Neil turned and looked toward the wardrobe. What he saw then almost convinced him that he was going crazy, that his mind had finally let go. In the wood itself he could see a fierce, feral face, like a face under the surface of a polished pond. It stared at him with such viciousness and malevolence that he couldn’t take his eyes away from it. But far more uncanny and terrifying was that a hand was reaching out of the flat walnut veneer, a hand that was made of shiny wood, yet alive. It clawed toward him, sharp-nailed and vicious, and it ripped at his shirt as he lunged toward Toby and tried to pick the boy up in his arms.

He didn’t look any more. If he looked, he knew that his strength and his sanity would break down. He lifted Toby over his shoulder, and blindly turned back toward the bedroom door, shielding his face from the sight of that wolfish face in the wardrobe.

Susan was halfway up the stairs toward them as Neil collapsed on the landing, and Toby rolled to the floor beside him. Neil screamed, “The door! Close the door!” and she quickly slammed it and turned the key.

“Toby! Neil! What’s happening?” she said. “There was such a noise up here, I didn’t—”

Neil held her arm. “It’s in there,” he told her. His voice was unsteady and feverish. “What Toby saw in his nightmare, it isn’t a nightmare. It’s real, and it’s in there. There was a face, Susan. A goddamned face in the wardrobe. And a hand that came right out of the wood. Right out of the damned wood!”

He climbed to his feet. She tried to steady him, but he was too jumpy to be touched and he pushed her away. She knelt down beside Toby, who was shivering and quaking, and held him close.

“Listen,” whispered Neil. “Listen, you can hear it.”

They were silent. They heard a soft, peculiar noise, like a wind whistling across a mountain. Then they heard a sound that made Neil press his hands against his face, a sound so unnatural and frightening that they could scarcely bear to listen.

Across the floor of the bedroom, wooden feet walked. Stumbling, uncertain steps. And wooden hands groped across the walls, fumbling for the door.

3

After a few minutes, the noises stopped. They waited breathless on the landing for almost ten minutes, but there was silence.

Susan asked quietly, “What was it? Neil, what was it?”

He was very drawn and pale. He felt as if his brain had been given a severe electric shock. His lips and his tongue didn’t seem to coordinate properly, so that when he spoke, he jumbled his words.

“I don’t know. It was like a devil. It came right out of the wood, and it must have been made of wood. A wooden devil, walking about.”