Even Boogeymen Get Bored

Urgitt was bored. 

Not bored as in Rainy-Day-Nothing-to-Do bored, but Bored-With-My-Whole-Fucking-Existence bored.

He actually had plenty to occupy his time. Scraping together enough food to sustain his hulking, eldritch body, while NOT eating the child in whose closet one resided, was a full-time job in itself, but also having to maintain a fine balance of fear in that child’s mind, with enough shame about that fear, was mentally very taxing. There needed to be just enough doubt in the mind of the boy (his name was Jeff) as to Urgitt’s existence that no meddling parents would come in checking under the bed, or in the closet, or, worse, letting Jeff sleep with the lights on. Lights gave Urgitt terrible headaches, and then he might have to leave Jeff’s closet and find a new place to live.

THAT thought filled Urgitt, hulking, eldritch beast that he was, with an icy terror. 

Cunningly intelligent as he might be, Urgitt did not know the word ‘agorophobia’, but he certainly had a raging case of it.

He couldn’t abide open spaces. He loathed the feeling of all that fresh air, pressing down on his scaly skin. He trembled at the idea of not having a cramped corner nearby, all ready to welcome him for an evening of lurking and staring out balefully. The notion of leaving the closet, even just to go skulk under the bed or behind the bedroom door, filled him with dread. Whenever Jeff left the closet door open at night, Urgitt had to slooooowly reach a claw out, timidly, to pull it shut again. He liked it open just a crack, and the door creaked obligingly, eerily, when he pulled at it. 

If Jeff was awake, the creak would make him cringe in terror, eyes wide in the dark, as he turned his head to stare at the closet door. Urgitt actually felt a little guilty, scaring the boy, but Jeff’s fear tasted scrumptious, and stopped the empty, gnawing feeling in Urgitt’s tummy. On nights that Jeff slept through the door creaking, Urgitt had to summon all his courage, and creep out of the closet, into the horrible, terrible Open, down the dark stairs, and into the kitchen, where he scrounged through the trash can to find enough crumbs and scraps to quell his hunger. 

This was a wretched, terrifying experience for Urgitt, no matter how many times he did it. His big, lumpy heart pounded erratically, his pores oozed a swampy-smelling fluid that might be considered sweat, and his matted hair tried its best, despite being matted, to stand on end. 

Some nights, he just couldn’t do it.

Agorophobia was Hell.

He could just eat Jeff, of course. He’d eaten children before. 

But Urgitt liked living in Jeff’s closet, and knew that, should he devour the boy, there would be no more nice, comfortable closet to live in. The family might leave, and there would be no scraps, no child-fear to savor, and, worst of all, Urgitt might have to be in the Open while he searched for a new place to live. He had learned, over the years, that it was easier and less complicated, to live off of children’s fear, than off of their flesh.

So, as comfortable as the closet was, Urgitt felt stuck. And feeling stuck made him feel bored. He’d looked through all Jeff’s books over the past couple of years, even figured out how to read a little bit, and played with the Legos, as best as his big claws would let him. He’d taken all the board games out of their boxes, picked through the toy soldiers and G.I. Joes, pretending they were children that he didn’t mind eating; he had even tried the electronic toys Jeff turned to when his tastes grew more sophisticated than poor old G.I. Joe could entertain. But even boogeymen get bored with the same old things, night in and night out. 

Also, there was the nagging feeling of failure in Urgitt’s mind. He knew he should be doing monster things, boogeyman things, like slinking through through the house at night, making just enough stealthy, sinister noise to make someone, anyone, wake up and cringe apprehensively under the quilts, telling themselves it was just a mouse. But how could anyone be truly fearful of a boogeyman that was terrified of leaving the closet? 

One evening, Urgitt was having a good sulk about the state of his life. He was quietly grumbling all the curse words he knew, making them into a little sulk-song, when something happened that changed everything. 

It was bedtime, and Jeff’s mother had come to tuck Jeff in. “Goodnight, honey. Did you enjoy your birthday?” she asked.

“Yeah! I didn’t think I’d actually get a phone this year. Thanks again. Mom!”

“Well, you’re pretty responsible for your age, so Dad and I figure you’re ready. Don’t stay up too late playing on it, though, OK?”

“I won’t! Goodnight. Oh, and Mom, could you shut the closet door for me? It keeps swinging open in the night.”

Jeff’s mother shut the closet door firmly, and left the room.

All was dark, now. Or, almost dark. 

There was a faint, bluish glow coming from under the closet door, and Urgitt could hear music, and beeps and boops, as Jeff played with his new phone. Urgitt waited (lurked!) patiently, knowing Jeff would soon be asleep. He knew what a phone was, much in the way that a deer knows what a car is, but nothing about what a phone did. Surely, it must be a good play-thing, for Jeff to be so engrossed that there was no taste of fear in the air at all.

And, finding out about the phone would take Urgitt’s mind off his grumbling stomach. Soon, he heard Jeff sigh contentedly, and soon after that, quiet child-snores.

Urgitt reached carefully for the doorknob, grasped it in his claw, and slowly inched the door open. It creaked, and he waited a moment, actually hoping this time, Jeff wouldn't wake up fearfully. When all stayed quiet, he clicked the door softly open, and stre-e-e-etched his spidery arm across to the nightstand. 

The phone was hard to grasp, but Urgitt got his claws wrapped around it, and reeled his arm stealthily back into the closet.

The phone smelled of slightly grubby boy-hands, and something metallic. It gave off a faint glow, but not so much that it hurt Urgitt’s eyes.

Interesting. 

Urgitt had played with enough of Jeff’s electronic toys to know that, if you pressed buttons enough, sooner or later, something was bound to happen. His claws were more suited to ripping limbs off of children than to pressing the buttons of a cell phone, but he probed delicately, using just the point of his biggest claw, and the tiny screen changed images. 

Fascinating. Intrigued, Urgitt hunched over the phone, poking and prodding and sniffing. The phone made a few little pings and dings, so he held it close to his fur, to muffle the sound. For once, he didn’t want anybody to wake up, scared and wondering what the sound was from in the closet. No matter how delicious fear was to him, the taste of learning something new, doing something he’d never done, was more fulfilling. 

Urgitt toyed clumsily with the phone into the wee hours. He learned the phone’s controls much the same as a human child would, by accident and persistence. He found the volume control, and learned that touching the tiny squares produced different screens. He figured out how to swipe the screen. His eyes became accustomed to the bluish light, and his headache began to dissipate. By the time he put the phone back on Jeff’s nightstand, Urgitt had forgotten all about being hungry and bored.

He played with the phone every night that week, learning more all the time. He stumbled upon YouTube, and listened to random music, delighted with all of it. “Moe-Zarrrt”, he growled happily, sounding out the words on the screen. “Goe-Rill-Uz”. It didn’t matter what genre the videos were that popped up, he watched them all, from Mozart to Gorillaz, from Mendelssohn to My Chemical Romance, and listened raptly to the music. He was just as fascinated with clips of cartoons, TV shows, movies, anything that was suggested. He always made sure to put the phone carefully back as he found it, so Jeff wouldn’t notice. Then he might hide the phone, and things would go back to being dull as before.

Urgitt wasn’t bored anymore. But, after almost a month of the phone, he was wasting away. Playing with this new toy was fulfilling to his mind, but boogeymen needed either fear or food to sustain their massive, hulking frames. He supposed he would have to creep out to the kitchen soon, or give Jeff a good scare. Neither seemed one bit appealing.

He stumbled upon a solution quite by accident. It was a fun solution, too. Much more fun than lurking in the closet, making sinister noises.

Urgitt was playing with the phone one night, and pressed a little square he hadn’t tried before.

This square was the camera. It didn’t take Urgitt long to figure out, not only how to take a picture, but how to take a selfie. He spent the next hour leering horribly at the screen, baring his crooked, pointy teeth, lolling out his tongue. He was enchanted with the images of himself. 

Maybe this would scare Jeff. Maybe he would see the photos, and be frightened enough that Urgitt wouldn’t ever have to actually do anything, except occasionally take more pictures. 

He hoped so. He wasn’t bored anymore, but he was getting pretty hungry. If this didn’t scare Jeff enough to sate Urgitt’s hunger, he might have to resort to something else. 

He placed the phone carefully back on Jeff’s nightstand.

Tomorrow night, he was going to see what that ‘video’ button did.