There it sat, on the kitchen table. The package without a name or address that Ryker had found at his doorstep. Normally, he would he would’ve just been curious and slightly confused about a mystery box showing up at his house, but this was different. For some reason, Ryker had a sense of…unease when looking at it. It was a mix of emotions; half of it was a feeling of general worry in regard to the unknown, but the other half was almost as if something deep inside him somehow knew that the contents of the box were bad news. In the end, Ryker decided that even if it was something bad, it’d be better to open it and find out in case it was call the police immediately levels of bad.
It was a small wooden box, about as wide as his forearm, and a little over half as long. It was smooth, but without any glossy finish on it, and had a slit line going horizontally across the long and perpendicular sides. The back of the box also had to hinges that gave away its nature.
Ryker opened the wooden box and was met with a small tune. At the back of the lid that now stood open was a small mirror, and standing on a small pedestal based in the center of the box’s bottom was a ballerina. It was a music box for young girls, and Ryker figured there was enough room in the bottom to put makeup even with the ballerina’s stand, but doubted it was ever meant for that. He studied the ballerina as it spun it place, supposedly dancing to the spindly tune the box’s inner mechanisms played. She stood on the tip of one foot, leaning forward with her other foot lifted behind her. Her arms where posed so that one stuck in front of her, her hand almost reaching out to something, and her other arm seeming as if it floated behind her, flowing and ready to follow the movements of her torso. She wore a black dress with matching black lipstick and lace wrapped around her legs. Aside from the shape and color of the lips and a formed nose, the ballerina didn’t have any facial features. Ryker closed the box, and the music stopped.
In part he was relieved that it wasn’t something terrible like he thought, but for some reason he still had a sense of unease. Sure, it was just a children’s toy, but something about the box made him uncomfortable. He had never liked the tunes those things played. They sounded to him like what would play in his nightmares. In the back of his mind, he knew he’d go to the police no matter what it was, but he didn’t have as much urgency to do so after seeing the contents of this “gift,” and it was late anyway, so he’d go tomorrow. He finished his night with dinner and a movie and left the box on his kitchen table as he went to bed.
Ryker didn’t have a nightmare, nor did he have a good dream. He didn’t dream at all. Nonetheless, he woke up in the middle of the night. Without thinking much, he lazily reached his hand to his phone on the small table next to his bed table that he currently faced away from.
2:30
With a huff, he darkened his phone screen again and reach behind him to put it back on the table. It was then that his hand brushed against something he didn’t recognize. There wasn’t ever much on his bedside table; his phone and lamp were always there, but everything else was just a cup or the like that would end up in his sink the next morning. He didn’t recall bringing anything with him to bed. It was in that moment he realized something he hadn’t noticed yet. A spindly tune, played, one that never begged to be heard, but couldn’t be ignored again when noticed. He spun over and looked where his hand had been. There it was, on the bedside table, a small wooden box that stood open. But this time there was no ballerina. Ryker jolted out of bed, threw on a shirt to match his sweatpants and approached his door. He slowly opened it and turned down the hallway. As he reached his kitchen, he saw a note on the table.
“Spin around, just like me,” it read.
Ryker slowly turned to look back down his hallway. He witnessed his door slowly begin to close. As it moved, it revealed a figure behind it. Long, slender legs with lace reached into a black dress, that gave way to a neck holding a face with noticeable black lipstick. Ryker tried to turn and run but found that he couldn’t move. He simply stood and watched as the ballerina gracefully spun her way over to him, until her face could almost touch his, the spindly tune loud in his ears.
The tune began to become like Ryker’s footsteps. Slow. Calm. Determined. His eyes were open, and they saw his hallway change as he returned to his bedroom. He didn’t. Ryker only knew two things anymore: the spindly tune growing ever louder, and the ballerina. He didn’t see himself pick up the belt like his eyes did. He didn’t feel himself step onto his table like his feet did. He didn’t think to maneuver his fingers to wrap the belt like they did.
There it was, on the kitchen table. The morning light shone through the kitchen’s curtains, its rays landing gracefully in silence on a closed, wooden box, that rested beneath a gently swaying body, hung by a belt tied to the kitchen fan.
—
Mark Helton is a young writer who is trying to deliver stories that make readers’ thoughts dwell on real life on top of the story itself.
Twitter: @Mark_the_man_
The story does a good job of building suspense and delivers at the end. Creepy!