Always the god dam man in the closet. Sometimes no eyes, no face, no nose, always waiting in the closet. Always with a smile. The way the kid described him the ear to ear grin was something out of a Stephen King novel. Something mundane and horrifying and otherworldly all at once, like a lamppost that eats children or a notebook that brings your dreams to life. But this is real life, and when a child tells you there is a man waiting for them in the closet you have to check.

I walk into his bedroom and he is behind me, gripping my leg with strong, tiny fingers. The touch sensitive duck lamp strobes with the failings of batteries that should be younger than they behave. A striking juxtaposition to my desires for the terrified child behind me, slinking into my room with whimpers and dragging me out of bed. I debate for a moment about taking down the anime posters taped to the dark blue walls. None of them are particularly scary, but a blank wall excites less in the imagination than dragons and kids in school uniforms with super powers flying through a hail of bullets with a swords. In the spirit of contrast, however, their eyes are enormous in true anime fashion. Not exactly our well dressed demonic butler opening closet doors with fingers blackened and blued by death.

“He’s in there,” he says. I restrain a sigh.

“Alright dude, get in bed.” He doesn’t move.

“He’s IN there.”

“There’s no one in there, I promise.”

“You’ll check?”

“Of course I will, what kind of demon slayer would I be if I didn’t?” This seems to help him a bit, though he’s still skeptical of my demon slaying abilities. I’ve apparently failed too many times recently, which if any of this were true would be accurate. “What do we need to do to protect ourselves?”

“Get in bed and cover our head with our blankets,” he says.

“That’s right.” I lift him up so he is sitting on the edge of the bed. “And why is that?”

“Because they can’t get through blankets, they’re like force fields.”

“You got it. Okay get under the covers and I’ll take care of the closet man.”

He reluctantly complies, putting his whole body under the faded yellow blanket. His little face barely peeks out through a whole he’s bunched up on the side facing the closet.

“Are you sure you want to see this?” I ask. He nods. I pat the bundle gently and stand up. I take in the kid’s bedroom slowly, not waiting too long but savoring this little moment between two important elements of parenthood: putting them to bed, and convincing them monsters aren’t real.

The wind blows outside in a single swift gust. The closet door creaks. Every muscle in my body that I can’t prevent from reacting tightens. The yellow bundle on the bed shudders.

This is the moment that I laugh at myself with silent, desperate purpose. Superstitions from childhood persevere throughout our lives, of course they do. Concentrated bouts of fear can’t just be undone. A life free of external trauma does nothing to keep the mind from making victims of us all. We create things of fear, and for what? Some regulatory function of the brain that needs crisis and so creates it if it isn’t provided externally? Thoughts like this only do so much to alleviate such a primal emotion.

Now, for both of us, there is a man in the closet with no eyes. Hands pressed against the doors to feel any vibrations in the room, black tongue licking at the crack to sense our fear, crouching like a mantis in his tailed tuxedo stained black at the neck and cuffs from the effluence of decay. He is waiting for me to open the door, waiting so he can grab my shoulders and plunge his thick cold tongue down my throat, siphon my stomach acid, pierce the wall and clutch my heart. My eyes roll back into my head in shock and the soul devouring pain that only a demon or poltergeist could inflict. My child will scream and hide under his covers, the creature dropping me dead on the floor with a flaccid thud. Somehow my skin and eyes will show signs of death far longer than what is true. When detectives arrive they’ll hold handkerchiefs to their mouths and mutter how they’ve never seen anything like this before. But before that, the child will pull the blanket around them so tight their back and legs will cramp and they will sob quietly and pray. I want to believe they will be spared, their incoherent ramblings written off by child psychologists as drivel, PTSD fueled nightmares, repressions of the truth that perhaps I’m a drunk and an addict and was likely to kill myself with my habits. A miracle I made it this far. They will be haunted by this entity for the rest of their lives, whether real or not, in their dreams, in their homes, with all of their partners. They will have kids of their own and one day those kids will say, “I don’t want to go bed, the man with no eyes is waiting for me in the closet,” and their blood will run cold in their veins as they decide between leaving their home and the fate that befell me that one fateful night.

These are the thoughts that inhabit a feeling, one that flashes through my body in an instant and lingers quivering under my skin. I breathe in through my nose as quietly as I can, and step toward the closet door.

I open it to nothing. Of course. Demons aren’t real. Thank god, they aren’t fucking real.

I kiss my child on the head, say whatever I need to in a comforting murmur, and leave them with the light on and their little peephole ever vigilant on the closet. Down the hallway to my room, turning lights on the whole way and leaving them on. At the door to my room I stop, turn again to go downstairs. I check every door and window in the house, check the security system, start back upstairs and check everything again, leaving every light on as I go. Into my room, I close the door, make it halfway to my bed and turn and open the door a crack letting a sliver of light penetrate the darkness. I go to my bed and lie down, listening to the fan oscillate in a soothing whisper. I roll to one side and see my closet, walk-in, dark, door closed. I think of how many creatures of hell could live in there if my child’s tiny closet can only contain one. I get up, walk to the door, open it, get back in bed. Five minutes later I am up again and I turn the light inside on, grabbing an eye mask. I slip it over my eyes back in bed. Five minutes later I slip it off, and stare into the lit closet as I fall asleep.