The Ransom Box

They say you can’t judge a book by its cover. A beautiful exterior can mask a whole lot of ugly on the inside. This is true for 1534 Kennedy Boulevard.

I glance up and down at the white picket fence, the perfectly manicured lawn, the stately columns that trisect the porch on the front of the gray stone home. It’s beautiful, and who wouldn’t want to live here? I shake my head, thinking of the sorrow that lives inside. Drinking, depression, suicide. The story on the front page of the local newspaper had a field day reporting the death of the son of the most prominent couple in Riverton three months ago.

“Take a picture, Kerri, it’ll last longer!” Cara knocks me on the shoulder as she walks by. I smile and follow her up onto the porch.

Hunter, our intrepid leader, is speaking to an older man in a navy pinstripe jacket and tie. This must be Edgar Psykes, the family’s butler, and the one who contacted us a week ago about investigating the home.

“It’s in the library if you’ll just follow me.” The old man leads us into the house and down the hall, adjusting the sleeves of his navy pinstripe jacket as he goes. Is it my imagination, or does he hesitate a moment before showing us through the door of a library filled with mahogany bookshelves and leather furniture?

Mr. Psykes sets a ragged chest in the center of the coffee table.

“This,” he explains, “is from the family’s private collection. It’s called the Ransom Box. It has been in the family for at least fifty years. As near as we can tell, it was made somewhere in northern Europe.”

The box is not that big, about the size of a child’s jewelry box. It’s not that fancy. A plain rectangle made of some sort of deep-red wood with no embellishments at all, except for some marks across the top that look like they’ve been scratched in with a nail. The hinges and latch are fatigued black metal. There is a thick gold chain wrapped around it like a ribbon on a gift, only instead of a bow, there is a matching padlock with no key.

“Are the chains really necessary?” I ask when nobody says anything.

Mr. Psykes clears his throat.

“Yes. The chains were added when the box, er, began trying to open itself.” He pins us with a glare. “Please don’t be fooled. This box is powerful, and whatever is inside- tricky.”

“What is inside?”

“We don’t know.”

“How did it get there?”

“We don’t know.”

“What happens if you open the box?”

“We don’t know. No one ever has. That doesn’t mean no one ever wanted to. I must warn you, the box wants to be opened. It will try to make you open it. No other ghost hunting organization has been in this house before, much less been offered the use of the Ransom Box.”

He gestures towards Hunter. “Mr. Evans assures me that all the members of his crew are strong-willed and trustworthy. I did not ask for my benefit. It is for your own good that you will be able to mentally- resist.”

Cara raises her hand. “So, if this box is so powerful and dangerous, why are we using it tonight?”

“The Ransom Box is full of energy that can be used by other entities that may be in the house. The owners strongly desire to know if their son’s spirit is still here. They have instructed me to give this to you in order to- ah- help make contact. If that will be all?” He bows and leaves the room in a hurry.

The silence builds as we all stare at it. Usually, the energy in a house doesn’t start to ramp up until after we have all the cameras and mics set up and the lights go out for the night. I don’t know about anyone else, but I can already feel a strange power emanating from this box.

Hunter’s voice snaps me out of my reverie, loud and business-like. “Okay! Let’s get ready to roll! Lights out in exactly forty-five minutes. I want the usual teams: Cara and I will start in the attic, Antonio, you’ll man the equipment in the van. Cassidy and Lewis on the second floor. Daniel and Kerri will stay here in the library and see if they can get that box to do anything for us.”

I am not sure how I feel about sitting in the dark with the Ransom Box, but Daniel nudges me and gives me a thumbs up, so I push my concern aside and return the gesture. After all, this is what I signed up for, isn’t it?

As we head back to get the equipment, Hunter pauses at the door and gives us a pointed glance. “And guys? Nobody touches the box.”

*

“I’ll be back in a minute.”

“Hey! I thought we were supposed to stick together?”

Daniel waggles his eyebrows. “Okaaaay... I’m going to the bathroom. You are more than welcome to join me, but I feel I must warn you that I had Mexican food for dinner.”

“Wow. That is all you.” I plop back down on the sofa. “Hurry up, please, I don’t like the feel of this room.”

With Daniel’s exit, quiet descends once more. I’m back to staring at the outline of the box in the darkness. The silence is thick. Usually, when a room feels like this I pull out my voice recorder and ask questions, hoping to catch a disembodied voice or two. But tonight we are supposed to just sit, maybe ask whatever is in the box to send energy to the spirits upstairs. It would probably be easier if I unchain it so the energy can flow a bit better.

My fingers are a hair's breadth away from the chain before I catch myself with a gasp. I sink back into the couch, shoving my hands under my legs. Where did that come from?

Eyes narrowed, I glare. “Nice try. I’m not stupid. Now, I’d like you to help the other spirits in the house manifest to the team upstairs.” I sigh. “Annnnd I’m talking to a box.”

Then the box ‘talks’ back. There is a scratching noise. I lean forward to hear better. It’s coming from inside. Like something wants to get out.

“Antonio, are you guys getting this?” I ask the camera balanced on the fireplace mantle, hoping that he is watching from the van.. “I hear scratching. Something needs to get out.”

The noise intensifies. I lurch forward to grip the edge of the coffee table. My hands are shaking now as intense fear and longing fill me. Something is trapped in that box, and desperate.

Unbidden, a scene from my childhood jumps forth. I’m five, my brother is seven. We are playing in front of the TV and he thinks it is funny to throw my red, satin bedspread over my head and hold me down. The terror blooms. I can’t get out. I can’t breathe. I’m clawing and yelling for him to get off. I wouldn’t wish it on anybody!

Something scurries behind me and thumps into the back of the sofa. I cry out and duck as something skims just above my head. The outline of a giant bird- an owl- wings outstretched and head turned towards me, floats silently into the wall and disappears.

“No!” I yell, shaking my head to clear it, banishing the memory back into the recess of my brain where I’ve stashed it all these years. “You’re not going to get to me! Daniel? Daniel, what, did you fall in?” I try for humor, but my voice is weak and breathless. The bathroom is just down the hall. He must be finished by now. My fingertips are tingling and sore, and when I realize why, I laugh. A hopeless, small sound.

The Ransom Box is open before me. The chains are on the floor. The latch is flipped up. The lid is pushed open like a gaping mouth, and in the darkness, I can’t see what is inside. I know it was me who opened it, though. One of my nails is torn, and I put the throbbing digit into my mouth. The copper taste of blood teases my tongue.

What did I do? Oh my God. Can I close it? I can just close it! How did I do that without a key?

A scurrying sound startles me. I feel something go across my feet. I jump up, swing around to follow where it should have gone, and freeze. Something is glowing in the corner by the bookshelves, a sphere of yellow with tendrils reaching like a tiny sun. As I watch, the tendrils begin curling in on one another, weaving a figure out of the light. She is hunched in on herself, long, pale hair, a loose flowing dress held up by spaghetti straps on painfully thin shoulders. Her face is hidden in her hands and her body jerks with heart-wrenching sobs.

My one thought is to comfort her. The desire aches in my chest. I’m moving, arms out, words soothing. Until she lowers her hands.

Her face is sickly pale, blood-red lips that pull down at the corners, hanging open to expose rows of tiny razor teeth. A nose that is broken and twisted to the side. Huge, pale, disc-like eyes dripping black tears. I try to scramble back, but her long, broken fingers are grabbing and pulling on my sleeves, tugging me into her embrace. Her skin is clammy and warm, sticking to me as she hums with gleeful wrath while going about her business.

A voice like static scratches it’s way inside my pounding head.

Try to scream.

I do. I try but nothing comes out.

She engulfs me, reaching right inside of my soul, it seems. Something loosens and breaks free inside of me, drawn out through my open mouth and into the grasp of the creature I’ve released. I can feel it sink into her, the part of me that gives me life, that gives me- me.

She is inches from my face, her lamp-like eyes unblinking as the knowledge sinks in. This is the secret of the Ransom Box. The entity that lives within and the bargain to be struck. In those eyes is triumph and demand. Take back the piece of my soul, but take her in as well. Or else, stay with her there, trapped in the box, longing to get out forever.

Choose...

I clench my eyes and rail against the injustices of a cruel world as I make my choice..

*

“Weird that we lost that five minutes of feed tonight,” Daniel comments as we roll up wires and pack the cameras back into their boxes. “So nothing happened while I was gone to the bathroom? Didn’t get attacked by the boogie man?” He laughs at his own bad joke, the laugh of an ignorant person who has no idea.

I snap the camera case closed and straighten up. “Actually, I-,” She tightens down on my throat, cutting off my words so only a tortured cough comes out. There will be no sharing.

Daniel glances my way. “You okay?”

I shrug, looking over my shoulder at the box on the table, sitting all smug and tightly wrapped in chains again, like nothing ever happened. “Sure. I must have swallowed a bug.”

“That box was a disappointment, huh?” he continues, shaking his head. “It looks all ominous and spooky, but at the end of the day, it was just a box.”

My laugh is shaky as I fight down nausea, and I grip the wires in my hands tightly to hide the trembling. “Yeah. I guess you can’t judge a book by its cover.”