Chapter 19
The boy lay in bed, eyes wide open and staring across the room at his closed closet door. He had closed it himself before climbing into bed, latched it firmly and piled toys around its base so it couldn't swing open in the night.
A little before midnight, when he was the only one in the house still awake, it opened, just as he knew it would. As it had every night for the past few weeks.
The face inside, disembodied but undeniably real, grinned at him. A shark’s grin. When it spoke, its voice seemed to come from everywhere around him.
"How's my boy tonight?" it asked, and the question sent shivers up his body. "I see you stayed up for me again. Such a good boy."
The boy pulled his slick satin sheets that his mother insisted he use, over his head and clenched his eyes s
