The Closet (5)

This happen when I was about 8 years old and remains a very vivid memory in my mind.

My parents had moved to Dallas, Texas when I was 8 and we moved into these apartments that had been newly remodeled. They were located in the White Rock area. When you walked into the apartment to your right was a hall/coat closet and small foyer, to your left just past the foyer was my parents room. To the right was a small hallway that led to the living/Kitchen/Dining area. Just past that was a doorway with a long hall to the immediate left was my brothers room, just in front of you was the bathroom and down the end of the hallway was my room.

From the very beginning I felt extremely uneasy in that room it was either to cold or to hot, and always had a funny smell, something like burnt wood. Well we had been living there for about six months when I started waking in the middle of the night screaming that the little boy was on fire. My parents would come into my room and I would be drenched in sweat and my room would be dreadfully hot.

Things got worse as time went on.

After being there about a year my parents began to get worried because I was waking up on a nightly basis and the smell was getting worse. One night shortly after my parents had decided to move I was sitting in my room terrified to go to sleep. I just knew that if I fell asleep something bad would happen. As I sat there staring at my closet door it began to get really really hot in my room. I started to hear someone crying and the hotter it got the louder the crying got. I knew it was a child's cry and it was coming from my closet.

After what seemed like an eternity my closet door slowly opened and there sat a little boy with a sad face. By this time my room felt like it was on fire and the smell was rancid. The little boy looked terribly afraid and didn't seem to notice me. He then started to scream for help. I was terrified and could not move or speak. I heard something like a pounding and saw that the boy was pounding mid air. It was at that point in time that my bedroom light came on and my parents came rushing into the room. My mother said she could hear me screaming for help and it sounded as if there was a fire in the apartment.

My parents never made me sleep in that room again. After we moved my parents were asked why we were moving out. They told the apartment manager what had happened and she told them about a little boy who use to live there and died in a terrible apartment fire because he got trapped in the closet and that is why the apartments had been remodeled.

To this day I still remember that little boy and the look on his face, and the terrible sadness and fear I felt each night I had to sleep in that room.