Monster in My Closet

by R. L. Naquin

  I searched between and under the seats for the offender and came up empty. When I opened the glove compartment, the stench of putrefaction and decay assailed my sinuses. My hands flew to my face in a futile attempt to block it out. A small, burlap bag tied with twine sat nestled amidst my collection of extra fast-food napkins, leaving grease stains where it touched the paper. Using as little contact as possible, I pinched the rough fabric between my fingers and lifted it out, dangling it in the air. The reek was unbearable. Surely breathing it in close quarters was unhealthy. It gave off an oily, ominous feel that made me shudder. I couldn’t decide if I should toss it out the window, burn it or scream for help.

  A knock on the window made me jump, causing the offensive mystery item to swing against my wrist and brush my skin. I yelped and straightened my arm. At least I hadn’t screamed.

  “Son of a bitch,” I said and looked out the window. Maurice’s yellow eyes stared back at me.

  I screamed.

  I felt like an idiot.

  He motioned for me to roll down the window. I ignored him and opened the car door, pushing him out of the way.

  “What the hell?” I said.

  Maurice grinned down at me. “You have to put that back, Zoey. Aggie made it for you. It’ll ward off bad stuff.”

  “It stinks.”

  “That’ll dissipate. Please put it back, Zo. You need protection whether you think so or not.”

  Resigned, I made a face and tossed the thing inside, then slammed the glove compartment shut. As if I didn’t have enough going on, now I’d have to make an appointment to get my car detailed.

  I pulled myself out of the car and glared up at the six-foot-tall monster smiling back at me.

  “Do I want to know who Aggie is?”

  Maurice shrugged. “Just a hag who lives on the other side of the woods. Your mom took care of her when she was sick sometimes. Aggie was glad to help.”

  My mother had been a very busy lady.

  “I’m going for a walk. No more surprises. I can’t take it.” I turned and stomped away, refusing to look back over my shoulder.

  * * *

  I plodded through the half mile or so of woods that separated my house from the ocean. I dragged my feet through the leaves and pine needles.

  “Buying me off with food. Stinking up my car. Monsters and fairies.” I kicked a rock and watched it roll under a bush. “Hag? Really? Not even a witch. No, I have freakin’ Baba Yaga living down the street.”

  I wallowed in my own petulance. I wasn’t in the habit of feeling sorry for myself, but dammit, I deserved a little pity party at this point.

  “I’ll suck you dry. Stupid incubus.”

  Once I stopped grousing and turned my attention to my surroundings, I realized how quiet it was. It could be I’d frightened the wildlife with my stomping and mumbling, but the silence was deeper than anything I could have caused. No birds scolded each other or flew overhead. Squirrels didn’t skip between the trees, tails twitching in Morse code. The breeze was slight and didn’t rustle the leaves as it passed.

  My skin grew clammy and I quickened my pace. To the right, I thought I glimpsed something moving in the shadows, and I whipped my head around to catch it. To my left, something large but silent kept pace with me.

  I hurried.

  Behind me a twig cracked, breaking the silence. Of their own accord, my feet stopped moving and planted themselves in the dirt path. My ears twitched, and I rolled my eyes to view my surroundings without moving my head. Nothing. The forest was still quiet. The only sounds came from the surf in the distance. I took a careful step, my senses alert for the slightest noise or movement as I walked.

  And now my imagination has run off and stolen what’s left of my mind.

  Two minutes of paranoia later, I broke through the thick stand of conifer and eucalyptus. Dirt and pine needles under my feet gave way to hard-packed earth with sparse, gnarly growths, then dark, pebbly sand. I looked over my shoulder and saw only trees and shadow. No eyes stared at me from the brush. No talons reached to claw off my face. There was no smell of putrid, rotted flesh or wobbly zombies moaning their lust for my brains.

  My shoulders loosened, and I turned my back to the empty wood.

  The mixture of scents struck me first; the fresh, almost medicinal smell of the eucalyptus trees behind me merged with the salty tang of the bay before me. A powerful, instant spirit-lifter, no matter how many times I walked down this way. I bent and hiked up my green gypsy skirt so I could unlace my purple Doc Martens. I took the opportunity to peer under my arm to the woods behind me. All clear. I really was losing my mind.

  I shoved the boots and socks into my bag and made my way down the beach to my favorite rock. My purse made a dull thud as it hit the sand. I gave it a critical eye. I supposed it did lack style. Surely it wasn’t that bad. I stepped over it toward the water and faced the Bay. The wind outside the tree cover was much stronger, whipping spray into my face and through my tangling hair. I stood like that, enjoying the emptiness and freedom for several minutes before I felt eyes watching me.

  I whipped around and scanned the woods, not sure if I wanted vindication of my suspicions or more proof of my impending insanity. Off to the right, a large shadow moved and stepped into the light. For the first time in my life, I wished I were a badass chick with a crossbow or wicked knife instead of being an emotion-magnet with a fabulous sense of style.

  The something from the woods was mostly furry, probably seven feet tall, and grinning at me. Bigfoot? Wendigo? Wolf Man? I bent to the side, eyes still on the creature, and felt around for my purse.

  Because that’s how badass chicks take out big hairy monsters. They wallop them with their purses.

  The thing took another step forward, still smiling, gave me a big, furry thumbs-up, and disappeared into the trees.

  I groaned and buried my face in my hands. I was going to have to kill Maurice, plain and simple. Apparently, he thought I needed a bodyguard in addition to Fairyland home security and voodoo car fresheners.

  I slumped on my rock, lost in images of fairy flyswatters and closet-monster strangulation. I picked up a pebble and hurled it at the water, watching in frustration as it fell three feet short of the water and clunked in the sand. What the hell was wrong with me? I wasn’t a violent person. I couldn’t even throw a rock without it looking like a lame, half-hearted toss.

  I’d been taking care of myself (and everybody else who came along) for most of my life. After my mom disappeared, Dad had been useless. I’d been eight, but filled the gap as well as I could. My dad wilted after that. I kept him fed and going to work. He loved me, I knew that. But he wasn’t equipped to take care of himself, let alone a motherless daughter. It wasn’t easy on me either, but I was more adaptable.

  And now I had a better understanding of why. I’d taken my dad’s grief and loneliness into myself. I understood it better than he did, and I tried to pour love into him. Over the years he became stronger, and the light in his eyes returned for short bursts, but the loss was a permanent scar. His death when I was nineteen had been hard, but I would never forget the relief on his face when he finally stopped fighting and let go.

  Without my father to care for anymore, I attracted an army of needy boyfriends. They marched in and out of my life while I nursed them, helped them pass their college courses, counseled them on family problems. My wallet was emptied both willingly and behind my back when I was in the shower. I fed the ones who were hungry and helped others detox.

  And I’d still had time to stay up all night with crying girlfriends with broken hearts.

  The exception had been Sara. She never asked for anything, really, except for my friendship. She was easy to be around, made no emotional demands, and I never felt exhausted or drained from her company. Now that I understood what being an empath meant, it
gave me insight into our friendship. Sara kept her emotions in check the same way she controlled her appearance. She had all her hair appointments strategically booked six months in advance, and if she needed to cry, she’d schedule a half hour in the afternoon, preferably coinciding with her lunch break. She was an ideal best friend for an uncontrolled empath.

  She’d tried to save me from myself on a number of occasions. If she judged an all-night crying jag from one of the girls in our dorm had gone on long enough, Sara would come to collect me and drag me back to our room. If I had a bad breakup—and let’s face it, nearly all of them were bad—she’d stop me from drowning myself in cheap beer and frat boys. A lot of my college experience was highlighted by Sara running interference between me and my own self-destruction.

  I snorted and let fly another wobbly rock. It all made so much sense now. This empath thing had been running my life for as far back as I could remember. Hindsight is a worthless bitch.

  I thought about the phone conversation with Brad and my heart sank. I’d never been so mean before. Sure, he irritated the hell out of me, but I’d been horrible to him.

  I took a breath and held it, then let it out slowly the way Andrew had taught me. Something wasn’t right. I probed the walls of my make-believe barrier to check for cracks. It seemed fine. I took several more breaths and went deeper, examining the emotions imprisoned inside my bubble. Anger, frustration, fear. I tasted each one, explored them like a loose tooth. They were familiar, yet new.

  My God. These are my emotions.

  After so many years of harboring the runaway emotions of other people, my own had taken a backseat. Now all I had were what belonged to me, and I was ill prepared to deal with them. It was a terrifying thought.

  Could I squash them down like I used to? Probably not the healthiest approach. Could I send them out into the world the way I had learned to do with other people’s garbage? No. I was going to have to deal with them, one by one, just like any other well-adjusted adult. I could see this was going to take some time.

  I spent several hours out there, poking and prodding at my emotional self. By the time I was done I had examined my fear and anger with a microscope, turned them over in my mind like shiny stones. I became thoroughly acquainted with them so I could differentiate between what was mine and what was borrowed from somebody else.

  Then I put them away on a shelf in my head, brushed the sand off my skirt and went home.

  “Wolf man?” I asked Maurice when I came through the door.

  “Skunk-ape,” he said. He had a face like a bunny about to bolt.

  I sighed. Maybe I didn’t want to know after all. “What’s for dinner? I haven’t eaten since breakfast.”

  His face brightened, and he darted into the kitchen babbling about tarragon and coriander. I had no idea what I ate that night, but it was delicious.

  Meeting my own feelings for the first time in years had restored my emotional stability. I didn’t once feel like gutting anyone with my dessert spoon.

  * * *

  I was smug that evening, sitting in front of the TV with a belly full of food I hadn’t cooked. My kitchen was clean without my lifting a finger, and the weird wine stain shaped like Phyllis Diller had been magically erased from my living room rug after five years of residence. Best of all, I was confident that I was mostly getting the hang of this emotional rodeo thing.

  Things were looking up.

  The news drifted over me as white noise. A shark attacked a local surfer off Muir Beach. Somebody’s sweet old granny robbed a San Rafael convenience store. A clerk at a Sausalito grocery was found dead in the storage room.

  I sat up.

  I’d been in that store the day before. It was next door to Andrew’s herb shop. And I knew the tattooed face of the woman in the photo.

  They cut to video footage of the scene. Police and paramedics scurried across the screen like worker ants. An officer brushed aside a microphone when a reporter shoved it up under his nose.

  The camera crossed to the ambulance as an EMT slammed the back door shut. I shivered. I had spoken to the dead clerk yesterday. Apparently, I’d been wrong. Selma hadn’t been “better than fine” after all. She was zipped into a body bag and buckled in for a trip to the morgue.

  The paramedic turned to face the camera before he realized it was there, and I sat up straighter. The winking, coffee-drinking guy from across the street. And wow, he was really hot. I’m not usually big on uniforms, but he filled his out nicely.

  So focused on how edible the emergency guy looked, it wasn’t until ten minutes later that I thought to wonder how the clerk had died.

  Chapter Five

  Sunday was a much-needed day of calm and normalcy until I decided to give myself a manicure.

  Storage space was at a premium in my bathroom, so I stored many of my girly items in the hallway linen closet. I had a metric crap-ton of face creams I didn’t follow through on, bath salts I had no time for, hair removers, hair thickeners, self tanners, skin lighteners and, of course, seven thousand shades of nail polish—many with unused matching lipsticks. Seriously, this was not the ’60s. While I might’ve found a use for orange nail polish, nobody ever looked good with orange lips, no matter what the decade. I had no memory of purchasing it.

  On Monday, I had a meeting scheduled with a client, a Goth girl named Spider. Spider’s daddy was footing the bill for a mega wedding the size of Argentina. In the spirit of solidarity, and in the hopes of snagging a bigger share of daddy’s expenses, I decided to darken up a little before I met her. I had black nail polish, but that would be too obvious. I didn’t want to look like a wannabe or a kiss ass. But a nice rich chocolate would be somber enough. I wondered if my spider-web tights would be too much. Probably. Might as well powder my face and draw an ankh on my cheek in eyeliner. Better to undersell it.

  I opened the linen closet, shrieked like a little girl and slammed it shut.

  In that brief peek into my towels and toiletries, I saw several tiny people scuttling for cover. Had I not recently been attacked by fairies I’d mistaken for dragonflies, I might have thought my closet denizens were mice or rats. My self-preservation skills, however, were waning. Reality, no matter how bizarre, was no longer allowing me to take the easy way out.

  I took a deep breath. I took a second deep breath for good measure. Gripping the doorknob, I turned it as quietly as I could, then pulled the door open, peering into the crack. Three—no, four—miniature people huddled in the corner, lit by the shaft of light I let in. A woman stood with one arm wrapped around a little boy, and her hand rested on the head of a smaller girl. A taller boy, I’d say about twelve if he were human, stood in front of them, chest puffed out and one hand on his hip in defiance. His other arm was folded against his chest.

  They all looked terrified.

  I let the door swing open the rest of the way and regarded the small family in my linen closet. They all had tiny pointed ears and skin the color of milky hot cocoa. The little girl clung to her mother’s skirts, tiny black pigtails bobbing as she hid her face. The younger boy looked frightened, but ready to break out of mom’s headlock if big brother needed an assist. The mom broke my heart.

  Her face was beautiful, a miniature, darker version of Audrey Hepburn. There was so much dignity in the way she held herself. However, Audrey Hepburn hadn’t sported a shiner like that. The woman’s eye was swollen nearly shut, and dried blood crusted one side of her perfect face. My eyes moved to the older son and noted again the way he nursed his arm against his body. This family had been through hell.

  “Brownies,” Maurice said, making me jump.

  “Gah! Would you please stop sneaking up on me?”

  “Sorry. Zoey, this is Molly Wheatstalk. Molly, this is Zoey.”

  She nodded her head once and gave me a smile that was far too weak for my likin
g.

  “It’s nice to meet you, Molly,” I said. I had a passing thought that a brownie family in my linen closet was a preposterous notion and that I was probably lying on a sidewalk somewhere, bleeding after a piano had dropped on my head.

  But denial was a luxury I couldn’t indulge. These little people were too real to deny, and I’d never turned anyone away when they needed help. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I also knew I hadn’t bothered to bolster my newly created walls of defense for the day, but I didn’t care. Molly and her children were hurting, sad, frightened, desperate—I felt it all. But I also felt something else. Love. It was so thick I could almost see it twisting around them and binding them together, spreading outward into the hallway. There was so much love in my linen closet I wanted to curl up in a pile of fluffy towels and bask in the glow.

  This empath thing isn’t all bad.

  The smile I gave them was the one I reserved for nervous brides about to bolt—filled with kindness and understanding. “You have a beautiful family, Molly.”

  Her smile brightened a bit, and the older son relaxed his defensive stance. The little girl lifted her face and gave me a shy grin, dimples puckering. She popped her thumb in her mouth and stared up at me with round eyes.

  The younger son squeezed out from under his mother’s arm and took a bold step toward me. “I’m Aaron,” he said. Just as Maurice’s voice was not low and gravelly as I would expect, Aaron’s voice was not high-pitched and squeaky. His chest was puffed out in imitation of his older brother. “That’s Fred, and my little sister is Abby.”

  I cocked my head to the side. “It’s a pleasure to meet you all. If you’ll excuse me for a few minutes, I’ll see what I can do to make you all more comfortable.” I grabbed Maurice by the wrist and yanked him with me as I turned to go to the kitchen. As an afterthought, I let him go and walked back to the closet.