In the Shadows of Children by Alan Ryker Read Free Book Online

scared?”
    Aaron looked to his mother, who put her hand on his.
    “No boogeyman is coming to get you. Tell them, John. It’s not funny anymore.”
    “The boogeyman isn’t coming to get you, Aaron,” his father said, rolling his eyes. As soon as Aaron’s mother turned to tend to Bobby, though, he opened his eyes wide and mimed shoveling food into his mouth.
    Aaron got the message loud and clear. The boogeyman wouldn’t come and get him if he finished his spaghetti. Even though it felt like trying to swallow dry flour—which he had once attempted—Aaron began to wolf down his dinner.
    It didn’t matter.
    Later that night, after Aaron had been tucked in and read a bedtime story by his mother, and a second, and been denied a third, she finally shut out the light, leaving only the small night light to battle the darkness spreading from the corners of the room.
    Bobby had gone to sleep hours before and breathed deeply from his bed. Aaron tried to listen to that comforting sound and not think of the story Ryan had told and that his father had confirmed. But the harder he tried not to, the more he did, and the more he did, the harder he tried not to.
    He hadn’t asked his mother to close the closet door, had never felt a need to. Now he wished he had. The night light didn’t shine directly into the closet, partially illuminating one side but leaving the other in complete darkness.
    Then the darkness began to spread.
    Aaron pulled his blanket over his head and curled into a ball. But he had to look. He had to know.
    Opening a tiny gap, Aaron peeked out, and saw that the closet was now perfectly black.
    He stared without blinking, unable to understand what he was seeing. It was as if a black sheet hung over the entrance to his closet, hiding all the board games and clothes, and then a hand emerged from the center.
    It was huge, bigger than his father’s, and gnarled with clawlike fingers. Aaron squeaked, but then shut his mouth tight, afraid to make another sound. The hand felt along the ground, grasping at the floor, trying to find purchase, slipping, but then shooting out farther so that Aaron could see a long, spindly arm in a filthy sleeve.
    Aaron took air in tiny sips and watched as the boogeyman emerged, crawling along the floor, slowly pulling away from the darkness of the closet. It peeled off him reluctantly, clinging like tar and then snapping back into place. He was of the darkness and the darkness didn’t want to let him go.
    But finally he emerged in full and rose up. Even with his stooped shoulders and rounded back he stood almost to the ceiling. His arms dangled nearly to the floor. He wore a long, filthy coat and dragged a filthier burlap sack an inch at a time into the room.
    But the scariest parts of him were the ones that weren’t there. His eyes and mouth were yawning black chasms, the same stuff as the closet, and the sack opened into a dark tunnel leading to the same place.
    The sack slowed the creature, but Aaron could still tell where he was going. Slowly, inch by inch, dragging the darkness with him, he progressed toward Bobby’s bed.
    “Bobby! Bobby, wake up!” Aaron screamed in a whisper that whistled out of his constricted throat.
    Bobby didn’t wake up at first, but Aaron kept making noises until his little brother finally groaned, rolled over and looked at him.
    Barely shoving his quivering hand from beneath the blanket, Aaron pointed to the monster emerging from their closet.
    Bobby turned and hesitated for only the moment necessary to draw in a huge lungful of air before letting it out as a piercing scream.
    The boogeyman kept coming, kept dragging his sack, kept stretching his arm out, swiping closer and closer to Bobby’s bed.
    “Come here,” Aaron said, but Bobby curled up against the wall and screamed.
    Without thinking about what he was doing, Aaron jumped out of bed and ran to Bobby. The boogeyman looked at him, reached for him, so that even though his long, clawed hand