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There is a monster in her closet.

Maddie knows this; it is one of the incontrovertible truths of her young life. She is four years old. Her parents love her. One plus one is two. Ice cream is the best food in the world. There is a monster in her closet.

She knows where the monster sits when the door is closed: in the back corner on the left side, behind her shoes, under the ruffled skirts of her dresses. The carpet is worn down a little there.

She does not know where it goes when the door is open.

At night, the monster slinks under the door - just its shadow, usually, stark black in the glow of her nightlight. The shadow jags towards her bed and puddles under the bedskirt, mixing with the ordinary shadows and the dustbunnies, shoving its nose into her slippers.

It comes out entirely when she is asleep. She knows this because she woke up once, without it knowing, and found herself cradled in long, furred arms that bent at odd angles. "We love you," it whispered, rocking her gently as she kept her eyes closed tight and tried not to move. "You made us, so we love you."

Its tongue dragged across her cheek, cold as ice, scratchy like a cat's tongue.

"You are so delicious."

................


It is normal for four-year-olds to have monsters in their closets and under their beds. The children whisper about it at day care, hushed conversations under the sand-play table. Adults don't understand. The monsters are their shared secret.

It is not so normal for eight-year-olds to have monsters. The other children slowly stop talking about it, turn their conversations towards school and toys and games and other things. Maddie stops talking about it. The secret breaks all along the edges, leaving her alone with the shards.

But she still sees it. Sees them. There are more dark places in the world than just her closet. The old dilapidated house down the street is full of shadows that don't go away in the sun. The drainage pipe on the way home from school is a vast yawning mouth, putrid and hungry.

It is only her, she thinks, that sees these things. The other children run shrieking past the old house, shouting about not letting the witch get them, but that isn't the same. She can tell by their faces. Only once does she recognize another child who can still see - at the tri-county Girl Scout Jamboree, there were three monsters orbiting the campfire circle, extending long tongues to lick the ghost stories out of the air. Maddie watched them pace, hugging herself as if for warmth.

And, just for an instant, her gaze met that of another girl across the fire. A stranger, from another troop in another city. In that moment, silent recognition passed between them like lightning.

You see them too-

Yes-

The relief was profound, but the power of such moments only goes so far.


................


The paper sits on Madison's desk. She is ten, and expected to define the rest of her life right here, right now. What do you want to be when you grow up? the paper inquires, in very black, very official-looking letters. The empty space underneath it yawns hugely, a vast and intimidating void.

What does she want to be?

The pencil creaks in her grip as she writes.


Normal. Normal. Normal.


The kind of person who doesn't see monsters, doesn't recognize the dark and hollow places in the world, the rips and tears where shadows get in. There are so many of them, more than she'd ever dreamed. Some of the movie posters outside the theater crackle with it, tantalizing and terrifying all at once. Some commercials halo the television in fog, tendrils sliding out into the living room until another product jingle chases them away. Certain books in the library are so redolent with it that she cannot even walk down their aisles without shaking.

Normal.

She makes a vow to herself then, staring at the paper. She will grow up to be normal, no matter what.




The teacher gives her paper back with a frowny face drawn on it in red ink. Can't you be more creative? his note asks, beseeching.

No.


.............


She pours herself into the study of normalcy. Junior high shakes people apart and shoves them into boxes; she fights to be in the right box, the right gathering of people. People who have never seen shadows, who never will. She molds her voice into the proper cadence, does her hair only in the approved styles. She watches the older children, and she learns. She learns about Boys, and about Fashion, and about Maintaining Control. She learns who is In and who is Out, who is Popular and who is Not. She learns how to slice off the edges of herself that make her different... or, at least, how to hide them so thoroughly that she forgets they existed at all.

This is Normal.

She sees the girl from the Jamboree once, she thinks - their shared secret binds them together, even after all those years. The recognition is still present. But the girl is Out, very definitely Out, and the eighth grade girls point and laugh and shred her to pieces behind her back.

This, too, is Normal.

So Madison pretends not to see the monster that hunches under the last chair at the nail salon, the chair nobody ever wants to sit in. It grins hugely at her and chews on discarded acrylic claws, the crunch audible even through the giggles and gossip of the other girls.

She forces herself to smile. It is the price of normalcy.


.............


High school is kind to her, though anything would seem kind after the crucible of Greenville Junior High. She comes into the fold of the Popular, the In, dancing attendance on the seniors. When the time comes, she bestows grace - and cruelty - on the freshmen. She shops at the right stores, reads the right magazines, watches the right shows, listens to the right music. She never makes Homecoming Court, or gets to date a quarterback, but her position is nevertheless assured.

She has become gifted at ignoring the shadows, though English is an unexpected torment. The Raven peels itself off of the page, snapping idly at Poe's name as it shakes its wings free; it perches on her locker for a week, just staring. The Telltale Heart beats under her desk, and she fights to not tap her foot in time. Macbeth cackles at her, speckling the textbook with rust red spots. And 1984 is full of monsters wearing Government and Law as easy disguises.

She does not tell anyone, of course. She is seventeen, and she sleeps with the same nightlight as she did when she was four. She unplugs it and hides it every time someone comes over. Even her boyfriend, a varsity wide receiver who hugs a little too tightly, does not know. He 'loves' her for the curve of her hips; she 'loves' him because he is a required accessory. Certain sacrifices must be made. She has subsumed her identity for this; why should she hold back anything else?

Next year, she will be a senior in high school; the right of superiority will finally be hers. She will reign over Popularity and Normal like a queen, dictating who is In and who is Out, and the freshmen will bow before her as before God. Beyond that... well, she supposes she will go to college and join a sorority, turning strangers into sisters, but senior year eclipses everything like a sun.

Perhaps at last, in that light, there will be no room for shadows.


............


Madison McKenzie is seventeen, and it is the first day of spring break. She will go to Starbucks; she will order a tall low-fat frappuccino with whipped cream. She will go to the mall with the girls, sweeping through the right stores like a triumphant pack, set free to ravage lesser beasts for one glorious week. They will get mani/pedis. They will go to the movies with their boyfriends. They will try to get into a local club. They will dance pithy attendance on the seniors, who have ceased to be sisters-in-arms and are now only stumbling blocks, so close to being graduated and gone they can taste it.

They will be Normal.

Madison gets as far as ordering the tall low-fat frappuccino before her day derails entirely. There is a man - a college student? - sitting in the corner, smiling at her over the curve of his coffee cup. His eyes are impossibly dark, strangely alluring. She finds herself pulling up a chair without being asked.

"You see the gaps, don't you? The spaces where they come in." His voice is rich, indolent; he puts down the coffee cup, tracing a fingertip over the rim. "You've spoken to monsters. I can tell."

The urge to recoil, to shove back the chair and get out is very strong; one hand clenches her purse strap so tightly that the knuckles go white. Who is he? How does he know these things? How dare he speak of these things to her? She's Normal...

... normal ...

She takes a deep breath. "I, like, don't know what y-"

A low, rolling chuckle interrupts her. "Let's cut the crap. I know what you've seen. You aren't alone - you know there are others. You have to have seen them, too." He raises one eyebrow at her; she nods after a moment, just once. "You've learned to recognize them. Why is it so strange that I, too, can do this? Relax... and listen."

She listens.

There are... cracks in the world. Gaps and places where darkness seeps through. This she knows. This she has always known. But the stranger names them, gateways and monsters and shadows alike. He sees them too. And he knows more about them than anyone she's ever met, any book she's ever read.

The monsters feed off of them. This, too, she knows... but the dark flash in the stranger's eyes, the flicker of anger across his features as he speaks, makes what she thought a natural behavior into an unforgivable crime. The monsters are not creatures trying to survive on the fringes.

They are the masters. They are using her. Using everyone.

Her cell phone goes off. She slaps it into silence; it vibrates angrily against her hand and goes unanswered. Her coffee cup is empty. She does not get up. All those years afraid, abnormal, strange, different... being used. Being fed upon. She had no choice. No say. What had once been frustration and fear shifts into resentment and inexorable anger.

There is another choice, he says, the light in his eyes kindling again. A group. A group that's been waiting for her. That's always been waiting for her. Her breath catches, quietly - this dynamic she knows. She understands it instinctively. People like her. People who are fighting.

But don't decide yet, he laughs, holding up one finger as if he can detect the quiver of uncertainty in her gut. Think about it. Then decide.

He is the one who stands up first, a small smile on his handsome face. It has been a pleasure speaking with her, he says. An honor to tell her the truth. He will come for her again. He kisses her hand, a ludicrously old-fashioned gesture that she secretly finds charming.

After he leaves, Madison stares at the space where he had been, and thinks.


................


The stranger is everywhere.

He is in the mall, smiling at her from behind a sale rack. He is at the McDonald's, in a corner booth, a single cup of over-processed coffee-like beverage perched in front of him. He is on the evening news, refined features visible in crowd shots from vastly different stories. It's almost like how the monsters appear - except every time she sees him, the words of the Truth echo in her mind, and the anger grows a little more.

And then, at last, he comes for her. As he promised. She is walking to school, backpack slung over her back, steps slowed. She pauses as she passes the old house, its sides still redolent with shadows. Between one footfall and the next, between one breath and the next, the stranger is there at her side.

"It's time. Are you ready to join us and take your revenge?" he whispers in her ear.

Her fists clench at her side.

Yes, yes, oh yes-

He smiles.


................



On a faraway beach, shrouded in fog, Alpha Two wakes up.

A voice...

The sound of it crashed into her memories, breaking them into pieces; Alpha Two - Madison - grabbed at them desperately, but they sliced past her fingers and disappeared into the darkness. Leaving her alone.

I, like, accomplished... accomplished... The thought died before she could say it. What, exactly, had she done? Bought the latest fashions? Delivered an ice-cold burn to a pathetic freshman? Those things didn't matter - not here, not now.

Possibly not at all, she realized with a shudder.

"I-I..." Her own voice startled her. "I want..."

Did she, in fact, want to live? Hadn't that been the promise on that bulletin board out there? But the others hadn't lived, not really. They hadn't come back to life as Phoenixes should. But maybe that was because they hadn't gone through the door first?

She didn't want to rot.

A weapon... a weapon... what did she know about weapons? The only weapons she'd ever used were words. Guns didn't feel right, and she definitely wasn't going to imagine the stupid clacky things she'd had on the island. Something sharp... knives, maybe? That might work.

She tried to picture them - sharp blades, one in each hand, because if she was going to fight she was going to have as many edges as possible. Against all logic, her heartbeat thudded loudly in her ears. "I... I want to, like... I want to live." That old, sticky anger reared up. She'd been told she'd have a chance to fight, even though she hadn't remembered any of it...

So fight.

"I'm choosing!" she shouted defiantly into the darkness, fists clenched around the hilts of the twin blades she'd imagined. "I'm going to fight! And... and don't, like, call me Maddie! It's Madison, you nerd!"