While I'm
not a huge horror or scary-movie fan, as in a fanatic, I did love watching the Nightmare in Elm Street series, American Werewolf in London, and a
number of other movies back in the 80s and 90s. The scariest movie I've
experienced was 1979's Alien. I
watched that movie, ill-advisedly in hindsight, with my younger siblings back
in 1985 in my basement bedroom. That night, after my siblings went upstairs to
go to bed, I found myself alone in my room. I then realized what a stupid thing
I had just done. Needless to say, I didn't sleep the whole night because of the
sheer terror I experienced watching Alien.
To this day I remember that night and how terrified I was and how impossible it
was for me to sleep in the basement, alone, with the darkness in the room and just
beyond my bedroom door. The slightest sound would jolt me from the bed so I ended
up cowering in a corner of my room just praying for the sun to come up.
I haven't
watched a proper horror movie in many, many years. As I've gotten older the
genre just doesn't appeal to me anymore. The most recent "horror"
movie I saw was Tucker & Dale vs Evil.
It was just enough to remind me of the experiences I was missing out on -- watching
horror movies -- but not too much to keep me awake at night. These days I need
only to look at my bank account statements or bills, but I digress. Tucker & Dale vs Evil was a
beautifully well-executed movie that is a perfect example of its genre, i.e., horror-comedy.
I continued
to stay away from scary/horror movies and writing for many years. Very
recently, as part of participating in this guest post, I decided to read a
short horror story to review. Truth be told, I only did this so I could gain
some fame and fortune, in hopes of curing my financial woes and stress-induced
insomnia. Ha! In preparation I had to do some research to find a good horror
short story to read. Searching several online forums, and after many Google
searches, I repeatedly saw mentions of Stephen King’s various short stories. As
someone who grew up in the 80s and 90s, Stephen King's various works have figured
prominently in my conception of great scary stories. So when I saw several
people recommending his work I decided to jump on “The Boogeyman”, so to speak.
Before I go
any further, let me just say that I loved “The Boogeyman”.
Stephen King
begins the story in the office of a psychiatrist named Dr Harper. We are
immediately introduced to the patient, Lester Billings, a twenty-eight-year-old
from Waterbury, Connecticut who is employed by an industrial firm in New York,
divorced, and the father of three deceased children. The “The Boogeyman” slowly
builds up with Lester clearly and lucidly explaining how each of his first two
children died. As Lester described it, they died of what looked like unrelated
causes, alone in their bedrooms. According to authorities who investigated the
deaths, one died of crib death and the second died of convulsions. Lester,
however, claims that both children cried "Boogeyman!" just before he
tucked them in for the night in their bedroom. In both occasions when he went
back into the bedroom to answer the child’s subsequent terrified screams, he
found the child dead and noticed that the closet door was open. Just a crack. Lester
emphasises that the closet was shut beforehand.
By the time Lester
finishes describing the death of his second child, King has established Lester
as a bit of an old-school racist, chauvinist who's not beneath smacking his
wife or kids at the smallest provocation. In addition, Lester comes off as
being either schizophrenic or possibly clinically delusional. While reading you
can't help but think that he is probably insane enough that he may just have
murdered his three children himself. But then Lester begins to describe the
death of the third child. (As I'm writing this, I'm getting small goosebumps
forming and the hairs on the back of my neck are readying themselves to do that
dance that I haven't felt in many years).
By this
point King masterfully builds up the scene for the final reveal such that you
have no idea what's going to happen next nor do you suspect who killed the
three children. Before you read further, if I’ve piqued your interest in
reading this story yourself, please stop here because I’m about to spoil the
ending. I know it’s kind of lame to put this disclaimer just above the spoiler
paragraph but there is no good way of finishing this review without explaining
what the final reveal is. To be super helpful, I’m actually writing a really
long and rambling paragraph to give you time to think about whether or not you
really want to read the next paragraph, which, as I mentioned earlier, contains
a spoiler. Before I continue, I actually debated with myself on how to discuss
the ending without spoilers but, as you know, “The Boogeyman” is a short story
so there isn’t a lot in there to review other then what I’ve already revealed.
The story’s final
reveal begins with Lester finishing his tale. However, before he starts to
leave, Dr Harper recommends he make an appointment with the nurse for more
sessions. When he goes out to find the nurse, he sees that she is no longer at
her desk. When he returns to Dr Harper's office, the room is empty but he
notices that the closet door is open. Just a crack. Then, a voice comes out of
the closet as the closet door swings open, revealing the Boogeyman holding the
mask of Dr Harper in one "spade-clawed" hand.
One person
on a Reddit post said that after all these years [since reading the story] she
is still freaked out when in a room with a closet. While I don't expect to be
freaked out from any closet in my house, I have a feeling I'll be looking at
closets with a lot of suspicion for the next little while.
------
Behroze is a reluctant and
untalented writer who spends his days working as a Group Benefits Consultant in
Toronto. He loves to play video games, watch Game of Thrones, and read, in that order. He is also married and has a lovely cat.
When he can be bothered, he will chime in on Twitter under the pseudonym
@behroze.
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