The Box – Short Story
CONTENT WARNING: animal death, people death, non-graphic descriptions of gore
“Our predecessor left this box and something’s clawing around, I think it really wants out.”
– The Ground Walks, with Time in a Box by Modest Mouse
Jenna’s family had always had the box. Nobody knew how they’d obtained it, or where it was from, or what it contained, but they had it. It was simple, wooden, and about 20 inches by 20 inches. It sat in the family library that nobody ever went into, just another item in the waste of space that was their extensive mansion. At 16 years old, Jenna had been aware of the box her whole life, and she was also aware of its rules.
No matter how much she wanted to, she was not supposed to touch the box. No matter what sounds she heard from it, she was not supposed to open the box. No matter how convenient it might be, she was not supposed to move the box. The box stayed undisturbed by human hands at all costs. For most of her life, she had been content to simply accept these rules at face value, but now that she was older, Jenna had questions.
What the hell was in that box? What was so deeply important about that box that her parents had drilled those rules into her mind with such fear in their eyes?
Maybe that was why she’d taken to the library more often as of late.
Today was a quiet one. Jenna was sitting in the library with a dusty old volume – an old journal – she’d found tucked away in a corner. She’d found a comfy chair not far from the pedestal where the box was kept, and was flicking through the pages. The journal went back all the way to the 1840s, following a man who called himself Isaac. Presumably, he was an ancestor of hers.
His most notable feature? His interest in seances.
According to his journal entries, Isaac was fascinated by spiritual mediums and whatever lurked on the other side of the “veil between worlds,” as he put it. Jenna understood very little of it and, frankly, thought he was crazy, but it was an interesting thing to read nonetheless.
Isaac insisted that his house was haunted by some kind of entity, and that was where his obsession began. He had built his little home on a patch of forest that he had cut down himself – the same patch now part of the land her home was now built on – and immediately noticed something off. At night, he began to see a strange animal wandering around the outskirts of the property, sometimes even coming onto his lawn or right up to his front porch. He never described the thing in detail, just that it was fairly small with lithe features, like an elongated cat. It did not display aggression at first, but rather stared unnervingly at the building with “glowing eyes like saucers,” which was understandably still enough to put Isaac off.
Naturally, Isaac tried getting rid of it eventually. He bought a dog – a sturdy beagle named Tiger – to guard his property, hoping Tiger would kill the thing if it returned. For a while, the thing seemed successfully warded off, but one night Isaac awoke to a commotion and rushed into the backyard to find Tiger- hang on.
Was she reading that right? Jenna squinted, then shook her head, then blinked a couple times and tried again.
She was definitely reading that right.
Isaac awoke to a commotion and rushed into the backyard to find Tiger lying on his back, dead with a trail of entrails leading off into the woods. He wrote that he was tempted to follow the trail at first, but a fear settled so deep in his bones that he could do nothing but go back inside.
He got another dog, this one a German Shepherd named Sylvia, and tried again. Like before, there was peace for a while, and he was confident a larger dog could defend itself better, but one evening as he was about to go to bed he heard something that made his heart stop. A frenzy of barking, rising into screaming whimpers and then deafening silence… coming yet again from his backyard. Grabbing his gun, he rushed outside to see what was going on, but all he found was Sylvia’s body, her head nowhere to be seen.
It was that that convinced Isaac he had a demon or spirit on his hands.
Jenna shut the book for a moment, looking up and around her. She didn’t know why, but something in her demanded that she did. Of course, there was nothing – just the antique Persian rug and the sunlight streaming in warmly through the windows – and Jenna couldn’t help but feel a little ridiculous.
Look at me, getting all spooked over the writing of some guy who’s clearly just… insane, I guess? Yeah, insane.
She very pointedly ignored the death of the two dogs, and all her questions about what could’ve caused them. This was North America. Mountain lions existed. So did bears. Both dogs probably encountered some large animal wandering through late at night, startled it, and died when it lashed out. Tragic, but certainly unrelated to whatever Isaac had been seeing, which was probably nothing more than a hallucination. Jenna was in no way an expert on wild animals or mental illnesses, but she was familiar enough with the concept of Occam’s razor to know that the most logical conclusion was probably the right one. Wild animals, mental illness, and bad timing were simply the three most logical conclusions she could come to.
Good for me. I’m descended from a crazy person, Jenna thought with an internal eyeroll.
Over the next few days, Jenna spent her free time reading through the journal Isaac had written. Her days were mostly packed with school, but after she got home she would happily hole up in the library to continue reading. As far as she was concerned, Isaac was genuinely just a very mentally ill man, but she was nothing if not a curious girl who wanted to know what happened next.
Besides, something about the idea of mental illness being the cause didn’t sit quite right with her, and the woods felt a little more foreboding these past few nights.
According to Isaac’s entries, he was understandably terrified, and tried to tell his friends what was going on. He insisted that there was something more than animals in those woods, but nobody would believe him. Eventually, he stopped talking about it for fear of being institutionalized and instead went on his own research journey.
The thing was showing up much more freely again, and he wasn’t “stupid enough to get another dog,” so he took to laying traps around his home while he looked into how to banish it for good. Some mornings, he’d come outside to see a few of the traps set off, but there was never anything in there – the only things ever left behind were little claw marks and drops of blood in the grass. Like clockwork, it would come back the next night, just like it had been doing since he moved in.
Took him a year and a half.
What?
Sitting bolt upright and almost dropping the book, Jenna’s head whipped around to scan the room. It was getting dark outside, but nothing seemed to be out of place. When she was certain she was just imagining things, she began to turn back to the journal, but…
Scrrritch, scrrrrrritch…
The box. The box was making a sound.
Jenna’s mind flashed to her parents’ rules again, reciting them again in her head. No matter how much you want to, you are not supposed to touch the box. No matter what sounds you hear from it, you are not supposed to open the box. No matter how convenient it might be, you are not supposed to move the box. The box stays undisturbed by human hands at all costs.
The box hadn’t acted up all week, but Jenna didn’t see any alarm to be found there. It went through dormant periods sometimes, then went right back to its weird box activities. Even if the sudden activity was strange, she knew better than to check it out anyways.
Jenna.
Jenna jumped again, as if on double high alert. “Hello?” she asked. “Who’s there? Is it dinnertime?”
It was probably just one of her parents or maybe a sibling dropping by the library to tell her something.
No, over here.
Okay, maybe her brother was pulling a prank? “Over where? Look, Oliver, this isn’t funny!” Jenna called, meaning to sound more stern than she actually did. Something made her blood feel like ice, made the hair on the back of her neck stand up, made her feel like a little mouse about to be snatched up by a much larger predator.
Then, something inside the box produced a loud THUD!
No. Nuh-uh. She was not doing this.
Jenna would come back when it was light. Chucking the old journal aside, she leapt to her feet and raced from the room, body screaming at her to put as much distance between her and that box as possible.
Stepping into the library the next morning, Jenna was prepared to spend her Saturday reading all about Isaac’s misadventures and discoveries. Although she insisted there was nothing strange going on (other than the innate strangeness of the box, which she’d never paid much mind to), she had done some thinking while lying awake that night and arrived at the conclusion that maybe Isaac wasn’t as insane as she had initially thought he was.
The journal was right where she left it, as was the box. Plopping down in the plush red armchair, she flipped through the pages until she found where she’d left off. The strange creature had kept showing up routinely, never caught in the traps, which would set off seemingly on their own.
For a period of time, the pages became sparser, only written once or twice each month. Isaac was really into the supernatural by now, constantly attending seances and trying to learn spells and sigils, but never to any avail.
Tap, tap, tap.
The sound came from the box again. Jenna glanced up, just in time to hear something echo in her head.
Go forward 50 pages.
“… What?”
She hadn’t meant to say it aloud, but Jenna did anyway.
Go forward 50 pages. That’s where it gets good.
Wrinkling her nose, Jenna sat up straighter and squinted at the box. She couldn’t explain why, but something in her gut said that it was the source of that strange, gnawing urge in her brain that felt almost like words.
“… Is someone there?” she asked very softly, as though the box could answer her at all. As if on cue, something scraped and thumped in there, clawing at the walls in what read in her brain as frustration.
Just go forward 50 pages, for crying out loud.
Pretending that hearing what was almost certainly another voice in her head was perfectly normal, Jenna did as told. Nimbly flipping forward by 50 pages – she counted exactly – she landed on a crude sketch of an odd symbol.
“What the…?”
A protection sigil.
Confusion fell across Jenna’s face. “What would he need a protection sigil for?”
That book is made of fallen trees.
“… That doesn’t answer my question. Why would he need a protection sigil?”
Because that book is made of fallen trees.
For some reason, irrational irritation hit Jenna like a tidal wave, and she fixed the box with a death glare. “You are ridiculously unhelpful,” she told it with venomous contempt born of frustration and a poor night’s sleep.
And humans are the worst thing our great composer ever dreamed up, but here we are.
Sighing heavily, Jenna chose to ignore whatever the hell that meant and go back to reading. The next page went over the instructions for the sigil; draw it above a window, a door, or on a doorstep and imbue it with energy using three deep breaths. Leave it be, then recharge it with more deep breaths after a month. Doing so on the regular would lower the chances of anything getting into your home as long as the sigil was charged and in place, though it wouldn’t banish things.
According to Isaac, it would be enough to keep the thing from getting too close to him while he worked on a more permanent solution.
… He has to be crazy, right?
Something inside the box shuffled, as though trying to get comfortable.
Would you like a spoiler?
Jenna furrowed her brow. “… Would I like a spoiler?”
Yes. Would you like a spoiler?
“… Sure…?”
In another three months, he meets a medium named Mary. He tells her everything, and she tells him what’s been plaguing him.
“Oh. Good for him, then,” Jenna replied casually, turning back to her reading. The next few entries detailed the thing knocking on his windows and leaving rusty, sharp objects where he narrowly avoided stepping on them. He was effectively waging war against it at that point.
Sure enough, the first entry with Mary came up. Isaac had gone to her for one of his regular seances, looking to try someone new. Mary had apparently “connected with a being on the other side” that told her Isaac had done something wrong and angered something powerful. He went home that day and given it a lot of thought, writing down his conflicting feelings in his journal. After a week, he went back to Mary to tell her everything that had been happening on his property.
He wrote Mary’s words as explicitly being “You’ve disturbed something awful.”
The next week was a busy one, but as always, Jenna snuck in some time to continue her reading. Stepping into the library after everyone else in her family had gone to sleep, she was greeted by the gnawing voice that had joined her previously.
Expanding this mansion was the worst mistake anyone has ever made. What a waste of resources.
Picking up the journal and sitting down, Jenna rolled her eyes. “Yeah, like I’m gonna care what you think. Let me read.”
They felled trees for space, paved over delicate ecosystems, and made the money to build this accursed place on choking liquid from the ground.
Jenna sat up, squinting at the box. “You mean the oil company? Did Isaac start that?”
No, his son Lucas.
The oil company had been in the family for generations. Her father was the current CEO, and the company itself was responsible for basically everything they had. Jenna could afford a future at any college she chose because of it, as could her siblings, and the family never really wanted for anything. Luxury vacations, fancy clothes, and plenty of clothes were a constant possibility, especially now that the company was expanding to electricity as well. Jenna was a lucky, lucky girl.
Your family is a stain on this Earth.
Jenna very pointedly ignored that comment, focusing on the journal again. She’d left off on “You’ve disturbed something awful,” and the next few paragraphs were very detailed plans for a seance and exorcism involving whatever the strange thing was. Mary would commission something special – though she refused to specify what – to capture the creature with, and then they would do away with it for good. They just had to lure it out first.
She flipped the page, but…
The journal stopped there. With ten pages left.
“What the hell?” Jenna blurted out loud.
The ritual was so traumatic for him that he didn’t want to put it down on paper. It didn’t go as planned at all.
Jenna slowly, with dread building in her stomach, looked towards the box.
“… How do you know that?”
I was there for it. They thought they could shoot the box until I died. I made Mary lose a hand.
Jenna felt her blood run ice-cold. Very, very carefully, she stood, finding herself torn between grabbing the box to shake it and demand answers and turning around to flee the room.
“… You… Made Mary lose a hand?”
I bit it off when she tried to grab me and wring my neck.
No matter how much you want to, you are not supposed to touch the box. No matter what sounds you hear from it, you are not supposed to open the box. No matter how convenient it might be, you are not supposed to move the box. The box stays undisturbed by human hands at all costs.
The rules felt flimsy in the face of… well, whatever this was.
Then they put me in the second box. I made Isaac lose half his face that time.
Is that why we don’t have any photos of that generation of the family?
Something in the box slammed. Hard.
I’ve been wanting out for a while now. They tricked me into this thing. I watched them destroy more and more land, building everything you’ve known around the shitty old house that started it all. Do you have any idea how torturous that was for me? Every day, I heard my forest screaming for my help, but I could do NOTHING.
For once in her life, Jenna found herself at a loss for words. No wonder nobody was supposed to touch the box. It was full of some kind of malevolent forest spirit with a personal vendetta against her entire bloodline. “W-well,” she began, trying and failing not to sound incredibly frightened, “I’m sorry to hear that.”
Don’t lie to me. If you were sorry, you’d be much more horrified. If you were sorry, you’d let me out.
“But I am sorry!”
Then let. Me. Out.
She shouldn’t, she really shouldn’t.
LET ME OUT!
The scratching inside the box, as if it wasn’t frightening enough before, grew deafeningly loud in the otherwise silent library. Jenna wondered how often it struggled around when nobody else was nearby. Generations spent trapped in such a small space must’ve been like torture for it. The very human, soft part of her felt genuine, heart-wrenching pity for it.
Still, she had to be strong.
“I can’t open the box. It’s against the family rules.”
Open the box, and I won’t harm you or your family.
“You promise?”
I shouldn’t be doing this. What am I thinking?
I promise.
“Fine.”
The lid came unlatched after a little bit of effort. Whatever was keeping the thing from escaping must’ve been supernatural in nature, rather than a lock or other manmade method. Only two weeks ago, Jenna would’ve thought the idea was preposterous, but there was no longer any room in her life to doubt that something inexplicable in the eyes of modern science was happening to her family. Slowly, she pushed the lid off the box, looking down into the darkness with a knot of dread in her stomach.
She shouldn’t be doing this.
Two big, pale eyes blinked up at her, glowing in the dark. Although she’d turned on a nearby lamp to read by, it seemed like whatever was in the box was only a void, completely immune to the presence of any illumination.
Then, slowly, the shape began to unfurl itself, tiny paws hooking on the edges of the box as it pulled itself up right. Isaac’s description had been right, it was no larger than a cat, but shaped more like a weasel, with eyes that seemed as big as dinner plates compared to the rest of the head. It stretched, shaking itself out and looking around the room before making eye contact with her.
Disgusting. I can tell you’re descended from both of them. You have his hair, her eyes.
“Hey, don’t insult me. I just let you out. If anything, you owe me a ‘thank you.’”
I owe you nothing after what your family took from me. It seems you completely failed to inherit their intelligence. What a sad little facsimile you are.
It reached out, placing a little paw on her shoulder and smiling condescendingly with too many teeth. Jenna’s whole body felt electric with terror, legs urging her to run, but something about its touch made her body lock itself in place, shaking like a leaf.
“W-well, you’re out, so go,” she stammered as sternly as she could – which wasn’t very sternly. “You promised to l-leave me and my family alone. Run away before the sun comes up.”
Slowly, unnervingly, its gnawing little voice began to laugh. The sound was deeper than it should have been, coming from something its size. It was like the laugh of a god, but ugly and grating and mocking, filled to the brim with hatred and something like sadistic amusement. Jenna felt like her heart was going to leap from her chest, like she was going to crawl from her own skin, primal terror urging her to get away fast. Now.
“Leave. W-we had a deal!” she told it very sternly, but her voice came out as little more than a whimper. It only cackled harder.
Oh, stupid girl… it murmured to her, shaking its head like a parent disappointed in their child before going completely still and staring Jenna dead in the eyes, I lied.
“All five are dead. Signs of a struggle, but no signs of a culprit,” police officer Frank McKracken told his teammate Stephen Large as he came back from sweeping the mansion. It had been five days since anyone had heard from the Woodcutter family, and the friends of the four kids – Jenna, Oliver, Tansy, and Kiara – had eventually pushed for a wellness check. The police department was originally going to ignore the request, thinking it was possible all four kids were simply sick and absent from school, but a call that afternoon from the family’s hired housecleaner complaining of dead silence and a decaying smell swiftly changed their minds.
“What killed them?” a rookie, David Fence, asked. “Do we know?”
Stephen shook his head. “I don’t know. Looked like lacerations did them in, but they didn’t look like knife wounds. It was like an animal got them all.”
“An animal?” Frank asked, raising an eyebrow. “That’s impossible. Unless they had some sort of illegal pet they were hiding, this has to be the work of an exceptionally violent killer.”
“No, I swear, it looked like an animal did it,” Stephen insisted. “No human could’ve left gashes and bites that deep. It looked like the scene of that bear attack that made the news last summer.”
David’s nose scrunched up in confusion. “You’re saying a bear did this?”
“No, but I’m saying it looked like one did.”
The sheriff herself, a short but imposing woman named Lucy Gunnar, came wandering over, staring at the three men for a moment. Naturally, all three shut up and greeted her with a very polite “Hey, Sheriff,” like they always did, but she said nothing. She seemed to be very deep in thought.
Finally, taking a cigarette out of her pocket and lighting it, she took a drag and sighed heavily. “Were there any signs of a place they could’ve been containing a large animal?”
Stephen shrugged. “Well, there was a box on the floor of the first-floor library. I found one of the girls lying dead next to it. It was just a wooden box, 20 inches by 20 inches, but it had some weird symbols carved on the inside walls. I’m not sure what was up with it.”
“Which one of the girls?” Lucy asked, taking another drag as though maybe smoking would make this situation any less befuddling than it was. “Last time I checked, the Woodcutters had three daughters.”
“Jenna, I think. The second youngest. It was hard to tell, though. The body looked like its face had been clawed off.”
Lucy sighed very, very heavily, glancing past Frank and Stephen to look at David. Putting on her best patient face, she nodded to him. “Alright. David, I’m gonna have you contact the forensic team. Frank, you do a quick perimeter sweep. Stephen, you’re gonna contact the news and let them know there’s been a death, and we’ll release more information once we have more details.”
Frank didn’t want to go patrolling alone at the scene of a murder that may or may not have been an animal attack, but the sheriff wasn’t the kind of woman who left room for protest. The three men all said “Yes, Sheriff” in unison, then split up to go complete their respective tasks. Frank slipped out the side door into the silent woods around them, the afternoon turning quietly into evening around him. If his day hadn’t consisted of investigating a grisly crime, he might’ve found the golden hour out here pretty.
Something rustled in the undergrowth, and Frank whirled around. Nothing, except for a small animal darting across the path behind him in the gradually fading light. Probably a squirrel or weasel, by the looks of it.
Small, dark, and long with huge, pale eyes.