Under Lock and Key

George pulled the battered old duffle coat up and flipped his collar to shield himself from the harsh November wind, cutting through the air into his exposed skin. With the collar so close to his face, George could smell the must that still lingered, despite him airing it for the whole weekend. He always aired clothes he picked up from charity shops. He felt like he could smell the history on them. The person before; their thoughts, feelings, hopes and dreams. And then the stagnation of them all as they sit on a rack in the corner of a shop, the price tag being reduced every few weeks that they don’t sell. The black material scratched against his neck and chin and he flexed his neck to try and shift the unpleasant feeling but couldn’t. 

As he rounded the corner onto his street, George spotted his house and felt a sigh of relief wash over him. It had been a long day and he couldn’t wait to get inside, put the kettle on and collapse onto the sofa. Thoughts of TV reruns and BBC Iplayer crept into George’s head and he subconsciously sped up towards his house, desperate to switch off for the evening. As he walked up the path to his house, crunching over the gravel that had been blown across the path, George stuck his hand into his pocket to pull out his front door key, he tried to stick the key in the lock and stopped.

George squinted at his hand, confused. In his palm he held a key, but not one of his. Not a key he’d ever owned before in his life. It was an old fashioned key, a golden colour with a murky brown rust creeping around the stem. George rummaged through his pocket again and pulled out his house keys, he twisted them in the lock and walked into the house. The heat from the radiator hitting him as he locked the door behind him and began kicking off his shoes. George put the strange key on the hallway table and set about making himself dinner.

There was a hammering on the door. George stirred from his sleep and rubbed his eyes. Another bang on the door. George checked his phone for the time. 23:39. “What on earth do they want?” George grumbled to himself as he peeled away from the sofa and climbed over the pizza boxes on the floor. Yet another fierce hammering. “Alright! Alright… Jesus Christ” George shouted as he fiddled with the lock on the door. George pulled the door open gently, the cold air flooding around him making him shiver. No one was there. George looked up the path. Nobody. George muttered to himself and shut the door. As he turned to walk back into the living room a hammering erupted from behind the front door, as if someone was trying to smash it off of the hinges. George stormed back to the door and flung it open. Again, no one was there. George stepped outside and checked the street both ways. Not a soul in sight. A car was driving down the street and as it passed George’s house the headlights shone upon George’s front garden, and in his garden was a strange small box. George stood there puzzled, looking at the box. He picked it up. An old wooden box with metal reinforcements at seemingly random points on the box. The cold of the metal mixing with the rough feeling of the wood making it unpleasant to hold. A single key hole was at the front and a strange symbol on the top.

George didn’t recognise the symbol. It didn’t look like anything he’d ever seen before. Almost like a fish hook with dashes through it and underneath a kind of wavy V symbol. George took the box inside and set it upon his kitchen table, he pulled out his phone from his pocket and opened up Google. He tried every description he could think of, but no results came up that meant anything to him. George averted his eyes from his Google results to the time and saw it was now 00:45. George yawned, suddenly realising how exhausted he was. George took one last look at the box before turning the light off and heading upstairs.

The box sat there on the kitchen table, the darkness covering the room but around the box… it was like the night was being sucked towards it. The symbol impossibly dark, cutting through the empty kitchen. 

The following evening George practically fell through his front door, he kicked his shoes off into the cupboard under the stairs and dropped his coat in the kitchen. The box was still exactly where he’d left it but George paid no notice to it. He opened his fridge and scoured the shelves for something to eat, deciding upon drinking milk straight from the carton. George shut the fridge and turned around… and froze.

George stared at the kitchen table. His eyes wide, fixated on the box. As now on top of the box lay the key he’d pulled out of his pocket from the evening before. George cautiously peered around the room, half expecting to see someone standing there. Laughing and pointing at him for whatever joke they were playing on him. 

But no one was there.

George tentatively reached out towards the key, snatching it away the minute his fingers made contact with the cold metal. He stared at the key and then at the box. Then at the key again and then the box. “No… surely not.” George studied the key and the key hole on the box. They both had that same murky rust infecting the golden colour of the metal. George sat on the chair and stared at the box. Studying it again. There was nothing to the box that he hadn’t already noticed before. No discernible change. No big sign saying “Hey! Here’s what’s happening right now! You don’t have to worry anymore.” George span the box to face him and held up the key. The kitchen lights seemed to bend around it rather than reflect off of it, casting some strange sort of “non-shadow” in George’s hand. 

Despite his best interests, despite the fact that every fibre in his body was screaming at him that it was a terrible idea, despite his survival instincts that sent adrenaline coursing through his veins telling him to run and never look back. George gently slotted the key into the lock. It slid in perfectly; no clunking, no scraping of metal, no resistance. It was as if the key had always been there, the very thought that it hadn’t always been in that lock was terrifying to George as he waited with bated breath. George felt his wrist rotate as he twisted the key, felt the key glide across the lock and the mechanisms shift and move. 

The lid popped open.

And darkness spilled out. George scrambled backwards but it was too late. The darkness spilled out onto the floor and onto George’s legs. Creeping up and covering every inch of him. It moved like it was alive; tendrils forming, clawing and then falling in on themselves as George was swamped by it.  It reached his neck and George felt it probing his face. Worming it’s way up his nose, into his ears and pushing itself into the corner of his eyes. George opened his mouth to scream and it rushed inside, crawling across his teeth and weighing his tongue down, it forced itself down his throat and cut off his breath. George felt himself starting to choke, his brain screamed as the oxygen faded from him. 

George lay there; unable to move, unable to scream and unable to fight the force that was corrupting every molecule of him the light began to fade as he suffocated. In the corner of his eye George noticed a figure. Watching in the shadows. George couldn’t make out any discernible features other than the eyes. 

God those eyes. Black, blacker than anything George had ever seen before. No distinction between pupil and iris, just darkness. As if the sun had never touched them, as if no life had ever existed behind those eyes. The figure began to move forward and the darkness enveloped the last exposed bit of George’s face. And then there was darkness.

Then the lights went out. And when they came back on there was no one. Just an old box with a key on top sat on the kitchen table.

Martha crept down the stairs, wrapping her dressing gown around her and clutching the coat hanger she’d picked up off the floor as a weapon. She glanced at the clock in the hallway. It was 2 o’clock in the morning. She peered through the spy-hole but couldn’t see anyone. “Who’s there?” there was no response. “I’m warning you I’ll call the police!” still there was no response. She gingerly opened her front door and peered outside. She pulled her dressing gown tighter around her as the cold flooded in. Nobody was there, Martha stuck her head out of the door and glanced up and down the street, not a soul in sight. Martha went to shut the door and stopped. She looked down and then glanced around before stooping down to pick something up.

In her hands she held an old wooden box.