Summary

The short story “The Boogeyman” by Stephen King opens with the main character, Lester Billings, telling his psychiatrist Dr Harper that he is responsible for the deaths of his three children. Before beginning the story, Lester is scared by a closet in the room. He asks Dr Harper to open it. He is relieved to see it contains nothing except clothes and shoes.

Lester goes on to tell the story of how his first child died suddenly one night, after crying about the boogeyman. The cause of death was determined to be crib death, but Lester does not believe that. He also mentions that the closet door in the boy’s room was open a crack, even though he had left it closed.

A similar thing happened to the second child, a daughter. One night, the child started screaming about the boogeyman. This time, Lester did ...