46
Christian got nearer the glassless window. The remaining were scattered on the floor like little snowflakes. They shone under the flashlight and he heard Sue’s voice at the same time.
‘I don’t want to catch them in the middle of it,’ answered, while he looked through the rotten wood. It gave up under his weight a few inches and the flashlight illuminated the entrance. From upstairs, nothing looked so scary. And suddenly, he felt something heavy pushing his shoulder and his weight broke the window. In an instant, he saw with surprise how he was falling into the void.
‘Oh my God!’ he screamed while falling. It wasn’t that high but it wasn’t that clear either. It was a mixture of hits on the porch’s roof tiles, falling like a shapeless ball hitting itself everywhere.
Finally, when he was on the ground, everything started to make sense. He felt a sharp pain in his right knee and the flashlight, now on the ground, pointed to the ground covered in roots.
‘Shit!’ he said while taking his hands to his knee in the darkness.
It was three in the morning.
47
Sue peeped her head from the next window. Her brown hair had transformed into a spot under the moonlight. Her face showed worry in the beginning, then, little by little, the wrinkles in her forehead and mouth relaxed.
‘Are you ok?’
‘Yeah, thanks...’
‘You scared me to death,’ added Sue. ‘I thought you were dead.’
‘No. I got lucky. The porch stopped me. I just fucked up my knee.’
‘Ah!’
And that was the last time she saw Christian’s shadow.
48
Denny was lighting the walls of a room downstairs. He had managed to hear something but he wasn’t sure of what. He didn’t care either, maybe that could have been Joe and Samantha. And suddenly, he noticed the house was quite big, actually. On the walls (every single one of them) there were paintings and senseless writings, product of some punks. But there was also that damn word. NONAMEMAN. Yes, it was a damn word. It didn’t make any sense.
49
Sue went downstairs slowly, scared that the wood would give up under her weight and hurt her badly. One cut made out of rotten wood would leave some pretty nasty marks. The boards cracked under her weight but nothing broke up. Then, she crossed the living room towards the house’s porch. Her flashlight moved quickly on the ground missing only by little the part covered in Joe’s blood.
Christian wasn’t there either.
‘Christian?’ Silence. ‘Christian, are you there?’
No answer.
50
Everything had happened so fast. While Sue had decided to go downstairs, the crazy man had launched himself onto Christian, and he couldn’t even scream. The three claws on his right hand had pierced Christian’s stomach and guts, filling him of blood and feces. The crazy man pulled out his claws along with Christian’s guts and he only put his hands over the wound. The pain was so intense it left Christian breathless. With a clouded sight, he could only see a dirty, old, bronze hood that seemed familiar. But he didn’t have time to think. He only had time to bare the excruciating pain and wait for death to come quickly. He saw his own guts out of his body and that made him dizzier. After that, the crazy man, James Paterson grabbed him by the hair and pulled him out of the place leaving a trail of blood and feces.
51
And Sue didn’t see anything. Her flashlight pointed everywhere and nowhere. She didn’t see Christian and entered the house again to continue looking for Joe, Samantha, and now, Christian.
But what she didn’t know was they weren’t there anymore.
52
The mattress smelled like soot and it was on a metal bed. It was in a corner of the room where Nicole had entered with her flashlight. She got near the bed and saw it was yellow and there were rat’s feces all over the mattress. She gave a step back and made a gesture of disgust. Nicole hated rats.
She pointed her flashlight to the floor and she saw more garbage. Dust, objects and painted walls. What was she doing standing there with her flashlight on? She just had to peer into a room and call them. There was no need in looking under the bed or in the corners. She wasn’t looking for her cat. Nicole felt stupid for a moment with her flashlight on her hand, directing it to the closed window. Incredibly, it had a crystal.
And just like Denny, she noticed the house was quite big.
‘Joe!’ she screamed. She thought it was pointless, then, she lowered her flashlight and then, she saw it.
53
Sue ran into her boyfriend Denny and got scared. Her heart was racing at that point. More that it had done all night.
‘You scared me,’ she told her boyfriend, pale as snow.
‘Why? Aren’t we looking for Joe and Samantha?’ reminded him, illuminating her face. She waved her hands and told him to put the light away from her eyes. Denny directed the light to the floor.
And outside, the moon light casted long, straight shadows hard to figure out. Even the shadow of a dog rising its leg to pee.
54
He was tall. He looked like the scarecrow with the trench coat. His hood hid his face. His evil face, she thought. It was a shadow between the shadows. It was too big to be Joe or Denny or Christian. But she did the stupidest thing in the world again.
‘Is that you, Joe?’ her voice sounded broken and she started to sweat.
The hooded shadow disappeared and she breathed deeply and noticed her flashlight wasn’t as bright as before. She was running out of batteries.
55
‘This fucking house is so big,’ admitted Denny while he pointed to the word NONAMEMAN. ‘You know? When I was little, I saw some weird words like these in my bedroom window.’
‘You never told me that,’ said Sue looking him in the eye.
‘I didn’t remember it until now.’
‘Really?’
‘I mean it. ¿Did you find Joe and Samantha?’
‘Do you think I would be here without telling you?’
‘No, of course not.’
And both of them continued to light several parts of the house with their flashlights as the advanced. This time, they went together. But the near future held a terrible ending, more terrible than the human mind can think of.
56
Nicole decided to call before entering a room. Why keep looking in drawers? And where the hell would they be? Maybe outside the house, she thought. She looked into several rooms and called their names but she got only silence as an answer.
Her flashlight was getting weaker and barely pointed a space in the yellowish wall. She frowned and half-closed her eyes to see in the dark.
57
Denny and Sue heard Nicole’s calls in the distance, without eco. It was like faint voice, broken by the walls. But they could hear her and decided it was a good idea, to call instead of searching every corner. Then, Nicole’s voice stopped being perceptible.
58
She peered her head in another room upstairs and then, she felt a sharp pain between the neck and the chin. Something was nailed in that part and she felt her tongue touching her palate and blood started to pour out of her mouth. She was carved by the three claws of the crazy man. She couldn’t open her mouth and her eyes opened wide showing her eyeballs bigger than usual.
She was carved like a fish on a stick.
Then, she opened her hand and dropped the flashlight which broke when it touched the floor and the light went off forever.
59
‘Did you hear something?’ asked Denny.
‘No.’
‘It sounded like a hit.’
‘This house is way too big and the rats that live in here are too. Some party!’ complained Sue lifting her hands along with the flashlight.
‘Let’s keep searching. We’re almost over. How many room would this house have? Nine?’
‘At least.’
‘We’re almost done,’ whispered Denny feeling deep dow
n inside that wasn’t the end.
60
James Paterson, the crazy man, pulled hard her body and her hands looked like those of a doll. The floor complained under the weight and he took her with the rest. With the corpses of Joe, Samantha and Christian. He had gathered them in one of the rooms. The biggest one, were there was a big wooden cross that once belonged to a religious fan. The point is that the cross was there and the crazy man wrote NONAMEMAN several times all over it. He placed the white corpses under the cross and kneeled as if he were to pray. Or maybe could it be he was counting how many there were left?
61
‘Let’s go upstairs,’ said Denny directing his flashlight to the stairs. ‘Let’s take a quick look and if we can’t find anyone, it mean they left the house. I bet they are outside already.’
‘You really think so?
‘Yes.’
And they climbed the stairs.
62
James Paterson had taken Joe out of the basement and had brought Samantha here without anyone else noticing. He was crazy but he wasn’t stupid or idiot. Only a crazy man on the loose who didn’t know about urban legends.
63
Denny and Sue entered the long hallway illuminated by the flashlights and the moon light. The long and strange shadows danced along with their steps. They called their names in every room peered their heads in them. Denny was in one room and Sue in another. Until everything stopped.
‘Oh my God, Denny!’ she lifted her hand to her head and dropped the flashlight that rolled up to the corpses. The crazy man was hidden in the dark near the door.
Denny turned around and pointed his flashlight to Sue and saw her crying and pale. He got closer to her and the floor cracked. One of the board broke with a loud sound. And then, he saw why Sue was crying.
‘Let’s get out of here, Denny! They are all dead! Fuck!’ screamed Sue and her voice sounded high.
‘Oh my God!’ was the only thing Denny could say watching the corpses of his friends. They were pale, immobile, dead and torn apart, all under that big cross. What did that mean?
‘We have to get out of here now!’ screamed Sue, out of control. Her heart was racing and she couldn’t close her mouth out of surprise.
‘Calm down!’ screamed Denny with a sudden headache. And then, that was when everything happened so fast like a lightning.
The claws reached Sue’s thigh, who started jumping due to the pain. The floor boards cracked even louder. The blood started pouring and fell to her right knee. It was warm and she could smell it.
‘He attacked me, Denny! Do something please! He’s here!’ and in that moment, Denny’s flashlight stopped working, leaving them in the dark, but he could see. Barely, but he could see.
Sue wouldn’t stop screaming and jumping. She wanted to run out of there but she couldn’t. Something that hurt too much was holding her by the thigh.
Denny, sweating and venturesome, didn’t react on time. A new blow hit Sue’s face, shutting her up at once and Denny noticed her blood on his own face. Warm and slippery. His heart had collapsed inside his chest and didn’t seem to work. The terror froze the muscles in his entire body. Sue fell to the floor and was dragged with the other corpses making a weird sound while at it. Her voice was off forever and he was there. Was it his turn now?
The crazy man turned around to look at him in the shadows. Sue’s flashlight was on the floor still on and illuminated a bunch of papers and rat poops.
Then, Denny felt a sharp pain in the face and blood came out of him. The fear froe him completely and he passed out.
64
‘And what happened then?’ asked one of his grandchildren with his hand holding his head and the elbows placed on the carpet. Denny, who had a huge scar on his face looked at him closely and pronounced the magic word. NONAMEMAN.
‘Damn, grandpa! You’ve been repeating that word all night,’ complained another grandchild who was playing with a police car next to the fireplace.
‘Calm down. What’s next id something so terrible for the human mind. Something awful. It’s not suitable for you...’
‘We’re old enough!’ complained the one with the police car.
‘All right then. I’ll go on,’ he said at the same time he moved the logs in the fire with a long iron stick.
And he continued with his story. Outside, the snow storm was still strong and the wind howled even through the fireplace.
65
He woke up in the basement with red vision. It was blood that had covered one of his eyes when one claw hit him in the face. At first, he was stunned but soon, he started to figure out shadows of what was happening. All his friends, including his girlfriend, had been moved there, scattered on the floor like rags in strange positions.
And the crazy man was there, with his back to him and with the hood off. He saw it was a tall man with red hair that reached his shoulders. He was kneeled and in front of him, there was the word NONAMEMAN written several times. He didn’t speak; he just had his arms raised when everything happened all of a sudden.
The floor was covered in roots and now, these moved or at least that is what it seemed. The roots moved towards the killer. Denny didn’t know who he was but he knew he was the killer.
On the wall in front of him, the written words moved because the wall was splitting open and showing a cold light through the cracks. The nails flew to the floor hitting the roots. The wooden boards broke into several pieces and someone was behind it. A dark, horrible human form of dark colors. That wasn’t a proper man, at least not from what Denny could notice.
The crazy man remained on his knees without moving with his arms up high and speechless. The figure showed a man in the flesh, without skin. Instead, it had roots and wooden pieces covering its body, even piercing its arms and neck.
It had splits piercing its chest and legs too and the roots were mixed with blood and fresh meat.
Denny tried to get up and scream. He tried to run away from that horrible scene but he couldn’t. He even noticed its penis and testicles being strangled by several roots. He bit his lips.
What the hell was he seeing?
And the basement filled up with a strong rotten smell.
The smell of sulfur.
The smell of Hell.
And the crazy man put his right hand on his neck, with the three claws covered in fresh blood. And he said one more thing before cutting his own throat.
‘I want to stop hearing the word NONAMEMAN. He who doesn’t have a name,’ and the blood splashed the floor and the feet of that abominable being. That thing covered in roots and logs and wooden bits.
And the crazy man fell to the floor.
And Denny passed out again.
66
‘Fuck!’ said one of his grandchildren.
‘Language,’ said Denny.
And the children who had drank a cup of hot chocolate while hearing the story, looked at his grandfather without believing their ears.
And Denny remembered again the two words he saw on his bedroom window, REDRUM TSOHG, and then, he understood. Ghost Murder or something like that. Whatever its meaning was, he understood that was only a warning. NONAMEMAN.
‘So, if your girlfriend Sue hadn’t died, would she be our grandma now?’ asked another grandchild with her chin stained with chocolate.
Denny nodded.
‘And maybe, you wouldn’t be here right now.’
Epilogue
With the first book “The Beginnings of Stephen King” which narrates the first period of the master, which will go down in history as his best stage as a writer of horror and suspense, and this book of stories inspired by the master, I have already given by satisfied, paying tribute to the great man he is.
As you could see, in this second volume (yes, I still have strength to write another book that goes on about the rest of his work) I wanted to “discover” what did little Stevie wanted to find in that box that belonged to his father, found in the basement of one of the se
veral houses he lived when he was a child, escaping poverty. Well, no one but him knows what he found that summer afternoon inside the box. We know there were several rejection letters and part of the work was inspired by writers like Edgar Allan Poe or H. P. Lovecraft. Also, King learned from these two universal writers, who left a great legacy.
Do we know how much of the box’ contents influenced Stephen’s work? Just like the X-files used to say, the truth is out there. And as a fan of King, after reading all of his work and interviews, I’ve come to the conclusion that I’ve explained in this book. I’m sure that Steve would want something like this or maybe I wasn’t good enough. It’s hard to know what he thinks and how he builds his ideas, his stories and his believes. And I want to know all of this.
To understand this book, you need to read first “The Beginnings of Stephen King”. Personally, I would have liked to add more stories to this compilation, thanking King how much he has taught me in this world filled mostly with fear and the ability to enter in the human mind. Stephen King is a very intelligent person who masters this subject. He’s constantly whispering in your ear and makes you believe. That’s the correct word.
I won’t keep going anymore because I’m sure you know who Stephen King is, that’s why you are here and have discovered this great homage to the master.
Who the hell found that box? Did he use something of it? You don’t know it, Stephen King’s fans don’t know it, and they didn’t even know there was a box. But Stephen King will always keep his secret safe. I’m sure of that. Now, King might be thinking all of this with the intention of searching that box again...
I did the best I could.
Synopsis of The Beginnings of Stephen King
The Maine writer, as many used to call him, was destined to be the best terror writer in history. That’s what his career as a writer proves. Despite having to bare hundreds of rejections of his first stories and novels, destiny was written for him; the nail holding the rejection letter finally fell.
Stephen King's Box Page 14