JMariotte - Boogeyman Page 20

  He lunged for the bathrobe draped over the back of his chair. The Boogeyman charged toward him, as if trying to stop him before he could reach it. But Tim got it in both hands, dug his fingers into the terrycloth, and pulled with everything he had. He allowed himself a wicked smile—the Boogeyman wouldn’t have tried so hard to keep him from this if it wasn’t important.

  The robe tore down the center seam.

  The Boogeyman ripped apart too, right down the middle.

  As he separated, a ferocious vacuum wind picked up, like that inside a pressurized airplane with a broken window. Shreds of the tattered Boogeyman were sucked into the closet. But so was everything else. The pieces of the plastic bird flew into it, the tiny glass shards of the nebula ball. Clothes, comics, books, a baseball glove and lamp from his bureau, the blinds from the window. Sheets from the bed took flight like massive wings and disappeared into the vortex. The bed itself started to stutter in that direction, as did Tim’s desk and dresser.

  The Boogeyman fought against the pull of the powerful wind. He stood with his feet far apart, his legs braced, his loose black clothing thundering, and tried to advance on Tim and Kate.

  Kate had hooked an arm around a wall-mounted radiator and snagged Tim with her other hand. Their clothes flapped and fluttered, but she managed to hang on, to keep them from the gravitational force, the black hole inside Tim’s closet that sucked all matter toward it.

  The Boogeyman came forward a step, and then, struggling with Herculean effort, another one. Tim knew he didn’t have the strength to fight back anymore—it was all he could do to withstand the suction, to keep holding on to Kate. If the Boogeyman reached them, they were done.

  He watched as all the remnants of his childhood vanished into the closet, the wind picking up steam as if it were feeding on the energy of Tim’s life. His nightstand took flight—

  —and jolted by a sudden burst of inspiration, Tim snatched at it, leaning out, perilously close to breaking Kate’s grasp—

  —and he closed his hand around the drawer pull. The rest of the nightstand tumbled through the air, bouncing off the Boogeyman as it flipped and fell into the closet. All the drawer’s contents took flight, following its path.

  Except for one thing.

  Tim closed his hand around the He-Man action figure. He heard the Boogeyman scream, even over the roar of the wind, as he raised his hand high. The plastic figure was aged and brittle. Tim felt it starting to crack in his grasp. He hurled it to the floor with every bit of strength he could manage, and it shattered there, not like an old and hardened action figure, but like blown glass, like fine china, into a million tiny pieces.

  The Boogeyman’s wail of pain sliced into Tim’s ears. The room seemed to upend like a sinking ship, the open closet at the bottom, everything else emptying into it. Tim’s boyhood bed dropped to the closet and squeezed through the opening, vanishing on the other side. Kate still maintained her grip on the radiator, though she dangled, the wind batting at her, trying to break her free.

  She gave a little scream, and Tim thought she was losing her grip. He reached for her, to make sure she stayed put.

  And in that second, he let go just long enough. He fell.

  He saw the closet door waiting like the mouth of a starving beast, saw everything else in the room falling through it.

  But Tim’s chair was in his path, and he slammed against it, grabbed on.

  The screws squealed as the incredible force tugged them from the wood, one by one. Tim saw the first give way completely and spiral down into the closet.

  The Boogeyman clung to the floor, his shadowy claws digging furrows in the wood. He lunged at Tim, his grasping hand almost reaching the chair, but he rose too far off the floor, and the wind caught him.

  His final scream echoing painfully, the Boogeyman flew through the closet door. Tim’s bureau squeezed through right after him, and the room was empty but for Tim, Kate, and the chair.

  The chair had almost lost its moorings, bounced up and down on the wooden floor like an anxious tot.

  And Tim was losing his grip, his sweaty fingers sliding off the wood…

  Looking up, he saw Kate dangling above him, staring down, fear contorting her lovely face. The radiator had torn mostly free of the wall, and though she clung to it heroically, her weight added to the wind tugged at its last point of anchor.

  It snapped, and Kate fell toward him.

  Tim reached out to catch her, forced to release the chair to do it.

  At that moment, the closet door slammed shut.

  The room righted itself. Tim, Kate, and the broken radiator fell to the floor.

  The incredible wind had gone quiet. Tim rose to his knees, bruised and bloody. A thin trail of blood trickled from Kate’s nose and ears, her hair was an insane tangle, her clothes torn and disheveled.

  Tim figured he must look worse.

  Standing carefully, like a sailor taking his first step onto dry land after a year at sea, he walked to the closet. Held onto the knob for a second, listening. No sound issued from within. He twisted the knob, opened the door.

  Inside, a wooden rod waited for hangers, an empty shelf above that. He reached past, tapped the back wall. Firm. Solid.

  Just a closet.

  Shutting the door again, Tim went back to Kate and offered her a hand. She took it, and he helped her to her feet. She leaned into him, holding his shoulders, and he wrapped an arm protectively around her.

  “Don’t be afraid of him, Kate,” Tim told her. He had heard those words before, even said them himself, a time or two. The difference was, he was pretty sure he was right this time. “He can’t come back if we’re not afraid.”

  Kate’s voice was tremulous, not as certain as Tim’s. But she hadn’t been through as much of it as he had, Tim knew. She didn’t have all the information yet, had no way of knowing what it was they had just so narrowly survived. He would make sure that she did, he swore to himself, before the darkness came again. They had come through the dark night, even though so many others—Tim’s dad, Uncle Mike, Jessica, Franny, all the lost ones over the years—had not.

  Still, perhaps by beating the Boogeyman, this one time, he had avenged all of those heartrending losses in some small way. And by showing the Boogeyman that hecould be defeated, maybe he’d made an even bigger difference.

  “Okay,” Kate said. Her tone was hushed, still fearful.

  Tim glanced toward the window. The sky had lightened, the sun had just cleared the horizon. He released Kate and went to the window, opening it wide. It hadn’t been washed in a very long time, and a layer of grime covered it, filtering the sun’s rays.

  But when he opened the window, pure, fresh morning sunlight flooded the room. Tim took it in, felt it splash across his cheeks and forehead like heavenly nectar. It was always night someplace—but then, that meant it was always morning someplace too.

  Looking at him, even Kate managed a smile.

  Epilogue

  Shelby Stevenson could barely keep her sleepy eyes open. She lay in her bed, with Wooly the Lamb clutched in one hand, her blankets tucked tight around her. Her mother sat on the edge of her bed, and her weight tugged the blanket even more snugly there. Shelby liked the press of her mother on the bed, didn’t want her to go. But they had finished tonight’s storybook, and the rule was only one book each evening. Shelby knew her mom had work to do, dishes to wash, and she was tired.

  But she didn’t want her mother to leave.

  Her mother knew that, knew all of Shelby’s stalling routines. She opened the music box on the nightstand, and the ballerina rose up out of it, turning in her never-ending pirouette as the music tinkled.

  “Since we have such a long drive tomorrow,” Mom said, “I was going to pick you up early from school.”

  Shelby thought maybe Mom had said something earlier about them taking a long drive, but she couldn’t remember the details. She yawned, pressing one of her fists against her mouth like she’d been taught. To keep the
devil out, her mother had told her. She thought Mom had been teasing, but sometimes she got confused. Anyway, stuff like that scared her. “Where are we going?”

  Her mother smoothed a few fine hairs away from Shelby’s forehead. “Remember, honey, we’re seeing that lady doctor. She’s supposed to be real good with kids.” Mom smiled and stood up. The bed shifted when she got off it, the covers suddenly looser. Shelby gripped the edge of the blanket and pulled it up to her chin. “She’s going to help you,” Mom said.

  Stifling another yawn, Shelby replied. “Okay, Mom.”

  Her mother bent at the knees and the waist, leaned in, and kissed Shelby on the cheek. Shelby loved the feel of her mom’s lips there, loved the scent of her, like fresh flowers in a meadow. But something was wrong tonight. Mom’s smile didn’t seem quite real—she was showing more teeth than she normally did, and her eyes didn’t twinkle like when she was really happy.

  She had been like that more and more lately, Shelby knew. She was afraid that maybe she was the cause of her mother’s unhappiness. Mom tried to keep a smile on her face, and always had nice things to say. But she got tired so easily, these days, and there were more lines around her mouth and eyes than Shelby remembered ever seeing. Sometimes, when they thought Shelby couldn’t hear them, she heard Mom and Dad talking about her, using the same serious voices as when they talked about paying the bills and grown-up stuff like that.

  Mom started to reach for the lamp on Shelby’s nightstand, and Shelby tensed, ready to remind her. But Mom caught her hand at the last minute, and just touched the shade, as if she had only been moving to adjust it. “Nighty night,” she said.

  “Nighty night,” Shelby echoed. That was their routine, and she didn’t like any variation from it.

  “Don’t let the bedbugs bite.”

  Mom turned and walked purposefully from the room, out into the hallway, leaving the door open a crack.

  Alone now, Shelby snugged the covers tight to her chin, holding on with both hands. Her muscles were tense, balled up, her eyes wide open.

  She thought she was safe. The light was on. Her mattresses were flat against the floor, so there was no space under the bed. Instead of having her clothes in a chest, they were arranged in small, careful piles, right up against the wall. The door to her closet was stored out in the garage, and a bright bulb burned inside it, making sure no shadows dwelt there. The overhead light was on, as was the lamp on the nightstand.

  Beyond the circle of light, Shelby knew, lay a world of darkness.

  But it couldn’t touch her in here….