“Now that was dumb. Everyone knows monsters live under the bed.”

“Yeah, well, I was pretty sure it was the closet. And then I couldn’t take it anymore, being afraid all the time like my dad, and so one night I got out of bed and opened the closet and got inside and spent the whole night there. Eventually I fell asleep and then it was over. I mean, it’s all got to end sometime, Tub.”

He didn’t respond. I finished tying my shoes, too tight. The whole room felt too tight, squeezed in against my shoulders like the locker I’d been inside a few hours earlier.

“Least we’ve got each other,” I offered.

“So true,” he said. “Where you think we should set up our wedding registry?”

Though constructed with sarcastic words, the sentence had the tone of an apology. I sighed in relief and checked the clock. The bell would be ringing soon. It had been a long day for me and an even longer one for Tub.

“I bet someone gets us a nice china set,” I said. “And a bread maker.”

“Awesome. When the zombie apocalypse strikes, that bread maker will save our asses.” He took an unsteady inhale and cleared a phlegmy throat. “You need to give me a minute, or I will never finish dressing. You got no idea how hard it is for me to put socks on.”

Tub hated changing his clothes with someone else in the room. He was going to have to accept his weight at some point, but this was not the time for pushing that agenda. I ambled over to the next aisle.

The coach’s office was in the far corner. The lights were off. In fact, Coach Lawrence must have hit most of the lights on his way out. Darkness lay over the locker room like a tarp. Aisles looked too long and were notched with unexpected crannies. I hesitated before going any farther. Locker rooms were places stained with bad memories: snapping towels, underwear tossed in a toilet, tennis shoes burned through a locker grill with a lighter. It was no wonder that shadows there loomed larger.

I reminded myself of the nonexistent closet monster and kept walking. I got about three steps before I saw the thing.

It was crouched in the farthest corner. I took a deep breath and leaned in, but it did not go away. It was amorphously shaped and taller than me but did not move or make a sound. In the distance, I heard the sighs of Tub getting dressed and felt a surge of protectiveness. I couldn’t let this thing chase my naked friend into the hallway. That was one humiliation too many.

There was a light switch just five feet away, right between me and the thing, and I edged in that direction, my shoes splishing through some foul locker room liquid. Reaching for it felt like reaching for the red bandana on the rope. I paused, afraid to see the truth behind the thing’s multifaceted folds of skin and pungent odor.