Monster in the Closet

Jake wasn’t like the other 6 years olds at school. They would come to class and talk about the monsters in their closets, and how frightened they were of them. Jake wasn’t afraid of monsters. Then again, how could you be afraid of monsters when Jeffery was the monster living in your closet?

Jeffery was your average monster. Jake had first encountered him when he was 4. Jeffery had black fur, like ink, and eyes that shone yellow in the darkness like small lamps, and teeth as sharp as razor blades. When other students in Jake’s class described the monsters that supposedly plagued them, Jake was always amused, because how could someone ever be frightened by a monster with bright red or blue fur with polka dots, etc. If there was going to be a scary monster, Jeffery would’ve been it, but honestly, how could you be afraid of a monster with a name like Jeffery.

Jeffery had low self-esteem after two years of trying to scare Jake.

“Come on,” he’d growl, in a voice like a thunder storm, “I was definetely scary this time!” He looked down, sadly, at his sharp, menacing claws, which had created deep slash marks in the wood floor. 

“I’m sorry Jeffery,” said Jake, matter of factly, “if that was your best attempt at being scary, then you really are a terrible monster.”

What had happened, was that when Jake had first entered the room, Jeffery had come up, like smoke, from the floor boards. The smoke had then transformed into the face of something out of the worst nightmares you could imagine. Jeffery had made his greatest growl, which had frightened away all the dogs and cats from the entire neighborhood (they wouldn’t be seen again for a few weeks), and shown his fangs mere inches from Jake’s face. 

“That was good,” Jeffery sobbed, “Any normal child would have run to their mom with pee running down their leg.” His terrifying face looked more like a sad puppy dog’s.

“You want scary Jeffery,” said Jake, poking a finger at Jeffery’s large head, which, even though Jeffery had it bowed down low, was still a good 4 feet over Jake’s head, “watch the news some time. Terrorists are scary! You,” He let out a laugh, “you’re as scary as a kitten compared to them!”

Jeffery wimpered and slumped back towards the closet door. How he ever fit into the closet was beyond Jake. Even at Jeffery’s smallest, when he tried to appear small, he still seemed too large to fit in the closet.

“Oh, now don’t be like that!” shouted Jake after him. “Maybe you’re just not cut out for this whole scaring thing. Did you ever think of that?”

“Oh yeah,” sniffed Jeffery, turning around to shine a yellow light on Jake’s face with one of his eyes. “And what, may I ask, does a monster do if he can’t scare children?” He turned back towards the closet, which he was nearly entirely inside of by now. “That’s kind of what we do.”

Jake really thought for a while. “Hmm…” he said as he thought. “Hold up… don’t disappear into that closet like you do. Let me think…”

“Humans…” muttered Jeffery, turning back to Jake and dropping his butt hard to the floor.

“Have you ever considered being a waiter?”

“A waiter?!”

“Yeah! My brother Phil is a waiter, makes good money! He bought himself a PS3 last week!”

“What would I do with a PS3? I haven’t got a TV.”

“Hmmm….” thought Jake. “I guess you’ve got a point there… How about a comedian?”

“A comedian?”

“Yeah, you know.” Jake turned on his small bedroom tv to the comedy network. He and Jeffery stared at the tv for a moment before Jake explained. “You could tell jokes! You are terribly funny!”

“Funny?! Me?!” Shouted Jeffery, rising up to his full hight, filling the entire room.

“Yeah!” laughed Jake. “Like what you’re doing right now! That is very funny.”

Jeffery shrunk down smaller than Jake had ever seen. He was no bigger than a small dog. Maybe the size of a bull dog. If Jake thought Jeffery was not frightening before, now he was truly convinced. 

“Well, at that size, you could be a great house cat!”

“Thanks,” sobbed Jeffery again. “Make me feel worse about myself that I already did.”
“Oh, come on Jeffery! Don’t be like that!” Jake said, in an apologetic tone while softly petting Jeffery’s side.

Jeffery slightly rubbed into Jake’s hand for a second before realizing what he was doing. “Cut it out!” he quickly barked out, backing away. “I will not be your cat.”

“I wouldn’t want you to be my cat,” scoffed Jake, looking very insulted. “I was just saying you could be a house cat. I would never want such a lame house cat as you though.” Jeffery looked up at him with wide, shocked glowing eyes. “No offense, of course.”

“Yeah…” Jeffery sarcastically sighed.

Jake sat down next to Jeffery and kept making “hmm” sounds as he thought. He had suggested more things, like a circus lion, a statue in the park, and a mime. None of which Jeffery had any interest in.

Finally, after an hour of thinking, way past Jake’s normal bed time, Jake was out of suggestions. He asked Jeffery if he could be asigned to a different child, but Jeffery said he couldn’t. He was with Jake until he was 10. That was how it went.

“Well then,” said Jake. “How bout this. I am not afriad of you...”
“I am fully aware,” scoffed Jeffery.

“Wait, I was not done,” blurted out Jake. Jeffery bowed his head down to the floor. “I am not afraid of you, but I will admit, I do enjoy or talks.”

“I guess I do too,” admited Jeffery.

“So how bout this. I will pretend that I am frightened of you each night to make you happy, so that we can have talks not about your terrible depression, which, if it continues, we’ll have to get checked out. Maybe there’d be a good medication for that. And then after you ‘frighten’ me, we can chat and then if you’d like, you can play house cat and lay at my feet on my bed, rather than laying in that cold closet. Sound good?”

“You’d do that for me?” asked Jeffery, with a terrifying, sharp, toothy smile.

“Yes. I believe that I would.”

The next night, after saying goodnight to his parents downstairs, Jake walked up to his room and prepared for his big act. He paused before opening the door and took a few deep breaths to prepare himself. He opened the door slowly, looking back and forth. He quickly ran to his bed and dove under the covers. Once he was in his bed he thought he was safe, but then he felt something by his feet. He quickly pulled them up to his chest. The sheets began to rise, and slowly the risen sheets moved closer and closer towards him until finally, the sheets fell, just before reaching him. Jake sat for a moment, and then ventured to lift the sheets, and he saw yellow eyes moments before an ink black creature sprang up at him from the sheets as Jake released a blood curdling shriek.