by J.E. Bolton
THE CHRISTMAS KEY
By
J.E. Bolton
* * * * *
PUBLISHED BY:
Copyright © 2014 by J.E. Bolton. All rights reserved. Used by permission.
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This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locales is purely coincidental. The characters are productions of the author’s imagination and used fictitiously.
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Also by J.E. Bolton:
FOREVER AND A DAY
FETCH: A TRILOGY OF TERROR
PROFESSOR HABERSHAW’S FAIRY TALES FOR GROWN-UPS
BEST THING I NEVER HAD (various authors)
* * * * *
SIX HOURS BEFORE CHRISTMAS DEATH
Sounds like a bizarre beginning to a yuletide story, am I right? Death. Christmas is usually the time of year when life and living are well-promoted. Then again, these same well-wishers haven’t met me.
My name is Stephen Swift, and I hate everything about my life. Nothing’s going as it should, and I do mean nothing. I could say it all began a few months or even years ago, but truth is it seems as though I’ve had one bad day that’s been ongoing since the day I was born.
Let’s go all the way back, shall we?
* * * * *
Thirty-seven years ago, I was given up for adoption shortly after I was born. My mom and dad, or Harriet and Jim Johnson as I appropriately refer to them as, brought me into this world but didn’t want me anymore. To make matters worse, the children services people gave me to another couple, Greg and Tammy Swift, who were also young and irresponsible. Those “defenders of children” obviously didn’t know what the hell they were doing that particular day.
The Swifts, because I would rather rot in hell than to ever refer to them as “mom and dad,” didn’t have a clue how to be parents. I was often referred to by my grandparents as a “trial baby” because of their inability to have children. Many of my days were spent being left alone of an evening while they went out every night to bars and local clubs.
No, I take that back. On some nights I was never left alone. Tammy’s older brother, a twenty-something year old loser who never worked a day in his life, lived under their room rent free. The catch was him watching me of an evening. It seems harmless, am I right? It was, until his “little games” with me began.
You might be asking yourself, “What kind of little games?” Let’s just say they’re the kind of games a grown man should never play with a child. Games that screwed with my mind when I became older. The hate I had for him infused into my life like some sick, perverted ligament that refused to leave. I believed it‘s all my fault somehow; that if I said “no” or “stop it” enough he would have left me alone.
Somewhere within the realms of the darkness was one strand of hope, though as simple as it may seem. For whatever reason, this thing intrigued me tremendously. It was a small rusty skeleton key I found underneath my bed. There was nothing special about it, other than the fact I found it and it was mine; something no one could ever take away from me. I always tried to put it in every single keyhole I could find but it never fit.
In fact, I was so proud of that little, mundane key I put it on a silver chain and wore it around my neck. It stayed close to me like a security blanket. Anytime I felt alone or scared, my key and my friend, would always be there: unchanging and always the same.
I wore that key around my neck every single day.
* * * * *
The key remained and so did all the darkness. Years passed, and I’m still so very miserable. On top of everything else, I have nothing: no job, no family, and not even love.
Dear God, I want to die. In fact, that’s not such a bad idea.
I think I’ll just do that.
There’s a bottle peach liquor in the cabinet. With no paycheck, I‘ll be dead anyway due to starvation. It’s quite simple, really and perfectly planned: I’ll drive out to the middle of nowhere and get drunk. Since the temperature will be below zero after sundown, I’ll simply pass out and freeze to death.
Why not? I’ll be one less defective person no one ever has to think about again, as if anyone else ever made me their top priority in their lives.
I remove the liquor bottle from the cabinet and notice the bottle’s almost empty. Damn. Thanks to the previous bad nights there’s only a few little drops sitting dormant at the bottom of the near-empty bottle. Oh, well. It’s all I’ve got left, and I’ll have to make it work. I grab my keys and attempt to straighten everything up. At least when my landlord comes in here the place will be clean, and my cleaning deposit will go toward my burial.
I hurry outside and slam the door behind me. I don’t want to look back. Looking back will only make me second-guess my ultimate decision to die, and there’s no turn back now. I got inside my car and started the engine. Good. There’s only enough gas left to get me to the end of town and away from everyone. I really don’t want to die, but it has to be done.
It just has to.
* * * * *
FOUR HOURS BEFORE DEATH
Two hours pass, and I coast on fumes just before my car putters and goes completely dead, empty of gas. I pull into an open field near a huge wooded area a mile out of town. The good thing is no one’s near me, so no one can stop me from taking my own life.
I turn the bottle up and drink the remaining contents. The last few drops of peach liquor slide quickly down my throat. It doesn’t produce enough buzz for me to pass out. Much like my life and the people in it, death’s also so damn cruel. Dying tonight won’t be easy but it‘s the only way. Thank God it’s just a few degrees from below-freezing temperatures. At least it will all be over soon. I crawl in the backseat of my car, lay there and wait for death to come.
* * * * *
TWO HOURS BEFORE DEATH
What the hell! I can’t believe I’m still here. People die of extreme cold. Can’t I even do that? This is absurd! All my hatred is quickly shifted. I take every ounce of anger I ever had in my life, get out of the car, pick up the empty bottle with my shivering hand and become angry with the next logical choice:
God.
I point the bottle in the air, as though I am using it as a weapon. “Why would you allow this to happen?” I ask God angry. “The meek shall inherit the earth, my ass! I have never hurt anyone in my life, and this is how I am being rewarded for always being a good person? Damn your ‘do unto others’ bullshit. I‘m done with you!”
A part of me wishes I didn’t say that, but it was out there and there was no taking it back. I can’t believe I told God His words were bullshit. I’m certain I made God angry and at this point I am not only going to die but am also certain I’m going to hell. I turn to walk back to my vehicle and toss the empty bottle in the air.
Unfortunately, I don’t toss the bottle far enough. Seconds later, I feel a huge weight of something hit my head. I hear glass shatter over me a split second before I completely black out and fall limp on the ground.
And then there’s nothing but silence and pitch-black darkness.
* * * * *
ONE HOUR BEFORE DEATH
I open my eyes and slowly gain consciousness. My head is throbbing and aching. The sweet aroma of freshly-brewed coffee fill my senses, as the sounds of crackling embers from a nearby fireplace become music to my ears. Warmth. Food. Refuge.
Wait a second. If I’m not dead then wh
ere am I?
“I see you’re finally awake,” a middle-aged man says as his wife who’s also middle-aged changes the damp towel on my bruised head and replaces it with a new one.
I slowly sit up. “Where am I?” I ask confused.
“You’re here with us in our home,” she says. “The dogs barked so loud when they found you laying in the snow. Thank goodness, young man. You could have died out there. We pulled you out of death’s clutches and brought you here.”
My eyes dance feverishly at my surroundings: a homely environment, a crackling fireplace, and a Christmas tree filled to the brim with festive trinkets. Dear God, I’m in hell. That’s it. I pissed God off, and He sent me to hell for what I said to Him.
Yes, dear friends. This is my hell: having someone wave their happy home life in my face while I lay on their couch in agony. Nothing this good happens to me. Oh, I get it. They’re really sadists and have brought me here to cut off my limbs and eat me. Before they do, I hope God can at least grant me some liquor to ease the pain when they bite into me.
She hands me a steaming cup of coffee. In my infinite wisdom, I sniff the coffee to make sure it isn’t drugged. In a way, I didn’t care. The only thing that’s passed through my system in the last couple days were snow and liquor.
I sip the cup quickly. “Folks, you might be trying to kill me, but this is the best coffee I’ve had in a long time,” I say between rapid gulps.
They chuckle and look at each other evidently confused.
“First of all, our names are Thomas and Catherine Cole,” the gentleman says. “And second, we would never hurt anyone. In fact, there’s a reason we brought you here.”
Dear God, it’s something worse. I know. Sex games. They brought me to their home for freaky sex games.
“And I don’t get into anything kinky, either,” I say without any sort of thought as to how my words are said.
Catherine laughed. “Honey, what do you think we want with you?”
I honestly have no idea. No one ever wanted me. Why should anyone, especially a couple who have never met me before, want to offer me shelter or much less save my life? In my entire thirty-seven years on this planet no one has ever cared if I lived or died. Why should these people begin now?
“I don’t know, Ma’am,” I say. “No one wants something from me unless there’s a reason that benefits them.”
“Why do you say that, Stephen?” He asks.
I stop for a moment. “Because that’s how it is,” I reply. “By the way, how do know my name?”
Thomas and Catherine look at one another and smile. “There’s something we want to show you,” Catherine says.
She kisses me on the forehead. It catches me terribly off-guard but she does it anyway. Stupid people in my personal space! Then, something happens. The bizarre thing is my head stops hurting. Holy cow! I didn’t see that one coming. I stand carefully and realize I feel better than I have in quite a while.
“How do you feel?” She asks.
My eyes widen and I slightly shake my head with a light smile tracing across my face. “Oddly enough, I feel much better.”
“A kiss on the forehead can make everything better,” she says. “We mothers and grandmothers are blessed with a little something special in our healing techniques. Come with us.”
I walk with them down a hallway. At the end of that hallway is a wooden door that appears rigid. We stand in front of the door and study it carefully. I turn the knob but the door’s locked.
“Open it,” Thomas says to me.
I look at him confused. “The door’s locked.”
Catherine looks at smiling. “Don’t you have a key, Stephen?” She asks.
Oh, dear God. The key! The one I’ve carried with me for so long. Do you think it fits? Well, here goes nothing. I remove the key from the necklace around my neck, insert the key into the keyhole, unlocking and opening the door. The room we walk into stretches long and is dimly lit. It’s so dark I am unable to see the walls on either side of us.
“What is this room?” I ask confused and slightly unnerved.
Thomas picks up a candle on a stand and lights it. The entire room is finally illuminated enough for me to see my surroundings. I gape. Dear God. It’s rows of caskets. I go from being unnerved to terrified. There are people inside each one. I want to leave but something keeps me there.
Something within myself.
I continued with tears in my eyes, so stunned I can hardly move. “Is this a funeral?” I ask. “Or is this the sign of my own end? I‘m going to die, aren‘t I?”
“We all die eventually,” Catherine said. “Look closely at the each casket.”
I walk past each casket numb, feeling as though I’m levitating off the ground. None of this seems real. Then, the bodies. These poor people. No one’s prepped for burial. I don’t have to read anything. Each casket tells its own story of each person each one contains. I can feel it, as though they were talking to me.
One woman was severely beaten by the hand of her husband. The next casket contains a child with bruises by their abusive caregiver who was told to never to tell anyone The next one was a man whose bruises left him beyond recognition. He had only one word etched across his forehead with a razor blade: FAGGOT.
The next one’s a man with a bullet wound at his temple and a Bible in his hand, killed for sharing his beliefs. Another casket contains a beautiful woman of color with the words etched on her casket, GO BACK TO AFRICA WHERE YOU CAME FROM! The next one contains a man who was killed while begging for his last dime.
And so on, and so on.
The hate; all this damn anger toward another human being runs so ramped it makes me sick. Is this never going to end? I didn’t need to ask such a ridiculous question. The line of caskets have no end, or so it seems.
Finally, I come to the last casket. Its lid is closed but something‘s quite different with this particular one. I lay my hands on it and hear everything familiar to me. The lid slowly opens, as I stare at the contents. Oh, my God. The body laying in the final casket is me.
My eyes water and I tremble uncontrollably. “I told you I’m going to die tonight,” “I say. “This is proof.”
Thomas and Catherine stood on either side of me. “Why do you think you’re going to die, Stephen?” Thomas asks.
“Because people really are evil, and I can‘t bear to live in a world like this,” I say between gasping sobs. “I was a good person and people ruined me. Now, here‘s how it will all end, and in a year I’ll be that young man planted in the ground who’s nothing more than a tragedy.”
“You’re not dead yet,” Catherine protests.
“After tonight, I will be,” I say. “I came out here to kill myself. There’s so much hate out there, and I‘m so sick of it. I wish I knew what the world looked like if there was no hate. Just to know, and I would never ask for anything again.”
Thomas places his hands on my shoulders. “You can have that, dear boy,” he says.
I was angry. “How, old man? How the hell can a simpleton like me change anything?” I ask irate and confused. “I’m nothing special.”
Thomas shakes his head. “A manger was considered nothing special until a special child was placed inside it. Now, when people see it, they think of the most blessed time of the year. Love can change anything, especially someone as wounded as you.”
I begin to cry. “How can you be so sure, Thomas?”
Catherine smiled. “Open the second door.”
I look behind me and see a second door that seemed to have appeared from nowhere. Dear God, no more. I can’t take anymore dead bodies or caskets or tales of joy I will never experience. They seem persistent, but I will oblige without another ounce of thought. I reach under my shirt collar to remove the key again.
This time, the key is gone.
I look feverishly around the room in despair. “Where’s my key?” I ask.
“You don’t need it a
nymore, Stephen,” Thomas says. “You’ve been the key all along.”
My hand reaches for the knob. The door gently opens without any use of force on my part. I walk into a room filled with golden light and the sounds of pure joy. Everyone who was originally in the caskets are in the room and alive, celebrating and sharing so much love and joy. No one appears beaten or bruised. No one is hurting. They are all so very different yet seem to just love one another.
Tears stream down my cheek. For the first time in a long time my tears were different. Tears that used to represent loneliness and feelings of abandonment at one time are finally replaced with joy and warmth. And for the first time, I felt the love of a family.
I, Stephen Swift, finally belonged.
* * * * *
SIX HOURS AFTER I DECIDED TO LIVE AGAIN
I wake to find Christmas morning is here. I wasn’t in Thomas and Catherine’s house. In stead, here I am in my own bed in my bedroom. Funny. It was just a dream yet it all seemed so real. The house. The Coles. Most of all, the love.
