Stephen King's Box Page 12
The next day, Denny didn’t go to school. He was simply taken by the Boogeyman or the suit man, which is how this unspeakable being is known which lives in the closet and, sometimes, under the bed or under the sheets. Or was it a ghost?
But this isn’t the story. It’s just a part of it.
4
Denny was a retired English teacher from the University of Maine, and he enjoyed his retirement, when suddenly, he remembered everything that happened. The words REDRUM TSOHG that he saw on his bedroom window, when his parents were alive, when he only was a boy. And he remembered the word NONAMEMAN. Many years had gone by since that and he even had buried his wife. He still had his children and grandchildren and he continued to write weird horror stories, the human perception to this phenomenon. And all of them had died by the hands of a maniac on the loose. A killer without knowledge or scruples; someone not smart. And the legend, that fucking legend that everyone questioned if it was real or not. He knew and was about to tell them everything that happened that damn summer night, after graduating college.
5
Everyone was sitting next to the fireplace drinking a big cup of hot chocolate. Outside, the snowflakes fell conducted by a strong winter wind. A dog barked far from there, maybe because it was cold. Then, someone said something and the dog stopped barking. “Someone must have picked it up”, thought an old Denny. His wrinkles made line in his forehead and face. He already had some purple spots under his eyes as well as some red spots on his cheeks. He still had his own set of teeth, but they weren’t as and white straight as before. His white hair covered his head down to his shoulders. His lips were dry and cracked. His voice was rough but nice to hear. He was sitting on his rocket chair with his eyes fixed on his grandchildren, with an unusual spark on his eyes. He was about to tell them a story he had never written. Until now.
6
‘Humans make awful crimes and are the protagonists of all kinds of situations,’ said Denny with a low voice. He made a pause to look deeply at his grandchildren, and then continued. ‘The legend says don’t look at him, don’t watch him, and above all, don’t say his name. otherwise, he’ll take over you and pull out the worst in you. He’ll find your darkest thoughts and force you to make them true. He can even make you kill your hatefull neighbor or break your brother’s arm out of simply envy. And the more you are afraid of him, the more he possesses you and makes you do horrible things that were only in your mind. That’s all he needs, one simple thought. If you say his name, he’ll take over all of your family and friends and make them kill each other and you won’t be able to do anything. But of course, this is the legend of NONAMEMAN...’
‘What?’ interrupted one of his grandchildren, the blonde one, closest to the fireplace, sitting on the floor on the red carpet.
‘NONAMEMAN doesn’t mean anything. It’s just a man with no name,’ explained Denny scratching his chin.
‘So?’ asked another grandchildren, the brunette one.
‘Let me tell you the story,’ said Denny calmly.
And he started the story and to remember, in front of his grandchildren, who were so stunned that kept their eyes wide open as well as their mouths. The fire in the fireplace continued to dance.
7
It was graduation day on 1965 and Denny himself had the great idea of celebrating with his friends: Christian, Joe, Samantha, Sue and Nicole. They were going to celebrate all night in the house that no one named or even pointed with a finger. An abandoned house near campus, on Value Street. No one knew its number neither, but it was a great place to drink some beers and check if the legend that surrounded the house was real. The jacket man must be very tall to take all the just graduated boys, joked Joe. At least, he must look like Slender Man. Everyone was laughing and joking, and yes, there was a little fear and anxiety among them, including Denny.
That night started with the left foot. Samantha had a fight with Joe because of Sam’s jelousy. She told Joe that he only had eyes for Sue’s tits. And Joe didn’t try to hide his attention from Sue. This caused the couple to keep their distance between each other for the first hour of the “trip”.
Christian was Nicole’s boyfriend and Denny was dating Sue, the girl with the huge tits. But everything was forgotten when they stopped in front of the house without number, without name. They all went silent and observed the eyes of the house. It had two windows located in the front of the house, looking like eyes. The door, blocked by two wooden boards served as a mouth.
‘Uhh! Scary, isn’t it?’ said Joe shaking his right hand as if it was getting electrocuted.
‘Actually, it is,’ admitted Christian under the surprised gaze of his girlfriend.
‘Well then, let’s go inside,’ said Denny stepping forward holding tightly his backpack.
‘Wait!’ said his girlfriend Sue, whose eyes were wide open. ‘It really is scary. What if all of it’s true?’
Denny shrugged with a stupid smile on his face.
‘Then, we’ll be the first to know,’ he said putting his hands on his pockets.
‘Really funny, honey. Like always.’
Nicole stepped forward with a bag full of bottles of alcohol.
‘Yes, he’s got a point,’ and walked towards Denny who was three steps ahead.
After that, everyone else smiled slightly and moved forward, carrying backpacks, willing to go inside the house.
8
They didn’t have to use much force to take off the boards from the door. They broke easily. The rusted nails remained pinned to the door. They opened the door with one kick and a cloud of dust filled the space in front of them. Nicole sneezed.
‘Voila!’ said Joe with a bigger, stupid smile on his face, from ear to ear, showing his white teeth under the moon light.
‘In, boys,’ said Sue bending down. Sue had long, straight, dark hair that went with his brown eyes.
And one by one, they all went inside the house.
9
James Paterson had escaped from the psychiatric center several days before the graduation in Boad Hill. Despite the fact that the center was far from campus, he had managed to arrive there without a car, through the woods. He large amount of sedatives consumed during twelve years in the center had turned him into no less that a zombie, dragging his feet and drooling from his mouth. His long, red hair was a mess and it was dry. His eyes had no expression. He was seven feet tall and had over two hundred and twenty pounds. Now, after his freedom, his mind was clouded by the medication. He could think a little better every day that went by, but only dark stuffed crossed his mind.
He hid himself in the house with no name and no number, entering through a hole in the roof. There, the police would never find him. Ducking like an animal, he waited and waited a few days until he started to feel hungry. Another kind of hunger.
10
At the bottom of the main entrance, they could see a shadow. It looked like the shadow of a man. The hearts of the group started to beat faster. The girls muffled their screams with their hands and opened their scared eyes.
‘Fuck...’ was the only thing Denny could whisper.
The shadow moved slowly to one side, then to the other, swaying, and all of the group took a step backwards. Their hearts racing inside their chests, was a signal of total fear. Samantha was about to scream with all her strength, but didn’t.
Joe stuck a hand inside his back pocket. He had remembered that he had a little flashlight.
The shadow moved again like someone drawing a gun. Joe directed the flashlight to the shadow at the same time a scream came out of his mouth like fire.
‘Ahh!’
It only was a scarecrow covered by a plastic, bronze trench coat.
‘God damn it! I almost shit my pants,’ admitted Christian taking a hand to his chest. He breathed deeply.
11
The crazy man was on the loose and was there, standing next to them, only a few meters away. He was drooling and listening. His inexpressive eyes moved slowl
y inside its dark eye sockets. His large hands grabbed a wooden board that used to work as a railing. He was upstairs, next to the stairway. He didn’t move, even though he was crazy, he wasn’t stupid. If he moved, the wooden floor would make a noise, because it was very old.
12
Joe came closer to the scarecrow that was suspended by a rope. He touched it and it swung further. The girls let out a small laughter.
‘Is this the legend?’ asked Christian to everybody.
‘Yeah, damn,’ said Denny and added: ‘But it did make you shit your pants...’
‘Just like you,’ interrupted Christian at the same time he left his backpack on the floor. It made a strong noise when it touched the floor and it lifted a cloud of dust.
‘Yeah, it was quite a scare,’ said Nicole while she looked around to the areas the flashlight illuminated. Joe was quite upset next to her.
‘Take out your flashlights, you pussies,’ said Denny throwing his heavy backpack to the floor. Another little cloud of dust rose.
Christian bended over to search inside his backpack. He thought of a long and heavy thing and he found it. He turned it on and joined the flashlight of Joe. His was more powerful.
Denny took out his flashlight too. The girls waited in the middle of the entrance but dropping their bags to the floor. Nicole’s bag made a strong noise when the bottles inside crashed into each other.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said putting a hand in her mouth.
‘You will leave us with nothing to drink,’ complained Joe at the same time he directed his light to Nicole’s tits for a moment. Samantha looked at him frowning. Joe led his light to somewhere else.
13
The giant James was still hidden in his spot, quietly, without moving, but he saw the scarecrow wrapped by the trench coat and he liked it. He thought he must have it. But he’ll do that later. Now, they were down there. And he was crazy but he wasn’t and idiot...
14
There were two couches covered in dust and scratched, like if big rats had put their claws in there, or maybe cats. There was a wooden table rotten in the middle and two incomplete chairs on the floor. The dust and the dirt covered all the furniture that was left and the floor. There was a kitchen in the back where they found the scarecrow. It was a wood stove and they noticed that it had wood inside. A lot of wood. And next to the entrance, there was a fireplace. Everything was near and compacted in a small area. Joe pushed a button on the wall but the light didn’t reach the light bulbs. It was obvious; there wasn’t any light in there since many years ago. Denny was the first one to think in starting the fire in the fireplace; not to heat them, because it was summer, but to light up the room. They had brought candles, of course. They now had light, despite Joe’s stupid idea of trying the switch. Maybe he thought that night was special and they would turn on.
Not that night.
15
James continued hidden like a rat stalking, in the darkness and watching how they started the fire and turned off the flashlights. The girls made a gagging motion every time they touched anything.
‘Are we going to spend the night in this swinery?’ asked Sue with her hands up high and her sweater framing her chest.
Nobody answered. She began to arrange the bottles one next to the other while she grimaced and frowned.
All of them were down there and James was hungry, but no one opened a single can of food, not even a fucking cake. No cranberries, James liked that so much. God damn it. Now, he had another kind of hunger.
16
Once they were well installed inside the house and loaded with alcohol, which made them laugh, Denny, who was lying on his tent bed which was lying on the dusty floor, noticed something no one else noticed when they first got in. in the ceiling, between the dark and the dancing flames of the fire, there was a sentences carved in the wood. The sentence read: “Never remember my name”. Denny was forced to stop drinking from the bottle of whisky and focused on the ceiling.
Joe, who was next to him side by side, noticed the strange behavior of Denny. He also lifted his gaze but, being so drunk; he couldn’t see anything but little splits and carved woods. His girlfriend, Samantha, had her head lying on his lap. She was a redhead and she had dozens of freckles on her cheekbones. When they fought, Joe called her “Carrie”, to upset her even more. Now, they were happy and laughing nonstop, near the heat of the fire. He was topless and she was wearing a light sweater. The sweat fell through his body like a jet of hot water.
Nicole was sitting in her boyfriends lap, Christian, who was the smartest person when it came to drinking, and he had half a can of beer in his hand.
Denny fixed his gaze somewhere else and he found another sentence: “Never write my name”. He burped and started to think. Would there be something else written by their feet? As matter of fact, there was. He told Sue to step aside because he was going to look under his tent bed, just to check if there was dog’s poop or something. He said this to pretend. Sue moved growling like a dog which is forced to abandon its bed. Denny lifted his legs and move to a side still on the bed. And underneath the dust, underneath the broken carpet, there was something written, which was visible due to the fire. “Never say my name”. Denny had the urge to jump from the floor, but didn’t. Instead, he dropped the whisky bottle which made a noise that sounded strong in the room.
‘Fuck, Denny! That’s expensive!’ complained Sue. The other continued to laugh and drink, next to the fireplace while their bodies sweated.
‘Don’t look at me, don’t watch me and never say my name. The legend says that if you see him and say his name at the same time, he possesses you and turns you into a dark being. He would take out your darkest side and the more afraid you are of him, the more he takes over you,’ said Denny to himself.
‘What are you talking about?’ asked drunk Joe.
Denny felt like he wasn’t talking alone.
‘Yeah, what were you saying?’ asked his girlfriend Sue, kicking him slowly.
Denny shrugged and pointed with his index finger.
17
James moved slowly while he watched his victims with extreme caution. He was still upstairs, holding the railing. Watching and analyzing. The worst was yet to come.
18
REDRUM TSOHG were the two words that came suddenly to Denny’s mind. He remembered them after reading those sentences and something else. “NONAMEMAN”. It was written all over the place and the laughter stopped to leave room to silence. Denny had remembered and that made him feel sick and scared. They all looked with eye wide open the words written on the walls, ceiling and floor. Suddenly, Christian dropped his beer can and added.
‘Oh, come on! How many fucking kids weren’t here before us?’ he was shaking his head but his eyes seemed lost.
‘Yeah, right.’ Said Joe and he closed his lips tight.
Sue let out a little laugh and put a hand on her mouth.
‘You are so dumb,’ she said.
Then Nicole said something else.
‘It has no name,’ and closed her mouth.
Then, that was when everyone really fucked up that night.
19
Two hours later, James had in his possession the scarecrows trench coat. He had the hood on and it fitted him perfectly. He took it when the group fell asleep when the fire extinguished. The scarecrow, which was made of roots instead of straws, was lying on the floor, next to the group. James didn’t care about this fact, but the group wondered how the roots had gotten there and what were they feeding from. But no one asked those questions, and that wasn’t their intentions. The sentences were in plain sight. James saw them first and even though he was crazy, he knew how to read and write. He wasn’t a fool. That’s why he wrote NONAMEMAN all over the place, with the help of a wooden spatula that he made himself. He needed some claws to cut open their guts and that would be enough. In a way, James had the intention of bringing back the legend. In another way, he just wanted to let go his insanity.
20
Around two in the morning, Joe woke up because he had the urge to pee. He sat up in some blankets they brought to sleep. They had it all planned out from the beginning. His bladder was about to burst and he was in pain. He looked around and decided he was going to piss outside the entrance door. No one would walk around there at that time anyway.
He stood up with a hand covering his bladder area and a little pee came out of him. Everyone was asleep and what was going to be a great graduation party ended up being just a simple drunken night with a sad ending. No one woke up and even one of the girls was snoring. It was Nicole, whose head was near Christian’s crotch. He could bet that Christian didn’t even have a spontaneous erection due to the alcohol.
Joe walked towards the door which shone light through the cracks in the wood. Tonight, there was a full moon and its shine hit Joe’s face. When he reached the spot, he undid the zip and took out his flaccid penis. The stream of piss flooded the stairway to the entrance like a broken pipe. And suddenly, right when he started to feel the relief from the bladder, he felt a strong twinge at the back of the neck. It felt like big needles, almost as spikes. And a liquid warmer than sweat ran down his neck and chest. His eyes opened widely and flipped inside their sockets. He didn’t screamed, he just opened his mouth forming a big O and his face reflected all the pain and the surprise in the world for being caught off guard.
Then, the pain left as quickly as it had come. What was running down his neck and chest was blood. Joe fell to the floor.
Behind him, a huge figure with a plastic, bronze trench coat hid in the shadows.
21
Ten minutes later, Samantha woke up because of Joe’s absence. Her red hair was tangled and she had a headache. She looked around and saw that everyone else was still asleep on the blankets or in their sleeping bags. What was meant to be a great party had come to be a quick ingestion of alcohol until they fell asleep. Some party.