More eyes opened: three, four, five, six, seven, eight. Each of them swam in the same space of air as if connected to the same head, though each operated independently, some snaking to the left, some to the right, some glancing backward, and the rest straining right at me. Whatever this thing—or things—was, it filled the entire hall. I looked over the edge of my bed for some kind of weapon, but all I could see was kids’ stuff: half-built models, unfinished homework, and random other evidence of a guy trying to figure out what he was good at. None of it had helped me before, and it wasn’t going to help me now.

The first door it reached was Dad’s. Like me, Dad kept it cracked open and all I could do was hope that he was already crouched for attack. A few of the red eyes disappeared from view as they entered his room. I heard a jangling, as if the thing were reaching into pockets filled with change, and then an unpleasant, moist noise that continued for a good minute: Sluuuurp. Sluuuurp. Sluuuurp. Sluuuurp.

My shoulders shook so violently I grabbed the laptop to steady them. Yes—the laptop! The screen had gone to sleep but all I needed to do was jog the touch pad and it would fill the room with white light. I reached for it but hesitated. Something warned me that what I might see would haunt me forever. I might end up like my dad. If I was too afraid to do it, though, wasn’t that just as bad?

A shadow fell over me. I know that seems strange, as the house was completely dark, but this dark had weight: I could feel it cover my body like a layer of mud. It had texture, too: scaly, cold, slithering across my skin. And it most definitely had a smell: a brackish funk like a dead animal rotting at the bottom of a well. Though the slurping noise was still emitting from my father’s bedroom, several of the eight eyes had squirmed their way through the crack of my bedroom door and orbited the foot of my bed like slow, radioactive bugs.

Faces filed through my mind: Tub, Claire Fontaine, Dad. It was a good-bye, I think, because, in a way, I was doing this for them. I spun the laptop around and swiped the touch pad.

There was no moment of adjustment; light was everywhere. My eyes, so wide and frightened, instinctively shut, and I had to blink and blink and blink before the spots swam away and I could see beyond the foot of my bed. I saw the closet at the other end of my room, the door, the hallway outside, the living room.

Nothing was there.

Here is the truth. I didn’t feel relief. I didn’t feel joy. I shoved the computer off my lap and sunk my head into my hands, clawing my fingernails into my scalp. This was it, then. My sanity was bidding me adieu. Impulsively I threw back the covers. I would get out of bed, turn on all the lights, and scour the rest of house. I had to. Maybe there would be some evidence that absolved me from my derangement. I swung my legs around and was about to stand when my eye caught the closet.