“Sam, what do you call someone with no body and no nose?!” I’d braced myself for whatever asinine statement was going to come out of Charlie’s mouth as I’d heard his diminutive footsteps bounding into the living room, but this was dumb even for his standards.

The nine year old had no shortage of absolutely stupid observations, musings and yes, god help me, jokes that he would dole out at a moment’s notice.

If we’re being totally, completely honest here, gun to my head - I couldn’t stand the little shit.

Kids just weren’t my thing. Never had been, never would be. They’re just annoying. You can’t have a conversation with them, they’re always sticky, they’re always yelling. Kids are really just obnoxious little morons. There probably isn’t anyone on earth less suited to the art of babysitting than me.

Now, I know what you’re thinking - you hate kids, you’ve done nothing but whine about them, why the hell are you a babysitter?

Well, on summer break in Vernon, there wasn’t much a 17 year old could do for work. Aside from waitressing down at The Empty Tanker. I was not waitressing down at The Empty Tanker. Not unless I wanted to spend my whole summer getting harassed by day drunk truckers for penny tips.

We’d lived next door to the McCutcheons my entire life, and so they’d call on me any time they were in a jam and needed a sitter for Charlie.

I hate kids. But fifty bucks is fifty bucks.

Mr. McCutcheon had knocked on our door that afternoon and offered double the usual rate to watch Charlie for a few hours that evening. It was an emergency, and they hadn’t had time to set the sitting up in advance, but seeing the dollar signs I readily accepted.

I regretted my decision almost immediately - Charlie had been especially aggravating that night. From the moment I’d walked in, he’d been running around like a chicken with its head cut off, slamming LEGO spaceships into the ground and begging me for lollipops.

It wasn’t long before I reached my limit - after dumping the entire bag of lollipops on the floor in Charlie’s playroom, I devised a new game that he was all too eager to play - “take all your LEGOs apart and put them back together one by one while I watch tv in the living room.”

The game was going really well until Charlie exploded into the room, hopping onto the couch next to me with several lollipops sticking out of his gullet, interrupting the trash TV rerun that had me enraptured. He ripped them out excitedly, sticky spit flying in all directions and dripping onto his hand.

I scowled, unable to hide my annoyance. “I thought we were playing a game.” I said sternly.

“I got bored, I already built those LEGOs. What do you call someone with no body and no nose?” He repeated the question, staring up at me expectantly as he sucked on the bundle of lollipops.

I rolled my eyes - the easiest solution here was just to play along with the stupid joke and then put the little retard to bed.

“I don’t know,” I answered. “What?”

“Nobody Nonose!” Charlie exclaimed, throwing his hands up for emphasis.

I wrinkled my nose. “That doesn’t even make sense.” I sneered. “What kind of joke is that?”

Charlie looked at me like I was the idiot.

“It’s not a joke,” he finally said. “It’s Nobody Nonose.”

“No.” I corrected him. “It’s ‘nobody knows.’ Get it? Nobody NOSE. It’s a stupid joke. At least tell it right.”

Charlie’s face twisted into an exasperated frown. “It’s not a joke Saaaam!” He whined, elongating the middle of my name. I hated when he did that.

“His name is Nobody Nonose! He has no body and no nose and he lives in my closet!”

What the fuck. I stared at Charlie incredulously. The kid had never had any weird imaginary friends like that before - were the McCutcheons raising some kind of schizo serial killer?

“No he doesn’t, that’s an imaginary friend. And it’s time for bed anyway.” I’d had enough of this shit for tonight. Mr. and Mrs. McCutcheon would probably be home soon anyway, it was a good enough excuse to put the little freak down.

Charlie crossed his arms in a huff. “But I’m not tired!” He exclaimed. “I don’t care,” I answered. “Your mom and dad are gonna be back soon anyway. Come on.”

I stood and grabbed his arm, leading him up the stairs.

“Well,” Charlie mumbled as we ascended the steps, “maybe you can meet him now. He’s probably awake anyway…”

I shook my head, annoyed.

As we reached Charlie’s darkened bedroom though, I was slightly creeped out at the sight of his tightly-shut closet door. It was a pretty big closet. I reached to flick the light on, and Charlie grabbed the bottom of my shirt, stopping me.

“Don’t!” He hissed. “He doesn’t like being woken up that way.” That made my skin crawl a little. Charlie was acting like a fucking weirdo.

“Stop being dumb,” I commanded, and flicked on the light.

Immediately , there was a soft rustling from within the closet.

I froze, and looked at Charlie. He simply shrugged, a gesture of “I told you so.”

What was this little fucker playing at. Did he have an animal trapped up here or something? Was he systematically vivisecting some poor neighborhood cat?

Slowly, I crept over to the closet door and swung it open.

“What the hell are you hiding in here-“ my heart caught in my throat as the closet’s interior was exposed to the light.

Inside the closet, laying on the floor, was a giant severed head. It was vaguely humanoid in appearance, with sallow and sickly looking yellow skin. It was gigantic - bigger than a beach ball or even a massive Halloween pumpkin. It was a nearly perfectly round orb, with small pinprick holes on the side where an ear would be on a normal human head.

Its enormous mouth hung open in a gaping slack-jawed “O”, revealing rows of razor sharp and needle-like teeth. Between its eyes and mouth was a smooth patch of that yellow skin, no other distinguishing facial features.

Charlie had a giant, nearly featureless severed head in his closet.

No body, no nose.

Before I could scream, before I could think, before anything, it’s eyes shot open. Two massive black orbs accented with murky brownish, slitted reptilian pupils.

The eyes locked with mine, and the thing let out a hideous screech, it’s mouth growing even wider than before.

It had been sleeping, and I’d woken it up.

“Charlie what the FUCK is this!!” I screamed as I frantically backed away from the hideous abomination in the closet.

“That’s Nobody Nonose!” Charlie exclaimed matter of factly. “I was playing by the creek a few days ago with Richie and Ted and we found him in that big pipe. We were looking for crickets and he was just laying there in the dirty water.”

My blood turned to pure ice.

“Richie and Ted didn’t really like him…” Charlie sounded sad. “But I told him he could stay here. He’s funny!”

The emergency , the reason the McCutcheons had gone out that evening. A couple of kids from around Vernon had gone missing recently. There was a huge search party going on as we spoke, a desperate attempt to locate them.

Another pained wail came from the closet - I turned to see Nobody Nonose, floating in mid air. The thing could levitate, apparently. I guess that was how it got around with no body. The freakish orb hovered toward me, spittle dripping from its mouth.

“Fuck fuck fuck…” I mumbled to myself, my feet feeling as if they were made of cement.

“Sam is my friend!” Charlie suddenly yelled as the creature came within inches of my face.

It stopped in its tracks, turning its lizard eyes to Charlie. I took my chance, I raised a leg and kicked at the thing, catching it off guard and sending it flying backwards. I grabbed Charlie and rushed out of the room, slamming the door behind me.

“Why did you do that!” Charlie screamed. “He’s gonna be mad!”

“Shut up, shut UP.” I demanded as we raced down the steps. “We need to get the fuck out of here.”

As we bounded into the foyer, the front door suddenly swung open. Mr. and Mrs. McCutcheon were back.

The couple wore grim facial expressions which turned to confusion as they saw us land in a heap at the bottom of the stairs.

“Sam,” Mr. McCutcheon addressed me quizzically. “Is everything okay?”

“We need to leave now. Like right now. Like immediately.”

Before he could answer, the sound of a wooden door shattering turned our attention to the stairs. An inhuman screech reverberated off the walls as Nobody Nonose floated down the steps toward us

Mrs. McCutcheon screamed in horror , her husband’s eyes grew wide. “What in the fuck -“ he began. The creature glided toward Mr. McCutcheon, much faster than the speed at which it had approached me , and in an instant it had unhinged its jaw and clamped down on his head.

There was a wet squelch as those pinprick teeth punctured the soft flesh of Mr. McCutcheon’s neck. A dull crunch as the monster crushed his skull. The stench of copper filled the room as reams of dark blood cascaded down over Mr. McCutcheon’s body , leaking from the side of the creature’s mouth.

“Daddy!” Charlie cried out in horror as Nobody Nonose released what was left of his father’s body, the corpse crumpling to a heap that was rapidly gushing crimson.

I slapped a hand over my mouth , not even able to muster a scream.

On the other hand, Mrs. McCutcheon screamed bloody murder. She had gone sheet white, hands around the sides of her face. She was in pure disbelief at the sight in front of her.

The creature faced her now, her husband’s blood and bits of viscera staining its wide face and dripping from its lips. The woman turned to run, her fight or flight mode activated. She sprinted into the living room, the thing in hot pursuit. It didn’t take long for it to catch her.

Her screaming was cut short, and I could only imagine a similar feeding to the one we’d just witnessed was occurring out of our line of vision. There was only silence now. Charlie wept , clinging to my leg, loudly crying out for his mommy and daddy.

I didn’t know what to do. I was afraid that any movement I made would be an invitation for the thing to float back into the room and wrap those jaws around my head next.

After what felt like an eternity had passed, we heard shaky and unsteady footsteps on the hardwood, making their way back into the foyer.

Into the room stepped Mrs. McCutcheon, only.. not. Atop the body of the woman I’d called a neighbor since childhood , was the bulbous and jaundiced cranium of Nobody Nonose.

Blood flowed down what had once been Mrs. McCutcheon’s body, starting from her freshly torn neck hole. The hole that Nobody Nonose had set itself on. It was almost comedic, that giant monstrous head perched on such a petite frame.

The head bobbed from side to side as the creature tried to steady itself on new legs. Slowly, it strode toward us, eyes locked with mine.

For the first time that night, it smiled, showing off its red-stained teeth in a wide grin.

Charlie continued his wailing, mixed with some nearly unintelligible muttering. “Why did you do that?” He cried. “I thought we were friends, I thought we were friends…” the kid sounded so hopeless and terrified and lost. Who could blame him?

Nobody Nonose outstretched “his” arm toward me, grunting expectantly.

I understood what he wanted instantly. Did I really have a fucking choice? Wordlessly, and through his screeching protests, I pried Charlie off of my leg and handed him over to the monster that had eaten his parents.

Nobody Nonose wrapped Charlie in a tight hug and growled in approval, pressing the child tight against the sopping wet clothes stained by his mother’s blood.

The creature gave me one last look before bounding out of the foyer on its shaking and unbalanced legs. I heard a window shatter in the distance as they made their way into the night, Charlie’s screams gradually evaporating into nothing.

As I sunk to the floor, I clutched my knees to my chest. Sitting at the foot of the stairs next to Mr. McCutcheon’s headless corpse, I attempted to process what I’d just seen. Suddenly , the front door swung open once again, and i was face to face with my father.

“Sam!” He exclaimed. “We heard screaming, we heard a window break, what the hell is going on…” he trailed off, mouth going slack as he surveyed the carnage of the room.

He stared at me, wide-eyed, unable to speak.

It felt like I was floating in another universe, like I was watching my own dream.

Tears streamed from my eyes as I began to laugh uncontrollably, a maniacal and insane cackle.

“Hey dad,” I said breathlessly, barely able to even speak in my fit of gut busting hysterics. “What do you call someone with no body and no nose?”