A short story by Dan Jire
“Oh my God. Just stop.”
Ted looked up from his book at his wife Cheryl. She looked like she was about to punch a hole through the wall.
“Can’t you hear it?” she asked.
Ted listened. The tiniest of ticks or clicks played out in the bedroom next door.
“She’s biting her nails again,” Cheryl said, shaking her head in a firm mixture of disgust and annoyance.
“Caitlin’s six. She’ll grow out of it.”
“She bites her nails the entire drive home. Every day, Ted. God knows where they all go. The backseat is probably covered in her tiny nail clippings.”
Ted nodded, hearing his wife out, but also trying to squeeze one more sentence out before he completely lost the suspense of his book.
“They’re painted too. I thought that would help, so after bath we painted them and she promised me she wouldn’t put them in her mouth.”
Ted re-read the same sentence a few more times. He’d lost the magic of the story, lost his place on the page. He closed the book over his finger and asked, “What do you want me to do about it?”
Cheryl groaned and sighed at the same time. “Work your dad-magic. That thing you do where you say it some way that just clicks with her. Like you did with her fear of spiders.”
Ted bookmarked his book and set it on his end table.
“You’re going now?”
“Are you going to be able to sleep if she keeps biting her fingers all night long?” Ted asked.
“I love you,” Cheryl said sincerely.
Ted smiled and went out into the hall. He knocked gently on his daughter’s door and then cracked the door.
“Caitlin? You awake? It’s daddy.”
“I can’t sleep,” Caitlin said. In the beam of light from the hallway, Ted watched his daughter hide her hands beneath her pillow, and something else between her lips and teeth.
“Did you have a bad dream?”
“No. I just can’t sleep.”
“Well, your mommy and I need to get rest. If we don’t get rest, we’ll be cranky at work and make mistakes and then we’ll lose our jobs and then our house. We’ll have to sell all my toys and probably yours too. We need our rest. Just like you do, so that you don’t get in trouble at school, right?”
Caitlin nodded.
“Are you biting your fingernails?”
Caitlin shook her head.
“Are you?”
Caitlin shook her head again.
“Can I see your fingers?”
Caitlin whipped them out from under her pillow and revealed an unblemished set of fuchsia nails. Ted inspected them in the light, and they really didn’t look any more chewed since they’d been painted.
“You know why we don’t bite our fingernails, right?”
“Mom says because we wipe our butts and poop gets in them.”
Ted chuckled. “Well, yeah, but there’s another reason. Hold your hand against mine.”
Caitlin placed her hand against her father’s, her fingers fit within the confines of his palm.
“It’s like mowing grass. If I don’t ever mow the grass, it’ll grow really tall, and trees will grow out of it too and then we’d be surrounded by a forest instead of a yard. Well, if you bite your nails, you won’t grow. You’ll stay tiny. You’ll never get to drive a car because your feet don’t even reach the pedals now, do they?”
Caitlin shook her head.
“Right, and you won’t be big enough to wear the really pretty dresses or ride any of the awesome roller coasters. That’s why mommy is so worried. She wants you to be able to have fun and do really cool stuff. I do too. So just do us—and yourself a favor and stop biting your fingernails.”
“I did. I stopped,” Caitlin said, whining just irritatingly enough.
“Okay. I just wanted to make sure you understood.”
“I do.”
“Alright, goodnight, honey. I love you.”
“I love you too, daddy.”
With that, they hugged, and then Ted went back to bed.
Cheryl had heard the whole thing, but she was still listening to see if Caitlin jumped right back to biting her nails.
She didn’t.
And after a moment, Cheryl sighed and thanked her husband.
“Dad magic. I knew I married you for a reason.”
“Yeah, she’ll probably need therapy if we keep resorting to it. But…” He almost told her that Caitlin’s nails looked fine to him. He opened his book instead. But closed it and set it down. “I’m exhausted. Sweet dreams, babe.”
Cheryl leaned over and kissed him goodnight. Then listened a bit longer before accepting the silence.
In the morning, as Cheryl readied herself for work, Caitlin screamed.
“What is it now?” Cheryl asked, her makeup half applied as she came around the corner. Still only half awake her ears could hardly take her daughter’s high-pitched voice.
“My shoes are hurting me.”
“We are not doing this today. Just put them on and get in the car. We don’t want to be late.”
“They’re hurting, mommy.”
“I’ll buy you another pair today. Promise. But if those hurt, all the other ones are going to hurt too.”
“Not my sandals.”
“You can’t wear sandals. There’s snow on the ground.”
Caitlin huffed and puffed. Cheryl went back to the bathroom to finish putting herself together. When she came back out, Caitlin had already climbed into her car seat and buckled herself. Cheryl didn’t think to check her shoes until they were halfway down the road. Then she saw them in her rearview mirror.
“Are those your sandals?”
“Yes. My other shoes hurt.”
“Well, I guess you’re just going to learn. You do not wear sandals in the snow, dear. Your teacher is going to think I’m just the greatest mommy in the whole wide world. You make sure you tell her, I told you not to wear your sandals.”
Caitlin huffed and puffed with crossed arms and pursed lips. She held that pose all the way to school.
Cheryl should have expected the phone call. But she was still shocked and initially confused as the school called about Caitlin’s footwear.
“Well, how did they get bloody?” Cheryl asked the principal.
“The other students say the Caitlin is always biting her toenails.”
“Are you kidding me? We just got her to stop biting her fingernails.”
The principal went on a bit more about this and that, but the overall reason for the phone call was that Caitlin was being sent home early.
Cheryl spent the entire drive back to the school practicing ‘dad magic’ but it kept coming out bitter and mean. She kept a disappointed look and spoke little to Caitlin until they got home.
The laundry room was on their way back into the house. And Cheryl had prepared her speech and dramatics in the silence of the drive. It just took a bit longer since it was harder to dig through the yet to be washed load of laundry to find one of Ted’s work socks. Pulling one out, she jammed it in her daughter’s face.
“Smell that,” Cheryl said.
Caitlin’s face scrunched and she stumbled back. “Ew. Yuck.”
“Right? That’s why we don’t put our feet in our mouths. Because they are dirty. And our toenails are dirty too. That’s why your feet hurt. Because you’re biting your nails clean off. That’s absolutely disgusting. Do you want to get sick and die?”
“No.”
“Now. You’re home early from school, but you’ve got chores to do.”
“No!”
“Yes. You’ll start with cleaning your bedroom. And then I’m going to teach you how to run the vacuum so you can suck up all these nail clippings you’re leaving everywhere.”
“I’m not leaving them everywhere.”
“Yes, you are. They’re all over the backseat and I’m sure your bed and room are littered with them.”
“Are not!”
Cheryl heard enough. She deepened her voice and yelled until it felt as if the room shook. Caitlin stomped off into her bedroom, whining all the way.
Cheryl, on the warpath, decided to search the entire house, just so she could point out all the nail clippings. She searched the living room, the bathroom, the rec room, and then her van. As best she looked, she didn’t find a single clipping. Plenty of other unsavory finds, mostly food crumbs, but she didn’t find any nail clippings.
Cheryl considered clipping her own nails just to make a point. But then she knew they must all be in Caitlin’s room. She didn’t knock. She swung the door open so fast, it was lucky Caitlin wasn’t standing too close.
“Where are they? Where are the clippings?”
“He takes them.”
“Caitlin, how many have you cleaned up?”
“None. They’re gone.”
“Are you eating them? You know how bad that is for you?”
“I don’t eat them. He takes them!”
“Who? Who takes your nasty toe nails?”
“He does. That guy that comes into our house. He said he’d eat my fingers and toes if I didn’t. He said he’d eat yours and daddy’s too.”
Cheryl rolled her eyes. “A monster?”
“No. A man.”
“Are you telling me a story?”
Caitlin shook her head. “He comes once a week. If I don’t have enough, he comes into my room and he bites me.”
Cheryl looked at her daughter, completely unsure of what to believe. And though it pained her to ask it, she did. “Is this man your father?”
“No. It’s not daddy. It’s another man.”
“Describe this man.”
Caitlin groaned. “He’s fat. Not as tall as you or daddy. He uses the tiny door.”
“The tiny door? What tiny door?”
Ted looked at the wall and then back at his wife. He shrugged and said, “That’s the return air duct.”
“You would be wrong, sir,” Cheryl said. “That is the tiny door.”
She told him all about the man that came in from that ‘door’ and collected all of Caitlin’s nail-clippings.
“I’m slightly terrified to open it up,” Ted said. “Did you look already?”
“I didn’t see a nail in there. Or anywhere.”
Ted sighed. “This goes back to the main unit. Our air filter will be covered in clippings if she is putting them in here.”
“How do we check that?”
Ted went up into their attic and showed his wife the HVAC system. He’d always taken care of changing the filters, but he never paid much attention to what they collected. He pulled out the filter. It was mostly grey.
“Probably time to change it anyway,” Ted said, as they both examined it closely. Finding nothing that resembled a fingernail. Ted shrugged. “I guess they could be in the line somewhere.”
Cheryl tapped her foot. “Well, the ball’s in your court. Let’s see your dad-magic on this one.”
Ted buttered Caitlin up with hot cocoa loaded with marshmallows and whipped cream—and then just a sprinkling of sprinkles. He avoided the subject of nail-biting for a few minutes. Finally, he asked. “Why’d you come home early from school today?”
Caitlin bottled up, sinking behind her half-devoured gourmet hot cocoa.
“I guess you know mom has told me already. I’m not mad. I just want to understand. She said something about a man that’s been coming to visit you.”
Caitlin nodded, rising up above the mug once again. “He’ll eat our fingers if I don’t give him my nails.”
“Did someone at school tell you that story?”
“No. The man did.”
Ted spotted Cheryl listening just around the corner of the kitchen.
“Have we met this man?”
Caitlin shrugged.
“How do we meet him?”
Caitlin looked like Ted said something frightening.
“I saw the tiny door. You know I’m an expert fighter. I don’t like to show off my skills, because, like I told you, we can use our words instead. I’m not afraid of this man. But I think I need to have a talk with him.”
Caitlin swallowed, still not responding.
“What do we do, leave a bunch of nails there, and then he comes to gobble them up, right?”
Caitlin nodded. “Can I have more hot chocolate?”
“Sure. Just tell me, how do I meet this man?”
“He comes at night. If the nails aren’t there he comes in my room and takes them.”
“I’m not going to let that happened anymore. You should tell me if anybody ever wants you to do something that’s not either your mother or I.”
Caitlin nodded.
“I’m going to be waiting for this man tonight. You can just stop biting your finger—and toenails. You got it?”
Caitlin nodded. Ted took her mug and refilled it.
“Can I have more sprinkles, too?”
Ted watched his laptop screen. Cheryl leaned over him, breathing down his neck.
“Did you put a tape over the red-light thingy on the camera?” Cheryl asked.
Ted nodded. “Unless this little man has been watching us, he shouldn’t know there’s a camera recording his every move.”
Cheryl kissed his cheek, and went back to staring at the unchanging image on his laptop. An hour later, she jerked awake.
“Did . . .?”
Ted said, “No. Nothing has happened.”
Cheryl yawned. “We…should…do shifts.”
“Yeah, I’ll wake you up if something happens. We both still have work tomorrow.”
Cheryl yawned again and closed her eyes. The next thing she knew, her alarm went off.
Ted was already chugging coffee, keeping an eye on the laptop as he put on his slacks.
“Nothing?” she asked. “Well of course there was nothing. This is all her imagination. I can’t believe we were worried. Christ. You didn’t sleep a wink did you?”
“I do feel better that we did it though. What if she got kidnapped or something and all we could do was tell the cops she said some little man was living in our ducts and we didn’t believe her?”
“I’ll go wake the little brat,” Cheryl said, throwing off the covers and sliding into her slippers.
Caitlin was waiting outside their bedroom. It caught Cheryl by surprise.
“Caitlin. I swear, you’re going to give me a heart attack.”
“Daddy didn’t talk to the man?”
“Of course not, and your father, bless his heart, stayed up all night waiting for that man.”
“All night,” Ted said. His eyes red, the only thing keeping him upright was the coffee.
“But he did come,” Caitlin held up her bloodied fingers. “You were supposed to talk to him.”
Cheryl gasped.
The parents argued. If they took Caitlin to the hospital, they’d be questioned for child abuse. If she went to school, the same questions might come as well. They still didn’t believe Caitlin and that drove her nuts. It was just like in all the movies she’d seen where the adults never believe the kids. Caitlin was going to have to take care of it herself. The man had already removed all of her fingernails. She was certain he’d come back and take all her toe nails off that night. She hated the layered bandages on her fingertips. It made it impossible to play her gaming tablet.
She filled a toy bowl full of her toe nails. And then she took a deep breath and found her parents, still debating what to do with her.
“He’ll only come to the tiny door if we leave him his bowl,” she said. “He’ll come and then you’ll believe me.”
Her parents turned and looked at her and the bowl. Then each other. Without a word, they broke out the nail clippers and began adding their own clippings to the bowl.
“That’s not going to be enough,” Caitlin said. “He likes the chunkier ones.” Caitlin raised her foot and chewed off almost 1/8” of toe nail.
Ted winced and took a chunk out of his big toe.
“Oh, he’s gonna love that. That’s a real whopper, Daddy!”
The second night of watching the laptop, involved letting Caitlin sleep between Ted and Cheryl. She made it to midnight, much to the surprise of her parents, who’d hoped she’d at least zonk out early so they could watch a few of their regular tv programs.
“If nothing shows, do we take her to a doctor? How do we do that?” Cheryl whispered over her sleeping daughter.
Ted watched the bowl, thinking the same thing. Hoping for and against the arrival of this tiny man.
But when the grate for the air return opened, they both became speechless in anticipation. The night vision of the camera didn’t reveal anything at first. But then a black shadow covered the bowl, almost like an extension of the blackened ducts behind it. Then two eyes darted up, right at the camera. Night vision turning them into cat like saucers of white upon a green face covered in stubble and soot.
Ted had one thought as he failed to move. They should have built a net or a cage. But even now he was more inclined to be trapped in a vivid dream.
But the man, or creature, didn’t notice the camera, it had just looked up as it swallowed, and lowered its head just a quickly for more.
Cheryl nudged Ted.
He quietly slunk off the bed, and grabbed the baseball bat beside it. Then he crept as quietly as he could. Turning the doorknob as silently as possible, and then out into the darkness of the house. He ducked and made his way over to the air return. He could hear the crunching of nails, and the hissing breath of the man.
Cheryl entered the hallway, with a knife, watching her husband’s darkened form.
Ted had to get just close enough to strike, or that thing would disappear into the air return and he couldn’t imagine trying to explain that to the police—even with the video footage his laptop recorded.
The floor announced him with a small creak, more like a soft crunch.
Ted didn’t hesitate, he pounced, swinging the bat high above his head. He struck the ceiling light, glass showered down upon them. The ruckus stirred Caitlin, who ran out of bed to her mother’s side, asking, “What’s going on?”
“Quiet, stay in there. Keep the door locked.” Cheryl pushed Caitlin back into the bedroom and ran to support her husband.
Ted swung wildly, hitting the return air vent, hoping to slam it closed. The vent door smashed upon the creature, a terrible whelp followed.
Ted pushed hard against the door, slamming it back against the wall, as the strange man snaked out and rose up high, inflating its mass until it was barrel chested with a mouth as wide as Ted’s shoulders. The stretched face of a man opened to reveal thousands of teeth in a dozen rows encircling an abyss.
Cheryl flipped a light switch that turned on a lamp in the far corner.
The creature hated that. It swung its abdomen out of the duct, slamming Ted into Cheryl and both into a far wall as it whipped back and took out the lamp.
Ted gasped and fell forward in the wake of the creature.
Cheryl still held the bloodied knife. She screamed. The creature dove atop her, engulfing her down to her ankles. The creature bit down and separated her from her feet. It spit the rest out. Blood sprayed everywhere, as she’d been punctured by all those teeth over every inch of her body.
Caitlin watched it all on her father’s laptop.
She chewed her toenails off, one by one.
The creature devoured her mother’s feet and then her hands, then checked her father.
Ted still breathed, though he writhed with pain. The creature searched the hall and then a room, and came out with Caitlin’s stuffed teddy. It jammed that into Ted’s shoulder and began to whisper in his ear. Then licking its lips, it slurped up all the blood on the floor and the walls, then dragged Cheryl’s body back into the air return with it. Vanishing into the darkness.
At some point, Caitlin passed out beneath the covers and illuminated by the laptop screen. Ted found her, his shoulder still aching from the knife wound. He saw the bowl she’d prepared.
He began to chew his nails. And spit the clippings into the bowl, unable to stop trembling. Unable to stop chewing.
THE END.
COPYRIGHT (C) 2022 Dan Jire
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