by Lucy Snyder
Penny’s footsteps were moving across the ceiling again, and soon he heard the basement door open.
“I got it, guys.” Penny padded down the creaky stairs carrying a big white picnic plate piled with odds and ends from the refrigerator and pantry. She had a big, lidded Styrofoam cup tucked under one thin arm, and — Lewis’ heart skipped a beat — under the other was the black lacquered puzzle box.
Penny carefully set the plate down on the concrete floor between the boys, then the cup, and then handed the box to Lewis. “It was on the coffee table, like you said. It was on a couple of really old books…they looked important but I couldn’t carry them, too.”
“That’s okay; this is great!” Lewis ran his fingers over the surface of the box, mesmerized. This was the first time he’d been close enough to see that each side of the box was shaped like a face of some sort, but not a human face…or maybe they were faces of things that had once been human but weren’t anymore. Oh, whoever had made this was super-smart, some kind of genius, probably. Lewis envied anyone who was that smart, that clever. Just looking at it—even looking at it up close—he couldn’t find one seam, one indentation, one pressure point that even hinted at how you went about opening it.
Pretend it’s like the Rubik’s Cube, he told himself. Pretend that you’re doing this on a dare. Pretend that it’s something fun. This was the best way to go, to think of it as a fun game…because, holding it his hands now, feeling as if the six faces were laughing at him, Lewis realized that there was no going back. He had to solve it, to open it before the Cold Ones came back. If he didn’t, if he was still messing with it when they got home with no genie to help, they would probably kill him — or Penny or Carl — and make him watch.
Fun, he reminded himself. Think of this as a game, nothing more.
Carl was already diving into the food, wrapping a cold hot dog in a slice of white bread and stuffing it into his mouth.
“Don’t be a piglet; leave some for Lewis,” Penny scolded, then turned to the elder boy: “Put that down an’ eat something.”
“I will, in a minute.” His fingers had found a seam in the box, so slight he’d missed it the first time.
“No, now,” she said, grabbing the box and gently pulling it away from him. “I got pickles just for you.”
“Give that back!”
Penny shook her head. “Huh-uh. You gotta be hungry, Lewis, and I don’t want you to get sick. I love you.”
The rest of the protestations died in Lewis’ throat. Penny had never said that to him before, and he realized with something between surprise and well, duh that he loved her, as well. Piglet Carl, too.
“I love you, too,” he whispered, trying to keep his voice steady.
“You’d better,” replied Penny, handing him the pickles and the Styrofoam glass that was filled with milk. “I got the milk from a jug that was half-empty. No way they’ll notice.”
Lewis devoured two pickles, loving everything about the experience: the crunch, the sudden burst of sour sweetness, the juice washing over his tongue and then trickling down his throat. Nothing he’d ever eaten before or would ever eat again could ever taste this good. Except the milk he drank next. And the hot dog after that. And then the bread and cheese.
For a few minutes the three of them sat in silence, eating, sharing the milk, grinning at one another as they chewed their food. After the initial burst of pigging out, they slowed their feasting, not only because they didn’t know when they’d eat again and so wanted to savor everything, but also because none of them wanted to eat too fast and make themselves sick. All of them knew how the Cold Ones would make them get rid of each other’s sick, and it was not something any of them were in a hurry to repeat.
Penny handed the box back to Lewis and then went over to her section of the wall, sitting down near her chains. “I think I can maybe get my left hand back in,” she said, pushing one of the manacles around with her foot, “but there ain’t no way this is going back.” She held up her bandaged hand.
“If I can get this open,” said Lewis, his fingers and thumbs caressing the surface of the box, searching out the seam he’d found earlier, “you won’t have to worry about that anymore.”
Penny’s face brightened. “Really?”
“Really. Swear to God.”
Carl swallowed the grapes he’d been chewing. “So you weren’t lying? That thing really is magic?”
“Yes, it is.” Dear God, please let that be the truth. “It sure is.”
And there it was—the seam. He probed its edges, its surface, the contours of the face in which it was hidden; clockwise, counter-clockwise, side to side, up and down and then—
—click!
The sound was so quiet, so soft, so subtle, that none of them should have been able to hear it, but hear it they did, and for a moment all stared in wonder as a section of the box slid out, revealing an interior that was so shiny Lewis could actually see part of his face reflected.
“It’s a music box!” said Penny, her face suddenly a joyous thing, full of summer afternoons with kites high above.
It took a moment, but then Lewis heard it, as well; a soft tinkling melody like a bird’s song at morning.
“Cool,” said Carl.
Penny put a finger to her lips. “Shh, Piglet. Leave him alone. You go ahead and work, Lewis. We’ll be quiet.”
“Thank you.”
Lewis lost all track of time after that; for him, the world was the box, its faces, his eight fingers and two thumbs, and the fervent hope that he was still the best puzzle-solver anybody had ever seen.
His fingers danced over the surface of the box, finding more seams that opened to reveal hidden indentations that in turn offered up more clicks. Lewis hunched over the box, possessed by it, enamored of it, his concentration total, his control the strongest it had ever been when confronted with a riddle, brainteaser, or puzzle. Like with the Rubik’s Cube in a life that seemed so long ago and no longer part of him, he eventually fell into a rhythm, found his heart beating in time with his breathing while his fingers pressed down in counter-time, on the upbeat. He didn’t know how or why but his whole body—his entire being, within and without—seemed now to be part of an orchestra, every digit a note, every movement a new instrument joining in the music, every breath a change of key, every click! the sound of the conductor’s baton tapping against the podium as the next section of the symphony began. Part of him knew the music was coming from the ever-opening box but he would not allow himself to think about that because to do so would invite wonder, and wonder would invite hesitation, and under no circumstances could he hesitate now. The box was offering its secrets up to him, almost as if it were telling him where next to press, to tap, to push, caress and pull.
It’s letting me open it he thought to himself. It wants me to succeed.
His fingers danced a glissando over the six sides once more, and when the final clicks revealed the mirror-like interior of the last six sections, the box came alive in his hands, rose from his palms as if it were a bubble, a leaf in the wind.
And it began to spin. There was no way to tell if it were spinning slow or fast because the interior sections caught the light from the single bulb overhead and turned it into a prism, the colors shooting out and slicing over the surface of the basement walls, the music from within nearly deafening as now the sound of a great pealing bell overpowered all others. Lewis could feel his heart slamming against his ribcage in time with the bell. He looked over and saw that Penny now sat close to Carl, the two of them holding one another, staring at the miraculous thing happening in front of their eyes.
The whirling colors slowed as the dancing box began to spin downward, and with each turn the light in the basement flickered in, then out, until, at the last, everything was cast into a darkness so complete that for an instant Lewis thought he might have just died and discovered that there was no God, after all. Not even a hint of a God. Only nothing…except, however, grief and loneliness.
He began to say something to Carl and Penny but the first word came out as a broken whisper and fell to the ground, writhing there for a moment before it crumbled to dust.
Lewis was aware of every aspect of his physical self in so complete a way that he would not have been surprised to hear his very cells talking to one another. Even the house seemed to be breathing. Lewis froze in place, his eyes wide, and that’s when the genie that had been hiding in one of the newly shadowed corners began moving into the light.
It is magic! Lewis sang within himself, barely able to contain his joy. The box was magic and there was a genie and he knew exactly, precisely what his first wish was going to be … but then he pulled in a deep breath and nearly gagged on the damp, heavy stink of rot that assaulted him.
“Who summons us?” said the genie.
Lewis’ mouth hung open, lips and tongue dumb meat, made mute by a single word: us. Who summons us?
Sounds of movement from other corners, deeper shadows, crept and slithered forward. Lewis looked around once, quickly, and then closed his eyes as he tried to rid his mind of what he’d glimpsed; unable to do that, he willed these sights to break apart, to fragment, to become the disconnected pieces of a picture puzzle that by themselves were still horrible, but so much easier to confront than the whole. This was an old trick he’d taught himself long ago, when the searing ugliness of things he’d seen, things he’d been forced to do, to watch, to imagine, threatened to consume him: take the memory, the image, the lingering sensation and all thoughts connected with it, snap them apart, and scatter them to the wind.
And so he scattered: impressions of things turned inside-out; flayed skin that billowed out like a dress caught in an updraft; fresh, sick-making scars that covered entire bodies; eyes burned closed; noses split down the center and peeled backwards; hooks and nails and staples mangling genitals; shiny black liquid dribbling from torn lips; bowels on the outside stretched into tubes that fed a creature’s own filth back into its mouth. Break and scatter, break and scatter.
There.
Facing the first genie—which surely wasn’t a genie at all—he steeled himself and opened his eyes.
“I asked a question, boy,” said the creature. “Who summons the Order of the Gash?”
“I did,” Lewis managed to get out, finally. He shot a quick glance toward Carl and Penny; the two were now wrapped tightly in one another’s arms, faces buried in each other’s shoulders as they shuddered and whimpered.
Good, he thought. Stay that way. Don’t move, don’t speak, and keep your eyes closed.
The creature moved farther into the light. “And what do you want of us, boy?”
“Boy…” said another creature somewhere behind Lewis, its voice a mockery, clogged with something thick roiling from a throat equal parts metal and muscle.
The creature that had spoken first stopped moving, looked at Lewis, and then turned its jaundiced eyes toward Carl and Penny. “Oh,” it said. And smiled. Its mouth was filled with too many small yellow, jagged teeth, all of them shaped like tiny backward hooks. “The sweet, tender flesh of children.”
“Children…”
“Such a treat…”
“Baby-meat…”
Hook-Mouth held up one of its hands, silencing the others. “You summoned us, boy. What do you want?”
Lewis looked once more at Penny and Carl. This had been a terrible, horrible mistake, he knew that now, but maybe he could still save them.
“I called you,” he said to Hook-Mouth. “They had nothing to do with this.”
“Answer me. What do you want of us?”
“Help us get out of here.”
Hook-Mouth burst out laughing. “Help you? Boy, you have no idea what you’ve done.” It began moving closer and closer to Lewis as it spoke. “We help no one but the Order of the Gash. We are not in the business of saving bodies or souls. We are more interested in feeding on them. Slowly, with a dark delight you cannot even begin to imagine.”
“Then take me. Help them get out of here safe, and take me.”
“You don’t understand, boy. There is no bargaining here, no deals to be made, no compromises to be reached. All of you are coming with us. And knowing as I do how much grief you will feel over the fates of your friends—because their fates will be your fault—will only make consuming you more enchanting, and the taste of your suffering even more delectable.”
It was so close now that Lewis could feel its diseased breath on his face.
“Ah,” said hook-Mouth. “Behold, my brethren—the tears of defeat.”
“Defeat…”
“Sweet…”
“Baby meat…”
Hook-Mouth lifted a hand, reaching for Lewis’ throat. “You and your friends are going to know such glorious agony, boy. The things we have in store for you are such excruciating pleasures that a useless pile of walking meat like you can never begin to—” As soon as Hook-Mouth’s hand gripped Lewis’ neck, the creature froze.
Lewis felt as if the live end of a power cable had just been jammed into the top of his skull. Everything went white and became anguish—but why should this be any different than the life he and the others had been forced to live for…however long it had been?
Hook-Mouth released Lewis and he slammed back into the wall, then sank to the floor. Carl and Penny gripped each other even more tightly as their shuddering and whimpering intensified.
Hook-Mouth seemed to have lost its balance. It stepped back, its legs—or, rather, the things that had once been legs—shaking. When it pulled in its next breath, it was a ragged, stunned sound. It looked past Lewis to its companions in the shadows and began shouting in a language Lewis had never heard before, but he didn’t need to understand it to know the intention behind the words; the inflections were more than enough.
Hook-Mouth was angry, yes, but more than that, it was shaken and confused. After screaming for a few seconds more, it closed its mouth and eyes, regaining its composure.
Lewis struggled back to his feet, making a terrible decision. “Do whatever you need to do. Just … do it fast.”
Hook-Mouth, still a bit dazed-looking, shook its head. “We’ve always known humans like you existed, but I never imagined that we’d…”
It closed its eyes again, for just a moment, and slowly shook its head.
“No,” it said, nailing Lewis to the wall with its sickening yellow gaze. “Here you were, and here you’ll stay.” It moved quickly, placing its hands on Carl’s and Penny’s heads. The children shrieked and Hook-Mouth laughed—but this time it was not a laugh of mockery, no; this was the sound of a terminal cancer patient laughing at a tumor joke.
“We will go now,” it said, and began turning to walk away.
“You can’t just leave us here!” screamed Lewis, regretting the words as soon as they were out of his mouth.
Hook-Mouth whirled back to face him. “Oh, yes we can, boy, and that is precisely what we are going to do.”
“Why?”
“Because there is nothing we can do to you that hasn’t already been done, or that you haven’t already imagined! You have nothing to offer us. You have wasted our time.”
“But—”
“Enough!” Hook-Mouth stared at Lewis for a moment. “I do have to thank you, though, boy. For a moment there, as I shared your pain and your thoughts and memories, I nearly … envied your remaining here. That will disturb me for a long time to come. It may even pain me. Oh, how I hope it does just that.”
“Then if you real
ly want to thank me, get us out of here!” Lewis was only vaguely aware of hearing the back door open upstairs, followed by the sounds of the Cold Ones stomping back inside.
“If you want to thank me, then get us—”
Hook-Mouth only grinned and shook its head once again. “You have nothing to offer us, nothing we want, nothing with which to bargain.”
From upstairs there came a loud crash, followed by more stomping, and then a male voice screaming, “If you hadn’t gunned the goddamn engine, she wouldn’t’ve run away from me like that! I almost had her, you stupid fuckin’ cow! She was a pretty little thing, too!”
Hook-Mouth, seemingly intrigued, looked up at the ceiling, listening, following the stomping and sounds of fists hitting flesh with his eyes.
“The box!” shouted the woman. “Where’s the fuckin’ box?”
Lewis bent down and picked up the black box, staring at Hook-Mouth.
Upstairs, the Cold Ones continued to snarl accusations and strike one another.
Lewis held up the box, and began to push the pieces back into place. “Well, if we don’t have anything you want….”
“You don’t,” said Hook-Mouth, gazing at the ceiling.
And then, looking at Lewis and grinning broadly: “However….”
Spare the Rod
Jake Blevins was finishing his third mug of Budweiser when he finally confessed to his brother: “I’m gettin’ real worried about Ricky. I found him in his ma’s makeup case the other day. He painted his toes pink. Pink.”
Sam set down his own mug and gave Jake a concerned frown. “Did you discipline him proper?”
“I … I did my best.” He took another swig of brew to quench his suddenly-dry mouth. His hand shook, he hoped not so badly that Sam could see. “I yelled at him and slapped the box outta his hands—broke the hinge, I got an earful about that later from his ma—and made him take the paint off with turpentine in the garage.”