JUNK BOX

Jason Tucker

            “Where in the hell are last year’s tax returns?” Alicia asked, slamming the drawer shut. “How do you find anything in that desk of yours?”

            Neal shrugged as he always did when his wife got on his case about his tidiness. Other than a little bit of nagging, and slight OCD, he knew he was lucky to have her. “It’s the way I work, babe. Messy desks are indications of creative and productive people. Everyone knows that.”

            Alicia grinned and tossed a paperclip at him, hitting him squarely on the nose. “You just made that up didn’t you?”

            “Maybe,” Neal said, leaning over the desk and kissing her blonde hair. “I’ll go check the junk box.”

            “Why would they be down there?” Sighing, she threw up her arms. “Okay, you check your precious box, and I’ll go through the papers in the hall closet again. I want to get everything ready for tax season. I hate waiting until the last minute.”

            It was only the first week of December, but Neal knew there would be no rest until he found those papers. If it were up to Neal, he would have waited until April to start thinking about taxes. Alicia ruled the roost, though, and he had to admit that life was smoother with her in control

Neal gave his wife a wink and started toward the basement. He was sure the tax papers would be there. Everything ended up in the junk box.

            The box, as he and Alicia called it, was nothing special to look at, and that was why it remained hidden in the cellar among the gardening tools and ancient fruitcakes of Christmases past. It was a large cabinet made of pressboard and painted a sickly green. The handles on the warped doors were loose, and the hinges squeaked every time someone opened it.

It was ghastly, but Neal could not part with it no matter how much Alicia pleaded. It had emotional value, he told her, and it reminded him of the early days. The cabinet was the first purchase he had made with Alicia when they moved in together nearly ten years ago. Money was tight back then, and they had needed the extra storage in their small apartment.

They had a house now and more than enough storage space, but the junk box remained like a third member of the family. Despite what he told Alicia, he kept it for more than sentimental reasons.  It was special, if hideous to look at. Whenever he lost something, he would check the junk box. Whatever he was looking for, from car keys to laptops, it showed up without fail. It might take a few days, or even a few months, but everything returned to the junk box. He never questioned why or how things found their way into the box. He just accepted and enjoyed the fact that they did.

Neal smiled when he reached the box and grabbed the handles. He threw open the doors with all the gusto of a child opening gifts on Christmas morning.

There, sitting atop the pile of old newspapers, rags, and miscellaneous fuses and plugs, was a large, white envelope. It was torn and dirty, as though it had gone through an ordeal getting into the junk box. On the envelope’s front were the words ‘TAX RETURN. DON’T LOSE! THAT MEANS YOU, NEAL’ scrawled in his wife’s handwriting.

            Neal laughed and grabbed the envelope. He shut the door, patted the top of the junk box, and uttered a quick thank you before bounding upstairs to gloat.

***

            He pulled his next treasure out of the box two days later. It was a bottle opener with a cartoon picture of a portly Elvis gyrating on the plastic handle. He hadn’t seen it since the big barbeque the previous summer. Half of the King’s face was missing, and the screws holding the handle together were quite loose. Still, he had his favorite bottle opener back, and that was what mattered.

            He was in the middle of cracking open his second beer when the phone rang and he got the news.

            “Mr. Kline?” asked a deep voice.

            “Yes,” he said.

            “Mr. Kline, this is Officer Trudeau of the Albany Police Department. I’m sorry, but your wife was in an accident.” Officer Trudeau stopped speaking, as though he wanted to let Neal absorb the information.

            “What? Is she okay?” The full bottle of beer slipped from his hand and shattered on the kitchen floor. The beer oozed across the floor and soaked his feet.

His head swam with a thousand unfinished thoughts. If she were okay, it would be her calling. Maybe she was just in the hospital. Yes, that’s it, he thought. She couldn’t be dead though. No, his sweet Alicia could not be dead. She was out buying Christmas presents for her nieces and nephews. No one died doing that. She could not be dead.

            “I’m sorry, Mr. Kline.”

            Neal threw the phone across the kitchen, sank into the beer and broken glass on the floor and wept.

***

            The funeral came and went. Dozens of relatives consoled him for his loss, and he didn’t even know the names of half of them. He clutched his wife’s wedding ring in his hand, barely speaking or making eye contact with them. People feeling sorry for him didn’t make him feel any better. As far as he was concerned, life was over if it didn’t include Alicia.

            His mother stayed with him for a few weeks, making sure he ate and showered. He barely knew she was there, a ghost flitting in to check on him occasionally. She only left when he lied and told her he was doing better, that he would be able to take care of himself.

            It was during his first night alone that he heard it. He woke from a nightmare-filled slumber to a persistent and rhythmic scratching, like claws scraping against wood.

He let his eyes adjust to the dark room before swinging his legs out of bed. The scraping continued, echoing through the heating ducts.

Rats? Neal mused. If it were rats, they would have to be the size of Great Danes.

He thought about going back to sleep, checking it out in the morning. He could figure it all out later. Then, he felt the cold metal of his wife’s wedding ring that hung from a chain around his neck and wondered what Alicia would have him do. She wouldn’t let something like this wait. Neal smiled in the darkness and went off to find the source of the noise, just as Alicia would want.

When Neal reached the first floor, he discovered that the sound was coming from the basement. It was still just as pervasive as before, but louder now, more insistent.

Neal quietly opened the door to the basement, eased onto the top step, and shut the door behind him. If there were a raccoon or a cat that had somehow gotten into the basement, he didn’t want to give it a chance to reach the upper floors.

He grabbed the flashlight that hung on the back of the basement door and turned it on, so he could see going down the old wooden steps. When he was halfway down, the clawing stopped.

At the bottom of the stairs, Neal swept the flashlight’s beam across the cellar floor. No rats scurried, no cats hissed. He didn’t see anything that could have been making the sound. Finally, the light came to rest on the box, and the scraping started anew. Dirt fell through the gaps at the bottom of the cabinet doors.

Neal rushed toward the box, understanding what was inside. His magic junk box had returned his lost love.

He tore open the doors, grave dirt spilling onto the cellar floor, covering his feet. He backed away in wonder.

Pale fingers wriggled like worms, pushing away the dirt and splinters from a coffin. A hand broke free and grasped at the air before returning to shovel more dirt away. A leg stretched out of the box at an impossible angle, followed by the crowning of a head covered in clumps of long blonde hair.

“Alicia.” Neal sobbed, as he watched the unnatural birth. Part of him wanted to rush to her, to help her out of the box, but animal instinct told him to run. Still, he held the light, trembling and transfixed.

The junk box’s latest treasure tumbled clumsily onto the floor and slowly rose to its knees. Neal could see her well now. Lacerations that oozed embalming fluid covered her naked body. Vacant eyes stared at him, and her mouth opened and closed like a fish drowning in oxygen. She started to stand and move unsteadily toward him.

Neal hadn’t realized he was backing up until he hit the rakes and shovels lined up along the far wall and knocked them over. The clanging of metal on concrete startled him, and he spun around to see what he had done.

He had taken the light off his beloved for only a second. When he again caught her in the light’s beam, he found that she was already halfway across the basement. Her arms were outstretched. He didn’t know if she wanted to embrace or strangle him.

She hobbled closer, gaining strength and surety with each step. When she was only a few feet from Neal, she fell forward and he caught her in his arms. He held her close, and, for a moment, everything seemed right in the world. Then, her bony fingers dug into his shoulders, trying to rip away the flesh. Her rapidly working mouth, drooling graveyard mud, was trying to bite his throat.

He pushed the corpse away, sending her sprawling across the cellar and crashing into the wooden stair railing. She was much faster now though, stronger than seconds before, and lurched toward him again.

Neal searched for something to defend himself with, and grabbed a pair of gardening shears that hung on a wall peg. As she reached him again, he brought the blades straight down through her clavicle. This barely slowed her down. She still tried to snap at him. He pushed her away again, dropping his flashlight. The light rolled in a lazy circle, sending light and shadow dancing across the walls.

            Unable to see, he picked up a shovel, and swung. A loud crack told him he had found his dead wife’s skull. She crumbled to the ground, but he could still hear her hands scraping along the concrete, pulling her shattered body toward him. He brought the shovel over his head and swung with force, repeatedly, until the corpse was still.

***

            He was screaming when they found him sitting amongst the strewn remains of his wife, her severed hand in his lap. He was putting her wedding ring on and taking it off, putting it on and taking it off. There was no resistance when the police took him away, and when his trial came he told the truth of what happened, that he didn’t dig up his wife’s grave, that she returned to him through the magic box. It brings back lost things, he told the judge.

            The State of New York found Neal to be insane. Each night in his little room at Scarborough Farm, he has nightmares about what happened, and every morning he pleads for the magic box. He tells the doctors if they would only let him have his box, then he would find his lost sanity.

Jason has had a number of stories published in magazines and anthologies in the United States and abroad, including The Rare Anthology and Broken Mirrors. He is the creator of the now dormant (but not dead!) web comic Funk-n-Azle.

            Most recently, his story ‘City of a Million Gods’ was accepted for publication in Black Petals. He also had the opportunity to take one of his older short stories, ‘Blood Red Roses,” and turn it into an audio script, which is being produced by Darker Projects. Updates regarding these stories and others can be found on his website, www.awfulwolf.com