Jack-in-the-Box

by William W. Johnstone

  “We’re dreaming all this, aren’t we, Phillip?” Sam asked, a hopeful note in his voice.

  “I wish we were, buddy.”

  Something stepped out of the bright light.

  “Phillip. Look! It’s Nora. But what is that thing behind her?”

  Everything Phillip had ever read or seen concerning the occult leaped into his consciousness. He glanced up the hall, averting his eyes quickly as the form behind Nora became more distinct. The . . . thing was shrouded in a red mist.

  Phillip grabbed Sam by the shoulders and flung him to the carpet. “Don’t look, Sam. For God’s sake, don’t look.”

  “What is it?” Sam asked, his voice muffled, his face pressed against the carpet.

  “I think it’s Satan.”

  12

  The red glow faded with the dying echoes of Phillip’s words. The hall was plunged into darkness that was broken only by a tiny night-light plugged in at the other end of the hall.

  Phillip sat up, releasing his grip on Sam. Both men stared in unbelieving horror at the sight that confronted them.

  Nora stood holding the wooden case containing the jack-in-the-box. She was dressed all in black, with some sort of shining silver-looking tabs on her shirt collars. Neither man could quite make out what they were. They looked like silver skulls. Nora stood smiling at the men. But her smile was grotesque, filled with ageless evil. She held out the box.

  Both men scooted backward on the carpet.

  “Poor daddy,” she said. “Are you afraid, daddy dear?”

  Phillip stood up, Sam rising with him. They moved toward the child.

  “Nora,” Phillip said. “Let me help you, baby. Please? Tell me what that thing was standing behind you a moment ago.”

  “My master, daddy. Too bad you didn’t look more closely at him. I would have been saved a lot of trouble.”

  Phillip remembered that no mortal could look upon the face of Satan and live. “Won’t you let me help you, baby?”

  “You help me?” The child laughed. “That’s funny. Daddy is funny. But soon daddy will be dead. Dead, dead daddy.”

  Her words chilled both men. Sam moved with Phillip toward the girl. “Nora,” Sam said. He held out his hands to the girl. “Why are you doing this?”

  The question seemed to confuse the girl. She tilted her head to one side. Then, as the men watched in fascination and revulsion, she turned her head completely around and laughed at them. Both men heard a faint whispering. They could not make out the words. Nora’s eyes glowed. “Because it’s what I was born to do.”

  Sam stopped in the hall. Suddenly he was filled with an anger that had been suppressed for years. He walked toward the girl. “I’ll slap the smugness off your face, Nora. And then I’m going to destroy that damned filthy toy.”

  She laughed at him and flipped the clasp on the front of the box. The clown’s head sprang out. The hinged mouth worked up and down. “Du!” The guttural sound erupted from the mouth as the eyes stared at Sam. “I choose you!”

  Screaming his rage, Sam darted forward, grabbing the snake-like spring neck in both hands. The jack-in-the-box howled in rage as strong fingers closed around the neck, choking the ugliness.

  “You Nazi son of a bitch!” Sam yelled.

  The clown head dipped down, the jaws opening, the yellow teeth snapping and biting at Sam’s arm. Sam yelled in pain as the teeth clamped onto flesh, drawing blood.

  Phillip ran toward the macabre scene. He was stopped abruptly as a force struck him in the chest, knocking him backward, sending him sprawling on the hall floor. He struggled to rise. He could not. It felt as if a giant foot were on his chest, pinning him. He could do nothing except lie flat on his back and watch as Sam battled the snake-like jack-in-the-box.

  The eyes of the clown head rolled and glowed as the jaws dipped and struck again and again, reddening Sam’s arms with blood. Sam screamed in pain as the mouth closed down hard on his arm, the teeth sinking in, the head twisting like an attacking shark.

  Wild, insane laughter sprang from Nora’s mouth. The girl seemed impervious to the struggle going on around her. Calmly she held the wooden box in her small hands. Sam tried to slap the girl, but she seemed to be protected by an invisible field. She spat in Sam’s face. An ugly, foul spittle, that muddy, bloody brown. It leaked from Sam’s face, dripping onto his pajama top, staining it.

  The jack-in-the-box shrieked, twisting free of Sam’s grasp. Laughter rolled from its mouth. With blood dripped from the bites and cuts on his arms, Sam backed away. He cursed the jack-in-the-box and Nora.

  “Foolish man!” Nora hissed at Sam. “Now you will die as well!”

  “Devil-bitch!” Sam panted the words, his chest heaving from near-exhaustion.

  Nora laughed at him. She cursed the man in rapid-fire German, speaking so fast Sam could make out only a few of the words.

  Sam roared his rage and lunged at Nora. The same inexplicable and invisible force that had knocked Phillip down and held him to the floor struck Sam, slamming him to the carpet, pinning him there. That red-tinted glow once more enveloped Nora and the jack-in-the-box. The light brightened, becoming too fierce for the men to bear. They turned their heads and closed their eyes. Neither knew what to expect. They braced themselves for the worse.

  Both men were plunged into darkness and unconsciousness.

  * * *

  Phillip and Sam awoke on the carpet in the hall. They were stiff and sore and confused. With a groan Sam sat up, looking at his arms. The sleeves of his pajama tops were caked with dried blood.

  “I thought it was all just a bad dream, Phillip.”

  “Would that it were,” Phillip said, getting to his feet and extending his hand to Sam. “Come on. We’ve got to treat those bites on your arms.”

  “How could a toy do those things?”

  “I don’t know. But we can’t deny the fact that it’s dangerous.”

  “By itself, or does it have to have help?”

  “You’re asking me questions that I have no answers for, buddy.”

  The bites were painful, but not deep. After washing them, Phillip put iodine on the cuts, Sam wincing as the medication was applied. Both men were startled to see dawn breaking over the horizon, dull gray fingers probbing the shadows.

  “Do you remember what time it was we hit the hall?” Phillip asked.

  “I looked at my watch when I woke up. It was twelve-one. I don’t think I’ll ever forget that. Or that damned voice, those pitiful voices in my head.”

  “Twelve-one. That’s the same time I was awakened the other night.”

  “The witching hour.” The joke fell flat.

  “That’s the same thought I had. What was that outfit Nora had on, Sam? It looked familiar to me.”

  “Yeah, me too. It was a goddamned storm trooper’s uniform, Phillip. SS shit. Did you see those death’s-heads on the collars?”

  “That’s what they were?”

  “In living color. A Nazi jack-in-the-box, Phillip?”

  “Just an evil one.”

  “One and the same. No point in going back to bed now. But it’s going to be interesting to see how Nora behaves this morning.”

  “She’ll be all sweetness and light, Sam. Bet on it. We can’t prove anything that happened last night. Jeanne and Phil and Else were all out cold. So it’ll be our word against Nora. And you know who Jeanne will believe.”

  Sam was thoughtful for a moment. “Phillip, what in the hell are we going to do? We can’t go to the police. They’d laugh us both right to the nut house.”

  “Play it by ear. We have the tapes and that swastika for evidence. We’ll write down everything that happened to us last night. We’ve got to tell Father Debeau and Weaver about it. As for today, we behave as if nothing happened.”

  “And then . . .?”

  “I don’t know. I just don’t know.”

  But the swastika was gone, disappearing as mysteriously as it had appeared.

  “You’re sure thi
s is where you put it?” Sam asked.

  “Positive. It’s just gone.”

  Jeanne, Nora, Phil, and Else dressed and went to church. Jeanne was miffed because Phillip elected to stay behind, and she did nothing to hide her irritation.

  Sam was wearing a long-sleeved shirt that hid the bite marks.

  Nora stood with a slight smile on her pretty face. She said, “Perhaps father did not sleep well last night, mother.”

  Sam had to struggle to choke back his grunt of disgust.

  “Perhaps not, darling,” Jeanne said. “Come along. We don’t want to be late.”

  The echo of the door closing had not died away before Sam said, “If somebody gave an award for evil, she wouldn’t have any competition.” He looked at Phillip. “Sorry, Phillip. I keep forgetting she’s your daughter.”

  Phillip shook his head. “No, Sam. She is my flesh and blood. But she is the daughter of the devil.”

  Sam could not suppress a shudder.

  The men searched Nora’s room. The jack-in-the-box was gone. They could find no trace of the black uniform she had been wearing.

  Exasperated, Sam said, “Well, the goddamned box has to be around here someplace.”

  “It’s hiding from us.” Phillip glanced at his watch. “Christ. I forgot the time. Come on. You’ll miss your train.”

  “You’re going to stay here? Alone? Come on, buddy.”

  “I don’t have any choice, Sam. None at all.”

  Returning from the station, Phillip called Father Debeau at his residence, telling the priest all that had happened.

  “You’re sure it was a storm trooper’s uniform, Phillip? The black gestapo-type uniform?”

  “Sam says it was.”

  “He was very brave, attacking that devil’s toy.”

  “He was the most highly decorated man in my outfit, Joe. Sam’s got a lot of brass on his ass, believe it.”

  “It’s coming to a head, Phillip,” Debeau said. “Consider yourself in very grave danger from now on. She’s made her move, exposing her true self and her intentions. She knows there is nothing that you alone can do to stop her.”

  “That’s just it, Joe. What can I do?”

  “Do you have a Bible in the house?”

  Phillip’s silence gave the priest his answer.

  “Not even a small pocket Bible? The New Testament will be fine.”

  Phillip started to say no. Then he remembered the small Bible he’d been given in the service, just before shipping out. Or flying out, as it were. “Yes, I do, Joe. I just remembered. If I can find it, that is.”

  “Find it. Keep it with you until I can get out there and bless the house. My blessing is no guarantee, but it will slow Nora down some. I’m leaving now.”

  Phillip slowly replaced the receiver. He tried to remember where he’d put the little Bible. He knew he would never throw a Bible away. It was in his war trunk, probably, up in the attic.

  He looked up, not wanting to go back into that attic. But he knew he had to do it. He looked around the room. He felt ashamed that they did not keep a Bible in the house. Fine parents we turned out to be, he thought.

  But they had owned Bibles before. Phillip remembered them. Several Bibles. One large Bible that used to be right there on the shelf. A beautiful Bible. Leather-bound.

  Of course, he thought. Nora had disposed of them, in her own quiet little way. Naturally she would not want something that repugnant anywhere near her.

  Have we been blind all this time? he asked himself as he slowly walked up the stairs toward the attic. Or has there been some sort of—he searched for the word—power insidiously working in this old house? He guessed the latter.

  He stopped at the door he and Sam had repaired. Not very well, but at least it was staying up. Then another thought hit him: Jeanne had not made much fuss about his being attacked. Everything about her, everything, seemed to be centered and focused around Nora, as if the mother was shielding the child, not so much against from what might be coming from without, as from within.

  Or was he just imagining all that?

  Christ, he didn’t know.

  But the thought would not leave him. You don’t suppose, he thought, Jeanne and Nora are . . .?

  “No,” he said. “No. I don‘t—won’t—believe that.”

  I can’t, he silently added.

  He opened the door and held it while he propped it up to one side. He found the light switch and flipped it. Nothing. He felt a hard surge of fear. The attic remained obscured in darkness. He went back down the stairs and found a flashlight.

  Returning to the attic, Phillip got a firmer grip on his emotions and entered the darkness, the narrow beam of light leading the way. He found his trunk under several boxes and managed to wrestle it out into the hall. Opening the trunk, he expected a musty odor to rise from inside, but the trunk smelled fresh. That was odd, he thought, for it had been years since he’d looked through it. He pawed through field clothes and his class-A’s. Then his hand touched the butt of his. 45. He’d forgotten he had the thing.

  He had found the pistol after a major battle and had carried it for several months. When he’d turned in his gear from his hospital bed, the sergeant had winked and said, “Hell, Baxter, it wasn’t checked out to you. I didn’t see a thing.”

  Phillip inspected the Colt. It wasn’t in that bad shape, nothing a few drops of oil wouldn’t fix. A box of ACP’s was next to the leather holster. He laid holster, .45, and shells to one side. He found his Bible and opened the pages. Disgust filled him.

  Someone—Phillip didn’t have to do much guessing to know who—had taken a red marking pencil and profaned the pages, every one of them. Filthy words and phrases were scrawled all over the little Bible. He closed it and put it back into its canvas case. He tossed the trunk back into the attic and picked up his gear. He headed back downstairs, stopping as he recalled his visions. The pistol in his hand. That was the pistol Phil had pointed at him in those terrible visions.

  Prophetic? He hoped not.

  In the den, he fieldstripped the weapon and cleaned and oiled it. He inspected the ammo for signs of corrosion, and loaded the clip. Six rounds. He left the chamber empty. He holstered the weapon and put it aside. He waited for the priest.

  Debeau had told him he lived in New Rochelle. But Phillip didn’t know if the man was driving up, or what. Driving, probably.

  Phillip felt tired. He leaned back in the chair, behind his desk. He was confused and scared, and did not know what course of action to pursue. He thought of and immediately discounted the police. Sam was right. The cops might have both him and Sam committed if they told them what was happening. And Phillip wouldn’t have blamed them for it.

  Laughter drifted down from the second floor of the house. Phillip gritted his teeth and gripped the arms of his chair.

  “Want to see what the future holds for you?” the voice said tauntingly.

  That same force that had pinned him to the hall floor the night before placed an invisible hand on his chest, pushing him back in this chair and holding him there. It felt as though a steel band had been placed around his head and was slowly tightening. Phillip slipped into unconsciousness as the pain overwhelmed him.

  Phillip was in a closed box, sealed in, in utter darkness. He could not get out. He was trapped. He screamed silently, knowing he could not be heard. He beat his fists against the top of the narrow box. The box was lined with softness. Narrow box! He was lying on satin, a small, soft pillow under his head.

  Then he knew where he was.

  In a casket.

  The scene shifted. He could see Jeanne running through the house, her face all bloody. She was screaming and crying. Nora was standing in the open doorway of her room, holding the swaying, grinning, evil jack-in-the-box. She was laughing and laughing. Phil had stopped running and was standing with his face pale, his mouth open, his eyes wide. He leveled the pistol and pulled the trigger.

  Phillip heard a scream of pain. Himself screami
ng.

  The invisible force pinning him to the chair pulled away. Phillip returned to consciousness. He was coughing and choking, tears nearly blinding him. He smelled smoke. His flesh seemed to be on fire. He lunged from the chair, expecting the room to be blazing.

  He controlled his breathing, slowing his racing heart. He looked around the room. A small fire burned in the fireplace. The room was brightly lit by lamps. Nothing was burning that wasn’t supposed to be. No smoke, no flames leaping around the room. He had a terrible headache.

  He was more confused than ever.

  Laughter rolled from the second floor of the home. A muted whispering followed the taunting laughter. Phillip could not make out the words.

  The phone rang, startling him. He picked it up.

  “Mr. Baxter?”

  “Yes.”

  “This is Paul Weaver. I’m sorry to be bothering you on Sunday.”

  “It’s no bother, believe me. You have some news, Paul? ”

  “Plenty of it, sir.”

  “Hold on, Paul. I want to record this.” He turned on the cassette-corder by the phone. “Go.”

  “You definitely have a sister, Mr. Baxter. Her name is Jane. She’s a couple of years older than you. She was placed in a home for severely retarded children when she was four. But that was a cover-up. She isn’t retarded. She’s brilliantly evil. She had to be kept in isolation constantly. Hard lockdown. I don’t have all the details yet, but I’ll get them.

  “Now let me tell you about your house. Mr. Baxter, I would advise you to vacate that place as quickly as possible. The house is just slightly over ninety years old. It was built by a man named Gunsche. When the First World War appeared imminent, he left and went back to Germany. He was a bad one. But his son wrote the book on evil. His name is Otto Gunsche. He was one of the commandants of Belsen concentration camp. No one knows whether he is alive or dead. Military intelligence seemed to think he’s alive and living in the New York City area. Otto was one fruitcake Nazi. No telling how many people he killed. Thousands. Most after he was shifted to another camp. Otto collected jack-in-the-boxes. Believed very strongly in the occult. Practiced it religiously. Used to use Jews for human sacrifices. Offering them up to Satan.”