Is That A Monster in the Closet, Charlie Boone? - 1. Chapter 1

Charlie Boone had just finished tying his shoes when his cell phone rang. He grabbed it up off the nightstand by his bed, and broke into a smile when he saw who was calling.

"Hi, Kip. You on your way over?"

The phone sighed at him. "Charlie, is this your idea of a Halloween prank?"

Charlie's smile slipped away. His boyfriend sounded upset. "Huh? Is what my idea of a Halloween prank?"

He heard a short intake of breath over the phone. "Then...it wasn't you? So where did it come from?"

"Where did what come from? What is it, Kip?" Kippy didn't answer right away, and Charlie felt the first nip of worry inside. "Are you okay? Is something wrong?"

"No. I mean...well...I don't know. I'm okay, but you should come over, Charlie. I really can't explain this on the phone."

Charlie nodded, feeling an urge to hurry now. Kippy sounded upset and worried, and he didn't play games with things like that. Charlie would just be wasting time now asking more questions. "Okay. I'll be right there, Kip."

He heard his boyfriend sigh again, sounding frustrated, as well. "Just come on in and come up to my room. I'll be waiting. Bye."

Charlie shook his head after the connection was broken, and turned off the phone and crammed it into his pocket. Kippy had sounded very strange. Not that that was so unusual these days, because Kippy lived in a world that was ever so slightly strange. Charlie did, too, and it had become the new normal for both of them, what with elves and aliens visiting all the time, and starships flying about the heavens. Charlie had gotten used to it, and even accepted the idea that the rest of their lives were destined to be interesting.

But there was no timing to any of this strangeness, and they never knew now when something weird might happen. Kippy normally embraced these new adventures, even looked forward to them; and to hear him sounding so downbeat was worrisome. Something unusual had happened, and Charlie knew his boyfriend well enough to know when it was something that he wanted help with.

He headed down the steps from his room, pausing just long enough by the front door to call to his mom that he was going out. She was in the back of the house, spending her Saturday morning watching an old movie and organizing her collection of butterfly pins, while Charlie's dad sat back in his favorite recliner with his eyes closed, noise-cancelling headphones on his head, alternating between Mozart, Mehldau, and Credence Clearwater Revival.

"Where will you be if I need you?" his mom called back.

"Just at Kip's house."

He could hear a faint laugh, and could imagine his mom smiling. Like where else would Charlie be going on a day off from school?

"Say hi to Kippy!" she returned.

Charlie grunted, and headed outside. It was a cool October Saturday, just a scant five days now until Halloween. A carpet of red and gold leaves covered the grass, which itself was lightening to a golden brown in preparation for winter hibernation. The trees were starting to look barren and forlorn, and Charlie had always found this slow death of summer a little depressing in appearance.

But he gave a little sigh, and smiled. Winter would be here before he knew it, and snow, and Christmas, and all the wonderful things that holiday had come to mean to him and his friends. Frit and Pip had invited them to spend an elf Christmas with them, quickly saying before the boys could protest that doing that would mean missing the holiday with their own families, that Max had promised to finagle the clocks a little so that the boys could enjoy the day with all their favorite people. Nicholaas had also promised to put in an appearance, an event that was always worth waiting for, making for a great holiday by anyone's standards. Charlie and Kip and their friends, Ricky Travers and Adrian Whitacre, were looking forward to spoofing time a little, and having the best of both Christmas worlds.

So he could deal with a little pause in the world due to fall, when winter promised to liven it all back up again! And, there was still Halloween to enjoy, a holiday that had come to have special meaning for them all. Halloween marked the entry of Adrian into their lives, and especially Ricky's life - the final piece of a puzzle that had cemented the four of them into a wonderful and lasting friendship.

But first...Kippy needed him.

Normally, Charlie would have taken the sidewalk and walked around the block and over to Kippy's street. But the strangeness in his boyfriend's voice gave a sense of urgency to Charlie's feet, and instead he circled the house and hopped over the chain-link fence dividing his parent's property from that of Mrs. Marmadopolous behind them, and jogged through her side yard to the next street over. From there it was a quick walk to Kip's house another block up.

He arrived at the front door and reached for the knob...and paused. Kippy had said to come right in and come up to his room, but Charlie had never entered without knocking in all the years he'd known Kippy. So he knocked, and when there was no answer, he knocked again.

Above him, a window went up, and he stepped back and looked upward just as his boyfriend stuck his head out. "Charlie! I said to come on in!"

Charlie nodded, feeling a little guilty. "I know." He lowered his voice. "But suppose your mom was walking around in her underwear, or something?"

"My parents went to the mall to look at bath towels and junk. My cousin Katie is getting married, and they have to think of some gifts for her." A brief flash of impatience crossed Kippy's features. "It's unlocked. Come on up!"

The window slammed down again, and Charlie sighed. Kippy sounded more than a little upset. But he opened the door and went in, and then up to the second floor to Kippy's room.

His boyfriend met him at the bedroom door, and threw his arms around him. "I'm so glad you're here!"

Charlie held Kippy close, returning the anxious grip he felt from him with one he hoped was reassuring. Kippy sighed and turned his head, and Charlie gently kissed his cheek. "I'm here now," he whispered. "What's all the fuss?"

Kippy pulled back and stared at him. "There's a dead monster in my closet."

Charlie grinned at that, until he saw that Kippy wasn't smiling. "Seriously?" he couldn't help asking, anyway.

"Yes. It's fat and gloppy looking, and it smells like it's been dead for a month. But it wasn't there last night, so it must have just died today."

"In your closet?"

Kippy sighed. "I don't know if it died there, but that's where it ended up." He gave a little pout. "What am I going to do with it, Charlie? I can't just leave it there. It stinks!"

Charlie gave a little shake of his head. "This is what's gotten you so upset?"

Kippy made a slightly rude noise. "Wait until you smell it, before you say anything else."

Charlie squared his shoulders, and stepped around his boyfriend. "Let me look."

"Hold your nose when you open the door, okay?"

Charlie crossed the room and placed his hand on the doorknob of the closet door...and then he paused as a foul stench hit his nostrils. Oh...wow!

There were hints of rotten cabbage there, and traces of skunk, and broccoli farts; but mostly it smelled like the back of a garbage truck on a really hot summer day. It wasn't the sort of odor that made you want to puke, but it would do quite nicely until the real thing came along. Charlie pinched his nose closed with the thumb and forefinger of his free hand, and opened the closet door...

And immediately stepped back.

What was inside was indeed fat and gloppy looking. Charlie's first impression was of a seriously obese alligator, one with greenish leather for a hide, complete with the intricate ribbed patterning that made people want the skin for wallets and belts. But this hide was blemished everywhere by knobby projections that looked like very large warts, much reducing the appeal of it for anything useful. The alligator was standing upright, it's immense potbelly serving as a support for the large snout that rested atop it, eyes closed. The beast's arm dangled lifelessly along the bulging belly at its side, while its feet barely protruded from beneath. But the ends of the long fingers and toes were tipped with prominent black claws that looked quite capable of shredding plywood, or maybe a couple of not-too-careful teenaged boys, and Charlie felt an immediate sense of caution take hold. The thing's tail was thrown over the farthest shoulder from behind, and rested against the hangers holding Kippy's winter coats and dress suits. The thing looked - and smelled - very, very dead.

"Yuck," Charlie said, shaking his head. "How on earth did this thing get --"

The nearest eyelid suddenly flicked open, and a brown eye with vertical slits turned to appraise him.

Charlie took in a shocked breath, and immediately jumped back and slammed the door, and turned quickly to put his back to it. "I thought you said it was dead!"

Kippy's eyes grew large. "I thought it was! It sure smells like it is!" He crept closer. "What happened?"

"One of the eyes opened, and looked right at me."

Kippy's jaw dropped; and then he was beside Charlie, his back also to the closet door. "What do we do now?" he whispered.

Charlie opened his mouth to reply, but a sudden sound came to them then: tink-tink-tink.

The two boys stared at each other, and then both turned their heads towards the source of the sound.

"That came from my nightstand," Kippy whispered.

The sound repeated. Tink-tink-tink.

"Definitely," Charlie also whispered. "What's in the drawer?"

Kippy squeezed his eyes closed. "Um...my phone...a box of throat lozenges...a bowl of loose change...my wallet...my old watch...my ring from the market on Engris..."

"Wait," Charlie interrupted. "The ring. Didn't you tell me it had been acting spooky or something?"

"I said that something lived in it, and that it sang sometimes. What's that got to do with a monster in my closet?"

Charlie pushed off the door, went to the nightstand, and opened the drawer. Something leaped up from it and sailed over his shoulder. He flinched and turned in the same moment, just in time to see a startled Kippy extend a hand and catch the ring.

"Great reflexes," Charlie said automatically, returning to stand by his boyfriend. And then both of them looked down at the ring clenched in Kippy's fingers.

It hummed faintly, and Charlie blinked in astonishment, sure that he saw the ring briefly glow. "It is doing something," he whispered.

"It's singing," Kippy said quietly, sounding enchanted despite his upset. "I usually just hear it in the drawer, but when I open it, the sound is gone. This is the first time it's actually sang when I was looking at it."

Charlie examined the ring. It was old - ancient would be the better word - and pitted and scarred, and the milky gemstone in the setting looked dull and lifeless. Yet somehow, the ring still held some odd trace of beauty, as if it had refused to let time steal away all of its charm. The band was far too large to be worn on a human finger, and the ring's origins had been unknown even to the alien seller at the market on Engris, who had only hinted that it had come from a grave. But Pacha'ka had said, somewhat vaguely, that Kippy would like the ring, and that it held a surprise of some sort, and would be worth owning. Kippy had not needed even that small prod to fall in love with the odd piece of jewelry, seeing within it something that touched favorably upon some part of his very large heart.

He sighed now, and smiled at Charlie. "It's such a sweet sound, isn't it?"

Charlie didn't know about that. The hum varied in pitch, and did indeed sound like someone singing a very different sort of tune, albeit not in any voice that he had ever heard before. There was an otherworldly quality to the sound that could not be missed, forming in Charlie's mind the briefest glimpses of landscapes and places that had no counterparts on the planet Earth.

"It's communicating...or something," he decided. "I'm getting...they're not quite pictures...I'm getting almost pictures, of weird places inside my head."

"You, too?" Kippy asked. "I've seen them off and on for a while. And in my dreams at night, sometimes, as well."

Charlie frowned. "Kip, I wish you'd told me more about this before now. It seems like this ring has been trying to get your attention for some time."

"It's been getting my attention, Charlie. I just haven't known what to make of it." Kippy leaned a little closer and lowered his voice. "I don't know what it wants from me."

Suddenly, the door behind them vibrated to three slow raps delivered from within. Both boys took an automatic step away from it, and Kippy grabbed Charlie's arm. "It is alive!"

Charlie looked down at the ring in his boyfriend's fingers, and then back at the closet door. It couldn't be a coincidence that the ring had developed new life with the appearance of this creature in Kip's closet. The two incidents had to be related.

Charlie took Kip's hand with the ring in it, and moved it closer to the door. Kippy gasped, tightening his grip on the ancient piece. "It's pulling towards the door!"

Charlie took a deep breath to calm himself, and leaned closer to Kippy and spoke in a whisper, "I'm gonna open the door, okay?"

Kippy eyed him, but seemed also to have made the connection between the ring and the monster in his closet. "I think we have to," he agreed.

They stepped back, and Charlie reached for the knob. Just as he grabbed it the door reverberated again to three sharp knocks from within. Charlie clenched his teeth, and slowly inched the door open.

The beast inside had not changed position. But the eye was still open, and now it focused upon them. The nearest arm, just dropping back after delivering the raps to the door, slowly rose again, and the hand extended towards them, the clawed fingers spreading. Charlie examined those fingers, noted their thickness, and in an instant knew what needed to be done.

"Put the ring on its finger," he instructed Kippy.

Kippy nodded, also seeing the obvious request, and raised his own hand and carefully slipped the ring onto the ring finger of the leathery hand. It fit perfectly.

The beast inside the closet gave forth a contented sigh, and the eye closed again. The body of the creature began to glow a soft yellow, and the humming from the ring increased in volume. Charlie licked his lips, which had become unusually dry somehow, and took Kippy by the arm and stepped back. He closed the door again, and then pulled Kippy over by the bed.

"What are we doing?" Kippy whispered.

Charlie sat on the edge of the bed, and pulled his boyfriend down beside him. "Where is your little communicator? The one that can call Pacha and Mike?"

Kippy frowned, then stood and walked over to his dresser. Atop it stood a ceramic statue about ten inches high, that they had found at the thrift shop, of the alien from the movie E.T. Kippy had smiled when he saw it, saying it needed a home, and the little creature had stood in the same spot on his dresser for the better part of a year now. It had a little light inside, and when you turned it on the alien's eyes glowed. It made a decent nightlight, for the occasional times they spent the night at Kip's instead of Charlie's house, when a soft glow was just enough light to accompany a fond round of lovemaking.

Kippy picked up the statue and turned it so the underside of the base showed. There was a wide hole there, giving access to the hollow interior. Kippy thrust two fingers inside and pulled out a white blob, something wrapped carefully in a handkerchief. He set the statue down again and came back to the bed, unwinding the handkerchief as he walked. Inside it was the communicator, which he handed to Charlie as he sat on the bed beside him again.

"I think that's a good idea," Kippy whispered. "I'm sure Pacha will know more about this than we do."

"I'll call them," Charlie agreed. "In the meantime, get your cell out of the nightstand and call Rick and Adrian, and tell them what's going on. They'll want to be here, I think."

Kippy nodded, quietly retrieved his cell phone from the drawer, and moved across the room towards the bathroom door so that each of them could make their calls.

Charlie blew out a breath to steady his nerves, and glanced at the closet door one more time. Here we go again!

And then he proceeded to enter the code into the communicator that would connect him to Illia, the mind that ran Pacha's starship.