward.
         First his father enters the room, only naked this time and looking more severely pissed than ever. Behind him, Teddy’s mother, pulling a robe around her own naked body. Teddy has time to register that they were about to make love before his screaming interrupted them. Dad bears down on him, looking so horrifyingly primitive that he almost forgets his original fear, why he screamed in the first place. Only his eyes are still wide with panic, locked on the closet door, one hand over his gaping mouth and the other arm pointing rigidly at the closet door. The pose is so utterly terrified that Teddy’s mom immediately runs to his side. Dad whirls around and points to the closet door, says something loudly that Teddy can’t understand, then puts his massive hand on the doorknob. He is expecting nothing to come out.Dad yanks open the closet door, in his wrath nearly pulling the door off its hinges. He never looks away from Teddy during this moment, and therefore does not see the man in the closet until he is on him. A satin-finished blade not more than four inches long disappears into Dad’s shoulder, and had Dad been a less muscular man, the knife may have done some real damage. Instead, the knife will punch through some muscle and scrape the bone a little and do not much more damage than incredible pain. The real damage done, however, is not physical. Dad’s eyes are still locked on Teddy, and what Teddy sees in Dad’s eyes are first rage, then realization, then understanding, and then the worst thing of all.
         Fear.
         Mom screams in horror, Dad screams in pain, and Teddy’s screams cut higher above them all, punctuated by Elmo yapping in his cage, claws scraping against the metal bars. Dad whirls away from the horror behind him, dropping to his knees, right hand grasping for the knife now buried in his left shoulder, not reaching it, blood pouring down his bare shoulder and chest.Now, in the absence of his father’s hulking form, Teddy can see the true horror that whispered to him from his closet. The man’s head is covered in sparse hair, face twisted and deformed, one eye set lower than the other. And the smile on his face is the picture of grotesque, revealing blackened teeth and rotted gums. He is wearing a long dark coat, and must have some other weapon inside it because his hands are reaching in there for something. Teddy knows his mother sees this as well because her screams rise in pitch and volume, and her arms around him are like vice grips, growing tighter in the blink of an eye. He doesn’t know who she’s trying to protect more in that moment, him or herself.
         Now the man’s terrible sunken eyes rest on Teddy and his smile widens. Teddy thinks the creature says his name, but he can’t be sure. For a fearful moment, Teddy thinks the man is going to come and get him and his mom, but as he moves forward, he topples headfirst across the room as if pushed from behind. And surely he is, because Dad is rising from his feet, knife still buried in his shoulder. From his mouth are flying the most awful roars Teddy could ever imagine, ear-shattering, gravelly expressions of fear and anger and rage and everything that his father has been holding in over all the years of his life. In that moment Teddy understands that the fear is always there, no one is ever fearless, some just hide it much better than others, and his dad is one of those.
         Dad wrestles the man away from his family, one hand grasping the man’s coat, hauling him bodily across the room. The other hand dangles limply at his side, useless, the pain too much to bear should he try and lift it. Dad has never had a useless hand in his life. Nevertheless, he smashes the man bodily into the wall next to the window, and the man grunts loudly, almost sounding amused. Teddy understands what Dad’s ultimate target is, and he wills him with everything inside to hit it. Dad pulls back one more time, using his own momentum to drag the man where he wants him to go. Then he pushes back again, and the shattering of glass fills the room, the man’s body disappearing through the window.
         It seems for a long time like the screams will never stop, from Teddy, from Mom, from, worst of all, Dad. Even as Teddy’s Dad sinks to the floor by the window, his face is twisted in a mask the likes of which Teddy has never seen. His breath comes in gasping barks, and his body is covered in sweat and blood. His eyes are wide, glassy with shock, fear boiling behind them. It has only been minutes, but he looks entirely possessed by a lifetime’s worth of exhaustion. Teddy doesn’t ever think he’ll forget his father’s face like that. And he never does, never in his life.

         “God Jesus, Ted, why do you tell that story to them?” Kate asked, jolting him out of the reverie of his storytelling.
         He looked down at the two upward turned faces staring at him, mouths agape, eyes wide and wondering, but not quite fearful. Little Teddy, the younger one, was listening far more raptly than Penny, who was almost eleven years old and would not be fascinated by her old man’s stories for much longer.
         “They have to know,” Ted answered. “They have to know that fear is okay, that it’s not something to be ashamed of.”
         “Ugh, there’s got to be a better way than that story. Look at them, they’re mortified.”
         “They’re not mortified.”
         “Daddy?” Little Ted asked. “What happened to the man when Gran’pa pushed him out the window?”
         Ted shook his head slowly. “No one knows, little man. After that, Grandma called the police and we hid in my bedroom until they came, but they didn’t find anyone outside. There was some blood on the wall where your Grandpa smashed him, and they took samples of that, but didn’t come up with anything helpful. He could still be out there, far as anyone knows.”
         “Really?” Little Teddy asked.
         “No, not really,” Penny said scornfully, “he’s not outside your window or anything, Teddy. That was a long time ago because Dad’s old, so he’s probably dead, if this story is even true at all.”
         “It’s not,” Kate insisted from across the room where she sat working on a crossword puzzle. “Your dad just gets his rocks off scaring you guys before bed.”
         “What rocks?”
         “Never mind, it’s time for you kids to get ready for bed.”
         There were the usual few minutes of protest, then Teddy and Penny wandered off to wash up for bed. Ted took his place back on the sofa next to his wife, picking up the latest literary rag he had been published in and flipping through it. He tried to ignore Kate’s staring eyes for as long as possible, then gave in.
         “What?”
         “That story is awful. Why do you tell it to them?”
         “I told you why, Kate. They have to learn it’s okay to be afraid. Fear is… healthy.”
         Kate dropped her crossword puzzle onto the table, full attention focused on him. “That’s fine, there’s nothing wrong with kids being afraid sometimes, it’s natural. But they way you tell that story, it’s like it really happened.”
         “Why do you think it didn’t?”
         “Well for one thing you talk about your dad like he’s some kind of fearless tyrant. Your dad’s the most gentle and soft-spoken man I’ve ever met. And if that whole thing ever really did happen, your parents have never said a word about it.”
         “Why would they?” Ted replied, and that was all he would say on the subject.

         Deep in the night, when Teddy cried out, Ted went to his room. He was tired, but not angry. Teddy had wet the bed again. Ted patiently helped him change the sheets and find a new pair of underwear. When Little Teddy was back in bed, his dad sat down beside him, running a strong hand through his hair.
         “Okay, honey?”
         “Yes. Sorry Dad.”
         “Don’t be sorry, Teddy, it’s okay. It won’t be like this forever. What scared you?”
         “The man,” Teddy said, “I think he’s back.”
         “I don’t think he is, but I’ll go check anyway, okay?”
         Teddy nodded. Ted stood, went to the boy’s closet and opened it. He flicked on the light inside, only to find piles of Teddy’s clothes and toys. No man with a knife and a twisted face. No horror. No fear.
         “Look okay to you, Teddy?”
         “Yes, Dad.”
         “Good.”
         He closed the closet door then turned the lock on the knob, making sure Little Teddy saw him doing it.
         “That lock means nothing can get out of the closet, okay?”
         “Okay, Dad.”
         Ted moved to the side of his son’s bed, bent down and kissed him on the forehead.
         “Is that story true, Dad?”
         Ted remained silent for a long moment, looking down at his son who was looking back up at him, shadows of tree branches outside falling across his pale little face. Ted was almost forty years old now, with two children of his own. He didn’t honestly remember much from his childhood, except for the face of his own father looking back at him in fear. That moment when he came to understand that everyone was afraid because there was always something to be afraid of. Always.
         “It’s not true, Teddy. Just go to sleep, okay?”
         “Okay. Goodnight, Dad.”
         Ted looked around the room one last time, then walked back to the doorway.
         “Dad?”
         “Yeah, Teddy?”
         “I think if he came back, he didn’t go into the closet.”
         Ted froze, icicles slicing through his veins as a cold sweat broke out over his body--that old familiar feeling of sudden and sheer terror, as familiar now as when he was a child, cowering in his bed.
         “Why do you say that, Teddy?”
         “Because he would know that you know about the closet already. He would hide someplace else.”
         “Like where?”
         There was a long silence as Ted stared into the dark waiting for his son to answer, all the old shadows of his childhood flowing back into place.
         “I think he’d hide under the bed,” Little Teddy finally answered.
         Ted nodded, then moved back towards the bed. He looked down at his son again, seeing the genuine fear there in his eyes, feeling it settle into his own heart.
         Then he knelt down by the side of Teddy’s bed and lifted the blanket that hung there.
         And Teddy screamed.