It was nothing more than an old wooden box, the top hinged and kept closed with a latch, blue and red and yellow paint peeling off in patches. A little crank sticking out of the side, capped with a round red knob. He was supposed to stay away from it.

Matthew couldn’t stay away from it. He wouldn’t touch it, not when Mama was around, anyway. When she wasn’t, Matthew knew he wasn’t supposed to be, but he wasn’t touching it. What Mama meant by “touch” was to not play with it. And occasionally running your fingers along the box wasn’t playing with it. In fact, he was dusting it, which is what Matthew planned to tell his mother if he were ever caught.

He couldn’t help it, really. And it wasn’t to do with a lack of impulse control. The box drew him. Something about the old thing called to him. A time or two, Matthew could even swear he heard it. It sounded so very similar to Joey’s voice, Matthew sometimes wondered if it wasn’t actually Joey, simply playing a trick. Except Joey lived five houses down and was never nearby when Matthew heard the box talk.

“Matthew… Matthew, come play. Matthew. I just want to come out. Let me out. Please?”

Matthew’s mother wasn’t very understanding when he’d told her about the box talking to him. But she’d been very firm in reminding him that he wasn’t to touch the box. It was old – very old. A family… what was that word? Hair loom? No, no. Heirloom.

Unfortunately for Matthew’s mother, a week straight of rain in the middle of summer had kept Matthew cooped up for far too long. And he’d grown tired of the majority of his other toys. He’d beaten the new video game his mother had bought, and the rain showed no signs of stopping.

Around the sixth day, the basement began to leak. Matthew’s mother knew the neighbors had one of those pumps that would suck the water out, and she informed Matthew he was to stay upstairs while she went next door to get Mr. Robertson to bring the pump over. Matthew was more than okay with this. Because of the encroaching waters, Mama had kept Matthew close by and in sight almost at all times. He’d had hardly any freedom, and he was looking forward to at least some time alone.

It’d never been part of the plan to take the box off the shelf. It just sort of… happened. One minute Matthew was in his bedroom, reading a comic book, and the next he was in the guest room – where some of the better knick knacks were kept for show – and he was standing on the chair beside the writing desk, delicately taking down the old wooden box from the high shelf where Mama kept it.

Mama and Mr. Forrester had just started the sump pump in the basement when Matthew began to fiddle with the crank. The rusted out music maker inside the box bleated out a few notes, and Matthew frowned. It didn’t sound like any other jack in the box he’d played with. Not that he’d been on the earth for very long, but he’d seen his fair share of toys, both old and new.

Matthew… Let me out… I want to play.

“Who’s there?” Matthew immediately stopped turning the crank, small face scrunching as he looked around.

Jack… Jack wants to play with you.

“Jack? Who’s Jack?” There was no one in the room with him, of that much Matthew was sure. And there was no one in the hallway, and maybe even not in the whole house. Except the basement, of course; Matthew could hear the pump rumbling away even while he was all the way up in the guest room.

The ensuing silence made Matthew uncomfortable. It was weird talking to a room when no one was answering. He looked around one more time and, still hearing the pump, Matthew turned the crank again.

With each turn, the music maker inside the box became a bit stronger, less tinny. Yet the weird sound remained. As though along with the song came the hint of a warning.

Keep turning it, Matthew… I want to come out.

Gritting his teeth, Matthew fought the goosebumps creeping across his skin and the hair on the back of his neck standing up. He’d come this far, and he wasn’t a wuss. Matthew wouldn’t be deterred now that he was so close to finding out what was inside the box.

Apparently, Jack was in the box. But the box was the size of a typical jack in the box. It fit neatly on Matthew’s lap. What could Jack be that he fit in the box?

One more turn of the crank and the latch slipped open, hinges creaking their aged protest as the spring in the heart of the box was released. Matthew wasn’t expecting what came out of the box, however.

The giant white face, the massive, black eyes that were more like holes. Matthew could feel them pulling him into their depths, even as he scrambled backward on the bed. Worst of all was the mouth, with cartoonish red lips and white, fang-like teeth dripping with something. Saliva, maybe poison, Matthew didn’t know, and he didn’t care.

The eyes were pulling him in and the mouth was filling his vision and it was opening and he couldn’t move fast enough, it all felt like he was moving through jello, or maybe a mix of jello or pudding. Matthew couldn’t be sure, because he couldn’t quite feel his limbs at that very moment. So he opened his mouth to scream. But he wasn’t sure if he was screaming because all other sounds had been drowned out by this overwhelming, all consuming sucking noise being made by this white-faced Jack who had no nose, this Jack in the box who Matthew had now let out.

Matthew had been screaming. And he kept screaming. Long enough so that his vocal chords had quit and even his mother and Mr. Forrester heard him over the engine of the sump pump and came running to see.

All that was left to see, though, was the box on the floor in front of the bed, twisted spring sprawling out from the inside of the box. Little knob on the crank popped off and lying a foot away. In the corner was Matthew, face frozen in a now silent scream as he cowered in a corner of the room, having fallen off the bed and continuing his attempted getaway.

Mama was completely unfazed. She shook her head and sighed, crossing the room to the window and watching as Jack, with his tiny doglike body, went galloping down the street. A maniacal cackle bounced off the houses on either side, echoing until the sound filled the block. Mama sighed again and yanked the curtains closed, turning her attention toward picking up the box.

“How many times did I have to tell you, Matthew? Don’t open the box. Don’t even touch the box. I told you. And you couldn’t listen.”

Matthew was finally able to close his mouth, finally able to move, tears streaming down his face as he watched Mama picking up the box.

“What… what was that, Mama?”

The tremor in his voice did nothing to earn Matthew any sort of sympathy from his mother. She clucked her tongue impatiently and set the box to rights, then placed it back atop the shelf.

“That, Matthew, is the reason I’m going to have to go back to work. Because now I’m going to have to go find him and put him back. That was Jack. Jack was in the box.”

 

 

This work by Lin Clements is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.