October 15, 2025

The Gap in the Closet
by David Corisis

​
The gentle motion was hardly noticeable in the midnight darkness. I didn’t think anything of
it at first; our house was old and things liked to settle. Maybe our cat, Misty, had been pawing at
the door after I’d forgotten to fully close it. Still in a cloud of sleep, I rolled over and pulled the
blankets to my chin.
Dreamland might have swallowed my consciousness once more if it hadn’t been for a
whisper from the darkness.
“Caleb…”
Drowsiness must have shielded my ears from such a soft noise. I shifted under the sheets
when my calf prickled against an imaginary bug. The open closet wouldn’t leave my mind, but I
had to ignore it. Twelve years old was far too mature to be scared of an ajar door.
“Caleb…”
The voice was undeniable this time. I opened my eyes to see my desk. A window sat over it,
looking out to the cold night beyond. Why did I have to roll over? Why did I put my back toward
my closet? I could potentially see the door in the window’s reflection, but I didn’t dare let my
eyes focus enough to do so.
“Caleb… I have something for you.”
It sounded like someone calling to me from underwater. Fluid filled the spaces between the
syllables as if they were drowning, yet the words were dry as a desert wind.
Sleep’s grasp had left me in favor of a racing pulse. An invisible weight of denial kept me
frozen in place. I couldn’t bring myself to roll over and face the voice’s source.
“Caleb… It’s me.”
Something like fingernails tapped against the door’s inside. Hollow and dry. Why did the
voice sound so frighteningly familiar, yet my body was reacting with cold sweats?
“Caleb… Don’t you want to kiss your mother goodnight…?”
There was movement in the window’s reflection. I only saw it for a second: a pale blur
moving across the few inches of darkness in my open closet.
Something was in there. It sounded like my mother’s voice if she had a mouth full of soggy
decaying leaves.
“Caleb… Come here, sweetie.”
Sweat covered me like a second sheet. I could feel the bed growing damp under my body.
Surely this had to be a dream.
I had to roll over.
It went against every instinct screaming in my head. My muscles didn’t want to follow my
will. I thought I might faint as I forced myself onto my back. Time slowed while the room rotated. Watching the other side of the bed rise into view left me silently praying.
There was nothing there. No claw nor gruesome face waiting at the edge of my mattress. The
relief was almost as great as my fear itself.
There was still the matter of my closet, however. I turned my head to look, finding an empty
column of darkness between the door and the frame. There should have been only clothes inside.
Minutes passed without the voice. I began thinking I had awoken from a nightmare without
noticing. Only the sounds of an old house were present to keep me company. A distant rumbling
came from my parents’ room downstairs, surely my dad’s snoring. Listening to the constant
droning helped bring peace to my racing heart. Soon my eyes grew heavy. There were no
monsters here, only the sound of–
“Caleb.”
The blood curdled in my veins. I couldn’t look away from the darkness.
Teeth appeared before anything else. Those perfect white teeth in a wide, frozen grin refusing
to waver. I don’t know how her lips could stretch so thin, nor how her grimace could be so
visible in my dark closet. There was no light in her eyes. Open wide and refusing to blink, they
stared at me from across my room. Her face was pale and shrouded in shadow. Whatever was
below her neck vanished into the inky blackness.
It was undoubtedly my mother. Her head was stabilized in my direction with bobbing,
cat-like movements.
“Caleb…” she whispered. How she managed to do so with so little lip movement made me
shiver.
“You never said goodnight…! Come give me a hug.”
I screamed. Nightmare or not, I wanted this to be over. No twelve-year-old signs up for this.
“MOMMYYYY!!!! MOMMYYYYYYYYY!!!!!”
The entire neighborhood was awake when my parents raced to my room. They must have
thought I was being murdered. I’d never seen my dad burst through a door so ready for violence.
My light came on and suddenly the terrors of the night were banished. Frantic, my mother
rushed to my bedside to coddle her terrified child.
“Sweetie?? Sweetie, what is it??” she asked, taking my head in her hands upon finding me so
pale.
I stared at the open closet behind her. There was no face in the darkness, but seeing hers so
aligned with its last location didn’t ease my fright. My imagination ran wild as I expected her
lips to stretch and her eyes to stare like a hungry ghoul’s.
My dad was less sympathetic upon finding me safe. He sighed and rubbed his tired eyes.
“Bad dream, buddy?”
I pointed to the open door. “T-There was a face in the closet!”
Not hesitating, my father opened the door and flicked the switch. Only hanging clothes stared
back. No pale face. No frozen grimace. No grating whisper. He closed it in mild annoyance.
Running a hand through my hair, my mom asked, “Did you sneak a snack before bed? You
know that gives you nightmares.”
“No! I-I–”
“Momma…?”
We turned to find my little sister at my bedroom door. The commotion had dragged her from
bed as well, teddy bear and all.
Dad met her head-on. “Go back to bed, cupcake. Caleb just had a bad dream.” Picking her up
like a doll, he carried her back to her room.
“Everything is alright, sweetie,” Mom promised. “Just a nightmare.”
Dreams don’t open your closet doors. Like any sane child, I always made sure to close mine
before turning off the lights. Something else had turned that knob.
A kiss planted itself on my forehead.
“Go back to sleep, sweetie. I love you.”
“Love you too…” I grumbled.
They were gone as quickly as they arrived. Left to the darkness once more, I closed my eyes
and rolled away from the closet. I was far too old to be calling for my mother in the middle of the
night. Especially for such a silly dream as–
I heard it open. I didn’t need to look; I could feel the empty void. The faint smell of putrid air
pricked my nostrils. Unseen, I heard her nails curl around the doorframe.
“Goodnight, sweetie…”
**********
Daylight has a way of keeping even the night’s scariest horrors at bay. I awoke groggier than
usual and tumbled out of bed. It was obvious I’d been through a rough night, but I was too tired
to remember why. There wasn’t time to dwell on dreams when I had to get ready for school.
I approached my closet like a zombie. Only when I extended a hand toward the door did last
night come flooding back.
My body recoiled and I stumbled. My chest felt incapable of containing my lungs. The door
was still ajar, but there were no whispers. No clacking of nails on wood. I knew it couldn’t have
been real, but my mind refused to remove that uncanny visage from my memory.
I grabbed a baseball bat and stood away to open the door from a distance. Of course I was
scared of what I might find, but I was just as scared of my mother discovering I wasn’t dressed
for school so late in the morning.
The door opened. Inside I found only clothes and some storage bins. There wasn’t enough
room for an adult to fit inside, much less a monster after my flesh.
For good measure I swung the bat into my shirts. There was no monster: only my
imagination.
Thanks to my detective work I was able to completely put the ordeal out of my head. Dreams
have a funny way of disappearing if you let something else occupy your mind for more than a
few minutes. The face was no different. By the time I was staring into a bowl of sugary cereal, it
was less than a forgotten memory.
**********
Delightful scents of a mother’s cooking filled the kitchen when the school bus returned me
home. Few memories stay with you like a mother’s love filling a pot to the brim.
“Hi, Mom!” I greeted her, abandoning my backpack at the door.
“Welcome home, sweetie! How was school?” She left a bubbling stove unattended to give
me a kiss. “Feel like spaghetti and meatballs for dinner?”
Nothing could have been sweeter music to my ears. I quickly nodded and accepted a taste of
homemade sauce.
Satisfied with my grin, she ushered me upstairs. “Go get changed and we’ll get started on
your math homework before your father gets home.”
Misty followed me up the stairs as if I had treats in my socks. Mom hated when I let her get
hair all over my school clothes, but I didn’t mind. Misty knew how to greet you after being away.
“Caleb?”
I slowed my pace as I entered our upstairs hallway. It sounded like my sister was in my room.
Her voice called again. “Where’d you go??”
Raising an eyebrow, I entered to find her looking under my bed. “What are you doing in my
room??”
Justine popped out in shock. Her brown hair was tangled from rubbing under my bed. “How
did you do that??”
“Do what?”
“You were calling my name!!” Justine came close and narrowed her eyes with all the
accusation an eight-year-old could muster. “I saw you run in here.”
“No, I just got home.”
This seemed to stump her. “N…No you didn’t. I SAW you! You told me to come find you!”
It was too close to dinner time for this. Not wanting to put up with her imagination, I pushed
her toward the door. “I think you’re seeing things. Now get out; I have to change.”
“But–”
I closed my door and sighed. It was getting harder to keep up with her as I got older. Eager to
finish my homework before dinner, I started to change but froze halfway across my room.
The closet door was ajar. Had that been one of the places Justine looked? I was certain I had
closed it this morning. A sliver of the previous night flashed through my mind. The thought of
the event somehow connecting to Justine’s experience was far too outlandish to even consider.
Still, I was uneasy about approaching the gap.
I felt foolish, but resolved to stay away. A dirty pair of shorts and a t-shirt from the floor
wouldn’t hurt for one night. I didn’t even try to close the door; maybe that’s what angered it in
the first place.
“Caleb! Don’t wait too long to get started on your homework!” Mom’s voice came from
downstairs.
“Coming…!”
**********
It was dark by the time I was ready to go to bed. Entering my room was among one of the
last things I wanted to do, especially with the sun no longer protecting me from the horrors of the
night. If Justine hadn't acted so strangely when I got home from school, maybe the entire ordeal
would have remained purged from my mind.
I heard my mom’s voice come from the living room. “Go brush your teeth! I’ll be up in a few
to tuck you in.”
Our stairs never seemed so long. I cursed our house for only having one light switch for the
upstairs hallway. With Justine gone to bed an hour prior, the second floor was a black abyss
where only the unknown awaited me.
My stomach was in knots. I could feel the darkening chill closing in around me. The hallway
ahead stretched into creeping hidden horrors. I didn’t dare blink when I reached the landing; the
last thing I wanted was to look away from the light switch and find a gruesome face in front of
mine.
A click brought the lights on with little fanfare. Of course there was nothing there; this was
the real world. I was letting my imagination get the better of me. Feeling my pulse slow, I
walked past my room to the bathroom.
It was only a blur, but it was there.
Something ran past my door in the darkness. I couldn’t be sure what it was; there had only
been a brief shadowy outline. It looked humanoid, but its movements were lanky and sloppy as if
drunk or hobbled, and it was far too tall and thin to be a person.
I gulped and began to call out, “J-Justi–”
A sound like a gunshot rattled my bones. Whatever it was had just sequestered itself back
into my closet and slammed the door behind it.
“Caleb! You’re going to wake your sister!!” my mother’s voice scolded from downstairs.
I couldn’t respond. I had to act now while that thing was in my closet. Slipping my hand
around my door frame and into my room, I searched for the light switch.
A golden glow bathed my bed. I kicked my door open to find nothing waiting, though one of
my jackets was still swinging from a hook on my closet door. There was no doubt it had recently
moved.
Enough was enough. Whether or not this was only in my head, I wasn’t going to put up with
it for another night. Taking my desk chair, I wedged it against the floor and my closet handle.
Even my dad couldn’t have opened that door from the inside now, much less some non-existent
specter.
Or so I hoped.
Brushing my teeth was more an act of procrastination than hygiene. When every pre-bedtime
ritual had been completed, however, there was nothing more I could do to stall.
Mrowl…!
Misty greeted me in the hallway. I think she knew I was struggling with something. Taking
the orange furball in my arms brought me comfort as I entered what should have been my space.
The chair was still against my closet. The jacket had ceased its movement. Everything looked
calm. Making sure to have my bedside lamp on before turning out my light, I flipped the switch
and raced to bed.
There was a loud pop. A bright flash. Then darkness.
I froze halfway across my room when the lamp bulb burst. Groping darkness smothered me
and choked my heart. I don’t think my feet touched the ground when I scrambled onto the safety
of my mattress. Oblivious to my fears, it didn’t take long for Misty to curl up between my legs
even as I pulled the covers to my chin.
Darkness huddled around my bed. My room felt like a scene frozen in winter. I didn’t want to
breathe. Maybe if I held my breath long enough, I would pass out before I had to endure this
torment for much longer.
Goosebumps sprang to my skin when the closet door rattled. Misty jolted upright between
my legs to stare. Seeing such a reaction wasn’t comforting; it meant it wasn’t in my head.
The door thunked against the chair. I could see the handle jostling in the darkness and my
jacket bouncing up and down. Something wanted out.
It tried harder. Efforts doubled. Annoyed desperation shook the door with hurricane force.
I wanted to scream. Misty looked like she was surrounded by exploding firecrackers. Why
was this thing tormenting me??
“Caleb…”
“Stop!!”
“Open the door, Caleb…”
“GO AWAY!!”
“Caleb! What in the world has gotten into you??”
My light came on and stung my eyes. It hadn’t been the thing calling my name, but my
mother. I was so frightened I hadn’t noticed her open my bedroom door. Normally I should be
relieved in her presence, but her face brought fear. I could only see it waiting in the darkness.
“What is going on with you…?” she asked again, worried. A hand placed itself against my
forehead. “You’re burning up!”
“Mom… Can I sleep downstairs on the couch?”
She stared at me like I’d just asked to spend the night on the roof. “Why would you want to
do that?”
My eyes flitted between her and the closet. “I…just can’t sleep in here…”
“You just have to turn your mind off. You’re thinking so fast that you can’t find peace.”
“Mom, can I please sleep somewhere else??” I didn’t want to let her hear the fear in my voice
but I was becoming desperate.
“No, Caleb; you won’t sleep well on the couch and then you’ll be tired for school. You’re
sleeping in your room in your bed.” My sentence was sealed with a kiss on my forehead. “Now
turn your mind off.”
If only it was just my mind. I watched her go to leave before pausing to stare at my closet.
“What in the…” She walked toward my desk chair. “What is this doing here? You’re going to
hurt yourself if you get up in the middle of the night.” My eyes must have looked like moons
when she removed the chair from my closet and replaced it under my desk. “Honestly, Caleb,
you need to learn to keep your room clean.”
My light went off.
“Love you, sweetie. Get some sleep.” Looking back once more, my mom bid me goodnight
before closing my door.
Mrowl…!, Misty purred in farewell before settling down once more.
Sweat made my pajamas cling to me like a second skin. I stared between my closet and my
desk. If I was fast, maybe I could jam the chair again before–
“Caleb…”
–it opened. The haunting void stared back, along with a penetrating stench. I knew what was
coming, but I couldn’t have prepared myself.
“Caleb… Caleb, sweetie…”
Her face appeared. The same woman who had just put me to bed was now staring back from
my closet. That menacing uncanny grin turned my blood to ice. Why were there so many teeth??
“Caleb… Caleb, come here… I want to kiss you goodnight.”
“Go away,” I whispered. Was I allowed to confront it? What could happen if I retaliated? If it
was able to leave my closet and come for me, wouldn’t it have done so already? If it was running
around my room earlier, why not now?
“Caleb… Can you help me? I’m stuck.”
Misty stared at the closet when I pulled my blanket up to my chin. “Leave me alone.”
Those tapping, clacking nails were insidious. The rattling against the door turned my blood to
ice.
“Caleb,” she growled, “it’s rude to speak to your mother that way. Won’t you come give your
mother a hug?”
I steeled myself and felt blood rushing through my ears. “You’re not my mom.”
The face pulled back into the blackness. A dry laugh made me want to vomit.
There was a pause. For a brief, hopeless moment, I thought the demon might have left.
“Here, kitty kitty.
”
Misty perked up and my heart stuck in my throat.
“Heeerreeeee, kitty kitty kitty.
”
She started toward the edge of my bed. I scrambled to grab any part of her.
“Misty!! Misty,
stay!! Don’t–”
She slipped through my fingers and landed on the floor. I didn’t dare chase after her as she
sat down halfway to the closet’s opening. Piqued interest made the tip of her tail twitch.
“That’s a good kitty… Come to mommy…”
“Misty…! Misty! Psh psh psh!” I tried to coax her back. Only her tail twitched in response.
“Here, kitty kittyyy!”
Curiosity was too great of a temptation. She started toward the closet. I couldn’t look away
when the front half of her body entered the shadows.
Mrow–
Something snatched her before she could finish uttering a mew of interest. I only saw it for a
moment in the moonlight: a spindly hand of rotting flesh. Human fingers aren’t supposed to be
that long, nor nails that sharp.
The crunching. That awful crunching. I would have preferred to hear Misty screaming
instead of the bone-crushing horror. It was the slurping that made me sick to my stomach. That
wet, drawn-out suction of something torn and fleshy. I could never prepare myself for the
anguish that sound would bring.
I knew then that I was right to be terrified. Nothing could have made me leave my bed.
Whatever was in my closet was hungry, and would snatch whatever came within reach.
**********
My eyes refused to focus the next morning. Sleep never came for me, though perhaps
insanity had. How much more could I take before it was too much?9
“Misty…! Mistyyy!”
I could hear my mom calling our cat for breakfast. Should I tell her Misty wouldn’t be
running to her bowl of wet food this morning? I hadn’t been able to look at my closet for more
than a second, even in the daylight. In that time I saw tufts of cat hair on the ground before I
refused to look any further. The door remained open. After what I saw, I wasn’t going anywhere
near it.
“Pss pss pss! Here kitty!”
Breakfast wasn’t appetizing. I couldn’t stand the thought of chewing, much less being in the
same room as my mother. How could I when her face haunted me every night?
I went to school as a husk of my usual self. A math test went completely unanswered, leaving
the teacher concerned. My responses were barely coherent when she pulled me aside after class.
I suspect I might be in trouble when they contact my parents, but it didn’t matter.
It felt like a punishment when the bus left me at home. I didn’t want to go back into that
house.
As usual, Mom was busy in the kitchen when I walked in. She didn’t seem to notice my quiet
arrival and continued humming over a cutting board. I would have said hello, but I still harbored
resentment from last night. Maybe if she had let me sleep on the couch, Misty’s food bowl
wouldn’t have still been untouched.
I decided to return to my room only once. I would gather several necessities and clothes, then
sleep somewhere else. I didn’t care where, so long as it wasn’t in the same room as that thing.
My room was cold upon my arrival. No part of it felt safe, even with the sun shining outside.
I was determined not to look at the closet. Even from the corner of my eye, I could see it was still
cracked open. That thing could have my room. I didn’t care.
“Caleb…”
A whisper drifted out. I was hardly surprised, though I didn't expect it during the daylight.
“Shut up. I’m not listening,” I said while throwing some clothes in a bag.
“C…C-Caleb…!”
I paused. This didn’t sound like the ghoul; it sounded like a little girl terrified of being heard.
I dared to look at the closet.
“Justine…?”
A tiny hand wrapped around the door before her head peeked into view. I had never seen
such fear in her eyes.
“What’s wrong? You look like–”
Her voice was barely audible. “I-I don’t think that’s mommy downstairs…”
To anyone else that statement would have sounded outlandish, but I knew what she meant. I
knew right away.
Justine’s eyes grew wide. The color drained from her face as she stared over my shoulder. I
realized I had my back to the hallway and I started to wonder if it had been such a good idea to
leave my door open.
Her voice dripped over my neck like decay.
“Caleb, when did you sneak past me? Welcome home, sweetie…! Would you like a snack?”
My limbs moved faster than ever before. I scrambled across my carpet into the closet, joining
Justine. She was terrified. There was no time for me to be frightened; I had to be a big brother.
“Kids…?” our mother asked, stepping forward. A plate of after-school snacks sat in her
hands like bait. They were messy and haphazard, nothing like the real thing. She couldn’t fool
me. “What’s gotten into you two? You need to start on your homework!”
Justine started to bawl. I wrapped my arms around her in protection when our mother stepped
closer and knelt down. We stared at her from within the curtain of my shirts. For all the fear this
closet had given me over the past few nights, I had never expected it to become our refuge.
“Justine? What’s wrong, baby? Why are you–”
“GET AWAY FROM HER!”
I surprised myself with my scream. Our mother’s eyes bulged in shock and she faltered.
Several ants on a log slid from the plate and landed on my carpet.
“YOU’RE NOT OUR MOM!!”
Justine’s face was buried in my arm. I could feel tears soaking through my shirt. My shouts
had to rise to maximum volume to make it over her cries. All the fear I’d had of this monster had
turned to rage. I was tired of the torment.
Our mother’s face sagged. Her gaze settled on my sister. “Justine… Baby, what happened?
Have you been hiding in here this entire time?”
She nodded. “You’re not my mommy! I saw you!!”
“Saw me what, honey?” She came forward and reached a hand into the closet. I recoiled and
she stopped short. Moisture made her eyes shine. “Kids, it’s me!”
To see her feign such hurt only made me angrier.
“Get away from us!!”
Being the younger one and in such a frightened state, Justine was taking most of our
mother’s concern. She knelt down and opened her arms. “Come here, baby… I’m right here.
What happened?”
Justine looked up and then away.
“Don’t look at her,
” I warned.
“Caleb, shh. She’s scared.” She motioned once more. “Can I have a hug from my little girl? I
want to tell her how much I love her!”
My sister looked up. Her crying faltered.
“I have a big, BIG hug for my baby! And kisses to make her feel all better!”
“Don’t listen to–”
“Caleb,” our mother hissed in warning. “Your sister is scared. I don’t know what game you
have been playing with her, but it has to stop. Let her go.”
“But–”
She moved forward. “Come here, baby… You can help me make dinner before daddy gets
home, ok?”11
I couldn’t stop her. Justine escaped my arms and ran from my closet into the arms of that
monster. For how much fear she’d caused me, I was still powerless against her authority. Even if
it was false.
“Mwa mwa mwa mwa mwa~!” Exaggerated kisses assaulted Justine when my mother got
ahold of her. Tears turned into giggles as every bit of fright melted away. She stood up with
Justine in her arms and turned to leave my room.
“J-Justi–”
A final warning was thrown over my mother’s shoulder. “Enough of this game, Caleb. Your
sister hasn’t slept in days. Stop scaring her.
”
They left then. I was alone in my closet. Clothes hung around me and bunched on top of my
head. I couldn’t believe I had let her slip out of my arms so easily. Would Dad listen to me if I
told him? Could I even get him alone before it was too late?
I shivered in my little hovel as I listened to them start cooking downstairs. The hangers
clanked above me. What should I do? Where could I go? Could I sneak out my window and
make it to a friend’s house? Maybe their parents would listen and–
Something tickled the back of my neck. A cold layer of sweat broke out over my skin.
“Such a good boy… Protecting your sister…”
I bristled and froze.
“You knew right away that wasn’t your real mother…”
I wanted to run. I tried to stand up, but a long, spindly hand had draped itself over my
shoulder from behind my clothes. That voice of gurgling sludge dripped down my back. The
closet felt like an icy abyss behind me. I wanted to cry out, to scream at my mother and sister so
happily cooking dinner downstairs, but my voice was paralyzed.
The thing laughed in my ear and the hand tightened. “Now come give your mother a hug.”
“MOMM–”
Air was ripped from my lungs and tore my words away. I was pulled back, deep, deep into
the closet. The door raced a mile away as that hand yanked. My voice jumped from my throat too
late. A squeak of fright barely escaped before the door slammed shut and swallowed my
screams.

                                                                   💀💀💀

​David Corisis is a born-and-raised Idahoan and graduate of Gonzaga University. He lives the exciting life of a programmer by day and aspiring writer by night. When not sharing a keyboard with his cat, David enjoys running, brewing mead, playing Magic the Gathering, camping, and worrying about the ever-marching hand of time stealing everything he holds dear. His favorite books include At the Mountains of Madness, and Flatland. He couldn’t be happier taking on the world and its challenges with his eternally inspirational wife at his side. To find out more, you can visit www.dcorisis.com.