Demon Box

The cabin in the woods had been abandoned for years, but one night, a candle burned in the window. The 6 teens sat in a circle just below the window; shadows of light flicked across their faces and partially obscured their identities, though they all knew each other well. The ritual was necessary to keep the demons locked away, at least that is what their parents had said. The box sat in front of the six in shadows. Its wax covered body looked crusty and maybe a bit moldy on the right side where a chunk of… something… hung out between the exposed lips of the tightly shut lid. The top of the lid had six surnames carved into it, the last letter of each, A, B, A, D, O, N, spelling out the name of the monster locked inside.

The story they’d been told all their lives was that the box was something of a generational curse. The ancestors of the six teens sitting there now being the good witches who banished the settlement’s darkness by weaving an even darker spell of entrapment. The witches jokingly named the box after Pandora once it was sealed. Yet the spell wasn’t strong enough by itself, their parents had taught them that much; the box required continual sacrifice to maintain the magic keeping the beast within docile. So, once each generation, the children from the families with their names carved on the box were forced to convene, and the sacrifice was made.

“Do we have to open it? It reeks like your dad’s turduckin,” Grace spoke through the fingers covering her nose and mouth. The sound was muffled and died quickly in the thick, still air. Taylor stood to her right and slung an arm around her girlfriend’s shoulders.

Jason pulled out a pocket-sized notepad from his jeans back pocket and flipped to a page covered in writing, “It says we have to peel off last generation’s wax, place the sacrifice inside along with blood from the six, recite the words, and reseal the box with the wax from the candle.” He gestured to the white candle burning in the window.

Jessica popped her gum and ran a hand threw her brown hair. “Did your ‘rents tell you what the sacrifice was supposed to be? Mine were all like ‘You’ll know when the box opens.’”

“Dad said the same thing,” Taylor shrugged.

They all looked at the box. It was just a simple, wooden structure, but it radiated a feeling of great unease.

“Well, once we start, we aren’t allowed to stop, and there’s no time like the present for accidently unleashing the greatest evil back into the world,” Jeff rubbed his hands together and grinned.

“That’s not funny, Jeff!” Jason reached past Janet and smacked Jeff with the notepad.

“Ow, what the hell?” He looked around at the group, “You guys can’t be serious, right? No one really believes all this garbage about darkness and evil…” His hand waved in the direction of the box. “It’s just a creepy box someone stored a dead squirrel in.”

Grace’s hand lowered from her mouth long enough to say, “That is way worse than dead squirrel smell.”

Janet spoke up, “Why would we be out here if it weren’t real, or if we weren’t at least scared that it was.”

“I’m just here to see the look on your faces when nothing happens,” Jeff laughed.

Taylor stood and took the candle out of the window, bringing it down to sit next to the box. Wind blew across the wick even though the air around the teens was still. The flame looked like it was going to go out, but soon it steadied and burned taller than before, it’s light pushing the shadows covering the box back.

Jason let out a breath. “Okay. So first we open with a prayer, he said looking at the notepad. We all have to say it together.” He motioned for everyone to gather close around him and held up the page where the words were written.

“Who the fuck can even read that?!” Jeff yelled. “Your writing is worse than a kindergartener’s.”

Grace nodded in agreement and murmured, “What even is the first word?”

“It’s not that bad, right Taylor? Jess?”

Janet spoke up, “It looks like Japanese to me.”

“Oh fine. It says: ‘Oh holy Source, as we draw this circle…’” Jason held up a piece of chalk, “we beseech you to purify your humble servants who take to the dark arts, sacrificing themselves, so that the greater…’”

“Wait, wait, wait. ‘Themselves’? Is that what you said? ‘Sacrificing themselves?’” Jeff interrupted. “Nope, not gonna do it. I’m out!” The basketball star pivoted smoothly to face the door and quickly made his way across the room.

“You can’t leave, the spell only works if all the names are present,” Jason called.

“Yeah, have fun with that,” Jeff called over his shoulder as he turned the cabin’s doorknob. Before the door even cracked open, a blast of hot, sulfuric air lifted Jeff off his feet and threw him at the feet of his friends.

“He shall not pass, I guess,” said Taylor.

Grace screamed, and Janet gasped. Jason kicked Jeff lightly on his side for good measure.

“Keep reading, Jason,” Janet stated, annoyed.

“Is no one going to even mention what just happened to me?” Jeff said. He was met with eyes filled with terror and lips that were pressed shut. He felt an overwhelming divisiveness rolling from each of them, ‘If we don’t talk about it, it didn’t happen, and it will go away.’ He could do nothing but sit back up and crowd around Jason as he continued to review the opening prayer.

“‘… greater good can be asserted dominant across the lands. Oh, Source, creator of all things, lend us your power so that we may continue to contain your most unruly child. We call upon your will, now, to complete our deed.’” Jason finished and looked at everyone. “You think you can remember all that?”

“You know now that you’ve said what each scribble was supposed to mean, I can almost read it!” Jess said popping her gum for emphasis. She rolled her eyes.

“Come on guys, we have to take this seriously and get it done,” Jason said.

There was a collective sigh, but as a group they mumbled, stuttered, and tripped their way through the prayer written in Jason’s notepad.

“Janet, did you bring the scraper?”

She pulled a small paint scraper from her pocket and handed it over. “Yup.”

“Okay we each need to take a turn scraping off the wax, it goes in the same order as the names carved into the top.” He handed the scraper off to Jess.

“Like, how much do I do?”

Jason shrugged.

Jess picked the box up off the floor. It was heavy, like really heavy, and now that she was holding it the smell coming from it was nearly unbearable. It was more than just rotting flesh, it was rotting garbage bathed in acid, covered in rust. She hesitated before she placed the box on her lap and picked a spot to start scraping at the wax that sealed the thing shut.

“Wait!” Janet shouted, “We didn’t draw a circle during the prayer!”

Jason checked his notes, “Oh crap!” He stood and recited the prayer himself one more time as he walked around the group, drawing a thin line with his chalk. He went to go take his spot back inside the circle when he paused. From the corner of his eye, he saw something move. A racoon maybe? But there was no sound, no nails clicking against the wood of the floors.

There it was again.

He froze and turned his head to look in the direction of the shadowy figure. But he could see nothing. The cabin was empty besides six people and one demon box. Hot breath on his neck made the hair on his arms stand on end. What the hell was that? He started to back up slowly, back to his friends. He nearly tripped over Janet but managed to keep his balance and sit back in his spot next to Grace.

Scrape, scrape, scrape. Jess had worked her way through a section of the wax and was scraping at the box itself. “AHH Fuck!!” the box tumbled from her lap and spun on the floor. “Fuck! That hurts!”

“What happened?” Grace whispered. She picked up the box, “My turn, I guess.” Jess reached out a shaking, red hand and dropped the scraper on the floor before Grace could grab it. “What the hell, Jess.” She grabbed the tool and started on her own section.

“It bit me!” Jess said.

“What?” Jeff answered, “What bit you?”

Jess pointed at the box. “It bit me! I’m bleeding, look!” She held out the opposite hand and there was free flowing blood covering some form of wound on the skin between her pointer finger and thumb.

“Did you accidentally hit your hand with the scraper?” Jason asked.

“I’m not an inept idiot, asshole.”

Jason put his hands up in defense, “Sorry, just asking a question.”

Jess wiped the blood away from the wound with the hem of her shirt and showed it to everyone again. “Bit me, look! Teeth marks!”

Jason saw a flicker again, just on the rim of his vision. He turned to look, nothing. Dread was building in his gut, a kind of nervousness that comes with knowing the outcome and denying it with every fiber of his being. He looked close at Jess’s hand and could see a semi-circle of jagged punctures. What could have bitten her. There was nothing there. Just the box.

Grace was getting close to having her section of the box cleared. Her face was red, going on purple.

“Is she holding her breath?” Jeff whispered.

Grace nodded. She gripped the box with just the very tips of her fingers as she dug through the final layer of wax. She screamed with her lips still barred shut from the stink, and flew back away from the box, sliding on her butt. The air left her lungs in a shaky sob as she gipped the area of her legs the box had sat while she worked.

Jeff looked at her as he picked up the box, it was his turn next. He stared at it. “So, if we just leave it...”

“No!” Jason yelled.

“But like, why are we even here? Do we even know if keeping this thing boxed up is helping the ‘greater good’?” The box shook in his hands, and he dropped it in surprise. “Fuckin’ hell.”

Grace was rolling up her pants and Jeff could see the blisters forming from the burn she suffered. It looked bad, like infected bad. Some of the blistering looks more like pustules about to burst and her skin was raw and red. Taylor was suddenly there hovering over Grace like a mother bear. He looked over at Jess and saw that she was silently panicking, the blood didn’t seem to be stopping. They hadn’t bought first aid supplies with them. Their parents hadn’t given them any indication that it would be necessary. Jess was using the sleeve of her sweater as a means to soak up the blood. Were they being punished for trying to remove the wax? It was a part of the ritual, Jason had said, but what side was punishing them? The demon in the box, or the Source they had prayed.

“Come on Jeff. Just get it done,” Janet complained.

He wanted to walk out. He looked back at the door and wondered if he would get blown backward again if he attempted to leave. Everything about this just felt wrong, like they were somehow on the wrong side of an unbalanced equation. He shivered. The force of the blast that pushed him back had felt like he had been hit by a car. He knew he had bruises forming across his abdomen, his thighs, and on just his left shoulder. He wasn’t a masochist, and he wasn’t going to let any stupid box scar him like it was the others.

“No.”

“You have to,” Jason said. “Your name is next on the lid. We each have to take our turn.”

“You want me to touch that thing after Jess is left bleeding and Grace looks like someone poured acid on her?” Jeff gestured wildly at the two girls. “No, I’m not doing that shit.” He stood and brushed his butt off. “I’m out. I don’t know what our parents fuckin’ got us into but fuck them and fuck this.”

“You know what this is and why we are here,” Jason gritted his teeth. He held up the notepad. “We have to keep it bound.”

“Look, maybe your parents gave you some story about being heroes by keepin’ that thing boxed up, but mine were so scared they couldn’t even look me in the eye when after they shoved me out the car at the end of the path. Now, I got hit by an invisible car, Jess is bleeding all over the place, Grace is … Grace?” She had fallen to her side. Her skin looked so white it might have been painted on. Her eyes were open, but she wasn’t moving.

Janet stood and backed away against the wall. “What happened? Jason, what the hell?!” Her eyes moved between Jason and Grace’s still body on the floor, accusing.

Taylor jumped to Grace’s side and shook her shoulder, “Grace?! Wake up honey, Grace?!” She put her ear down to Grace’s face, listening closely for any sign of breath moving into and out of her friend. But the air was still. Taylor looked Grace up and down and saw the pustules had popped, the flesh underneath was tinged green and brown. “I think she’d dead….” She spoke so softly, the first signs of panicked disbelief widening her eyes.

Jeff rushed to kneel besides Grace and double-checked Taylor’s finding. He pushed the pasty white, wide-eyed girl onto her back and put his ear to her mouth, then her chest, then her mouth again. He grabbed wrist but didn’t know how to find a pulse even if there was one. He rocked back on his heels and watched Jason flip through his notepad… as if his parents would have warned him that the sacrifice was them, the kids. Taylor fell over Grace’s body, a cry of anguish forming from a guttural wail deep in her throat. They had been so good together, Grace and Taylor.

Jess rocked back and forth; her teeth were clicking together so fast the noise was becoming a constant buzz in the background. Then it stopped and she turned abnormally fast to face Jeff, “I’m next, I’m next, I’m next, I’m next, I’m next …” she repeated faster and faster until the words became a garbled singular note of panic, a high-pitched frequency which bored through the ear drums of the others. It went on and on and on until it just stopped and was replaced with a thunk!

Jeff knew the second she fell that she was dead, too, but he rolled back onto his knees to crawl the few feet to Jess’s still frame. Her hair had fallen across her face, covering the twisted stretch of her lips, still frozen in her scream.

“Jess!” He called close to her ear before looking back at Jason who stood frozen, staring at the darkness that was curling and caressing the corner of the cabin. Jeff hit the floor with his fist, wanting to do something to save the girls, but what? What even were they working against?

“Jason!” Jeff called. Snapping his friend out of his daze. “We have to get out of here, we didn’t come here to die.”

Jason’s eyes were wide and dark. He shook his head and then bent over to pick up the box. “We have to keep going, Jeff. It’s all because you stalled completing the ritual.” Jason walked over to Jeff and shoved the box against his chest. “You’re turn. Quick! Before the rest of us die.”

“They died because they participated in this shit, not because of me. This fucking box did something to them, and now they are dead. Grace and Jess are dead, Jason!”

Jason went back to flipping through his notepad and muttered, “We must have skipped something…”

“Well, it’s too fucking late now!”

“I want to finish it,” Janet stated, interrupting their argument. “My mom told me what’s in that box, and if we don’t keep it locked up, the whole world will suffer. What’s happening here, to us, is nothing compared to what everyone else will have to deal with.”

“What, so we should just sacrifice ourselves to this box? You’re talking about dying, killing ourselves… for what? For whom? Who is winning?”

Janet looked uncomfortable and looked down at her feet.

“Do none of you have qualms with the fact that our parents knew what we were walking into and sent us ignorantly to our death anyway? How does that stem from good?”

“The greater good,” Taylor said, her voice muffled as her face was still pressed against the body of Grace.

“What?” Jeff shouted exasperated.

“Come on Jeff, just do your part,” Janet whispered harshly.

“No! I’m not dying for something I know nothing about!”

The floorboards of the cabin began to rumble like a subwoofer’s vibration of a progressive baseline. Boom, boom, boom, vrrrr boom. Whoever was playing had the damn thing turned up to 11. The soundless vibrations traveled up through the shoes of each teen, jiggling the fleshy bits of their legs, and pounded through their chest like CPR compressions. It got so intense that Jason’s ears popped, and he could feel the fluid inside the canal move like a worm jolted with a strong electric current. It felt unnerving. It was then that Jason was able to finally see the shadow figure that had been eluding his vision since he finished drawing the circle. It stood there at the edge of the circle across from the teens, looking in through empty eye sockets.

Jeff was covering his ears and losing his balance from the earthquake underfoot when his arms were jerked away from his ears, hard. The force pulling on him was strong enough that he lurched forward and fell onto his hands and knees. The box slid across the floor and stopped between his hands. This close to the floor, the vibrations rocked his vision, everything was jumping around and hazy.

“Wh-wh-what isss hap-hap-pen-ning?” Taylor’s teeth jutted together as her body shook while she lay overtop of Grace.

“OPEN THE BOX!” deep, guttural, and echoing off the hard, empty walls, the voice surrounded them, beating on them in time with the pulsing vibrations.

Jeff was no longer in control of his arms. One was jerked out from under him and pulled toward the box, his fingers being forced to close around the rectangular object and bring it in to his chest. The other was pulled to his left, yanking him off balance, controlling him like a marionette, reaching and grabbing at the scraper. “JASON!?” he screamed. He tried to whip his head around to look at his friend, but Jason seemed to have melted into the shadows of the cabin, there but not present.

Janet was covering her ears now, a whimper escaping her lips as she watched Jeff get yanked around the circle, awkwardly coming to a rest, and then his wrong hand using the scraper, stiffly and without precision, to jab at the wax on the box. Chunks of the thickly layered white, black, and red wax crumbled and fell to the floor. Janet couldn’t remember there being red wax on the box previously, it looked different from the other chunks… soft and liquid. Her eyes jumped to Jeff’s hands and realized he was screaming, and there was bone visible. Janet fell to the floor. Her vision tunneled in on her, but she managed to stay conscious. She had to get out; Jeff had been right. She had to get out.

Janet began to stand on shaky legs. If the names on the box continued to go in order, Janet was after Taylor, then Jason after her. Taylor was hiding her face in the clothes of Grace’s corpse, and Jeff had rather suddenly gone quiet. The box dropped to the floor; there were not enough fingers left to truly hold onto it.

“Oh, God,” Janet whispered.

Jeff’s head turned toward her, tipped to the side on his neck, and stared at her. Then his mouth opened, and a deep breath rattled through the vocal folds in his throat, “Go.”

The box started to slide across the floor, heading toward Taylor. Janet watched for a moment until her nervous system zapped her into action. She backed away. She backed to the edge of the circle, keeping her eye on the box. The scraper was still held tight in Jeff’s good hand until something seemed to pull on it. She just needed to cross the threshold of the circle and then get to the door. She could do this.

Taylor’s head was yanked backward by her hair and the box flew at her chest, causing her to catch it by reflex. Janet placed her first foot past the chalk line of the circle. The scraper was finally yanked from Jeff’s grasp, flying toward Taylor.

“OPEN!”

Janet’s second foot cross the line.

Taylor sobbed as she picked up the scraper of her own will and began to work on her section of the wax.

Janet turned and sprinted for the door. It felt like she had come up against a metal wall, sharp and metallic. But it was more than a wall because it pushed her hard. Janet was forced to go backwards a step, back towards the circle.

“NO!” Her fist hit against the solid air in defiance, and she pushed back. Her feet began to slide backward. “NO!!” She tried to root herself to the ground, but whatever this was, wasn’t interested in letting her reach the door. As soon as her feet crossed over the chalk line, the forces she was pushing against vanished, and Janet nearly fell forward. Without missing more than a beat, Janet ran for the door. She wanted so badly to make it, but her journey to the door was halted hardly an inch after it started. Janet was slammed backwards, and her body collided with Jeff who had been sitting silently: deaf and blind to everything around him. Janet scrambled off of Jeff, pushing herself backwards on her butt only to hit against something solid.

Taylor.

Janet could feel Taylor crouch down just behind her because the teen’s knees bumped against Janet’s back. “No, no, no,” Janet whined. “Please Taylor, no…”

Taylor’s hand holding the box wrapped around Janet from behind, shoving the box between her breasts. The hand holding the scraper came around Janet from the other direction and held the tool in front of Janet’s face.

“Your turn.”

Where was Jason? Janet desperately whipped her head around. He was there, at the back edge of the circle, just staring out into the darkness. “JASON!?” The boy didn’t move. He didn’t blink or twitch or anything.

The hand holding the scraper tossed the tool lazily into the air, catching it so that the blade pointed down. “Its. YOUR. TUURRNN!!” Taylor screamed into Janet’s ear as she brought the blade of the scraper down and pieced through the meat of Janet’s thigh.

The high-pitched anguish rattled the cabin and brushed like a breeze through the surrounding trees. Janet cried hysterically, her hands shaking as she tried to pull the blade from her flesh. Taylor dropped the box squarely into Janet’s lap and then crumpled to the floor like an abandoned puppet. When Janet was able to remove the scraper, it was as if a plug had been pulled out and the blood flowed like a stream. She looked at the box and then at the scraper… she threw it. The small tool sailed toward the edge of the circle. Then it halted suddenly as if an invisible hand had caught it. It flipped around and came soaring back at Janet faster than she was able to react. Another scream. It was lodged into the muscle of her shoulder.

“I won’t,” she whispered hoarsely. Janet reached up and slowly pulled the scraper from her shoulder, whining and whimpering as she pulled. “I’m going to lock you back up!”

She spun and dove for the candle that burned lazily on the floor below the window. She just needed to reseal the wax. Right? She didn’t know, none of them knew… could have known.

A shoe came down on her wrist hard as she reached. She could feel the bones crack as she cried out. “Jason? No! Please, no!”

The stoic teen bent over and pulled her face up towards his own. His eyes had been completely swallowed by his pupils, and strings of blue veins colored the white of his skin. Was he even alive?

“Now Janet,” he spoke with the voice of the demon, and it rattled the cabin, vibrating through her ears like knives, “we all have to take our turn.” Jason grinned. His teeth looked rotted, black and green and falling out, and his breath smelled like he had been licking a dead skunk.

“No, Jason. Please…”

His hand cupped around hers, keeping the scraper steady while his other hand reached for the box and picked it up. “It’s simple,” he moved Janet’s hand and scraped off a chunk of wax from the box, “You just… scrape.” He laughed and the sound made Janet’s ears bleed. He was unrelenting as he forced her arm to cooperate until her section of wax was cleared. He pulled the scarper out of her limp hand, ginning once again. “My turn!” Jason slashed the tool-made-weapon along Janet’s throat and watched for a moment as her blood coated the box.

Jason moved to a semi-clean section of the circle, cradling the box in his arms. He carefully sat down and began to work. Slowly, the young teen peeled back layer upon layer of wax until there was none left. It took no time at all, really. He set the box carefully down and then slowly opened it. The hinges protested just a little, but he pushed through their groaning until the contents were completely visible. Jason tilted a little as he reached into his pocket and pulled out his notepad. He flipped to the last page and read.

“The sacrifice has been freely given; our pact remains intact. The Source has protected the founders and the founders have refreshed the Power. I bind this blood to our alter in good faith that when the time comes, our pact is renewed.”

Shadows curled and twisted like eels as they swirled around the room. All the darkness was trapped within the vortex and spun down into the box. Jason sat motionless, watching as his friends’ bodies melted into dust, their blood rising off the floor and joining the chaotic tornado. He said not a word as his body began to disintegrate, his dust joining that of his friends, which were pulled into the darkness contained in the box. When the last speck of Jason was sucked away, the lid shut. The blood of each teen smeared across the floor was pulled up like ribbons and wrapped around the box in waxy layers until it was completely sealed once again.

***

“And then what happened?” asked Alice her father.

Jeremy grinned, “That story is for tomorrow’s campfire small fry!”

“Hey! Not fair! There has to be more!”

“And there is. Off to bed.”

The fire crackled and popped as Alice sighed her biggest little girl sigh ever. Her father laughed. His daughter was the cutest. She always was at this age. He watched her enter the tent and mess with the zipper on her sleeping bag.

Jeremy turned toward the path leading away from their campsite and deeper into the forest. The cabin lay just a mile and a half from where he was now, where Jason, Alice’s previous incarnation, had died. The last ritual had been several years ago, and his wife had been pregnant within seconds of its completion: the next sacrifice brewing in her womb. Eternal Life meant eternal sacrifice.