The Cubby Demon

Demons hid in the walls of the Victorian era farmhouse of my childhood. I would hear them hissing at me behind the built-in radiator in the bathroom, just waiting for me to drop my pants so they could do God-knows-what.

At night, they would scratch at the walls. I would tell myself they were just mice, but they sounded stronger than mice. Late into the night, with the house quiet aside from the occasional burps and groans of old heating systems, the scraping was amplified until it moved inside my head, digging around my brain, looking for lustful thoughts or doubts about God. They were searching for a foothold, some cozy place to make a nest.

I guess I knew they weren’t really demons, at least during the daytime. But my mind became more insecure as the night went on.

I learned that the teenage girl who lived in my room before me scrawled Satanic verse on her closet walls and would hold seances on the floor. Someone who went to school with her said she would cut a pentagram into her stomach so the symbol would bleed through onto her shirt so she could wear it to school, like some innovative, Satanic screen printer. I would think about her as my wide-open eyes would peer out through my open bedroom door, with galvanized pipes creaking midnight music.

My childhood bedroom was just at the top of the stairs, with red-faded-to-salmon-pink carpeting that led down to the original hardwoods of the hallway. An antique cranberry glass lantern hung from the high hallway ceiling by brass chains. This dusty fixture sent a red glow up the stairs, so I could clearly see whether or not some intruder was going to come creaking upwards. I alone knew the secret combination of where to step on those stairs without sounding the alarm of bending wood, the house crying out in agony as some mass clumsily ascended its spine. I understood the language of the house, but I had no faith it would protect me. If an intruder did come up the stairs, I had no real plan other than to scream.

I had heard stories of faithful Christians confronting demons. Whenever I saw a demon in my dreams, I wanted to say the magic words, “In the name of Jesus, be gone!” but my throat would be thick with fear and I could only stutter, my legs like popsicle sticks in molasses as the demon overtook me, jolting me awake. I worried that I lacked the faith and confidence of a real Christian. I doubted the authenticity of my salvation, so I would pray the sinner’s prayer again. But salvation for me was like taking a shower on a humid day. No matter what you do, you still feel sweaty after.

It was hard for me to sleep in that room. I had three closets to worry about. There was my main closet where I kept my things, and on the opposite wall there was a closet for inherited fur coats and suits nobody knew what to do with. The smell of mothballs was overpowering. Underneath the plywood floor of that closet was a secret set of crude wooden stairs that led to the bathroom, for a time when it was unfashionable to see servants pass through the house. Then, there was a small square cubby door at the foot of my bed. This cubby was nothing but cotton-candy insolation, a light bulb with a pull string, and a broken Christmas windmill.

My insomnia only got worse in my teen years, and as I learned more about the world, the types of forbidden thoughts became broader. Broad as in, “broad is the way that leadeth to destruction” (KJV, Matthew 7:13). I would stare out the window and watch the street through the warped antique glass until the sky would turn to a muddy crimson, and as I finally started to fall asleep around 5 a.m., I would pray for God to take me before I woke up. (It was unclear to me if taking my own life was a sin.)

A dream: I was at Youth Group. I had brought a non-Christian girl with me, and the leaders and fellow students started surrounding her, accusing her of doing some satanic, evil act. I jumped in to defend her, asking them how they expect anyone to come to know God’s love if all they do is make accusations and fill people with shame. I became so angry, I was spitting and shouting. I looked around at the familiar faces of my youth group, and they were frozen with a sort of concerned horror. My shouting became incoherent and I began foaming at the mouth. I realized I had become a demon myself. I begged for the people around me to kill me and put me out of my misery, but they just continued to look at me, stunned.

I didn’t go back to sleep that morning, and the dream did not fade away like some do. I was paralyzed by it. What did it mean? Was it prophetic? Was I turned into a demon by my secret anger towards Christians? Or was I afraid that I could find myself siding with a secular person? If I sided with them, what would become of me? What happened to the girl who lived in the house before me? Was she tormented like this? Did she hate herself? The blood was pulsing in my head, and I recognized her rejection and fear. The cartoonish wart nosed demons of my childhood had turned into something else–something less tangible–and I waited for daylight while the house yawned and stretched, working to warm us.

One night, when I was 17, the Northeastern humidity was doing its best to suffocate me. The walls were sweating and my skin was too warm against my nylon comforter, but I felt too naked to sleep without it. I wished my windows weren’t sealed shut with decades of white paint layers. The infestation was crawling under the house’s skin as the scratching grew louder. I listened to it shift past my head until it arrived at the foot of my bed, right by the square cubby door. This cubby was kept locked by a pathetic hook. I found myself standing in front of the door in my boxers, my lanky, bowed legs set wide with my hand at my hip as if I had a weapon to draw. O Demon of my youth, your day has come!

With my ear against the peeling white paint of the door, I could feel its claws moving. How many nights did I listen to this sound, incapacitated by self-doubt, knowing any demon could devour me in an instant? How many friends had been led astray by demons like this? How itchy it must be for an old house to have an infection like this and no arm to scratch with. I silently lifted the metal hook from its hoop. I knew the hinges of the door would creak, so in one motion I swung the door open and cast myself into the deep, reaching for the pull string to catch the bastard in the light. For He reveals the deep things of darkness and brings deep shadows into light! And all around me the pink foam pulsed, closing in around me my eyes adjusting to the jagged shapes.

What I saw then, exposed against the cotton candy wall, was a Southern Flying Squirrel. For one quiet moment, forehead to forehead, we peered into each other’s eyes, his like round pools of ink decorated with war paint. He looked at me, the sleepless and haggard creature, the unknown giant beast who had been thunking around and disturbing his family for generations, and I felt his fear. Then he was gone, and I was alone: a crouched goblin with bare feet against the splintering, unfinished wood. I pulled my head out of the cubby and looked out the window. The animal glided over my driveway, triggering footlights, and into the forest. I didn’t know we had flying squirrels here, I thought, and finally slept.