Strange Perceptions (16 page)

In The Closet

Now

I wasn’t asleep long before a tap on my cheek startled me awake. I sat straight up in bed. The cheek-tap came from my son, Jake. He stood beside my bed, dressed in SpongeBob SquarePants jammies.

He rubbed his eyes. “I can’t sleep.”

“Come on. Let’s get you a drink of water.”

“I’m not thirsty. Can I sleep with you and mom?”

I glanced at my wife. She snored softly. “No, let’s not wake Mom up. You’re a big boy. You need to stay in your own room.”

Hi sniffled. “But … there’s something in my closet.”

I swiveled my feet out of bed and stood. “Come on, Tiger. We’ll go check your closet.”

I herded him into his bedroom, turned on the light, and opened the closet. All his clothing was off the hangers in a heap on the floor.

“Jake, why are these clothes on the floor?”

He shrugged his shoulders.

“Well, there’s nothing to be afraid of in here. But in the morning I want you to hang these clothes on their hangers.”

“But—”

“No buts, let’s go. Into bed.”

“But Dad, it’s the clothes. They’re alive.”

I never believed in repressed memories, thinking attention-craved Hollywood celebrities manufactured them. Childhood traumas created to “remember” and talk about. Sad, desperate attempts to feed their egos with sympathy from concerned fans. How pathetic. But when Jake mentioned the clothes being alive, cold fingers crept up my spine and tickled my brain, releasing a childhood memory. A terror-filled incident long forgotten.

I gasped.

“What’s wrong?” Jake asked.

I knelt down beside him, our heads at the same level. Even though my newfound memories demanded attention, I pushed them aside for a moment. I didn’t want to scare my son.

“Jake, tell you what. Just for tonight, you can sleep with Mom and me.”

Relief washed over his face. I picked him up, carried him to my bedroom, and laid him next to my wife. He fell right asleep.

She woke. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” I said. “Just nightmares.”

She sighed and rolled over.

I got into bed next to Jake.

Memories flooded back to me. The mental trick I had used to ignore them no longer worked. I’d been focused on Jake, making him feel safe, but now the past filled my thoughts.

I lay on my back, wide awake, watching shadows play sinister games on the ceiling, and turned things over in my head. Jake had said the clothes were alive. I knew it to be true. Years ago I had the same experience. The clothes, if not alive, were animated by some invisible force.

The Past

I was six years old the first night it happened. Something woke me in the night. I remember waking and feeling a malignant presence in my room. Evil pervaded the heavy air. I strained to feel, or hear, or even smell the intruder, but it remained just outside my senses. I suppressed a scream, knowing the presence would kill me if I made a sound.

They say when you lose one of your senses all the other ones improve to compensate for your loss. In the darkness I was blind, but felt an increase in air pressure, as if something in the room had displaced the air, pushing the molecules together, making the atmosphere thicker. A faint scraping noise came from my closet.

In my bed I lay frozen, afraid to breathe. Minutes, dragging on like hours, passed before I worked up enough courage to take action. I leapt from my bed and shot through bedroom door. I ran to my parent’s bedroom and dove under their bed. The next morning Mom discovered me there.

“Michael,” Mom said, “why did you sleep under my bed?”

“I had a bad nightmare and got scared.”

“I don’t want you sneaking under there at night. If you have a problem get me, okay?”

I nodded.

“Now, young man, I want you to clean up your room. It looks like a tornado hit it.”

What did Mom mean? I left my bed unmade and there were a couple things on the floor. Far less damage than a tornado would cause.

I stood outside my bedroom door and gulped. What if the monster from last night waited for me inside? I opened the door, ready to bolt if needed. Clothes were scattered across my entire room. Shirts on my desk, sweaters in balls on the floor, and pants hanging off the edge of my bed, as if they’d been trying to climb onto it. I tiptoed through the clothing minefield and opened my closet—it was empty! All my clothes from the closet were strewn across my room. I checked my dresser, nothing disturbed there.

Whatever entity visited me during the night must have went crazy with my clothes. Maybe it made the mess so I’d get in trouble with my parents. That’s pretty weak logic now, but for a six-year-old it made sense. I picked up, re-hung, refolded, and put away the clothes.

All day I worried about the upcoming night. I snuck a flashlight from the garage and hid it under my pillow. At bedtime I kissed Dad goodnight.

He ruffled my hair. “Don’t worry, Mikey.”

Walking to my bedroom I felt like a man on death row, slowly marching toward an unwanted fate.

Mom waited for me in my room. “Quit dragging your feet, it’s past your bedtime.”

I climbed into bed. She tucked me in.

“Maybe,” I said, “I could sleep with you and Dad tonight?”

She kissed me on the forehead. “No.”

She turned out the light and left, closing my door behind her.

In the darkness I froze, laying there, listening to the house creak and groan, waiting for something to happen. I tried to stay awake but somewhere along the way sleep took me.

The clock read 3:12 when I awoke, its LED display providing scant illumination. I fumbled for the flashlight and aimed it at every nook and cranny in my room. Nothing. I felt the presence, but couldn’t see anything. Summoning my courage, I jumped from bed and turned on the light.

The closet was closed. Should I open it? Having the light on helped me feel brave. I tossed the flashlight on the bed and grabbed my baseball bat. Holding the bat in one hand, I reached out and flung the closet door open, ready to swing at anything that came. No creature jumped out. The only thing in my closet were clothes. A shirt had slid off the hanger and lay on the floor.

I went back to bed. When I next looked at the closet, I gasped. The shirt from the closet floor had moved a foot toward me. Or something had moved the shirt.

My mind reached out for some logical explanation. Maybe I had snagged the shirt with the bat. No. I had held the bat in front of me. Goosebumps tingled my entire body. How did the shirt move? I stared at it, ready to rush to the door if the shirt so much as quivered. Nothing.

I honestly don’t know how long I sat on my bed and stared at the shirt. It had to have been at least an hour.

I couldn’t leave. Where would I go? If I got out of bed, would the shirt come at me? I couldn’t take a chance, nor could I stay. Maybe I could holler for Mom and Dad, but then what? Tell them my clothes were alive? Yeah right. They’d have my head examined.

There comes a point in every boy’s life when he has a hard decision to make. Does he take the easy choice or the difficult one. Whichever way he decides, defines the man he is to become. Similar to Robert Frost’s poem “The Road Not Taken,” two roads diverged in a wood. It’s all about the choice. Unfortunately, you don’t know when you’re making “The Decision.” I certainly didn’t. My choice was either to run away from the problem and, in all likelihood, have to face it again, or I could put an end to this. I decided to end it.

I closed my eyes, thinking hard. What could I do?

When I opened my eyes, the shirt was halfway across the room. Also, another shirt and sweater had moved toward me.

I almost screamed, opening my mouth to yell, but a thought stopped me. My clothes moved only when I wasn’t watching them. I had stared at the shirt for an hour without it moving, but the moment I closed my eyes to think, it had moved several feet. Was this true? If my clothes couldn’t move when I looked at them, maybe I found a weakness. Something I could use to fix the situation.

For several long minutes I watched my clothes. They didn’t budge, but I had to see if they would move if I stopped watching. I took a deep breath, closed my eyes, and started counting in my head.

One …

Two … I’d go to 30.

Three …

Four …

Five. Long enough. I opened my eyes.

The shirt from the middle of my floor was now halfway up my bed. I scrambled backwards like a crab. The shirt didn’t try to follow me.

My remaining clothes had also moved toward me. They were off the hangers and partway across the floor. Did they move only when my eyes were closed or when I wasn’t looking at them? It didn’t matter; I couldn’t watch them all night.

Mom had just done laundry, so my clothes hamper was empty. A plan formed in my head. I crept off my bed, never taking my eyes from the possessed shirt. I got the clothes hamper and placed it in the center of the room. I didn’t want to touch the clothes so I used the baseball bat to pick up the shirts and sweaters one by one, dropping them in the clothes hamper. After gathering them into the hamper, I closed the lid.

Scurrying sounds immediately came from the hamper. I yelped, dropping the hamper. It landed at my feet. The lid came open, and a couple shirts fell out, but they did not move.

So, my question answered, I didn’t have to close my eyes for the clothing to move. I only had to not see them. Armed with this knowledge I felt more powerful, in control. As long as I kept an eye out, they couldn’t get me. Of course, if I fell asleep, I was doomed.

I kicked the shirts back into the hamper and, in one motion, swept up the clothes hamper into my arms, closing the lid as I did.

The scurrying began again. It became more violent and the hamper jarred and bustled and almost fell from my grip. They couldn’t get to me as long as I remained vigilant. I placed the hamper on the floor against the wall and sat on its top.

The Future

In bed, next to my wife and son, I realized I needed to take care of the clothes. I fixed things as a kid; I could do it now.

That time of my life, the time I now remembered with amazing clarity, was an emotional roller coaster. First the frightening, clothes-in-the-closet incident. Then came my quick thinking and bravery, solving the problem. Afterwards, a dark period filled with depression and despondence. A time when adults—my parents, teachers, doctors, police—asked questions. “Why did you do this Michael?” “What made you think the clothing moved?” “Did any stranger give you something to eat? Maybe candy or a pill?”

My actions horrified my parents. They looked at me as if I were an alien, some monster they couldn’t trust. I tried to explain why, but they wouldn’t listen. They thought I was crazy.

Eventually, the doctors convinced me it was all in my head. Nothing I described actually happened. A psychosis, they called it. They scanned my brain, asked more questions. Was I abused? (I wasn’t.) Doctors must come up with reasons for the unexplained. If the real cause cannot be believed, other explanations must be created.

As I lay in bed, tears welled up in my eyes. Sadness for the child I had been. Nothing was the same after that night and, even though I repressed the memories, I had lost my innocence. A child should be able to be a child as long as possible.

I rose from the bed, vowing the same thing would not happen to Jake.

I went to the bathroom and dumped the clothes from the hamper onto the floor. Still loath to touch the clothes, I grabbed salad thongs from the kitchen. I went to Jake’s bedroom.

Clothes were now strewn everywhere. Hamper under my arm, I marched around picking the clothes up with the prongs and dropping them in the hamper. After gathering them all, I shut the hamper lid and the clothes began rustling inside. Exactly as they had when I was little.

Keeping the lid closed, I carried the hamper with me as I went to the kitchen to fetch the matches and then went into the garage to get the gas can. In my underwear, holding the hamper and gas can, I dashed outside to our burning barrel and emptied the hamper’s contents into it. I then doused the clothing with gas and threw in a match.

The fumes ignited with a flash, but this quickly subsided into a steady flame as the clothes burned. The ending was, well, a bit anti-climatic. I didn’t expect the clothes to writhe in pain or scream, they hadn’t when I destroyed them as a child, but somehow the moment left me feeling empty, like it should have been bigger.

My childhood fire was grander. To a kid everything seems bigger. We didn’t have a burning barrel, I burned them in my room, right in the hamper. The flames caught my bed on fire and Dad rushed me outside. Firemen came. We stood on our lawn, watching them put out the fire. The worst part of it all was Mom and Dad’s look—worry, confusion, disappointment, and maybe a bit of fear. They didn’t understand why I had to do it.

Once the clothes in the burning barrel had burned down to a few red embers, I went back into the house. I’d have to come up with some excuse to explain to my wife why I destroyed our son’s clothing. I didn’t relish lying to her, but it was better than the alternative.