Dylan's Closet

It’s Friday evening and Megan Reese is in her “happy Place”. She’s stretched out on the couch in the living room with the TV on a baseball game between her Reds and the Pirates. Megan is barefoot and dressed in a pair of cutoffs and an oversized T shirt with her long blonde hair in a ponytail. She’s worked hard all week as the manager of Rusty’s, a local burger joint and she deserves an evening of relaxation.

Yes, it’s going to be a good night for her. However, when she looks out the picture window and sees the full moon rising, she knows it won’t be a quiet evening.

It won’t be quiet because the effect the full moon has on Dylan. Dylan is her 16 year old son. The specialists say Dylan has profound developmental and intellectual disabilities. Just don’t say the “r word” around his mother, not unless you enjoy wrestling mama grizzlies. On her dating website profile, Megan describes herself as having “average looks and average build”. Most guys say she is severely low rating herself, but they take one look at her boy and lose all interest in her.

Her boy crawls in the room. He is about the size of a first grader and never learned to walk. His vocabulary is limited to a few basic words. He is hollering his favorite word as he crawls…

“Maaaaaamaaaaaaaa!” he bellows. His pale blue eyes, the only worthwhile thing his useless sperm donor ever contributed to his life, are wide. His ash blonde hair is disheveled.”Hey, hey, mama!”

Dylan raches up and grabs Megan’s toes and start pulling. This is nothing new. He is fascinated by women’s feet. When Miss Tea, his social worker, makes her monthly home visit, Dylan always pulls her shoes off as soon as she sits. Of course, Megan apologizes profusely and Miss Tea always assures her that it’s ok and that her feet were hurting anyway.

“What is it, baby boy?” Megan coos at him in her softest, sweetest voice.

“Heah!” he says with urgency in his tone and pulling her big toe. “Heah” is his word for “here”.

“Where?” she asks. “Where do you want me to go?” She pulls her toe from his grasp, sighs and stands up.

He points toward his bedroom.

“Theah! Theah, mama!” “Theah” is his word for “there”. Dylan crawls down the hallway to his room. His room isn’t much different than any other kid’s room. There are posters of Godzilla, King Ghidorah, and Rodan on the wall. Her boy loves the Monsterverse. There is a chest of drawers and a bookshelf. There is a mattress on the floor that serves as Dylan’s bed. And along the opposite wall, is Dylan’s closet. Now, he is pointing at his closet.

“THEAH!” he bellows,pointing. He waves his fist. “THEAH!”

“OK, honey bunch, what is wrong with the closet?” Megan asks. There is no impatience in her voice. She expects this type of thing during the full moon.

Dylan makes a growling noise and scoots on his belly to the bookshelf. He grabs a book from the bottom shelf. Megan sees that it is The Bible For Boys, Bible stories in comic book form. She has read from it to Dylan many times. The stories of Gideon and Samson are his favorites. The book was a Christmas gift from Brother Logan, their pastor. Dylan calls him “Pricher” and they have always guessed that is his attempt at “preacher”. Dylan furiously flips through the pages, passing through his Old Testament favorites into the life of Christ. He finally comes to a stop and holds the book up where Megan can see the pages.

“What is it baby?” she asks, peering down at the book.

Dylan points to a figure depicted on the page.

“HIM!” Dylan shouts, sounding almost triumphant.

Megan kneels beside her son and gapes at the page. It is the story of Jesus being tempted by Satan in the desert. Dylan is pointing at Satan. This particular artist’s rendering makes him look more like Darth Maul.

“Him, Mama!” Dylan wails. He points his finger at his closet. “Theah!”

“Oh, no, baby!” Megan hugs her boy and holds him close. He ain’t in your closet, baby boy! He’s way down in hell!”

“HAY-ULL!” Dylan is smiling now. Learning new words makes him happy. “HAY-ULL!” Dylan points at the closet. “HAY-ULL!”

“No, that’s a closet! The devil ain’t there! He’s in hell, a lake that burns with fire and brimstone!”

Dylan ain’t having it.

“No, Mama,” he points to the closet, “Theah!”

That’s when Megan smells the vaguely familiar odor. And she remembers where she’s experienced it before…

When she was 13, her parents bought her a chemistry set. One of the chemicals was sulfur. There was a book that gave instructions for various experiments. All of the experiments involving sulfur involved the burning of that yellow powder. It was an acrid smell that she had never completely forgotten.

“You know in the Bible when it talks about brimstone?” she remembers her daddy asking her.

She nodded.

“Brimstone is sulfur! That’s the smell of Hades, little girl!”

Megan stands. She pads to Dylan’s closet. The odor is really strong right here. Is sulfur burning in there? She grabs the closet doorknob.

“OUCH!” she yelps. That thing burnt her!She turns to Dylan and he looks scared!

“Mama is okay!” she says, trying to reassure her little man.

She must look in that closet! She can’t allow her son to be in any danger!

“I’ll be right back, baby boy! Right back!”

She rushes across the hall to her own bedroom. She digs in a drawer until she finds a glove. Then, Megan goes to her bedside table. Her Bible is there, old school King James Version with a red cover. She grabs it and automatically feels bigger and stronger. She stomps barefooted into her son’s room like a schoolboy ready to face down a playground bully.

“Awright,” she tells Dylan, hoping she sounds confident,”here goes nothin’!”

“HAY-ULL!” Dylan hoots, clenching his fists and raising them both in the air.

With her gloved hand, Megan opens the closet door…

...and she immediately takes a few steps back. The heat is overwhelming. The brimstone smell makes her cough and gag. She goes down to one knee.

Then she sees the eyes in the darkness of the closet.

Red, glowing eyes.

She sees the face.

Bright red with patches of skin that are burnt black. Open, gaping wounds that drip pus and blood.

The hands reach out of the closet, grasping and clawing.They are more like talons than hands. Long, bony fingers with long nails that are black with filth.

“GRRRRRRRRRRR!” is the noise that comes from the mouth, a mouth full of fanglike, yellow and black teeth!

Megan trembles and almost drops her Bible. Out of the cornmer of her eye, she sees her Dylan. His face is a mask of sheer terror and the front of his pajama bottoms are wet. This sight of her child as a wet, blubbering mess is too much to take.

“NO!” Megan screams. She holds the Bible above her head and stomps toward the closet.”You can’t have my boy! Do you understand me? In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, you git outta my house and stay away from my boy! Do you hear me?”

The closet fills with smoke! It burns Megan’s eyes and the odor of brimstone causes her to back up until she’s standing side by side with Dylan! Dylan grabs his mother around the waist and holds on for dear life. Megan falls to her knees. Mother and son hold each other and cry. When the crying stops, the smoke has cleared. Megan stands and walks over to the closet. She looks in and there’s nothing but a small pile of dust on the closet floor. It looks like it could be ashes of some sort.

Mama Grizzly still ain’t lost a rasslin’ match, not event against the devil, Megan thinks to herself as she shuts Dylan’s closet.

###########

Brother Logan stands tall, gaunt, and dignified in his pulpit.

“ I would love to spend my all of my time preaching on the grace of my God and the glory of his Heaven. However, I have to warn you that there is another place. A place prepared for Satan and his fallen angels! The Scripyure describes it as the lake that burneth with fire and brimstone!”

Dylan has scooted to the edge of the seat in his wheelchair. His eyes are wide and he bellows out:

“HAY-ULL, PRICHER!”

The old minister is shocked by the outburst, but he gives Dylan a kindly smile and a nod.

“Exactly right, young Dylan! Thank you! As much as I don’t enjoy talking about it, it is my duty to warn you about this terrible place.”

Megan hugs Dylan and whispers in his ear, “I think we already know all we want to, don’t we, babe?”

“Love ooooh, Mama!” he whispers.

Megan stands and wheels her son out of the church.