{"id":2710,"date":"2014-10-22T01:31:24","date_gmt":"2014-10-22T01:31:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/?p=2710"},"modified":"2014-10-22T01:31:24","modified_gmt":"2014-10-22T01:31:24","slug":"bogeyman-grey-harlowe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/bogeyman-grey-harlowe\/","title":{"rendered":"The Bogeyman by Grey Harlowe"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"halllast\"<\/a><\/h1>\n

The Bogeyman<\/h1>\n

by Grey Harlowe<\/p>\n

It was going to be a long night, Kyle realized as he looked over the three paragraphs he had typed for his two page Spanish essay due the next morning. It was 8:35, which meant another hour of writing, and thanks to slacking off in language lab that afternoon, he was also ill prepared for the oral presentation expected along with the essay. Then there was an upcoming algebra test to study for, and Barney, the family terrier, to feed and walk.<\/p>\n

To make matters worse, they were out of the energy drinks he used at times like these. He sighed, standing up to stretch. Maybe his dad had stashed some Mountain Dew in the garage.<\/p>\n

\u201cKyle?\u201d His younger brother Milo stood in the bedroom doorway.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re supposed to be in bed.\u201d Since his parents had needed to leave on an unexpected business trip to Korea, they\u2019d put Kyle in charge of Milo and the house. Their father had been reluctant, but their mother reassured him. Kyle was sixteen now, a newly licensed driver, and could handle things until they got home. It was harder than it looked. Milo, while almost eleven, got up two times a night, and was always pestering him.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s back again. It\u2019s talking to me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Not this crap again. For two days, Milo had been complaining about a mysterious voice in his closet.<\/p>\n

\u201cMilo, I have a lot of homework. You have to ignore it and go to sleep.\u201d \u201cBut it\u2019s louder this time, and kinda mean.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat does it sound like?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cLike gravel. Like it has a bad cough. Or it\u2019s really old.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s probably the wind outside,\u201d said Kyle, hoping to sell the child a rational explanation and get back to Spanish. \u201cBranches hitting the house, you know.\u201d It was October and slightly blustery, so the wind against the house story was plausible.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not wind. It\u2019s in the closet.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMilo, I really mean it, go back to bed.\u201d His voice had more edge than he intended, but this was getting ridiculous.<\/p>\n

His brother stared at him, refusing to budge.<\/p>\n

\u201cOkay,\u201d Kyle sighed, \u201cI\u2019ll check it out.\u201d<\/p>\n

He walked them down the hall of their stately, tastefully updated Victorian to Milo\u2019s room. Though they rarely had plumbing or electricity problems thanks to his parents\u2019 expensive renovations, the house was old, its floorboards prone to creaks and groans. Though Kyle knew this was the source of Milo\u2019s closet monster, he knew that explaining it to the kid would just make him complain more. He was already pretty worked up.<\/p>\n

\u201cLook,\u201d said Kyle, opening the closet door. It was empty, other than clothing. \u201cSee? Nobody there.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBut–\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cGet back in bed,\u201d said Kyle, pointing to it, \u201cand go to sleep. We\u2019re leaving for school at seven.\u201d<\/p>\n

After a reluctant pause, Milo complied, looking both scared and annoyed.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019ll start up again after you\u2019re gone,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cToo bad,\u201d said Kyle, and left.
\nThe next night, Milo was back again. 9:30 this time, a full nintey minutes past his bedtime and twenty minutes into Kyle\u2019s somewhat serious attempt to review for algebra. The Taking Care of Little Brother thing was really cutting into his schedule, and he was out of patience with it.<\/p>\n

Before Milo could speak, Kyle told him, \u201cGo to bed, or I\u2019m telling Mom you ate all the ice cream in the freezer while they were gone.\u201d Their mother was a health food nut who went crazy when either one of them had too much sugar.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe won\u2019t leave me alone,\u201d said Milo, unfazed by the threat. \u201cHe keeps asking for something.\u201d<\/p>\n

He. That was new.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow do you know it\u2019s a he?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI dunno. He just sounds that way. Like Santa Claus almost. And he\u2019s wheezing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Suddenly, Kyle worried about kidnappers. Pedophiles. Milo\u2019s bedroom was on the second floor–could someone climb all the way up there? Maybe he should check the windows.<\/p>\n

He looked at the pile of equations before him. Remembered the English assignment he still hadn\u2019t started: six paragraphs on symbolism in Poe\u2019s \u201cImp of the Perverse.\u201d And they had to be out of the house by seven tomorrow.<\/p>\n

\u201cBed, Milo. I don\u2019t want to have to tell Mom.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cPleeease, Kyle. He keeps saying he needs something. Something important or he\u2019ll never go away!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you don\u2019t go away, you\u2019re going to be sorry.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cFine!\u201d said Milo, indignant. \u201cBut I\u2019m not going back in there. I\u2019m sleeping with Barney.\u201d Barney slept in a dog bed next to the living room couch.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhatever. Just leave me alone.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kyle closed the door to his bedroom and locked it. He could hear Milo stamping down the stairs, apparently intent on sleeping in the living room after all.<\/p>\n

The only thing that made the night bearable was an unexpected text message an hour later from Julie James, a girl from school he sort of knew through friends but had never really connected with. It was surprisingly solicitous, and he might have pursued it if not for the need to wrap up his paragraphs on Poe and then sleep. His parents couldn\u2019t get home soon enough.<\/p>\n

The next morning, Barney had disappeared. In his haste to get them out the door, Kyle might not have noticed if it hadn\u2019t been for the dog\u2019s curious absence from his bed beside the couch.<\/p>\n

\u201cDid you really sleep down here with Barney last night?\u201d he asked Milo.<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah,\u201d said Milo, fumbling with his bookbag.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd you haven\u2019t seen him today?\u201d<\/p>\n

Milo said nothing.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhatever,\u201d Kyle said after a moment. \u201cWe\u2019re late. Get in the car.\u201d<\/p>\n

As he drove them to school, he couldn\u2019t shake the feeling that Milo had let the dog out on purpose, probably to punish Kyle for his refusal to tolerate the closet monster nonsense. His parents would be pissed if they returned home to a missing Barney. Kyle would have to look for him when they got home.<\/p>\n

He looked for Barney until nightfall. The dog was nowhere to be found in their backyard, the surrounding yards, or any place in the four blocks surrounding their house. The neighbors hadn\u2019t seen him, which meant Kyle\u2019s only option was to put up lost dog signs and hope for the best.<\/p>\n

Milo, who claimed to have no knowledge of how the dog could have escaped, sulked through dinner and went to bed on time. Kyle was surprised, though relieved by the new behavior, and happy the next few hours passed without Milo\u2019s usual interruptions.<\/p>\n

The next day, after classes let out, Kyle ran into Julie in the parking lot. They talked for a bit, and Kyle got her to agree to meet back at his place later on. As he drove off to pick up Milo, he felt certain his evening was about to get very interesting.<\/p>\n

Back at the house, he managed to feed Milo, shower, and style his hair carefully. He changed his shirt. He then instructed Milo to stay either in his own room or in the den at the back of the house until Julie left. This was no time for interference from an overwrough ten year old.<\/p>\n

When she arrived at last, Kyle met her on the porch. After they went inside, Kyle gave the front hall a brief inspection to ensure that Milo had, as requested, made himself scarce. Julie looked amazing. Had she spent as much time getting ready as he had?<\/p>\n

After a sojourn on the downstairs couch, Kyle managed to convince her to come up to his room. It was quiet as they walked up the stairs together. Slowly, feeling suave, he opened his bedroom door.<\/p>\n

He barely had time to register Milo\u2019s presence atop his computer desk before the frying pan came down over his head. He did not lose consciousness, but the pain was severe, and soon he was crawling around on his hands and knees.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe wouldn\u2019t leave me alone!\u201d said Milo, barely audible to Kyle in his pain induced fog. \u201cHe said I had to give him something. The dog wasn\u2019t enough, so I have to give him you. You wouldn\u2019t help me, so I had to do it myself!\u201d<\/p>\n

Kyle struggled, but not enough to stop them from tying him to the bed–not Milo alone, Julie was helping, too, only he could see now that she was not Julie really, but a ghastly, dark eyed creature who had stolen Julie\u2019s beautiful face.<\/p>\n

Before the knife stabbed into his throat, he wondered, would he be the last victim? How many more people would his little brother kill before the thing in the closet was satisfied?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It was going to be a long night, Kyle realized as he looked over the three paragraphs he had typed for his two page Spanish essay due the next morning. It was 8:35, which meant another hour of writing,<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":245,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2710","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-short-story"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2710","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2710"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2710\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2711,"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2710\/revisions\/2711"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/245"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2710"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2710"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2710"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}