Stephen King's Box

by Claudio Hernández

  ‘Is it all right, Father?’

  William cut quickly the umbilical cord and took it off the baby’s neck. He held the baby, who was a boy by the way, and then lifted him in the air by the tiny little legs. The baby had to cry. Shirley’s eyes opened wide and she went pale when she saw her baby all purple and covered by little snowflakes that shone against his skin. William smacked the baby’s bottoms. The hit sounded hard and short. The baby didn’t cry. William insisted again under the gaze of his daughter.

  And the baby’s cry broke the silence in that awful night.

  23

  Bart could barely breathe. His skin was so white that it could only mean the worst. His lips were white and he had closed his eyes. He was breathing slowly and his heart felt weak. His father, however, started to work on his broken tibia to stop the bleeding.

  24

  ‘I’m going to stitch you and remove the placenta,’ he explained Shirley. ‘Can you hang a little longer?’

  She nodded and asked: ‘How’s Bart?’

  Father lowered his head and started to cry.

  ‘I’m afraid he’s bad, really bad, my sweetheart.’

  Meanwhile, the baby was getting warm surrounded by the dress and her skin.

  25

  Bart stopped to breathe. A sudden sepsis along with a huge loss of blood ended with his strengths. William laid a hand on Bart’s cold head and cried for a while, as the snow continued to fall on them.

  26

  Tommy’s grandfather stopped talking and came closer to the flames in the fireplace. There was a tear falling down his cheek and Tommy noticed it, despite being half sleep.

  ‘I want you to tell all of this to your son, some day, my little Tommy,’ explained his grandfather while continued to rock in his chair.

  Tommy shook his head almost unconsciously.

  ‘The baby was your father,’ grandfather said.

  It’s time to say goodbye

  Stephen King loves to tell stories, especially if there are some kids to mention and to tell what happened to them when they grew up. King is a master in telling this kind of stories. Proof of it we can find it in “The Body” or “IT”. When he was a teenager, he wrote a story where a boy stole bodies to take them to a mad scientist. King has spoken about how close death is and how hard it is to accept it, as he explains in “Pet Sematary”. This novel terrified me and I loved it at the same time. That is my inspiration for the next story. I hope you don’t kill me for this. I want to pay tribute to the king. Besides, I’ve had the idea in my head for many years.

  Everybody has to die some day in Villaplace as well as in the rest of the world. However, in this small town, nothing is what it seems. When an elder gets sick or a young person knows is going to die, they sai goodbye to their families and go to a place known as “Legend” to die peacefully and without disturbing their loved ones. Nevertheless, the relatives can see some silhouettes moving at the foot of the mountain. They walk slowly and can be recognized. Even when they take their pets with them. This is the story about a young aspiring writer named Cooper, who keeps his friends interested in his stories near the bonfire, the safest place as he tells his words.

  1

  Cooper, Colton, Tyler and Ethan were snuggled next to the bonfire, which was a few centimeters from the two tents, extended under the starry sky of a beautiful spring night. Despite all of this, it was cold and the four boys rubbed their hand getting them closer to the fire which was dancing in front of them, throwing red flashes to their pink cheek bones.

  ‘Whose turn is to tell a story?’ asked Cooper looking at the fire. Everyone shrugged. ‘Come on, I already done it,’ he added moving his head.

  Ethan pointed Colton with his index finger. Colton shook his head.

  ‘I can’t think of anything, man.’

  Ethan’s finger pointed Tyler who shrugged.

  ‘I can’t believe it. It’s a perfect night to tell horror stories and no one dares to tell one,’ said Cooper suddenly. There was a long silence and the he added: ‘Pussies...’

  ‘You are the one who writes horror stories. You can surprise us again,’ explained Colton calmly.

  Cooper wiped his nose.

  ‘Gross,’ said Ethan.

  Cooper put the handkerchief full of mucus in his jeans’ back pocket.

  A dog barked in the distance. It was barely audible but they heard it.

  The fire was consuming itself slowly, when Copper said the next words.

  ‘I’ll tell you what happened in Villaplace...’

  ‘Villaplace? Where is that?’ asked Tyler, interrupting him.

  ‘It’s imaginary, you idiot!’ complained Cooper. ‘The story is called, “It’s time to say goodbye”.’

  ‘Yeah, let’s go to bed,’ said Ethan making the gesture as if he was getting up. But he didn’t. Cooper started to whisper the story.

  2

  Jacob was feeling sick. His cigarette moved one way to the other between his dry lips as it consumed itself in a cold winter night in Villaplace, where the dead are...

  3

  ‘It’s time for me to go,’ said Jacob spitting on the floor at the same time he threw away its finished cigarette.

  Madelyn lowered her head and tears started to come out of her eyes. She knew what her husband Jacob meant.

  ‘It is time,’ he insisted between coughs. He spat a little blood. She stepped aside and cried a little bit more. He held her by her shoulders and insited it was time for him to go.

  ‘I have to say goodbye to the boys,’ he said coughing again.

  She shook her head.

  Half an hour later, he stepped out of his house for the last time. He was going to the mountain known as “Legend”. They never knew why such a sacred place had such a horrible name. There was a cemetery there, where everyone went. Where everyone came back from...

  4

  And he walked slowly to the sacred mountain, towards the cemetery of the old Indians known as “Legend”. The place was called “Legend”, but no one understood why an Indian cemetery had a name that wasn’t related to anything else. Jacob walked dragging his feet in the middle of another hard cough with phlegm of blood. His skinny body advanced steadily towards the end. He was close to it. He was two kilometers from the cemetery and Jacob knew he was about to die. That’s why he said goodbye to his family. But he also knew he was coming back.

  5

  Two days after, Madelyn saw her husband’s silhouette walking around, in the distance, but she recognized him by his peculiar way of walk, but there was something else. It seemed as if he was wearing a big oak tree on his shoulders which made him walk limping and slowly. Madelyn smiled a little from the window, the place where she looked at him in the distance. Jacob had come back.

  6

  She also recognized Andrew’s dog.

  7

  ‘That’s it?’ asked Colton with his eyes wide open. Now the fire was a luminous ember in the middle of the night.

  ‘Yes!’ claimed Cooper. Tyler and Ethan growled and threw themselves back. Their bended bodies fell to the cold floor. Colton threw a stone to the ember and it raised a little cloud of ashes that disappeared in the air.

  ‘You suck,’ said Tyler. ‘Even my little brother has more imagination than you, writer Cooper,’ emphasized strongly in these two last words.

  Cooper opened his arms showing his two big hands. ‘It is what it is.’

  And everyone looked at him for a while as the expectancy lowered slowly.

  8

  ‘Ok. The story doesn’t end like that,’ confirmed Cooper as he played with the fire’s embers with a twisted branch. It burned quickly. ‘Madelyn saw Jacob, her husband, walking around with a dog that came from nowhere. I just made that up...’

  Suddenly, everyone fixed their attention back to the sparkly eyes of Cooper who didn’t stop to play with the branch in fire.

  9

  Later, Jacob disappeared in the night along with the dog. But he wasn’t the only
one who came back from the sacred mountain that night. There were many more, almost all of them were elders, but there were some kids. That had been a bad year for Villaplace. An unknown flu had infected dozens of them and it was dangerous. All of them had a time to say goodbye and they walked tired towards the mountain, to come back later less active, but alive. Or maybe not.

  10

  Colton smiled at the same time he said: ‘I like that more.’

  Ethan shook his hand and demanded silence.

  Cooper continued with his gaze fixed in the branch he held on his hand. It was almost completely consumed by the fire. And he continued with the story.

  11

  One thing stood out in Villaplace. There wasn’t a cemetery, nor cruxes near the highway. Not a single flower. People just knew it was time to say goodbye and everything went according to plan. It didn’t happen anything like it in all of Maine; of course, Villaplace didn’t appeared in the fucking map of Maine either. At least not right now. It was also a secret and what happened in Villaplace, stayed in Villaplace. Even the pets and animals knew when their time came. It was all extraordinary complex and impossible to believe. It was Villaplace and it had an access to the sacred mountain and an old Indian cemetery. Why in the hell is it always an Indian cemetery? Who cares? It just happened.

  The next night, Jacob came closer to his house and saw a light on in one of the windows. It was the weak light of several candles lit in the kitchen and he saw Madelyn back next to a wood oven they had. And the two boys were sitting in the table. Andrew’s dog barked to the emptiness of the dark and wiggled its tale. Then, it lowered its head.

  12

  The four boys were around the fire which had extinguished. Their faces could barely be seen in the night and Cooper took a rest before continuing with his story “It’s time to say goodbye”. After that, he picked up another branch and moved the embers hidden beneath the ashes. A weak red light shone again in their cheek bones.

  13

  Next week, and noticing that his body wasn’t changing at all (it wasn’t tearing apart or smelling bad), Jacob went back near his house. This time, the dog wasn’t with him, it had gone next to a little girl named Cloe who also came back from the mountain. This time, Jacob came closer to the door in the darkness of the night. El knocked on the door once and there was no answer. He waited for a moment and, as impatient as always, knocked again. Twice this time. There was an answer. “Who is it?” “Me.” And the door opened and Madelyn’s face appeared behind it.

  ‘I’ve been expecting you,’ she said and ran a hand through his neck to hold his head and kiss him. Her skin wasn’t as soft as before and wasn’t completely there. Jacob opened more his eyes. Madelyn was missing a big part of the skin in her face and showed a set of yellow teeth. One of her eyes spun in the eye socket without an eyelid. It stank of dead dog.

  ‘Dad, we’ve been expecting you!’ screamed the boys at the same time they stood up from their chairs. Their faces were all torn apart and showed a smile with broken teeth and missing parts of skin. Their eyes didn’t shine either.

  ‘I love you all,’ said Jacob entering the house.

  14

  ‘Fuck!’ screamed Ethan. ‘Everyone in town is fucking dead and not the people who went to the sacred mountain!’

  Colton and Tyler started to applaud interrupting the silent night and Cooper’s whispering.

  ‘I’ll write it someday. It all came to me just now. Actually, I like it,’ explained Cooper. And he started to tell a new story.

  The night was young.

  Never say my name

  I know Stephen King has created evil and kind characters but I also know he loves urban legends. One of the legends that kept him busy was Slender Man. It was some kind of tall person, of a great height and his legs were like twisted, skinny and shapeless wooden logs that held a body wearing a black suit. His long arms which almost reached the floor were perfect to grab children easily. His face was a white layer that covered it if there ever was a face. Stephan King never wrote about this character despite the fact that many other writers did. But Steve loved it. The only thing left to say is: Don’t say his name. Otherwise, the inevitable would happen. That’s why I pay tribute to the king with this story.

  Three boys and three girls just graduated from Boad Hill’s university, in Maine. They decided to celebrate a big, private party at the end of the school year. One of the boys, Denny “Dennis”, recommends celebrating the party in a house located near the campus. In Boad Hill, it is long believed that the suit man lives in that house. Nothing better to prove his existence than being in the place. Right when they arrived to the place they found a horrible scarecrow but the scare they got wasn’t worthy of telling. The place is abandoned. The boys came to the place with camping equipment to set inside the house. When Denny lay on the floor, he read something on the wooden ceiling “never remember my name”. In one of the walls there was the following sentence: “never write my name”, and on the floor, underneath the old carpet there was written: “Never say my name”. But they don’t know what name that is, neither the house’s legend says anything about a name. This reminded Denny something that happened to him when he was little. He saw two words written backwards. Then, one person in the group, a girl said “it has no name” and that’s when the nightmare started.

  Don’t look at me, don’t watch me and never say my name. The legend says that if you see him and say his name jointly, he would take over your body and transform you into a dark being. He would take out your darkest side and the more scare of him you are, the more he possesses you. But right now, that is a legend and the reality is that a mad person escaped the psychiatric and was on the loose at the mercy of his killer instincts. The psychopath is wearing a simple plastic trench coat with a hood of the color of a serial killer, and he made some wooden claws for him to use them as a weapon. From his claws your can read the word “NoNameMan” which reminded Denny’s past. This word matches the phrase “It has no name” that the girl said previously.

  One by one, they will be murdered by a shadow in the dark with claws in its hands like wooden splinters. No one, except for Denny, would run from it, but things get complicated. The house has life on its own because it has roots.

  And Denny reached the conclusion that the legend with no name really exists and at the end, when the house becomes the main point of the legend, “NoNameMan” come from the ground showing himself to the psychopath who gets really scared and possesses him. The killer doesn’t know his name because he doesn’t have one. The psychopath feels an extreme fear and the shadow enters his mind pushing him to do what he wants the most, which is to slit his throat to stop hearing voices in his head, not before writing NONAMEMAN with blood on the floor.

  1

  Denny was lying down, almost asleep, when suddenly, a strong blow on the window woke him up. Between his sheets he could realize it was raining and a tree branch had hit the window, luckily, without breaking it. But the noise seemed surprisingly rough and he really thought the window had broken down. He continued under the sheets as the wind howled and moved the trees’ branches outside the room. Inside, the room illuminated when a flash of lightning hit the outside, then, you could see Denny under his sheets like an x-ray. And there was a word written in the window. Denny sat on his bed and tried to watch in the darkness. He could only see something when the flash of a lightning hit the sky and entered through his window. Denny, very still, with his heart racing inside his chest, finally saw the word. REDRUM. He closed his eyes, just for an instant, then another flash illuminated the room and he saw another word in the window. He waited for another flash and he saw it. After the word REDRUM, TSHOG was written. He was bewildered before those two words without apparent meaning, but his heart steadied. He covered himself with the sheets again and he started to think, as the wind howled stronger and his heart returned to its normal beating.

  Two minutes later, he decided to poke out his head again. His gaze was fixed
on the window. He couldn’t see anything until a lightning broke the clouded sky. And he saw the words reflected on the mirror.

  ‘Ghost murder,’ he whispered.

  And he hid himself under the sheets again.

  The storm didn’t stop all night and the next day, Denny’s eyes were wide open and red. He went to school.

  2

  The second night, he was more used to the wind’s howling. He relaxed a little more and he barely slept that night, but he rested more. His eyes were still swollen. He remembered the two words written in his window, which now were gone, and raised an eyebrow when he remembered their meaning. GHOST MURDER. Without paying more attention, he snuggled under the sheets and fell asleep.

  The next day, he went to school.

  3

  The third night was a charm. There wasn’t a storm. There was no rain, nor wind, nor singing frogs. So, he was going to feel more relaxed than the night before, but he didn’t. A loud crash at the back of the room woke him up suddenly. Lifting the sheets just enough to peak out of them, he saw his closet moving and making noises. Denny covered himself with the sheets like if that would save him. And he remembered those words again.

  Suddenly, the closet moved again. It was one of those DIY closets his father made one summer afternoon and some pieces were left over. Denny knew now that the closet came to life sometimes and that there was something inside of it. It wasn’t the storm what scared him.

  What if a ghost was convulsed inside? Would it commit a murder or produce a heart attack? All the questions ended without answers at the moment. MURDER GHOST.

  He cuddled under the sheets and closed his eyes tightly. Then, the silence. A deep silence. Several minutes passed and Denny opened his eyes slowly and lifted the sheets just a little to peak out again. And it was when, suddenly and catching him by surprise, the closet’s doors opened and an unspeakable being came out looking really pissed off, with its long and sharp fangs and claws like spatulas, with a jacket in one of its hands.