A Pound of Flash

by David McAfee

  By now I thought the prank more cerebral. My roommate had procured some old chest from the theatre department and then left it as an unwelcome surprise. I chuckled, thinking how amusing it might look if I still had it months later. No doubt Gary planned bumps in the night and strange shapes drawn with chalk across my walls. I chuckled. Perhaps my fake email from a cult accepting his ‘application’ had given him lofty ambitions for retaliation.

  I put away the rest of my clothes, hooked up my computer, and then turned to leave.

  I heard the click of the lock as I touched the doorknob.

  My mind sort of hiccupped there. The doorknob slowly warmed underneath my fingers as I tried to understand how the lock could have opened automatically. If it was a theatre prop, it was a damn good one.

  The chest is big enough for a person, I realized. Tensed and ready, I spun, ready for Gary to lunge out at me like a B-movie monster. Nothing. No person. No prankster. Just a giant water-worn chest with its lock hanging open. The bar remained looped through the latch, and for this I was strangely grateful.

  Enough, I thought. Whatever stupid prank this was, whatever game, I wasn’t going to run like a scared girl, nor pretend the chest wasn’t there. Open it, let the scare be done, and then have a good laugh later with my friends while I schemed retaliation. That was my plan.

  I freed the shackle from the latch. It was heavy, and it thudded loudly when I dropped it on the carpet. The metal of the latch was cold and disturbingly wet when I pushed it upward. Grabbing the sides of the lid, I tensed. I expected rubber snakes or Gary in a cheap Halloween outfit. Never could have prepared myself for what I saw within. Never.

  I was still screaming when I clicked the lock shut. My hands shook as the last remnants of the red light faded from my room. For a terrible moment it had seemed like the walls shook within the glow, pressed outward by a force I could not only feel but also see.

  The lock wouldn’t stay shut. The moment it left my touch it’d spring open. The lid to the chest never moved, never even bumped upward, but the docile nature felt like a dangerous lie. Lock, unlock. Lock, unlock. It was a game, and I was losing.

  When I came back from the hardware store I had two padlocks in my pocket. My heart raced as I opened the door to my room. The lock was open and laying on the floor. A strange sound, like a shrieking eagle in pain, blasted my ears.

  I flung my weight against the lid, jammed the first lock through the latches, and clicked it shut. The piercing sound stopped. Tears ran down my face as I clutched the other lock in my hand. I wanted to use it, that I was sure of. One lock was not enough. At the time, a hundred locks didn’t seem enough. I should have fled then and there. If I could have seen myself now, several hundred keys jingling in my pockets, perhaps I would have.

  Gary sat on our lone reclining chair when I came back out. He had the television remote and was flipping absently through the channels.

  “Did you hear that?” I asked.

  “Oh hey,” Gary said, tossing the remote. “Didn’t realize you were back. How was your break?”

  “Fine,” I said. I pointed toward my room. “Did you not hear that?”

  “Hear what?”

  I stared at him. No smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. No twinkle in his eyes. Gary was a terrible liar, and at this moment, there was no lie.

  I thought back to the noise, the red light, and the terrible world I saw within.

  Fuck.

  *

  When Gary left for a party (without inviting me either, the bastard) I rushed to the nearest hardware store.

  “Gonna do some towing?” another customer asked me as I coiled a massive chain over my shoulder.

  “Home security,” I told him.

  Thankfully the thing was still locked when I returned. My shoulders ached from the weight. With trembling hands, I stared at the chest, my mind still struggling to cope with what I had seen.

  Ever so faintly, I heard a shrieking whistle. When I touched the lock, it was warm and wet, like human skin. I wrapped the chains around the chest, taking grim satisfaction at the rattle they made. If I had thought about it, I might have moved the chest somewhere less conspicuous, but between the chains and its own unnatural weight, I doubted I could even slide it across the carpet.

  When I clicked my second padlock shut, its shackle looped through two of the heavy chains, the piercing noise stopped.

  “Thank god for small favors,” I breathed aloud.

  I probably have someone else to thank for the chest, because if a god deposited that monstrous contraption in my apartment, it wasn’t a bearded father but instead an old, twisted deity, more Cthulhu than Hallmark.

  The noise gone, the chest locked, I did my best to resume some sense of normality. The days passed uneventful, not counting the standard mad chaos of beginning a new semester. My roommate mentioned the chest only once in passing. I got the distinct impression he was purposefully ignoring it. Maybe he thought I was hiding drugs inside.

  Halfway through my second week I put the chest out of mind entirely. It was locked, chained, and silent. Winter Solstice was a year away, but at least I had hope that someone would come take it back. Of course, I didn’t know who that someone was, or if he was even human (strange how easy those thoughts came after gazing into that maddening red light).

  Then one day, my classes done for the week, I returned to the apartment, tossed my books onto the table, and then pushed open the door to my room.

  The chains were loose. The two locks were open and hanging to the side, their shackles barely touching metal. Red light flickered across my chest through the thin line revealed by the lid’s slight rise. I saw a finger.

  I flung my whole body atop it. My hands fumbled at the lock. The metal squished against my touch. I looped the shackle through and snapped it shut, only it didn’t snap. It made a splooshing noise as its innards turned. Relooping the chains was a quick affair, and thankfully its lock made a much more sturdy noise when I shut it.

  This done, I sat on my bed and stared at the chest. It seemed still enough. The chains didn’t rattle, and the locks stayed closed. For how long, I wondered. I heard the shrill noise in my ear, and for the first time I realized what it was: screaming. The chest was shut, the locks locked, yet the noise continued. I shuddered as I listened to the continuous wail. I couldn’t sleep through that. Hell, I couldn’t live through that, not without going insane.

  I laughed. Why the fuck was I worried about going insane? I was on a nice fast track toward that already. The finger had been yellow. Instead of a nail, there had been a single purple-rimmed eye.

  I stared at the chain. Two locks weren’t enough, I decided. No reason to take chances. I had money enough, plus a credit card my parents had been dumb enough to give me. For emergencies, of course, and as I drove toward the hardware story I decided that if finger-eyes poking out from another dimension didn’t count as an emergency, nothing did.

  I came home with seven locks, two of them with keys, five with dials. Both locks were open when I got home, but the chains were still wrapped tight and the lid closed. The shriek had grown louder, though. I yanked open the first lock from its package, slipped its shackle through the chains, and clicked it shut. The shrill noise’s volume dropped in half.

  That was when I made the connection. The second new lock dulled the shrill to a gentle whisper when it clicked snug onto the chain. As an experiment, I attached one of the dial ones to the thin metal leg of my computer desk. The noise stopped completely.

  The chest hated locks.

  That was three months ago. I have two hundred and seventeen padlocks, one hundred and fifteen radial locks, sixty-three combination locks, nine cabinet locks, twenty-two chain locks (the ones used to keep bikes from being stolen), and just because I thought it was hysterical, a fucking steering wheel lock.

  The padlocks circle around the chain like some prison-ward Christmas tree. I sprinkled in a few of the colored combination and radial locks, pretending
they were lights. Every leg of my computer desk has twelve combination locks and six radial locks. The steering wheel lock rests underneath my bed, directly below my pillow.

  At night, while I try to sleep, I can sometimes see the red light sneaking out through the crack, floating across the chains, softening them. Ruining them. Making them flesh.

  Six months until the Winter Solstice.

  Fuck.

  ***

  David Dalglish currently lives in rural Missouri with his wife Samantha, daughter Morgan, and bearded dragon. He graduated from Missouri Southern State University in 2006 with a degree in Mathematics and currently works as a para-professional with Special Education students. He spends his free time watching PBS and Spongebob Squarepants with his daughter.

  Table of Contents

  Other Books by David McAfee:

  Florida Vacation

  Honest Mistake

  Lysol

  Exhibit B

  Never Turn Your Back on the Dead

  Crazy

  Last Stand

  Surviving the Zombie Invasion

  Neighbors

  Devil Music

  Goth Chick

  One of Four

  Soup

  Gamer Beware

  Cancun

  Alone on the Mountain

  Apology

  Return to Ravenworld

  Locked and Locked Again